In The Blurry Eyes of Spring

Spring is my busiest time of year. Well, fall too with the fun of planning for and being at Big E... but spring is filled with conferences, speaking engagements, trainings, tours, and the kick off of tourism season in New Hampshire. Not that I am complaining, as I always say, it's a hard job...but...someone has to do it.

Over the past week I've attended business meetings in Portland Maine, Meredith and Portsmouth NH. With a quick 3 day Family trip to Washington DC (Our Grandkids got to meet with NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen), The fun never stops and neither do I. I do, however, miss my 3 yoga classes a week, only getting in one, maybe two. Yoga grounds me and allows me the fortitude and capacity to do my job(s) as a Granite State Ambassador, entrepreneur, wife, mother, and grandmother.

As most people who know me know, Granite State Ambassadors is my passion and I am really excited and looking forward to working for a new boss, Gretchen Zeigler (pictured to my left). This will be the first time GSA, Inc. has had a new Board Chair in 14 years. Bill Petersen (one of the organization's founders and a person I respect and LOVE working with) is transitioning from a leadership position to a board position, as well as, transitioning from a University Dean to a Pastor.

In my "side" job, I am loving speaking around the state and New England through my own company 311 Management Services. I've have been speaking a lot on Social Media. I am currently working on a training program for the Inn at East Hill Farm. Sheri St. Laurent and her staff are ramping up for the summer season and have invited me in to give a presentation on how to be an "ambassador" for the Inn. I've invited Whitney Tyson, Granite State Ambassadors Programs Manager, to speak along with me so we can give the 1-2 punch of how they can accomplish this task on and off duty.

So, forgive me if I've been neglegent in writing my blog. I hope to be back soon.
All my best
Judi

Two Almonds, One Small Raisin

Sitting is a circle with others of my kind, listening to our leader Funi. My hands in prayer position I stare down at my naked feet pondering her request.

My legs are getting fatigued in their yogic position. (Why do they call it "easy seated position", it is not that easy.) My mind wanders from its intent as I think about food noticing the pungent smells of turmeric, ginger, sucanant and other spices slip under the closed doors of our program room. I can hear the whispers of people in deep conversation as they pass by. Funi hands us each a tiny plastic cup, the size they give you in restaurants to take ketchup home in. She asks us to carefully lift the lid to look inside. The soft Oms of chanting music is humming in the background setting the mood for this exercise. We all stare into our cups. Simple. Now she asks us to make a choice from its contents. Smell it, feel it in your fingers. Nothing, yet. Now put it in your mouth, don't chew, just feel. It feels weird. I want to chew. Time ticks by, one minute, two minutes, seems like more. Now she instructs us to chew with one request... We must chew 100 chews! Do you know how long that takes? Class is dismissed for the evening.

Mary O, my roommate, and I walk slowly to our third floor room. My springtime green night shirt adorned with colorful fruit lay upon my neat, sparsely appointed bed with one flat pillow and a single white blanket folded at it's end. We rest. Mary reads.

At 5:00pm we dutifully walk to the second floor, cafeteria style, food hall. I show my badge, it says "Judi Window" with a little 5 circled depicting the number of visits to the Center. I carefully choose a fork, knife, plate, and blue bowl. I don't know why, I just always choose a blue bowl. I hesitate when I instinctively choose the non-vegetarian line. I am safe, within my comfort zone. I decide to move to the right, just this once, to see what I can see. My orange sarong scarf brushes the colorful, shatter proof, plates, I feel it in my hand as I quickly capture its remnant. Nervous to make a mistake, my eyes dart back and forth though the choices along what seems to be a quickly moving line of hungry people. I don't know what some of the words mean. Are they the name of the dish or of food? Are they ingredients? My mind feels hurried, I breath a deep breath and stop. It is only food. They are only people. I take my time. I choose to fill my bowl with Quinoa, some kind of beans, kale, a pinch of sunflower seeds, and a scoop of (what looks to be) eggplant with tomato sauce. There. Mary smiles. She knows.

We choose a seat near the door where only a few others have been seated. We talk about the time we came to meditate with Deepak Chopra. We've come a long way in 8 years and 5 visits.

Open Window: A Six Sentence Story for Blog Class

It is 5:07am and in the surreal moments between wake and sleep I feel a bird signing, "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet"; "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet"; "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet". I am suddenly teetering atop a black wire overlooking my son-in-laws running car below, in the driveway. I want to fly down to his car to tell him it is me, but all I can do is sing "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet"; "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet"; "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet". My mind was filled with thought of worms, eggs, bigger birds, falling off the wire, and firemen, along with jumbled thoughts of work, Tweeting, Facebook, and blogs. "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet"; "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet"; "tweet-Chirp, Chirp, chirp-Tweet" the vortex of the morning light sucked me back to my pillow. Ah, it was only a dream tweet.

One Painted Wall; 3 Dingy Walls

Over the course of the past two weeks I have been to the doctors office 5 times and have had multiple tests including blood draws, CAT scans, etc. I went in for a simple problem and left with 3 new problems. Why is it that in business we have to 'solve' problems and in medicine they only 'find' problems?  It reminds me of trying to paint just one wall of my house.... it makes the rest of the walls look old and dingy.


In business painting just one wall doesn't help your customer service image. You can say what you think your customers want to hear (unlike doctors), but the reality is they will only see the 3 dingy walls or the 3 new problems. Take this picture, for example. (Yes, I have an obsession with clean bathrooms, given my background in restaurant and visitor center management.)

Although the management tried to "do" customer service and the bathroom was not that dirty, the door (where the sign was posted) was not reflecting its message. Take time to look at your business and life. See it through the eyes of others. Pay attention to small details. Allow for error, plan for corrections, and recalculate your course.

I am feeling much better, am looking for the small details I may have missed and am continuing a forward path to good health.

10 Minutes A Day

I am in a blogging class at the Nackey Loeb School of Communications. We are doing a 10 minute writting exercise. So I figured I'd write about that. Writing is really hard... for me. Every time I think about what I want to write about I get "writers block". Is there something I can take for that you ask? Well I suppose I should approach that the same way as I approach being overweight. I always wished there was a pill for that. But alas, it involved hard work, whole foods, consistency, and time.

Writing for 10 minutes a day might be the same. Hard work... finding 10 minutes a day. Whole foods... hum, maybe reading other blogs for ideas (recipes) to help learn to cook these new (whole) foods. Finally consistency and time. Write, write, write, write (just wasting time here).

We are not supposed to read over our what we write. Which makes me think about meditation. My friend Mary O and I went to a 3-day retreat with Deepak Chopra who began each day with 45 minutes of meditation (and 15 minutes to prepare). Each day for 1 hour we meditated. He suggested we chant "I Am" to ourselves to keep our focus. He also suggested that we, when other thoughts come into our mind, simply accept them and put them to the side while we meditate. I Am, I Am, I Am (yup, wasting time again). I love to meditate. I don't love to write. But I want to learn to write. So this is day one of the rest of my blogging life. OM.

45 seconds to go... 44 43 ...... 23..... 15 1.... DONE!

They will never find me there!

Welcome to my 2nd attempt at blogging. I do have another blog at http://judiwindow.wordpress.com/ but haven't posted to it since last April. I read back and think, hum... not as bad as I remembered.

I would like to thank all my Facebook friends for helping me to name this blog. I finally decided on "Window of Opportunity" suggested by my brother Jeff. Thanks Jeff!

I am going to begin with a story read to me (us) by my yoga teacher Elizabeth Vlangas at Riverflow Yoga Studio in Hooksett NH. I don't have the author, but will get it and post it when received. The story will be a nice basis for my journey into blogging.... Although I am a good talker, writing isn't my forte. My spelling is poor, my english worse. So let me appolizie up front. But I do have a lot to say.

I believe in coincidence, serendipity, instincts, and taking every opportunity that life has to offer. I also strongly believe in consensus and group thought as a basis for my decisions (hence asking for suggestions to name my blog). So I've picked this story to show that I am in good company. Follow as I trip, fall, and glide through my everyday life. At least until I decide what I really want to write about (or until the end of my blogging class).

"It seems God had just created human beings. Realizing that he had made a terrible mistake, God called a council of the Elders to get some help. When the Elders were gathered, God reported 'I have just created humans and now I don't know what I am going to do". They will always be talking to me and wanting things from me and I won't ever get any rest.' Upon hearing God's dilemma, the Elders made several suggestions telling God he could hide on Mt. Everest, or the moon, or deep in the earth. God responded hopelessly to all of these suggestions saying, 'No, humans are resourceful, eventually they will find me there.' Finally, one Elder walked up to God and whispered something in his ear. Then God shouted in delight, 'That's it! I'll hide inside of each human, they will never find me there!"