Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers!
In the past five weeks, I have been in Houston, Texas; New York City, NY; Budapest, Hungary; Paris, France; Tampa, Florida and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. It has been a lot of fun, but also incredibly tiring. I have hundreds of pictures and stories, which hopefully will make it to my blog! Oh procrastination!
On Friday, I was groggily "awake" at 4:30 a.m. to get ready to be at the airport rental car drop off by 5:30 a.m. to catch a 7 a.m. flight back home to Tampa. My freezer was filled with a lot of duty free chocolate and some kick ass dried pomelo from the Budapest Great Market Hall ... but my refrigerator was bare.
I went to the grocery store and bought the ingredients for my lower fat, lower calorie version of a sausage, potato and kale Italian soup (made with a splash of evaporated skim milk instead of 2 cups of heavy cream). It's a dish I make in the fall and winter. Also this weekend I made a chicken tortilla soup and my (not to brag, but...) incredibly amazing homemade guacamole.
As I stood over a simmering vat of my sausage, kale and potato soup, I realized that I must be spiritually and physically drained because this is definitely one of my "soothing" comfort food recipes. I feel like homemade soup in general is a type of medicinal comfort. I also felt like I was reconnecting myself to my home. After weeks of waking up in hotel rooms, not remembering what city or even what country I was in - I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.
In some perverse, masochistic turn of events, I had scheduled two days of volunteering for my first two full days back home. WHY? WHY? I should have scheduled two days of laying on the couch catching up with my beloved friend, Mr. DVR and all my wonderful television shows. But nooooo ... for some sick reason I decided to help others! Ugh. I seriously have a problem!
So this past Saturday, I spent eleven hours at the Healing in the Harbor event in Safety Harbor. Lots of holistic wellness, acupuncture, massage, organic products, incense, big drums, crystals and all other sorts of "happy" products for sale. Evolve at the Ashram of Clearwater (www.evolveclearwater.com) handed out these free Buddhas.
I know it may sound juvenile, but I had to have one! One little girl who was maybe four years old, held up her Buddha and said "How do you like my baby?" I replied: "Your baby is very spiritual" and then I showed her how to sit and hold her fingers like her "baby" Buddha.
I was helping my friend at her booth selling her home and body organic products and at the booth next to us was the mother-daughter and 5 month old son team selling "Healthy Hoops" - hula hoops in chakra colors.
Do you know what happens when you spend eleven hours in the hot Florida sun next to a Hula Hoop booth? You become the proud owner of your very own Healthy Hoop. Yes, I am 975 years old, single, have a household full of cats, a stuffed Buddha, vats of homemade soup... and now I am also a novice hula hooper.
I don't know what else I can do to become more desirable to the public. I'm pretty much beyond fabulous in every imaginable way.
My hula hoop is cheetah print and purple - I am not sure which chakra color "cheetah print" is, but the hoop is huge, weighs three pounds and is all MINE.
Evidently (or so I am told) the heavier the hula hoop, the easier it is for the beginner. Three pounds is the heaviest hula hoop, Healthy Hoops sells. Maybe I can find some "hula weights" to help weigh this puppy down because I am as about as novice as a novice can be!
So in the middle of the night when you wake up and think "What is Lily doing?" (And I know you do that ALL THE TIME!) Rest assured that I am in my living room, hula hooping while my cats watch and then I am eating soup.
It is indeed the rockstar life here in Tampa, Florida!
The Healing in the Harbor event in Safety Harbor, Florida definitely had me thinking about the universe. I had just finished a leadership seminar in Raleigh-Durham. One of the activities was drawing an empathy map to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
I thought this exercise had coincidental timing in my life, because I had recently written a blog post called "On Communication and Ego ..." In it, I wrote about how people can minimize or devalue another person's feelings in a conversation.
Well after I published the "On Communication and Ego" post about devaluing/minimizing a person's feelings, I received an email from someone who apologized for invalidating my feelings - but then went on to characterize the event that had caused major emotional pain as "a slight" and "a transgression."
SERIOUSLY? It's like saying "I'm sorry I invalidated your car accident injuries; oh by the way, how is your little boo boo doing?"
Maybe the person meant for the "apology" email to be sarcastic or passive-aggressive. If so then BRAVO - mission accomplished, because using the word "invalidate" and then using minimizing words to describe what happened would then make sense if you were trying to be snide and shitty.
A couple years ago, I had written a blog post about "pseudo apologies" - in this particular post, a guy who had dumped me in a horrifically shameful way and then gave me a crappy non-apology had karmically had explosive diarrhea food poisoning right afterward. This post was called "Food Poisoning or Karma? The Suckitude of Pseudo Apologies."
A pseudo apology to me is like when someone says "I am sorry that you feel hurt" versus "I am sorry I hurt your feelings." On the surface it sounds like an apology, but if you look closely there is no ownership or personal responsibility. I wanted to take the email I received, circle the words "invalidate," "slight" and "transgression" and write: THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHAT I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT!
But I didn't do that because frankly that horse has been beaten to death. If you have to explain seventeen times why something hurts you and the person still doesn't get it; there's no reason to talk more about it. Sometimes you just have to let go. No need to prolong the drama, emotions or frustration. I'd rather focus my energies on things and people who build me up.
Sometimes it's just better to hula hoop and eat soup. And I didn't intend for that to rhyme, but it's pretty darn cool that it did!
Happy Monday to you all!
In the past five weeks, I have been in Houston, Texas; New York City, NY; Budapest, Hungary; Paris, France; Tampa, Florida and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. It has been a lot of fun, but also incredibly tiring. I have hundreds of pictures and stories, which hopefully will make it to my blog! Oh procrastination!
On Friday, I was groggily "awake" at 4:30 a.m. to get ready to be at the airport rental car drop off by 5:30 a.m. to catch a 7 a.m. flight back home to Tampa. My freezer was filled with a lot of duty free chocolate and some kick ass dried pomelo from the Budapest Great Market Hall ... but my refrigerator was bare.
I went to the grocery store and bought the ingredients for my lower fat, lower calorie version of a sausage, potato and kale Italian soup (made with a splash of evaporated skim milk instead of 2 cups of heavy cream). It's a dish I make in the fall and winter. Also this weekend I made a chicken tortilla soup and my (not to brag, but...) incredibly amazing homemade guacamole.
As I stood over a simmering vat of my sausage, kale and potato soup, I realized that I must be spiritually and physically drained because this is definitely one of my "soothing" comfort food recipes. I feel like homemade soup in general is a type of medicinal comfort. I also felt like I was reconnecting myself to my home. After weeks of waking up in hotel rooms, not remembering what city or even what country I was in - I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.
In some perverse, masochistic turn of events, I had scheduled two days of volunteering for my first two full days back home. WHY? WHY? I should have scheduled two days of laying on the couch catching up with my beloved friend, Mr. DVR and all my wonderful television shows. But nooooo ... for some sick reason I decided to help others! Ugh. I seriously have a problem!
So this past Saturday, I spent eleven hours at the Healing in the Harbor event in Safety Harbor. Lots of holistic wellness, acupuncture, massage, organic products, incense, big drums, crystals and all other sorts of "happy" products for sale. Evolve at the Ashram of Clearwater (www.evolveclearwater.com) handed out these free Buddhas.
I know it may sound juvenile, but I had to have one! One little girl who was maybe four years old, held up her Buddha and said "How do you like my baby?" I replied: "Your baby is very spiritual" and then I showed her how to sit and hold her fingers like her "baby" Buddha.
I was helping my friend at her booth selling her home and body organic products and at the booth next to us was the mother-daughter and 5 month old son team selling "Healthy Hoops" - hula hoops in chakra colors.
Do you know what happens when you spend eleven hours in the hot Florida sun next to a Hula Hoop booth? You become the proud owner of your very own Healthy Hoop. Yes, I am 975 years old, single, have a household full of cats, a stuffed Buddha, vats of homemade soup... and now I am also a novice hula hooper.
I don't know what else I can do to become more desirable to the public. I'm pretty much beyond fabulous in every imaginable way.
My hula hoop is cheetah print and purple - I am not sure which chakra color "cheetah print" is, but the hoop is huge, weighs three pounds and is all MINE.
Evidently (or so I am told) the heavier the hula hoop, the easier it is for the beginner. Three pounds is the heaviest hula hoop, Healthy Hoops sells. Maybe I can find some "hula weights" to help weigh this puppy down because I am as about as novice as a novice can be!
So in the middle of the night when you wake up and think "What is Lily doing?" (And I know you do that ALL THE TIME!) Rest assured that I am in my living room, hula hooping while my cats watch and then I am eating soup.
It is indeed the rockstar life here in Tampa, Florida!
The Healing in the Harbor event in Safety Harbor, Florida definitely had me thinking about the universe. I had just finished a leadership seminar in Raleigh-Durham. One of the activities was drawing an empathy map to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
I thought this exercise had coincidental timing in my life, because I had recently written a blog post called "On Communication and Ego ..." In it, I wrote about how people can minimize or devalue another person's feelings in a conversation.
Well after I published the "On Communication and Ego" post about devaluing/minimizing a person's feelings, I received an email from someone who apologized for invalidating my feelings - but then went on to characterize the event that had caused major emotional pain as "a slight" and "a transgression."
SERIOUSLY? It's like saying "I'm sorry I invalidated your car accident injuries; oh by the way, how is your little boo boo doing?"
Maybe the person meant for the "apology" email to be sarcastic or passive-aggressive. If so then BRAVO - mission accomplished, because using the word "invalidate" and then using minimizing words to describe what happened would then make sense if you were trying to be snide and shitty.
A couple years ago, I had written a blog post about "pseudo apologies" - in this particular post, a guy who had dumped me in a horrifically shameful way and then gave me a crappy non-apology had karmically had explosive diarrhea food poisoning right afterward. This post was called "Food Poisoning or Karma? The Suckitude of Pseudo Apologies."
A pseudo apology to me is like when someone says "I am sorry that you feel hurt" versus "I am sorry I hurt your feelings." On the surface it sounds like an apology, but if you look closely there is no ownership or personal responsibility. I wanted to take the email I received, circle the words "invalidate," "slight" and "transgression" and write: THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHAT I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT!
But I didn't do that because frankly that horse has been beaten to death. If you have to explain seventeen times why something hurts you and the person still doesn't get it; there's no reason to talk more about it. Sometimes you just have to let go. No need to prolong the drama, emotions or frustration. I'd rather focus my energies on things and people who build me up.
Sometimes it's just better to hula hoop and eat soup. And I didn't intend for that to rhyme, but it's pretty darn cool that it did!
Happy Monday to you all!
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