Getting outside really IS good for you

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If you were a bookworm or otherwise inclined to stay inside when you were a kid, your mom may have yelled at you to get outside and play. Turns out she was right–that being outside is literally good for your health.

Vitamin D, that elusive nutrient that’s only available from sunshine and from vitamin supplements, seems to play a significant role in death rates. A study shows people tend to die sooner from all causes when their vitamin D is lower than accepted levels. How’s that for a powerful reinforcement of your mom’s prescription!

Plus, I read the other day about a test comparing how students’ hearts behaved while doing an assignment and viewing either a) a blank wall, or b) a video screen showing a nature scene, or c) an actual window onto the same natural scene. Guess what? The only situation that proved favorable to the students’ hearts was viewing the real natural scene.

Advice for every busy single working woman to take to heart. Getting outside’s good for your heart.

And oh, yeah, if you’re in Chicago, come join us outside when we celebrate the opening of Single Working Women’s Week by co-hosting a street fair booth with SWWAN vendor Radiance Fine Jewelry. Radiance offers all SWWAN members 25% off fine jewelry repairs all year long.

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Barbara Payne, June 25th 2008 | Posted in busy single working women, heart health

La Dolce Vita an exercise in male single-life fantasy

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You know, I thought I had seen “La Dolce Vita” many years ago, but got it from Netflix anyway thinking, hey, it’s a classic and can’t hurt to see it again. Turns out I never saw it–or at least never got past the first part of it.

Why? It’s really a vehicle Federico Fellini created for feeding male fantasties–definitely not high on my list of favorite ways to be entertained. The protagonist (I don’t call him a hero because he’s pretty much a rich lowlife with nothing on his mind but having sex with as many women as possible, despite the fact that he lives with a very beautiful woman who loves him) , played by a handsome young Marcello Mastroianni, wanders through the movie seducing and being seduced by women of every stripe–rich, bored heiresses, to older women, to 15-year-old girls. However, it all happens in opulent surroundings, with fancy cars (for the times), with people wearing beautiful clothes behaving in wanton ways throughout the two-and-three-quarters hours of the film, so it looks seductively attractive.

Marcello makes a bow to morality by asking his older friend who’s settled–that is, married with two children he clearly loves deeply–if he shouldn’t do this himself, isn’t it healther? But, no, the calm and settled guy says don’t let appearances fool you. Every day he regrets that he doesn’t have a wider life with more options. Marcello returns to his playboy path. And just to drive the point home, Fellini has the calm and settled friend commit suicide later in the movie. Oh, yeah, and Marcello’s live-in lover finally commits suicide, too.

There’s an amazing sequence in the movie where two children are supposed to have seen an apparition of the Madonna–wild to see the gullibility of the masses. Reminds me of how easily human beings can be sucked into doing ridiculous–or hateful–things.

The movie’s pretty depressing in its depiction of the various women as sluts, crazy, and so madly in love they give their own lives up. I was gratified on viewing the critic’s comments of the DVD that he said this movie is not even considered one of Fellini’s best. So guess I know now the reason why it’s had such a long and popular life.

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Barbara Payne, June 22nd 2008 | Posted in film critic, La Dolce Vita, Marcello Mastroianni, movie reviews

Early morning thoughts

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It’s just after 5 am. Ever have one of those nights when sleep was just refusing to cooperate? Couldn’t get there…couldn’t stay there…had to give up after waking at 4:15 and just lying there for an hour.

Much to think about for sure. Exciting new ventures for SWWAN in the making. Several big developments on the personal side. And sleep is such an elusive gift anyway. Look at how little sleep many new mothers–especially single moms– have to survive on, sometimes for years. And the ability to sleep soundly often seems to deteriorate with aging–some older folks say they rarely sleep 8 hours and seem to wake often.

So heaven knows we humans can do it. But a lot of us need to develop tricks for dealing with nighttime wakefulness–and the racing thoughts that often come with it. One friend gets up and reads a not-too-intense novel til she falls asleep again. That works pretty well sometimes. If it’s after 4:30 and I’m not too physically exhausted, I usually just get up and get a head start on my work day. When you’re self-employed or otherwise deeply invested in your work, that doesn’t feel too bad.

What do you do when you can’t sleep? Does it happen often? Please share!

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Barbara Payne, June 21st 2008 | Posted in sleepless, SWWAN, wakefulness

One woman's walk to a dream come true

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Good story submitted by member Cynthia Clampitt about her 6-month walkabout in Australia and her permanent walk away from corporate America (edited a bit for space). You go, Cynthia!

“Despite years of success climbing the corporate ladder, I realized one day that this was not where I belonged. I had always wanted to be a writer, but my career was continually taking more of me. Somehow there was never any time to pursue my dream.

I knew if I didn’t leave, the dream would die.

So I planned and saved. And I nurtured my lifelong interest in Australia. A subtle country, someone once said, where “it is possible more easily to discard the inessential and to attempt the infinite.” That was exactly what I wanted.

Then in my mid-thirties, I walked away from my career and all semblance of security. I traveled to Australia, where I circled and crossed the continent, covering nearly 20,000 miles. Some say it changed me. I say it helped me discover who I was and what I could do.

It wasn’t easy beginning a new career once I returned home. There were a few years of beans, rice, and potatoes, but in time, the sacrifice paid off, and work began to get steadier. And at last, I found the time to turn the hundreds of pages of hand-written notes from that trip into a book.

Waltzing Australia is a journal, a record of six months of joy and adventure. It is about change and discovery. And it is about all that made me fall more in love with Australia every day. The book is my way of sharing the story of my adventure—not just the physical adventure of exploring Australia, but also the emotional and psychological adventure of leaving the corporate world and starting my career over. Dreams come at a price, but they can come true.

Today, I am a freelance writer, culinary historian, and world traveler. I have returned to Australia three times. And the spirit of adventure awakened during that first trip has carried me far and wide: from Mongolia to Morocco, Iceland to India, Turkey to Tibet. I have never regretted the decision to pursue my dream. It had a price, but it was a price I was willing to pay.”

Please send us your story of hopes, milestones, dreams, battles or whatever. We are glad to publish them here and will be collecting them for a book of SWWAN.

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Barbara Payne, June 17th 2008 | Posted in australia, dreams come true, leaving corporate america

Do you feel like communicating with other single working women?

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I didn’t mean to drive anyone nuts with those couple of posts from when I was at the media-connections conference. What I was doing was practicing using Jott (god, I love that new program–here’s my earlier post on Jott) to add posts, and using Blogger to send a photo with a post.

Anyway, if you got annoyed, sorry about that. Hope you’ll ignore it and come back to see what else is going on.

By the way, we have established a couple of different ways to connect — LinkedIn for SWWAN, yahoo groups for SWWAN/singleworkingwomen. Do you guys have a preference on how to connect with each other? I’m assuming you would like to communicate with other members, yet? Please email us to let us know your thoughts.

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Barbara Payne, June 16th 2008 | Posted in single working women, subscribers, SWWAN

How's your relationship with your dad?

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Today’s father’s day. Good holiday. I loved my dad so much. Trouble was, we only got to know each other after my mom died–and he was already 72 and it was a hard process. Don’t know if other people in my age group noticed the same thing. Seems like when people got married back in the Depression era, many of them became very close. Like a closed society–just the two of them against the world.

That’s how it was with my parents–safe in a closed society of their own. They were inseparable in a world of their own; we kids were outsiders they felt an obligation to take care of. And they did a wonderful job. But emotional closeness was a foreign idea to them. Their own upbringing was totally devoid of it, so clearly it wasn’t something they knew much about or had any experience with.

Anyway, I don’t know if any other single women out there had troubled relationships with their dads, but today seems like a good day to ask the question. Did you? Was your relationship with your dad a real high point of your childhood, or did it leave a lot to be desired? Seems like a question worth asking–and I bet any number of enlightened researchers who care about these things have asked it. Maybe we can find some information about it.

But meanwhile, God bless all fathers. Whatever skills they had, at least we are here because of them. Happy father’s day, dads.

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Barbara Payne, June 16th 2008 | Posted in father's day, women relationship with father

TV, print, PR insiders share tips

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Tips for beginners: Do a public relations audit–strengths, etc. Establish your brand! Develop tightly focused key messages. First job is to create relationships, then to communicate.

Try sending editors op-ed pieces, especially for news-related stories. Tell a story!

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Barbara Payne, June 12th 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized

Here at Community Media…

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Here at Community Media Workshop. Lots of action here today. We are going to discover how a nonprofit gets media attention. Look for more from me later. listen

Powered by Jott

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Barbara Payne, June 12th 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized

SWWAN celebrates Single Working Women's Week

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Can’t sleep. It’s getting light at 4:30 these days, but that’s not why. Have to be on the street by 7 am today. Attending a daylong seminar on getting your non-profit organization visible in the press and other media. Our non-profit arm SWWAN Academy will be providing opportunities for women to have extraordinary educational experiences–to help them grow as individuals and to hone the types of leadership skills needed in today’s workplaces.

We’re kicking off this year’s Single Working Women’s Week by co-hosting a booth with SWWAN preferred vendor Radiance Fine Jewelry at the Wicker Park Fest/Bucktown Sidewalk Sale July 26 and 27. Select items will be 50% off. Rebecca, Radiance owner, offers paid SWWAN members 25% off all jewelry repairs (not including watch repair). Plus, she’ll be offering an additional 10% off regular merchandise for SWWAN members during the sale.

For your $50 annual subscription as a SWWAN founding member, you get a listing on our website, vendor discounts all year, and your own ad space-plus-links on the SWWAN website for your business or cause. Heck, you can’t buy an ad for that anywhere. Such a DEAL!

Well, it’s 5:20 a.m. Gotta go get ready for the long day away from the office. Thank goodness for cell-phones-with-email; at least I’ll be able to respond to any urgent client needs.

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Barbara Payne, June 12th 2008 | Posted in RadianceFine Jewelry, SWWAN Academy, SWWAN membership

Sleepless night / technology creep

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Sleepless night. Toss and turn and finally give it up and get up. Sometimes I just read a novel til I get sleepy. Sometimes, like tonight/day, I am obsessed with work responsibilities and have to get on the laptop.

I keep my laptop on a rolling table in the living room next to the recliner chair. Gives me a a place to work early in the morning when I’m not ready to let Angelina the bunny out of her cage yet, or when I’m just tired of being in the office. Plus it’s great to put my feet up a little bit.

But what’s funny is, even though I got up to work, I don’t immediately start doing the project that was on my mind. I turn to my emails instead–and suddenly I’ve got all this busywork to do to clear those up. As one colleague said, then email unwittingly “becomes the thing to do.” Then I’m reminded of other things I haven’t done, I notice stray documents on the desktop, open them up and find something I’d like to do with that as well. And too often, this goes on and I remain sidetracked and don’t even get to the project I intended to work on… Oh, look, there’s a receipt that needs to be entered into QuickBooks…

Then I notice things like, gosh, the birds are singing like maniacs at 3 a.m. Isn’t that nuts? And of course I want to make a note of that on Twitter because…why? Why the compulsion to do these non-essential but sort-of-fun things? Don’t know. Is this a function of a creative mind–or just a scattered and disorganized mindset? Then I feel the need to write a blog post about it, and I wonder if this happens to any of you guys, too?

Does the fact that I can do almost anything I want while sitting at my computer make me a victim of technology creep? Or how about the fact that I take my Treo phone with me when I’m away from the computer so I’m always able to send and get email. Well, I know this happens to a few other women.

The answer is to set limits and stick to them. Here’s another post on how to cut down on technology creep–tried to comment on this post, went through the whole magilla of signing up for a TypeKey account to be able to comment, and then found the “site has not signed up for this feature.” What a waste of valuable minutes that I could have been busy doing…well, something else.

Talk about contributing to the very phenomenon you’re talking about curbing.

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Barbara Payne, June 9th 2008 | Posted in pet bunny rabbit, sleepless, technology creep
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