Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Office’

Lower Level ~ All Set Up

Awe is the tone. You’re pretty lucky when you get to explore Great Things.

When The Masses Mobilize

Our ski club hosts a fund raising auction annually and as one small cog in the machine, there is the unique view from the inside that makes me take breath in pause.

It was conceived by dedicated volunteers, coordinated by dedicated volunteers & orchestrated by dedicated volunteers.

Grama's Goodie Basket

The mass cooperation & shared vision are inspiring! With no special training, but through learning from year to year, the plans have been honed, details all accounted for, crews mobilized in advance and careful preparations minded.

• * Meetings: Committees, sub-committees, systems
  
• * Delegation: Work crews, item collection, floor crew
  
• * Coordination: Groups, locations, training, processing
  

<– To the left is my favorite donation item ever. My mother-in-law baked & baked & baked (I was a small contributor of gingerbread cookies, biscotti & shortbread).

Many Thanks to the Purchaser!

It was the only item of it’s kind with 420 cookies & 7 loaves! & at last glance was commanding over $150!  Soul Sight Services donated a Good Vibrations CD Set, but this basket donation was *Way Better! Thanks Mom!

The evolution of this event began as a pub event and maybe raised $20,000… upgraded to an art gallery for a few years that upped the ante… and expanded to it’s current version including 550 attendees & over $110,000 in auction item donations.

I’ve been witness to this evolution and am impressed by every aspect of it. It is truly Great.

Not being privy to the finer points, but being close enough to know the level of attention to detail that it has to take to create such an amazing Gala only increases my Awe. www.skinasa.org

What have You been a part of that was Truly Great?

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"During"

Okay, I can’t really say I was doing the ‘mobile office thing,’ but I can say that I worked in the parking lot until the last possible second and I took my phone into treatment with me. Am I crazy?!

My First Facial

Necessity? No. Luxury? Yes!

Believe it or not, I thought I’d hate it. My guys had given me a gift certificate (aren’t they great?) and I had an array of choices, but I chose the facial. Why? Pure curiosity!

"After"

Because just enjoying a facial is harder for me than one might think, after taking a call, I asked the esthetician to take a picture of me as proof that I did it.

I was hoping the goop on my face was green (‘the mask’ she called it)… and she took off whatever was over my eyes since I needed to see the key pad on my phone, but the picture on the upper right is my evidence.

Well, I’m not sure what happened to me energetically, but I did notice some blue sparks flying and I definitely felt better as you might note in the second picture to the left.

Taking your phone into treatment is against the rules, but… Okay, I have no excuse. The esthetician is to be given extra points for putting up with me.

It was a fabulous experience. Thanks Crystal! Check it out here!

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On the Border

It was the first time in over 1.5 years that I’ve been without phone or internet! *gasp* ~ AND, I lost my identity (literally).

Disconnect Internet ~ Reconnect Nature

It was high time to ground into the world differently & this opportunity couldn’t be missed! I went to see my brother and saw a whole lot more:

• The aurora borealis: we searched each night and came up lucky on the last night!
• A different pace, perspective & part of Canada
• The view from a kayak including: bald eagle, deer & raven

Great Slave Lake

This was a quick dash up to the Northwest Territories for the weekend that really changed the pace at the mobile office and started with 14 hours of driving (each way).

In hindsight I’m finding it pretty funny about ‘my identity.’ This is great! You can read all kinds of crazy energy interpretations into it: I left my wallet in a town called High Level that was my last stop prior to arrival. I had no money, ID, etc. as well as no phone, no internet… in short everything that I currently have to self-identify was gone. Isn’t that the best way to enter into newness? With a blank slate? I love the Universe!

Checking out a retired vessel now landlocked.

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Aside from some prep work, the work done was more:

• meditative & contemplative
• unwinding & supportive
• exploratory, assessing and eye-opening.

It is so easy to have tunnel vision when you focus on goals, tasks & aims and it is pretty important to also have some distance & space. Without that:

• nuances will be missed
• angles will be overlooked and
• excitement is lost

Coming back from a town with a population of 2,000 is also a bit disorienting when stepping back into an area where I’m surrounded by about a million folks. It’s an interesting sensation to plug back in!

By the way, my wallet was turned in where I left it & all of the contents were intact.

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Of all the locations I ever expected to get in a bit of work, a casino was the least expected… having said that, yes I did bring my computer last night. (Home by 3 am!)

Volunteering for Fund Raising

What work could I possibly do at a casino? Well, internet was jammed for security reasons, but there’s no reason why blogs can’t be prepped when there are some breaks! No cameras either for visual proof, but I have witnesses.

Piles of $$ to Count!

I’ve done this before for a variety of different fund raising groups (theatre company, middle school, as well as the ski club) and the positions assigned to me have been:

• Chip Runner
• Cashier
• Count room

I was a count room first timer & it was by far my favorite role!

If you ever have any doubt that there is abundance everywhere try to have an experience counting a couple hundred thousand dollars in cold hard cash. No digital signal. No electronic tranfer. It was all there in denominations of $100 and lower!

The consideration around abundance would be more about flow… Flow & the avenues of delivery to acceptance.

• Do you have a channel of delivery set up to accept abundance from the Universe?
  
• What are you doing to nurture this?
  
• How much focus to you place on that structure versus the anticipated product?

Money aside, the perfect example would be nurturing your network of friends. From this you can see the relational ebb and flow inherent in the energy exchange. Abundance ~ More than just cash… but why not open to that, too?

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I adore Emilie Conrad. If forced to pick my favorite interview, it would be the first call I did with her on Continuum Movement. I had no clue what she was about ~ and I’m still learning.

Moving Medicine

Nina & Emilie

There is a lot that goes on ‘behind the curtain’ at the mobile office and it’s usually going on at a pretty staccato pace. This last weekend the pace of the mobile office came head-to-head with Emilie Conrad’s Moving Medicine class hosted here in Calgary by Shirley McMillan.

When faced with only one option: Slow Down… my body rebelled for all it was worth. The random muscle spasms that occurred from just laying down were shocking. It’s like the tension didn’t know where to go and so it jumped from body part to body part trying to activate my slowly decompressing system.

I’m not under any illusions that the issue of being wound up has been ‘cured,’ but I have some very good clues (to take a cue from Emilie’s approach at being a CSI: Cosmic Scene Inspector) as to what will help – and for that, I’m beyond grateful.

Another less anticipated benefit of the class was the experience of the Deep Honor that was held by my fellow participants. It was tangible and something I would consider Sacred. These gentle souls were There, each present for themselves and the others.

Emilie is an inspiration in her mission to empower others to find their own flow, expression and ultimate connection with the vastness of life through fluid movement and an honoring of our evolutionary heritage.

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Looking Up the Hill

Well, the confession is that a year of sitting added 10 lbs to my ‘bottom line.’ I refuse to buy new clothes because I was too focused on work to notice my shape change.

Fitness Challenge

I love hills. I love stairs. I think it is my ‘inner mountain-goat’ looking for fulfillment!

I took a break because of comments Emilie Conrad made about ‘forward thrust’ type of movement on her first LOH interview, but it’s still fun! She’ll probably give me some ‘what-for’ when I see her for her course here in Calgary next week.

Me & My Youngest

After staring at the computer all day, it clears the mind, moves the circulation and balances the energies coming from decisions, deadlines & new ideas.

A friend recently engaged me in a ‘fitness challenge.’ We have yet to hash out the details, but it will likely involve 10 lbs & willpower. Are you in?

The picture on the upper right better reflects the grade since the picture on the left makes it look pretty wimpy. I plod up the hill for ‘endurance training’ and my son sprints up the hill for ‘power training.’

Nina on Mop Up

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

In the past, some doubt has been extended as to my resume.

At the best fitness level of my life, I was a ski coach, competitive tennis player (some badminton) and did mop-up in forest fire fighting. It seems to be the forest fire fighting that throws people, so I dug out an old photo taken on a burn by my old crew boss ‘Huffy.’

It’s a photo of a photo and so isn’t the greatest quality, but you can see that I even have the same haircut! I remember telling true ghost stories occasionally on the overnight burns.

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We finally have some warm weather…

I’m busy battling the bunnies who love eating my flowers. This simply entails chasing them out of my yard and putting moth balls (which they sit on) in the yard.

The Longest Day

Like the weather, I’ve been late in getting my garden going, but here is the progress of the plants I’ve been tracking for you so far.

Shoots (Tiger Lilies)

Peonies

Irises

The birds are already enjoying the yard and I can’t wait until more blossoms come out.

Along with the bunnies, the war is also on with my husband who annexed one of my beds of petunias… ~ Now the tomato zone!

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Shoots Emerging

Peonies

Irises

~ One last breath of winter ~

Plants have to be hardy here in Calgary!

Sunny and warm one day… snowy and cold the next!

All in all, things are still feeling refreshing.

I think it’s the smell of the earth & the crispness in the air.

The snow also means there’s still one weekend for the skiers!

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Shoots Emerging

Peonies

Irises

The Earth is celebrating too! With the melting of the snow, new growth now arises.

Although I’m working indoors, popping outside to my garden to appreciate the earth over lunch was so renewing.

It’s easy to lose perspective and feel ‘out of touch’ from being on the computer all day, but stepping outside for even a moment can make such a difference.

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On the left is the view from the ‘mobile office’ last weekend.

The ‘green dot’ is my son who was racing and the ‘blue pants’ are the older one on his right. It was the end of a beautiful and successful day.

Although my email nightmare was over (blocks, bounces, broken links) from earlier in the week, I found myself without internet at this location. *gasp*

So, I prepped email / letters / scripts and used my phone for desperate communications.

Luckily the next day, guest services told me that the best wireless connection was in the deli where I was forced to spend the next several hours drinking tea and doing as much online stuff as I could muster before I ran out of battery power. Yum, Chai!

In this picture to the right you can see the lift on the left and the racing run is on the right. I hiked up to the finish corral to see the last run of the day. In the picture below, he is the top figure behind the red fence. The race is over and he’s just in a safety arena coming down after a good run.

I can honestly say I’d forgotten how ‘mountainous’ the mountains are. You would think that went without saying, but it’s different hiking up and down multiple flights of stairs and through the snow to get to any destination. I’d actually forgotten how much I *love* that! It took me a long time to understand ‘going to the gym’ when we first moved to Calgary & revisiting the hills was positively therapeutic!

I can also honestly say I’ve gotten soft. On top of that, I suspect I’m developing a weird reputation… I mean, beyond ‘normal weird’ for me, among the other parents who don’t carry their computers around everywhere… Have I become a geek?

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