Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

Welcome back for a second day of work. If you're just punching in then you should know Highlowaha is having a creative work week. We are in the process of redoing our website and we want YOU to weigh in. Many readers have suggested that our current tag line ("Where Creativity and Community Meet") does not satisfactorily explain the essence of our Highlowaha community. We're contracting with you to help us.

Added bonus... join us all week and you will discover an interesting approach to problem solving and creative thinking - Six Hat Thinking, (De Bono, 1999).

Yesterday the white hat. Facts, figures, neutral, and objective. Information generated during yesterday's white hat thinking will serve as the backdrop to ideas shared and bantered about the remainder of this week. Here is some of what we came up with....

Word of mouth is important; the word, "overwhelmed" was used more than once in talking about Highlowaha; One suggested "vulnerability" and "commitment" as qualities associated with readers most apt to engage; blog readers look for creative and practical ideas; the word "connected" was used multiple times; mothers and/or women between 22-60 represent our largest population; people don't post when the don't connect or cannot relate,

Today we wear the opposite hat. Today, the red hat.

Think of fire. Think of warmth. Think of feelings. Using the red hat gives you an opportunity to express feelings, emotions, and intuition without any need to explain or justify. Today's comments might start with phrases such as these:

• I feel...
• My intuition tells me...
• I have a hunch..
• My gut feeling tells me...
• I sense...
• I don't think...

Remember, no need to justify or explain why.

About what specifically will you be sharing your red-hat-thinking?

Share your feelings, intuition, or hunches, about the five tag lines displayed below (the short descriptor listed above each is for your benefit. It will not appear on the tag line). Pick one tag line you want to vie for all week long or share some of your red-hat-thinking about all five. The choice is yours.

Highlowaha is like a Tribe

Highlowaha is like camp

Highlowaha is like membership in a Greek organization

Highlowaha is like a fun college campus

Highlowaha is like living in a neighborhood

Two things to bear in mind as you make your red-hat-comments.

1. The goal of this week's activity is to make our blog more accessible to prospective readers, by developing a tag line/identity that better describes who we are.
2. The facts generated during yesterday's white hat thinking exercise might provide some important backdrop. Consider that information while sharing your red-hat-feelings.

See you in the comment section...

***P.S. Special thanks to Peggy who submitted one of the ideas.

Facts, Just The Facts

Monday morning. Welcome to work. If tuning in for the first time, you missed our request to have you to join each day this week for a couple minutes of Highlowaha work. Each day wear a different "hat" while evaluating the same five blog tag lines.

Why evaluate tag lines?

You will learn a creative brainstorming process you can use in a number of personal and professional settings and...

We are in the process of giving our blog a face lift and we want the changes to be more than purely cosmetic. Loyal readers have suggested our current tag line ("Where Creativity and Community Meet") does not work in helping explain the essence of our unique blog community.

A cooking blog? Easy to understand and to know what to do. Craft and DIY blogs? Same thing. Go, peruse, take what you want and leave. Sports, travel, and parenting blogs... same thing. Visit. Leave. And, maybe - on occasion - leave a comment for the blog's author to see

But, a blog built on the premise of community? That's harder to explain.

At Highlowaha, the exchange between readers is every bit as important as the topic of the day. In fact, sometimes the topic is simply the segue into a lively exchange between readers. Because communities are multi-dimensional, so are we. One day creative gift ideas, another day personal development, some days baking or cooking, other days parenting tips. And, despite the busy lives of our community members, we still leave plenty of time for Random Acts of Kindness and plenty of fun and games (virtual games, that is).

Why the white hat?

The process we're engaging in this week is called Six Hat Thinking (De Bono, 1999). The point is to look at an issue (our five tag lines) from six distinct perspectives (hats) - everyone sharing the same perspective at the same time, while never mixing and matching hats.

What does the white hat represent?

Information! Imagine a computer that gives the facts and figures for which it is asked. The computer is neutral and objective. It does not offer interpretations or opinions. Today, that is you!

No opinions. No interpretations. Just cold, hard, neutral facts.

Stick with me. I know you are confused.

Today's White Hat Question? What neutral, fact-based information can you provide as background to the thinking we'll be doing for the next five days? What information is missing but needed for us to get this tag-line-thing right?

Your responses might begin with one of the statements below:

1. What we don't know about our lurkers is...
2. We get traffic to our blog because...
3. We don't get more traffic to our blog because...
4. Something we know about our current blog readers is...
5. Blogs succeed when they are based on...
6. Frequent blog readers say the following about their favorite sites...
7. By and large people who seem to enjoy our blog most are...
8. More often that not, people who visit blogs...
9. I think I am right in saying...
10. I once read that...

Today you provide us with neutral information we can use in creating a backdrop for the five tag lines we will begin looking at tomorrow. Here's a sneak peak at one... just to get you going.

See you in the comment section...

P.S. This would be a GREAT week to invite a friend or new reader to join us! We could benefit from what insiders AND outsiders might have to say.

In the Left Corner...

By next Saturday morning our Super Bowl Snack Throwdown will be underway as Lauren and Kate square off head to head in a sausage making challenge. With that in mind we felt today would be a good day to let our readers learn a little more about the bloggers who will be spending the next 4 months with us.

We had the privilege of interviewing both ladies over the last few weeks and I think you will all quickly see that they fit right in with our community. With all that said let's learn how they SHINE!

First up in the right corner is Lauren from New Jersey!


Lauren comes to us via her blog at www.lacucinadilauren.blogspot.com where you will see her delectable dishes posted daily. While it may look like Lauren spends all her time in the kitchen we quickly learned that she is a busy woman outside of the kitchen. Lauren is a high school English teacher (and yes she knows the difference between lie and lay!) and has a seven week old and a 2 1/2 year old keeping her busy.

We love that Lauren's favorite foods are pasta and chocolate...she's certainly a woman after our own heart!

To hear more from Lauren about what she'll be bringing to the table (literally) this football season listen to our interview with her here:





Next up in the corner on your left hailing from North Carolina, Kate!

Kate joins us as the author of www.goodiesbykate.blogspot.com where you will see Kate's amazing ability to craft a cake into just about any object. Don't be fooled by all the baking though, Kate is a master chef as well and often posts her scrumptious suppers on her family blog.

Like Lauren you may think that Kate devotes all her time to cake baking and cooking but she is kept busy by her twin boys Brandon and Connor...they are both 2 1/2 and keep Kate hopping!
It was great to hear from Kate how she loves to be creative in the kitchen and tries out new recipes that meet the allergy needs of her kiddos. Kate's favorite "go to" ingredient is cinnamon--I wonder how she'll work it into her recipes this season?

To learn more about Kate and what she's cooking up for this football season listen to the interview with her here:



These ladies sure do bring a lot of creative energy and passion in the kitchen to our challenge. I can't wait to see what great dishes they cook up this football season!

We'd also like to take a minute to welcome our celebrity judge for this Snack Throwdown Season. Joining us each week to give her professional opinion of each recipe offered up by our competitors and with a score that will be added to votes from the readership and votes from Struble Suds is Jen Perez from http://www.beantownbaker.com/. Jen surely knows good food based upon all the fantastic food found in the posts on her blog.

Your goal this holiday weekend? Peruse the three blogs provided by these ladies and let us know what recipes you find that you can't wait to try!

For me? The Better than Sex Cake found over on Lauren's blog, the Red Velvet Cupcakes found on Jen's blog, and the "Sushi" cake found on Kate's blog. Can you tell I have a sweet tooth?

Signing off until Monday...

When the cat's away...

The ladies will play!!!

It's was just Cheryl and I (Heather) for our Free For All Friday filming and you'll see we had a little fun!

The quick rundown is:

Six silly hats
Recap of the week
Cookie slogan winner
Altoid table winner
Taste of USA reminder
Shrimp vs. Mushroom
Free for All is a total free for all!

Hope you guys come out of hiding today to participate!

Hat in Hand

Coming to you from Montreal. The longer my post, the shorter my vacation.

Brevity is the name of today's game.

Monday is Labor Day, but we need you to come to work at www.Highlowaha.com. In fact, we need you to come to work with us all next week - Monday through Saturday.

Your job? Consultant. We're spending a few thousand dollars redoing our website and we are at a place where we need your help. The tag line must be improved. The one we have is ok, but as many of you have pointed out, "Where Creativity and Community Meet" does not fully capture the essence of Highlowaha.

With over 2,000,000 blogs in cyberspace right now, you know like I know there is a blog running circles around us for every topic we cover - crafts, baking, gift ideas, inspiration, party ideas, and the list goes on.

Our niche is community. Visit our destination to connect daily with friends new and old. Destination first. Topic second. Like Facebook, check in not knowing what you're going to get, but pleased at the chance to connect. Added bonus... you get to leave with an inspiration or idea of sorts.

Wear what you want to the office, but don't forget your hats.

You heard me hats. Hats are essential to next week's work place. You'll need six to be exact; white, red, yellow, green, blue, and black. Based on Edward De Bono's approach titled, Six Hat Thinking, we will evaluate five ideas while wearing six different hats. Each hat represents something different. Sneak peek...

• White Hat: neutral and objective, concerned with facts and figures
• Red Hat: the emotional view
• Black Hat: careful and cautious, the devil's advocate hat
• Yellow Hat:Sunny and positive
• Green Hat: associated with fertile growth creativity, and new ideas
• Blue Hat: cool, the color of the sky, above everything else - the organizing hat.

Work in an office? Coordinate a neighborhood committee? Or, CEO of your home? Consider using this approach to change the way your group thinks.

Let's take Six Thinking Hats for a test drive and get you all warmed up for Monday. Yesterday, the guitar cookie cutter won September's Fancy Flour Cookie Cutter Challenge. Put on each of the six hats and comment on use of the guitar as a way to celebrate next month's National Good Neighbor Day.

Green light... GO!

Signing off until tomorrow...

Fancy Flours, Simple Pleasures

We've been together a long time and you are only now seeing the street where I live.

Embarrassing, really. Not so much my street, but the fact that, of the nine other families living on my Harvestwood Court, I only know the names of three other families. And one of the families is my in-laws who live across the street and up three houses (Picture "Everybody Loves Raymond" live and in color).

I grew up in Douglaston, New York - a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else and, more importantly, people made time to involve themselves in the lives of one another. It was a neighborhood in the truest sense of the word and one of life's greatest simple pleasures.

Nine total families on my street and November marks two years since we moved in. Let's just say, I'm not shining in the Good Neighbor Department.

Yet.

September 28, 2009 marks National Good Neighbor Day and I am determined to use the holiday as an occasion to break the cycle - to stop the madness.

You see the writing on the wall, I hope.

Good.

Let's get straight to the business of the day. We have monthly activity going. I pick a holiday worth celebrating and you pick a cookie cutter that I must use to bake a treat worthy of celebration. Fancy Flours is the company of our choice because they have a CRAZY BIG selection of cookie cutters and their gift wrapping is fabulous!

The contest is made more fun if you pick a cookie cutter you think will be true challenge for me to build into the holiday theme. Kind of like Earth Day and porcupines, Bass Fish and Backyard Games Day; Mermaids and my husband's birthday; airplanes and National Ice Cream Month, and yes... an ear of corn and Freshmen Orientation. I'd say this group has the hang of it.

Consider yourself a novice? It's easy. Click here. Find the cookie cutter you consider least related to National Good Neighbor Day. Visit the comment section to cast your vote, then tune in on Friday to find out the winner. Check back on Monday, September 28 to see what creation we've come up with (and to take a crack at winning your very own)!

Done, done, and done.

Signing off until tomorrow...

What if these walls could talk?

Welcome to Art History 101 at the University of Highlowaha. When Claudia announced that we would connect a cookie cutter to Bucknell University's Orientation theme of O-Museum I thought "How the heck is she going to do that?"

After the Corn Cookie Cutter was selected I thought, "Oh, she is so in trouble." When I asked her about it and she told me her idea of If These Walls Could Talk the corny art jokes started rolling and I was hooked.

Looking at art I do sometimes wish that walls could talk. And the paintings, too. Wouldn't it be great if when you were standing in front of a painting or photograph or sculpture it could talk and tell you what the artists was doing and saying? Think- Night of the Museum or Harry Potter.

Let's take a look at some of our artwork and the paintings that inspired them and learn some fun facts about the artist. First up is Joan Miro.

Joan Miro (1893-1983) was from Spain. Miro's parents would have much preferred that he find a career in business. He tried to please them and worked as an accountant until he had a nervous breakdown. Afterwards, his parents finally accepted his choice but not with much support. His paintings have a childlike quality to them and he often compared his art to poetry. He met Picasso and many of the other great artists in Paris.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) hails from Spain and is called a master artist. He displayed talent at an early age and mastered any medium or art form he chose. He created a staggering number of paintings, sculptures and drawings. Just imaging the passion for art that he must have embodied. We could have a whole year worth of blogs to learn all there is to learn about him. The Blue Period, the Rose Period, Cubism, the African Period and the list goes on.

During the Spanish Civil War, there was bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by the German air force. Responding to this massacre, Picasso painted a mural Guernica. For months afterwards he made subsidiary paintings based on one of the figures in the mural: a weeping woman holding her dead child. Weeping Woman is the last and most elaborate of the series. The woman's features are based on Picasso’s lover Dora Maar.

Art doesn't have to always be pretty. It can make a political statement about the ideas that the artist supports.

Next up is Vincent Van Gogh. He has to have one of the most memorable stories about his ear being sliced off. We thought we were pretty clever with that EAR of corn. So we know that Van Gogh suffered with mental issues that included epilepsy, psychotic attacks, and delusions. There is the famous story that he self-mutilated by cutting off his own ear, offered as a gift to a prostitute and then was hospitalized. But! Two German Art Historians have spent ten years researching the incident and now believe that Van Gogh's artist buddy, Paul Gauguin who just happened to fence actually cut Van Gogh's ear off and the two of them hushed it up! You can read the full story here.

On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest and died two days later. His brother, Theo, had collected the majority of Van Gogh's work but he died a short 6 months later. Theo's wife took the work and dedicated herself to getting Van Gogh the credit that we realize today.

Last up today is Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) was an accomplished commercial illustrator turned painter, printmaker, and filmmaker and is known for his leadership in the movement known as Pop Art. His success as an illustrator made it difficult for him to be taken serious as a painter. But, he used his success as an illustrator to merge popular culture into his work. Pop culture items like Campbell's Soup Cans, Coca-cola, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor.

He became ill with a nervous system disease when he was about 8. This caused him to have to stay at home in bed which led to a strong bond with his mother. He became a hypochondriac and was fearful of hospitals and doctors. Warhol was another complex artist and personality that we could go on and on about. These tidbits are nothing to his full story.

He was shot in June of 1968 and never fully recovered from it. He died in 1987 after a routine gall bladder surgery.

He is responsible for the phrase Fifteen minutes of fame.

There's a little, tiny bit of art history of only 4 of the thousands and thousands of artist out there. Every day we are given a blank canvas. What we choose to do with that blank canvas is up to us.

The first photo you saw today was your blank canvas. And, your challenge today is tell us which artist you would choose to inspire you. Is it an old master or a modern day artist? Which painting would you pick? Who inspires you?

This is Cheryl, signing off until tomorrow....