Author: Allie P.

Reflecting on 2014

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug – John Lithgow

It’s New Years Day. Another year has come and gone. I was fortunate enough to have the week between Christmas and New Year off from the day job and had been looking forward to this extra time since Thanksgiving. It was going to be time for me to spend time with my family, make a last-ditch effort to complete some of my 2014 goals, and of course reflect upon the last year.

I was able to do all of these things, and at the same time recognized one singular truth: I don’t pay the woman who watches my toddler nearly enough.

I thought this after our toddler snuck beside his dad in the bathroom and tried to ‘catch’ the stream. (Oh yes, my son – that one is going down in your permanent record). After spotting the lovely ‘snow’ made up of shredded tissue paper that materialized in our foyer during the nanosecond I wasn’t paying attention. (I blame you, coffee, for this one – you should not have taken so long to get into my cup that morning… There, there. Don’t worry, I can never stay mad at you long. All is already forgiven). And again during the entire day the toddler ran from me screaming if I so much as got within a foot of him because he was convinced I was going to put him to bed (he was only right a couple of those times).

My eldest had his fair share of moments as well. Although perhaps I share some of that blame. Looking back, when I said, please don’t come into the bonus room as it is where we are currently storing the boxes for the Christmas decorations, I clearly meant, why yes, I would love for you to turn each box over in there and spill the packaging materials out. I should be thanking him for reading my mind.

My holiday wasn’t perfect, but it was wonderful all the same. For each of the moments that made me want to pull my hair out, there were those I want to relive over and over. Like the watching my boys’ eyes light up as they glimpsed the pile of cookies set aside for Santa. Seeing that look of pure joy on their faces as they noticed the packages which magically appeared overnight around the tree. Listening to them belt out Christmas carols with half remembered lyrics. Those were the moments that made me wonder if my day job pays me enough to keep me away from my guys.

My time off between Christmas and New Years was very much a reflection of my entire year. There were some pretty stressful moments, moments that easily could have brought me down, but early in the year I had decided to focus on the positive. If I was only able to keep one resolution, I am glad it was that one. Because I was always on the lookout for a reason to be happy, some silver lining, I can now count at least as many accomplishments as I can failures. As a result, while I may not yet be a household name, I can still consider 2014 a resounding success.

Here’s to 2015. May it be just as rewarding!

while the video is not a scene from my house, it easily could have been…enjoy!

Do one brave thing today

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

There is a lot of discussion about the movie, “The Interview,” Sony Pictures, and North Korea. When the news first broke that Sony Pictures was hacked, I thought it had to be a publicity stunt. The story was too ridiculous to be true. The group responsible for the attack had deemed “The Interview” as offensive and were threatening to not only release sensitive company information, but were also vowing to enact physical revenge upon any theater showing the film. The studio caved to the groups demands in order to save billions of dollars (and save face – really what was in those emails?) and/or because they didn’t want to risk their customers’ lives. They agreed not to release the movie as scheduled. The US government has now linked the group responsible for the attack to North Korea and Sony Pictures is being criticised as giving in to a foreign terrorist threat.

I wasn’t going to watch the “Interview” on its opening day. I don’t exactly make it a priority to see first run movies anymore (I have two small children after all). While I do enjoy the occasional low-brow comedy (especially those with a satirical edge), I rarely find them to be worth the hassle of finding a sitter. I find that I enjoy them much more when playing my DVD player in the comfort of my home.

Several weeks ago, one of these made it into my DVD queue. Coincidentally it too starred a Seth. It was “A Hundred Ways to Die in the Old West.” True to its title, characters played by various extras are killed throughout the film in bizarre fashion. The protagonist in the movie has no business living in the Wild West. With all the natural ways of dying unexpectedly, he sees no reason to involve himself in fights that could further decrease his likelihood of survival and is deemed a coward. Eventually he does find something worth fighting for. Yes, there was a scene in which a character tried to participate in a gun fight while dealing with the effects of a laxative but there was still a worthwhile message hidden among the toilet humor. The protagonist learns that while there may be a hundred ways to die, there is only one way to live – with courage and conviction.

When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I really didn’t know what to write about. I didn’t want to write about the writing or publishing process. With only one book to my name I didn’t feel that I was a credible expert. Instead I stuck to safe subjects like leadership, entrepreneurship, positive thinking, or my family.

Then one day I got mad. It felt good putting my feelings in writing, but I hesitated hitting the publish button. The nice thing about writing fiction is that your characters can express any sort of feeling about the world without those feelings necessarily reflecting back on the author. This site is anything but fiction. How then could I write about leadership if I wasn’t brave enough to stand by my convictions?

courage
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I hit the publish button. The piece went out and a few notifications started rolling in. It was being read. Oh dear. I waited for my subscription numbers to start to drop. They grew instead.

I thought I had gotten lucky. Weeks passed. Life returned to normal.

I got angry again and learned by sharing my experience that I wasn’t the only one.

Unfortunately, life once again returned to normal. Normal is stagnant. Normal is what allows us to continue ignore uncomfortable conversations. Normal is what allows us to continue to accept the status quo. Normal is what makes us fear change.

However change can be just as good when done for the right reasons.

Last week, I wrote about my writing goals for 2015. These are necessary if I want to take my writing to the next level. Unfortunately as I haven’t successfully found five to ten extra hours in the week, I have to make some changes in my schedule. As a result, this will actually be my last regularly scheduled Monday post.

I will still be posting every Thursday (expect December 25th as I will be spending the holiday with family). You may start see less of me, but I hope under this new schedule I will have a bigger impact.

I would like to thank you all for your continued support and wish you all the Happiest of Holidays and an equally hopeful new year!

Owning rejection

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

To my Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah. I envy you right now. You are in the midst of celebration. The prep work is mostly over.

churchill-giving-quote1I on the other hand-made the mistake of looking at today’s date. There are only seven days left until Christmas! I hope you did a better job of managing your personal shopping calendar than I did this holiday season. While I managed to check off many names from my shopping list, I still have a few presents to go and am nearly out of time. I would like to apologize to those recipients in advance. From this point on some gifts may be more thoughtful than others depending on what is still in stock on the shelves or what can ship on time.

This rush of panic is one of the few downsides of having an above average sized family. I have two much younger brothers. I was grown and out of the house before they were even talking. As a result, there have been several years that I didn’t have a clue what to give them. How would I know what a young boy would want? Before they came around our entire house had been girl-centric. I would try my best, but often as I watched them unwrap their gifts, I would learn that my guess was wrong in the exquisitely blunt and honest terms that only preschoolers and/or extreme elderly can get away with.

All I could do was plaster a smile on my face and try not to take their rejection too personally. They didn’t know that I had spent three lunch breaks staring at rows of toys only to return with empty hands and an empty stomach. They didn’t know about the traffic related stress I had been exposed to, the hours I spent on the internet researching gift guides, or the impromptu co-worker polls I had conducted to find the thing I eventually gave them. All they knew was the box in front of them didn’t contain what they were looking for and told me so. I assume they were only trying to help me do better next Christmas (or their next birthday, whichever came first).

Giving gifts to small kids who aren’t your own during the holidays can teach you a lot about how to handle rejection in general.

This experience repeated itself over a few years. Gradually though, I either learned how to better anticipate what they would like (or they learned better tact). I grew a thicker skin. I learned how to rebound after rejection. It can still hurts like heck at the time of impact, but I’ve learned that there will almost always be another year, another time to try again. Most importantly I learned how to, um…, ask them what they wanted (I know – who has time to waste finding out pesky details like wishlist requirements).

So I know I can handle rejection. I’ve learned to finding a way to spin it in a positive light. I don’t just handle it. I’ve learned to own it. Rejection, after all, is just another means to help you figure out exactly what it is you really want in life. But I still really do not like it. I might even say I go out of my way to avoid it if I can.

But recently I’ve started asking myself why?

Since the birth of my children, I’ve had toys and books hurled at me, been peed, pooped, and puked on. I’ve had a little voice scream in my ear ‘NO!’  and ‘Bad Mommy!’ as I carry my son to his bed before he thinks he is ready (I’ve developed a bit of a constant ring in one ear). Why then should I let a little thing like a piece of paper with a no thanks on it or a negative review get me down? I’ve experienced far worse.

If there is only seven more days until Christmas, that means the New Year is just around the corner.

I may be completely behind in my holiday prep, but I can get a head start on my New Year’s Resolutions. In 2015, I am resolving to put myself out there more. To do more with my writing goals. I am going to submit my work to one to two more contests than I did in 2014 (yes, this is a quantity greater than 0 – I just haven’t heard back from the judges yet). I may even submit my work to an agent or larger publishing house (I might not sign with them, but I wouldn’t mind seeing what they have to offer).

Oh… and I might actually finish my shopping on time next year.

Be the change

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

I was out-of-town for the last several days and was catching up on my reading when I came across a post written by one of my favorite bloggers. In her article she asked the question, do you ever involve yourself in a cause that doesn’t personally affect you?

I like to comment on other blogs. It’s my way of saying, no your words didn’t just vanish out into the ether when you hit the publish button, but her question had me stumped. What do I do? I’d like to believe that I don’t have to be personally affected to know something is wrong and to want to do something about it, but when it comes to taking action, do I? Do I regularly?

Ultimately I had to answer the question with an “it depends.”

Protest sign
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I have to ask myself, does the call to action make sense? Do I truly think my participation will make a difference in the larger scheme of things? It is really easy to be one of the thousands of faceless individuals marching down the street holding a sign with some catchy phrase that may or may not make the evening news. But it usually takes more than participating in a single walk to really enact a permanent change. Someone somewhere has to actually take the lead, become a movement’s face, and act to change the law.

Unfortunately, that means that someone has to get political, and oh how we love to hate politicians.

Two election cycles ago, my dad chose to run for local office.  He was one of several candidates vying for a handful of commissioner seats in a town known mostly for its proximity to a larger city and a body of water. He ran and lost. Then another election cycle came and went. One of the existing commissioners was elected to higher office leaving a vacancy. Suddenly my dad was faced with the very real possibility of being asked (as first runner-up) to fill the seat. Other possibilities were the remaining commissioners would appoint another individual or arrange a special election (Proving election cycles are never truly over).

Our road trip this week took us close to my aunt and uncle. I tried to fit in as many updates about my family as I could over a short lunch. I told them my dad’s latest news to which my uncle replied, “why would anyone want to do that?” I didn’t have a ready answer for him. All I could think of was all the reasons why someone wouldn’t want to get into politics. Putting the sickening amount of money needed to fuel the effective modern campaign aside, why would anyone want their private lives (and the lives of their immediate family) made public, their off-hand remarks taken out of context, and other decisions scrutinized in infinite detail? Why would someone want to voluntarily subject themselves to endless meetings, premature aging, political gamesmanship, and soul-crushing bureaucracy? Netflix’s House of Cards is awesome and terrifying to watch. It may very well be how things are done at the federal level, but I’ve been told that politics closer to home are much closer to NBC’s Parks and Recreation. At the local level, it appears to be a relatively thankless calling.

And yet my dad actually wants this job. He really wants it. He is under the belief that he might actually be able to make a difference. While he does not claim to have all the answers, he wants to contribute toward finding a workable solution. It is at this level where change actually has the strongest likelihood of happening.

My dad and I agree that there are problems that need to be addressed. We do not necessarily agree on how these problems should be solved, at least not completely, and that is okay. He’s never asked for my endorsement (not that it matters – I don’t live in the same town he does and as a result am not as informed about his local issues).

Don't be calm or carry on
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As this gets published my dad may be finding out whether or not his ‘golden’ years are about to get a lot more stressful. I am on the fence regarding the outcome. I hope he gets the chance to make a difference, and at the same time it is a little like knowing your younger sibling has been granted a driver’s license.

Whether or not he gets the nod, I respect that he has done more than just tie his shoes and go for a walk or pin a ribbon to his sleeve in pursuit of change. He’s put himself out there and the system hasn’t crushed him yet (it’s still early). Perhaps if more average people who are tired of the status quo were willing to do the same (or vote in every election – even the ‘unimportant’ ones or volunteer/educate more) maybe just maybe we’d be walking more for exercise and less out of frustration.

What the world needs now may be love, sweet love, but a few new ideas might go a long way too.

Now welcoming all passengers on board

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

My eldest is completely and utterly besotted with the Christmas Spirit. He’s always liked Christmas, been a fan of the lights, and the presents, but this year, for whatever reason, has been particularly exciting for him. Perhaps it is because he, on some level, expects that the magic of Christmas might not be there next year. At least not at the same strength. He is in school now and exposed to any number of other children who may have already allowed simple belief to fall to the wayside of artificial maturity.

The Polar Express
The Polar Express (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When my mother-in-law told us that there was a nearby Polar Express event, we jumped at the opportunity to attend. Children and their adults are invited wear their pajamas in public on a decorated train car while staff serve hot chocolate and cookies. After a few Christmas carols, the ride culminates at the round house the staff refer to as the North Pole. Santa appears, giving a sleigh bell to a child. Then everyone is once again shepherded back into the warmth of the car to return to the original station. Just as you think the entire event is over, Santa makes his way through the rest of the car, greeting each passenger and bestowing upon them their own sleigh bell souvenir.

My son turned to me as we walked back toward the parking lot, and with a voice full of wonder announced, “I can’t believe we were at the North Pole!”

It was priceless.

On Monday, the woman who watches my youngest during the day (a terrific stay at home mom who had also watched my eldest from the week he began to crawl), asked how the event had gone. My son described it in epic detail. Later she asked my husband for more details. Clearly my eldest had sold her on the experience. How far away was the museum? What hotels were nearby? How were the people?

How were the people? What an odd sort of question. My husband likely shared the same puzzlement as I did when he told me about it.

She must have seen the confusion on his face. “No offense, but I know this sort of thing is something I know you don’t have to deal with, but I need to know. We’ve had to leave places before because of the people.”

Oh.

wow.

I had no idea…

I guess that was kind of her point.

Did I mention that she is a terrific woman. Well that hardly begins to describe how great she has been with my family over the years. When my eldest was still in her care he once told me that he loved her more than me, and you know what? I was okay with it (mostly). She is the closest person to Mary Poppins I’ve ever met. If there was ever a person destined to care for children, she would be it. I completely credit her for helping to develop my children into the kind and generous individuals they are today (they’ve taught me, not the other way around). After less than stellar early results with daycare (story for another day), I flat-out won the lottery when I came across her ad.

For all those reasons, it was hard for me to imagine that there might be those who didn’t equally love her on sight. But I’d overlooked one thing. She, and her husband, are Iraqi immigrants (and now Americans). While I might know that they were forced to flee their homeland due to religious persecution (leaving family behind who remain to this day at risk), to many others they are Middle Eastern and therefore immediately suspicious.

There are things that she’s heard, and treatment her family has received that had they happened to me, I would likely raise a ruckus. It would be the headline on my personal eleven o’clock news. Everyone would know about it. But for her, the same event might not even be worth mentioning. I used to think that was because she was because she was just a nicer person than I am. Now I am realizing that she remains quiet because unfortunately it is her everyday (although that doesn’t change the fact that she still is a nicer person than I am – case in point: her worrying that she might be offending me).

So this Christmas, give the gift of the benefit of the doubt, peace, and acceptance. That family you see over there, the one that looks so different, maybe just maybe they too are just trying to capture the magic that is this season. Even if you can’t share a background, at least share a smile. It might make all the difference.


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