A Few Updates

It's been a full couple of weeks with lots of meetings associated with The Breakthrough Center, whose launch is a 2008 goal. I'm working on it with one of my clients and last week we convened people from across the country to come and provide us with feedback on the concept. It was a powerful exchange of ideas and experiences (more powerful than I could have imagined) and we're already putting together a 100-day implementation plan. The idea for the meeting was one of those "other me" exchanges--it would have been way easier not to have done the meeting, but easier and better don't often hang out. Now not only is the concept better but it's happening! The entire process has involved application of the following mantras, practices, approaches:

1. Going slow to go fast

2. Tending to the tedious

3. ...and to the stragglers

4. Writing it down

5. Saying it out loud

6. Taking small steps

...which I also wrote about here

And finally, being grateful, which little one's smile makes easy to do:

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Other bits

We're getting ready to head to the beach this week for an extended stay. I don't think I'll have internet access so I'll be back mid-May.

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One Small Step

Today I'm going to try and remember to drink a lot of water.

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Splurge of the Month

More passes to my yoga class. Even though I've missed last week because of meetings and I'll miss the next two because of vacation, I'm ready to get back when I get back.

a very important date

One Small Thing

Instead of getting up to run this morning, I stayed in bed a little longer and then stretched out yesterday's soreness.

Ahhh...

I did pretty well on my "hello mission" yesterday. It was actually fun and quite rewarding to see how much people appreciated the sincerity and concentration of my "hi". I think I'll give it a try today, too.

Splurge of the Day

A date with my daughter. No plans, no projects, to places to go. Just whatever strikes us "spring."

Spring and Small

When I breathed in the air today, I smelled spring. I mean, I really smelled it. I've been explaining to Ava how there are four seasons--winter, spring, summer, and fall--and that we're finally getting a glimpse of spring. "Ava sees it" she said, "Ava sees spring." Then a little while later she told the lady at the coffee shop that there were "four sides--winter and spring and summer and uhhh.... fall."

We've also been talking a bit about geometry.

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My husband is about the best "on top of things" person that I know when it comes to matters of finances and bill paying. I mean, I would NEVER think to keep tabs on the rate of our adjustable home equity loan--I would just pay it each month.

Thank goodness he does.

Turns out, with the falling interest rates, our adjustable home equity rate also fell--but that little drop didn't appear in our online statement.

He called the bank and got it straightened right out. They had an explanation and it turns that out we weren't losing money--but it's a great reminder to stay on top of things. Don't take for granted that banks or businesses are always on top of your interests, no matter how automated they are. No one wants to fall prey to an expensive oversight--and besides, there's a lot to learn about the world of finance by paying close attention to your own.

So there is another business idea I've come up with for my husband: on-top-of-it bill paying.

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One Small Thing

There was an article yesterday (I just looked for it but now can't find it) about how we're not any happier as a society, just busier. I was thinking yesterday about how immersed in work-related things I've been lately--at the expense of non-work related things.

I also think that it can be overwhelming to try and make big changes to correct those practices--and we all know what a champion I am of small steps.

So, every day I'm going to decide on one small thing to do differently (and believe me, I am resisting the urge to create categories for these "one small things"). I just want to let it happen--there are NO RULES. I can even pick the same one small thing every day if I want.

So today's one small thing is to consciously say hello to everyone that I encounter.

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Suit to Splurge

I have a big meeting on Tuesday and I really want to pick up a new suit for it...I can't really justify the expense with longevity--because meetings like these don't come around all that frequently--but I am justifying it with my hard work and the fact that its been several new moons since I've purchased a new suit. How's that?

I haven't picked it out yet--but I'll report if and when I do. Oh, and feel free to send along any suggestions!

A little BEHIND

{I swear that I did not realize the appropriateness of this picture (to the title and the post) until AFTER I posted.}

Here are a few to do's that keep losing out to to must's (groceries, wash clothes, work, breathe):

1. Download pictures from little one's birthday party
2. Finish making the CDs for this little project I dreamed up in celebration of little one turning two (way more on this, I promise)
   
3. Fold and put away laundry
4. Clean out closet and rid it of all things wool and winter!
   
5. File

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Friends of ours have 7 to 10 day to "getaway"...but they still haven't decided WHERE. They asked ME to ask YOU for suggestions...

So, if you could go anywhere in the WORLD for 7-10 days, where would you go?

leave a comment or email me at splashesandsplurges dot com

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Send Me Your Splurges!

I'm still not spending money (at least not on anything with "ooh and aah" quality). So I really need you to send along what you've been indulging in lately--with time, money, or energy. PLEASE.

Dot coms and Detox

I've always been a little bit behind where technology is concerned and that my husband is always a little bit ahead doesn't provide much incentive to change my sluggish ways.

And I don't know if the fact that I have FOUR email addresses makes me savvy or stupid--but I'll save that analysis for another day.

In my mind, however, they aren't really four separate email addresses (even though, according to my husband, they really are). That's because there is this function/application/protocol, POP (Post Office Protocol), which magically makes everything go to one account. It uses a lot of this stuff:

+OK POP3 server ready <1896.697170952@dbc.mtview.ca.us>
C:    APOP mrose c4c9334bac560ecc979e58001b3e22fb
S:    +OK mrose's maildrop has 2 messages (320 octets)

Which means absolutely NOTHING to me, but it looks a lot like what my husband is getting a Master Degree in (ugh, I know) from "The" Johns Hopkins University (okay, that's pretty cool).

The great thing is, those of us who only use %>: to make smiley faces at the end of our sentences or maybe Snoopy and Woodstock if we're really clever, don't need to know what it means or how to use it. People at google or hotmail or yahoo know for us. :)

I don't know if ignorance is bliss, but it sure is nice to not have to know everything (who am I kidding? OF COURSE we know everything, but you know what I mean).

So, of those four email addresses that I have, three of them go to one address. So see? I really only have two email addresses.

The fourth (does anyone use hotmail anymore?) was the first email address I EVER had. I "secured" it close to 10 years ago, or thereabouts, and it has retired from its cyber hey-days as the go-to account and now works exclusively in the "all things that require registration" sector--online purchases, newspaper access, magazine recipe access, daily doctor dictionary words. In other words, it is the email used for all things that are not authentically or specifically designed for moi.

The evolution of email has included the provision of (basically) unlimited storage space, which has not always been the case. And I take full advantage. Like my house, my closet, my drawers: if there's space, you can bet I know how to fill it up and then I know how to lament it until I (or in the case of the pantry, Pete) do something about it.

Well, my "all things that require registration" inbox was borderline hotline-able. It was holding (ready for this?) 3,741 UNREAD emails. I'm sure there is some advocacy group somewhere that could make a strong case for neglect, even gluttony. Swift and severe detoxification was in order if I was to avoid exile from email.

But where to start?

I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner, but most emails now have a search function. So after like 8 pages of clicking on each individual message (or getting so fed up I just selected them all and prayed it wouldn't somehow haunt me when it was finally my turn in line at the department of motor vehicle --because it seems like everything I do has implications where that agency is concerned) I finally had the bright idea to type in the sender's name in the search line and see every email from them appear.

In most cases, I could just check "select all" and then click on delete.

After an hour of methodically moving down the line, I was left with just 150 READ emails in my inbox--most from the days when my hotmail account was my only account and my now husband and father of our daughter was my (only) high-school graduating boyfriend.

But now I've decided that those people who know a lot about that <: ref::! stuff, need to come up with a way for us to conveniently and one-clickly "unsubscribe" to those senders at the same time we're deleting the 500 emails from them we've never opened. Wouldn't THAT be fancy. ::

Mid-week Splurge

Still enjoying birthday leftovers--mostly cupcakes and cookies. I promise pictures and descriptions will come this week. There, I wrote it down (and I just said it out loud).

Two, To, and Too

Today my little one turns two. Friends and family came yesterday to enjoy bubbles, balloons, and brunch.

I've always had a sensitivity to time's passage. Between the ages of eight and 29 I would cry on the eve of each birthday; mourning the start of a new year because I hadn't "done enough" in the old one. I don't know if it's coincidence or Divine design or maybe a little bit of both, but at the intersection of motherhood and age 30, I took a different turn: no more tears.

I had always thought I was just sensitive and a little too nostalgic. Both may be true, but I also discovered that my particular brand of sensitivity (with respect to time's passage) leans a bit more to the dwell side than to the thanks side.

I still spend plenty of time wishing for days back but I spend more time than I used to being grateful that I had them at all. So instead of feeling sad that my baby is less and less baby, I feel thankful more and more for each discovery; thankful that I intersected at motherhood those two years ago. As my little one has become her own person, I've become a different one, a better one, a happier one, a purposed one, a more grateful one. Together, I'd say we make a darn good two.

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More on the birthday events to come--in words and in photos.

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Squeeze a Splurge:

Champagne + Orange Juice= Why Don't I Do That More Often?

Rhythm

For the first time ever in my life, I spelled rhythm right yesterday on the first try.

I think it's significant. As in, maybe I'll find mine. (Wink).

A medium-well splurge:

We picked up a couple of steaks on Sunday night and grilled them in the rain on Monday night. They were d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s.