Before I get into today’s post, I wanted to apologize for the site being down a couple hours last night. WordPress just came out with the new 3.0 upgrade and one of my plugins didn’t take too kindly to the upgrade.

When they ask you to backup BEFORE upgrading it can rescue you from a whole heap of trouble. I had to restore from this backup, deactivate all the plugins and then re-install WordPress 3.0. Everything not only seems to be working properly, but the new look and feel of the dashboard, (kind of like a back office where I write and create content and pages) is very nice. Faster too.

So Cheers to WordPress and big Thanks for this very cool upgrade!

Back before either of our kids were born I remember hearing that “kids will change your life”.

You’ve probably heard it as well.

When we were expecting Brittany my brother-in-law told me he wasn’t going to waste my time telling me how much my life would change – words just couldn’t do it justice. But I’d know the day she arrived.

Truth is, he was right – I had no idea of the impact our two kids would have.

The first thing that comes to mind when Brittany was born, was “Holy COW! She looks just like me!” (The only difference between my first baby picture and hers was that mine was in black and white and hers was in color.)

Then nano second later it hit me like a ton of bricks – I understood.

It’s a feeling that you just can’t express in words. You have to experience it not only to understand it, but appreciate being a parent.

I knew that I was wired to be a father. Kids and I have always gotten along. I think the first time I recognized that I’d be good at it was in high school. I taught kindergarten Sunday school back then. I loved them – and they sure got a kick out of me. I also auditioned at a small dinner theater one summer and got parts in 4 children’s plays that year, one of them as an original cast member of a play called “Patchwork”.

While I nor the play never made it to Broadway, I’ve held a starring role as Dad the last eight years for “Schmopsie-Pooh” and Googley-Bear”.

It’s a role I not only enjoy – but cherish.

I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to spend the kind of time I do with my kids. Because I work from home and set my own schedule it makes me available to help with homework, projects, crafts and games. One of my favorite times of day are when both climb up into my lap in the recliner, one on one side, 0ne on the other to cuddle and watch their favorite TV shows.

They’re my pride and joy – and I wouldn’t give this job up for all the money in the world.

Once a year, we take time to either thank or remember our father’s. The role they play is invaluable to our development. I wouldn’t be who I am today without mine and I’m grateful for the roll he had in my life.

As a kid I didn’t always appreciate it. (We never do – do we?) As I get older and now have kids of my own, it’s made me more appreciative of the sacrifices, hard work, and time he made for me in my upbringing.

He’s now retired and enjoying life on the farm with my younger brother and his family. (Told me he retired and “bought the farm” LOL!) Doing what I remember him doing most as a family during the summer – gardening.

To all the father’s young and old who read this over the weekend – thank you for your contribution.

Happy Father’s Day!

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With the way some get so easily offended these days, I felt an asterisk here was appropriate. Fact is, your actual time of merriment may vary. (I’ve heard typical results are an average of 1.39 hours.) Others would consider the word “Christmas” offensive, so instead please replace this word with “non-denominational period of celebration”.

Heaven forbid I am accused of misleading or offending anyone on a day like today.

We’re having a wonderful time in Pittsburgh with the family. The drive up on Monday through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia was one of the most beautiful we had ever seen. (It’s a shame the camera on the iPhone stinks – otherwise we’d have some great pictures to share.)

A delay of just two days, was well worth it based on the number of stranded cars in medians and ditches. By the time we passed through, the roads were very clear and very passable.

By the time you read this, my bet is that all the Christmas presents have been opened and I am now attempting to disassemble the packaging and inserting batteries. (You need an engineering degree to unpack some of these toys!)

Oh the joy of parenthood!

The kids and I created this little “ditty” for you in hopes it puts a smile on your face.

It just may bump the national average of merriment up to 1.40 hours!

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Winter officially arrives today. The winter storm that dumped on the east coast over the weekend setting record snowfalls for December from Virginia to Long Island has caught the kids attention.

Why? We’re heading up to the winter wonderland this week for our annual Christmas break.

Each year we rotate the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday’s with the kids Grandparent’s. Not that we have anything against Mema and Papa (we spent time with them over Thanksgiving) – but Christmas never really “feels” like Christmas in South Georgia. While Pittsburgh may not always have snow during this time of year, there’s always colder temperatures with warm fires, and lots of hot chocolate.

As we visit and enjoy this time with our family, I’ll be taking a break from writing this week. I do have something scheduled to post Christmas morning, which I think you’ll enjoy. Other than that…playing in the snow and spending quality time with family will consume the next week and a half.

Of course you can’t have snow, without some sledding (which we have a perfect spot for) and a good old fashion snowball fight. The big thing this year has been “My Face LOL” videos that have been going around – and I’ve caught the bug. I did one of these last week, but took some additional head shots of the family and recreated the following video. Brian, our son has taken the prize for best “face” in the family and has won the staring roll as Santa, with Brittany, Ronda, and I taking supporting roles as elf’s.

Enjoy!

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One of the reasons why I like Thanksgiving so much is because it’s the one time of year that most people take the time to be thankful. If some would realize what gratitude would do for their daily lives, a lot more people would use the practice on a daily – or at least weekly basis. The concept of stinkin’ thinkin’ would be a thing of the past.

As I start to formulate some of my goals and things I want to accomplish moving into 2010, there’s been a new resurgence of late about using gratitude as a daily practice. I do take time nearly every day to think about things I should be grateful for. Just this little effort has been so profound, that I’m not only doing more and more of it, but it’s one of the first New Years Resolutions on my 2010 list.

If you’ve watched the movie “The Secret” or read anything related to personal development and self improvement, one of the most significant and simple things you can do to improve any outcome is taking the time each day to write down a few things you’re grateful for. It doesn’t need to be fancy (although I’ve seen “Gratitude Journals” you can purchase for this very practice) but it should be done as a way of moving the negative things out of the way and allowing more positive and meaningful events and opportunities into your life.

Earlier this week I caught wind that Oprah is ending her long running talk show after 25 years. I may have seen her show less than 5 times for whatever reason in all those years. One of those times was to watch an episode with the teachers of “The Secret”. I believe it was James Arthur Ray who said you can’t receive anything new until you let go of the old. It’s like trying to fill a bucket – you can’t fill it with anything new, until you empty out some of it’s current contents. It’s a known scientific fact that the mind can’t compute two opposite thoughts or feelings at the same time. You can’t be both angry and happy at the same time. You can’t picture a tall building and a small building at the same time, and you can’t think about being sick and healthy at the same time.

What a gratitude journal does is help you empty out the old negative thoughts and feelings and replace them with more meaningful and useful thoughts that empower you. Your life always moves in the direction of the minds most dominant thought. Have you ever noticed how people who always complain about being sick are always sick? The people who constantly complain about bad things happening to them or always complain “why” have such bad luck?

Transversely, those who are constantly happy go lucky always have all the luck. Those who talk about moving up the company ladder are the ones sitting in the posh corner office with the new promotion.

This Thanksgiving, I have very personal and practical experience of what letting go of the old – negative aspects in your life and replacing them with new more empowering thoughts of gratitude can do.

About 2 months ago I made a choice to put the YTB critics on ignore. I quit reading the garbage and trash talk because the practice had broken through responsible and respectable social norms. The ideas and perspective of this small group had never matched my own experience or knowledge obtained from more reliable and unbiased sources. Furthermore, throughout this last year others who were exposed to the tactics labeled their activity as “redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter” while another outside source called the emotional outbursts a “bizarre and complete waste of time“.

Therefore, I made the choice to let it all go and move on.

I don’t remember, nor am I going to dig up the exact quote or thread, but I did go back once since I made this choice. While reading the comments section someone called someone else a “goats butt” and the words stopped me dead in my tracks. After being removed for some time, the words were extremely glaring and brought the entire two years of bantering into perspective for me. When I asked myself what value the activity possessed for anyone who read it, I couldn’t even justify it with an answer – so I simply hit the little “x” at the top right hand corner and haven’t been back since.

As a result, I’ve been able to focus more time and effort on more productive and meaningful articles that promote the value of YTB. Home life has become much more loving and fun – and opportunities have presented themselves that have produced a better financial foundation for everyone involved.

In addition, because I’m not being fed all this negative crap about how impossible it is to succeed, I’ve actually been able to resolve a couple of issues. One of the most time consuming over the last two years has been a dispute with a number of credit card companies who decided to change their rules and finance charges. Because I took exception to the changes and decided to fight, several suits were filed and a battle ensued in court. Because of various changes in legislation and because the National Arbitration Forum was not only exposed as a fraud but shut down, and coincidentally because I stopped reading how impossible it was, I resolved and cleaned up the mess I created for myself.

To state that I’m grateful to have these suits settled and dismissed by the plaintiffs is an understatement.

My family life has grown to new heights. Ronda has seen the changes in my ability to get more done now that I don’t spend so much time reading nothing more than insults, and I tend to be more responsive to the needs and responsibilities as head of the house. The kids are doing exceptionally well in school. While there’s always room for improvement, we’ve learned some new ways of motivating and helping them resolve any problems or issues they encounter. As a result, there is more open communication between us as they continue to learn and grow. Kids will be kids, and they’ll always explore boundaries – but there is far more confidence in our abilities to parent and help them grow into responsible adults.

We’re also spending more time together as a family. Not only have we spent time together on a cruise, but the holidays will also be spent with extended family for extended periods of time. Because I’m in the drivers seat with my own business and opportunities, we can enjoy this time together.

Lastly – and probably most importantly – I continue to be blown away over the readership of this blog and our newsletter. I started this blog back in 2005 and the newsletter a little less than two years ago. To see the traffic and the links created pointing here and how the newsletter has grown to thousands of subscribers is humbling. To think that an average guy like myself can have the following I’ve created and the friendships that have been formed because of both this blog and newsletter is a true testimony of what honesty, persistence, and a desire to help others can truly do. Each hit to this blog, and each subscriber that comes in for the newsletter is something that I give thanks for each and every day.

I believe that none of this would have come to fruition if I didn’t extract the negative and focus on the things that I should be grateful for in my life. Some of them are small, like watching my daughter actually empty the dishwasher and vacuum the rug right now. Others appear to be large, like the two year battle I endured with the with critics and the credit card companies. The point here is that no matter how big or how insignificant you might think anything is, you need to give thanks for anything that happens because no matter what it is – there is a valuable lesson to be learned.

If you can learn and grow – no matter how uncomfortable it might be to take responsibility and face it head on – that my friends is something to be truly be thankful for on the other side once you’ve been able to see the fruits of your labor and choices.

Be thankful and grateful – not just tomorrow – but each and every day with an attitude of gratitude and watch you life and circumstances change like it has mine.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

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Yesterday, my bride turned 40. I got her one of those new age cards to help her celebrate.

It said that her new age was 34.

She really liked that card!

We were out at dinner last night and started talking about all the things that have changed, didn’t exist, or means something completely different than it did 40 years ago when she was born. Here are a dozen things that use to mean one thing back then, but today means something completely different.

1. Call waiting referred to a line outside of a phone booth.

2. A flat screen was something you put in your window to keep out insects.

3. An airbag was someone who talked too much.

4. Spam was found only in the kitchen.

5. A cell phone was what you used to make your one call from jail.

6. Guys only got pierced ears from going to really loud concerts

7. High-speed access was an on-ramp to the freeway.

8. A mouse referred to an animal you wanted to keep out of the house.

9. A dish was something you put on the kitchen table, not the side of the house.

10. A virus was something that was only found in the body.

11. A CD was put into a bank.

12. A birthday was something you actually looked forward too.

Lordy, lordy how things have changed!

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My parents always told us growing up that we could be and do anything we wanted in life, and each of my siblings have found our special niche in this world that makes us feel like we’ve found our calling. I truly believe that everyone is put on this earth for some sort of purpose, and our job in life is the find that purpose. No matter how big or how small, each of us play an important role in serving and helping others we come in contact with.

The journey to find this calling can and will take some time and we might not understand at the time how things might pan out. I never would have guessed that starting this blog three years ago would grow like it has and expand into a newsletter that helps so many people. Nor would I have guess that the topics that I was actually afraid to write about some 18 months ago would have been the key to finding the following that I have.

My brothers journey was much the same way. He was a financial planner for years and was a partner in a firm that had some success and he was very good at what he did. A number of years ago he started something that would make most people scratch their heads and wonder. What he started, and had a real passion for was a “worm farm”. Yes, you read that right, and I’m willing to bet that you never even knew that anyone could actually have a worm farm. They not only exist, but in this eco conscious world we now live in, worm farms are gaining in popularity.

As kids, we ate out of a garden year round. It was a hobby of our father who grew vegetables in a garden that took up a massive amount of space in the suburb we lived in growing up in Pittsburgh. Anyone who knows anything about gardening knows that part of a good garden requires healthy soil which came from a compost pit that my father built. If you want to speed up the compost you could add bone meal, water, and heat to create a soil base that was rich in minerals and nutrients perfect for growing a bountiful harvest of vegetables.

But the best way to speed up this process is worms, who eat two or three times their weight each and every day in what’s known as vermicomposting. These little critters eat all day long and “extract” natures own black gold that creates the best soil imaginable for growing rich, lush, and gigantic vegetables. As a side benefit to worm farming, they also multiply much like rabbits, and before long you have an entire army that is eating and extracting rich, black “poop” that’s perfect for growing vegetables and fruit. (And yes, I realize that could be just a bit too much information for some.)

Organic is another hot topic in todays vocabulary and this worm farm grew into an idea for just that, an organic farm called Shared Acres which was founded a little over 18 months ago. Although it will take some time for this property to become certified “organic” (organically certified by institute United States Department Agriculture Organic Standards will require three years of documentation and inspections) Shared Acres has implemented biodynamic methods which integrate common sense agriculture, an understanding of ecology and the specific environment, with a new spiritual scientific approach to the concepts, principles and practices of agriculture which begins with treating the soil as a living organism.

Shared Acres a Community Support Agriculture Program (CSA). Shared Acres is not your normal purveyor of produce — we grow solely for our shareholders. This allows us to concentrate on growing healthy, fresh food, for a fair wage. To put it simply, the shareholders will have a dedicated garden for vegetables and also receive a portion of the fruits, herbs, and flowers grown throughout Shared Acres. The gardening technique used is an expansion of the “gardening by the square foot” method developed by Mel Bartholomew. This method takes one fifth the space as the conventional method of row cropping and also saves time and energy for tending to the garden. The generational success our family has had with this method, as well as a love of gardening, has inspired us to create this CSA.

The concept and the property has taken the local area by storm and not only recently received the “2008 Innovative New Business of the Year” award from the Greater Pittsburgh Airport Area Chamber of Commerce but the family and property is highlighted in the Robert Morris University “Foundations” winter issue. Not to mention a couple of radio interviews, articles in the local paper, and now…an article on Just Picture It Now.

Talk about making the “Big Leagues”. ;-p

The property is absolutely spectacular and there is room to grow for camping, fishing, along with an assortment of games and activities for the entire family to come, relax and enjoy for hours. All with a 26 week harvest of fresh food that you come and pick up at a time that’s convenient to you.

All because little Bro was fascinated with worms that like to eat and poop.

If you’d like to find out more about Shared Acres, you can find them on World Wide Web at SharedAcres.com, and if you’d like to visit Shared Acres yourself, they’re located just five minutes from Pittsburgh International Airport and you can find flights and times here. (He doesn’t get ALL the glory without a little plug for BandBVacations.com.)

Proud of you little Bro, and looking forward to you expanding your shares via special shipments down here to Atlanta each and every week. (I didn’t get the green thumb from our father like you did!)

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7 years ago today, I was hired for one of the most important, most rewarding, and most demanding jobs I’ve ever had.

 I became a father.

I’ve written about my little girl, AKA: Schmoopsie Pooh, along with her younger brother of 20 months AKA: Googley Bear here before. I don’t know how in the world I did it, but I happened to produce two of the most beautiful children on the fact of this earth. Being a father of these two souls, and watching them grow and learn has got to be the absolutely best experience I’ve ever had.

While Brittany turns 7, and acts like she’s 17 at times, there is such a beautiful innocents and wonder about this age and stage in her life. Over the last year I’ve begun to see “my little girl” grow up and mature right before my eyes. Gone are the kids shows that her brother still enjoys. Gone are the little toys that are replaced with things like books and writing tablet. Gone is the dependence on either myself or my wife to do things for her. And she now shares in some form of responsibility in maintaining a couple of chores around the house.

I always knew I wanted to be a father and I’ve always had a very special bond with children my entire life. I get a lot of this from my mother as she has a very special touch that I don’t hold a candle too. I worked my way through high school and college working in day care centers, and also acting in children’s theatres in the Northeast. I have the distinct honor of being an original cast member in a not so wildly successful play called “Patchwork”. Though it was never ready for any prime time players, my name is in the book as being the first cast member of this children’s play.

I remember people, more specifically other “parents” telling me how being a father would “change my life”. While I thought I had some concept of what they were talking about, I’ve come to find out that honestly, I didn’t have a clue. To this day I remember the very first time I set eyes on her in the hospital just seconds after she came into this world. The second thing I remember thinking, (right after “my God, she looks just like me”.) was “Oh, this is what they were talking about.”

Being a parent isn’t something you can explain, it’s something you have to experience in order to get the full meaning of. Even for someone like myself who is well versed in putting things down on paper, or in my case this blog. The “Parent” experience just can’t be put into words to help those who haven’t or are about to experience what it’s like. Sure we can give you story after story, lesson after lesson, but until you actually do it yourself, it just doesn’t have the same effect.

It’s that special. It’s that meaningful.

I’ll be heading to school at lunch today to deliver a special “birthday cookie” for her and her friends and probably embarrass the hell out her as I’ll be singing “Happy Birthday” the loudest of the entire bunch. (Remember, I have “theatre” experience.) We’ll sit and enjoy some time together mid day with her class mates some of whom spent their first sleep over at our house this weekend. (Another long post in itself, trust me!) I’m just thankful I missed the high pitched screams of all the girls as they wooed all over Zac Efron in High School Musical 3 in theatres all across the country.

I remember being in the hospital with her just days after she was born. Pittsburgh was playing Tennessee on Monday Night Football. I of course had gotten a very cute sleeper with Steelers logo’s as I wore my Kordell Stewart jersey to watch the game together in the hospital room. She was an angel right from the start, and didn’t say a word. (The staff on the floor however, did have a few choice words over the noise I was making.)

We brought her home just a few days later on Halloween. While I was ready and willing to start my fatherly duties that night and take her trick or treating, Ronda had other ideas. Fortunately being only a few days old, I don’t think Brittany has any memories of missing her first Halloween and I can assure you that missing the experience did not scar her for life.

Another year has passed, and she’s another year older. Hard to believe and yes it’s blown by in the blink of an eye. Next thing you know I’m going to writing about walking her down the isle. I realize that’s another 30 years away, but if the last 7 have gone by this fast, she’ll be dating in just 29 years.

There is something she’ll never outgrow with me. When she does turn 36 and I let her start dating, I’ll still be saying “Happy Birthday little girl”.

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