May 2006

1. TOGETHERNESS: Everyone enjoys spending time together.
2. RESPECT: They respect one another’s thoughts, feelings, boundaries, and possessions.
3. ACCEPTANCE, APPRECIATION, AND AFFIRMATION: They encourage and BUILD ONE ANOTHER UP.
4. LOVE: They not only love one another, they communicate this love.
5. RULES AND RESPONSIBILITY: They follow certain rules and share family responsibilities.
6. COMMUNICATION: Everyone talks to one another about what is in their hearts and on their minds. (Talks and listens!)
7. FUN AND LAUGHTER: They relax and have good times together.
8. HONESTY: Everyone is honest and truthful with one another.
9. TRADITIONS: They have routines, patterns, and traditions that bring them closer.
10. FAITH: They have a common faith that gives them hope and gruides them through the easy and difficult times.

The above outline of a great family is by Dr. Steve Stephens, Psychologist and Seminar Speaker. It’s a great set of goals, but if you think, even for a second, that your family might not be ”great” because it can’t check mark each of the 10 everyday, you’re just plain wrong.

There’s only one family that could achieve all 10 on just about any given day, and you saw them in the picture above. (The fictional television version anyway, because if you read the actual books, you’d know that Laura’s family actually had flaws. They were human rather than Stepfords.) 

Families are made up of individuals - and each individual has his or her own likes, dislikes, quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. 

We parents can be a funny lot - we raise our children to have strong wills (they’ll need them to face the world as it is today), to be independent thinkers, and to respect themselves and their thoughts - then, very often, when (having done our job brilliantly!), they take an independent, self-reliant stand or make a decision we don’t 100 percent agree with, we’re utterly floored.

And, another thought while I’m on the subject.  (I apologize for the post running longer than usual - but families are such an important subject!!)  My husband and I spent a lot of years in a church and a denomination that taught and preached, basically, “Break the will in your child.” That never set right with either of us.  As the parents of three daughters, we wanted - and still want - for them to be strong-willed.   Weak-willed young ladies in the world today - are you freakin’ kidding me???

Anyway, back to the “10 Signs” - It is a great guideline, but keep one thing in mind. The funnest, easiest way to approach the list would be to go….

1. Oh, he messes up here - royally…
2. This one has her name all over it…
3. Why can’t she see…
4. Yep, this is him again…

That approach, while typical, is dead wrong. The only way goals, guidelines, affirmations, (or anything of the kind) work is to approach it as it relates to self.

1. Am I fun for my family to be around?…
2. Do I respect everyone’s thoughts, limits, goals, boundaries - even when they don’t reflect my own?…
3. Am I more often an encouragement or a discouragement?…etc, etc, etc…  

Have a great Sunday and an amazing week,

Joi

“ All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.” ~Samuel Butler

A couple of early Sunday School lessons have stuck with me for life - (very, very good reason to take small children to Sunday School, I guess). 

One such lesson involved happiness. 

My Sunday School teacher had a slide show of pictures.  They were of various people - some very wealthy, some very poor, some beautiful, some….well….UG-ly.  The point of the slide show was their expressions and emotions.  The rich were sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. There was a young man in a car that, to me, looked like it would have cost a gazillion dollars - and he looked like he’d just been sentenced to life in prison.

Then there were the down-trodden people - again some were on top of the world while some seemed underneath it. 

Later in life, the fact that some were rich and some were poor seems to be the main point of the illustration, but to a pre-teen Joi, the thing that snapped my shallow little brain cells was the fact that some were pretty and some were anything but.  I remember, vividly, a girl that looked like a red-headed princess (kind of a cross between Maureen O’Hara and Sleeping Beauty).  In her pictures, she looked so incredibly sad an miserable - like she just couldn’t find the door to happiness.  Then there was a girl who looked like a shaved Ernest T. Bass in an Ellie Mae Clampett wig….smiling like she held the golden key.

The teacher, who always smelled like honeysuckles, pointed out how good circumstances (flowing hair, perfect face, money, fancy cars, flat abs - I threw that one in, big houses, etc..) didn’t assure happiness. 

The way I’ve come to see it, is this:  We each have inner emotional gauges.  Sort of like our car’s temperature gauge - the one that tells whether our car’s running hot or cool.  We have a temperament gauge, and our needle either swings naturally toward happy or toward unhappy.

Those who swing toward unhappy are always trying to find something to make their needle go in the other direction.  When they get it (new car, house…) they do indeed experience a temporary swing in the opposite direction.  But it doesn’t last.  Because the newness wears off.

By contrast, those who gravitate toward happiness naturally, stay steady - in spite of circumstances.  They’ll swing over to unhappy when life throws garbage their way, but the needle swings back soon enough.   That’s their inner gravitational pull.

So does that mean that people who have unhappy dispositions can’t ever be anything but miserable?  Heck to the no!  It just means they have to look inward rather than outward for the answers.  All the trips to car lots are a waste of time.  Possessions are like energy drinks - very temporary.

Just like everything in the world - the answers all lie INSIDE, not OUTSIDE.  You can get down and wallow in the miseries of life or you can stand up and find a way to get the better of them!

Joi

“All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.”  ~Helen Hayes

And soar they do!

I do a lot of work online, but I want to do a lot of living off line.

That’s why I don’t allow myself more than 6 hours online each day - unless I’m working on a project, then I’ll go up to 8. If I’m trying to get something done for someone, I’ll just let some of my own sites (14) or blogs (12) slide for a few days.

The reason I had to get so strict with myself and the time limits is this: When we were first getting our online businesses going, I spent (out of necessity and eagerness) around 12 hours a day sitting right where I am now. I stopped doing things that I normally enjoyed, stopped exercising, didn’t clean house as much. Needless to say, my weight crept up, the house looked like a family of rowdy racoons had visited, and I just didn’t feel like myself.

So, I set a limit on the time I’d spend at the computer - freeing up more time for the other necessities and enjoyments in life. I mean, I have a family that I cherish and I don’t want the only thing they ever see of me to be the back of my head!
I’ve learned that you don’t have to work longer, you just have to work smarter.

The deal maker comes wrapped in one word - efficiency (”The production of the desired effects or results with minimum waste of time, effort, or skill.”) I’m not saying I’m the greatest blogger, web publisher, graphic artist, dreamologist….okay, maybe I am the greatest dreamologist…. but I’ve found a few things that work for me and my situation and I thought I’d share them.

1. Be less finicky and fussy about details. I have literally agonized over an image before for 10 minutes…..and that’s half the time I sometimes spend trying to find just the right adjective or adverb. This is one I struggle with. (Case in point, I just went back and replaced choose with find. Choose was a perfectly fine choice!) I’ll continue to work on this one.
2. Keep pen and paper handy ALL THE TIME. I keep a little memo pad and several pens in my purse, another notebook and pen in the kitchen, a set in the living room, near my chair, and several on my computer desk. You never know when an idea will come into your mind, but you can usually count on them coming when you haven’t sent for them! Paper and pen make sure they don’t slip away unnoticed, like little phantoms. Hate that.
3. If any of your epuipment isn’t working as smoothly as they could, stop delaying the inevitable and replace them. If your keyboard is tempermental, divorce it and find one you can get along with. If your internet connection, mouse, chair, desk, software, keyboard, chair pad……okay, anything isn’t a joy to work with, replace it. In the long run, it’s more than worth it.
4. This one certainly wouldn’t work for all circumstances, but I’d suggest not signing onto AIM while blogging. Talk about a thought-buster! If I’m going to be writing, I can’t possibly sign on - I get too easily distracted. But I’ve seen my husband actually write a post while simultaneously responding to an e-mail and holding up his end of TWO AIM conversations. He does that regularly. My youngest daughter is the same way, she can be working on a hot graphic, coding a page, sipping a coke, and carrying on 6 (I’ve counted before!) IMs.
5. Have fun! This is one of the funnest things to come along in two forevers - don’t allow it to become something overly-political or uptight. Blogs are all about relationships. They aren’t one-sided affairs and should never strive to have just one voice. If they were, they’d be websites - without e-mail features…..and hopefully without a “Welcome,” because no one truly is!

Oddly enough, I’ve found that I don’t get the same amount done as I did before - I actually get more done.

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” ~Michael Altshuler  

Joi

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” ~H. Jackson Brown

Below’s a link to a great article about the “silliness” of the Bird Flu Panic.:

Bird Flu Panic

“You can only enter half way into the dark forest before you begin to come out the other side.” ~ Chinese Proverb

Okay, okay, we all know eating out isn’t as healthy as eating at home.  And we know it’s more expensive….. But, it’s also a deliciously indulgent little treat every now and again.  Someone else gets to set the table, someone else’s kitchen gets messed up, and someone else gets to clean it all up. 

There are ways to keep the experience from being as high as it could be, though.  For my food blog, (Get Cooking),  I rounded up some great “Dining Out on a Budget” Tips for a post.  Click the money bag below to jump over to this very post.

Have a GREAT weekend!

Joi

A thought ran through my mind today.  If you had as few quality thouhts as I’ve had lately, you’d brag, too.

I was thinking about words - the ones we say, the ones we write, the ones we whisper, the ones we yell. Sometimes, we will absolutely just say anything.  Especially when we’re angry, sad, disappointed, offended, or just plain in a bad mood.  We’ll open up and let it fly - irregardless of what it is and how it‘ll hurt someone.  Sometimes, because it will hurt someone.

These very words- these hateful words - could be our last.  Literally

Or they could be the last words the person on the other end of them hears.  Literally.

They say we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow.  Actually, we aren’t even guaranteed the next hour.  Oddly enoug, we put twice as much thought into our appearance than we do our words - yet it’s the words that carry the heaviest eternal ramifications. 

Just a thought.

Joi

There are certain things, besides drinking all the coffee we can possibly hold, that we should do each and every day.   I certainly have a group of goals and priorities that I try to meet daily - sometimes I win, sometimes I come close, and sometimes I’d have been better off staying in bed.  One thing I have learned, though, is that we humans are pretty predictable - we will do those things that matter the most to us. Sad. And true.
To kind of get us all thinking, I came up with a post idea:  The Daily Dozen. If you have a blog, you might want to post your own Daily Dozen - the 12 things you strive to do on a daily basis.  There are more than just 12, of course, but The Daily 20 doesn’t sound nearly as snappy.

Below are 12 from my own reserves to get your mind perking.

1. Learn something new everyday.
2. Pray.
3. Tell everyone you love that you love them.  Often.
4. Do your job better than anyone expects you to.
5. Give praise and encouragement liberally.
6. Keep up with the local news - you should know what’s going on around you.  (I need lots of work with this one.  Unless you count the comics, recipes, and Hollywood gossip. )
7. Get some sort of physical activity for at least 30 minutes.
8. Look people in the eye when you talk to them, and most definitely when they talk to you.
9. Never, Never, Never judge another person. “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.”
10. Take pride in your appearance.
11. Spend at least 20 minutes each day relaxing to the point of being able to hear your own breathing.
12. Smile.  You’re aive.

Joi