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An Excess of Negativity
It is so easy to find problems. It is sometimes wickedly satisfying to craft a scathing indictment of a bad idea. It is simpler to find problems than to spot achievements. And it is certainly easier to criticize than it is to find alternative solutions.
Sometimes the ability to speak and write ends up NOT being an asset. It is so easy to fall into the habit of writing critiques and finding fault, and using biting sarcasm instead of uplifting wit.
I think I’ve struggled with this my whole life. Learning the art of kind words, instead of sarcasm or criticism. My lesser nature would drag me into being a dark and unpleasant person if I allowed it to – and I’m sure that for some people who encounter only that side of me, I am already that. But I fight to keep the better side of me as the character that is growing. The growing group of people who actually think I am a nice person is encouragement that I may be on the right track, if I can just keep going and not backslide.
Each day, I try to find something to blog about. Some days it is easy, other days it is hard. And it is always easier to find something to complain about than to find something to teach or provoke productive thought.
What keeps me trying is the concept of becoming who I really want to be. I want to be someone better. I want to leave the world a better place because I was here. I want to touch lives and lift them just a little because I passed by. I know… it will take becoming someone quite a bit better than the person I am now.
Anyone can point a finger and criticize. But not everyone can propose solutions, encourage in spite of problems, and accept even when needed change doesn’t happen where they want it to. But I choose, a little bit at a time, who I am becoming, each time I poise my fingers over the keyboard, and each time I open my mouth.
A Higher Degree of Responsibility
I’ve been living like most Americans. I have always expected that as long as I had money, I could get what I needed, when I needed it. Food isn’t something I thought about much, and less so about things like shampoo and laundry soap.
Since becoming allergic or sensitive to almost everything, my perspective has had to change. I’ve been feeling frustrated for months, because controlling my diet has been so hard. I can’t eat out ANYWHERE without eating things that I pay for later. I can usually choose items that aren’t too bad, but sometimes am left with no good choices. It is very hard to control it everywhere.
Recently I attended a dinner. The person preparing it asked me ahead of time what I could eat, and assured me that he’d have things there that were “safe” for me to eat. My son and daughter have nearly the same restrictions, so he assured me that we’d be able to eat the dinner. I took him at his word, since he had asked me ahead of time what I could have.
When we got there, dinner was served – and not ONE THING on the menu was anything that I could eat without a consequence. It was a fairly normal dinner – but every item was off limits. The meat, the bread, the potatoes, the salad, every bit. Oh, I can eat those things, but only certain kinds, and only if made a certain way.
I’ve realized that if I want to keep myself from paying for it later, I have to take complete control – I can’t leave anything to anyone else’s judgment. If I am invited to dinner, I need to pack my own food, just in case. When I travel, I have to have pre-cooked food with me, because I can’t buy things in restaurants or even most grocery stores to eat on the road.
The world now lives by rules which don’t accommodate some kinds of differences. Not really. And where particular health needs are concerned, nobody else ever WILL care enough to remember it all and help make sure it is done right. Not the schools, not the doctors, not the friends or family, even. They may WANT to, but they simply don’t. Often, when you explain what you can or cannot do, they water it down and assume a little fudging won’t matter. And it does.
Kids with diabetes will be given sugar without regard to their blood sugar balance, and the individuals responsible won’t be the ones in the ER with them. Kids with allergies will be given irritants, in spite of having been told that they cannot have this and that it is serious, and those who did it won’t be up all night with them trying to control a bad reaction. Kids with Crohn’s will be given milk, or soy, or preservatives, and the person who gave it to them won’t be there when the kid is doubled over in pain later that day. It is just human nature to not take it seriously until you’ve lived with it.
It is at once intimidating, tiring, and empowering. The realization that I am the only person responsible for it, and that I HAVE to make SURE that there are no exceptions. It is hard – but it also means that I can choose to make things better, myself, and that I don’t HAVE to have to give anyone else control over that.
When we go shopping in Laramie, I have to pack a cooked organic meat patty, a homemade whole wheat roll (made with fresh milled flour and coconut or olive oil), an organic cucumber, an organic apple, and an organic yogurt with a lactaid tablet. I have salted cashews (roasted without peanut oil), and dried mangoes (organic, unsweetened), tucked in the side pocket in the door of our car. They stay there permanently, for emergency food. I also have spoons and forks there, so that if I have to eat on the road, I’m equipped for it. When we stay anywhere overnight, I pack my food. We stay in hotels that have a fridge and microwave because I can’t eat out.
Yeah. It is VERY hard. But it is also very necessary. Each time I eat something I should not, it takes me two weeks or more to heal from it. There are so many things that can happen by chance, like the Organic apples we bought the other day, that had been washed in something that gave me a belly ache – I could not have seen that one coming. So I have to control every single thing I can, every single time, or I end up losing ground instead of getting better.
I AM getting better. It is slow, and it is hard, and sometimes I can’t tell you how much I just want to go and eat pizza. But I don’t. Because I want something better. And it has a price, and I am the one who has to pay it.
In the end, WE are the ones responsible for our health. Not the doctor, not the cook, not our family, and certainly not the government! The only way to improve it, is to take that responsibility.
Overcoming Lifelong Problems
In the last few years, I’ve finally isolated some particular health issues. It has made me realize that lifelong problems are not always what we think they are. Sometimes we HAVE lifelong problems because of underlying issues that we have not identified, and solving them isn’t the simple matter others think it is. Identifying the problem is half the work. Finding a solution that works is the other half. Once those two things are done, DOING it is often the simplest part.
I’ve battled weight and activity problems for half my life. It is only in the last few years that I’ve really begun to understand why, and what has affected that. I slowed down in activity because it became uncomfortable. The world labels that as “laziness”. And so did I. In fact, I didn’t even really grasp that certain things actually HURT. I just knew I did not like doing them. My self-esteem took a beating, because in labeling it as laziness, the blame was all on me, and somehow I convinced myself that if I were just more determined, I could just change it any time I liked, in spite of repeated efforts and failures to do so.
When I learned that I had Crohn’s Disease, a lot of things fell into place. This disease is much misunderstood. You can have it for decades before the classic symptoms appear, and in those years, it can cause you to retain weight instead of losing it (rapid weight loss is one of the end-stage symptoms). It causes malabsorption – the intestines become damaged, and do not absorb nutrients efficiently. You can become low on many nutrients – and it does not show up on blood tests, because none of the levels are critical, they are just chronically low. Some of them trigger your body to think it is in a state of starvation. This causes two primary negative effects:
- First, your body hangs onto weight. If you diet, then you can lose for two weeks, and then you’ll gain it back even if you maintain the diet, because your metabolism will adjust to use less. Your body already thinks it is in crisis mode, and weight loss signals danger.
- Second, exercise is very difficult. When you start to exercise, your body does NOT respond to release resources to the muscles. Instead, it withdraws them. This is, again, a crisis response, designed to make you STOP. If you don’t, it hurts… a lot. This also causes exercise induced asthma, chronic fatigue, and a range of other symptoms that range from unpleasant, to downright painful.
Before I learned to control my diet for Crohn’s (not like the doctors recommend, but something quite different), I had daily headaches, significant arthritis pain, frequent bowel discomfort, hormonal problems, and a range of other things going on. I also had sleep apnea for years. It is very hard to maintain normal daily activity around that. Those things have all come under control, one by one, and my ability to do things has steadily increased.
I’ve recently begun to tackle the exercise issue – I’ve been walking on and off for two years now, but cannot do so year round, the weather simply does not permit it. So I’ve had to figure out how to do so indoors for much of the year.
It has been a complex thing, because it seemed that if I exercised regularly, even a little, I got weaker, and it got more painful every day. I’ve been researching how to adapt a program to allow me to improve, and I have finally got the pieces together in a way that will allow me to make progress. I’ve also figured out some of the keys to losing weight – and it is not what is commonly recommended. It actually involved eating MORE, not less, but WHAT I eat has to be carefully controlled.
This has really taught me some lessons about judging other people, and even judging ourselves! We often label people and make judgments based on surface appearances. We can’t possibly know what is going on underneath. We call problems weaknesses, when they may in fact have a basis in health issues. We judge families, businesses, and appearances. We assume that if a thing is easy for us, that it must be easy for everyone, never considering that what we enjoy doing may be a difficult or painful thing for another.
I’ve learned that when I have a problem I just seem to fail at over and over, to go back and look for a reason. Sometimes I can find a factor I had not considered before, and when THAT is dealt with, the visible problem is them simple to solve.
The Delegation Trap
I am busy, and I need help. But to GET help, I have to either train someone else to do the things I don’t have time for, or I have to at least lay the groundwork for them to be able to help me – set up access for them, write instructions for what I want done, prep files and send them, etc.
Often, getting READY for someone to help actually takes longer than the task that I need to have done. So I just do it myself, or procrastinate a little more since I can’t fit in the prep work any more than I can fit in the actual task.
If I could do the prep work, then someone else would be able to do not just THIS task, but other tasks as well. So by taking the shortcut for the immediate problem, I’ve eliminated the possibility of saving time next time.
Automation is the same way – setting up automation to save time TAKES time. And that time has to be squeezed out with no return until it is completely set up. So I often procrastinate that as well.
Many small business owners, and parents, fall into that trap. I say parents, because we do this with teaching our children also. If it is just simpler to do it ourselves than it is to patiently go through the processes of teaching our kids to do a task, we may end up handicapping both ourselves, and our children.
I don’t know that I have a solution, other than TAKING the time to enable others to help. Because doing so is the empowering choice that allows growth, both personally within a family, and professionally and financially within a business.
It is an easy trap to fall into. Awareness that it IS a trap can help us to avoid it. I’m going to go write some instructions…
Would That Be Mrs. Wheeler?
The neighbor with the netbook called. She got a new computer – a nice Dell. Bigger than MY Dell! Mine has a faster processor though, so I don’t need to feel entirely upstaged.
She needed to have her internet set up. Had never set it up on Windows 7, and it wasn’t working like it should have. She tried talking to tech support, but after a bit, felt like it was hopeless. She uses the same internet service provider we do. She told them that she had a neighbor, she would call her neighbor and get help with it.
The tech on the end of the line said, “Would that be Mrs. Wheeler?”
Our neighbor said, “Yes.”
The tech said, “Good.”
My reputation precedes me! Who would have guessed. We’ve only been with this internet provider for a couple of months, and already they know me by name!
I’m still trying to figure out if that is a GOOD thing!
Beggars at Wal-Mart
Wyoming is beyond rural. About the only reason people come here when they have nothing, is on their way through. We’ve lived here 13 years, and have never seen a summer like this one.
We spent 3 years driving monthly to Denver for cancer treatment for our son. As we came off the freeway, there were sometimes people with signs standing at the end of the on-ramp where the light required the cars to stop. We were never prepared with more than the day’s needs, but we talked about what we might do if we could, and prayed for their wellbeing. They were an unusual sight to us, such a thing was extraordinarily rare in Wyoming.
A few years ago we began seeing the first people standing outside Wal-Mart in Laramie, where the driveway meets the street. It was still unusual enough we didn’t think about it much. We never saw it more than one or two times a year. But we thought about what we could do. Money wasn’t an option, we didn’t have it. Usually groceries were enough for the next week or so, and that was all. We don’t buy snack foods, or other quick fix, so there was rarely anything we could share that would help – I mean, an uncooked potato isn’t going to help you if you don’t have a stove.
This summer, it seemed they were everywhere. In every major town in Wyoming, there was a good chance you’d see someone standing on the corner, somewhere, holding a sign, or just standing there, hoping. I don’t like calling them “beggars”. Sometimes there just isn’t another single word that defines someone standing on the corner asking for help though.
LDS Doctrine teaches us that we should give as much as we are able, without judging. No matter what got them there, we are supposed to help. After all, everybody does stupid things that get them somewhere they didn’t expect to end up, and most of us need some help to pull ourselves out so we can change for the better.
We’ve always tried to be generous, but I don’t think we ever took it into the “give till it hurts” realm. We didn’t sacrifice to help. Sometime over the last year, we decided that we’d give EVERY time, if there was any way to do so. Most of the time, this summer, it has been easy. Squeezing out a bit more for someone else hasn’t even taken thought.
The last few weeks have been lean. We finally got a small paycheck today, with just enough money to pay a couple of obligations and get groceries for a few more days. We had the money budgeted and there was not room to add one more thing – in fact, we’d already scratched off some things we really could use. We have plenty of food in the house, we were just missing key items that we really needed.
As we neared Wal-Mart, we saw a figure on the corner. We didn’t bother to read the sign, that he was there was enough. I knew there was no money to do anything. Then I just said to the kids, “If we help him, we have to do without something. What are we going to scratch off our list?” We decided to eliminate the noodles – the kids were perfectly willing to do so, which was cool. We can do without noodles, since we have plenty of rice and potatoes, and we can make noodles if we really want them. That gave us just enough to get some crackers and cheese, and some hot chocolate mix. They went into a separate bag, and our daughter handed them out the window as we pulled up to the stop sign before leaving the parking lot.
I think this, more than anything, tells me we’ve entered a new era. One where we must not take certain things for granted. That people are on the corner begging in Wyoming is an alarming thing. That they are here in numbers high enough for us to notice, and feel that if we want to help each time we have the opportunity that we must always be prepared to do so, is significant.
And that is exactly what we’ve decided. We’ve decided that we want to be prepared to help, in whatever small way we can. That we never be unwilling to do SOMETHING, even if it is a tiny thing like cheese and crackers and hot chocolate mix. It has changed something in me. It has changed how I think about what I have, and what I need. It has made me want to be something more than I am.
The changing times hold much uncertainty. But I also think they hold many opportunities for us to better ourselves, and to help make our own corner of the world a little less selfish one.
Living Life in a Blur
The last few weeks have passed in a blur. Some good things, some hard ones, some absolutely unmanageable ones. I can blame it on my broken glasses – one of the absolutely unmanageable things. Everything is a blur, regardless of the speed at which it passes!
They are old glasses, ones I’ve been trying to get a few more months out of. No insurance, so they have to be budgeted for. Cleaning them one morning, the lens fell out. One minute I was circling the cloth on the lens, the next moment the lens lay in my hand. No pop, no resistance, it just lay there. I immediately thought to pop it back in (the logical impulse). The frame was broken, and no impulse was going to make that lens stick. It broke where the top of the frame connects to the nosepiece – it was not the nosepiece that broke, it was the top of the frame. Unrepairable.
My mother helpfully suggested tape… I love my mother, but I still can’t believe she seriously suggested this, even if the break HAD been in a place where the tape would conceivably hold the pieces together.
Ok, so I have no pride where some things are concerned, I’ll drive an old car and not feel bad about it. But taped glasses on a 40+ year old woman are completely incompatible with any SEMBLANCE of a professional image! She suggested this the day I was invited to present at the Idea Expo. Yeah, that’s just what I want… Show up with tape on my glasses, right between my eyes where it is sure to attract the maximum attention.
I wonder, which sort should I use?
- The classic surgical tape has a pristine white tackiness about it. It might be considered the all season look. It frays nicely also, and strings hang off the edges, adding to the overall pathetic-ness of the look.
- Perhaps I should go redneck and use duct tape. It would not only lend a festive silver gleam, it would be sure to be bulky and lumpy – so no one could miss it. The perfect touch to my segment on creative solutions for Shoestring Startups!
- Or maybe a contemporary look would be better – I could try red electrical tape. This is my 12 year old son’s favorite tape for repairing books, toys, or anything else that it will stand out nicely on. I’m sure it would also stand out nicely beside the bridge of my nose. Red is one of our company colors, so I’d then coordinate with our branding.
- How about pop-glitz? We have some faceted mylar tape – in silver or gold. Of course, someone might then mistake the sparkle for an inappropriate twinkle in my eye. Besides, I’m not sure I want to feel THAT young.
Maybe I can create an entire look around it. Worn vinyl velcro tennis shoes, a muu-muu style housedress, and a balaclava.
Think it will catch on?
If You’re Thinking 80/20, You’re Wasting Effort
Our company uses the “90/10 rule” instead of the “80/20 rule”. Because we have discovered that if you choose the right 10%, it really does get 90% of the results.
If you are expecting only 80% of the results for 20% of the labor, then you are expending too much effort for too little result. You are doing things that don’t really matter, or doing them inefficiently, or you aren’t really paying attention to what IS getting the results.
We can create a “substantially equivalent” performance in a website, when creating a $5000 site that has to compete with a $50,000 site. You just gotta pick the right stuff, approach it with creativity, and not waste one bit of time, effort, or application. That’s 90% of the results, for just 10% of the cost, time, and effort.
I’ve found this to be true in other areas of life also. There just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything. You have to hit the most important stuff and let the rest go.
It ain’t slacking – and it isn’t doing a sloppy job. In fact, it means giving all you got to that 10%. But the results are so amazing that it really fires you up when you get it working right. Because you can produce so much, and just run circles around the competition.
It works in the home, it works in the office, and it works online.
If you really want to excel and be original, 80/20 just isn’t good enough.
I Wonder if My Son is Trying To Tell Me Something?
“Get your apple” I tell my 12 year old son, as he is heading out the door to a 4-H shooting activity.
“I’m getting it!” he says, “But I don’t want to bleed all over it!”
I look. He has a knife in one hand, and a bandaid in the other. He is opening the bandaid, but does not want to put down the knife. He is supposed to be taking an apple and some wholegrain chips with him to eat in the car – apparently he wants the apple cored and put in a zip baggie first.
Just what is he trying to say?
“I still have a little trouble with knives…”
“I cut myself, but I’m a Boy Scout, and know just what to do…”
“Sheesh, Mom, give a guy a little space!”
“I know I’m late, and I have my reasons!”
“I’m a guy… It’s a knife… You’re a woman and you’d never understand!”
He’s 12, so you never quite know. That age between no longer being a child, and not quite being a teen, and only just beginning to suspect there is such a thing as adulthood in his future.
He’s out shooting a 22 now. Bonding with a gun… and maybe with his Dad. With guys, you are never quite sure which is the stronger bond.
THIS STORY and many more can be found on Amazon, for Kindle, in Laura’s storybook: A Little Romp Through Laura’s Storyland
A Jungle in My Window
My view of the back yard is obstructed by green. This is a good thing! I have plants over a foot tall in my hydroponics system. Currently have about 70 plants in it, and we will add about another 20 sometime over the next few days. Working on building another system to hold about another 80 also. That oughta be enough to keep us in lettuce and broccoli at least.
Most of the plants are in early stages of growth. The lettuce is big enough that I can rob it of a few leaves for a salad each evening – somewhere around 15 lettuce plants are big enough to do that with. The broccoli raab is almost ready to sprout some buds – about eight plants growing like fury! Half the plants are still very small though, barely started, many still in the two-leaf stage, some finally sprouting a second tier of leaves. The chard has half-sized leaves, about 5 per plant, but is not ready to be able to use – the few leaves I could gather would not be enough to be of value yet.
The big stuff is finally big enough that it is now difficult to distinguish individual plants. And some experimental bush beans are turning out to be more like pole beans without the tendrils, weaving their way up through the other plants, finally forming buds that look like they may be blossoms.
After working so hard for it, and waiting weeks and weeks to get this far, it is satisfying to be able to selectively harvest once a day. But I am impatient for more of it to bear, because I need SO much more than once a day! And the kids need it too.
So right now, I look at this as a beginning, but know it is not the whole thing. Still much work to do to get it to do what we really need it to do. Overuse at the moment could postpone that day, so I reluctantly restrain myself from grabbing salads whenever I need.
Logistically, is it possible to provide for all of our veggie needs this way? I still don’t know. Because I don’t yet know how long growth takes in this system, or how much each is capable of bearing, between those plants that bear repeatedly, and those that bear once and need replaced, and all of those that fall somewhere between.
I am already planting once a week, a new round of about 20 more plants. Eventually we may need to step that up. There is the garden for the summer also, which will take the burden off the system temporarily, though I am CERTAIN my daughter will want the indoor bug-free ones instead of the outdoor grown ones!
No point to make, really, just a ramble to give you an idea of what is happening with it, and what our results were.
A Gift of Radicchio
I think a lot about vegetables lately – because I need quite a bit, and they are expensive in Wyoming. I am often surprised at how the Lord answers prayers, and try to make the most of it even when the answer isn’t what I really wanted.
I went out this morning to check to see if the strawberries we planted last summer were greening up yet – a friend said theirs were, and I was surprised because it is early for Wyoming. We had a mild winter though, even finding spinach plants that had managed to winter over – quite a few, in fact, and discovering more every day. The grass and dandelions are already making a comeback in the garden – the weeds grow long after the edible greens die, and they come back sooner in the spring too. So weeding starts before the ground is even fully thawed it seems.
Today, in last summer’s lettuce beds, I found some red heads poking up from the dirt. A plant that had grown leafy last summer was forming small tight heads – distinctly red with white veins. Close inspection and a nibble on a leaf proved it to be Radicchio.
I hate Radicchio. But I had prayed for vegetables, and here was Radicchio – something I had not intentionally planted, would have pulled if I had seen it last summer, and certainly did not ask for now. Our mesclun mix has 6 things I like, and three that I do not like. I do not like curly endive either, but it is distinctive enough to yank out the minute the leaves start to frill, and the arugula that makes me gag is also easily recognizable early on, and therefore erradicated without hesitation. The Radicchio had been green and red last summer, and had disguised itself as red lettuce, thereby escaping extermination.
Now I knew it for what it was. It is early spring. It will be many months before we have vegetables in the garden. It will be weeks before the plants in my indoor hydroponic system bear anything worth mention. Here was this vegetable, volunteering to grow NOW. Pickable and eatable, NOW. It demanded respect… and it plead for me to acknowledge that I had asked, and had been given.
I do not like Broccoli Raab really either. But it grows fast, and produces well out here. I find I can tolerate it, even come to enjoy it, if it is steamed, rinsed, and then sauteed in garlic butter. It has a similar flavor to Radicchio – sharp, bitter. If Broccoli Raab, then why not Radicchio?
So I searched out recipes – many of which made me want to cook more! One of which I have the ingredients for (important when many call for items I’ve never even seen in the local grocery stores), and which I can actually eat (many call for cured meats or cheeses that I cannot have), and which I think I can whip up and enjoy with dinner.
So I am heading to the garden to harvest some of the unexpected Radicchio, hoping I can like the gift I have been given. Trying my best to make lemonade of lemons.
Why are You Really in Business?
I find that most business owners have not really put a lot of thought into WHY they are in business, beyond “I like doing this.” or “I want to make money.” They haven’t thought about their own driving motivations.
It is really valuable to figure out what your real purpose in business is. Much like the true product in marketing, the real purpose is often abstract, or seemingly unrelated to the day to day tasks.
My purpose is to strengthen families. Most of my clients are parents, many are stay at home moms. Of course, I serve single people too. But underneath all my goals for helping businesses succeed, is the purpose of making life more affordable and manageable for families. By offering success services, I help them afford to care for their families.
So what is your REAL purpose? Beyond making money or creating or selling a product or service, what is the goal that gets you out of bed each morning?
If you identify that, and work toward making that more evident, then your business takes you places in interesting ways. It becomes something unexpected. Our business grant is a result of that. Bad Behavior Stand Alone came from that. We are working on other software tools development to further that purpose. I train webmasters for that reason. I constantly work to produce more, for less, and profit more, because of that. Because my success leads to the success of others, and that helps families survive.
Because this is my goal, it changes HOW I teach, and it changes what I do. It makes ethics paramount. It makes the methods I teach ultra clean, it means I must be able to do things differently because my goal is not just to be another web designer. It is to create something different and better, that makes the world, and families, better.
Take some time to brainstorm, and figure out why you are really in business, and what your long term goal is at a deeply personal level. It may surprise you. And it may be the key to unlocking potentials you never anticipated.
Gardening doesn't have to be that hard! No matter where you live, no matter how difficult your circumstances, you CAN grow a successful garden.
Life from the Garden: Grow Your Own Food Anywhere Practical and low cost options for container gardening, sprouting, small yards, edible landscaping, winter gardening, shady yards, and help for people who are getting started too late. Plenty of tips to simplify, save on work and expense.
