Reporting oh, so live...

Drafts of some of the pages of the soon-to-debut quarterly bookazine, 365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy, and Beauty.

What a great week, so far!  We're finally starting to put together pages for 365 Being, and it's looking good! This involves learning to use a computer program I last dabbled in about 17 years ago, when I was forced, kicking and screaming, to integrate technology into my business as a sign painter.  Corel Draw has changed a lot.  My computer hasn't.  Thus, I'm having to learn all about new computers, too.  In fact, I'm learning lots of things this week...tax ramifications and liability concerns for partnerships vs. S-corps...what all those other settings on my camera are for...to remember to measure ingredients for recipes I am creating for this issue...and how patient my business partner really is. 



Do you know how many times one tests a recipe before it is perfect enough to publish?  As many times as it takes to translate my usual "toss in about..." to "add one half cup..." 

I also had a really precious afternoon, yesterday.  One of my dearest friends from childhood, one I haven't seen since I was about eleven, and only recently reconnected with on facebook, had a long layover in Minneapolis, so I drove up to spend a few hours with her.  For all the years lost, the bond was still there, and why we loved each other was still obvious. 

We poured out 35 years of life stories in two and a half hours (she's a journalist, if that helps explain how we could get through that much life, that fast).  It was a bit like skipping stones over the surface of a pond, but every now and then, one would sink down into the deeper waters.  We are a year apart in age, but share a birthday. Un-twins. Although we looked similar as kids, we don't mirror each other, so much as we each have something the other has less of. Two sides of the same coin? Puzzle pieces that interlock?  Something like that.  Something too precious to let slip away again. 

The managerial staff at 365 Being had a tough job, as usual, today.  Cat's furballs are such task masters!

I have to admit I went kicking and screaming onto facebook, a few years ago, and I carry a cell phone so rarely that the last time it rang while I was driving, I thought my radio had mysteriously turned itself on!  If it wasn't for this new magazine (and of course this blog), I could live quite easily without technology and social media.  Watching Teri panic over a laptop that wouldn't charge (eyeliner pencil in the power cable port, a hazard male reporters rarely face, I'm told), I thought how glad I am that I don't rely on it (technology, not eyeliner pencil, tho...oh, never mind).  Then, a couple of hours later, watching her go through security to board her next flight, I found myself thinking how incredibly grateful I am for this amazing technology that has reconnected so many long-lost friends.

365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy and Beauty, is a bookazine all about living from the heart, and although it is mostly about life unplugged, I think I'll be very careful not to bash technology and social media.  Not only do I owe yesterday's reconnection to it, but I'd hate to tempt the fates, and find my career nearly derailed by an eyeliner pencil in my power port.  This lifetime is finite.  Don't miss your connections.