What. A. Week.
Fellow cat lovers, have you ever noticed how gleefully busy your cat gets immediately after you’ve cleaned her sandbox and given her fresh litter? It’s as though she just can’t possibly do enough or do it fast enough.
I’m so there.
And I so love it! I love busy-ness. I don’t know why, but I kind of get a charge from it. It makes you feel alive – as though every one of your senses has to stay on guard because something’s about to come around the corner like Vin Diesel – guns blazing. Intense. That, and the fact that it’s justification for keeping chocolate and coffee in front of me. My greatest riddle in life is, “Which came first, the charge or the chocolate and caffeine?” So the debate begins.
I think I’ll need more work in the lab.
You know the pictures to the right – the gorgeous animals? Well, when you hover your cursor over them, I’ve attributed a different, appropriate quote to each scene. The Bison’s quote is by Satchel Paige: “Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.” This week has been one that I find myself craving some thinkless sitting.
It’s been more than just this week, actually – the past few months have been kind of crazy. It’s all good, though, because I like crazy – quite a bit, actually. It’s normal that gives me the heebie jeebies… at least I think it did. Let’s see, that would have been 1980…
I’ve been swamped with online work. Again, that’s a good thing, but I don’t have a to do list anymore. I have to do lists - they start on one page then continue on the next. Then the next. Then the next. When I hear someone complain about their to do list (emphasis on singular), I want to throw all of mine at them. But I just smile – sometimes wink.
I just had a few things on my jumbled little mind and wanted to spill them out – you know, to make room for more.
First of all, I recently changed my rss feed details – so those of you who subscribe to my rss feed (thank you, you truly honor me) will see a full feed again. I didn’t realize that the summary was so annoying and unattractive. I recently subscribed to my own feeds through my Google reader and saw right away that I wanted my full posts to show up again. It’ll make it so much more convenient and attractive for you.
I also added more of my favorite blogs to my own reader and have found it to be a perfect way to stay on top of things. If you don’t have a feed reader yet, I suggest you go to Google and do thusly. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s super fast to register for one. Then, all you have to do is go to the More tab, look down for “reader” and follow the easy as pie instructions. You add your favorite feed urls by copying the feed link and pasting it into the appropriate field.
You could, oh I dunno, start with Self Help Daily’s feed…. Let’s see, where’s that link again? Oh, yeah, top right. Smooth, right? Except not.
COOLBIES of the Week Honors:
I want to pay special tribute to the following people for raising the level of cool in the world.
- Sofia J. I recently wrote a post about how much I enjoyed her music (see a few posts back – look for the beautiful brunette in pink). She personally e-mailed me a very gracious message and I think that’s pretty darn cool. Graciousness may not necessarily be a dying art, but it’s not exactly glowing with good health. It renews my faith in its ability to heal when people like Sofia J and gracious authors like Cameron C. Taylor exhibit its beauty.
- Mikela Mercier, 11, was looking through video tapes in a Salvation Army thrift store in Honolulu. She found $1,000 tucked inside one of them and turned every one of them in. All 1,000. I’m a firm believer in kharma and I’m certain this cool kid is in store for some major coolness coming her way. If good thoughts help, I’m sending her a gazillion.
- Brittany and Emily – my oldest daughters – refuse to get anything but A’s in college. Brittany is even rocking an A in one of the toughest college courses known to student-kind: Anatomy. She and Emily have (in fact) never gotten anything other than A’s in college and, I’m sorry if I sound like a I make no apologies for being a proud mother. I taught my girls at home throughout their entire school years and knew, firsthand, that my studious little Emily would always be a straight A college student. I mean, the girl lived to read and learn – they’ve always been like sunlight to her. When there were days I honestly didn’t want to give them any “after school” studies, she’d actually ask for some! But, Brittany? Well, she’s more like her mother when it comes to studious pursuits (it has to be scheduled around shopping, hell-o). She has completely blown me away with her commitment to her studies. They’re cool girls and I don’t shy away from saying so. If they weren’t my own daughters, I’d be going on about them, so I’m not going to let being perceived as a proud mom stop me. Frankly, I think parents should look for more opportunities to express their approval and pride.
- My youngest daughter Stephany also impresses me with the way she raises the cool bar. She’s in many ways, your typical young girl – too pretty for her own good. Yesterday, she put on a Halloween costume (Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz) to go out with her boyfriend. She put it on and, I thought looked adorable, but she felt like it was “too short,” so off we went to find a different one. She found Plan B which included leggings and, well, quite a bit of material. Personally, I’m around enough young people to know that modesty isn’t in much better health than graciousness. When I see it, it makes me smile.
- Barack Obama and John McCain. In an election that has shown the ugliest possible sides of some celebrities, media, and rednecks – the two stars of the moment have conducted themselves with class and high levels of coolness. I can’t help thinking that this election will be pretty close, because I (myself) have gone back and forth over my choice more than once!
- Husband. My hubby actually deserves a couple of mentions. For one, last night he surprised me by taking me out to one of my favorite restaurants – in spite of the fact that he’d been on the road all day and would have loved nothing more than to introduce his face to a pillow. This cool move came on the heels of something he did for me last week that earned major cool hubby points: He took my vehicle to a car wash, washed it, vaccuumed it out AND filled it with gas for me (and its tank isn’t one many people would want to fill). It was a ridiculously thoughtful (and oh so appreciated!) thing to do.
- YOU! You’re paying me the highest compliment in the world by reading my words and I’m just completely humbled by the fact that anyone would do so. When I think of the people on the other side of these words, I never cease to smile. Ooop, there it happened again. Thank you for all the smiles. I’ve done something that I think will be pretty cool for those of you who leave comments. I’ve installed a plugin that’ll actually show your most recent blog post title when you leave a comment. It’s a really cool little plugin and will serve as a great PR agent for you.
From a Self Help, Self Improvement standpoint, I think the Coolbies above offer us all a couple of lessons.
- For one, we should always be gracious – whether someone has done something large or small for us, they’ve still done something for us. To not say “Thank you” from the heart is all kinds of uncool.
- We should always strive to do more than “good enough.” Average should never be an option – we should want much better for ourselves than that!
- We should put other people’s needs and even wants ahead of our own. I could go on for two forevers about the evils and the wrongs of selfishness – but I can condense it in a way that’ll speak to all of us: Selfishness is ugly and nobody wears it well.
- By contrast, modesty is a beautiful trait. Like graciousness, it’s getting to where it’s so rare that it’s even more beautiful.
- Disagreeing is a part of life. No two people are going to agree on everything all the time. But leave the bickering, throwing jabs, yelling, and belittling to The View. Yeah, I went there.
- If you love someone and truly care about their happiness, ask yourself this: “What’s the last selfless thing I did for this person?” If they were to compile their own Coolbie list, would you even be on it?!
If not, well, that’s just not cool.
Have a great weekend and go do something cool for someone!
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