Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
The DIY Corner: Home Decorating ForThe Beginner
Are you tired of looking at the white walls? Does the idea of choosing the wrong color cause a bit of anxiety? Decorating your place should be fun and exciting not something to dread. Find your inspiration piece to guide you and help select your color scheme and accessories. Your inspiration piece may be a print, a pillow, a book, a place or anything that invokes a good feeling. Do not be afraid to mix and match. It is your space and it should represent you and make you feel proud when you enter.
I am still making my house a home that reflects my eclectic taste and I started with the bathroom. I hope this small space would not be so overwhelming, would not take much time and give me the courage to tackle the bigger projects.
My inspiration was a piece of artwork:
My inspiration was a piece of artwork:
My starting point was selecting the green from the flower stem as my wall color. To add a more contemporary flair to the room, I selected rugs with warm colors to complement the wall art in contemporary shapes. I kept the shower curtain simple, in a shade of green to complement the wall color and added a few simple accessories. Now if I can only find a light fixture I like. Painting…no problem, putting together furniture….bring it on, changing a door knob...even tried and conquered this project. I just do not know if I am ready to attempt an electrical project. I may have to leave this one to the pros.
Before Picture:
After Pictures:
Thank you for reading my first post for Real. Life. Woman. Talk. I hope my post helps some of you with your home decorating projects.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Video of The Day - It Never Rains (In Southern California)
I couldn't resist listing this one as the song of the day as the rain falls down outside my office window.
Privacy in 2011
Not too many years ago if you wanted to talk to someone you had no choice but to either pick up the phone – it was luxury if the phone wasn’t tethered to a wall by a super long tangled cord- or walk your behind over to their home. Most people didn’t have computers because even if they used them at work they still had little need for them at home. As a matter of fact I remember being a kid and overhearing a lady at the beauty shop saying that computers didn’t have much use at all except for holding her recipes. Wow! Even as a kid I knew she was dead wrong and simply had no idea of the true potential of computers. Ok so now that I think of that story I had to be a teenager seeing as how I drove myself to that appointment. In defense of my point, I could add that I was a bit clueless as a teenager.
Ok reeling it in. Nowadays when we want to contact someone we have a variety of mostly instant to at worst almost instantaneous ways to contact each other. We can text or call or email or skype or ….. I mean the list is endless. Every time I look up someone is trying to use another service to communicate with me. In a way it’s a little annoying like how many apps must I be asked to use? Can’t we all pick yahoo or google and be done with it?
So why is it people post their every thought on twitter and facebook (guilty!!), register for all these different online services to play with, apply for 30 credit cards in college to get a free T-shirt and then act surprised and appalled when grandma forwards them an email showing them 1 link where their information is all up on the internet?! The email of course contains some futile set of instructions on how to hide this information. Let me explain why this is a complete waste of time. For that one site grandma found out about there’s 40 more with the same info. The information is out there. As a society, we have to admit that we have traded privacy for convenience. We all love the convenience of things like having your prescription at every Walgreens instantly, getting our emails and other notifications on our phone wherever we are, and being able to sign into EVERYTHING with our facebook login. You all DO realize you’re simply passing around your information to anyone who wants it. Your facebook privacy settings matter so little it’s ridiculous.
If you don’t have it in your real name you can still be found. If you don’t believe me google yourself and see what you find. Even google the name your facebook is under. You might be surprised with what’s out there and how easy it is for anyone to find it. Something else to consider of course is that there are many people who share names. So what you find about this name or that name may or may not be the same person. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if what you’re reading is about your friend or one of their namesakes.
My point here is not that we should simply give up protecting ourselves. I mean we all know identity theft is real and it can really suck sometimes. We all should be more mindful of the things we post on these sites and how many and what type of sites are you giving your personal information to at the drop of a hat. We can, for instance, use paypal to cut down on how many sites we enter credit card information into. Also, stop giving your work email address out on every tom, dick and harry’s website. It’s free to start a yahoo, hotmail, heck I bet you history buffs could even get an excite account.
My point here is not to scare you. The internet is an incredibly powerful tool that while itself is fairly accessible to many throughout the world (I wont be ignorant enough to say most when I don’t know that for sure) it’s power is in the many resources that are now more easily accessible than we’d ever dreamed they could be. Like with any powerful tool it’s important to learn how to use it properly and protect ourselves.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Real Talk Quote of The Day
"Man learns through experience, and the spiritual path is full of different kinds of experiences. He will encounter many difficulties and obstacles, and they are the very experiences he needs to encourage and complete the cleansing process." - Sai Baba
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tears of A Woman
"Because I'm a woman," she told him.
"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said,
"And you never will."
Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"
"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.
The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry. Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, "God, why do women cry so easily?"
God said:
"When I made the woman she had to be special.
I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort.
I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.
I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.
I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.
I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.
I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.
And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."
"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.
The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."
- Author Unknown
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Constructive Criticism Amongst Friends...
Hello Ladies,
It has been a while since I have written anything on the blog, but there has been something that has been lingering on my mind in regards to how we communicate constructive criticism to our girlfriends.
Have you ever had a friend that was obviously headed down a wrong path? I know that we ourselves are not saints, but I’m referring to a time that you can remember when one of your girlfriend’s gauges was completely off…so off that it caught the attention of more than just you.
I’m no licensed psychologist, but I do think that proper communication is a healthy component of any relationship. Now insert you and one of your best girlfriends, and a little constructive criticism from you to her, and what is the result? It could be a complete mess if the information isn’t communicated properly. I think that men easily communicate with each other. I hear my husband tell stories that make me laugh hysterically about constructive criticism from him to his friends and vice versa. So what do you do when your friend has put on a little weight and doesn’t look right in her dress, or you can see her muffin top peeping out over her skinny jeans as you all are headed out for a night on the town. The conversation gets even more complicated when you need to express something that she may perceive as negative about her man. Does he not treat her well? Is he cheating on her, and do you have proof? Or the dreaded “girl he’s just not that into you” conversation. I’m at a place in my life where I’ve taken to just listening. I’ve found out that some girls can be sensitive (no, I’m not referring to anyone in particular), and I’ve got my own problems, so some conversations just aren’t worth it. That’s my opinion this month, anyway.
However, as always, I want to hear from you ladies. How you do handle those not-so-fun conversations with your girlfriends? Do you let it all hang out and tell her what’s really on your mind, or do you shy away, and let her figure things out on her own?
I can’t wait to see the responses!
Until next time,
IvyLeague
Real Talk Quote of The Day
"If you treat an individual as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Monday, October 24, 2011
Read This & Vote!!! Then Vote Again and Again....
I received the following email over this past weekend from a former high school classmate. Of course I have edited some parts out but at any rate it would mean a hell of a lot for the Real. Life. Woman. Talk. readers to vote for him to show our support for his cause! Remember if you don't stand for something then you will fall for anything. Please read this and just like we used to do as kids ---> PASS IT ON!!!!
Dear friends,
I am happy to announce that I have been nominated as one of three finalists in the Sports Illustrated's Greatness in Sports contest. I am asking for your support by way of your vote in the contest. Many of you I know and some I only know through Facebook or by some other means. I was wounded while serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq in July of 2005. I later was introduced to the sport of handcycling and have found great joy in competition and teaching the sport to newly injured veterans. As a believer in paying it forward, I have agreed to donate half of my winnings to the Achilles Freedom Team. The Achilles Freedom Team is a chapter of Achilles International, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, that is composed entirely of wounded veterans. Achilles pays all costs for these wounded warriors to participate and travel to major marathons across the country. I had to write a short essay on what sports means to me.
ESSAY
I was always active growing up as a kid. I played baseball, soccer, even practiced martial arts. The opportunity to become an athlete didn’t happen until I was injured fighting in Iraq in 2005 and lost both of my legs in an explosion. During my recovery at Walter Reed, I was introduced to the sport of handcycling by Achilles International out of NYC. My first race was their annual 5 mile ride in Central Park in 2008. After being confined to a wheelchair for over three years and not being able to enjoy many of the activities I use to when I was able bodied, the feelings I got after that first ride on my handcycle were indescribable. The feelings of competition and the rush of speed were what I needed to get back into sports. I started training and a few months later did my first marathon, a little race called the 2008 New York City Marathon! It took me almost 3 hours to finish, but when it was over, the sense of accomplishment I felt was overwhelming. I proved to myself that my disability does not limit me from being competitive; but that it was my own fears and thoughts of failure that were disabling me. I have now competed in over 12 marathons with my best time being this year’s Boston Marathon in 1:34. I now work on mentoring newly injured veterans and continue to race in marathons with the Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans.
Please take 5 minutes of your time to vote and help me give back to the sport that has meant so much to me during my recovery. The more votes I receive= the more money I can donate to this worthy charity.
P.S. You can vote once a day if you feel so inclined :). Contest ends November 14th. Please post the contest link on your Facebook page or Twitter feeds, and feel free to forward this email to your friends to help generate as many votes as possible. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much for your time and support.
Contest page: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/greatness/
Achilles International: http://www.achillesinternational.org/programs/freedom-team/overview
Yours in sport,
Joe Beimfohr
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Power In Giving...
This weekend I had the honor and privilege to be a part of the Inaugural Women Build 2011 with the Nashville Area Habitat for Humanity. This was my first Habitat for Humanity build and I can say today without a doubt that I know that it will not be my last. What I learned from this experience is something that I have known but didn't fully understand until yesterday. That lesson is that giving is better than receiving. Yes, the lesson that you were taught as a child but do not really understand until you are older and somewhat wiser. I finally got it!
When I was told that the volunteers had to be on site at 6:30, the not a morning person side of my brain screamed "6:30 A.M. In The Morning!!!", they could not be serious. I don't have to be at work for my day job that pays me at 6:30 in the morning. Then they said we would be there until around 3:30 that afternoon. At this point, I am thinking no freaking way. I didn't know I would be there all day. I thought I would show up for a couple of hours or so and paint then go enjoy my Saturday. The group meeting on the Thursday prior to the scheduled on site build we were given notice that we will possibly doing more than painting. I begin to feel a little better because painting is not a strength of mine. As an added bonus, we also got our PINK tool belts, hard hats and official Women Build T-Shirts!
The morning of the build was a typical of late October and simply put, it was cold. However, when I showed up on site there was breakfast and my beloved coffee. Things immediately began looking up. This site had a totally of six houses that were being built for families, with one being a all women build house. We were briefed as a group in our morning meeting and given our assigned S.O.S. (Supervisor On Site) then followed by a prayer before we started work. The all women build site had two S.O.S's with one being a woman. The funny thing about this is that Steve, the male S.O.S. was less than thrilled about being assigned the women build home, in the beginning, but since then has changed his mind. He told us that women are better at a majority of the work because they pay more attention to details. He was easy to work with because in his direction he would often remind the team that hey, remember it can't be difficult if men do it, right? With that being said, thanks to Steve I know how to install interior doors. The door team, which I was part of, installed a total of four bedroom doors, three closet doors and two bathroom doors all in one day. The other team Steve worked with installed base boards throughout home. The third team lead by Debbie was responsible for painting. That was the team that I made sure I was not on and we are all happy about that.
The great thing about Habitat for Humanity is that all of this work was done right beside the future homeowner. She is a single mother of two and was there on site working just as hard if not harder than the rest of the volunteers. As a volunteer it was awesome to see the person we were building this home for on site. Many times we are so far removed from who we are trying to help through charitable donations and organizations that we become so out of touch with their reality. I am thankful that Habitat for Humanity makes sure this disconnect does not take place. I left the build site with my feet and back hurting and did not care one bit. This is because I felt how good it was to help someone without caring if they would ever know my name or ever try to return the favor. That is what I call the real power of giving!
Real Talk Quote of The Day
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." - Mahatma Gandhi
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Deals! Deals! Deals! Deals! Deals!
Children's Place Coupon that just came out and it saves you 30% off a $60 purchase; 25% off a $50 purchase or 20% off your total purchase! This coupon is good at participating locations thru 10/23/11. See coupon for details.
Printable Coupon: http://www.childrensplace.com/www/b/TCP/emailj/US-100311-20Off.html
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Real Talk Quote of The Day
"Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
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