Category Archives: Just stuff

Encouragement

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Last night I poured out to my best friend my frustrations and feelings of discouragement I was experiencing. My husband listened intently to what I was saying and as usual he was able to hear between the lines what the actual problem was. (My husband rocks at listening. I wish all husbands were like that.) I had been going through a roller-coaster of emotional whiplash for weeks now. One minute I was happy as could be, the next minute I was ready to strangle even the toaster. Because really? Why did the toaster think it necessary to burn the toast?

Something miraculous happened in the short thirty-minute conversation on the couch with my BFF. As I listened to my husband speak uplifting words to me I felt a huge weight lift from my freckled shoulders. Weeks of stewing in discouragement were gone in a matter of moments.

Discouragement will eat you a live if you let it. Unfortunately it seems that many of us do not realize when our loved ones are needing that pat on the back. That little pep-talk that keeps some of us going. When is the last time you have told your spouse “Hey! You know what? I am so blown away at how hard you have worked on such and such.” or “You know, I really have noticed how you never complain about changing diapers/getting up with the kids at night/working at your job, etc. That is amazing. I love you for it!” When is the last time you have given your children or friend or family member an injection of words laden with encouragement?

I wonder why it surprises me to see my daughter smile so big after I have let her know how much I appreciate how she works with a cheerful heart? Why does it amaze me how my son let’s go of his grumpiness after I give him a hug, tell him I love him, and let him know I think his hugs are the best? Real question is: Why do I forget to encourage when I know how wonderful it is when I am encouraged by someone else?

Words are amazing things, folks. They are verbal pats on the backs for a job well done or for quiet service that nobody seems to notice. The lift a person’s countenance and make them smile. And though I have no proof, I am pretty sure that encouraging words are good for one’s health.

Try it today. You won’t regret it.

Photo courtesy of: Shawn Allen

Giveaways and Reviews, Oh My!

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Present
Recently I received an email that requested me to hostess a giveaway here on my humble blog.  It would have offered my readers the opportunity to win a nice product and I would have received the product as well.  I was excited to be able to post the giveaway and was already to start posting about it when I read something in the fine print.

(Make sure to always read the fine print, y’all.)

The winner of my giveaway would have to pay for shipping.

[Insert sounds of screeching tires and brakes here, please.  It really helps with the effect.]

Ever had that feeling of letdown when you realize something really cool just is not as rockin’ as you originally thought?

Yeah.  That was how I felt.

I am just not going to host giveaways here at Wisdom Begun where my precious few readers are going to be asked to pay to ship their own prize.  In my opinion, that is just plain ridiculous, looks tacky, and seems scammy.  (By the way, “scammy” must be a word because my spell checker isn’t doing that annoying red highlighting thing.  Oh wait, now it is highlighting.  Oh well, I’ll leave the word in anyway.)

So you will never find that kind of thing here.  Nope.  Never.  Nada.  Giveaways are just that.  They give away.  There should be no strings attached.

What you will find here are honest reviews that I am not paid to give.  I fully disclose the fact that I have received the product free of charge to review.  If I do not like the product, I generally do not give it any review, with the exception of the reviews I do for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  I will occasionally hold giveaways but those will be completely free.  I will allow some advertising on my blog for products that I use myself or can display with no problem.  However, that advertising will never drive this blog.

That is my firm stance and promise to my visitors.

Photo courtesy: Egilshay

Things Baby Eats

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You know, I really wanted to start writing today on my BlogHer ’09 experience in Chicago. But first I wanted to share a story with you that is actually pretty gross. It involves something that my baby girl ate. So if you are eating any food right now, wait till later to read this post.

Anyways. So, before you become a mom, you have lofty dreams of how sweet and beautiful babies are. And they are sweet and beautiful. But what you do not realize is that these little persons carry with them the ability to do things that bring with them the “ewwwwww” factor.

And I am not talking about dirty diapers, folks. This goes beyond that.

My youngest daughter is not quite a year old. She is very curious and she does not give up easily. She is also walking now and so is very mobile. One thing children her age do quite a bit of is pick things up off of the floor and stick them straight into the mouth.

Well, my daughter does this a lot. More so than my other children. We sweep and vacuum every day and she still manages to find things. She has great eyesight, that one. I have picked out of her mouth lint and old pieces of sausage, as well as beads, paper, crayons, play dough, thread, and other things that I still do not know what they were.

That is all very gross and nasty as it is. Eating off of the floor turns my stomach. Unless it can be picked up and rinsed/washed off – think runaway grapes – it goes in the trash. The five-second rule does not apply in my book.

Back to my story.

Sunday evening I was picking up in our sitting room. My baby was toddling around doing the whole “Step, step, fall, get back up” routine. As I was picking up crayons I turned my back for 2.6 seconds. That was my mistake. As I turned back around, I noticed daughter again was chewing on something.

I walked toward her. She was standing there with a big grin on her face, the one that melts my heart. I call that her Mommy Smile because she does save her biggest smiles for mama. The closer I got I noticed more chewing and a little black thing on her lip.

I was inwardly complaining about having to yet again fish some unknown object from my daughter’s mouth. Sticking my finger amongst all those sharp teeth is dangerous. And painful.

Sitting down next to her I discover horrifying fact #1: that black object on her lip? Yeah. It’s a bug leg. My stomach turns at the memory.

I quickly realized that that leg belonged to a fly. A fly. Those things that eat rotting garbage and worse. Yes, a fly.

Gag.

I shudder as I realize she is still chewing on something.

I tell her “Baby, spit it out into Mama’s hands.” Okay. I was not ready for what came out though the fly leg should have clued me in.

Baby girl obediently spit out into my hand a fly body. No more legs or wings were attached. Just the body. I do not get sick easily. But this time I nearly did. I seriously thought I would lose my dinner. Of course, mama was running toward the sink with slobbery fly body in one hand, at the same time scooping up happy smiling baby, all the while yelling “SHE ATE A FLY, SHE ATE A FLY” to my husband.

That was a moment when I seriously wished that someone would invent a safe, non-toxic, edible version of Lysol. I would pay a lot of money for that stuff. I might even buy stock.

I am still recovering from that. The recovery will take a while. Actually, I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from that one.

Please tell me that I am not the only mother whose child eats stuff not made for human consumption. Please.

How to Meet a Famous Person

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Because my life would not be complete without a hint of weird added to my every day, I submit to you my little tips on how to meet a famous person.

1. First, win a trip from JVC to BlogHer ’09.

2. Take a flight to O’Hare airport. It must NOT be an uneventful flight. No. Your plane must be sitting on the tarmac for an hour due to bad weather before it even takes off.

3. Land at O’Hare airport when the President of the United States of America happens to be landing at the same airport so that you again have to sit on the tarmac for quite a while.

4. Arrive at your hotel with a major headache and rush as fast as you can through check-in. Then, you must wrestle your suitcases that weigh more than you do up to your room. On the 28th floor.

5. Throw said suitcases into your room, brush your hair, and take amazingly fast hotel elevator down again to catch a taxi. You must be amazingly late to this dinner in which you will meet the people who paid for this great opportunity.

6. Alternately feel terrible that you are late while trying to give directions on how to get to the restaurant to the taxi driver who barely speaks English.

7. Arrive at Harry Caray’s. Meet your fellow winner’s of the sweepstakes and the sweetest PR gal. Because you haven’t eaten anything in 9 hours, and you are hypoglycemic, order the first thing your eye lands on on the menu. It was Chicken Marsala, which I had no idea what that was. But it was so yummy. So all’s good.

8. Sit there and talk to the other people at your table and then realize that lots of cameras are flashing toward the table behind you.

9. Find out that the person at the table next to you is Ernie Banks.

10. Say “Hey, cool! Ernie Banks.” Then lean toward PR gal from JVC and ask “Who is Ernie Banks?”

11. Whip out your BlackBerry as you and your other friends at the table take out their portable devices and Google “Ernie Banks.”

12. Find out that Ernie Banks was a baseball player and learn his whole life story from wikipedia. BlackBerries are amazing things, folks.

13. Take picture of Mr. Banks, who was very gracious talking to a young mom from Texas who had had no idea who he was just a few minutes before.


And that, folks, is how you meet a famous person.

Twitter’s Secrets

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The news yesterday about Twitter’s hacked information has brought out the either-or kind of thinking. Some are all for the public viewing if Tech Crunch does indeed publish “a variety of alleged documents including “financial projections, product plans and notes from executive strategy meetings,” and the original pitch for Twitter’s reality based television show.” (PC World, “Twitter Hacked, Secrets to be Revealed?” July 15, 2009) Others, such as Michael Hickins who writes for InformationWeek’s Digital Life Weblog, have pronounced that Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington has crossed the journalistic line and so “should have the decency to step down.” (“Michael Arrington Should Step Down” July 16, 2009)

I do not normally write about stuff like this on my ol’ blawg. Posts on dirty diapers, drinking nasty smoothies, and writing reviews of homeschool products is my general forte. But I had to deviate this time.

The population of news media – think CNN or FoxNews and the like – is a group I tend to shy away from. Unless I am offered a link to read from a friend or family member, I do not watch/read/or view mainstream sources for so-called newsworth pieces. We do not watch television at all, so even turning on the nightly news doesn’t happen around here.

All that to say, I just really do not care for the so-called journalism that happens daily around the globe.

Stolen information is just that: stolen. They are not a gift handed to you to use in whatever way you want. Professional and moral decency has flown out of the window in Mr. Arrington’s case. I’m with Mr. Hickin’s in that a resignation, and even a public apology, should be in the works.

I am not personally privy to how news organizations gather their information. I am interested in what journalistic “lines” there are that should not be crossed, according to those in that profession. I am guessing that using stolen information as a news piece is crossing that line.

Thoughts? Convictions? Remarks?

A Post About Buying Business Cards

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In less than two short weeks I will be at BlogHer ’09. Pretty much everything is ready for this trip to be made. Except for a little thing that I kinda forgot. Sorta.

Business cards.

What’s the big deal, you may ask? Who cares if you have business cards are not? And why do you need a business card? You have a pitiful, wannabe blog, not a business.

(Oh, if you actually said that last sentence to me, I might cry a little bit. And then get a box of tissues. And some chocolate. Chocolate makes everything better.)

I quickly found out after winning my trip from JVC that if you want to quickly exchange information such as blog and email addresses with other bloggers, you buy business cards. It is much easier to whip out a card to hand to someone you meet, rather than “Oh, excuse me while I dig in this bottomless pit called a purse to find a crumpled up piece of paper and half a pencil to write my info on.” Unless you want the info written on baby socks. I seem to have lots of those in my purse.

Now, folks, I have had over a month to order some business cards. A month. More than. Yet, I like to live on the edge until there is less than two weeks. And so, this morning? Yeah, I decide that today is the day. I will easily pick a business card, fill in the necessary items, and have it shipped before I leave.

I love my dream world. It is such a fun place to be.

Did you know that if you wait to order business cards when you have less than two weeks before your event that you’ll need to get 3-day shipping? And did you know that 3-day shipping costs a little more than *gulp* $30. Thirty dollars.

As I am sure you have guessed, I will not have beautiful, professionally-made business cards to hand out to those I meet at BlogHer. They were pretty. Had a little bird. And some pink. And brown.

You never know, though. I may start the next trend. Black and white home printed business cards will be all the rage before you know.

And hey? At least my business cards did not originate from a place with a goofy monkey.

Just sayin‘.

Confirming the Rumors

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Many of you have heard that I was one of the four blessed winners of the JVC Everio/BlogHer Sweepstakes. You may also remember my post about it. I have gotten some emails and tweets asking if this is true.

Yes. It is true.

I, Kelly @ Wisdom Begun.

Who never wins anything.

Come July, you will find me blogging, tweeting, and videotaping – with my brand new camcorder courtesy of JVC – from Chicago.

Totally awesome, huh?

Unwholesome Speech

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Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. -Ephesians 4:29

This past week I have been busy weeding through those I follow on Twitter. Tweeting is fun and I enjoy the people I have gotten to know through it. Lately that enjoyment has been disturbed by uncouth speech. Curse words and flippant uses of God’s holy name are thrown around like insults amongst politicians during campaign debates.

And it is not just the men who are guilty. It is also the women, whom God has called to have an “incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). Flinging around curse words has almost become chic in Twitterville and Bloggyland.

I really feel it unfortunate that I even have to bring this up. Do people realize how unprofessional foul language is? It is difficult to take seriously any person who talks this way.

And so? The answer?

Stick with those blogs and websites that are edifying. Find that a funny gal you follow on Twitter is throwing words around loosely? Decide whether or not the comedy is worth brain cells being used up on cussing.

In the end, you will be all the better for it.

JVC Everio BlogHer Sweepstakes

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We have a great video camera that seems to be on its last leg. I also want to attend BlogHer one of these days. What do these two sentences have in common? This: JVC is graciously going to give four blessed people a paid trip to BlogHer ’09 (airfare, registration, food, and hotel taken care of!) AND one of their JVC Everio camcorders.

Awesome.

Want a chance to win this? Head over to the JVC BlogHer Sweepstakes and enter.