Month: December 2018

Why I asked Santa for a Crepe Maker?

The big guy came through and Santa brought me that crepe maker that I wanted this year. It might seem like a random thing for a 40-year-old guy to ask for (not that 40-year-old asking for something from Santa isn’t), but it was with purpose.

Katie and I were on a trip to Seattle this summer and took a ferry over to Bainbridge Island one morning. We ended up choosing the crepe shop to grab a bite. There was a fairly long line, so we had front row seats to watch them make them.

I was thinking…

  • There is a ton of variety and you can go sweet or savory
  • They are made to order for each individual
  • They cook fast
  • They look fun to make with the spreader and turner
  • What else can I use gobs of Nutella on?

and that’s when it hit me… I was going to make crepe making my thing. I could turn it into a Saturday morning family ritual when we are not in a hurry to get to get the kids to school and off to work. When the kids are older, we can make them with their friends after a sleep over.

Maybe it was just me getting nostalgic. Making breakfast was my dad’s thing growing up. He made pancakes and waffles for us growing up all the time, especially on weekends for all of our friends. He made some really great blueberry pancakes and I always liked the maple walnut Belgium waffle. However, he was also known to put all sorts of things in the pancakes, including what we had the night before for dinner (mashed potatoes, cheese, and the infamous pork and beans). It is definitely a great memory from my childhood and one that I wanted to start creating with my own family.

So we broke the seal the other morning and gave it a try. After tossing out the first batter (I read the waffle batter instructions) and overcooking the first crepe, I had officially made my first crepe. Of course it was the simple banana and Nutella crepe.

It turns out that making crepes is going to be an art that I’ll need to work on over time! Figuring the timing on flipping the crepe, how to fold them, what is better inside vs. outside etc. I’ve never been known for my creativity and artistic finesse. The good news, is that the girls are only 2 and 4-years-old, so I have lots of Saturday mornings to practice!

My First Crepe (Don’t judge a book by it’s cover)

Why ‘having fun’ will be my top work goal in 2019!

This time of year, I spend hours writing and honing my goals for the following year. You could say that I am super compulsive about it (it’s sort ridiculous). I refuse to call them New Year’s Resolutions since that sounds so temporary and everyone knows they always get broken. I try and elicit my friends and family into the ritual and in return, I get a lot of eye rolls. After 20 years, Katie will at least humor me know and she’ll have at least 3 things on the ready for when I bring it up. She makes sure that I know that she is done and doesn’t need any help editing them.

The good news is that this year, I will really be building on and executing a well rounded set of goals from last year across all the categories (yes, there are goal categories). Family, Work, Community, and Personal. I usually land at 3-5 goals in each area, but no more than 5 and they all have to be meaty and measurable.

I use trello to organize them on the computer and love the mobile app. You can do all sorts of stuff with the cards like move them around, label, color code, create checklists, due dates, etc. However, this year I’m also going to go back to a physical paper planner again. My friend Candace Mau and I been talking about the power of using pen and paper when you are getting creative and laying out your month, week, and day.

Anyway, the thing is that every year, I seem to put a goal to have fun in my list of work goals. Mainly to protect myself from myself and to put in a reminder in there to not take things so seriously. I’ve had some years where I was just wound up too tight, stressed about work, and and ended up in quite the funk (thank goodness for friends and family).

So this year, I think I’m leading with the goal to have fun, and will use it as a competitive advantage. I am definitely at my best when I am having fun with the people that I work with, bringing positive energy, and just being conscious of my mindset. I think the chances of getting the results that I am looking for across the other goals will be much higher and I’ll be more engaged (more on that in another blog). I’m hoping it helps keep things in perspective, enables me to stay grateful, and laugh a bit at myself.

My goal setting and planner addiction over the years

The calm before the storm…

Christmas morning is the pinnacle of series of family events for our family this time of year. For about 20 years, Katie and I traveled to two traditional Christmas Eve Dinners, gone to Midnight mass, and spent the night at the the in-laws house. You might think that is strange since our kids are 2 and 4 years old, except that when I met Katie, her siblings on her mom’s side were 2, 4, 6, and 8, and 8, 10 on her Dad’s side.

In the past 10 years or so, we’ve had two yellow labs as a part of our lives and they have an internal alarm clock, driven by their stomach. So while the rest of the family is sleeping in just a little bit longer, my holiday tradition has become the early morning walks with the dog.

  • Buford on the Christmas Morning Walk

Walking the neighborhoods and paths during the quiet holiday mornings has to be one of the most peaceful places to be. Everything has slowed down enough to reflect on the year, be extremely grateful for the people in my life, and just enjoy the moment.

When I return, I always have thoughts of reenacting those old Folgers commercials on day time TV, where I would brew a pot of coffee and let the smell wake up the rest of the family. Well, now with Kuerig K-kups just don’t have the power and honestly, I just can’t figure out how to use my in laws coffee maker.

So then we come back and wait for the family to arise, for the next few hours are going to be a whirlwind of excitement…

  • It will just be a matter of moments

The day it all changed… well, actually it was the day after.

It wasn’t the day my daughter was born that changed my life, it was the day after when I had the chance to bond with her one-on-one for the first time.

Maggie was born on July 15th at 7:14 am. Her first day in this world was full of so much excitement. Her first breaths, her first feeding, her first poop, and she met so many members of her new family.

Katie hadn’t slept 45 hours or so (you know, giving birth and all) and was finally getting the most well deserved rest of her life. Well sort of, I think she had feeding every 2 hours that night and was constantly checking to ensure she was breathing.

Dad’s first morning.

So on the morning of the 16th about 7:00 am, just 24 hours after coming into the world, it was the first time it was just Maggie and me awake.

The room was quiet and only natural light from the summer sun was coming through the window. She just looked up at me and smiled. Maybe it was just gas, but it sure felt real to me.

This is the day my world changed!

Everything changed. My relationship with Katie changed (in a great way), the way I approached work changed, what stressed me out changed, and my compass was re-calibrated.

I don’t have the best memory, but this is one day that I can recall vividly from all 5 senses. It’s been a really fun 4 and half years, but the funny thing is that the impacts of the day that I became a dad (and the day after) have really just begun.

Another ingredient in my mixing bowl.

Who is in your corner… or on your chairlift?

I went skiing today with a couple of my closest long time friends.   It has been years since we have hit the slopes together and I think my favorite parts of the day were the rides up the mountain on the chairlift.  It gave us a chance to catch up with each other and pick up right where we left off.   

Throughout the day we reminisced about the old days, what’s going on in our lives today, and shared some of our goals for the future.   I was reminded about how these guys have been in my corner for years, sharing life experiences and supporting me when I needed it.   

  • Chairlifts and Conversations

A ride on the chairlift enables you to be totally present, actively listening to those with you, while you are looking over beautiful terrain.   It has to be one of the best places to have a conversation.   It also requires you to stay to the point and gives you an exit since you must dismount at the end the ride.  

Looking back, the chairlift has always been an important place in my life.   Skiing was one of the family activities that we did with my father I’ll cherish all of the great conversations we had on the long rides up the mountain.  Of course there were the awkward ones, like when I was kid and he fulfilled his obligation to talk to me about the birds and the bees.   I was stuck there, nowhere to run and hide.  

I spend hours talking with my brother-in-law (much younger than me) about his transitions from high school to college to the real world.   I also had him pinned down with no where to run.

These 10-15 minute spurts of time with friends and family (and sometimes alone with my thoughts) have been some of the most important moments in my life.

  • Taking it in with Mike and Derrick
  • Derrick and his selfies

    Launch!

    Welcome to the mixing pods blog!   It’s a place where we will have some fun sharing insights with each other about work, life, and family.

    The name of the blog comes from a former coworker of mine.  After spending some time working together in a conference room, she said, ‘ohh… you mix pods’.  I believe it was in response to how much I shared of my personal life and inviting those that I work with to participate in it by sharing funny stories and life events.

    In this past year, I started blogging as part of my work at Perficient (https://blogs.perficient.com/author/tmauro) and found it to be fun.   Although the blogs are relevant for management consulting, I found that I seemed to always bring lessons from my personal life into the business blogs.  So I thought I would launch this personal blog that can be more casual and have a unique perspective on the different pods. 

    I hope this is a blog that you can relate to and that you find insightful, creative, and fun.  Thanks for logging on.