My Top Three Stress Busters!


I was just reading a great post about dealing with stress from Truth and Cake* (don’t you just love that blog title) and was about to post a comment but decided to share my recipes for stress busting here instead. So, without further ado, this is my list of top 3 stress busters:

Slamming kitchen cabinet doors:

Whenever I had a stressful day (I was an HR Director so it happened a lot) I’d come home and go through my kitchen opening and slamming shut every kitchen cabinet door. Besides eradicating my stressful day I learned things, too. For example:

  • Upper cabinet doors slam the most satisfactorily;
  • Don’t stand too close ’cause they can bounce back open and jam your finger; and
  • It pays in the long run to invest in solid wood cabinets with good hinges.

Cursing while driving:

Why let all that frustration from dealing with traffic build up and explode all over everybody at work or home. Go ahead and let loose with a few of your favorite expletives directed at the Neanderthal who just cut you off on the interstate or freeway. After all, he or she is the one who deserves it. One caveat, though, keep your windows rolled up … way up.

Breaking ridiculously inane rules:

Some rules are just made to be broken. For example, your employer moves everyone into a new office space and some admin-type dispenses rules about keeping the red and gray (z-z-z-z) decor pristine. One rule is that nothing can be tacked up on the cubicle walls … no phone lists, no pics, nothing! That lasts about a month then a new rule comes from on high that says “things” can be posted on cube walls as long as they’re neatly placed … and only clear push pins can be used. So, what’s the stress buster? Yep, you guessed it … multi-colored push pins.

So, there you have it. Don’t let stress ruin your day, much less your life. Deal with it — head on. Bite the bullet or wring the neck instead of your hands. And then, as The Eagles so wisely sang …

*A big old THANKS to Truth and Cake for inspiring this post! You can check out her blog here.

All bets are off when it comes to bloggortunity!


I’ve only been at this blogging game a couple of months but I can recognize that friends and relatives might become a bit cautious about what they say or do when I’m around — or else they unwittingly, or maybe it’s unwillingly, become a bloggortunity.

So what is a bloggortunity? (If you really want to know, skip on over to Kate’s page for the birth of the word!)

Tim Berners-Lee: The World Wide Web - Opportun...

Tim Berners-Lee: The World Wide Web (Photo credit: Fräulein Schiller)

For me, a bloggortunity is whatever anyone says or does, that I see or hear about, that piques my interest enough for me to make an observation about it in my blog. And, no, it is not limited to family and friends. It encompasses the whole wide world — particularly the World Wide Web. (What a ripe for the plucking tree that is!)

So, all you folks out there, be aware, be forewarned, and be on your toes — we bloggortunists are watching and we’re carrying notepads — or smart phones with electronic notepads.

Some of us just rely on memory, though, but you can’t be sure that we’ll correctly remember every word you say. And if we don’t we’re sorry in advance for misrepresenting your chatter. We’ll try to keep the misquotes to a minimum, though we can’t really guarantee that. You know what I mean? We’re not perfect, in fact we’re far from perfect. If we were perfect we wouldn’t be reaping blog fodder from our friends and relatives.

I suppose we should only reap words and deeds from strangers to feed our blogs. Or celebrities, but don’t get me started on them. They do ask for it, after all. I mean if they didn’t want everyone talking and/or writing about the silly things they say or do then they shouldn’t put themselves out there, should they?

We aren’t really invading anyone’s space, we’re just rattling along trying to create a post that makes sense and, on a good day, amuses the reader(s).

We can always hope for readers in the plural, can’t we?

Sure we can.

But why, you might ask, do we keep our eyes and ears peeled for a bloggortunity?

Well, it comes down to this — writer’s block. A blank page or screen just waiting to be filled can be such a bear!

If you don’t believe me, take a peek at The Uninspired Chronicles and you’ll see what I mean.

Enjoy!

Runaway Keyboard


I’m an avid reader. Always have been. Always will be. Except …

I can’t seem to get this blogging thing out of my system. I was sure it would die after a few labored posts and then I could get back to the book I was reading. I only got into this on a whim and a push from my kid sister anyway.

So what gives? Why can’t I keep away from this keyboard?

I spend all day on a computer at work and now at home as well. It’s too much!

My fingertips have calluses!

AACK!!

[Deep breath.]

Okay, so I spend a lot of time on a PC at work and a MAC at home. Yep, I’m a MAC fan. (Not the point.) The point is that this blogging thing is interfering with my all-time favorite pastime — reading.

I have a stack of books, sitting over there on the shelf, watching me as I type. I can hear them calling to me. (Help me! Help me! They sound just like The Fly. The original Fly with Vincent Price, not the new Fly.)

I can feel Amazon trying to get my attention up there on the bookmarks bar.

I feel the need to read!

But, here I sit — blogging. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) It’s fun. I enjoy blogging. I just didn’t realize when I started that it would take over my life and I’d turn into a “stats” hound — 495 hits and counting. Okay, so that’s not the highest number in the world and lots of other bloggers have much, much better stats than me. So what. Don’t care. I like my stats. They’re mine and I’m keeping them. So there!

[Deep breath.]

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, I have brand spanking new, shiny, glossy magazines to read. Haven’t touched them other than to bring them in from the mail box. Had to tear myself away from the blog to even check the mail box. Now, that’s just awful, though, not as bad as the snarly looks I’m getting from my two cats Emmie and Ollie. Bet they can’t even remember what my lap is like.  It’s not that I completely ignore them. I do feed them and tidy their box. (Yucky chore. When they’ve gone to cat heaven, I will never have another cat. A dog, maybe, but no cats.)

And, let’s not talk about the housecleaning that’s gone by the wayside. If I don’t wash some dishes pretty soon, I’m going to be eating soup from the can. Is it that you can put cans in the microwave or that you can’t?

Oh, well. Details.

Now, that the frantic urge to create a post (pure dribble though it be) has passed, I can go back to reading my book. It’s a good one. Long. But good. Has dragons in it. Did I mention that it’s a five-volume series. I’m on the third book in the series. Well, I should go now.

Okay, gone now.

Bye.

Now, what did I do with that can opener?