Author: Meredith

I am grateful to be alive and well on this day. That might seem like I’m grasping at straws at first glance, but I assure you that is not the case. You see, a very important woman who works for the College of Engineering left work yesterday complaining of fatigue. She thought a hot shower and an early bedtime would right her wrong. That was unfortunately not the case. She didn’t show up to work this morning, so they called her to see what happened. The details escape me, but the end result was that she never woke up. They found her dead this morning and suspect it was a heart attack. Women, please be sure to read up on signs and symptoms of heart attacks in women as 70% of women who had heart attacks experienced unusual fatigue up to a month or more in advance of their heart attacks. It’s not necessarily going to be like what you see happening to men.

So today I’m grateful that I woke up this morning, dragged myself out of bed, and went to work. I’m grateful for every moment I’m getting to pay this game we call life.

Facebook offers users the ability to become fans of people, places, and things. I’m sure you’ve been invited or recommended to join a page if you’re a Facebook user. Yesterday I was invited to join the Einstein Brother’s Bagels fan page with the promise of a coupon for a free bagel and schmear. I was skeptical about the validity of the coupon at the on campus Einstein Brother’s location — many of the chains on campus won’t honor the coupons. This morning, I decided to test it out, and I found out that they accept the coupons. So, I’m grateful for that free everything bagel with plain cream cheese. I do so love a good bakery fresh bagel. I miss New York City bagels as they’re absolutely the best ever.

I have recently issued a cease and desist notice to He Who Must Not Be Named and was blatantly ignored. I issued a secondary cease and desist to his web host and domain host as well. Seriously, why is it so hard to expect compliance? I don’t dabble in the same business as You Know Who does, therefore I want absolutely no associations to his websites whatsoever. I don’t appreciate the fact that he’s possibly negatively affecting my pagerank and potentially could bring harm to my website by referrer spamming it. It’s a lot of nonsense, and I’m publicly making the case for He Who Must Not Be Named to comply with my cease and desist request. I prefer not to go the legal route, but I will absolutely pursue an actions necessary to protect my work. I’ve held ownership of this website since 2003, and I refuse to let it all go to pot because of some random person on the internet wants to profit at my expense.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Stop listening to what everyone else is telling you and start listening to your heart. You have to believe in yourself and your abilities. A partnership will play an important role in your life. 3 stars

Today has been a Monday — to the point that I haven’t even really thought about Gratitude # 54 yet. Murphy’s Law seems to be in full force, and I’m just reacting, reacting, reacting. Remember my mindfulist post from yesterday? You know, my big five paragraph manifesto detailing ways in which to be more mindful? Well, I haven’t done so well today. I’m too busy listening to what everyone else is saying and doing (and living in the past, for that matter) instead of listening to what counts the most: me. I haven’t stopped to really assess things like I should be doing, and I’m feeling really negatively today. I started the day with a big to-do list, feeling like I would have no problems accomplishing each task. I was clearly wrong, but that doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t be a new day to get back to work on what matters most. That doesn’t mean I can’t salvage the rest of the day and believe that I can accomplish the most important things. I need to review my Mystory, particularly my emblem. Makenai!

I missed yesterday’s prompt, so I’ll do that today. As for practicing a day of mindfulness, I’m practicing rather than writing. So here’s the prompt:

[January 24th] Science of the Mindful Brain: “The three foundational elements of mindfulness—objectivity, openness, and observation—create a tripod that stabilizes the mind’s attentional lens.” – Dan Siegel, MD

Wow. I’m glad I took on the Mindfulist prompts because it would seem this concept of mindfulness is going to tie directly into my pursuits to become the best Meredith I can be. I’m going to approach this as a sort of 5 paragraph essay, although my paragraphs won’t be anything worthy of the school writing tests that we either loved or hated — I personally preferred explanatory to persuasive as I’m better at explaining than I am at debating.

We think of objectivity versus subjectivity when we read the news, and we are also encouraged to be more objective when we are making decisions. If we are subjective, we are allowing our own personal bias to blur the true meaningsof what we see and hear. In terms of mindfulness, we can let our subjective thoughts — “What a fool I am, I should’ve known that” — rather than being objective — “Well, this is what I’ve learned.” I personally could benefit from being more mindfully objective because I have a very bad habit of negative self-talk. It will take a lot of mindfulness to sit down and retrain my brain, and I certainly don’t expect it to happen overnight. As with everything else becoming intertwined, this will be approached in a FlyLady “baby steps” sort of way.

Skipping to observation, we tend to make more observations about the latest celebrity gossip rather than making observations of our surroundings and our internal thought processes. Now, I do enjoy observing my surroundings as can be noted in earlier posts. However, I need to focus more on my internal thought processes and feelings. What triggers an emotional response? How do I react? What do my emotions cause me to think? While I won’t always be able to stop and be mindful right away, I intend to take baby steps towards stopping, paying attention to my thoughts and emotions, and taking notes whenever possible. Somehow writing things out always seems to assist me in processing my thoughts anyhow. Somehow things feel much more concrete when I’ve written them out on paper or typed them into some application or another.

I understand openness in this context to mean being open to ourselves to become more open to those around us. We need to be more open to the idea of becoming more mindful, to practice mindfulness. We must be more open to seeing all facets of a situation. A slice of bread may only have two sides, but it also has many pores. We must see the slice of bread for the pores where gas bubbles formed as a result of the yeast fermenting during the rising process. We must see the slice of bread for the ingredients that created it. We must see it for the nourishment it provides, for the symbolism it has served throughout time. It is not simply a slice of bread.

To become more mindful, I will be taking baby steps to become more objective in my thoughts, emotions, and actions. I will be open to all facets of life and everything in it. I will observe as much as I can about myself and my surroundings. I will stop to meditate upon these things and practice mindfulness to become a better person. Through these processes, I hope to become more mindful in all facets of my life, paying closer attention to how I function as a human being.

I love weekends. I don’t need an alarm clock to rip me out of my nice, cozy bed. I don’t have to get going and out the door if I don’t want to. I get to spend time with my family. I get to do whatever I feel like doing — well, within the boundaries my kids set, that is. They come first, after all. Yesterday I finally decided to make a batch of doughnuts from scratch. I came to the conclusion that we’d eat doughnuts for our Sunday morning breakfast while I made pancakes after Brian got home from the store. (Yes, he got up super early to go to the store while me and the kids stayed home and slept in.) I made some pizza dough first since we needed to celebrate National Pie Day properly. Brian baked a caramel apple pie because apparently our problem areas aren’t having enough problems to begin with.

So I’ll bet you’re wondering about these home-made doughnuts. I cut Alton Brown’s doughnut recipe in half since I figured a yield of 20-25 doughnuts was way too much. I just wanted a dozen and some doughnut holes, which is exactly what the halved recipe yielded. I made some “normal” doughnuts — the kind with the hole in the middle — with chocolate coating (just melted chocolate with a bit of milk, really, but next time I’ll need cream to make it more of a ganache). I also made some raspberry jelly filled doughnuts covered in powdered sugar, making a ridiculous mess in the process of piping the jelly into them. Leave it to me to find a recipe that instructed me to pipe the filling in when most others confirmed that my idea of folding the dough over the jelly would’ve worked better. Live and learn, right? I also made some applesauce filled doughnuts with a cinnamon sugar coating. Next time I’ll do apple jelly instead, even though that experiment was alright. Hey, I’m a woman who likes to experiment with her food! Of course the little doughnut holes were fun. I forgot to save some to dip into the chocolate, but I preferred them with the cinnamon sugar coating. Next time I’ll have to figure out another storage method to keep them fresh and from getting soggy, and I’ll have to tweak the amount of sugar in the as they weren’t as sweet as we would’ve liked.

In the words of Homer Simpson, “mmm, doughnuts!”

I had come up with some fabulous gratitude post idea, but it currently eludes me. So, I’m going to go for the tried-and-true list of five.

1. I am grateful to have produced such a strong baby boy. Not everyone is so blessed, and I’m so happy to enjoy such him.
2. I am grateful that it’s Friday, and I will get to try catching up on my sleep.
3. I am grateful that the newsletter proof is on my desk and awaiting approval and pickup for Monday. I’d say this is as good as printed by the end of next week.
4. I am grateful that next Friday should be a serious pay day thanks to the IRS. We will be paying off credit cards and my Perkins loan (a student loan).
5. I am grateful that yesterday’s bad weather didn’t negatively impact my family.

Today my heart swelled with pride. You see, every work day I go home for lunch. It’s a simple thing, really, mostly meant for me to breastfeed the baby. I’ve had this arrangement in place since I started, and my daughter was still breastfeeding then. It was fantastic because my boss’ wife was breastfeeding their son who’s a month younger than my daughter — basically, he was not only following policies, he was truly understanding of the breastfeeding relationship. Anyhow, the baby finished eating but didn’t empty his plate, so-to-speak. So I set up his blanket on the floor next to the couch where my husband was sitting and placed my son on his belly for some tummy time. I sat down and got started putting away his “leftovers” in a “doggie bag,” if you catch my drift. We were watching little Junior start wiggling around and trying to push himself up, and he watched him creep inch by inch nearly two feet over to the couch. He went wiggle-worming over to see his daddy! Please note that he just turned 11 weeks on Tuesday. What a difference it makes when you haven’t had any drugs during labor and delivery! My two oldest children didn’t develop this fast, and they both were c-section babies exposed to whatever was in the spinal block. So between the all natural birth and whatever’s in my milk, this busy little bumble bee’s developing at an astonishing rate. Someone slap a warning label on me because I must be full of growth hormones!

[January 22nd] “We Exist Temporarily…”: “We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give.” – Vernon Jordan

Wow, this is quote that I think Brenda Della Casa will absolutely love. I think this quote conveys an important message that what we are taking is merely enjoyed by our own selves for the moments we enjoy that item or intangible concept. However, what we are giving to others impacts them by the show of our characters. For example, I take a sandwich from the lunch meetings as part of that benefit I enjoy. I eat the sandwich, my hunger is satiated, and that’s that. I donate money to a charitable organization, which in turn takes care of those less fortunate than me. The people I have impacted are living a better life through assistance I have given them. Instead of only benefiting myself, I have benefited others. Of course, my examples probably don’t portray the true meaning behind the quote as well as I would like for them to, but I’ve given it my best effort.

On the subject of giving, I had $2.78 built up in my PayPal account from YouData ads over the past few months. I decided to take $1.00 and donate it to Haitian earthquake relief. I plan to use another dollar to become a member/ supporter of the Florida Friends of Midwives. The other $.78? I’ll let it accumulate again.

[January 21st] Tabs: How many windows/tabs do you have open right now? How does this impact your attention?

I have 14 windows opened, 8 of which are grouped together to give the appearance of only 7 windows sitting in my task bar. In my two FireFox windows, I have 10 and 5 tabs opened respectively. Now here’s the method to my madness:

I have two windows opened for Windows Live Messenger. This is how I sporadically communicate with my husband while I’m at work, and every so often he treats me to a webcam viewing of the baby. I have a window for the storage drive open for easy access to hundreds of files. My 8 Excel files are for easy access to key files — as in keys that we give out for the rooms — and seminar attendance sheets dating back to two semesters ago. We have people complaining about “I” or “U” grades from time to time, so it’s helpful. Then I have my Outlook mailbox, which should be very self-explanatory. One FireFox window has 5 high-use tabs: the resource calendar, the UF MSE website, the resource scheduler, the current seminar line up, and FedEx. That window stays on my second monitor and usually doesn’t have anything else opened there. (I will sometimes put the babycam or other files on the second scene if I need to.) In my “goof-off” window, I have both Weather.com and Accuweather.com, my.ufl.edu (this is basically where we go to clock in and out, view paychecks, etc.), and whatever else I may happen to be looking at. This is my method.

How do all these windows and tabs affect my attention? Well, my attention is very random, in all honesty. My mind runs at 100mph most of the day, so this method works for me. Got a question for google? Pull up the FireFox “goof-off” window. Need to ship a package scroll over to the second monitor and prepare the shipment. Have a new student at your desk looking for keys? Pull up the key list. Need to find a file for the chairman? Open the storage driver folder and hunt that puppy down. I’m sure I’ve made my point. Throughout my day, I’m continually interrupted for a variety of reasons, so I can’t really devote my attention too much to one particular task. I may get a little cranky if I’ve got creativity flowing on a project, but I usually get over it quickly — because I usually get to go back to whatever I was doing within a few minutes. I don’t get cranky when it’s something goofy, though, because I know my insatiable desire to learn more about, say, psychological issues or the cute little opossum that traverses our breezeway isn’t why I’m sitting here at my desk.