jalléCafe

Business class

This week, I enjoyed a good business trip.  I enjoyed it partly because I genuinely like the client work - a workshop together.  For the other part, I enjoyed the chance to travel to a new place and observe my old business routine with fresh eyes.  Eyes that suggest I could possibly bring more of myself to business travel in the future.

It's been truly business class: my seat on the airplane, my hotel room, the nice restaurants.  Has its positives for sure.  Easy and comfortable.

Yet...

Well, you take a look for yourself at my little Business Class Jill videos over the next few blogs and see if you can surmise what I mean to change eventually.

 

Is there such a thing as a simple life?

I've now tried a range of lifestyles, from my roots in a small agricultural town to spending far too much cash on Swiss watches and hundreds of hours on airplanes.  Now investing in my own little business in the first little city I consciously wanted to call "home."

I've had a few years to get past the "moving here" stage and have been asking myself if I live a simple life.  Somehow I want that.  "Do less; live more."  Or as written in my goals this year: do one good thing at a time.  One in the moment.

So this weekend, after looking at my long list of places traveled, but sometimes not fully explored in the rush of business, I made a list of places I would still like to see.  And places I would go to again.  Experiences still to gain.

Then I made a quick list of what "Living Simply" might mean based on some things I learned it doesn't mean.  It probably needs some editing, but as I sit here doing one thing I like to do - writing - here it goes for starters:

Buy what you really need.

Use what you buy.

Cook slowly.  Eat consciously.

The best: eat with people you love or at least find interesting.  :-)

Give your body the best chance at health possible.

Be open. (Add to this be friendly. Be kind, even in your least gentle moments.)

Listen to music.

Read what someone else thought was important enough to write - real writers and real friends

Do what's in front of you to do

Be glad you have the chance

Be in-person.  Talk. Touch.  Limit technology to efficiency.

And maybe in my case.  Feel more. Do more. Stress over it less in advance. Just live.  It doesn't matter where.

Knowing what you want, now

As I strolled by my favorite urban garden (now fully a winter scene) a few days ago, I felt a moment of clear desire to be somewhere warm and sunny. Now.

Fortunately I'll have that opportunity soon.  Through my job. Yet, I wasn't sure I wanted it really.

Then while eating french fries over lunch, I made a quick list of where I'd traveled during the last five years (you know, the years when "I haven't been traveling nearly as much as I used too"), which included four major regions, eight countries and more than 24 cities. 

I had often stayed an extra day or visited friends to see what was around. Mostly easy with preplanned hotels, drivers, restaurant ideas, etc. I've been lucky to do it.

The trips I remember most were with friends and colleagues I knew well.  Experiencing things together in the local places with people who lived there. Having trouble deciding what to eat, the way to somewhere, how to simply find a beer. Getting tired, disagreeing if something was the best route, food, or place to stay. Laughing about it all eventually when the "momentary crisis of choice" had passed. Standing in awe at the drama or beauty of something you ran into that you'd not seen in real life before.

What I want in life seems to have evolved and become more messy.  I love that!

Unpainted toes in ski boots

Now here is a photo I never thought I'd blog: Jill in ski boots after really having fun in the snow. 

I "retired" (i.e. quit skiing) more than a decade ago.  But the mountains have been romancing me back for a few years now.   I've learned that I like to walk more than an hour for a fondue.  And will hike much longer in snowy wonderlands when the sun shines in a bright blue sky.  Two years ago, Zermatt's wide runs inspired me back onto the slopes for a day. Entirely because I thought it was so beautiful and free and open.

This weekend I got inspired to join friends at the ski hill. Saturday we hiked for hours.  My friend & snow angel above remarked as we skidded downhill on garbage bags (because we regrettably thought it too inconvenient to haul the sled earlier), "Jill, I believe you are starting a new relationship with snow!"

Today, I purposely went alone for a nordic trek because I just needed to feel the skis again.  I used to like cross-country. Didn't have to face my huge fear of heights on chairlifts or steep slopes.  Seemed like getting back on any skis was a good first step. I loved it. It was me with me and my skis for simply the pleasure of it for the first time, maybe ever.  I even had some moments of needing to go faster. Downhill.

Amazing.  In my seminars we talk about facing fears in small steps.  I would never have imagined I could renew my desire to face this one.  Makes me feel a bit more alive this evening (if a bit over-exercised).  More than one good person in my life during the last few years has said, "Stop thinking, just drive!"  Finally, the voice in my head said the same.

The view from my still unconnected desk

After sleeping so well and deeply this weekend that I recovered my voice and banished the sniffle, technology nearly proved my undoing today.

The Handsome Electrician - who came to my office because we STILL have not installed my Internet as a result of not being able to find the wall DSL connection - told me there was "bad news." Somehow this building which was built before the invention of the telegraph does not have a telephone line running from the basement to my fourth floor studio. "How is this possible?" we all scratched our heads in wonder in our various dialects.

The long cable has been ordered for Thursday installation (said Handsome Electrician after discussion with Friendly Real Estate Agent).

I was definitely ready for a Prosecco, but instead returned a sample chair to a large store and raced home to connect my computer with the outside world.

Tonight's menu: pasta, broccoli and a reminder that one year from now there's some chance this will be a distant memory.  New day tomorrow!

PS, I'm also still using my window ledge as a Coke refridgerator while a kitchen designer I met this morning takes a couple of weeks to propose a plan.  Maybe later I'll look back and think these were the "glory days..."

Things I may never learn

To the "things I will never do" folder in my Email files, I'm going to add "Things I may never learn."

Like right now, I'm in the middle of moving and setting-up my new studio. PLUS I'm giving a 4th Anniversary party for my business with more than 40 people tonight.  Not in the studio for sure because there's no place to sit and piles of junk everywhere. Well, part of it's getting better thanks to a desk table generously installed from a friend.  But I still have to connect to the Internet from home through today.

Yesterday, I woke with a stuffy nose and sneezes.  No sore throat. No aches or fever.  Just my body saying, "Jill, I'm giving you fair warning!"  I know that if I just sleep a good, relaxed night, it will go away.

And if I don't do that, well I had my chance ...