Monthly Archives: June 2015

How to protract successfully, invented by Niklas

Have you ever wondered how you could postpone the point in time when you have to go to bed? And how to do this successfully? Meaning that none of the parents gets angry.

Here is one of approaches invented and thoroughly tested by my son Niklas.

Make the parent, who brings you to bed (for example, Papa) to wait by giving the other parent (in this example, Mama) three kisses on each cheek and on the forehead too; nine kisses in total. Then correct those kisses that were given too briefly. Meaning give them again, or make the whole procedure from the very beginning. After that give a big hug to this kissed parent. This parent is so happy that she holds you in her arms and completely forgets that she wanted to urge you to follow the first parent, who is in his turn tired at the end of the day but doesn’t dare to tear this happy bonding apart.

Picture: here is my sweet Emma, who is currently also testing various approaches how to delay falling asleep.

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A thesaurus prompt – Wisdom starts with a W

I always had a weakness for thesauri and “explanatory”, as they referred to in Russian, dictionaries.

Now being a writer I understand why. Thesauri uncover the secrets behind words and show, which of other words are their allies and which are their opponents. And the dictionaries with explanations for each word give often brilliant examples of their use.

Some time ago I read about an idea to use dictionaries and words within as writing prompts.

So I decided to try this out for the post today.

I opened one of my compact thesauri on page 290 and came to letter W. The words on it made me curious to try something with them. And as I was contemplating what I could write, I realized that the word “wisdom” also starts with a W.

Thus it is decided, I will attempt to write a wisdom out of the words I found on page 290. Here are these words:

– wary, wash, washout, waspish, waste, watch, watchful, watchword, watery, wave, waver, wax, and way.

Thirteen words. A very suitable number to add up to a new wisdom. 🙂

So here it comes:

I watched myself as I made waves with wary movements. Each of my moves wavered the watery cocktail of my life, which lacking taste at the beginning turned quickly into wax, the liquid of fun washed out in an instant. First I was waspish about this washout, but then I stepped back and found fun observing my human behavior. As I came back to the present moment I discovered the sense of my way. Nothing that occurs is wasted. I don’t need to be watchful and expect attacks or failures. No watchword is needed to open the door to an exciting and extraordinary life. All it takes is to see that it is already happening.

Picture: As I woke up from my reveries during breakfast yesterday, I discovered this beautiful view of our developing garden.

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For a good laugh

I have several books with quotes, jokes and “Brain Droppings” as the title of a book by George Carlin name them.

This book is one of the quirkiest, funniest and sharpest of this kind I have found so far.

Here are five of George Carlin’s brain droppings I’ve discovered in this book today (and which made me laugh, as well as also stop and think), with some of my brain droppings on the side:

“A laugh is a smile with a hole in it.”
That made a hole in my smile.

“I never liked a man I didn’t meet.”
Did this make you frown and then laugh?

“Always do whatever’s next.”
Obvious, isn’t it? No more questions in the future.

The Rule No. 11 from “Rules to live by” is simply hilarious and makes daydreaming, of which I often blame myself, sound all the more attractive 😉 :
“Always remember, today doesn’t count. Trying to make something out of today only robs you of precious time that could be spent daydreaming or resting up.”

“The nicest thing about anything is not knowing what it is.”
True. As soon as we think we know it, this anything looses its sparkle for us. But if we notice that it interests others, we suddenly see it in a different light, since we didn’t know it could be interesting for someone else except us. So, it’s new and unknown again.

Pictures: I discovered these after waking from two different day dreams (And in case you ask, or maybe not – yes, I did make an “Aw!” sound and water the second).

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Relativity of the impossible

Ambitions and agendas drive us forward, make us motivated and are necessary for the progress. In our hurried times our agendas become overcrowded, overloaded and over the top. We even create agendas for agendas. And then we moan about not being able to relax or don’t have the time for free time. At least the voice of my internal radio plays this moaning “song” regularly.

A judging “song” follows.

And you know what I discover again and again? It’s all natural! Even my sweet little daughter Emma has agendas and as soon as she gets what she wants (for example Mama’s scarf) she disregards this very thing she wanted a second ago and wants the next thing (Mama’s locket on a chain, which Mama forgot to take off).

And then there is a “song” about impossibility and hardship of life. The life does appear hard, and quite often. Even when the dreams come true. The wonderful thing is to realize that the “life-is-hard” is just an angle we see it. At another angle it can appear completely differently.

So let’s experiment and find angles at which life is simply fun.

Picture: Who said, it’s impossible to wear many hats at the same time? My son Niklas proves the opposite.

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Question: Do you remember the last time you were in rage or on the verge of tears and then in the next moment laughing (maybe through tears) and wanting to dance (or jump, or similar)? Who or what helped you to switch your life from impossible to wonderful?

A braided day

Multitasking was “in” several years ago. And since it didn’t work for many, concentrating on one task or uni-tasking is more and more appreciated and emphasized today.

I must admit that I sometimes confuse uni-tasking for doing one thing the whole day or at least for the biggest part of it. This misconception does lead me into upsets and being annoyed on all kind of interruptions including from inside, like hunger, thirst etc.

Today was one of the days when I became aware of this behaviour on my part. So I started a game with myself naming all the jobs and/or activities I was practicing today. Here are some of them (please, don’t take them too seriously or literally):

  • Day-care provider for my six-month-old daughter,
  • Entertainer for my children,
  • Santa-Claus on the International Children’s Day,
  • Cook for my family,
  • Cleaning personnel,
  • Moving specialist (unpacker) with inner design skills (applicable probably only to our home),
  • Writer,
  • Editor of technical content,
  • Job searcher,
  • Home owner showing the building company specialist, which small quirks in our house are to be corrected,
  • Travel manager assistant (within family),
  • Laundry master,
  • Knowledge manager (in our new home, where to find what 😉 ),
  • Etc.

Some of the activities were done and finished. But most of them were started, interrupted by another one, mainly by the very first one in the list above, and then done again.

If I smiled at this “chaos”, then it became productive; if I complained, the space around me darkened, in spite of the bright shiny day today.

Fortunately, the complaints were often exchanged with wonder at all the surprises the life had for me in tow and how my plans for several hours up front were always overthrown.

So, during one of the washing/cleaning activities, I think it was while drying Emma’s bottles, I tried to imagine a pattern for my day it could symbolize. Braids came immediately to mind. I considered the alternative of mosaic but realized that some of the activities were not granular but continued after being interrupted, and if I took care of and time for them then the “hair” inside was smooth and “obedient” and braided nicely into a clean arc.

You might ask, what this kind of symbol is good for. Well, it helped me to visualize my day and seeing it as a braid made it pretty, not an ugly and miserable experience of chaos as I often had in the past.

Then, in the past, I often considered only one activity as worthy and important, so that I consequently and subsequently thought: “I didn’t manage anything today!” But when I made the list above today, the only thing I had to say was “Wow. Not bad at all!”

I am sure most of us juggle tens of activities in job, family and many other areas. And we complain that we don’t make any progress in what is supposedly our preferred occupation.

But isn’t one step forward fun in itself?! Because it brings us further. Every step is a step forward, because we can learn from any of our experiences, even when being tired and irritated. But only if we take a step back, disengage from those feelings and consider them in a nonjudgmental way.

Then we are free to choose the next step without any pressure of achievement or fear what others would say.

Picture: I must say that I am in awe again and again that our house, the way it is today, was built upon the design decisions and adjustments by my husband and me. That we were who made it possible. Here you can see how it looked from outside about a week ago. Now the garden and terraces are taking shape. All of this was and is done one step at a time. In a very braided manner. Also when not done by us.

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