What is NELS?

For the next week I will be on staff at the North East Leadership School affectionately called NELS. This is my last year in a three year rotation of being on staff and I am excited and a bit sad that this is my last year. We hold it on Cape Cod at the Craigville Conference Center. I attended as a participant in August of 2004, and was asked to be on staff that fall. Days start at 7 am with a worship service before breakfast, and sometimes finish as early as 9:30 pm . It is a long and rewarding week. Participants learn leadership skills and they also participant in a Credo group, where they spend a week with a small group exploring their beliefs and composing them to share in this small group. They also are thrown into the task of putting together a worship service to share with their fellow participants. I have been brought to tears more than once during these lay led worship services.

Each year is different and each year is wonderful. There are 2 places that I go to where I detach from the TV and electronic world, Star Island and NELS. Since this is my last year, I will be looking for a replacement to have next summer,

. . . but to not wish this experience away, I am detaching now from this electronic media to travel to the Cape and enagage one last time in an experience where a staff of 8 put together a powerful learning experience for 28 other Unitarian Universalists from the North East and enable them, if they are willing, to return to their congregations, transformed leaders.

WOW Stunning service recommendations

I have adopted my friend Kris's philosophy of having my services close to where I work or live. Therefore when I got my new job in Waltham I decided to find a mechanic close to work.

At this point all 3 cars are now being services at http://www.bostonmufflerandbrake.com . This morning, after I have been driving around with a message that says "Fill Coolant" I decided to not take any more chances and called them up. They said come right down, I did. They filled the coolant, RIGHT ON THE SPOT. I was there less than 2 minutes. I was stunned. As an aside, at a recent family reunion, over 1/2 of my siblings drive around with the CHECK ENGINE light on. You know who you are!

So I called the place where I am having some t-shirts printed for NELS (North East Leadership School) http://www25.uua.org/nels/ to pick them up. I got them done in Stoneham at Ultimate Design. www.ultimatedesignapparel.com The people are so nice there, I would recommend them to anyone needing t-shirts for an organization or an event.

My dentist for 20 years calls me up the day after a major oral "event" at home that night, to make sure I am feeling OK, http://www.lexingtoncosmeticdentistry.com/Meet-Dentist.html.

And I have gotten my hair cut for 20 years at Salon di Paridiso on Lexington Street in Waltham, inside the Waltham Athletic Club. Bari cuts hair for all 3 of our family members. She knew where Bethany was going to college before we did. You never wait for an appointment, and even at 6 weeks, you might not need a hair cut yet. It lasts that long, and she is a really nice person. Kris, who this blog started with now gets her hair cut there.

So, with all of the bad customer service in this world, I wanted to highlight some good service. Tell them Sally sent you . . .

Endings and Change

I had dinner last night with my friend Karen. As an aside she talked about some astrology. We are both Geminis, and apparently this year, or next year (details!) is a year of transitions and change for me. OK, I get it. Take this with a grain of salt, but it certainly sparked my neurons to fire about all of the endings I have had already this year and some terrific changes.

So here is the unpunctuated and unedited list of endings: high school parent and LHS email list NELS staff position band and orchestra concerts BEL presence around the house perfect attendance at ASII

And changes: consulting to Intuit movement to VT of sibling(s) only 2 weeks vacation Great Place to Work amount of golf played yoga

Yoga, Knitting and Meditation

In my yoga class this morning, when the teacher says "Clear your mind of any thoughts and just focus on your breath." this is next to impossible for me to do. I cannot stop thoughts from coming into my head. I can do this for maybe 10 seconds, but then another neuron fires and my ENFP mind follows that thought. I try, really I try. The same thing happens to me when I meditate. CLEAR YOUR MIND OF ALL THOUGHTS. How do you do that? So this is a continuum right, from a gazillion thoughts in your head to a few. I cannot have NO thoughts going through my head.

In fact as I sat there in yoga, or lied or stood there in yoga, I compiled the to-do list of what was concerning me for the retreat that I am about to leave for. I problem solved a couple of things I was worried about and came up with some pretty good ideas if I do say so myself.

During a check-in with one of my groups, I described knitting as my meditation. It is what calms me, gets me to focus and removes those distracting thoughts from my head. It calms my Adult ADD if that is what I have. It lets me really listen to people. In college, my friend Rachel and I knit through all of our Psychology classes. We asked each professor and only one said NO. It was pretty funny to see us focusing on the Professor at the podium and to see many of the rest of the amphitheater, watching us knit.

So when you see someone knitting during a meeting, or in a group, don't assume that they are checked-out. In fact they may be like me and more checked-in than they would be otherwise. So I leave to go be present at my retreat, with my knitting. I once said in this same group to worry about me when I lay down my knitting. That is a clear signal that I am in distress, and enough distress such that I am not able to be calmed by my knitting.

Happy Friday the 13th and Triggers

The only 2 bad things that have happened to me on Friday the 13th are 1) I ran into my parents garage, backing out, just after I got my license and 2) Rod was turned back by INS at Terminal E when he was in the visa process, due to an incompetent labor lawyer. So the day rolls around and I think about what might happen but I am not really that superstitious about it.

Now on to triggers. At work we talk about triggers a lot. A trigger is any behavior by some one else that causes a reaction in you, such that you are not really in control of your emotional response. That is not exactly the definition, because I don't do exact definitions but it is close. So "What are my triggers?" The most obvious one is when someone acts like a victim, woe is me, they are doing this to me etc. I feel my blood pressure rise, I tense up, I interrupt the person and try to get them to act less like a victim and take charge. Additional insight for me over the years, is that I am triggered by something that I am afraid of exhibiting in myself, so in reality I act like a victim at times and I don't like it when I act like that.

The key to triggers is figure out what they are, catch yourself early in the reaction stage, and try to not react. I have other triggers too, surprise, surprise. Any observations on what they might be?

Settling in with Settlers

Summer is time to play games. Growing up we spent summers on Gardiner Island on Lake Champlain. I have so many wonderful memories of playing board games on the screend in porch at the Island and hours and hours of card games. I am not sure how we fit all of this in, since I remember swimming right after breakfast, until lunch, wait 1 hour after eating, jump in again, get out for dinner, and sometimes swim after dinner. BUT, we did find time to play games, "Go to the Head of the Class", of course "Monopoly" and "Parcheesi" etc. I learned how to play Bridge at the elbow of my parents and grand parents and I only trumped my partners Ace once. So our family played lots of games and it is always a surprise to me to meet someone who does not like games often because they did not grow up with them.

Fast Forward to Christmas, 2006, Crick and Meg introduced us to Settlers of Catan. They did not have their own game yet, but their friends Augie and Meredith brought their game over and we played. We played again with them after that and at Kenneth's 40th birthday party there was an intense game of the cousins.

It was one of those impulse buys, I just had to have my own set. On July 3rd we stayed up until 1:30am playing and tonight we just finished a game. Yes, my husband who refuses most offers to play games, and prefers to dive into a book on the periphery of the room wanted to play a second game tonight. We have settled into playing this game. I am trying to figure out how we could play it in Gloucester with 75 of our Star friends at a Star gathering. I don't think there is the table space and there would be too many distractions, so we will leave the game here but maybe a late Sunday night game is in order as we await the 50th birthday of my husband.