"Mortal Combat" is for Sissies....

   Earlier this week, I posted on Facebook that "Mortal Combat" is for Sissies. For real fighting and survival skills one only need go to the grocery store during the week before Thanksgiving. It was brutal. And I had to traverse no less than four grocery stores! Between almost being run down in the parking lot, boxed in by a senior shopping cart blockade in the dairy department and nearly being impaled by a five year old in control of a full sized cart, I barely survived with my life, let alone my groceries. There was no friendly holiday spirit. No kind gestures to start off the holiday season. No room for error in navigating the aisles. One misstep and a body would become a permanent addition to the canned goods aisle.

The streets of Deadwood began to clear....

    By the time I reached the check out, I had a glint in my eye. I could hear my mental rifle being loaded as the bullets slid into their chambers and I snapped the barrel shut. I was ready for whatever came next. Survival shopping isn't pretty.

    Perhaps this is why friends and family are tentative about letting me loose at the grocery store. I don't usually get in trouble shopping. Most of the time. Okay, there was that episode where the police were called... But I didn't do anything, except raise my voice.

    I was protesting. Hey, it was legit.

    It was a looonngg line to check out.

    It was the only line open.

    The manager kept closing the checkout line.

    It was NOT MY FAULT.

   It was how the situation was being handled that brought on the crisis....I had been shopping for a week's worth of groceries at the local grocery store. It was pretty busy in the store, and by the time I arrived at the checkout, the line was long. There was only one register open. Patiently I took my place at the end of the line and fidgeted as I slowly made my way closer to the register. The manager appeared. First he moved people at the back of the line to another register, but not turn on that register light. Assuming that he had opened a second register to alleviate the press of people, myself and several others remained in line in an orderly fashion to be checked out. Then, after a number of people moved and the check out process had started at the second register, he announced that the register we were standing at was closed and could all remaining people in line please move to an open line. Meaning the other register that now had a line since there were no other registers open.

SAY WHAT?

   The first time I was a bit surprised. So were the others left stranded in our check out line. But we moved like sheep on the hill hoping to graze in the next pasture, behind the people who were standing in line at the open register. Just when the check out register was nearly in sight, the manager told the lady in front of me that he had to close our line because it was the end of the shift for that clerk and he could not have her work overtime.

   We all moved again, but this time it resembled an orderly cattle stampede. After what seemed days, I finally made it to the conveyor belt and was about to unload my groceries when the illustrious manager announced that remaining customers in line would have to move to another register.

   There was only one register open. That line now stretched halfway through the store. Might even have gone out the back door. No way I was going to find out.

    I calmly continued to unload my groceries from my cart onto the conveyor belt. I was no longer listening. I think it was because I was standing in a puddle of the ice cream I intended to purchase. Must have been the ice cream.

   In a loud voice (the one a person reserves for talking to a naughty toddler), the manager told me that I would have to move to the other line to check out, the line I was standing in was closed.

   I said NO. I was not changing lines again. I also used a loud voice. Perhaps my best toddler voice.

   Louder still, he repeated that I had to move.

   My next NO was quite a bit louder. I told him that I was not going to move to yet another check out, he would just have to check me out in the line I was standing in and that he was also going to have to go get me fresh ice cream because I was pretty sure the stuff in my cart was liquid and I still had to walk home IF I ever managed to get out of the store.

   Louder still, he turned on a condescending tone and told me I would not be checked out unless I moved to the other line and that I must move. If I didn't he would call the police.

   As you can imagine, that really made an impression on me. Feeling all cowed and intimidated, I believe I told him (at the top of my lungs) to please do so as I would love to talk to the police. After all, it looked like after forty five minutes of shopping and about forty minutes in line I wasn't getting checked out any time soon, I had plenty of time to talk to just about anyone. I think the staff could hear me at the back of the store. From in the freezer. At the end of the other checkout line.

   Mind you, I didn't swear. Not once. Honest injun. Not to my fellow line sufferers. Not at the poor register clerk. Not at the puffy store manager. And certainly not to the police when they arrived. As a matter of fact, the police were very nice when they arrived. I lowered my tone at the officer's polite request. They were quite understanding when I told them my plight. When they asked the cashier to please check me out, there were cheers from my fellow shoppers. One reminded the cashier to call frozen to bring me fresh ice cream. The cashier was grinning from ear to ear.

The manager, however, was purple.

   The police were not so understanding with the purple manager who would not stop yelling. They didn't like it very much when he told them they couldn't tell his staff what to do. They really did not like it when he called me some pretty nasty names. But it wasn't until he decided to swear at them that they got truly angry and took him out to the squad car to cool off.

   I was content to file an informal complaint with the officer. I didn't dislike the manager or the store. I was just frustrated with the situation and how it was handled. They took my complaint at the register as I was being checked out. After I was checked out, I was offered a ride home by the nice officer, but I declined as I felt I could use the walk to cool down. If they followed me home, they were very discreet.

   After returning home and putting my groceries away, I wrote the store headquarters a complaint, detailing the issues I had encountered. I was disappointed with my experience shopping there and was considering my other options. Unfortunately these options were pretty limited where I lived and would involve a bit of driving to get my weekly groceries.

    The chain headquarters sent me a very generous gift card and an apology. They noted that check out policies and staffing issues were being reviewed at my store location. They hoped that I would consider shopping with them again. Placated, I decided to try hauling out my trusty two wheeled shopping basket and walking down to the store once more. I preferred walking to the store over a drive in snarled traffic, though I was a bit hesitant about what I could expect when I arrived at the store.

    After five blocks, I hooked my basket to the front of the store cart and headed in. The store manager, upon my arrival, abandoned the service desk and disappeared into the office. Shopping was peaceful and check out was smooth. I took my groceries home in a timely manner. Then I called my friends and told them they could put away the bail money.

   I could handle this shopping thing. Without getting arrested. Or taken down in a blaze of glory.

   "Call of Duty" is for amatures.

What, almost Thanksgiving and you're not done Christmas shopping?

   As the holiday season slowly approaches, we begin to think of family gatherings, holiday parties, putting up lights and decorations, finding the radio station playing all our favorite seasonal tunes and shopping for those special gifts for the ones we love....

 Yeah, right. And I have a starring role in the next Hallmark Holiday Movie!

   Truth of the matter is, we were just finishing up our trick-or-treating when every station that has ever broadcasted in the history of mankind switched to Christmas tunes and their advertising partners began to run Black-Friday ads. The stores that hadn't already been brandishing their festively lit trees since September now flicked the switch to blind their customers with tempting displays of treats and trinkets that every shopper needs to fill their holiday lists. Status quo coffee cups turned red (though apparently missing their usual festive decorations) and sale papers began to line the driveway.

My daughter asked, "What about Thanksgiving? Can't we enjoy that first?"

   I am right there with you kid. But can we? Cause there are only HOW many days till Christmas? What do the nephew's and niece's want for Christmas? What should I get Mom and Dad? What on earth do I buy MY kid when she wants something different each day? What toy/gadget will last beyond twenty minutes of play before the boxes become more interesting?  When am I going to have time to go shopping? How am I going to stay in budget with all this stuff I gotta buy and NOT look like the Grinch?

   Recently I heard a friend posing these same questions, so I offered her a suggestion that helped me keep holiday stress at bay. Do an event. Make a memory. If you must shop, shop mindfully. What might your family want instead of toys and stuff? She stopped and stared at me and blinked once or twice. I think she was checking her vision to see if I was really for real, or just a hallucination brought on by seasonal stress. I was for real.

In our family we do things a little differently...

   One year, instead of trying to find that special something for our parents, we shopped for kids in need, buying them clothes, coats, shoes and a toy. Then we wrote a Thank You note from the sponsored child and gave it to our parents. We explained that in lieu of a gift, we used the money to sponsor a child in their name. I still remember the emotional reaction when that first Thank You note was opened and they realized that instead of receiving another trinket, they had contributed to the welfare of others. I had picked up the names and needs of the children through a drive that my office did annually, but have since discovered ways to participate individually though my church, local Angel Trees, the Childrens home + aid website, as well as Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS). Each state and region offer similar programs. Web sites such as Love to Know, and Family to Family can help get your creative juices flowing.

   For us, this was mindful gift giving as well as an event for our family to do together. My husband and I decided what stores to visit. My daughter personally picked out coordinated outfits, selected coats and tested mittens to make sure they were good choices. We had explained to her that we were helping Santa do his shopping for others since he was a very busy guy. After a day being Santa's elves we all enjoyed hot chocolate and treats while bagging, boxing and tagging the items to be donated.

   That first Christmas, our unusual gift giving was a bit of a novelty. Now we often see family members open notes telling them that their favorite charity received a donation in their name. We have continued a tradition of mindful gifts started by my parents. As a family we have enjoyed memberships to the zoo or museum that allow us to take many trips to make memories. We also loved the remote starter for our car to make winter more bearable. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) In return, we try to give gifts like these. If you wonder how you can do the same, think about what your intended recipient would enjoy. Maybe you know someone who would like tickets to a sporting event. Or a trip to the spa to get a pedicure. Mindful gifts and events exist at all monetary levels of gift giving.

    But you might be asking, what about the kids? Don't you have to get something for the kids? In our family the kids are blessed to have more wants than needs. Would this idea transfer to kids?

   A few years ago, I found myself stressed out and tangled up in finding the right gifts for all the kids on my list, especially for my daughter. My husband and I were in a dilemma as she was rapidly outgrowing the "kiddie toys" but not yet wanting the more mature "older kid toys" that stores were offering. We did not want to buy an overpriced toy that would either break or become boring in twenty minutes. Worse, whenever she was asked what she wanted for Christmas, she answered "Boxes." I think my relatives wanted to strangle her. I knew how they felt. Aside from money toward her college education and violin lessons (there are special accounts for these so that the funds are properly applied), I was at a loss at to what item to get my daughter that she would find special or enjoy.

   But my daughter really didn't want any thing. What she really wanted was to go skiing. Daddy often went skiing on with his family on an annual ski trip, and now that she was older, she wanted to go too. But we really didn't have the funds that year. She had no equipment and didn't know how to ski. So we petitioned our relatives. We could afford to send her with Daddy, but maybe they would like to pick up a ski lift ticket? Or a pair of gloves and goggles. Or rental of skis? A half day of lessons anyone? Everyone loved the idea and contributed. It was one of her favorite Christmas gifts. 

   Since then she has received events like indoor sky-diving, horseback riding and a fantastic the craft/sleep over weekend with all her best friends. A toy or two might have been great when she was really little, but memory making trumps all. And memories are what last. If we were going to spend hard earned cash on something, we like it to to meaningful and last. In addition to events, our extended family has purchased mindful items that go along with our daughter's interests. Like the ski goggles and lift tickets, ski lessons and rentals.

   When I finished telling my friend about the events my daughter has enjoyed as presents over the last few years, she had this glow on her face. She knew exactly what two of her daughters wanted. Guinea Pigs and a cage for them to live in. Since she loved animals and caring for them, she was in love with the idea. Her younger children might still pose a challenge, but she was going to give it some hard thought to keep the playing field in her house level. Perhaps a pony ride this spring? A cowboy hat and boots so he could practice playing cowboy in the meantime? Maybe an autograph book with fancy pen and an action figure of one of the characters he would see at a trip to an amusement park? New swim trunks and goggles for a family trip to an indoor water park?

   This year I will do very little shopping. As a matter of fact, I don't intend to set foot in a store until December. Instead I am going to live in the moment and enjoy Thanksgiving. After that I am going to decorate with my family, write out some Christmas cards, attend a parade, listen to the carolers and watch my town light up their Christmas tree. I will help my daughter find an event she might enjoy. When December is in full swing, and only then, will we step inside a store to purchase for the angel tree or charity of choice so that we can make more memories for our family and share the joy of giving.

I might even turn on some Christmas music...shouldn't be hard to find a station.

   

So busy that nothing gets done?

   I consider myself an accomplishment orientated person. That means I tend to complete a lot of different tasks and handle a great many responsibilities on any given day. It usually means I am fairly busy. When people ask me how I keep going, I tell them I use the Ta-Done method. Most of the time this works, Sometimes, however, I get a bit over-busy, and suddenly I find I am getting nothing done. Can you relate? Then hang in there with me...

   Typically I don't make To-Do lists. They are depressing. No matter how much you work at checking items off, there seems to be an endless supply of things that still need to get done. It is like the laundry. Unless you plan on going naked, there will always be more wash to do. I don't recommend going au-naturel, especially if you live near Chicago. It can get pretty nippy outside and you might freeze parts of your body better off not frozen. Not to mention that nudity in general is typically frowned upon by society and can get you in trouble with the law. Wear clothes, do wash. Try not to think about it, otherwise, you may be depressed. And cold. And naked. And in jail.

   What I do to ward off the vicious cycle of the never ending To-Do checklist depression is create Ta-Done lists. Unlike a To-Do list, you don't check off tasks that are on the list, you add them as you complete them. In other words, start with a blank page and as you go about your business during the day, mark down each accomplishment that you have completed. You may cross them off if you like. At the end of the day you review your list. I find it much more satisfying to see what it is I was able to accomplish in a day instead of what I failed to finish.

   But what happens when you get to the end of a day, and the page is pretty empty? You know you were busy and were running around all day. You should have had plenty of time to pick up the stuff you needed for dinner at the store, you should have had time to make those phone calls, you should have had time to pay the bills on the desk, or at least cleared out your email in box. But you didn't get any of that done. The mail is unopened, the car needs gas, you haven't sent the reply to the school email sent out last week, and worse, you just can't bring yourself to make a phone call. There doesn't seem to be enough time to start a task, let alone end it. The page is looking fairly blank. There is no Ta-Dum at the end of the day, just a big Ta-Damn.

   Sproing. Mind and body both stop working, like a watch that has a broken a spring. Looks good on the outside, but nothing is working on the inside. Not just not working, but don't want to work.

At this point, I stop keeping lists, because nothing is getting Ta-Done.

   I tend to blame this situation on having a fairly flexible schedule. Seems that when you have a schedule that is flexible it is easy to swap out tasks, but before you know it, everything gets swapped out. And when you have swapped everything out, what is left? Nothing. Pretty soon you have piles of unwashed laundry and either you wear dirty clothes or you go naked. Naked can be pretty obvious, even to a casual observer. More so in January than in August. Dirty clothes might hide the situation, but you will probably notice a smell.

   Blame, however, cannot be placed entirely on flexibility. People with regimented schedules can suffer Sproing too. I know, I used to have a very regimented schedule but it did not prevent occasional Sproing from occurring in my life. Mind you, they were less often, but they still happened.

    Is there a solution? Sure. Sleep a couple of days. It is less obvious that you are wearing no clothes if you are beneath your sheets. Okay, realistically most of us cannot sleep a few days, but don't you wish? Instead take a shower, do a load of clothes, get dressed, have some coffee and make a To-Do list.

Yes, I just said that. The ultimate hater of To-Do lists just said make one.

   Make a To-Do list with only stuff you want to do. Completing the list should be easy. That is day one. Then on day two, make the list, but only put the stuff you really don't want to do on it. Stay with me, this is the hard stuff. Set a schedule of times that you will do these tasks and determine NOTHING will interfere (acts of God and children are acceptable exceptions to the rule). Then let yourself know that you have to do at least three things on the list or you are going to be consequences, like you have to give up something you really like. This can act as incentive. Perhaps you might give away your favorite outfit. Donate your favorite pair of shoes. Maybe you will take all the chocolate out of your house and throw it away. However, if you are a coffee drinker, do not give up coffee. That would be counter productive.

   Once you have done three hard things and crossed them off your list, do something not on the list, something quick and easy, and write it down, then cross it off. Maybe do two or three of these type of tasks and cross them off. You may feel a bit of a rush. Pat yourself on the back, then return to one of the hard items on the list, complete it and cross off. Repeat these steps until you have completed all your tasks, or at least the vast majority of them. As you complete tasks on the To-Do list, you will have more room to add done items, until  your list turns itself into a Ta-Done list. Much more satisfying.

   Once you are in the habit of making Ta-Done lists, the gloom that was hanging around you at the end of the day should evaporate. Please note, you may find that you still have to give yourself reminders of some of the things you really need to accomplish in a day. Doctor appointments are not optional. Reminders are not To-Do lists, they are assistants for the driven and the motivated. Aids for the busy. Guides for those of us who sometimes can't remember why we came into a room. Put them in your calendar. Whatever you do, avoid making a list out of these tasks! You are going to be working on Ta-Done lists.

   Now, don't expect overnight results. The piles of laundry did not accumulate overnight (though they may seem like they did). It is going to take time. You may need help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Help is a great motivator. Share your results. Little victories are very satisfying too. Ta-Done lists are meant to be encouraging and everyone's encouragement is different.

   At this point, some of you reading this may say that Sproing sounds an awful lot like depression. My response is that while the symptoms are very similar, Sproing is a temporary (although somewhat debilitating) condition in which typically busy people suddenly seem to get nothing done. The results are temporary disappointment and frustration. It is a condition that can be rectified with simple, self-help steps, much like mine listed above.

    If, however, you suffer from similar symptoms that linger, simple techniques will most likely not produce viable results. I urge you to seek professional help of a doctor, just as I would if you broke your leg. I am not a doctor, just a blogger. Neither anxiety nor depression are light subject matter, nor do I address them as such. Please know, that you are not alone and there are people that can help.

   Some sites to aid in seeking help with depression:
Anxiety and Depression Association of America
7 Cups of Tea
Students Against Depression
Beyond Blue

Because everyone deserves a satisfying tomorrow.

   

The love/hate relationship with our smartphones

   I love my smartphone. In the palm of my hand I can check my email, keep in touch with social media, take a picture of my daughter, plan out my meals, add to my grocery list, pay my bills and see what I am doing Saturday night. It reminds me of appointments, birthdays and special events. I share calendars, notes and photos. I look up places I have never been and my phone can give me the directions to get there as I drive. I can text my mom, jot a memo, alter a spreadsheet sixty feet above a stage (Yes, I have done this on my phone), make reservations at a restaurant, reserve a movie and check out books at the library. I can even make a call from the parking lot of the grocery store (imagine that, using the smart phone to make a phone call - who knew?). I use an Android based phone and have been pretty happy for the last several years with this platform.

So why was I threatening to throw it out the window a few days ago? 

   The answer: Techno-work... The added work that comes with technology. The added time it takes to figure out just how to make all this cool fancy stuff actually work. The irritation when it doesn't work. The frustration of trying to figure out why it doesn't work and how to get it working. The delight when you think you have your problem solved, only to find out that it still doesn't work. The discovery that the planned obsolescence of the device is shorter than your your learning curve to actually operate it.

   Who has time for that?

   Who has the skills and patience for that?

   Not me. I was the one threatening to throw it out the window, remember?

   It started with my nearly new, smarter than me phone trying to automatically update. I received the error message "Insufficient storage available." Not just once, but about twenty times, locking up my

ability to use the device. Frantically I searched (and eventually found) where I could turn off the automatic update so that I could complete the task of finding a recipe for that night's dinner. Once dinner was underway, I decided to look into why I had insufficient space on my phone to do simple updates. Other tasks were put on the back burner.

   At first I was baffled. I had no videos. There were not too many photos, were there? Could I have too many documents? I spent about an hour making sure my photos and important documents had backed up on my cloud, then deleted all the non-essential files. To make a clean sweep of things, I restarted my phone, then tentatively tried updating one app manually.

   There it was, that nasty storage space message once more. And apparently I had accidentally triggered the auto-update thingy, cause now my phone was trying to update all the apps. In addition to the storage message, I now had a message that "Some Apps may not respond due to storage issues." Seemed like I had made it worse. Well, that would have to wait till after dinner. After I did the tasks I had put off while I was clearing my phone.

   So much later, in the time I would have normally been kicking back and relaxing, I went back to the task of fixing the issues on my phone. Techno-work! Once more I cleared all the photos and documents. I googled the issue on my computer (I read this article by IT World and it helped me learn what could be causing the problem and how to fix it. Staying away from the more scary technical issues at the end of the article, I started with taking a good look at my apps. While I did not have that many that I loaded on my phone (there were quite a few useless ones that came pre-loaded on my phone that I could not uninstall), some of the ones I like to use are evidently pretty darn big. So I learned how to move my apps (or at least part of my apps) to my large SD card, which was sitting in my phone, pretty much empty. I also dumped some of the apps that I really did not need, or could easily access and use on the internet, like Twitter.

   After completing this work (I think it took waaayyyy longer than it should have) I once more restarted my phone, crossed my fingers, said a quick prayer, and tried updating an app. This time I managed NOT to auto-update all the apps. After holding my breath for about two minutes, the app updated. Living dangerously, I updated all the apps I use. Unable to hold my breath for the length of time it would take my phone to complete this task, I went and had dessert. When I returned....

Everything was updated. No error messages.

YAY!

   Next I took the time to make sure that all my photos were being saved on the SD card, not my phone's internal memory. I also checked my settings to ensure that my auto-back up features were activated. 

    Having completed all these tasks, I now wanted to see if I could load an app onto the phone that I really wanted, the cool new Project Color app from Home Depot. I am getting ready to repaint a room and I wanted to be able to play with colors on the walls and this app lets you paint the walls in a picture of your actual room. Mom had it on her phone and it was loads of fun, not to mention helpful. But I digress. Could I actually load an app on my previously storage-strained phone?

   I said a prayer once more, entered the Google Play Store, and typed in my desired app. With baited breath, I pressed the install button...

It worked. The app installed.

   I was happy with my phone once more. Which was a good thing as I had no intention of buying a new phone. Moreover, my phone works well with the Google apps that both my daughter and myself use heavily (and with which I am familiar) and plays well with our computer/tv equipment at home. My husband, however, was a little more tentative about my victory. He has been an iPhone user for several years with limited issues and was now moving to an Android based phone. Was he going to suddenly start having issues? Was this an Android problem alone? 

   Informally I asked a few of my friends who used iPhones to see if storage issues existed outside the Android world. I received varying answers. Most did not experience storage issues that I did. But those persons who encountered storage issues had a large number of videos and photos on their phone or used many of the the types of apps that I do. Those that did not encounter storage problems, either were not heavy users of their phones in the way that I used my phone or regularly replaced their phones with newer ones. As a rule, issue free friends generally had more expensive models than what I would be willing to pay for a phone. Some just had better technology savvy than I.

   A quick check on the internet revealed articles like this one from October 2015 - iPhone storage full? posted on Know Your Mobile that talked about how to free up storage space on an iPhone. By the number of articles my search pulled up, it became clear that storage issues were not isolated to Android phones. However, since iPhones do typically come with more GB space than many Android models, the problem of storage may arise less frequently for most users. 

   To allay the fears of my husband, we added a micro SD card with 64GB to his phone (something you cannot do with a similarly priced iPhone) and I began teaching him the connectivity that he can enjoy at home. 

Micro SD card already out of package and in the phone!

   He is catching on quick and I have no doubt that with some Techno-work he will soon be passing me in his phone user abilities. The biggest stumbling block to enjoying his phone immediately is the learning curve to use a device that is different than the one he had previously. Will he be able to master the Techno-work involved to operate such a useful piece of technology?

We shall see if he threatens to throw it out the window.

   Now if I could just figure out how to change and save my favorite channels on the remote to the new tv....wait, is that an on-line manual? Do I have time for this?