Review: Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go

The book Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go is written by Lucille O'Neal, mother of Shaquille O'Neal. It has a forward by Shaquille. It is an easy-to-read, inspiring autobiography of Lucille, from her childhood on. It describes in rich detail her life with her father and grandparents, her unwed pregnancy, her marriage, her mother's illness, her divorce, and renewal, including finding God and going back to school. I'm not a big sports fan, so I wasn't sure I would like this book much, but really enjoyed reading the history and Lucille's wonderful insights. From Mental Welfare to Mental Health is a great tagline, and one that anyone could aspire to.

The second half of the book becomes very religious, and seems kinda preachy to me. I think that if someone had worked their way out of adversity, and then said "trust God" I would probably get it. But coming from someone who had wealth handed to her, the "trust God" doesn't seem very realistic option.

I got the book free from Thomas Nelson in exchange for this review.

Happy Dance

Have you heard about the genealogical happy dance? It is when you are surprised with pleasant information. It's what you do when you finally found the information you needed to break down the brick wall about a particularly secretive ancestor. Generally this happens at a library or courthouse where you have to keep your dance tame and subdued.

I haven't heard about a quilting happy dance, but I would probably do a quilting happy dance after a particular successful and productive day when things went really well, or when I finally finish a pesky UFO.

I definitely haven't heard of a couponing dance, and generally don't have those. When I was living by myself, a few times I only bought the things that were really good deals, and I managed to get $50 worth of groceries for about $5, or some such extreme savings, I was happy. But now I buy the stuff that we generally buy (if it is on sale) on top of the big savings items, so the savings doesn't look as extreme. Besides, generally I know before going to the store what kind of savings I am going to have, so it doesn't seem that surprising when I get to the store.

But this weekend I had a couponing happy dance. I had just read a blog that encourages you to look at the clearance stuff. And my brother-in-law had found some gel pens - you know the frosting you use to write on cakes, they normally come in tubes, but he showed me some that were in pens, and there was a box that had several different colors in it. I've been on the look out for that. I couldn't find that, but what they did have was this Automatic Toilet Bowl cleaner, regular price $23.99, marked down to $11.99. Now normally, I wouldn't even think of it, because, after all, I don't really find it all that hard to clean the toilet bowl. Washing my hands afterwards takes longer than swiping a brush around the small space. And a dollar or two off $11.99 is still expensive for something I don't need.

But, something told me to look for a coupon anyway. And I found one, it was for $10.00! It was a surprise, and I did have to suppress a couponing happy dance.

When I went to the cash register, the cashier even remarked at the $11.99 price. She said, get this, "You can't beat that price," to which I had to say "Oh yes I can." I bought a $23.99 item for $1.99 plus tax. I would have paid that much for the cleaning solution alone, so it isn't an extraneous purchase.

P.S. If you are interested in finding about money saving ideas, deals in your area, coupons, free samples, free ebooks, etc., I've found a couple of websites that I really like. Money Saving Mom is a blog that posts several posts a day about deals she has found. You have to sign up for Coupon Mom, but she has has listings by store, which makes it convenient, and tells you the percentage of savings off the regular price, so you can tell if something is just on sale, or if it is a really really good deal. Besides showing you lots of coupons online, both tell you the date of the paper to get the coupons from, so you don't have to clip the coupons until you are ready to use them. Simply put the date on the coupon packet and file it until you need it. I clip all the coupons and take them all to the store with me.

A Week in Review

It's been a wonderful week. My daughter and I were both off from work for several days, and we spent some time together watching movies, DVDs (17 Again) and television (Good Wife, Numbers) and going shopping for a big trip. Got a fortune cookie that said "You will travel to many exotic places." Hmm, wonder which one of us gets that fortune? Hopefully both of us, although for her, the travel is more imminent. She will be staying in a home instead of a dormitory, which makes her very happy. Some errand running also took place - I mailed off the Quilts for Kids. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it before sending it off.

The weather is warmer, she will be leaving soon, and I will be heading back to work, and all these things combined is making me feel like needing to do a million things at once. It is all very exciting, and I look forward to spring.

Book Review: Everyone Communicates Few Connect

One of the panelists we had at the Momentum 2010 conference was really engaging, and I had the feeling that I would really like to get to know her better. I didn't remember her name, but when we had our breakout sessions, my sister remembered her, and recommended that we choose her talk. Audra was wonderful, and really connected with the audience. One of the stories she told was about being on a plane, and giving her a goal of really connecting with someone else on the plane. Her intent was to have the other person want to continue the connection by asking for her business card before they went their separate ways.

While this is a good idea, there were other good lessons in her speech, and I pretty much pooh-poohed the idea. I'm not an extrovert, and I'm not sure that connecting with everybody is something that I want to put on my list of things to do. I've got other things to do, and it just seems manipulative, to try to connect with people so you can get what you want. I'm not sure I like the idea of having a hidden agenda when I talk with people.

Then I started reading the book I got to review by John Maxwell. It's called Everyone Communicates; Few Connect; What the Most Effective People Do Differently. It starts off wonderfully by telling you the importance of connection. Sure we all know that we should connect, but I really needed this introduction to kick me into making the effort. It reminded me of the times I was working hard while watching other people around me get promoted, the times when my boyfriend and I were saying the same thing, yet were arguing about it, and many other times. I am now ready to acknowledge that even though I can communicate fine - people understand me, I can generally communicate my thoughts both orally and in writing, and listen pretty well - a very important source of problems in my life is my failure to connect.

It's not that I never connect with people, it's just that I need to learn how to connect so that things can go more smoothly.

The book offers Five Connecting Principles and the Five Connecting Practices to help you learn how to make these connections. The book is easy to read and very helpful. I think I just might try some of these principles and practices, and see if it helps. It certainly can't hurt!



I haven't been paid for this review, but I did get the book for free from Booksneeze.com in exchange for the review. "If you have a blog, and enjoy reviewing books, you can receive free books from BookSneeze, a Thomas Nelson company. Simply fill out the application here and once you are approved, you can choose a book from their selection here. In exchange, you are asked to post a review on your blog and a consumer website of 200 words or more. Once you provide BookSneeze with the link to your review, you can log in and request another book.

Spring

There isn't a lot to report, but I figured I should stop by and say hi, and give an update.

The new keyboard has been installed, and the water glass is being kept far away.

The weather is warming up, and our alien snow soldiers have been melted. Just tiny remnants remain. The sun is out and there is a new hope and better attitudes.

Yesterday was International Women's Day, and my sister and I went to Momentum 2010, a symposium to commemorate the day. It was very interesting. We heard a panel speak on health care, got some holistic therapy, heard motivational speeches, and got information about a lot of organizations and groups that help connect women of different interests.

The census people have a lot of money to burn - at almost every event I go to, they are there, giving away lots of stuff - mugs and bags and pens, etc. Archeologists looking at my house years from now are going to think I must have worked there to acquire so much stuff.

I signed up to receive free books. I figure I can read them and then give them to the local library, since they aren't buying very many books any more. I have to review them on my blog. I hope that you find the reviews interesting, and if not, that you will simply ignore them and keep coming back to the occasional quilt picture.

I have put together the Quilts for Kids quilt top, and put the layers together - I birthed it. I hope to get it quilted, so I can get it in the mail soon. I'll get you a picture, maybe outside, before I mail it off.

Hydration

I tend to keep a glass of water with me that I sip on throughout the day. I had just filled a large glass and was settling into some computer time when I spilled the whole glass all over the keyboard. Splash.

Water is good for people, not so good for keyboards. The keyboard does look a lot cleaner, but the number keys at the top of the letters don't work, and the control key. And the batch of keys in the center - the home key, the delete key. And the exclamation mark. Amazing how often I use them.

I'm just glad that the system is designed to allow me more than one way to do the same thing. The thing I miss the most is the at sign, I haven't figured out how to do it, and now I have to copy and paste it from one of my emails. I'm just glad it didn't damage anything else.

I did buy another keyboard - the box says it is spill resistant. I've just have been too lazy to do the switch.

Medals Ceremony

2010 Quilting Games

The Olympics are suddenly over. I am not a sports fan, but I did enjoy the figure skating and ice dancing. I also watched several other competitions, but as the days went on, I watched less and less, and was looking forward to a time that I could see something else on television. All the other stations played reruns or things I did not want to watch.

But it's all good, because it gave me more time to work on my own Quilting Games.
I told you earlier that I have started the competition for the 2010 Quilting Games. I entered the competition late, so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I competed in all of the categories:

• Go back and Label a Quilt - no medal here, I didn't even see if I had any that needed labeling.


• Work on a UFO - I'll take an honorable mention here, because I did continue to work on ripping out the border for the Moldy Crackers quilt. Even though it technically never became a UFO, I am working hard to make sure it doesn't become one. I also cut out some applique shapes for a UFO, but haven't attached them.
  
• Organize your Sewing Space - A Bronze Medal for this one. I did spend some time clearing out the tables and the floor in the Sewing Space. Some of the stuff was just dumped in my bedroom, so I can't get a higher medal.


• Expand your Knowledge - I'll take a Gold Medal here. I've read many blogs, and gotten lots of great ideas. Maybe too many ideas. I also read a couple of books and watched a video or two.


• Try a New Technique - A Bronze Medal in this category. I have started fusible applique, which I technically haven't done in a quilt, although I did do some for the holiday gifts. Also hand quilting. But I haven't finished either project yet, so
  
• Reach Out and Perform An Act of Quilty Kindness. I'll take an early Platinum Medal in this category. Besides making an effort to make more comments on blogs, I also received a kit for Quilts for Kids, as I showed you earlier. The top is pieced, and I'm hoping to finish it this week and mail it back to them.
  

2010 GeneaBloggers Game

I have started competing in the Winter 2010 GeneaBloggers Games.

I will be competing in all of the competition categories:

• Go Back and Cite Your Sources - I didn't do this at all.


• Back Up Your Data - a Gold Medal here. I backed up all my stuff, not just the genealogical stuff.


• Organize Your Research - I didn't do this at all. I had taxes and FAFSa paperwork to do, and trying to organize / trash the paper I had with regular day to day stuff was enough. This is an area I definitely need to work on though.


• Expand Your Knowledge - A Platinum Medal here. I watched several videos on the internet from Roots TV, which is now being discontinued. I also watched several shows on PBS for Black History Month. There were also histories on Ohio and some wars. I also did a little bit more research, getting about 10 obituaries. One of them raised a lot of new questions - this person had a lot of foster children who were included in her obit, as well as step or half siblings I had not known.


• Write, Write, Write - I wrote on this blog, which means I am providing new history, so I'll give myself a small Bronze here, but otherwise I didn't write any history this year.


• Reach Out & Perform Genealogical Acts of Kindness - I'll take a Platinum Medal here. I indexed several batches of census records for www.familysearch.org.