Top ten | Squirrels in the Doohickey Top ten | …and other profound observations of the absurd

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10 Signs You’ve Got Squirrels in the Doohickey

March 1, 2015 by Diane

We’ve all heard about it– from friends, loved ones, a medical professional, some guy in a hard hat. We’ve seen it in the news, read it online, heard it on the radio. It’s outnumbering the cases of Ebola and the measles. You know what I’m talking about.

Squirrels in the Doohickey.

To find out if you’ve got it, or had it, or might get it, here are 10 signs to watch for in yourself. Or others.

1. You believe everything you think.

2. You believe everything everyone else thinks.

3. You forgot to remember the thing you forgot. And you are now trying to make sense of this statement.

4. You wake up in the morning, get out of bed, and realize you’re still dreaming. So you wake up, get out of bed, and realize you’re still dreaming. So you wake up, get out of bed–you get my drift.

5. The number of drafts you’ve written for your novel exceeds the number of pages. The length of time it takes you to prepare for a date exceeds the length of the relationship. The amount of effort you put into avoiding failure exceeds the amount of effort to succeed.

6. You’re the instructor of a student driver. If you willingly put your life into the hands of a teenager operating heavy machinery, there’s definitely something amiss in your doohickey.

7. Your greatest contribution to humankind is the colonoscopy prep.

8. When you finally became aware of your thoughts, the thought you were thinking was, “what was I just thinking?”

9. You spent eight years of your life, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, so you can peer at the fungus between people’s toes. And you get excited if it glows.

10. You spend hours and hours every week, oh, say, writing posts for this blog, even though your logical self is prodding you to spend the time on more lucrative endeavors, such as copywriting, and your emotional self is shouting at you to go outside and, well, play, and your wise self is whispering in your ear to focus on your soul-food, which happens to be, oh, fiction writing, but you ignore the wisdom and keep blogging (or whatever it is you do) week after week after week. That, my friend, is a sure sign that the squirrels have taken over.

So, how did you score?

1 – 3 symptoms, you’re naturally screwy.

4 – 6 symptoms, your doohickey is wide open.

7 – 10 symptoms, you’ve got a clear case of rodents in the wiring. Admit it. You now have an excuse for your behavior.

Want to really drive yourself squirrelly? Try reasoning with a fax machine.

Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: humor,meditation,mental health,Top ten | 8 Comments
Ten Tips to Make Life A Breeze–the Final Five

February 22, 2015 by Diane

Did you miss me?

I bought a new MacBook Air. I relinquished my old computer to the genius at the Apple store so he could migrate my files from one laptop to the other. Did it go smoothly?

No!

I was UNPLUGGED for THREE DAYS.

Which was kinda great.

I had three days to laze around the park on my picnic blanket reading novels. Sorry East Coasters and MidWesters, but we’re having a warm spell in the Golden State of Being. When those of us here are duking it out over that last drop of water, YOU can all blog about how absolutely verdant is your valley.

But I digress.

I promised you five more tips to make life a breeze. And I trust you’ve been eagerly awaiting them, so without further ado, here they be…

Tip number 6: Faster is not necessarily better

Now that I have a Mac, I have instantaneous connection. Meaning…whenever a thought flits through my mind that is the least bit fascinating, (which is most of the time), I flip open my Mac, load up a blank document, and start typing. This is becoming a problem. I’m spending more time on the computer, not less. That slow-loading PC which drove me mad, in hindsight, may have been a blessing. That twenty minutes it took to load…well, I got a lot done in twenty minutes! I ate a turkey sandwich with a side of tortilla chips and miniature carrots. I read a chapter or two of a book. I filed my nails. Now, I’m pecking at the keyboard 24/7. Faster is not necessarily better. Unless you’re having a root canal at the dentist. Or on hold with your internet provider.

Tip number 7: Frisbee Golf will save your relationship

If you have an athletic friend, or mate, or spouse, and the idea of sports is slightly repellant to you, here’s a nifty solution to keep your relationship intact. Play Frisbee Golf. You be the caddy. As caddy, the only thing you lug around is your beverage of choice. Between sips, point to hidden gems in the neighborhood or park or university campus where your sports-fiend friend can aim the frisbee. But don’t make it easy. Say something like, “Okay, you have to throw it between those two oak trees, around that row of bushes, and land in the lap of the statue. Par three.” Then sip your drink and follow your frisbee-fanatic in a leisurely fashion, while shouting out the score.

Tip number 8: Use your emotions as a barometer

Are you on your right path, or wasting time? A good way to figure out is to check in with your feelings. Are you joyful? Bingo. You’re tuned into the Universal Vibe. Depressed? A good sign you’re not at the frequency that your spirit intends. To work your way up the emotional scale, and hence onto your right path, try the tips from the book Ask and It Is Given, as channeled by Esther Hicks. Don’t let the channeling part freak you out. The ideas are valid. Here’s my review of the book on GoodReads.

Tip number 9: If your blender burps your beverage, don’t drink it!

I learned this the hard way. After whipping up my usual smoothie of coconut yogurt, soy milk, banana, almond butter, frozen chard, frozen spinach…are you still with me?…and protein powder, the thing coagulated and sunk with a belch. “WOW, that’s not a good sign,” I said to myself, and then drank it. The detox effect kept me marooned at home for half a day.

Tip number 10: To keep celery fresh, wrap it in tin foil

You can thank Martha Stewart for this one. I don’t know how she figured it out, but celery will keep fresh in tin foil for YEARS. The woman is a genius.

Category Ain't Life Grand | Tags: books,humor,Top ten | 6 Comments
Ten Tips to Make Life a Breeze

February 8, 2015 by Diane

A breeze, eh?

Well, the title made you click on this post, right? That’s the power of a headline. Now…can I back up that powerful headline with ten good tips?

Well.

Er.

Okay, here goes…

Tip number 1: There’s a right way and a wrong way to make a To-Do list

First off, To-Do lists might as well be called To-Don’t lists, because most of what’s on the list to do never gets done. Why? We dump whatever’s in our brains onto a pad of paper, manage to knock off one or two tasks, and then we add five more. In other words, the list never ends! How’s that for motivation? So here’s the new rule: write down a reasonable amount of tasks to do, say, two or three. (Making a list for the week? Jot down seven items; one for each day.) Now…you can’t add anything to the list until you’ve done everything on it. That’s it. That’s the rule. I don’t care how long that thing hangs on your refrigerator door, you must abide by the rule. Trust me, the To-Dos will get done.

Tip number 2: The tickler file to the rescue

But I’ve got all these things that come up during the week, and if I don’t add them to the list, I’ll forget! Not so. Why? Because you’ve got a handy-dandy tickler file. What’s a tickler file? A shoebox. An in-basket. A plastic file nailed to your wall. Whatever. You get the idea. Now, when those ideas come rushing in, jot them down on a scrap of paper, one scrap per idea, and toss them in the file. Then forget about ‘em. Come Sunday (or whatever day you designate), you go through the file and do one of three things:

Do the task (if it takes less than 2 minutes)

Delegate it to someone else

Defer it to another day. That doesn’t mean you add it to the To-Do list. It means that you write it in a notebook in one of several categories:

Calls to make
Stuff to do at home
Stuff to do on the computer
Errands to run
Someday/maybe

Then, next Sunday, after you go through your tickler file, you scan your notebook and pick seven tasks to put on your new To-Do list. Got it? Good.

(You can thank David Allen for this one. His book is: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity)

Tip number 3: Schedule ten-minute tasks

Need to clean out those old files? Go through that teetering stack of magazines? Get rid of clothes you never wear? Any project can be tackled in ten-minute increments. It’s surprising how much you can get done in ten eensy-weensy minutes. Just set the timer and have at it. When the timer goes off, stop. Ta-da! You’ve made progress. Doesn’t that feel good?

Tip number 4: Take a break, kid!

We’re more productive if we take a break every ninety minutes. A break can mean walking around the office, talking to a co-worker (oh, you do that constantly? Cut it out!), running up and down the stairs, meditating, having a donut. Whatever. As long as you step away from whatever you’re doing, your batteries will get a nice recharge. If you doubt what I’m saying, read The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. (Wow, that’s a mouthful!) It’s a whole book on the subject of productivity, backed up with lotsa studies.

Tip number 5: Do one thing at a time

I might have said this in a previous post, but it bears repeating. When you work, work. When you talk, talk. When you listen, listen. When you eat, eat. When you sleep, sleep. One thing at a time, buster. Mindfully. It makes the moment seem longer. It makes you feel more relaxed. Give it a try!

That’s it! Five tips to make life a breeze.

But wait, you promised ten tips!

Oh yeah.

Well, you’ll just have to tune in next week.

* * *

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Category Ain't Life Grand | Tags: goals,mindful,Top ten | 6 Comments