lifeinflux

A moment of gut clenching truth

// October 16th, 2012 // 2 Comments » // Featured Post, Life

Roughly a month ago, I saw a great post on MightyGirl about Maggie’s list of personal do’s and don’ts. I loved the idea of actually writing down a list for myself and, in doing so, realize that I carry a lot of hidden anger and latent resentment towards certain situations and occasionally even some really awesome people in my life because of my inability to maintain personal boundaries and to say no. The (sad? funny? insane?) thing is that this is not the first time I have put together a list of things I need to do to maintain Jeri optimal health As I read through my past list(s), I realized a startling pattern. Every time I’ve sat down and stated that I need to do certain, specific things to get healthy, keep myself sane and find balance in my life, within a week or two I take on new challenges or tasks that guarantee I won’t have the time, energy or fortitude to set myself on a path for personal success regarding my own wellbeing.

For example, in 2007, it was not enough that I was working 60-70 hour weeks, I had to take on running Drue’s school Talent Show. In 2008, when work slacked off a little after my promotion I took on Drue’s school’s Drama Club. In 2009, I quit my job and started running my own company and took the school Drama Club to the next level. 2010 was a good year – I finally stopped saying yes to other people and identified where I wanted to live (California) and who I wanted as clients (companies as opposed to the government) and took huge, all-consuming steps to make that happen by August. Then, in January of 2011 when life got on an even keel and I determined I needed to spend some time and energy on myself and my own personal interests, I then disrupted the balance by bringing in eight puppies and their mother into our home for four months, homeschooling Drue, and expanding my business by hiring employees and taking on additional contracts. And the list keeps going…

While I don’t regret any of these actions and have met wonderful people, learned a lot about myself and others and had a great time doing almost all of them, I’ve spent the last few days asking myself why I constantly commit 110% of myself to everything else thereby guaranteeing I have very little left for myself. Last week I stumbled across Stephanie Zamora’s site on personal development and purposeful living and read her post on How to Embrace the Void so You Can Live a Life of Passion, Joy and Fulfillment. Reading this post was the emotional equivalence to being hit with a Mack truck. I realized that instead of owning my emotions and allowing myself to feel what I feel, I stuff them down using anything and everything I can find to distract me or that allows me to hide whatever disappointments, hurts or other negative emotions I might be feeling. All of that type-A, work-a-holic, robotic type behavior is not because this is who I am but rather what I am hiding behind. And rather than say, “I am feeling _________________” or “I need ___________________”, I take on a new challenge or say yes to something when I really want to say no. And then the resentment begins, and it becomes someone else’s fault.

A most recent example of this is the almost martyr-like attitude I’ve taken with Drue’s homeschooling. Any issue Drue has with her own schooling must be MY fault because I am her mom and her teacher; therefore, I should read more books, revamp her work schedule, sign her up for a new class or two or three, make those extra drives down to San Jose so she can be with her friends, etc. etc. etc. Rather than let her take some accountability and fail (OHMILORD – does that reflect on me as her parent and teacher?) or succeed on her own merit and hard work, something she should be allowed to do, I become resentful of the time homeschooling takes away from other areas of my life and she becomes resentful of me treating her as a problem to solve. And really she’s not a problem to solve – this was just one more way for me to focus on something other than the truth of how I feel the disruption in my day, my work and my creative process that comes with having her home, the constant interruptions, driving her to programs, and all the other challenges that come with homeschooling. And that truth is coming out slowly as I allow myself to admit it to myself and remind myself constantly that not liking certain things and not wanting to do certain things does not make me a bad parent or a bad person.

So last night I sat down and wrote out my own personal list of Do’s and Don’ts. What would be on YOUR Do’s and Don’t list?

Relaunching the 101…

// October 10th, 2012 // 3 Comments » // Life

This year, more than ever, as I creep closer and closer to 40, I really want to shake up my life and ensure that I experience new things, spend a lot of quality time with people I want to spend time with (not HAVE to spend time with) and, most importantly, have FUN!!! I’ve revamped my 101 in 1001 list three times now since I wrote the initial list in 2009 and have not made much of a dent in it each time. The first list I completed 10 items. The second time around I completed fifteen. This time I completed less than a third of my list; however, at no point did document fulfilling any of my goals and the steps I took before, during and after. I also did a lot of things on my list simply because they were ON the list. That is a bit of a bummer. I never want to get so caught up in this site that I miss living my life. On the other hand, part of having this site is writing and recording my life. So I decided to remove the items I’ve completed or just don’t really want to do and start afresh this year and work hard to complete it in July of 2015. I’ll be 40 then and ready to take on new challenges in the next decade of my life!

My mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in 1001 days.

The criteria: Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of effort on your part) but not so overwhelming they cannot be accomplished in 1001 days. Tasks must be blogged on each day as I work through the list. Pictures will also be supplied as proof that the task is being worked and/or is completed.

The Start Date: 10/12/2012
The Finish Date: 07/09/2015

My list is split into four categories. Live is the first category and contains tasks and/or challenges that require me to get out of my comfort zone, interact with others and develop new relationships and friendships while preserving old friendships and family ties. Learn is a list of things I would either like to master or is something I am simply interested in investigating. I’ve tried to make sure the things I learn will either be physically or mentally challenging and/or fun. Because if it is not challenging or fun, what’s the point? Love is a series of tasks that are for me, that will improve my physical, mental and emotional well-being and make me and/or others feel good. Lush is exactly that – tasks that are a true pleasure and something I want to do for me just because. I mean, really. What is the point of having a list of things to do if some of them aren’t pure pleasure for pleasure’s sake!

The ListLive
1. Dip my feet in the Atlantic Ocean at sunset, drive across the country and dip my feet in the Pacific Ocean at sunrise.
2. Spend some time touring Europe alone.
3. Be with family for each and every Thanksgiving. Did that, it’s not particular enjoyable being around some of them and I’d rather spend the money elsewhere. New Goal: Host a beach weekend for our friends.
4. Hike Ubehebe and Little Hebe craters (top to bottom and back again)
5. Attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival.
6. Attend the Calgary Stampede
7. Attend Mardi Gras in New Orleans Been there, done that, have the beads. New Goal: Attend Coachella
8. Attend the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CA I don’t like beer. I don’t know what I was thinking. New Goal: Take and post 101 pictures of myself.
9. Attend BlogHer
10. Go salsa dancing
11. Go zorbing.
12. Take the Primal Leap.
13. Host one social event a month.
14. Try 101 new foods.
15. Attend PrimalCon. This sounds cool in theory but it’s something I keep putting off and don’t really want to do. New Goal: Run a 5K and then run a 10K.
16. Participate in the 100 strangers project.
17. Swim with sharks.
18. Meet online friends in person. Moved this one to Love. See below. New Goal: Swim 300 meters (12 laps) effortlessly.
19. Join a monthly book club that meets in person and attend each month. Note: I joined a book club but don’t attend regularly so that makes this a new goal.
20. Participate in a team sport.
21. Complete the 7-day Multi-Climate Complete Survivor Course
22. Create photography/gallery site.
23. Ride a zipline.
24. Go on a cruise.
25. Go on a blind date.

Learn
26. Learn how to ride a bike.
27. Learn how to juggle. I keep trying to do this and it’s a painful exercise in my lack of eye/hand coordination. New Goal: Learn to speak German. I don’t necessarily want to be LITERATE but business level German would be incredibly helpful (and cool to boot).
28. Learn to snowboard very well as opposed to what I do now which is manage to stay upright.
29. Learn how to fish.
30. Relearn how to roll a kayak.
31. Take salsa classes.
32. Create a successful blog.
33. Learn how to play chess well.
34. Make something using my new sewing machine.
35. Make paper, and then make something from that paper.
36. Record a CD of my own music.
37. Take an art class.
38. Learn to play guitar.
39. Participate in one of sh1ft.org’s photography projects.
40. Learn how to sail.
41. Learn to speak proper French.
42. Complete a creative bootcamp like NaNoWriMo or Scott McCloud’s Making Comics
43. Take a photography class.
44. Learn how to meditate.
45. Take a yoga class.
46. Learn how to knit.
47. Learn how to crochet.
48. Listen to 1000 new songs and find appreciation in music that is not within my comfort zone.
49. Get my SCUBA certification.
50. Learn bad-ass knife skills in the kitchen and apply them to the art of cooking frequently.

Love
51. Work on 20 Things to Stop Doing to Others
52. Run a 10K. Moved to Live. New Goal: Meet online friends in person (from Live).
53. Swim 300 meters (12 laps) effortlessly. Moved to Live. New Goal: Two hours a week are mine to spend as I like (from Lush).
54. Be a mentor.
55. Read a book from the 1001 Children’s Books to Read Before You Grow Up list at least three nights a week. I realized I’ve read most of the books on this list that I want to read. New Goal: Spend an average of an hour each day that I am in town with Rascal training, walking and playing with him.
56. Walk 10,000 steps a day. See below. New Goal: Read a book with Drue at least three nights a week.
57. Perform random acts of kindness to at least 5 strangers without expecting anything in return.
58. No more conspicuous plastic use. This belongs on a different blog (coming soon!). New Goal: Meet my health goals: Reach goal weight (broken up into mini goals), walk 10,000 steps daily, avoid gluten and sugar since my body does not react well to them.
59. Shop at local farmers markets or local grocery stores.
60. Give myself 30 consecutive days of fun.
61. Compost.
62. Reduce the number of power vampires in the house by half.
63. Complete the family photo project.
64. Participate in the 365 days project.
65. Make 101 handmade, lovely things.
66. Donate whole blood every quarter.
67. Read 52 books in 52 weeks.
68. Give up swearing for 30 days.
69. Average eight hours of sleep a night.
70. Complete a CPR and basic first aid course.
71. Build a Habitat for Humanity home.
72. Conduct a one year happiness project.
73. Create a morning writing ritual.
74. Be debt free.
75. Have three months of savings tucked away that goes untouched.

Lush
76. Sleep and dine in a castle.
77. Have dinner at the French Laundry.
78. Attend the San Francisco Black and White Ball
79. Two hours each week are mine to spend as I like. Moved to Love. New Goal: Host a fabulous girls weekend!
80. Drink a milkshake at Fosselman’s.
81. Have dinner at Chez Panisse.
82. Swim with sharks. Duplicate! New Goal: Go on every ride at Disneyland (even the kiddie ones)!!
83. Purchase my new camera and the necessary lenses to pursue my craft. I buy those anyway and most of them are business expenses. New Goal: Unplug for a week (no phones, no Interwebs, no television, no movies, no video games, nothing!)
84. Create a space within my home that nurtures me creatively. Given California housing prices this feels a little impossible. Maybe once I buy a house this can go back on the list. New Goal: Pay myself $20 for every item completed and then spend it as I wish at the end of the 1001 days.
85. Take a mud bath in Calistoga.
86. Go horseback riding on the beach.
87. Crash a wedding, reception included. I have really tried to be brave enough to do this but I just can’t. It’s not me or my personality to pull something like this off. New Goal: Make handmade cards for birthdays and holidays.
88. Spend the night in a museum.
89. Spend the night in a tree house.
90. Ride the Napa Valley Wine Train.
91. Go on a hot air balloon ride.
92. Spend a week touring Napa and Sonoma. At this point I’ve been all over Napa and Sonoma so a week is redundant. New Goal: Hire a virtual assistant.
93. Rent a limo for the night.
94. Take the New York Dinner Cruise.
95. Eat beignets at the Café du Monde.
96. Pull off the perfect road trip.
97. Collect art I love from artists whose efforts I want to support. This is too nebulous! New Goal: Buy an original piece of art.
98. See the calves and whales in their breeding lagoons near Cabo San Lucas. Been there, done that and it was awesome. New Goal: Facials, manicure and pedicure each month
99. Buy a year’s subscription to the opera. Second year running and we love going to the opera!! New Goal: Buy something unexpected, frivolous and totally impractical.
100. Go snorkeling in Bimini
101. Have high tea at Fortnum & Mason in London.

The final list can be found permanently here. So check back in. I am not sure why I am so motivated this time around. Maybe it’s turning 38 in two days. Maybe it’s just because NOW feels like the right time. Either way, this time I am determined to crush the list and have a blast while doing it. Let me know if you want to join in on any of the fun!!

International Day of the Girl

// October 9th, 2012 // No Comments » // Life

Thursday is the United Nations International Day of the Girl, a single day highlighting, celebrating, discussing, and advancing girls lives and opportunities across the globe. As a girl and as the mother of a girl, frankly I think every day should be International Day of the Girl but then I am a bit biased. The campaign to start this amazing day and promote international awareness of and to advance the UN Millennium Development Goals related to gender equality and universal basic education, and other human rights issues began right here in the United States and was led by School Girls Unite, an organization of students and young women leaders. If you are a girl, have a girl in your life, love a girl or simply want to support this amazing day, I encourage you to get involved. Below I’ve listed several organizations around the world who have prepared special campaigns and activities. Here are some ways you can be involved.

1. Sign up your company and/or organization to support and endorse International Day of the Girl through the Day of the Girl website.

2. Sign Care’s petition to fight child marriage by sending a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Child marriage is a global epidemic. One in seven girls will be forced to marry by age 15, robbing her of a chance to get an education, lead a healthy life and reach her full potential. Signing the petition takes little effort on your part and can change girls’ lives throughout the world.

3. LitWorld’s Stand Up for Girls campaign is part of LitWorld’s larger effort to rally their network of literacy champions around the world to advocate for every girl’s right to a quality education. Take the pledge, sign up for activities, join events throughout the world and Stand Up for every woman’s right to a good education.

4. Plan International launches it’s Because I’m a Girl campaign on October 11th. This campaign aims to bring global focus to the widespread denial of basic rights to girls, and the ‘invisibility’ of girls in the global development agenda, help to make girls and their rights more visible, help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and work to enable girls to gain an equal position in society. You can get involved by donating to Plan or sponsoring a girl in a developing country. Believe it or not, the US is considered a developing country where girl and women’s initiatives are concerned.

5. 10×10, a social action campaign, created and launched by an award-winning team of former ABC News journalists uses the power of storytelling and leveraging of strategic partnerships to delivery a single message: that educating girls in developing nations will change the world. You can participate in the International Day of the Girl Tweet-a-thon or host your own event. Sign up on the 10×10 site now and take advantage of their incredible resources and create social change in your own area, in your own way.

6. Be a part of the first Day of the Girl Summit! Take the pledge, leave a Shout Out! and participate in the live summit discussions. Educate yourself on what you can do today and every day to improve the lives of girls in your life and around the world!

7. Continue supporting girls throughout the world or right in your own neighborhood beyond October 11th. Dayofthegirl.org has eleven amazing ideas you and your family can do any day of the year to make girls’ lives better.

I encourage you to click on the links above, find an organization whose cause and mission speaks to your heart, think about the girls in your life and give of yourself on October 11th and to a worthy, worthwhile, ongoing need to celebrate girls and to ensure they are empowered and able to meet their basic needs and rights. And I encourage you to go to the web search engine of your choosing, type in “International Day of the Girl 2012″ and find other campaigns and opportunities to give of yourself if you don’t find something on my list that touches your heart.

If Hollywood can reboot, so can I!

// October 8th, 2012 // 5 Comments » // Life

The other day I was chatting with one of my friends about how I miss writing, never have time to write and wish I could get back to the old lifeinflux blog when she nicely reminded me that in the time I just spent bitching and moaning about it, I could have written an entire blog post.  Me being me, I immediately rejected that notion because my site hasn’t been updated in forever, much less finished and I have a design to-do list the length of my arm (okay maybe I’m exaggerating) that I MUST accomplish before indulging in the pleasure of writing and posting a single thing.   This morning I woke up to Rascal barfing on the floor after eating god knows what and after sitting at the laptop for awhile trying to find some sort of inspiration, I called bullshit on myself, something I am getting better and better at doing.  For example, “Jeri you must wake up at a ridiculously early time to make a homemade something or other for the potluck today!”  Bullshit!   “Jeri, “You should continue to overcommit and try to be in two or three places at once ensuring you will be batshit crazy by the time you’re 40!!!”  Horse puckey!!    See how that works?   It’s amazing this calling yourself out on impractical ideas and it saves so much time and resentment on my part, I can’t believe I didn’t give up and go with the flow earlier.  The bonus is this new way of thinking ensures I get to shower on daily basis (BONUS!!).  Because, really, who cares if I bring the most delicious, homemade whatever to the potluck while sporting oil-slicked hair, an overly perfumed body, dog hair hanging off my clothing and makeup on only the right side of my face.  You’re not going to eat the food I gave up grooming time to make!  You’re going to sit back and think, “Man that person obviously has a lot of dog hair hanging out in her house” (and for the record, I do).  And then I’m going to be all depressed driving home thinking, “But I cleaned all the dog hair AND the smelly dog puke up in the kitchen before I cooked… what is their problem anyway!!   And then I’ll think you’re mean, and judgmental and who are you anyway and you’ll think I’m smelly and wonder why I can’t bathe properly when I only have one kid and you have three (or two dozen) and we’ll never be friends. The end.

So after giving up on the potluck and the awesome idea I got pre-coffee about posting pictures and a recipe of what I was making for today’s blog post, I got sidelined wondering how many ways one could say bullshit without saying bullshit and twenty minutes later realized that this right here is why I don’t post a lot.  I get started, I get all dramatic, I get distracted, I spend way too much time on the interwebs Googling things like “bullshit in different languages” and then spend another long period of time making sure I say kletspraat and absurda correctly before deciding that’s too much hard work and instead will affect a horrible English accent and just say “rubbish” a lot in the future.    Oh by the way, kletspraat and absurda are bullshit in Dutch and Spanish for you uninformed people out there.  And it has to be true because the Interweb said so and the Interweb doesn’t lie… ever.

Then I moseyed over to my other laptop and started working with data and a few hours passed and then I realized my poor half-written, under-developed blog post was just sitting out here on its lonesome, perched in the void between autosave and not really saved and I was ignoring it.   And I almost read through it but stopped myself because that leads to editing until I become so frustrated I delete the whole damn thing and think “tomorrow will be a better posting day”.   But my reality is that no day is a better posting day.   Every day is insane, and different and crazy and fragmented and dog hair filled and regardless of how early I get up or how much I try to focus on blogging that perfect post, it just isn’t going to happen.  My life is not constructed that way and lord knows, neither I am.  And really I wouldn’t have it any other way.   So this week I am going to start by just posting and see what happens.  It will be random and unformed and all over the place.  I’m also going to try to restructure life influx, hitting the highlights and only working on the design pieces I actually give a crap about (crap being yet another way of saying bullshit, just so you know).   And then I’m going to get on a plane and fly to Austin and indulge in a few days with my friends there, listen to a lot of great music, interview some little known bands, take a lot of pictures and then come back and blog some more.

And if you don’t like it, oh well.

#24 Thirty Days of Fun

// August 2nd, 2011 // No Comments » // Life

I decided to start my new 101 things in 1001 days list off with a bang by giving myself thirty days of fun. Item #24 requires I give myself thirty days of fun for each year it takes me to complete this list. Since I am not scheduled to finish my 101 things until mid-2014, that gives me four years times thirty days of fun which equals 120 days where I am obligated to do something fun each and every single one of those days. Oh man, I know. I’m dreading it already. *grin*

 

Validation. It feels so fine!

// December 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

blah.

New. Little. Pink. Different.

// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

I recently purchased a Nintendo DS Lite and I love it.   It’s small, it’s streamlined, and it’s pink.   What’s not to love?   Granted, I haven’t removed it from the box… but when I do, I know I’ll become obsessed with it and with playing it and with buying games for it and dominating them.  And therein lies the problem.   I have a confession to make.  I love toys.  I love shiny, new, fun toys.   And if they come in pink, so much the better.  You see once I unwrap that perfect little pink toy I’m going to be spending copious amounts of time on it.   And right now with the school Talent Show, two ongoing contracts, a new upcoming contract, a potential move and tending to one Meemsy, one Bear and one Drue, the spare time I have is spent sleeping and taking the occasional shower.  Which, believe it or not, I do… on occasion.
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Amending the 101…

// March 3rd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Life

I’m not entirely sure how to sum up the last seven days of my life.   It feels a bit like teleporting.   At least, it feels like I’d imagine teleporting would be.   You know, you start in one place and then you feel yourself get all split apart and then all of a sudden you’re in an entirely NEW and different place but are all together.   The latest, newest and biggest news is that the Gloeges have gone all “I Can’t Believe We’re Not Vegan”.    And by that I mean we’re not truly vegan because we are not swearing off meat forever.  I’m sorry but I need the real deal at Thanksgiving.   Tofurkey is not going to cut it.   And I’d rather give up anything else in the universe food-wise except sushi.   So there may be an occasional noshing of the raw fish.   But otherwise, we have given up meat, dairy, raw sugar and white, processed foods.  How and why we decided to do this is a whole ‘nother post – and one that may be posted over where my new project (TBA soon!) lives, but suffice it to say that we, as a family, have never eaten or pooped so well.  And that’s all I’m saying about that.  You can thank me later.
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Ode to my cat who chews cords

// February 26th, 2010 // Comments Off // Life

Mimir goes by many names – Meer, Meemsy, Pooh Bear, Tiger Cat.   And then there is my personal favorite – Mimir Damnit – which is probably the name the cat is called more than any of the others.    Granted, in the past, calling the cat “Damnit” has gotten me in trouble.   Who can ever forget their first call by their child’s teacher asking that you come in for a meeting.  And who can forget the ensuing discussion of your child’s family tree whereupon you find a picture of an orange blob with the name “Mimir Danmit” written on a bottom limb?    Mimir, like the other females in this house, is opinionated, stubborn and determined to do it her way.   You’d think we playing Frank Sinatra on perma-loop around here.
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Living in sin…

// February 22nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Life

As many of you know,  Jason and I have lived together, post-divorce, since November of 2006.  Drue and I moved from the Research Triangle Park are of North Carolina to the Fairfax area near Washington DC.  Why we moved is a post in and unto itself, so we’ll leave it for another time.    Suffice it to say that we moved and he moved and somehow, thanks to the financial reality of NoVA aka being ridiculously overpriced in everything, we ended up living together.    And living together is not something we do really well.  Which is why we got a divorce in the first place.   But we made the most of a difficult situation and are looking forward to the day when we no longer live together.  Like by this summer.   Sorry.  I had to go throw a small party for us for a second there.   But again, I deviate from the topic at hand and in my brain and it is DYING to get out! So shall I continue? Yes, I think I shall…
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