My Current State of Mind - No Faking

This is an amazingly relaxing day with a light snow falling in Appleton, WI. I think I will pen my thoughts and let you in on a few secrets rolling around in my head today. Sound like fun? Let's go!

I am 39 years old. 39 is amazing - no faking. I have absolutely loved every part of my 30s - good and bad. Below are a few things I have realized in my 30s about life and about me. 

I have never loved people the way I do now. It's not more love. It's different love. A love with compassion. Before I would see a single mom with 2 screaming kids at the grocery store loaded with piercings and tattoos and think to myself - How many bad decisions do you need to make to realize your way is not best? I would see the blood shot eyes of a drunk down town and walk by thinking - he made his bed and now he's realizing his consequences. So quick to judge and not looking at my own life. When friends would make bad decisions, I confronted them. When they kept making the same bad decisions, they were no longer my friend. Period. My mouth rolled with opinions - You need to do this. You should stop doing that. What you should have done was this. Talking and not listening. Judging so quickly with a glance from my eyes instead of stopping and looking. I strive to love deeper, with purpose.

I am realizing more and more the true effect of diet and exercise not only on my current health but the future impact of my health. As of this blog post I do not feel pain in my body at all ever. I go to the doctor every year for a physical with no issues. I could camp on this one for about a novel's worth of words so I will try to summarize. I make a choice every day with every bite I eat to either be proactive about my health or reactive. The food I eat is what I give my body to make my bones and skin and muscles etc. As the old saying goes - You are what you eat. I realize I don't want to be wheeled into surgery knowing my choices could have prevented this. My current health and heath in my later years is sculpted by my diet and exercise choices.

I am a self proclaimed hedonistic seeker of pleasure. I hate this about myself and seek to change it. I don't think this is abnormal behavior but working on keeping it in check.

Life is as complicated as you make it. Without kids and a spouse, I fully recognize the simplicity of my life. But, I could say YES to everyone and everything spreading myself so thin my relationships feel the negative impact of this resulting exhaustion. When I feel my life getting too complicated I start saying no. I also realize that every moment doesn't have to be filled or scheduled. Standing still and doing nothing is ok. Having a blank day or two or three is ok. I don't have to always be going. I can make choices to make my life as simple or as complex as I choose. Life is a complicated as you make it.

Everyone learns life lessons when they are ready to and not a moment sooner. The best way to encourage and influence friends is to live it and be an example.

It is never to late to try something new. Never.

No level of communication can change a person's mind unless they are open to change.

My faith has become my own. I am no longer going through the motions of religion but rather embracing my God and listening to his word to guide me. For years I followed step by step in the dos and dont's of religion. Never questioning, just mindlessly floating - that was my fault.

Becoming selfish and self centered can happen to me so much faster because I am single and I'm the only person I have to care for. So, I make choices to give back because I can.

If you are reading this and you are 49, 59, 69, 79 or 89 you remember what it was like to be 39. Where you were at that time. The season of life you were experiencing. Some of you wish you could go back to 39 and make different choices. Some may have made a crossroad decision that changed your life for the better. If you are 9, 19 or 29 my current age of 39 may seem OLD and a lifetime away. It's not old and it will catch up to you in moments.

I am 39 and I know I will blink and be 89. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live and I want to make good choices with purpose. 


A special thank you to my true friend Mark DesJardin for the inspiration to write down these realizations. He, along with his wife Beth, challenge me to live with purpose and compassion.

Friday Night Thoughts

Tonight I'm blogging from my favorite green recliner in my living room. A lazy, cool breeze blows through my windows. I can hear vehicles traveling up and down highway 41. Crunchy crispy leaves roll around outside. Not to be overly cheesy - but I hear the wind whistling through the trees too. Believe it because it's true. Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. Period. OH YES! Before I forget . . WAY TO GO BREW CREW on beating ARIZONA! YEE HAWW!

I am just going to pen thoughts rolling through my brain tonight. WARNING - my brain does not work like yours so, not all of this will make sense to you. Here we go . . .


Can you imagine perfect communication? Never being misunderstood. WOW! Think about that. I remember a situation at work a few years back where I CLEARLY (or so I thought) told my boss somthing and was misunderstood. I WAS SO FRUSTRATED! And then a week later I had ANOTHER miscommunication with a co-worker. Hearing them tell me . ."No Shelli, that is not what you said." I pulled my boss and co-worker in a room and looking at them said, "I am the one with communication issues here!" Do you ever hear, "NOOO YOUUU ARE NOT LISTENING!!" or "NOOO YOUUU ARE NOT HEARING ME!!" Woah! Talk about communication issues! Do you maybe need to work on your communication skills a bit? Life would be so much easier if we all commuicated the same way but it sure would be BORING!

How much time do we waste explaining ourselves and the message we communicate? What contributes to communication failure? Fatigue. Emotions. Ignorance. Jumping to conclusions. Assumptions.

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We are creatures of habit.We enjoy a life of consistency, predictability, security, normalcy, dependable companions, routine. Life void of uninvited interruptions like death, illness, divorce, close friends moving away. Also, your stage of life dictates your gravational pull to these bump-on-a-cumber type mentalities.

I challenge you to do SOMETHING spontaneous and unplanned today. Break free from the norm for a second!!

I loathe normal. I love ENERGY. I believe everything happens for a reason. EVERYTHING. The good. The bad. The rip your heart out of you chest because you lost a parent or a child or a spouse. Sigh. So many good times. So many heartaches. We just never know what will happen next. Who we will meet. What will change our course? I love life!

And that's all I've got.

Gary Jenkins - A Lesson in Communication

While in college I worked at a local camp in their office. Besides helping my friend Nicole with basic financials my main post was the window. The window was large, slid open horizontally and served as the main spot for campers to ask any imaginable question rolling around in their highly caffeinated surgarized brain. They would sign up for paid activities like white water rafting and horseback riding. They would request new bed sheets because another camper peed in their bed or planted water balloons. Without fail I always had a camper fall in love with me. I would always take this opportunity to mooch sodas off them for me and my desk mate Chelle. HEY! Don't judge! These kids came to camp with an extravagant amount of money usually blown on junk food. I simply presented my parched throat to which they gladly bought 2 sodas to two beautiful underpaid camp office staff. It worked out great!

On Monday evening and after registration and settling into their cabins and meeting their counselor, all 500ish teen campers filed into the gym for an hour of orientation. The camp director discussed general rules that would get you kicked out of camp during this time. One specific Monday evening at the beginning of his orientation rant, the camp director decided to mention the importance of taking care of the money you brought for the week. He waved a $20 bill in the air and proclaimed he found this $20 bill on the sidewalk. For the remainder of the orientation hour all the campers heard was the sound of Charlie Brown's teacher as they focused on this $20 bill.

As the Monday night 9 o'clock hour rolled around I sat by my window balancing money bags for activities around the camp. Eyes closing a bit. Tired. Ready for bed. The campus was quiet while the teens were sitting in the gym planning all their naughtiness for the week. A few moments after their release from the gym and like the slow motion lifting of a dam wall, a horde of determined campers headed straight to my window. Every camper in line had lost $20. I feverishly took down names and cabin numbers while cursing the name of my director and presenting my exhausted fake smile.

After a nice Tuesday breakfast a young man named Gary Jenkins came to my window. He was 13, awkward, short for his age and fat. His chubby cheeks forced his eyes to continually squint and he hobbled as he walked. Gary Jenkins was a bully. Period. I happily slid my window open for my first customer!

Me - Hi there!! how can I help you this morning?
Gary - I lost $20. I stopped by last night but I haven't heard if my $20 was found.

Gary's fists were tense. As he spoke he would grind his teeth and even spit a little hoping to express to me in early teen mafia fashion. I needed to give him $20. After this transaction he would be on his way and I would never see his face again. Gary Jenkins WAS getting $20. Period. I smiled again, wrote down his cabin #, counselor and we both went on with our day.

Wednesday morning, engulfed in balancing money bags again, I heard a LOUD knock at my window causing my heart to RACE and shoot straight out of my chair. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! It was Gary Jenkins. As I slid the heavy window open for the first time that day, I didn't even get it opened and inch when Gary exclaimed in a voice much louder that yesterday, "HEY! DID YOU FIND MY TWENTY DOLLARS?!?!" Taking a deep breath helping me to regain composure, I smiled at this young man and said, "No sir. We have not found your twenty dollars." His response, "WELL MY NAME IS GARY JENKINS AND I WANT MY TWENTY DOLLARS BACK AND I WANT IT NOW." His spit covered my paperwork as he yelled. I reassured him we were doing everything we could to find his $20 and when we found it I would personally deliver it.

Thursday morning something amazing happened that I will never forget. I was ready for Gary Jenkins. In the distance I recognized the hobble of the sheep dog haired chunky early teen heading straight to my window. I opened it LONG before he got there. I was standing with hands on my hips. I was ready! As Gary approached my window he saw I meant business. In a calmer tone - realizing you attract flies with honey not vinegar - he asked, "Ummm . . . .Hi . . .  .umm . . Have you seen my twenty dollars?" I leaned forward with my face now extended out the window, my nose and eyes level with his, and in a low but intense and deliberate tone told him we had not found his twenty dollars.

I realized the only way to communicate effectively to Gary would be to communicate to him the way he communicated. I learned the language of Gary Jenkins.

That day I realized I am the only person in the world that thinks and communicates the way I do. I am unique. Let that sink in for a bit.

Gary Jenkins never came back to my window. Friday morning he came around to the main desk in the camp office to harass the other secretaries for his twenty dollars. I peeked around the corner, made eye contact with Gary shooting him a smile and a little wave.