Tag Archives: perspective

Catch More Than We Drop

11 May

I’m tired of the negative taking away from the positive. It seems no matter how many wonderful moments that happen on any given day, the one or two awful ones are the ones that get all the energy and determine whether it’s labeled a good or bad day. From now on, I will try to remember:

We catch more baseballs than we drop or miss.
This is something I tell Nate all the time when he gets discouraged for not making a catch or has a bad play (usually after a series of good plays). We were throwing the baseball one day and his attitude changed when a few popped out of his glove after he thought he made the catch. “I keep missing them,” he slumped. After that, I started counting his catches. “How about that one, buddy? Didn’t miss that one,” I reinforced. I got up to 24 before he missed or dropped one. Why should that one cancel out all the others? No way. Unacceptable.

Running at a slower pace than yesterday is still running.
Man, do I get down when I don’t cover as much distance as I did in a previous 30-minute run. Ridiculous. I’m out there, right? I’m not giving up. I’m running and doing something I never thought I’d do. Pushing myself and succeeding just by doing. The comparing comes from my competitive side. It is a strong spirit to reason with but I try. I feel being competitive with myself is a good thing. It keeps me trying to improve and limits my inclination to settle. When I feel the negativity creeping in, I focus on turning it to a positive (better time), instead of just realizing that just doing it is a positive. That deserves praise too.

Millions of correctly typed keys are greater than a few wrong ones.
I go along each day and do my job the right way. I fulfill requests and meet needs, often giving more than the person asked for. I get a ton of thank you emails and messages of praise. But then, I make a mistake. That’s it. All the days of performing as I should are wiped clean. Now, I beat myself up and essentially start over in the “days without a mistake” tally. Why? If your job is not life or death, like so many are not, this should not be mood-changer. I need to remember all the things I carried out without a typo or missed step. I’m not saying I shouldn’t care about the mistake, I just shouldn’t let it dictate how I feel about my contributions.

There are so many more moments that make us label a good day a bad one. Flat tire. Frustration with another person/work. Burned grilled cheese. Whatever. One moment in the day of many determines how we score the points. When I was staying at home with the kids, I used to speak in percentages when Andrew would ask me how the day was. It helped me keep things in perspective. “80 percent was great. 18 percent was a struggle. Two percent was wine time so that doesn’t count.” Whatever gets us through, trying to remember that we catch more than we drop.

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Free HBO, a Continental Breakfast and WiFi

24 Jul

What’s not to love? Those are great selling points. HBO has groundbreaking programs, a love me some one serving cereal packages and the internet is like blood to me. But none of that softens the spike I feel in my anxiety level upon entering a hotel.

I’m not sure exactly what made me so hotel-phobic. I used to love staying in them. When I was a middle schooler, my dad, stepmom and stepsister stayed in a new room almost every night for two summers during our road trips across the country. It was an adventure. We visited the most awe-inspiring places and I would often send home/collect postcards of the hotel we stayed at along with the beautiful likes of Yosemite, Yellowstone and Redwood National Parks. I was intrigued by the different places we stayed, not disgusted like I am now.

Now, I can’t relax in them at all. I loathe using the towels, sleeping in the beds, using any part of the bathroom and, of course, walking on the carpet. I even cringe at putting my face directly on the pillowcase.  (How many dirty heads have been on that thing?!)

This latest hotel we stayed at wasn’t even so bad but I still struggled. I just don’t want my freaky fears to rub off on the kids.  (I already ruined them when it comes to bugs.) So far, I think I’ve hidden my revulsion fairly well around them. Nate seemed to love his hotel stay.

He jumped from bed to bed, was pleasantly surprised when he learned they let us use their towels, wanted to cook popcorn in the mini-microwave, felt like king of the world standing on furniture to reach the sink and thoroughly enjoyed his breakfast of bagel, an apple and some waffle.

I wish some of his carefree and happy hotel handling would change my attitude. I’m pretty sure the free HBO won’t do it because I still have to touch the remote to watch it.  (Shiver.)

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From a Kid’s Eye View…

6 Nov
  • Everything is “included” when it comes to toys –
    Nia will watch a commercial featuring some toy horses and a stable and she won’t notice how cute the animals are or all the neat things that come with the stable – she’ll notice the green outdoor carpet underneath it all and exclaim, “Look Momma!  It comes with grass!”
  • Toys are much better in commercials than they are in real life –
    Sometimes the commercial will use animation to help portray that something gives off a scent – Nia will see that and say, “Momma, the strawberries fly out of their bellies!” Oh and the new thing that gets me is these commercials featuring these well-kept little girls in their perfect princess outfits playing with an unbroken kitchen set – in real life those princess dresses would be torn in places and the girls would have like brownie on their face with milk mustaches and the kitchen would be missing some essential cooking utensils plus the oven door would be hanging off – I mean come on!  I want to see some true to life kid toy commercials!  The carpet needs to be dirty and the kitchen set needs to have some crayon on it!  To make it even more real – throw in a little brother who’s trying to sit in the refrigerator and totally ruining the cookies his big sis is trying to bake!
  • You really mean what you say –
    The first time I told Nia, “momma’s just gonna go jump in the shower real quick” she replied “can I come see you jump in?  are you going to jump like this?” (acting out a jump)
  • Yesterday is today and tomorrow is yesterday –
    It is so freakin’ hard to teach this concept!  I even tried writing it down but what good will that do?  Kid can’t read yet! Andrew’s mom says to tell her we’ll be doing something in so many “sleeps.”  Like, “In 3 more sleeps (night-nights) and we’ll be going to the zoo!”
  • Hopping forward with one leg in haphazardly front of the other IS skipping –
    Yet another really hard thing to teach.
  • You don’t need to look forward to drive a car –
    I cannot even tell you how many times Nia will say, “Momma, look” while I’m trying to drive.  I tell her that I can’t turn around while I’m driving and that if I do I will boo-boo the car.  As soon as I am stopped at a red light though, she tells me that now I can look at her because I’m not driving anymore. Too smart for me.

 

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