Category: Lead & Coordinate

I’ve been working with the Next Step Advisory Board to develop my company’s mission and values. It turns out that Next Step values creativity, partnership, and fun! Who knew?!!!??

One of my Board members sent me a link to a video done by TheFunTheory.com. They developed several strategies and then took videos to test their theory that fun can get people to change. Hmmmm, how many applications can we find for that?

The video most closely tied to my current work is the World’s Deepest Trash Bin; I’m working with Keep Iowa Beautiful to develop a program guide for Kindergarten, First and Second Grade teachers to lay the groundwork for kids to learn about volunteering, the environment, character and keeping their schools clean. The lesson plans are nearly done, and have a good share of fun built in.

I think my personal favorite is a strategy for getting people to use the stairs more than the escalator. It reminds me the giant piano scene from the movie, Big; I might just have to watch that movie again real soon. There are 35 pages of entries into The Fun Theory’s contest to find other ways to use fun to get people to change their behavior. Which do you like best?

Last week I rebuilt my “pondless waterfall” for the third time. I’ve lost the illusion that it’s the third and LAST time. Gardening is all about the process. A potential home buyer asked my friend if her garden was finished; that was a deal breaker. Here was a neophyte–a garden is never finished. My art teacher says the only true beauty emerges from process; gardens are evidence of that.

After the garden workshop in my backyard Tuesday, Carol and I talked about criteria for selling our homes. I told her the old neighbors to my back interviewed potential buyers to find out if they would tend the garden to their satisfaction. The new neighbors have done well; that garden has flourished and is constantly being improved and expanded. I’m vigilant about keeping the creeping charlie from creeping through that fence!

Saturday my daughter and I planted eight shrubs and perennials for fall interest. Yesterday morning they looked like they had always been there. That’s a wonderful compliment: when Bill Dirkx saw my pond for the first time, he asked the same thing, “Hasn’t that always been there?”

September and October are the months for putting your hope in the ground. I bought some quick growing greens so we can have fresh salads into frost. I still have roses and bulbs to plant. I won’t see any results of that investment for six months, but I am excited about planting anyway. Winter will go faster, knowing there will be daffodils.

I still remember the first time hill I rode down after my dad took my training wheels off. Such a feeling of exhilaration and freedom! I still like to ride my bike, and that feeling has never gone away. I got back into cycling in 2008, and rode the MS 150 in eastern Kansas with my brother’s team. Then I spent five wonderful days on Sanibel Island in Florida, with only a bicycle for transportation.

If you don’t have a bicycle, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get one. The Des Moines Bike Collective, at 617 Grand Avenue, repairs used bicycles and sells them at a reasonable cost. They also offer classes on bicycle maintenance.

Where can you ride? Streets are okay, if you ride carefully, but it’s more stressful than riding on trails. The Des Moines area has about 300 miles of wonderful trails for biking. Some of them lead out into the countryside where you can glide through wooded areas and between cornfields. Many trails lead to restaurants and bars and parks where you can stop and rest in a park or get a snack at a store.

If you get started and decide you really like riding, then think about riding your bike across Iowa. The Des Moines Register sponsors a ride across the state every year, called RAGBRAI. As part of RAGBRAI, the newspaper sponsors a group called The Dream Team. Experienced cyclers are paired with teens. The group trains together during the spring and summer, preparing for the big ride across the state in late July.

Women across the world are into bicycle riding and racing. Last spring I watched young women in Paris riding their bikes to work in skirts and heels! Find out more about women and cycling and see if it’s for you.