Tag Archives: discovery

Suburban Surprise

26 Sunday May 2013

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DeerI’ve been feeling a little out of shape recently.  I haven’t been getting a lot of exercise, and yet I’m feeling like I’m in a spot where I really NEED it.  My work is fantastic – I love the team and what we’re working on together.  It’s just mentally exhausting.  I come home happy and fried.  Tapped out.  I remember part of the workshop I took last fall where we learned what our unique needs are.  What are our main ‘tanks’ and how do we keep them filled?  When they’re filled we’re at our optimum…at our best!  When they’re depleted, it’s a mess.

Apparently I need 7 hours of exercise a week to be at my best.  SEVEN!  That’s one freakin’ hour a day!  And I can assure you I’m nowhere near doing that right now.  I’m taking a sabbatical from hockey – man, when I first started playing I skated 4 nights a week!  And prior to taking up hockey I walked about 5 miles a day (with hills) every day for about 6 months…every day without fail.  That was the summer of 2003 when the weather was super hot and sunny.  I remember losing about 30-35 lbs in the process and getting in the best shape of my life cardio-wise as well.  OK wait…an hour and a half of walking every day and I morphed gradually into a svelte size 6.  Hmmm…and I needed ‘just’ an hour a day but didn’t know it at the time?  I do remember how energized I felt and how happy I was with my new figure…and so happy in general.  Maybe I really DO need an hour of exercise a day!

Well, they say there’s no better time to start (or restart) than NOW.  This is a lazy Memorial Day Weekend…no plans except for a super fun lunch and shopping date with my Mom yesterday (a belated birthday celebration).  I’m still grinning about the daytrip J and I took to Mount St. Helens last Sunday…on my birthday!  What an incredible trip it was.  The only thing that was a wee bit of a bummer was that there was too much snow on the trails to hike.  We were looking forward to getting some exercise outdoors after a 3 hour car ride but that will happen next time!  Still, an amazing experience.

So today I put on my walking gear and grabbed my iPod…time to explore my neighborhood once again on foot!  I live at the bottom of a very steep hill and yes, that was a part of my daily walking routine 10 years ago.  That hill is a butt (and lung) kicker…today I opted for a flatter route.  The drizzle was starting to morph into rain and I wondered if it would continue to get worse or clear up.  Thankfully it cleared up…I got so warm I had to ditch my windbreaker.

Here in the Seattle suburbs, so much open, vacant land has been gobbled up by subdivisions.  Call it thriving progress or call it sad…it’s our reality.  Frankly, I love the growth here in the region.  I’ve lived here all my life and am passionate about the Northwest…and proud that so many major businesses call this region home headquarters too.

I headed north up the main road near my townhouse and into the next town’s city limits.  Walking alongside a 4-lane road isn’t the most relaxing thing to do, but wide sidewalks and little traffic (not much on a Sunday holiday weekend) make it decent.  Once you get onto side streets there are a ton of windy roads and cul-de-sacs to get wonderfully lost in.  As I was deciding which side street to explore, I suddenly spotted a couple off to my right walking their dog.  They were on a gravelly trail just off the main road!  Dang, how many times have I walked right past that trail and never saw it?  Probably hundreds.  Certainly it wouldn’t be visible whizzing by in your car.  I smiled and walked up to them…where does the trail go, I asked?  They said oh, it “just goes back a ways.”  Ok, that’s a funny, vague answer!  They didn’t even know if it was public or private.  OK, so if I’m trespassing I’ll just laugh and say hey, what’s for dinner?

I looked down the trail…lots of trees were surrounding it and there were benches every so often. Looked public to me, but I didn’t see any signs posted.  So, I started down the trail, feeling a little giddy.  Here was a trail right in my neighborhood I was exploring for the first time!  After about a quarter of a mile the trail ran between houses in a suburban development and dumped me out into a cul-de-sac.  OK, that was somewhat interesting!  But I remembered further back there was a fork in the trail.  I retraced my steps back and took it.  There was one last bench and I was surrounded by thick trees again.

Then, I turned a corner…and look at the welcoming committee in the picture!  Do you know that feeling when you’re alone but you suddenly feel like you’re not alone?  That’s a jolt I felt right before looking to my left and spotting the two deer!  Wow, I was surprised!  Surprised not only that there is undeveloped land in this part of our suburbs, but that deer are here too!  We really don’t see much wildlife around here…maybe a raccoon or coyote late at night, but certainly not deer!  I wonder if that land is even develop-able (is that a word)?  Is it too marshy?  Who knows.

I’m going to go back tomorrow and see if they are still there!

Changes Dunked in Silver

01 Sunday May 2011

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May already??  Wow. 

Well, it was quite a week.  And how could we not recap a week without a big nod to the Royal Wedding – ?  C’mon, even the most anti out there saw a few clips of it or at least the pictures?  And maybe even cracked a smile?  It was breathtaking.  Not so breathtaking for me to feel like getting up at 3am to watch it live, but I do know of a few ladies who did get up early and have a pajama party – with their best HATS on.  Love it!  And pass the tea and scones, please, darling.

So, changes.  Changes are good – good to refresh, re-analyze and re-group.  My work assignment is getting a brief extension at least into the summer – possibly into the fall – but that still has not hashed out.  Good Lord have I been back at work nearly a year?  Yes indeed.  All of that stress and anguish I went through prior to landing this gig won’t soon be forgotten.  So nice to have it far in the rear view mirror.  But with a few scars…and that’s OK.

Two of my closest co-workers wrapped up their assignments this week and are moving on.  One won’t be going too far it turns out, as she’ll be joining kind of a ‘cousin’ team of ours, but I’ll miss her ‘partner in crime’ that she’s been this past year.  Another is required to take about 3 months off – that’s the rules with some kinds of contingent workers – and she is hoping to return and pick up where she left off.

I’m happy for them both but admittedly a little sad.  But moreso I have a shitload of hilarious memories.  Things that may have sucked before but are now funny. 

I capped off the workweek with a wonderful dinner with my dear friend L at Brix, a wine bar a short drive from my house.  She’s a part of that circle of friends I get together with a few times a year – we’re all about the same age and went to elementary school together.  Unwinding over a nice pinot gris and to die for risotto was heavenly.  L and I can just smile at eachother and ‘know’ what we’re each thinking.  Oodles of memories over some 35 years.  

And the silver, silver, silver flows and flows.  I’m taking a few extra steps in my Silpada business by doing a sort of correspondence course with a coach at the corporate offices.  She sends me ‘homework’ each week for 4 weeks and I send it back at the end of the week.  She sends me feedback, the next week’s ‘homework,’ and we also chat on the phone during the week too.

Ugh.  I know myself pretty well and am realizing where I’m doing well in promoting my business and where I suck monkey butt.  I have a party next weekend that I’m SUPER excited about.  And one night I met up with a good friend I hadn’t seen in quite awhile for dinner and half priced bottles of wine.  She asked about the jewelry I was wearing, I let her road test a few pieces during dinner, and voila – that evening I had a very nice order from her!  So I feel comfortable when people approach me with questions or compliments.  I’ve been complimented on my jewelry from random strangers in the grocery store to the cashier in one of our work cafeterias.  You can bet I never go anywhere without my jewelry on and a handful of business cards.  Yes, I’m learning the nuts and bolts of direct selling.  It’s all about connections, people!  The woman who is hosting my party next week noticed my jewelry at work and it just flowed from there.  You never know!

But I hate picking up the damn phone.  It’s no problem for me when I’m doing follow up calls to make sure people are happy with their jewelry and to answer any other questions, but just making outbound calls to people I know to talk about what I’m doing and to ask if they’d like to host parties.  Well, ew.  I am so not a sales person, and frankly, when I get home from work I am tired and the last thing I feel like doing is picking up the phone.  I feel like I’m intruding on people’s dinner time or other quality time with family.  And you know I don’t mean to be whiney in here because I DO love what I’m doing as a side business, but that’s the area I need to really work on.

And it suddenly dawned on me why.

Email!  Texting!  Facebook!  So much of my immediate circle communication is through non-phone, social media methods!  Aha!  Is that something unique to me?  Or to this part of the country?  I have beautiful snail mail postcards in my supplies which are used to send out reminders about parties.  I don’t know about any of you, but around here we stick with Evite.  Is it because it’s ‘green’?  Or technological?  It’s SO much easier to set up parties and have reminders sent automatically via email.  

So these are some fun self-discovery things…part of the reason I chose to start this business was to get out of my comfort zone and do something I’d never done before.  Same as my plunge into hockey back in 2003.

I’ll be speaking during part of our monthly team meeting this week and I’m really honored to be asked. It’s very informal – just sharing the tips I’ve learned from this 4-week course I’m doing on my own – but I really appreciate the chance to participate more in our meetings.  ‘Cause they’re super fun!!

And now it’s time to head to the bank and run other fun errands.  Got a shiny new Silpada license plate frame on my car – let’s see what happens!