MrsFatass, and MizFit, and YOU! (Oh my!)

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The young & the young-at-heart before the Disney Princess Half-Marathon


Ive been thinking a lot lately about all we can learn from the little people in our lives.

From eating to playing to friendship children have lots to teach us or, more aptly put, remind us of what we’ve forgotten we knew.

As our lives grow more adult-like & fraught with responsibility it’s too easy to morph into Multitask McGee and lose sight of the sheer bliss of simply being present.

When I was a career counselor (hello degree for which Im finally finished paying yet am still not utilizing!) I worked with women who were preparing to re-enter the workforce after a hiatus.

The first exercise I’d do with them was ask they create a list of dream jobs or careers.

I encouraged them to think *big* & write down everything no matter how seemingly far-fetched or impossible.

To my surprise, 90% of the women came up completely blank.

They couldnt think of one thing they’d LONG to do were the world to be their proverbial, non-kosher oyster.

In an effort to remind them of their passions Id suggestd they reflect back to their childhood and write down all that brought them joy from that time of life.

Jump rope, playing jacks, lemonade stands, bedazzling —-ANYTHING.

The results surprised both the list-creator and me.

Mentally returning to a time when exercise was all PLAYout not WORKout & life held zero limitations or parameters was eyeopening to say the least.

(& to say the most this exercise gives major clues to what your passions still are. In a career-rut? Looking to shake things up a bit in your world of work but dont know where to start?  give this a try!)

Which led this woman and me to chat about & settle upon a fun post for next Friday August 13th.

We picked three words (EXERCISE, STRONG & SUPPORT) and interviewed the little people in our lives to see what their definitions of the words were.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join in the potential mayhem post as well.

Grab your child.

Snag a neighbor-kid, niece, nephew or any other willing little person in you can find.

And ask them what the words EXERCISE, STRONG, & SUPPORT mean.

Video tape their musings.

Jot down what they say & transcribe later.

Create an interpretive dance which symbolizes the information you received & bestow upon us a dancin’ vlog.

Whatever medium you choose please to share the info with MrsFatass & me next Friday on YOUR blog.

Methinks we (the collective. the royal.) just might (re)learn a thing or two & revamp our current ways of defining those words as  well.

And yeah.

I video’ed.

And yeah.

It was a bigbig clusterf*ck comedy of errors.

Ill be hitting you up with that next week.

8.13.10.

Join us?

Edited to say…you all have the better ideas.  YES.  If you are so inclined, and roll blog-free, interview the small people in your life and plop on your Face Book page.  I always forget about the FB pages. Suffice it to say Im NOT Crushing It!! but you’ll have that…

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Comments

  2. I don’t have a blog, but I am going to join and see what my twins will say!

    I’ll share in the comments next Friday.

  3. I’m babysitting this weekend and will ask the kids to do this.
    I don’t know if I can video them 🙂 but I will write it down.

    I love kids.

  7. No chill’ns here, but if I see any wandering around I’ll be sure to ask. 🙂

    I have no problem coming up with a lonnnng list of dream careers. It’s the *actual* job that’s proving elusive. 🙂

  8. Can’t wait! I, too, was a facilitator in the Welfare to Work program..helping women problem solve the obstacles of returning to work, typically, as a single parent.

    I used the same exercise…only it was about what they wanted to be when they grew up…and then what stopped them.

    My proudest moment was sitting at a college graduation and watching one of my students cross the stage!

    • NO NEED! check out the amazing MrsFatass’ use of script writing in post 🙂

      Id love some quote snippets, Joanna!

  12. So…Hubbend is adamant about the anonymity of chitlins in our family. He’s already ticked at the ‘masked’ pics I’ve done. So, can we do stuffed animal puppetry? Or can I just type up the script?s

  13. My video editing skills typically require many clusterf*ck errors on a continual basis. I love this idea. Can’t wait to see what people come up with!

  15. Ok…can’t participate, but will happily pop some light popcorn and pull up a blogstool to read and watch.

    Out of the mouths of babes…

  18. Leah – its hard to see in the picture, but if you click on it and enlarge you’ll see her in all her “thumbs-up” glory!

  19. I love everything my kids teach me and how well they adapted to my new lifestyle, it was as though they never skipped a beat.
    Can’t wait to read more
    The picture is adorable!
    Have a great weekend

  20. a) the phrase CRUSHING IT always makes me laugh really hard
    b) i’m totally going to do this
    c) thank you – i’ve spent my life thinking i’m the only person on EARTH who doesn’t have a passion – good to know you had a 90% no-passion rate. i r not alone! lol

  23. What find!
    I’ll have to temporarily kidnap a small child somewhere to get this done though…there’s not so many in my world…

  24. I can’t wait to do this. I’m going to ask my kids at church. They have the most hilarious answers to anything. Yet always so true like the day they told me my hair looked like a mouse house and I had slept on it because I had rushed brushing it that morning.

  30. I’ll ask 14yo #2 Son and 12yo Bigger Girl, as well as the K-3rd kids in my Sunday School class. I will be written so all can remain anonymous.

    Who knows what fun ideas will come out of those little mouths?

  32. Love this idea…just wish my niece was older ; ( she is till a baby. But I agree children have so much to teach us…we really should learn to be like kids more ; ) haha

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