Spring being in the air and such, I was thinking over the weekend that it might be fun to enlist your help in putting together a list of dos and don’ts for us babyboomers that are even contemplating dating again before they die.

I’ve started a list – I’m having fun but also, seriously, want to know.  Don’t you?

As you can see, I’m a little light on the helpful side, so won’t you chip in here with your own helpful hints for either or both columns, and let’s see what we get 🙂

THINGS THAT WON’T HELP

A CALIFORNIA BABYBOOMER GET

A(NOTHER) DATE THIS CENTURY

• Foot fungus (as in “Doc, you gotta get rid of this fungus or I’ll never get another date” – actually said to a podiatrist)
• Wearing baggy t-shirts, Capri pants, ankle socks and tennies (least that’s what my ex keeps telling me)
• Drinking beer and a shot of Cuervo exclusively at cocktail hour (least that’s what my ex keeps telling me!)
• Getting a sunburn on only half of each shin (did that yesterday)
• Muffin top (well let’s be practical and say unconcealed muffin top)
• Quadruple boobs (I believe this is all about the underwear – sure hope so!)
• VPLs (see above) (that’s Visible Panty Lines guys)
• Pet hair on clothes
• Pet hair in bed (make that ON bed… honestly)
• Nose hair

THINGS THAT MIGHT HELP

• Clean hair
• (Some) make-up
• Painted toenails
• Sense of humor
• Nice tan (in the right places!)
• Cute pets
• Well-behaved pets
• Non-shedding pets that are also cute (yeah, right)

This is exciting!

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

When I got up today I had a vague plan to take care of a couple of things for other folks and then come home and take care of myself.  Turns out I got to spend the whole day taking care of myself.  I sat out on the deck reading Stephen King’s “On Writing” (recommended by my awesome coach Marcia Hoeck).

I napped a little, snacked a little, went inside and got busy a little (only a little), then came back outside and sat in the sunshine again.  I got a little sunburn (more on that in a later post) but the day was absolutely beautiful.  Clear blue skies, warm sunshine, lightest of breezes.

Because of all the rain we’ve had this year, my backyard is looking lovely.  The bougainvillea against the garage is heavy with red. At the back of the long lawn I have pale blue plumbago now cresting the top of the wall, orange, yellow and red nasturtium in abundance, and the purple sweet pea are now blooming.  There’s blossom on the peach tree, the rock rose is flowering again and the two types of lavenders around the deck are thriving, and last but not least a whole bevy of California poppies. Spring in full throttle.  Beautiful, peaceful and inspiring.

3-peachblossom

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How is spring looking in your neck of the woods?

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

Here’s something fun on a weekend.  The teenagers (my son and his girlfriend) have had this recipe for Avocado Fries stuck on the refrigerator for months.  Today we seemed to have all the ingredients, plus it was a glorious day and I was planning on grilling some chicken that had been marinating, so tonight was Avocado Fries night.

I hovered, but mostly they got the job done very well, plus made some salad.  I threw in the chicken hot off the grill and we had a terrific supper on a beautiful mid-April California evening.  Here’s the recipe – if you can’t read it, let me know and I’ll email it to you.  We didn’t have Panko so we substituted Progresso Italian breadcrumbs, oh, and by the way, there were only three of us and we scarfed the lot!!

Avocado Fries

Hope your evening was as good as ours, wherever you may be.

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

Yesterday was kinda hectic after a relatively calm and pretty enjoyable week.  As the day wore on I began to think I wasn’t going to get to my UBC blog.  The more I thought that thought, the more likely it would become reality.  Sure enough, at 11:59pm, which I swear is when I last glanced down at the clock on my computer, I let it go.

Earlier in the week I’d had a couple of conversations where I’d strongly recommended to a client/friend that she stop thinking and talking about all the bad things that MIGHT happen, because it changes the way you interact with the object of your concern and by doing so becomes exactly what you were afraid of.  It had already happened once and I reminded her of that.

Here was I, doing the same thing: thinking I wasn’t going to get to something, then spending so much time trapped in that thought, that the clock ran out 🙁

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

If any of you watch the Secret Millionaire on Sunday nights on ABC, you will probably have caught last Sunday’s show featuring the online business world’s very own Ezine Queen, Mighty Entrepreneur Ali Brown.  She was venturing out and helping out in (as it happened) her local community in a big way. She gave a free call tonight to talk about the behind-the-scenes part of the show and answer some of the many questions she has been asked.

I came across Ali at the start of my own business as she’s a strong proponent of Virtual Assistants/Assistance.  I like Ali, have seen her talk in person and have been watching her take off in her business.  Besides being extremely savvy, she has always struck me as an honest, authentic, and genuinely caring person.  Her call tonight was a really wonderful sharing with us of her thoughts and feelings and new vigor for what the whole experience has given her.  I appreciated the call very much.

I hope to be able to emulate her in some shape or form as I gain more success and become able to pass it forward in a truly meaningful way.  I am sure there are many of you connected via fb who know her or know someone who knows her.

She’s good people to follow and you can find her at www.alibrown.com.

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

I ventured out into the big city today and met a friend for lunch.  We got caught up on what books we were reading – it’s a love we share – but then we talked mostly about social media, including following the social media money or rather where is the social media money?  We talked about six degrees of separation and how these days it surely can’t be more than two.

We talked about limitations in the workplace and how as a leader / manager, fb participation, for example, seemed problematical.  And we talked about a couple of our personal reconnects on fb and what they meant.  Reconnecting with someone you knew years ago can be bittersweet: you are transported back to that space and place in time, but then what??  We talked about that too.

It was an extremely enjoyable lunch conversation, not to mention an extremely enjoyable lunch – a scrumptious bit of British grub at Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica – and we promised not to leave it so long before the next one.  There’s a whole lot more conversation to be had on this subject for sure.

I know I’m still figuring out how it all fits in with and hopefully complements both life and business.  Blogging has certainly helped me with it in a big way.  Right now my sense about social media is it will be for me what I make of it, what I put into it.

What is it for you?

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

The nature of my business being one where I form long-term, in-depth relationships with my clients, my practice is almost full with four.  Each client definitely has similarities in how they are – bright, creative, hardworking and driven people of integrity.  They are usually organizationally challenged – either by temperament, or sometimes by practical ability. They know what they want but don’t always know the best way to make it over and under, or around and through all the obstacles on the path.

They are each in business in quite different fields and while some basic things are the same in my work for each of them, more often than not I wear a completely different hat with each. Today I put on a sub-hat within my main hat for a client and spent a good amount of time trouble-shooting his computer (not the first time I might add).  He is not a techie type at all, but today he wanted to learn and so together the two of us systematically worked through it, helped by the user manual, and lo and behold, we were able to fix the darn thing.  Hi frikkin’ five!  Success is indeed sweet.

To be successful in my business, among other things therefore, is to know a little about a lot of things.  Over the years the ‘little’ has grown some.  A little win like today always feels great and I wear the victor’s laurel with pride.

Photo by Kevin Rosseel

Hope you are all winners of your daily battles too.

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

I Don’t Like Mondays

Funny/ironic the emotional/psychological shifts my life has taken in the last year or so.  After years of hating Mondays, I’m really starting to like them.

For the past several months (and at least for the last remaining weeks before my son graduates from high school), Monday mornings are now (mostly) my own.  Unless I have specific time-sensitive matters to take care of for folks, I get to choose when I do what I do on Mondays.  I’m very well self-motivated, so it is pretty much all productive, but woo-hoo, I call the shots on the schedule.

And lately, my Mondays have kind of meandered along allowing me time to have and develop thoughts like this.  I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in another, much earlier non-UBC post, but a board member I used to work with back in the day, often said to me on Fridays, “Cheer up, only two days to go.”  I’d laugh and say boo, that’s not funny , etc.

He was/is a successful businessman running his own company.  So now I’m thinking he was joking with me but for himself he quite probably meant what he said?  Mondays are kinda fun these days …I know some of you know what I mean??
P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

Do you ever get to the point where there are so many things you want to do, but simply not enough hours in the day, days in the week? Of course you do, especially if you’re running your own show.  I think this pace is truly a symptom of life in the 21st century.

Pausing, breathing and taking a moment is what I am now able to do; what I know I must do to stay on the right side of balance in my life. I run a virtual assistance practice, out of the fabulous school of AssistU, and one the favorite gems I gleaned from our visionary leader Anastacia, is a little piece of prose by Sheng Yen. It’s on my website and I have it pinned up in my office. It’s a little jewel that reminds me to pause, breathe and take a moment, because if I just allow myself to be in the gentle flow, I will stay on course.

Perhaps it will help you too.  Here it is.

Be soft in your practice.
Think of the method as a
fine silvery stream, not a
raging waterfall. Follow
the stream, have faith in its
course. It will go its own
way, meandering here,
trickling there. It will find
the grooves, the cracks,
the crevices. Just follow it.
Never let it out of your sight.
It will take you there.

Sheng-yen

P.S. I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this month – a blog a day if I can.

One of Michelle’s recommendations for today’s blog is a reflection of the week that’s behind us.  Awesome, because at the start of this challenge, I missed the vital part of info that said put your stuff on twitter AND our UBC fb page.

It took me until April 5 to find out (thank you Cindy), so I’m posting April 1, 2 3 and 4 here, just in case there’s anything you really needed to know and/or maybe comment on.

Here are the summaries… and thanks for letting me catch you up.

April 1 – a photographer girlfriend’s birthday and reminiscences on Yellowstone (if you look at nothing else, please check out her photo site, she’s awesome).

April 2 – feeling good about running my own biz – good fatigue v. bad.

April 3 – all the same but different, observations on siblings.

April 4 – a lesson on Madeira – where in the world is it?

Have a great weekend!