playing at work.

I get the joy of working with creative and fun people. Together we have conversations that provoke thought and weirdness that induces laughter. In the last few months we started the friday ritual of going out for lunch and Friday Funnies before end of day. Friday Funnies is pretty simple: someone pulls up a funny YouTube or Hulu video to share. Then we laugh.

Maybe laughter isn't the best medicine, but it certainly is good medicine. I didn't work today (three cheers for Thanksgiving!), but it is still Friday and I would like to share some of our recent funnies with you.

SNL Hidden Valley Ranch Taste Test:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/284927/saturday-night-live-taste-test

A little work place bonding: 

One more video for you from my mini-friday funny with my mom and sister, Sexy Sax Man:

 Cheers!

how much?

A few weeks ago I was trolling Google to answer a work query. I started typing: How much...before I could finish Google populated a list for me. This is what Google thought I (and the general public) would likely be looking for. Some of it is minor, some major. 

But this is it. This is what a lot of people are counting the cost for. 

What about you? When you ask how much, what comes next?

baby love.

Babies are the sweetest, softest, most helpless things there are. They amaze me - they are so little but will someday become full grown adults (how does this work!). As babies, they are wholly dependent on people outside themselves - a beautify vulnerability. 

My college roommate, Lauren, asked me to take pictures of her little girl Grace, I couldn't say no. She pretty much slept the whole night, and let me just say it, she is cute as a button! As sweet as it was to meet miss grace, seeing my friends as parents for the first time was even more amazing. They are still the same people, but something is a bit different. The joy and struggle of parenthood has been placed upon them, and will be with them for the rest of their lives. I saw a different love coming out of them that wasn't there before. They displayed the sweetness of parenthood with grace...no pun intended :)

I also saw how much work goes into caring for a baby. My friends honestly shared the struggles that come with having a child for the first time. I was so grateful that they let me into their lives and allowed me to see the full spectrum of their experience, especially the hard parts. But nonetheless, of this I'm sure, they will be great parents to little miss gracie. 

hugs please.

I love Shel Silverstein (author of above poem), but I love hugs even more. At my kindergarten graduation we sang a song called "Four hugs a day". The gist of it goes: "Four hugs a day, that's the minimum. Four hugs a day, not the maximum". What profound advice for such little people. My teacher was preparing us for life. The lesson probably could have gone something like this: "Okay kids listen up. I know you are only 6, but life is going to get really hard some day. Harder then you know now. So you guys need to give lots and lots of hugs, and not just on special occasions but everyday. Got that kids. Don't settle for a life filled with tug o' wars, those are never hard to find. I want you to be different, I want you to love and hug and care for others." I honestly don't remember a ton of things from kindergarten. But this song stuck with me, and probably for good reason.

 I'm sure I could quote you statistics about the benefits of physical touch between humans or what happens if a baby is not held enough, but I think we all know that sometimes we just need a hug. Hugs are great for all occasions: when we are happy, sad, excited or disheartened. Hugs let us show our love for each other, share in the excitement of life, and know we aren't alone. 

Most of the time we get the normal, "hey" hugs. But sometimes we get those great, all encompassing, wrapped up in the other person kind of hugs. Those are the best. 

We can all find reasons to have tug o' wars with the people in our lives, I know I find them on a daily basis. Frustrations and shortcomings never seem to be short on hand. But I like this other kind of war better, it is a war I can get behind. So more hugs are in order. 

Hug someone today. Because you need it, I need it, we all need it.