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By kilax, March 23, 2016 6:49 am

The Brussels attacks yesterday made me go in to a state of numb shock. Seeing a heavy police force in the train station in the morning made my stomach turn. While people around me were discussing what happened, I couldn’t get my head past the state of “why?” Why, why, why?

We all react different to everything. Especially acts as horrific as these. And that’s okay.

But what is not okay with me? Treating news like this like gossip. I heavily remember this bothering me after the Boston Marathon bombing – the way people discussed the event, all excited, waiting for the next bit of information. It made me go in to isolation for a bit. I couldn’t deal with it.

Part of the problem is the way the news portrays things – everything is sensational*! They seem to want you to get all jacked up and emotional. I can see why people do!

But I wish people would think before they speak about these things. Consider their tone. Remember to have some respect for the situation, and especially, respect for the people there and the lives taken.

Maybe I am just being overly sensitive, as I feel overly helpless.

*I never saw the effect of this more clearly than when I was with a young kid and we happened to walk by a TV sharing a story about a loose snake in Florida and all of a sudden they were worried snakes were going to be outside. We walked by that TV for a few seconds!

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By kilax, March 10, 2016 6:27 am

• YAY! The first floor bathroom work will begin at our house today! Work includes: swapping the location of the toilet and vanity (and doing associated plumbing, flooring, lighting, electrical, etc. work) and installing the new bathtub and shower surround. YAY! YAY YAY YAY! YAY!

Bathroom “before” picture

• Did anyone else watch the final episode of Downton Abbey? It was nice how they tied everything up but… eh. I wasn’t in to it much the last few seasons. After they killed off Matthew I just didn’t love it as much. The first few seasons were my favorites.
• Remember when I talked about that article that said we think of our future self as separate from our current self and that is why we sign up for stuff we don’t want to do? I didn’t mention that I didn’t feel like that was applicable to me – I almost always say no to everything. Ha. But… I did see the research mentioned in another article about anger (pdf here), and interestingly, they mentioned how sometimes we make bad eating choices now because we aren’t thinking about how future us would be affected by it, and… yeah. That is totally me!
• Here’s an article I do agree with – “The worst kind of boss is not the one who’s always a jerk” (pdf here). Basically, it says that people would rather have a boss who is predictable – if they are going to be a jerk, be that way all the time. No Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not your best friend one day and throwing you under the bus the next. Have you worked with people like this? I sure have (not my current boss!). And that is why I agree with the article – I’d rather just know what to expect than have it be a guessing game each day (or as my coworkers and I would say “whichever way the wind is blowing today…”).
• Are you getting sick of me talking about our mailbox? I was just so excited to see mail in it on Monday! Not driving to the post office is saving me so much time!!!! Woo hoo!

• Data woke us up making strange noises at 4:00 am today. He found another friend! Not a mouse, but there was a raccoon (or something raccoon sized) hanging out around the house. We saw it walk across the porch then off in to the woods. EARLY AM EXCITEMENT!!! (It was hard to wake up my cat alarm showed up a an hour or so later.)
• We set all the bird feeders up this week! And far from the house – so hopefully we can watch, but not invite any of those critters in. I have a feeling I am going to be seeing a lot of squirrels and other non-bird creatures eating out of these. Maybe that is what attracted the coon!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 89

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By kilax, February 25, 2016 6:25 am

• Relationship dynamics are extremely interesting to me, and something I read on quite a bit. Especially the maintenance of relationships, and knowing when to let one go. Anyway! I love when gems like this – “Disposable Friendships in a Mobile World” (pdf here) – show up in my Feedly. Basically, it’s about a study that was done to see if people who move more often also dispose of relationships more often (since they are more likely to dispose of physical items, too). Conclusion: it’s not so much that moving causes you to abandon relationships, but that it pushes you to evaluate them (like many things in life do!). I strongly believe people should constantly be analyzing if they are getting what they need out of their relationships. This, but all the time – “moving also requires making choices about which relationships are ‘worth’ maintaining and which are not, which ties could be replaced and which ties should be maintained.”
• That silly bruise took a week to heal! And didn’t feel too great. Eek! I haven’t had any accidents since then but I do feel like my hands aren’t functioning well – I’ve been having a hard time getting things to open this week (jars, bags, etc). Weird. Work with me, body, not against me!

• My mom’s mom is more on trend than me. When I talked to her last, she told me her girlfriend got her in to doing one of those adult coloring books. Say what? My snister sent me one in the fall, but I haven’t taken time to color much of it. I should do that instead of play with my phone when we watch (parts of) movies (then get up and do house stuff). I should get back to knitting, too! I know where all my knitting stuff is!

• When we got to our house on close day we found out the driveway and yard were a sheet of ice. Eek! We’ve had an odd winter of sporadic warm temps and freeze/thaw cycles. Pair that with all the shade in our yard and you get LOTS of ice! Steven and my dad got an ice scraper on move-in weekend and it’s been SOOOOO useful for getting ice off our driveway, sidewalk and off our patio (and then there was that time we tried to use it during mailbox install but that’s a story for another day…). What a useful and fun tool! I spent a lot of last Friday getting the last chunks of ice off our patio and my deltoids were feeling it!

Putting Dad to work!

This picture doesn’t do it justice – the patio was covered in a snow/ice mix!

This is what I got it down to after a bit of work. Then I broke this in to big chunks and picked up some to toss…

… and did a little curling with the others. Ha!

All clear!

• One more article to end the post! “Why You Keep Signing Your Future Self Up for Stuff You Don’t Actually Want to Do” (pdf here) explains how you think of your future self separate from your present self – which is why you might think you’ll have more time to do things, or an interest in something you don’t now. Interesting stuff. Their advice? If you wouldn’t want to do it now, don’t say you’ll do it in the (near) future.

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 87

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By kilax, February 18, 2016 7:23 am

• We’ve arrived to the part of winter where I see it’s going to be 20°F and think “Oh, it’s gonna be warm today!” Ha! We have an actual warm spell coming Friday, accompanied by 30 mph winds with 60 mph gusts. Okay, then. I hope that isn’t a sign of how our spring will be – you all know I get a little stabby with the high winds.
• I spoke too soon on Monday when I mentioned we hadn’t seen Denali in awhile – he/she came around that morning. I realized Denali was visiting when I saw legs from the basement window. Creepy! Ha! Then Denali and Data had words and I heard Data make some noises I’d NEVER heard from him before. Eek.

I feel bad for Denali. I wish his/her owner would give him some love.

• Would you live in a house without a bathtub? Our new house is 1.5 baths, and there’s no bathtub! Only a shower! I LOVE taking baths, so we worked it in to the FHA 203k work to renovate the first floor bathroom to be a full bath. And we just ordered a deep soaker bathtub for it. SO. EXCITED!!!!!
• Now I know why I have a hard time remembering English words from time to time (pdf here) – it’s because my brain knows too many Spanish ones! There ya go! It’s not cause I’m crazy. Nope, nope, nope. Ha, seriously though, xaarlin shared this article and it makes so much sense to me – when you know (or are learning) two languages, your brain has to make a choice each time about which language to use, and sometimes it messes up and you can’t remember a word you know and used all your life, even if you are speaking in your native tongue. But it’s actually a good exercise for your brain to choose between the two languages! I forget words all the time, so let’s say it’s this, okay? (I know it totally isn’t.)
• I had mentioned I was hoping I’d still be able to see the sunrise and sunset from our new home, and I can! And it’s just a short run to get more of the vista. Now I just need to work on my timing!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 86

Comments (34)

By kilax, February 19, 2014 6:23 am

When you are watching the winter Olympics, which questions are going through your head?

It’s funny, a lot of the questions I have had – “Why are the snowboarders so chill?” “How old are those curlers?” “How many calories are ice skaters burning?” “Why does Johnny Weir look so fabulous?!?!?” – have been showing up in my newsfeed a day or so after I think of them! I am loving watching the Olympics (even though I don’t understand scoring and am just hoping to see epic crashes) and know some of you are too, so here are a few of those interesting articles (yes, I read them all)!

How many calories do Olympic athletes burn? (pdf here)

Why are the snowboarders so chill? (pdf here)

How many dual Olympians (summer and winter) have there been, and in which two sports? (pdf here) – I thought the cycling/speed skating combo was interesting!

How old are those curlers? (pdf here)

Why does Johnny Weir look so fab?! (pdf here)

What’s up with the speedskating suits? (pdf here)

Previously shared – How do you train for the bobsled? (pdf here)

Why is Kim so fascinated with watching people crash? Um… because their resilience is so inspiring? Yeah, that’s it.

Here is one question Steven and I cannot find any answer to… why are the announcers (edited: I think I meant commentators) so annoying?!

Xaarlin shared this fun flow chart with me – which winter Olympic sport should you try?

Andrew and Rachel shared this Star Wars Olympic mashup with me:

And some more questions:

Why does Data insist on sitting in front of my computer in the morning?!?!?!?!?

Will Kim share anything other than links this week?!

How did this get so off track?!

Comments (23)

By kilax, October 8, 2013 6:43 am

Geesh, sometimes we have to say “I”! Give us a break! Ha ha. 

I (1) was reading this article (pdf here) about recent research on what the frequency of saying “I” implies. According to the article, it’s not narcissistic people who use the word more, but rather, it’s people who feel “less powerful and sure of themselves who use the pronoun more frequently.”

The high-status person is looking out at the world and the low-status person is looking at himself.

Hmm, interesting!

Have you ever noticed someone who says “I” a lot? Have you ever tried to use it less yourself, or, use it more?

Data uses it A LOT

I (2) don’t notice it too much, unless it seems that someone is really talking a lot about themself. And the article did say people who use “I” are often being self-reflective (duh), and it’s good to use when talking to your partner (you know, the whole “I feel this way” vs “you did this!” advice), or to sound humble (which seems to contradict the first sentence in this paragraph… hmm).

But according to several studies, “leaders” use “I” less and the more it’s used by someone, the less power they seem to have.

Interesting. I (3) will have to pay attention to this!

Also interesting… a really creepy part of the article that analyzes Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s use of “I” words (I, me, my, I’ll, I’m, etc.) on Twitter before the bombing. Apparently people use “I” less to be dishonest/hide things… and Tsarnaev seemed to drop these words from his twitter vocabulary, leading up to the bombing.

Like I (4) said, creepy!

Comments (19)

By kilax, May 22, 2013 7:36 pm

I wonder if in the future, along with the “where were you when “xyz” happened?” question, if there will be a “how did you find out?” question. It’s almost like we need to add that now. 

I don’t regularly watch the news, read the paper or listen to the radio. I get my news from three sources: word-of-mouth, rss news feed, and Facebook. 

And if I’m marking my rss news as read because I don’t feel I have time to read it, and I’m working at home by myself and not chatting much with outsiders, well, you see what that leaves. 

Is Facebook a good news source?

You know what news I heard first on Facebook this year*? The Sandy Hook shootings*. The Boston bombings. The Oklahoma City destruction. The London soldier attack. Many other stories. 

I also read about many more awful things in my rss news feed that never made it to Facebook. It’s interesting what people find important enough to share/speak their mind on. It’s interesting that people want to share certain things at all. 

Mostly, we share the things to which we can relate. Which, honestly, makes it much more emotional for me to find out about things on Facebook than from a news source. It feels more real, raw, emotional. To read about the brutal London attack from someone who is from London. I feel sad about the situation. I feel sad for how the situation makes that person (sharing on Facebook) feel, since it’s their hometown. I feel scared by how public the attackers were. I feel scared by what the attackers said. 

In the end though, this all reminds me how often I rely on social media for information. And… I don’t think that is good. For me. 

It’s slanted. What you read is completely dependent on who you are “friends” with, or who you “follow.” It makes me think strange things, that I shouldn’t think, like “Why was everyone so passionate about this incident, but not this one that was very similar? Why did they speak their mind on one and not the other”? “Why did this get so many mentions, but not this“?

I am reading in to it way too much. I have to remind myself that most people are probably sharing their thoughts because it makes them feel better. 

I also have to remind myself that many voices lamenting the same thing is too overwhelming for me, personally to read. 

Anyway. Just wanted to share those thoughts. I’ve had them for awhile now, and it’s like they finally came out in a way that made sense to share.

So. Back to the beginning of this post. I think it’s time to stay more caught up with the news, outside of social media. I can’t avoid it. But I can come prepared.** 

*and 2012
**I would rather read something from a news source first, than have the shock of seeing it on Facebook. Not sure why it is different for me, especially since the first thing I do when I read something on Facebook is look up facts from a news source. 

Comments (17)

By kilax, February 26, 2013 11:55 am

Ahh, double posts two days in a row! I’M HYPER!!!

I stumbled across this article (pdf here) yesterday about the effect smiling has on your health. I thought the article was just going to say how forcing yourself to smile makes you happier. But! It was much more interesting than that!

Thanks for the grumpy cat pic rec, Anne! Image from here.

First of all, the article mentioned a runner who says smiling helps them feel less tired/stressed during their long runs! Funny to me, since I always try to smile when I am running – but for a different reason – so people who see me think I’m a happy runner (I am!) and think running is fun*.

Secondly, the article also said if you smile after a stressful event, your elevated heart rate will decline faster. Some researchers think only a genuine** smile causes health benefits, though, compared to a  fake*** smile.

Thirdly, “Studies have found that the intensity of a person’s smile can help predict life satisfaction over time and even longevity.” But they are not sure if the smiling reflects your happiness level, contributes to it, or a little bit of both.  Researchers think “It’s probably bidirectional. People who smile more tend to elicit more positive connections with other people, which in turn [can] help make you happier and healthier.”

And the article ended with reminding people to smile genuinely at others – because it makes others happy – “when people see a smile, so-called mirror neurons fire in their brain and evoke a similar neural response as if they were smiling themselves.” The article even mentions a coaching service for more genuine smiling that involves your whole face and gets that twinkle going in your eyes!

Do you think you can tell the difference between a genuine and fake smile?

Anyway, I bastardized the article and left out some other cool nuggets of information, so please check it out for yourself.

I found this article super interesting, because I do believe smiling makes me happier. There have been times I am grumpy and smiling helps!!! I need to remember that! Like, most weekdays, hint hint, Kim.

Do you think smiling can make you feel happier/healthier? Are you smiley?

I  am super smiley cheese ball!

In focus and blurry smileys!

*Hmm, might be a stretch to think seeing me would make people think that. But let’s roll with it.
**Called ” ‘Duchenne smile,’ after the 19th century French neurologist who first described it.”
***Called ” ‘Pan Am’ smile after the polite expression the former airline’s stewardesses used to greet passengers.”

Comments (35)

By kilax, February 21, 2013 6:16 am

This Random Thoughts Thursday is more of a cheat post… it’s actually mostly in the style of “Articles I am reading this week“!

• I’m back home after five days in NYC. I always have a hard time leaving, but this time was particularly hard, and I feel pretty weepy and sad. Do you ever get that feeling when you leave a place?

My little NYC buddy

• Have you ever had plantar fasciitis? Ugh, I have a few times, and in both feet (not a once though, thankfully). I thought this article (pdf here), saying there is no consensus on what causes it, was intriguing. Previously, it was believed that plantar fasciitis was chronic inflammation of the plantar fascia. “But when scientists actually biopsied fascia tissue from people with chronic plantar fasciitis, they did not find much if any inflammation.”  So now they actually think plantar fasciitis is caused by degeneration or weakening of the tissues, which means the “itis” should be dropped from the injury name, because the “itis” suffix means inflammation!  Interesting (maybe only to me…)!
• Hee hee hee, I am not on Twitter, but I thought this article about “happiest and saddest states according to Twitter” (pdf here) was amusing. Researchers analyzed thousands of tweets based on positive and negative words to determine which states were the happiest and saddest. What cracked me up was what words were on the list as happy and sad – I kind of want to see the whole list! Some sad words are “mad, hate, no, boo, smoke and jail, as well as a colorful and thorough assortment of expletives” and some happy words are “LOL and haha, as well as good, nice, sleep and wine, and food or beach related words,” LOL, indeed. The article really focused on how states with more expletives in their tweets were “sadder.” Is your state more happy or more sad (click the link to see the graph)?
• Here’s a fun work from home idea (pdf here) – a virtual assistant! “These skilled online helpers work from home or through outsourcing firms to handle a widening range of clients’ tasks, from scheduling a doctor’s appointment, managing meetings or cleaning out an email inbox, to finding the perfect hairdresser or pair of pants.” Do you think you could use a virtual assistant?
• And now, for one more bagel picture! Ha ha ha. You guys may have guessed that I love eating all the foodz in NYC. I went a bit overboard this trip. I guess one good thing about being home is getting back to my normal eats! And not that I couldn’t eat my “normal eats” in NYC – I could! I just choose to indulge… a bit too much. Ha ha.  

Other Random Thoughts Thursday Posts: XXXII, XXXI, XXX, XXIX, XVIII, XXVII, XXVI, XXV, XXIV, XXIII, XXII, XXI, XX, XIX, XVIII, XVII, XVI, XV, XIV, XIII, XII, XI, X, IX, VIII, VII, VI, V, IV, III, II, I.

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By kilax, February 8, 2013 11:27 am

1. Overdoing it on Exercise (pdf copy)

This popped up in Google Reader today, when I was already feeling kind of sick but really wanted to work out… oops, one of the signs of exercise addiction. This is an interesting read on people who exercise so much it’s negatively affecting their work, relationships, and health. Have you ever thought you might be an exercise addict?

2. Does your diet influence how well you sleep? (pdf copy)

This article really piqued my interest because I’ve been eating healthier and have had so much energy I am not sleeping through the night well AT. ALL. According to the article (among other things) – “For the study, very short sleep patterns were defined as less than five hours a night, short sleep was five to six hours a night, standard sleep was seven to eight hours, and long sleep was nine or more hours a night. Short sleepers consumed the most calories, followed by normal sleepers, then very short sleepers. Long sleepers consumed the least calories. Normal sleepers, however, showed the highest food variety in their diets, and very short sleepers had the least variation in what they ate.”

Hmm. I am calling BS. It is true that I sleep like crap when I eat like crap, but why am I still sleeping like crap now?!

I am calling BS on this too (from the March issue of Men’s Health):

Or maybe my lack of sleep is due to item #1 above?! Hmm…

3. Most Americans take breaks from Facebook (pdf copy) & Dad pays daughter $200 to quit Facebook (pdf copy)

You guys know I love reading articles about the social dynamics on Facebook, so I had to share these two! People’s comments on why they take breaks from Facebook was amusing to me. What causes you to take Facebook breaks? I actually know a few people who periodically go on and off of Facebook. I go to tag them, and they’re gone and then I realize they are taking another break. 

4. Getting into your exercise groove (pdf copy)

An interesting article explaining how our bodies want to stay at their preset paces for running/walking, and that a strong rhythmic beat is a good way to overcome that (if you want to speed up step frequency). I would love to use this as an excuse to start listening to music on my runs again!

What are you reading this week? Any interesting articles you want to share?