Wow! This is so cool! I just recently posted a new podcast that explores exactly this topic! -- what we mean by "living a balanced life", and how it differs from setting and achieving different lifestyle goals. The content is intended to help jump start your own thinking about how you can use the Life Balance software to create goals projects and tasks that support different lifestyle objectives. The title for the podcast is even "What is a Balanced Life?" so the Zaadz Q&R read my mind today! ....which seems almost spooky! but who am I to argue, when it is clearly time to simply go with the flow? :-) The audio is about 10 minutes long and is in MP3 and MP4 (also known as .m4a) formats. Enjoy! :-) --Catherine--*

There is no denying now that there is less than a month to go until the Race for the Cure in Boston. I have made it about halfway to my fundraising goal. How to close that gap before September 23?? I don't know. In the training, I'm doing a consistent 33 minutes for the 5K. I also took advantage of a special deal at the gym and hired a personal trainer for the month to help me get from 5K to 10K with three sessions scheduled with her between now and the Race. I want to make the effort to run farther than I need to, so that the 5K distance will seem easier. So right now, I feel like I'm halfway... with just about everything having to do with the Race... even though I'm probably ahead of where I expected to be at this point! Isn't it funny how your feelings can keep you from seeing that you are on target, especially when you are setting a new goal for yourself. To stay motivated and upbeat for this afternoon's session at the gym, I need to shift my attitude to recognize my water bottle as being half full, and drink it up before I start running today! At least that way, I'll stay hydrated! Ahhhh! So refreshing! :-)

The results of mind mapping techniques depend largely on the nature of the mind doing the mapping. I take a moment to imagine myself an early mind cartographer. Now entering terra incognita. Measuring the latitude and longitude along the rocky coastline of my daily input and interaction with the sentient beings around me. Some people stand out as landmarks. I note in my parchment book with the leather cover that there are minds everywhere that have yet to be discovered, and some in which there be sea monsters. And, now, over there, what is that, exactly!? Looks... unusual.... and... yet, reminds me of something else I've seen lately... Peering through the polished brass telescope ...Aha! I draw a line between two dots, in scratchy goose quill ink, between David Byrne's book Arboretum and Edward Tufte's book, Beautiful Evidence. Art, Science Science, Art, Ping, Pong, Pong, Ping. I get out the GPS, note the way points.

The Susan G. Komen For the Cure organization sent me a pretty black pen with a pink ribbon clip for helping to raise "so much money" last year for the Massachusetts race for the cure in Boston and a refrigerator magnet that says "Run, Walk, Celebrate, Remember." Who can forget? Not me. That's for sure. Yesterday I ran 3.1 miles in 33 minutes at the gym. That's a good time for me. It is less than a month left to go before race day, and I'm pretty much on target with my training. Donations are starting to come in too. I'm about halfway to my goal. It's doable! One step at a time. Anyway, the support from everyone means so much. The money goes to help fund screening and treatment for families who are underinsured and to help fund research to find better treatments and nothing less than a cure to END breast cancer FOREVER, something that families will never have to worry about again. I'm all for that! So when I am on my way this year to "Run, Walk, Celebrate, Remember", I especially choose to remember my aunt (who is unforgettable) naturally, but also I choose to remember to look for the good that our positive actions now can create for other families in the future. That's what fuels this tank! If you feel moved to help out, point your browser to my pledge page too. Now, how can I put this pen to good use?

So I've taken the zPro plunge to add in discussions here on the topic of living a balance life for my Life Balance software customers. I am looking at zPro as an experiment at this point. I've been impressed with how well zaadz works and it seems to scale well and the vibrancy of the community is probably no accident. In part, that is a function of how zaadz manages the discussions. So zPro could turn out to be interesting. Let's give it a whirl! :-)

Today my uncle, is doing the MS150 "Bike to the Breakwater." The race is up in Portland, Maine. The intention is to raise funds to benefit the Maine Chapter of the National MS Society. The Maine chapter provides programs and services to people living with Multiple Sclerosis in Maine. They support research to find a cause and cure for MS. Of course, our family spent the last week with us. We are conveniently located along the way. My uncle has done this race a number of times before. He is a randonneur. For him this distance is a mild ride. :-) (Imagine!) No matter how modest he might be about this, I'm taking the opportunity to wildly cheer him on anyway! Woo hoo! Whether he needs it or not! This weekend the Pan Mass Challenge is also taking place. Some of the riders pass right through Franklin in front of our place. That is always exciting to see and makes big news around here. I am wishing all the bicycle riders a good experience today as the cruise into Portland and Provincetown on these great charity rides. This morning, I take that inspiring positive energy still floating around out there and do my first "outside" run of the season in preparation for the Race for the Cure in Boston. Running outside is a lot harder than running in the gym. Weather and hills pose their own sets of challenges. New England pot holes can reach out and grab an unsuspecting ankle. The air this morning was just right -- a cool light breeze. I recently got my first pair of real running shoes. At 5 foot something, I'm small, with short non runnerly legs. None could be more surprised than I am to find out that I am a "Runner." Weird how that happens. I blame Baci. You know that ad about getting a faster dog? He runs for the fun of it, and he taught me how. :-) I did two loops this morning around what we call the "Aroma's loop." We named that after one of our local coffee shops. The run was a little over 3 miles. There are long gradually sloping hills alternating up and down. I ran the whole way. That was my goal for this run. I didn't time it. I just wanted to prove to myself only that I would be able to do it. Stuart thinks I had a good time. I don't know. I felt good. Once I've established that I can do it, it is easier for me to work on the time. This is an important milestone (literally) in the training for me this year. This year is different from last year, of course. Last year, Melissa was doing pretty well. She walked the whole way with us. This year, sadly, no. As I begin, I take a moment to focus on motivation. It continues to be a simple one that propels my feet up the long hill and around Aroma's Loop this morning with a light heart. I am wishing all families, including my own, all the best. I add my own little bit of positive energy to the day and run. If you were out there too, I say, "good going!" Consider your back patted in hearty congratulations!

My mom, Jean Blake White, in addition to working with us with the customer support center for my business, is an accomplished professional artist. I paint too, but I would say that I dabble. I’m maintaining my amateur status for when they add watercolors to the Olympics. :-) She and I did this painting together in mixed media — watercolor, pastel, and ink, on one Sunday afternoon recently. It was kind of a fun painting “duet” in visual form. My mom was on the left side of the paper, and I was on the right. Of course there was also some cross over into each other’s territory as we got into it. We were just “messing about” with a new set of watercolors that we had just bought, and wanted to try them out to see what they could do. And of course, Stuart and I have been “messing about in boats” with our sailing lessons so the theme evolved naturally as we worked. My mom and I were really pleased with how this painting turned out, because it looked like one composition rather than two, and the page had a lot of brightness and positive energy. You can almost feel the wind gusting across the page and our happy artistic playfulness as we swished our brushes gleefully over the surface of the paper. Even though we hadn’t set out to do anything in particular, we decided that this painting was definitely a “keeper” and we were delighted to be able to share it in the Summer Newsletter for our Life Balance software customers. And now I get to share it with my friends on Zaadz too! :-)

The question of the day is: "Where do you get your ideas?" ...but then the question goes on to ask a bunch of stuff with very different answers. And I believe that there are distinctions to be made here that can really help you do better in different circumstances. "What inspires you?" I never lack for inspiration and motivation, I just have to the awareness to be on lookout for it. I am inspired by anyone who is doing something that adds to the world in a positive way, and who is committed to it with all their heart. Their ability to express that commitment through action is what shines through them. And it is that beacon of heartfelt positive action that inspires me to add my little firefly sized glimmer to the world too. It doesn't have to be anyone famous, although there are heros a plenty out there too. Lately, I've seen that beacon shining brightly in the strength of my family. I am also blessed to have lots of customers who are doing amazing things out in the world, from rescuing animals to mapping the sea bed, and they also inspire me everyday to keep doing what we do. As long as I'm looking for it, I can count on that beacon to be there somewhere for me. "When you feel stuck...." Okay, that supposes a problem exists that I can't get my mind around with the direct approach. You can't always solve a problem as if you were storming the beach at Normandy! For me, that "feeling stuck" sensation is a real signal to do something else for a while. Like taking a walk, or gardening. Anything else that will let my mind work on the problem sideways. "...or at loose ends..." That sounds like when I am tired and exhausted, and I need rest. That's a good time to rest and refresh. Sleep on it. Meditate. Quiet the over active, over stimulated, over caffeinated, over wraught mind. Rest. Rest. Rest. "...where do you get your best ideas?..." Direct Observation. If you are looking for an original idea, there's no substitute to looking right at things and bringing to it your own unique point of view. Since only you can do that, it guarantees originality, if not popularity. Experiment. You have to tinker. Some things will work. Some won't. The doing brings new ideas either way, and it is better than getting stuck in a cartoon like thought bubble of analysis paralysis. "Is is by reading? Journaling? Talking with others? Taking some time in nature? Or something else altogether?..." Yes. All of those techniques can be helpful. Although, anything too predigested will certainly not yield up an original idea. Of course, you don't always need an original idea. You may just need to know about something you haven't heard of yet. I am more than willing to do research, and to learn from the collective experience of other people. Combined with direct observation, you can often gain insights that you wouldn't have otherwise. There's nothing wrong with climbing up onto the shoulders of those amiable giants over there to have a look see. :-)

I am intensely grateful to Stuart for upgrading our company blog software to improve its spam filtering.... again. Hurray! hurray! hurray! I know that it probably won't last, but for the moment... my inbox feels like a more welcoming place of brightness and light again! The barrage of spam our little company receives is full of spirit harm. It takes the wind from one's sails, and leaves me feeling.... like I need a shower....at the very beginning of the day. Such a waste of time and energy. It gets old, real fast. It is nearly impossible to share anything of one's heart, or to be open and generous of spirit knowing that the next day there will a flood of grossly boring nastiness that outnumbers the genuine comments by a factor of a hundred or more. I continue to be awestruck by the absence of spam on zaadz, too. It is wonderful to have that be a non-issue.

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