Top reasons why you should love life...

So, we're all in this cycle: the economy sucks, the Dow Jones is now the Down Jones (although I hear it's up lately), jobs are less safe than before, some of us are getting pay cuts, the swine flu looms in the horizon, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Life can be hard, brutal, unexpected in its cruelty. But then, life is, at all times, just beautiful, if you know where to look. So here's my partial list of why I love life, despite all the downs, the uncertainty, the lack of a crystal ball, and the plain hardship that it can present.

1. Light. When I wake up in the morning, I can see the hue of dawn cast on the sky through my windows. My heart just stops at the sight of it, and then I remember to breathe. And then I wish I could capture not just the color, but the feeling of a new day.

2. Spring - need more reason than the purity of rebirth? Colors are intense in their green, flowers start to pop in unexpected places - like the center of the 241 toll road on my way to work. It's purple, lush and full of life, and a constant reminder of the consistency of nature in the inconsistency of life.

3. Rain. I love the rain almost as much as I love Spring. It washes it all, and as I inhale, I can smell the richness of the earth. Colors intensify under it, even as the gray mantle of the sky takes over in the horizon.

4. My heart. When it rejoices, there's no bounds. When it breaks, there's no bottom. And through it all, I'm just grateful that I can feel.

5. Sound - of birds outside my window in this neighborhood of houses and streets and traffic. Birds still nest in my trees and chirp their eager, happy song every morning. They remind me that there's more than meets the eye when I can be sure of their presence just by the sound of their song.

6. Friendship. It takes you up, it takes you down, and it just gets you through it all. I don't think I have an abundance of true friends, but those true friendships I do have are more than any one person could ask for. Each is a treasure, and each gives me a reason to have hope that, no matter what the future holds, life is worth experiencing and sharing with others.

7. Laughter. That of my children, which is a mixture of baby gurgles and little girl giggles. There is no sweeter sound. The laughter that my husband can bring me on any given day, because he can be a funny guy. Laughter shared among friends, because it takes away everything else. There are no worries where laughter lives.

8. Love - yeah... the sappy kind that makes you almost blind to everything else, fills your heart to the brink, and makes you vulnerable beyond your comfort level.

9. Adversity. Life isn't perfect, and happiness is never complete. There are only perfect moments, and in the balance we can only hope that those moments are greater than the non-perfect ones. Still, adversity largely makes us who we are, and gives us the contrast we need to appreciate what we do have. And who would have thought that, in those moments when we have to prioritize, the things we hold most dear are the simple joys and the truest gifts?

10. Art. Be it music, dance, paint... you name your type, and you'll understand why.

Filing dos and don'ts...

For those of you who ever wonder, those of you who never were exposed to the complicated world of filing, those of you who have never come across a filing cabinet or a filing system, and those of you who, like me, find yourselves in the midst of a filing disaster that threatens to intrude in your thoughts when you wake up at 3 a.m. for until the disaster is under control. Please note, this is just a guide. Your can create your own system. And, as you'll see, just having everything in alpha order is not enough.

DO file things by functional area (advisory board, events, programs, reports, whatever).
DO order your functional areas in alpha order.
DO file things in alpha order within each area.
DO group separate larger areas to compartmentalize (administrative v. programs v. personal)

DON'T just create a jumbled mess by putting everything under the moon in alpha order. And here's the why of this blog. The following list is a random, very small sample of files found under alphabetical order in a drawer that shall not be disclosed. Individual and company names have been changed to protect the unsuspecting victims. Asterisks denote actual file names (not making it up).

C -
Carnegie Mellon
Cornwell, Sam
Credit Reports
...
F -
Fantastic Sam's
Foundstone
Financial Investment Ideas
Fitzgerald, Ella
Fortune 500
Fun Stuff *
...
G -
Gandolfini, John
General Electric
Good Ideas *
Green, James
Green Peace

Also found was a file for Jokes, two files for the same program under different letters, and several duplicate files for companies for which files already exist - which, by the way, were just sitting in the same office.

Eek!!!

Kids say the darnest things...

We were at a little dinner at Katarina's daycare, an end-of-year get together for her classroom, when Larissa spotted one of the pregnant teachers. 

"Mommy, did Tiffany really want a baby? Or did she just get one?" She asked.

Katarina, in all her three-year-old wisdom, replied "She got married to her husband, then she got skinny, then she got fat with her baby."

Rock anywhere?

LGBT Curriculum in K-5

The news today announced that the Alameda County board of education has approved the teaching about homosexuality in grades K-5 as part of an attempt to curb bullying. Whether this is a good move or not is not the point of this quick blog. I'd rather focus on the irony of the situation.

During the heated campaign around Prop 8 in California, supporters of the proposition used several arguments that in a previous blog I highlighted as unfounded. The irony today is that one of those tactics was to denounce the fact that, should Prop 8 fail, our schools would be teaching young children about homosexual relationships. There was outcry from all sorts of groups. My friends and I engaged in heated debate around this. Yet I venture to say that not that many people actually tried to find out if such an accusation had any foundation in reality.

Well, my friends, it did not. And today, after Prop 8 not only has passed, but has been ratified by the California Supreme Court, a district in Northern California has approved one of the very things supporters of 8 so emphatically used as a reason to pass Prop 8.

What do they have to say now?

Remember: check the facts.

Kids...

Most of you know that I talk to my girls in Spanish mostly (lately, English has been creeping in, against my better judgment). From the day they were born, this has been something I've been determined to give to them.

My hope? That they will learn the language, of course. I figured eventually they'll take it in school, and one day I'll send them off to grandma for a summer of full immersion.

My frustration? That they never speak in Spanish to me. Why would they?? Try as I may, it ain't happening.

My rewards? Not many. There was Larissa at 11 months saying "agua" as her first word ever (go figure). There is Katarina throwing a word here and there, mixed into a sentence of fluent English. There's the girls praying in Spanish with me at bedtime. There is the girls learning how to tell Jim his butt is big in Spanish, and enjoying it immensely (hey, I gotta find the way to get them talking, right? A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do...)

The same thing is happening with German, by the way... Larissa is in Saturday German School, and Jim and I could swear she's not learning a thing, not a peep, nada, zilch, zero. The teacher says differently, however, so we keep at it and will be enrolling Katarina come September.

And here's the kicker. The reason that tells me I must persist, and the fact that will keep me going. And yet another window into the little person that is my oldest daughter.

I went to pick up Larissa from school yesterday. On our way out, we run into one of the custodians. He stopped and started talking in Spanish to her (my friend! How are you? See you Monday, right? etc.) Larissa just nodded, which seemed totally in character to me.

He looked at me and said, in Spanish:
"She speaks Spanish."
"She understands it..." I replied, smiling, and hoping, as I usually do.
"No, she speaks it too."
I looked at him, puzzled. Maybe Larissa was saying a word here and there. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"She comes over with two of her friends, and they talk to me in Spanish. They tell me 'here's my friend Tony, how are you, etc.' She speaks Spanish!"

I was elated. I was frustrated. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to strangle her. I opted for smiling at Tony and thanking him for the best news he could have delivered and wishing him a great weekend.

As we walked to the car, I asked her. "Do you talk to him in Spanish?" The little brat smiled sheepishly, avoided my eyes, and said "Si."

Ugh.