7 Years with HRC

I was hired by Healthy Relationships California on July 12, 2012.

That means I've been with my company for seven years!! That's longer than I was at BYU for both degrees. I remember when I first joined the company, it seemed like everyone else had been there for years and years. I felt like such a newbie.... which I was, of course.

Over the past 7 years, I've learned so much from my time with HRC. I'd like to think I'm a lot more professional than the new grad they decided they could train up. :) I've been part of a Healthy Marriage grant, a Responsible Fatherhood grant, and a contract for psychosocial education courses in the San Diego County jails. I've written up research reports and government reports. I've written for blogs and newsletters, and who can forget the years I spent responsible for updating the Facebook and Twitter pages every morning? I've learned to negotiate with workbook companies and keep track of inventories. I've updated our websites and monitored our incoming traffic. And I've worked with so many inspirational, talented people. All of this while working from home and almost never in an office setting!

Sometimes I've ventured outside my home. I've had business trips to California, first bimonthly and now more like biannually (which has worked out nice, now that I have a little family I hate to leave behind). I've gone to government conferences in DC (last time with a tour of national monuments with my bosses) and an excellent National Association of Relationship and Marriage Education conference in Anaheim (with an evening trip to Disneyland with my coworkers). I've met some of my heroes from my grad school studies, because my bosses seem to know everyone in the field.

I'm so grateful for my time with this company. When I was little and you asked me what I'd be when I grew up, I didn't foresee a career in family research. But it is such a good fit for me. I'm glad life has worked out the way it has.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Independence Day! I hope everyone had a good one. Trevor and I spent ours up in Island Park Idaho with his family. (Let me tell you, it was a great way to start my digital minimalism fast up there, where there was no internet or cell phone signal).

We had a great time! On the first day, Trevor took me on my first ATV ride.

Totally posing. Trevor did all the driving. :)

In the afternoon, the family went jet skiing. (I had to sit out due to some health issues, but it was still fun to watch!)

On the second day, Trevor, Kathy (my mother-in-law) and I headed in to Yellowstone and visited our favorite places.

Top 2 favorites are definitely the Grand Prismatic Spring (in my opinion, one of the prettiest places on Earth!) and Artist's Point!

This time we hiked up past Fairy Falls to see the bird's eye view of the Spring. 10/10, would definitely recommend!

Artist's Point

On the last day, six of us went on a fishing trip with a guide. It was my very first time fishing, but I managed to catch 5 fish! (All thanks to Kerry, our awesome guide!) Trevor caught 8. It was catch and release, so after we hooked them, we let them go.

I caught the first fish on our boat! That's Kerry, our guide. He was so patient with all my newbie mistakes.

Trevor's biggest fish

I made so many newbie mistakes fishing, it was pretty hilarious. I got the fly line stuck in the rod a million times. I accidentally turned the reel backwards and tangled the line, more than once. I somehow crossed my line over Trevor's twice even though we were fishing on different sides of the boat. But the best moment was when Trevor and I both had fishes hooked, and in the middle of reeling mine in... my reel CAME OFF THE ROD. It fell to pieces. Apparently this is not a normal thing. We still aren't sure how I could have done that. The guide started trying to put it back together, but then he needed to help Trevor with his fish. Kerry handed me my rod.... and then Trevor's fish, fighting with all its might, swam to my side of the boat and got tangled in my line. 😮 Kerry had to take the rod back from me to try to solve that problem, and in the process, the reel innards fell to the floor and rolled away. It was an adventure. But Trevor did get his fish!

Maybe next time will go better. It was still fun.

We finished out the day with a trip to the Playmill theater to see the Foreigner. That play is hilarious, I definitely recommend it if you haven't seen it.

We had a great few days and I'm so glad we got to go.

Gardening is Hard in Colorado

Ugh. Colorado weather 2, Shelece 0.

Back in the spring, one of the trees in our front yard sprouted the most beautiful hot pink blossoms. Only a few of them had opened, but there were little buds all over the tree. I was thrilled and eagerly awaited the day when all the buds were open.

Yeah... Then we had a freak late May snowstorm that froze all the blossoms to death, and that was the end of that.

So, this week our knock out roses started blossoming.

Again, my favorite color, beautiful flowers. I was so excited!

And yesterday we get hit with a major hail storm, and... well...

Yeah, that's the same flower.

Dang it Colorado!!

Digital Minimalism

A couple months back, my assistant shift coordinator at the temple told me about a great new book called Digital Minimalism. The basic premise is that many of us have gotten way too caught up in the many technologies that are available, and so we need to cut back to those things that are most essential in order to reclaim our lives.

I put it on hold at the library right away. I know I have a problem with technology. My phone is practically glued to my hand at all times. I've managed to curb my social media addiction a bit but only because Trevor set the password so I can't get in without him. Sometimes when he signs me in, I manage to stay on for a few days in a row, and the pull to look at my newsfeed is still strong, even though it's never very fascinating. It seems that most people are pulling away from social media a bit. My friends and family don't update as much as they used to.

Turns out the book is very popular, and I was in a long wait list at the library. I finally got to check it out at the end of June. I'm only a little ways through it right now, but it's a great read so far that does an awesome job of explaining the intentional psychological manipulation behind several apps and technologies, carefully designed to suck people in and keep them there.

Pretty soon the author issues a big challenge: give up all optional technologies for 30 days. Reset your life. Go out and remember what other interests you have and what you used to fill your time with before the smart phone era.

Then, at the end of the 30 days, really think through what technologies add value to your life, and what you can do to optimize their impact while avoiding negative side effects. Only let back in the most valuable things, and be aware of how you spend your time.

So, here we go. This is my official public commitment to 30 days of no optional technologies. To me, that means no mindless internet surfing, limited social media (I can think of a few potential legitimate needs that might come up, like checking the RS Facebook page for activity details), no pointless phone apps for the sake of fun or distraction. On my laptop, I've reactivated the StayFocusd extension that blocks certain websites during certain times, and I've limited my access to websites that tend to distract me. If I forget and try to visit those pages, StayFocusd stops me with a friendly message, "Shouldn't you be working?"

I think I'm still going to let myself blog, since to me that's just a form of journaling. You can take "optional technologies" pretty far--I'm still going to have an occasional movie night or what have you. We don't have access to any TV channels so we don't watch a lot of mindless TV, but we did take Netflix and Hulu off our Roku for now to prevent mindless scrolling through the options there. I'm not going to completely cut out Facebook Messenger and texting, but I'll try to cut back and focus more on face to face visits, and focusing on the people right in front of me.

Wish me luck! I really want to cut back on my smart phone obsessions and get back to living a healthier lifestyle.

Harry Potter is real!

Today I got an email that St. Mungo's is looking for a new Research Manager:

My first thought was, St. Mungo's??? Isn't that the hospital in Harry Potter? It's real????

My next thought was, I need more exposure to British culture than what Harry Potter gave me. Sheesh!

Bath Bed

This dog cracks me up.

Baths are the bane of her existence. She hates them with a passion. If you carry her to the tub, she starts squirming and trying to escape (and a lot of the time she succeeds. Bath time is a work out!)

On rare occasions when she is thirsty, she will intentionally jump in the bath tub to ask for more water. That's where she thinks it comes from, I guess. But she doesn't stay in there long--too much risk!

So out of the blue this last week... Molly has started taking naps in the tub!  A couple of times she disappeared, only for us to find her relaxing inside the empty bathtub. What the heck? Maybe it's a cool place to go to beat the summer heat?

Ask vs Guess Culture

I'm a bit behind the curve, but today I learned about something called "Ask vs. Guess Culture" that explains so many interactions I've had in my life. Here's one of my favorite pages about it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vs3kzjLhbdKsndnBy/ask-and-guess

The basic idea is that there are 2 kinds of people:

• Ask culture people (Askers) who believe it never hurts to ask a question. They aren't afraid to ask anything and everything ("My car is in the shop, can I borrow yours?") because they expect people to say "No" if necessary. They ask with an expectation that sometimes they will be told no, and they fully expect people to say no if they don't want to do something.

• Guess culture people (Guessers) are much more subtle. They don't like to ask a question unless there's a good chance the answer will be yes. They put out feelers to see if the other person might be amenable to their request, and they only proceed if that seems to be the case. Sometimes even if the other person says yes, they keep putting out feelers to determine whether it's a sincere yes, or if they are just saying yes to be polite. To Guessers, questions come with a pressure to say yes. Saying "No" feels rude or dismissive, so sometimes even if they want to say no, they will say yes to something to avoid feeling rude. But they hate being put into that position. From their perspective, some things are not appropriate to ask for in the first place.

Neither of these communication styles are bad. Askers are direct and straightforward, and they expect you to be the same. They aren't offended if you say no. Guessers are more enigmatic, but they are also sensitive to people's emotions and much less likely to ask for something you're not willing to give.

The problem comes when you put askers and guessers together. Guessers are sometimes offended by what Askers ask, because by Guesser standards, the question was inappropriate. Why would you ask them when it was so clear the answer would be no? This throws Askers for a loop, because what is wrong with just asking? You can always say no. Askers sometimes view Guessers as passive aggressive or as game players.

I am a guesser, in case you can't tell by the mound of writing about guessers, my people. I try to be sensitive to other people's feelings and responsibilities and stress levels when I ask them something. If I suspect they will need to say no, I don't ask. I don't want to put any pressure on them to say yes if they don't want to.

If someone asks me something and my answer is no, it can be quite agonizing for me to turn them down, and I try to soften it as much as possible.

Over the years, I've had many interactions with askers where I could tell we were coming from different perspectives, but I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Now I get it so much more clearly.

I admit that sometimes I've been annoyed by questions posed by askers. Why would they ask me that? Couldn't they see it was too much to ask? Couldn't they see I was stressed out of my mind already and I couldn't take on one more thing? Understanding their side-that it's fine for me to say no-helps a bit.

At the same time, I admit it can be easier to pose a question to an Asker. I've noticed over the years that some people will say yes, but I'm not sure they mean it, so I continue to put out feelers, not wanting them to feel pressured to say yes. Other people say yes and I can just tell that 100% they mean it. Is that the difference between an Asker and a Guesser?

There is some internet debate about which is better. I found a few articles by Askers arguing that everyone should be an Asker because it's a better way to communicate. I would argue against that. This is a difference in communication style. One is not necessarily better than the other. Can't we all just get along? Understanding that this difference exists is one important step.

Anyway, that's my psychological insight for today. I really love learning about this kind of thing.