2010

Happy New Year!!! It’s officially 2010, which means that we not only start another year, but another decade. Will this new chapter bring with it new resolutions to make a difference? 2010 could give you just the opportunity to take the steps needed to make an impact on your family, your friends, your community, or even yourself. Take the initiative, make some resolutions for ‘10, and keep them in the front of your mind as you begin your life in this new decade.

God Bless!

-Andrea

What matters the most?

I loaded the page www.yahoo.com. Right at the top center of the page was a box that had links to the latest news all over the country. Scrolling through, I noticed links such as “Celebrity couple splits,” “TV’s newest hunk,” and “___’s fashion mistake.” Interspersed between these “riveting” news pieces were stories about a young boy who saved his brother’s life, an ancient relic that was recovered, and a two-legged dog inspiring injured soldiers. Let’s stop and think about that: which story would you click on? Which one are you more likely to hear about from a friend?

After noticing this trend on Yahoo’s homepage, it dawned on me that a lot of times I simply looked over the interesting, substantial articles, choosing instead to read about the latest celeb break-up or flip through the pictures of omg.yahoo.com’s “What Were They Thinking?!” album, a collection of the worst fashions spotted on celebs that week. After all, when I go to Yahoo’s website, it’s usually when I’m taking a break from studying or working — I want something light that takes little thought, hopefully even gives me a good laugh. But, ultimately, what does it gain me? ….. Pretty much nothing.

Now this isn’t to say that keeping up with Hollywood gossip is a horrible thing. It’s fun sometimes to read about what people are doing, or to laugh at Lady Gaga’s latest attempt at style. However, it becomes a bad thing when you start caring about only that. Who honestly will care in five years who Reese Witherspoon was dating in December of 2009? Probably no one — except Reese, of course, since that is (and should be) her private business. But I don’t think you’re likely to easily forget a story about a little boy who has the courage to save his younger brother or a dog who walks on only its hind-legs because it was born that way. That’s stuff that really counts, stuff that inspires. And, sadly, it seems to be stuff that a lot of people look over as they’re trying to stay updated with the latest Hollywood scandals and fashions.

My question to you is this: What matters the most?

-Andrea

10 Fun Things To Do This Halloween

Here’s a checklist of 10 fun things that you can do to make the most out of this Halloween!

1. Dress up! You won’t regret it; trust me. Whether you’re Captain Jack Sparrow or you just throw on your PJs and some house slippers, putting on something different from your usual daytime attire definitely makes Halloween more fun, even if you just stay at home and give out candy.

2. Give out candy. Even if you’re too old for trick-or-treating, buying some candy to hand out gives you an opportunity to see all the creative costumes the people in your neighborhood come up with. Plus, it makes you a good sport — it’s a Halloween tradition!

3. Carve a pumpkin. You can do something decorative and elaborate or just carve eyes, a nose, and a mouth — whatever coincides with the level of your artistic ability (or bravery). Or if you don’t have time to go all out and carve a big pumpkin, get a small one and break out the sharpies. Once you get done carving/decorating your pumpkin, put it outside your door and show it off.

4. Decorate your lawn. There are all kinds of Halloween decorations to choose from. Whether you want to go with scary stuff or just buy a light-up pumpkin, putting something in your yard can make Halloween more fun for you — and for the people driving through your neighborhood.

5. Go to or throw a Halloween party. A really fun way to enjoy Halloween is by going to a party! If none of your friends are having a Halloween party, throw one yourself. A dress-up party, a scary-movie-marathon — whatever you choose, be sure to invite all your friends and have fun!

6. Go to a haunted house. You really are missing the spirit of Halloween if you don’t go somewhere “haunted.” See if there’s a haunted house somewhere nearby that you can visit. If you’re too scared to go alone, try asking some friends to go with you.

7. Go to a Halloween parade. See if there’s a Halloween parade going on close to where you live. These are perfect for seeing what creative costumes people come up with and having some good Halloween fun — plus, you might score some candy while you’re there.

8. Read a horror book or short story. If you find yourself alone a lot, try heading to the library or bookstore and getting a horror book or collection of short stories. Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allan Poe — whatever you choose, find something scary that will put you in the Halloween mood. It’s fun, really.

(Warning: If you get grossed out or tend to get freaked out pretty easily [like yours truly], you might want to stay away from anything too gruesome or scary. Just pick something appropriate for your personality.)

9. Watch a horror movie. There are plenty of scary movies that you can rent or buy. Try picking out a few, inviting some people over, and having a good night of fright.

10. Tell scary stories. Get some friends and sit in a big circle; then take turns telling freaky stories and see who can scare everyone the most!

Pick some of these or come up with some ideas of your own — whatever you choose to do this Halloween, remember to have safe, scaryyy fun!

-Andrea

Get Motivated

One of the biggest problems that people have with accomplishing their goals is finding the motivation to do so. This is something I’ve been struggling a lot with lately — maybe you have too. While it’s difficult to figure out what you ultimately want, the hardest step is definitely the first, because it requires a “boost” to get you started. Life can be pretty easy, and often people find that they don’t have to work very hard to get a pretty decent living. However, everyone has hopes and ambitions — the one thing that sets apart those who reach their dreams and those who don’t is motivation.

First, let’s start by defining the word “motivation”. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, a motive is “something (as a need or desire) that causes a person to act.” So to achieve motivation, you have to find a reason to reach your goal. Your reason can be one that almost everyone would agree with or even something that affects you personally; but whatever you choose, it needs to be something you feel strongly about. The stronger your reason, the stronger your motivation.

The biggest step of the ones I’m going to cover is the first: finding the reason to act. However, before I discuss that, I want to briefly touch on the steps to getting motivated.

The Steps

Once you’ve found your reason to do something, you have to actually go about acting. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, this step may be as simple as just…doing it. A lot of times, however, there are a few things (usually requiring work) that you have to do before you even get to the work of accomplishing your actual goal — we’ll call these pre-work endeavors.

Let’s use an example: say your goal is to play violin in a professional orchestra — how about the New York Philharmonic? — and you want to get motivated so you can reach your goal. First you’d pick your reason (let’s stay simple and just say that you love playing violin and performing as part of an orchestra). Now let’s dissect a way you could go about getting into the NY Philharmonic. The actual audition for a slot in the orchestra can be considered how to directly reach your goal, since that’s what ultimately determines whether or not you reach it. However, there are many pre-work endeavors, mainly the considerable amounts of violin practice (we’re talking years of hours every day), some experience playing in an orchestra, and a strong education from a reputable college (majoring in violin performance).

All of those things take a lot of work, and each can be dissected again in the same way, finding pre-work endeavors before the ultimate goal. So after you’ve decided what you want, found a reason behind it, and then found your pre-work endeavors, you have to apply the same steps to each of those endeavors. Pretty much anything can be dissected in this manner, and you’ll probably find that it’s easier to accomplish your goals if you take a step back and analyze everything.

Back to Finding A Reason

Now that you can kind of see how your reason affects the following steps, you might have a better idea of what I mean. I said earlier that your reason has to be something you feel strongly about — but what? How do you go about determining a reason to accomplish your goals? That’s a question that only you can answer. You have to explore yourself, find out what really makes you want something. Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you eat? Why do you use a PC instead of a Mac? Why do you prefer dogs over cats, pants over shorts, red over blue? There’s a reason for everything, and you can find out the reason you want something just by thinking — something you do every day and probably take for granted.

That’s not to say that you should sit there and give yourself a headache over it; maybe finding your reason will be really hard and take a lot of thought. I said there’s a reason for everything, but it doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to find it.  But try looking at it from different perspectives, or break it up into pre-work endeavors and figure out your reason for wanting to accomplish those. Once you’ve done that, you can go back and try to figure out why you want to reach your ultimate goal.

Hopefully this will inspire some of you to really think about your goals and plans for the future and start taking the necessary steps to get motivated!

-Andrea

Happy Father’s Day!!!

Hey, “Happy Father’s Day” to all you dads out there!!! Technically Father’s Day was yesterday, but I was in the car alllll day driving back from vacation — so here’s a belated “Happy Father’s Day”! Even though the day was technically yesterday, the holiday is there to remind all of us kids that we should never take for granted what we have and that we should always remember our dads and all they do for us! Happy Father’s Day! <3

Where did good service go?

I ran across this news article and just had to share it. If you’ve ever received poor service or been neglected – or worse, mistreated – by people who are supposed to be serving you, you’ll want to read this article. It’s entitled How to Lose Your Patients, and it details this gentleman’s recent encounter with his dental office.

We discuss this type of thing in our house fairly frequently, as it seems few businesses, and people in general, seem to show much consideration of others any more. We’re not naive enough to think this never happened twenty years ago, or that people should just “be nice”…but what happened to a minimal display of manners? In a time of economic downturn, if we can’t care for the customer, at least we can act like it.

I hope to post a couple of bank stories soon that demonstrate this as well. These particular incidents have helped me realize that we need a new bank. Sad, and entirely avoidable…but there it is.

Enjoy the article, and we’ll chat again soon. All the best!

Mark

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Hey, I want to take just a minute to say “Happy Mother’s Day” to all of you great moms!!! You’re amazing inspirations to your children, and while you may have a lot of responsibilities, today of all days is a time for us kids to show you appreciation for all that you do for us! Happy Mother’s Day! <3

“Stickies” – Digital Post-Its™

One of my latest obsessions is an application for Macs called “Stickies.” Ever used a Post-It™ note? Welcome to digital Post-Its. Stickies is a really simple but cool application that allows you to put little notes on your desktop — well, they’re not really on your desktop, but as long as you have the Stickies application open, they show up as if they are. You can type whatever you want in them and then change the text to look however you want — font, size, even color. As if that isn’t nifty enough, you can also change the color of the note itself, as well as the size of the sticky, so you can have some vertical, some horizontal, whatever. Then you can move the sticky around your desktop and put it wherever you want it. Here’s a screenshot of what my Stickies look like on my desktop (my apologies if you’re not a Hannah fan):

Even though it’s pretty simple, the Stickies application really doesn’t “get old” any faster than using Post-It notes does — which means, while your immediate-obsession may go away, you’ll probably keep using Stickies until Apple comes up with something newer, bigger, better. Until then…Stickies rule!

-Andrea

Master Rascal

Now that you’ve read the title, you probably have a million different ideas on what in the world this blog could possibly be about. Well wonder no longer, because I’m going to tell you: my hamster. His name is Hollywood, but he’s nicknamed Master Rascal, for more than one reason. After I tell you a bit about the evolution of his name, I’ll tell you a bit about him and then hamsters in general.

When I first got him (on my birthday), I had no idea what to name him. (I’d been begging my mom for another hamster after the first one, but I didn’t think she’d cave any time soon.) The first name that popped into my head was “Hollywood”, and since I thought that was cute, I decided to name him that. Shortly after getting Hollywood, my family and I watched the movie Bob the Butler. I won’t give you a whole summary of the movie, but the main character (Bob) had a hamster named Rascal, whom he called “Master Rascal” (you’ll have to watch the movie to understand). All kidding aside, Hollywood looks exactly like that hamster. It’s unnerving. So then everybody in my family started calling him that, and I just jumped on the bandwagon. Thus, his name is Hollywood…a.k.a. Master Rascal.

Master Rascal has proved to be rather smart (for a hamster). I was young when I had my first hamster, but I don’t remember him being anything like Hollywood is. While my other hamster seemed content to run in his wheel, eat his food, and sleep, Master Rascal (emphasis on Rascal) has figured out a plethora of escape routes from his cage. Actually prying his cage’s door open being one of the many ways, Hollywood has practically given me a heart attack on several occasions (did I mention we have a dog?). When I first bought his new cage, I thought it was so cute — but now the little pieces of packing tape everywhere kind of take away from the cute factor.

Hamsters are fuzzy little nocturnal rodents, and they’re probably the most domestic and popular pet rodent. Some people think of them as good for young kids, as kind of a “life experience”; but the truth is that it takes responsibility and maturity to take care of a hamster well. They’re a living creature, and they rely solely on you for their food, their water, and a clean environment in which to live. You should give them fresh food daily, and I recommend changing their water at least every few days. As far as cleaning their cages, it all depends on the cage and the hamster, but usually once a week is a good routine to establish. While they’re a lot of work, having a hamster also has a lot of benefits. I actually do think that they’re a good “life experience” (when you’re ready to handle a pet), and watching them can be quite entertaining. That’s the difference between stuffed animals and real ones: stuffed animals “do” exactly what you want them to do, whenever you want it; but real animals can choose whether to cooperate or not, and they can actually surprise you. Whether you’re tired, happy, angry, or upset, sometimes all you need is a fuzzy friend — who doesn’t talk or roll his eyes or judge you — to make you smile.

-Andrea