Halloween Cupcakes

I'm not sure how to make Halloween Cupcakes as good as they do at The Coffee Shop at Agritopia in Gilbert, Ariz., but I can at least show you the picture of what they would look like if I could. By the way, these are some great-tasting cupcakes, like none I've ever tasted before. They're more like gooey rich cake, not dry and flakey like the kind I would normally get at the grocery store. I'm sure there's more to it than the fact that they bake their cupcakes fresh daily. After all, the owners won the "Cupcake Wars" on The Food Channel. Whatever the secret is...

Here's wishing you some spooky holiday plans for the evening that includes yummy treats like these. Happy Halloween!

Life lessons from the seat of a bicycle

 Sharing a few of my latest tweets for today's post:

_What can a bicycle do for you, besides help you get fit? It can fine tune your sense of awareness. That's huge. #whyride

_What else can a bicycle do for you? It can build inner strength. What you see outside translates internally. #whyride #personalgrowth 

_Riding a bicycle makes you take personal responsibility. It reminds you that you are in charge of your actions. #whyride #personalgrowth

_Giving yourself this quiet time on the bicycle is time for thoughtful introspection about the challenges of the day. #whyridealone

The bike ride is really about giving yourself that quiet time to reflect, to learn more about yourself from the person who knows you the best--you. If you don't ride, what would you--or do you already--do in place of that? Some people I know run, others knit. Still others paint. Share some of your life lessons.

Change will do you good, Part 2

As the weather cools down in Arizona, it's like spring cleaning around here. Every now and then, you gotta change things up, move things around a little, rearrange. So that's what I've been doing. It kind of goes with my branding work--still in progress. And, yeah, my house could use some of this as well, but I'm focused on the blog at the moment. Rather, I'm focused on figuring out how to make it more useful.

So I have made some changes. Not to the home page, really. But to the extra pages. Since I don't have a JackieDishner.com Website yet (though I do own the domain), I thought I should continue trying to make this place work as my main sales too. And what I'm mostly done is rewrite the extra Pages. If you have a minute, I'd love to get your input on what I've done. You may notice that I dropped the Travel Blog page, since the owner of that blog isn't really doing anything on it anymore, and it seemed pointless for me to continue writing for it. So that's gone. Yet, you can still access it via my Clips Page. The remaining three Pages I'm using more carefully to sell my services as a speaker, writer and consultant.

I'd really like to know what you think about my "Hire Me" titles. As I understand it, you want to make things clear on the blog. So that's what think I've done.

What do you think?

When was the last time you played hard?

Should riding a merry-go-round considered hard play?

I think so. Why not? It's a merry-go-round. I'm an adult. This contraption is for kids, right?

Wrong. If it's there, if you get an invitation to ride it, I say, "Go for it!"

So I ask you again...when was the last time you played hard? By that, I mean, when was the last time you were willing to leap at the chance to do something you might not have thought about since childhood. Kids go for it. It's their natural instinct. They just go out there and do it. They don't pause to think about it. They just make the decision right then and there to play and maybe to play hard, depending on what the game or fun might involve. Generally, they just jump in. They're thinking more about having a good time than anything else. They might not consider the consequences, not until they get older.

Then, in their teen years, they'll start to worry what others might think of them. What would my friends say if they saw me sitting on a flying duck? OMG! The horror! They'd probably turn the other cheek. They'd skip the ride. They wouldn't dare consider riding on a merry-go-round, especially if the seats turn out to be fairy tale animals. They wouldn't dare be seen engaging in such silliness. Isn't that too bad?

Thankfully, as we get older, we begin to realize that childlike behaviors are innocent behaviors. They allow us to see life in the big picture, the one that takes into consideration that opportunities are all around us--if we but reach out or leap out at them. They remind us that the world really is our oyster.

And, sure, riding a merry-go-round may not seem like hard play. But to an adult, it takes some thought and effort. We might stop first to think about who might see us, as we would were we still teenagers. For a second, we might second-guess ourselves. We might even consider which animal to hop on. Is one better than the other? Why? We might want to know how long the ride will last. We might ask ourselves: Do we have time? We might consider the cost. Face it, as adults, we learn to think too much. Who really cares which animal we ride? Aren't they all the same? Does it really matter how long the ride will last? It's not going to be too long of a ride. No one has that kind of time. We know that. And as long as we have a few dollars in our pockets, we can probably afford a ride on the merry-go-round--even the one pictured here (thanks to my writer friend Susan McKee who took this photo of me) at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C. this month.

My point is: When an opportunity arises, consider being like a child and taking the leap. Why not? It's going to be a learning experience, no matter what. You'll get a sense of who you are when you remove all inhibitions. You'll reconnect with your inner child. That's never a bad thing. You'll give yourself the chance to explore what it's like to have fun again. Pure and simple fun. If you haven't played hard in while, maybe it's time to let loose.

If you have, share with us what kind of child-like behaviors you allowed yourself to experiment with lately. Go ahead. Make your day!