Rediscovering the Old Ways

We moved into our first house at the end of August and have ever since been looking for various things temporarily lost in the pile of boxes in our spare bedroom. Today's quest was for my family recipe book; the holiday season is upon us and there are just certain things that MUST be cooked, to honor family traditions as well as fulfill the anticipations of much awaited gastric delights.

Thanks to a wonderful computer program called Delicious Library, we knew it was probably in Book Box 18 with our other recipe books, so all we had to do is find said Book Box 18 among the 40 other boxes in the room. This wasn't as difficult as you might imagine thanks to some semblance of order in the way we had put the boxes in the room during an earlier organizing moment. Success was nearly immediate, and therein lay the problem. Mentally I had set aside, oh, an hour, to find the family recipe book. Success 10 minutes into the project meant that I was left with the feeling that I still had at least 50 minutes to "play" amongst the boxes.

This is a slippery slope, of course. First you just think that you'll peek into "Mystery Box of Crap from Howell" (yes, this is how I labeled some re-discovered boxes that never got unpacked after our move to TN 4.5 years ago), and then you start digging to see what's in the depths of the box, and the next thing you know, you've found random "treasures" and you're moving furniture around in the other rooms of the house to find places for your new treasures. And then your Sunday afternoon is completely gone and your house is a mess and you wonder how you got to this place when all you'd been doing was looking for one cookbook.

One of the treasures I just had to claim from the depths of the mystery box was an old wooden container of letters and visiting cards. I think I got this box from Les's Grandma Rollins' estate after she died, but I don't think I've ever really looked through it. Today was the day (but of course!). I lifted out each visiting card, most only containing a person's name written in lovely script, though a few had crazy tasseled borders or were tucked within a decorative, four-color paper card. There were a number of baby announcements, wedding invitations, and graduation invites, most very simple and all (surprisingly) confirming that we really haven't made any progress in invitation/announcement design in the past 100 years. I discovered a few Easter or Valentine's Day cards, though nothing was written on them, as if they were purchased to send and then never mailed.

My favorite piece in the box, however, is a dance invitation, simply because it provides a lovely snap-shot of life in 1907. I don't have my scanner hooked up, but it's quite a simple design, so I'll just type it up "as is" to give you an idea of what you might have gotten up to on a Monday night over 100 years ago.

Seventh Grand Dancing Party

will be given at Niedermeier's Hall, Newport, Michigan, on

Monday evening, February eleventh

nineteen seven

The presence of yourself and friends will add to

the pleasures of the occasion

Music by Finzel's Orchestra of Detroit

Music begins at eight thirty o'clock

Niedermeier Brothers

Admission 75 cents

Oyster Supper 25 cents

Special car leaves Newport for Rockwood at 12:30 and for Monroe at 1:00 o'clock

Imagine being out until 1 a.m. on a Monday night in February! Don't let anyone tell you they weren't living large back in aught-seven!

A Quote

I was reading Ode Magazine during lunch and stumbled upon this quote. I think it's too long for a 140-character Tweet, so into the blog it goes!

"I have tried, too, in my time, to be a philosopher, but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." -- Oliver Edwards, quoted (with lots of commas!) in James Boswell's Life of Johnson.

I resonate with this quote because it describes the life philosophy I keep coming back to. There are many moments when I think I need to be more discerning, more critical, more thought-provoked, more responsive, more involved, more aware, or more serious overall about life and all that's going on in the world. But that's just not me. It feels like work for me to live that way -- unnatural, un-fun, and stressful.

So, at the end of the day, I just keep defaulting to trying to have a cheerful disposition within each day and to help people see the fun and positive in their story as well.

Next step: Laughter therapy?

A Month of Compliments

I just finished a Twitter/Facebook status update series called "Lisa's Morning Compliments," wherein I typed up a compliment to the world every morning. I thought someone might like to see all the compliments collected in one place (or might need 31 compliments in a row), so here they are in the order I posted them:

1. You've always been one of my favorites!
2. You are going to be super-awesome today -- I can tell just by looking at you!
3. I've never seen you so relaxed! The weekend looks good on you!
4. We are all getting older, but YOU look like time is standing still (or reversing). Amazing!
5. For many, Monday's "M" stands for "madness." For you, the "M" stands for "majorly-awesome." Have a triumphant day!
6. It makes me feel happy when I see your smiling face before I head to work. Starts the day off right!
7. Your personality sure is sparkling today! Way to brighten up the middle of the week!
8. You're looking confident today and it's Thursday. You've got this week in the bag! I knew you could do it!
9. You did a great job keeping it all together this week! Enjoy your TGIF in a big way!
10. You are having a great hair day! Even you baldies have a nice shine going! Enjoy the looks of admiration!
11. You lead such an interesting life! I love hearing about all your adventures!
12. Did you get some sun this weekend? You're positively glowing!
13. I love your eye-color!
14. You're a great friend! I always feel cared about, whether you're far or near!
15. Three words describe you today (courtesy of my Peggle game): "Cranking the awesomeness." Bring it!
16. You are so cleverly humorous!
17. There is a simple elegance about you...
18. You make any party feel even partier! You're so fun to be around!
19. You eat Monday for breakfast! Consider yourself triumphant before the day even begins!
20. You use your powers for good, not evil.
21. You're good enough, and smart enough, and gosh darn it, people LIKE you! (thank you, Stuart Smalley)
22. Your "charm" dial goes all the way up to 11!
23. You rocked this week! I now know what an "A+ game" looks like, and it's pretty amazing!
24. You've never gotten older, only better. You seem to be eternally-youthful!
25. You have great taste in music. I've learned about so many cool bands, thanks to you!
26. You're young, you're fly, and you're gonna stay flashy till the day that you die! (with a nod to my favorite CD from Girl Talk)
27. You've got a chilled-out kind of vibe going. Way to bring summer into your mid-week life!
28. One of my favorite things about you is your unique perspective on life. You aren't like everyone else, and that's a good thing!
29. You are full of WIN!
30. Your own struggles and triumphs in the realm of personal independence inspire me -- emotional, financial, physical, social, and so much more! Stay the course and celebrate your achievements!
31. I though you used all your sparklers yesterday -- yet you're still sparkling today!!

Takeaways from this exercise:

1. People really seemed to respond to the compliments, even when I sometimes doubted that I was able to convey the right complimentary tone in a sincere way. Sarcasm was NEVER my intention, but after 31 days of writing up generic compliments, I sometimes wondered if I was pulling it off.
2. I get the impression that a lot of people need to hear more positive words. Bring the praise, people!
3. I got a lot of compliments in return. This was an added bonus surprise!
4. It was kind of hard for me to come up with this many compliments and I had to cheat by quoting songs or pop culture icons sometimes. I felt bad about that, thinking my creativity is more amazing than it ended up being, but it was all worth it to bring the compliments to the people.
5. I wasn't sure what people would prefer to be complimented on -- wit, looks, work ethic, vibrancy, etc. I never knew what would resonate with people or what wouldn't. The comments on Facebook were fun and surprising to read.

Spreading some positivity daily was a happy thrill for me. I am trying to think up a new series that will accomplish something similar, but haven't struck creative gold yet. Any ideas?

Checking in

Making my every-six-months stop here at my blog to see how things are going. All seems quiet on the blog front...

Random updates from my world:

(1) My social life is still active on Facebook, though I did go through and delete all the friends who I didn't really know. Amazingly, that was only about 25 people.

(2) We are thinking of buying a house. Well, we have gone one step further than that and have given notice to our apartment complex that we're moving out at the end of July. This is SO exciting to me. And so scary, too. How will we know which house to pick? There are so many choices! But it will be nice to have a home that feels more permanent. Maybe I'll even decorate (ha!).

(3) We went to our first Roller Derby meet. We stood rink-side and it was awesome! We are so thankful for our friends who introduced us to this sport. I want to go again. Have you gone? It's a big time in Nashville! Sell-out crowds! Does anyone want to go roller skating with me? I promise not to slam you.

(4) I'm suffering from running injuries. It's totally annoying. I feel a million years old. I went to see an awesome doctor and it got a little better, but not completely better. Staying healthy as a runner seems to be a lot of work.

(5) I did a tiny bit of HTML work on my church website. Tricky, but hilariously fun. But not fun enough to do more. One time was all I needed to feel a great sense of accomplishment. I am still congratulating myself.

(6) We're really into playing Settlers of Catan. We are joking that we need to have two kids so that we can play this game all the time without needing to have people over. It's that addicting! People might have kids to flesh out their home team!

(7) I have a new job. Sadly, my sweet boss left our company and my position was eliminated. Happily, a new position was found for me. I am amazingly thankful and having a blast learning all sorts of new things (and new acronyms!).

(8) Summer is here. We haven't planned any vacations. It's weird. What will we do? Where will we go? Must. Have. Summer. Fun.

(9) I have an iphone, and I love it. I read lots of books on it and can't believe how much I love an ebook. Never thought I would. Proved myself wrong (again).

(10) Sparkly Wednesday is still a phenomenon. We have a group on Facebook. It's 200-members strong. Join the sparkle-ution!

(10+1) I am so proud of myself for coming up with a new screen name based on my initials: LMR. My new screen name is Elemar (for the slow among us, El = L, em = M, ar = R). I also thought of LMKR = Elemkayar, but that's long and looks like an abbreviation for Elementary Kayaker. Try it with your initials! It's fun!

I have had flashes of blog ideas in my head. What else is new? But I haven't sat down to flesh them out yet. What else is new? The ten-plus-one-point update is a start. Hope you're well. Much love. Miss you.