Aloha Friday Archives - Page 19 of 34

Aloha Friday: How do you handle stress?

April 1, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Stress

As B has mentioned in a couple of posts, the past week has been a stressful one. We have some big decisions to make and they aren’t easy ones. There is no perfect choice ahead of us. (Life rarely offers such choices up.) Instead, we’re presented with a short list of options, none of which feel like the right one (each for different reasons). So you can understand why stress levels have been rising.

Now, different people react to stress in different ways. Some people drink, some eat, some yell and scream. I don’t do any of that. (Ok, sometimes I eat.) I’ve written before about how I handle stress. Lately, my stress reaction has been two-fold. Step one is avoidance. I think about television, blog posts, music, anything that isn’t the subject that is causing me stress. To some degree this is healthy: After all, it isn’t good to dwell on your stress subjects too much. However, there is a temptation to avoid the stress subject entirely and that isn’t healthy. Without addressing it in some manner, the situation will grow worse and the stress will increase.

When I can’t ignore the stress, I internalize it. I might be fuming on the outside and wanting to scream so loud that people a mile away could hear me, but I actually get very quiet. I try to conduct my life as normally as possible without showing my stress. In some respects, this is a tactic I learned from my history of being bullied. Back then, showing any reaction to the bullies (anger, sadness, stress, etc) just led to additional bullying because of my reactions. So I learned to hide all of my emotions. To the world at large, I was calm and serene while inside I was crumbling. I know this isn’t the most healthy response and I’ve since learned to open up more. Still, it is how I instinctively react.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What do you do when you are stressed? How do you handle it?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #81

Aloha Friday: Favorite Disney Character

March 25, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Disney

During our past week at Disney, we saw many characters, including my two favorites. My top favorite is Goofy. As I said in my last post, I think Goofy’s a geek. After The Goof is Tigger who I like for his boundless energy and constant optimism.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Who is your favorite Disney character and why?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #80

Aloha Friday: Frayed Business Cards

March 18, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday

Last year, for the Disney Social Media Moms conference, B and I made business cards for us to hand out. Of course, we made far more than we needed, but that was fine. A few months after DisneySMMoms, we went to BlogHer in New York City and more business cards were handed out. During BlogHer, I carried around a bunch in my camera bag (which, I joked, served as my “purse-alternative”). Once BlogHer was over, the remaining business cards… well, remained. Some in my wallet and some in my camera bag.

Over the months, these cards have become a bit frayed. The corners aren’t crisp anymore and the cards themselves look slightly used. Obviously, I don’t want to hand these out to people. It doesn’t look too professional to hand over a business card that looks like it has been sitting in your pocket for the past six months. Then again, I don’t want to just throw these cards out either. After all, I did pay for them and would like for them to serve some purpose besides wallet-filler. The obvious use would be to toss them into “Win A Meal” jars in various restaurants. Beyond this, I’m drawing a blank.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What would you do with a fist full of frayed business cards?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #79

Aloha Friday: Flying Fears

March 11, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Fear, Travel

I’ve written about my fear of flying before. When the airplane I’m riding in takes off or lands, I get very nervous. Just writing and thinking about it is causing my hands to shake a bit.

I try to fill my mind with statistics which prove that air travel is safe. I tell myself that the number of accidents involving fatalities in the past 5 years is only a handful compared to the tons of flights that take off and land uneventfully day after day after day. Still, the Hollywood image runs through my mind of a plane coming in for a landing when something goes horribly wrong. (Perhaps Hollywood Airlines should get some better planes because a plane in a film or TV show almost invariable encounters problems along the trip.) The fear remains with me no matter how unreasonable I tell myself it is.

Still, I’m going to have to endure this if I want to go to Disney World. I could do this with no problem, but this year there’s an additional fear: Airport Security. I’m all for security on airplanes, but I’ll admit I’m afraid of the enhanced security procedures that I’ve heard are in place. From Rapiscan scanners (seriously, could they have come up with a worse name for it?!!) that effectively display a nude image of you while exposing you to radiation to TSA personnel who must pat you down in areas that only my doctor and wife ever touch.

And it isn’t mainly me I’m afraid about. Were it just me, I’d steel myself for it and get through it. It’s my kids I’m worried about. Will they ask JSL to step into the scanner by himself? Will they want to pat down NHL such that our Stranger Danger lessons get triggered? The boys are excited about the Disney World trip and I’d hate for an airport security nightmare to mar the experience.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you travelled with kids recently via airplane? How was your airport security experience? If not, do you have any fears about your kids handling airport security?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #78

Aloha Friday: Bloggy Writer’s Block

March 4, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Blogging

I’m sitting here trying to come up with a topic for my Aloha Friday post, but I’m drawing a blank. So I’ll make that my topic! It can be tricky to come up with post topics day after day. Oftentimes, I’ll find myself not knowing what I’m going to post about right until the very end. Other times, I’ll have so many post ideas that I don’t have enough days to post them all.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever had bloggy writer’s block? If so, what did you do to get the creative juices flowing

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #77

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