Words For Living

What We Say Does Make a Difference to Our Children

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:39:00 +0000

Recently my son told me all I ever say is negative things to him. Although I know I don't "always" say negative things, I think I was blind to how much I was saying things that tore down rather than encourage and build up.

I believe It's a common blind spot. We can get in such a rut of saying things over and over without paying attention to the messages we're communicating.

This video is a reminder to me to always be aware of my tone and choice of words to my children. If they think I'm "always" negative, I should take this as a signal to be more alert and make sure I'm communicating my love and acceptance to them with only positive, uplifting messages.

Posted via web from Words for Living

Carve Your Blessings in Stone

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:38:00 +0000

This Uppercase Living wall expression is an inspiring reminder to always remember our blessings.

Color illustrated: [9023] Pumpkin Spice (a UL exclusive color).

Chickens in the Road

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:24:00 +0000

Chickens in the Road ~ country living, cooking, gardening, cute farm animals, and fun! Find out more at: http://www.suzannemcminn.com.

This is one of my favorite blogs of all time. I absolutely love this simple country lifestyle on a farm. If I could choose only one way to live, this would be it. She is living my dream life.

Never Lose a Chance to Say a Kind Word

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:05:00 +0000

If only everyone could practice this simple act of kindness, the world would be a much better place. This saying, when placed in our home, school, etc., acts as a reminder to everyone who sees it to offer kind words to those they see. It could possibly be the only encouraging words they hear on a day they desperately need encouragement and strength the most.

Find this uplifting expression in the Uppercase Living Catalog and encourage kindness in everyone around you.

To have and to hold... from this day forward

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:15:00 +0000

Today I was reminded of the importance of keeping the focus on my marriage while going through turmoil and terrible ordeals with our teenage sons. As a mom, I'd grown accustomed to focusing on them first, putting other things second and taking care of myself dead last, if at all.

This was ok I guess when the kids were small, but the cute and innocent years passed by far too quickly and I came painfully aware that our boys, as much as we love them unconditionally, can think we're horrible parents regardless of any outpouring of love and care and simply leave us one day. I don't think kid's in general have unconditional love for their parents. And when you have teenagers, you become aware of just how conditional their acceptance or love really is.

I'm lucky to be married to my best friend for 26 years. And I realized that regardless of what our sons do, we can always have each other.

The wall lettering expressions shown below are available from the Uppercase Living catalog:
Custom wall lettering designs such as the one pictured can be created through the online catalog under MyDesign Suite™.

Personality Test: I'm Reserved, Solitary, and Discreet

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:52:00 +0000

I like to take personality tests. Not sure why - maybe because I'm introspective and wonder how I've changed through the years. I realized fairly recently that I'm definitely introverted, but I wasn't always so solitary. The past six years definitely molded me into a more solitary type of person and in some ways this is not necessarily a good thing.

I discovered this after seeing others on FriendFeed taking this test. The test is free, but you have to sign up to get the results and cool graph. To take this test, go to Signal Patterns - http://www.signalpatterns.com/.

Here's my top 10 traits out of 90 that uniquely describe me:

Reserved
You are somewhat shy, or at least unwilling to spend all your time socializing. With you it's true that "still waters run deep," which is why many of your acquaintances never get to know you well.
You are not always ready to talk at the drop of a hat. Whether you're in the office or at a party, you're not likely to be found gabbing away in the middle of a group of people.

Solitary
You are a private person, not very comfortable in a big group, and view excessive socializing as a waste of time.
You not prefer hanging out with others to spending time alone; you do not tend to feel at home in a crowded room, club, stadium, or auditorium.

Discreet
You tend to hold onto your thoughts until you have something important to say, and even then you're not comfortable imposing your ideas on others unless you know they're truly interested.
You don't enjoy talking for the sake of talking, and you have no desire to be the center of attention.

Scrupulous
You are an honest, fair person. You don't lie or cheat to get ahead. You treat others with respect and hope for the same in return.
You do not feel that you are above the rules that everyone else follows; you are definitely not willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Passionate
You are in touch with your emotions, and sometimes you react before you think. The good news: you don't tamp down your feelings. The bad news: you sometimes say or do things that you later wish you could take back.
You do not live your life on an even keel; you do not go for long periods without experiencing some mood swings.

Introspective
You like your own company; you're a very interesting person. Tracking your own mental processes, knowing what you're thinking and why you do what you do, is important to you. Often, what's going on in your mind is more compelling than what's going on outside. For the most part, those with a high score on the "introspective" trait enjoy reading, taking long walks, learning new things, and other solitary activities.
You are not someone who is constantly looking to be among a group of friends; you never feel bored when you are by yourself.

Sympathetic
You have a knack for knowing what's going on in the hearts and minds of those around you, without their having to tell you explicitly. People tend to turn to you with their problems because they know you care, and that you will likely offer good advice and a helping hand.
You do not feel that people with sad stories are just looking for attention, or have brought their problems upon themselves.

Acquiescent
You are comfortable in your own skin and don't need to throw your weight around. You'll often choose to be the one who is told what to do rather than the one who's doing the telling, and you sometimes avoid confrontations even if it means that you won't get your way.
You aren't interested in making others bend to your will or in always dishing out criticism. You're not a pushy person, and you like it that way.

Unsettled
You may be comfortable on your home turf, but you have a tendency to be self-conscious in an unfamiliar environment. While you're usually at ease with your friends, you can be a little skittish around strangers.
You usually don't feel at home in unfamiliar settings or with new people. When you get rattled, you don't necessarily recover instantly.

Cooperative
You enjoy teamwork, play well with others, and prefer getting along to winning.
You're not compelled to win every contest nor to be right all the time.

Here's what the FriendFeed community is saying live!

And here's my "official" Personality Badge:

Do you also like to take these type of tests? If you also took this one, what did the results reveal about you?

Words for Living - The Beginning of My Personal Branding

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:46:00 +0000

Shortly after I signed up to be an Uppercase Living Demonstrator in late 2006, I started the process of picking a username for a new email account and other uses. At that time, I knew absolutely nothing about "personal branding". It was really important to me to pick a name that would adequately describe me in my Uppercase Living business. So, after quite a bit of thinking, I finally decided on Words for Living [Wordsforliving].

The main reason why I chose that one was because I desperately needed words that would encourage me and give me hope. It was a point in my life where things had gone horribly wrong. My purpose as far as work had been destroyed and I had recently suffered through significant trauma from losing my job, plus a number of other very unfortunate events.

Becoming an Uppercase Living Demonstrator gave me a glimmer of hope that one day our family would have a better life and hopes and dreams be revived. The concept of putting encouraging sayings on my walls as a way to refocus and a constant reminder was exactly what I needed - it's what everyone in the family needed.

I would love to be able to tell you that the tide has turned and my family's journey has taken us to a happy and peaceful place. But unfortunately that hasn't happened. It's been more of a Series of Unfortunate Events type of journey and quite a long and weary one at that.

So, I need every kind, hopeful and encouraging word I can possibly cling to. For without the strength that comes from hope, how can one continue such a long and treacherous journey?

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow. ~ Orison Swett Marden

Clouds and darkness surround us, yet heaven is just, and the day of triumph will surely come, when justice and truth will be vindicated. Our wrongs will be made right, and we will once more taste the blessings of freedom. ~ Mary Todd Lincoln

My Blogging Experiment

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:43:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I got it in my head that I wanted a bunch of blogs. One for every niche thing I wanted to blog about. The problem is, I'm a perfectionist. That's a problem in general and as usual it surfaced as I was trying to decide on a blog platform, layout, etc...
I'm not a professional blogger, I'm just obsessed with blogging. But my perfectionist nature is more of a hindrance than a help, so as usual, I'm over analyzing everything related to blogging and making slow progress. And like I said earlier, I've been trying out a bunch of different platforms.

Although I would say I'm still in the experimental stage, I would say that I've gained some clarity over the last few days. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards the Blogger platform for all my blogs. Lots of reasons why and I'll get into that later. For for now, here's what I decided to do with this blog:

As part of my test for my blogs on Blogspot, I'm going to use this one (wordsforliving.net) as a "main" blog and will be blogging the most from this one. I also decided to use one of Blogger's templates. The Blogspot templates are incredibly aweful. It was difficult choosing one that would look even remotely professional, but I finally decided on one and left it alone. I will be testing out the other blogs using third-party templates and making comparisons.

I'd like to hear from anyone who'd like to share there thoughts on blogging platforms. Which one do you use or prefer and why?

FriendFeed - My Personal Favorite for Sharing

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:50:00 +0000

Absolutely nothing is better than FriendFeed for sharing all the cool stuff you find on the internet. It's the ultimate in "microblogging" and so much better than Twitter.

Although I love Twitter too, with the FriendFeed bookmarklet, you can share excerpts and even images right from the page you're visiting. Simply click the images you want to be included in your post to FriendFeed. Type your comments or excerpts you want to include, click post and almost instantly your post shows up on your FriendFeed page. After your post shows up on FriendFeed, people can "like" or comment in real-time threaded conversations!

Nothing really compares to the awesomeness of FriendFeed. But unfortunately, since Facebook bought out FriendFeed, the much inferior Facebook will either change it into something unacceptable or get rid of it altogether. Hopefully that won't happen. But I'm not holding my breath.

in reference to: Jannifer @wordsforliving - FriendFeed (view on Google Sidewiki)

Testing out TypePad

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:59:00 +0000

I've been testing out TypePad as a possibility to move all my blogs over there. After numerous trials and subsequent errors, I'm leaning more and more towards keeping everything on Blogger.

The reason why is that Typepad doesn't seem much more user friendly than Blogger. Now, Blogger's templates are aweful. But Typepad's templates aren't really easily customizable either. You can't even change the template colors. And you need to learn CSS code to customize anything.

It's been a frustrating journey. I want a professional looking blog that I can just build myself. But there doesn't appear to be anything that really makes it easy. So the journey continues...

Uppercase Living® Photo Gallery

wordsforliving@gmail.com (Jannifer) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Uppercase Living is the premier leader in vinyl lettering & graphics decor. There's truly no better way to personalize spaces such as your home, business, school, church, etc. You can also view entire photo gallery in Picasa.