Thanks, Starbucks, for Helping Me Treat Myself

Egg nog lattes are back at Starbucks. I wait for this day all year. To treat myself to the eggy noggy goodness is so unlike me the other 10 months of the year...I am a green tea girl all the way. But for some reason, I am mush in the hands of the barista at the beginning of November.

Say what you want about the machine/corpocracy/evil empire that is Starbucks...and I say it myself...often. However, I am grateful for their helping me to get over my "do-for-everyone-else" disease for a few weeks a year. And in the last two years, I have gone to my local, non-chain, coffee shops to ask for egg nog lattes.

Find a treat for yourself, however silly or small, and go for it.

You ARE Out There!

When I started up again I thought that there would be no way anyone would remember me, or that it would take a while for readers to find me again, since I had been gone so long.

Imagine my surprise when I got an email from a reader, noticing I had come back! It felt fantastic. I'm enjoying a long weekend (it's Labor Day here in the US), and will for sure write more in the next day or so.

To the person who sent the email (you know who you are)--thank you! And I hope to hear from more of you as time goes on.

Women's Equality Day

Today is Women's Equality Day. It is also the 87th anniversary of women's right to vote in the United States. It is hard for me to believe that their are people in our country who have been alive longer than women have been able to vote.

Equality? Hhmmmm...

According to the US Census, women's median income is 77% of men's.
10 of the Fortune 500 companies are run by women (up from 7 last year).
Women hold 16% of the seats in US Congress.

Are you feeling equal today?

How About a To-Do for You?

How About a To-Do for You?

Why do we consistently put ourselves last? Why is it so hard to get at least one item on my to-do list about me, and only me?

A while back, I wrote about removing one item from your to-do list to simplify your life. If you took that advice, what would be the item that comes off? My guess is that it would be the one that didn’t apply to someone else in your life. So today I’m amending my advice from that article:

Add one item to your to-do list that is all about you.


Need some ideas? How about these “To-Do’s For You”?

• Get a “do not disturb” sign for your bedroom or bathroom door
• Take yourself out for lunch—eat at a new place, get yourself a picnic, or go for a 20-minute walk
• Read the first chapter of that book you’ve been dying to get to.

And to make sure you don’t cross it off almost as soon as you write it down, add a comment to this post and state your commitment. Go on! OK...here's mine, so you won't be the first:

I will spend at least 20 minutes before bed reading fiction or doing the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.

Now you...what's your to-do for you?