11/21/17- Counting My Blessings

Last year a friend started a #GratitudeProject around the holidays, and she brought back the project for this year. The idea of the project is that a "purposeful study of gratitude, thankfulness, and mindfulness has many benefits, not the least of which is, it makes you a happier person!" So for 14 days, my friends leads a group of us in practicing gratitude, thankfulness, and mindfulness.  

Each day has a new exercise, and today's exercise was to count your blessings.  Here's the description of the exercise: 

Count your blessings.  Pick a time today and consider sustaining this every week where you sit down and write about your blessings-- reflection on what went right or what you are grateful for.  Sometimes it helps to pick a number-- such as three to five things-- that you will identify each week.  How many will you identify today? As you write, be specific and think about the sensations you felt when something good happened to you.

I thought since I have a weekly blog post to do, Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I want to participate in today's #GratitudeProject, why not make my blog post about counting my blessings? I am not sure that I'll think of every blessing I have, but here are the blessings that are always in my mind and heart:

1) My son (love you Jack Jack!)
2) My husband (💓)
3) My friends (😊)
4) My extended family (shout out to my nephews Brady, Austin, Connor, and Parker and godson Colton!)
5) My pets
6) My education
7) My house (a roof over my head)
8) My eyesight (I may have RA, but so far, I haven't had to wear glasses)
9) Being born in the US
10) Science and the wonderment of scientific discovery
11) All the different options available for food and the ability to afford all the different options (can't eat gluten, no problem here in the States!)
12) Washing machines and dish washers (so thankful to not have to walk down to the river and do it all by hand)
13) Books
14) Shoes (not sure my delicate feet could handle walking around barefoot on the hot Phoenix sidewalks)
15) Writing
16) Funny GIFs and Memes (sometimes the Internet is shark, but sometimes it makes me laugh and brings cheer)
17) Starbucks and husband always "refilling" the Starbucks card
18) My car/having reliable transportation
19) A job that helps saves lives in some small part
20) Netflix

What are your blessings? Can you count at least a handful of blessings? Please feel free to share in the comments, and I hope most of your blessings will be gathered around you at your Thanksgiving fest. Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble, gobble, gobble!

11/16/17- Thanksgiving Science Experiment: Hopping Corn

YOU WILL NEED:

a clear glass container
popping corn
water
baking soda
white vinegar
food coloring (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Fill your glass container with water and add a couple drops of food coloring.
2. Add your baking soda and stir well until it is all dissolved.
3. Add a small handful of popping corn kernels.
4. Add the vinegar and watch the corn start to hop up and down!

This corn will hop up and down repeatedly in your container for over an hour.  It’s so much fun to watch (mesmerizing would be the best word to describe it). The experiment creates a great opportunity to talk about gases, liquids, and solids with your child.

Basically, the science behind the activity is that when the baking soda and vinegar combine, they react to form carbon dioxide (CO2) gas.  The gas forms bubbles in the water, which enclose the corn kernels.  The bubbles lift the kernels up to the surface, and when the kernels get to the surface, the bubbles pop, and the kernels sink again.

11/7/17- Every Once In Awhile, I Like My Job (Part 1)

About a week ago, I attended an engineering conference.  I attend this conference every year: it always reinvigorates me about engineering.  This year, I was selected to present at one of the sessions, and to my surprise, my company paid for me to go.  This is the first time in over a decade that they sponsored me, despite the facts that I've been attending this conference since I started working (for them), and I've been a speaker in the past.

Presenting on "Beautiful Oops!"

Of course, there were strings attached with having the company pay for me, such as recruiting at my company's career fair booth.  I missed out on attending other sessions at the conference all to pretend that it's a great place to work. Okay, it really is if you're an intern or a fresh out (of college), but for mid-career people, the great place to work becomes highly questionable.  Thankfully, I talked mostly to college students (there was one mid-level person that approached me, but an engineering manager stepped in; saved by the manager, phew). I absolutely enjoy engaging with the youngins.

Sure, we talked about my company, but mostly I got to talk about engineering with them.  There are some really impressive engineering students out there, so it's easy for me to roll my eyes at other "old people" when they say they're worried about the future and who's going to be running it ("get off my lawn!").  These "old people" just aren't hanging out with the right crowd.  They don't see what I got to see at this conference-- the smart, capable engineers of tomorrow (so "old people" hang out more at engineering recruiting events, and you'll be less worried).

Another other great part about this gig was seeing and spending time with my colleagues/friends from various companies.  We got to BAW (shark about work) with each other and call it networking.  Hearing my colleagues/friends stories about work gives me comfort and knowledge that I'm not alone.  Also, the ones that have reached the 20+ years that makes me think that I can reach that benchmark too.  Of course, I may have to change companies to make it to 20 years. 😆

My presentation was another highlight of the conference.  My presentation is based off Barney Saltzberg's picture book Beautiful Oops!  Beautiful Oops! is about helping children realize that a mistake is not the end of the world. When they make a mistake, they should think of it as an opportunity to make something beautiful: a beautiful oops.  The book's lesson also applies to engineering. Many engineering innovations and scientific discoveries came about by accident (mistake): Post-It Notes, Penicillin, Cornflakes, Velcro, Anesthesia, etc. 

Sometimes as engineers, we get a little risk adverse, afraid to make a mistake or suggest the wrong solution. I hope that the engineers who attended my presentation took away that even if they make a mistake at work, that perhaps they can make something beautiful out of it (a lesson learned, an innovation, and so on).  Plus, I love it when my engineering career comes together with my children's author career meets my mom career: thank you "Beautiful Oops" for that. Also, thanks for the reminder that if I make or create something in writing or engineering, and I make a mistake while doing so, there's the possibility that I can still turn it into something beautiful. 

So every once in awhile, I like my current (engineering) job.