An Extra Day

February 28, 2012 by 12 Comments

I’m a wife, mom, sister, cousin, aunt, full time employee, church member, occasional student, Non-Profit owner and a whole host of other things.  Much like you are, I’d say, I’m pretty busy.

Sometimes, I find myself saying “will someone PAAAALEEEEEEEESE order me up another day!!”  and I tend to get all kinds of whiny about it.

Well, thanks to leap year, I GET just that!  And I have to tell you, I’m pretty excited about my adventure!  I am NOT going to waste this extra day that I’m given and I hope that you’ll JOYn me in making the most of our extra 24 hours!

At the very least, I’m going to make a difference an hour.

Here is what I’m planning on accomplishing with my extra DAY!

  1. Calling my mom and telling her how awesome she is
  2. Sending pizza to my husband for lunch!
  3. Letting my children know how special they are
  4. Using this coupon to purchase someone’s meal
  5. Making a contribution to Spreading Joy’s Basketball Tournament Event
  6. Calling an old friend and letting them know they are thought about
  7. Reminding everyone to use their extra day to make a difference for others
  8. Mail a thinking of you card to someone that I’ve lost touch with
  9. Passing out an entire package of Reese’s cups (ok…maybe minus one…maybe)
  10. Comment on a blog and share on social media sites
  11. Dedicating all of my tweets to others for the entire day. Shouting out THEIR websites
  12. Sending an email, thanking someone for being a precious friend – sticking with me through thick and thin, good and bad and loving me no matter what
  13. Purchase a little girl toy and give it away randomly & tell them I’m spreading joy their way
  14. Purchase a little boy toy and give it away randomly & tell them I’m spreading joy their way
  15. Purchase a bouquet of flowers and give away…yes, randomly (if I were home, I’d give to my mom…so maybe Friday)
  16. I will email 10 corporations asking for sponsors and/or donations for Spreading Joy
  17. I will thank a US Vet for their service in the military
  18. I will encourage everyone to use their extra day with care
  19. I will be the typical big sister and harass my little sister
  20. I will praise the Lord for the extra time publically
  21. I will pick up any trash that I happen upon and not complain
  22. I will facebook a few people that I’ve not had a lot of contact with and encourage them
  23. I will Laugh with someone today
  24. I WILL Completely enjoy my extra day of making a difference for others

 

How about you?  What adventure will you plan for your extra day? 

Will you let it come and slowly slip away without even giving notice? 

Share with us something you plan to do.  It doesn’t have to be 24 items…. Just do something extra with your extra day!

 

Filed Under: ideas, Spreading Joy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Favorite Twitter Helps

September 5, 2011 by 5 Comments

My Favorite Twitter Helps….for you

Anyone that truly knows me, knows I love twitter.  I love the reach it has given me, I love the friends that I’ve made (yes, I said friends and yes…I do love them) and I love the encouragement that I receive there daily.  I love it.

I am on all the other Social Networks and you can use those buttons over on the sidebar to hit me up there, but if you really want to interact with me online, it will be better via twitter.   If you Tweet me, I’ll always reply….at some point.

So, what does a Non-Techy gal use to get the most from Twitter?  I’m glad you asked. :) I’ll share with you my favorite Twitter Helps.  These are in random order with the exception of the first one!

By the way, when you are experimenting with various Twitter helps, may I suggest that you try them for a few weeks and not just for a few days.  Tweet out questions about what you are using if you are just not getting the hang of it.  There are many people that will help you by answering your questions.

By Far the best thing for Twitter

  • TweetDeck – This is a Twitter must! You can have your @’s your dm’s and several columns all on ONE screen.  No flipping back and forth! When you are starting out, this is an easy way to categorize people into groups that appeal to you.  You can shorten links right from this page, send pictures, videos and even send posts Facebook, LinkedIn and others.

You can RT and even see the RT’s done from the web.  I hope that one day Twitter will fix that…but for now, TweetDeck allows me to tell those people that RT from the web thank you.  If I were to only use the web, I would never know they Re-Tweeted one of my posts.

You need to check out the various things TweetDeck can do.  I have it on my itouch and I also use it on Google Chrome.  The real time update is amazing (no refreshing screens) when I’m participating in various Twitter chats or my absolute favorite… the Online LIVE Worship Service on Twitter… #Tworship.  (Click the link to see how to participate with us each week night.) I love the automation feature – I can schedule the songs and Invite people to JOYn us. You can setup your lists to be individual columns and move them around as you see fit. The larger your twitter account gets, you’ll appreciate this easy way to keep up with your friends.

The only negative thing for me with TweetDeck is that the larger my following gets, the more it will slow things down as it pulls the tweets for my columns.  It is actually better than it use to be, so I can tell improvements are being made.  If I were limited to one way to participate on Twitter only…it would be with TweetDeck. Also, I can’t seem to get it to schedule to my facebook, but will keep working at that.  Problem solved! It seems to be working. One of my favorite IT Heroes says “You have a PICNIC problem – Problem In Chair, Not In Computer” and usually, he is correct.  Tweetdeck is the way to go.

  • UberSocial – I have a Blackberry and this is the best app I’ve seen.  This makes Tweeting on the go super easy peasy.  I need that.  I love that I can follow people, block people, RT and add in my own comments.  I can DM and even Reply All if I’m tweeted in a group.  I love the Uberbar! I have several people that are “Tabs” at the top that I can easily pull up their Tweets for the day and RT out what I love. There are so many more functions to UberSocial! Check it out for yourself! I’m glad to see there is an UberSocial for the iPhone and Droid!
  • HootSuite – I love that I can schedule my #nuggetsofJOY to my Twitter account as well as my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.  It has a shortner and is very easy to use.
  • SocialOomph – Many features that I love like scheduling, replying and you can tie your blog here.  I don’t, but you can.  It is very user friendly.
  • iTwitter – I don’t know if that is the proper name or not, but I love using this one on my iTouch.  It’s from iTunes, easy to navigate, reply, RT.  Love all the features.
Everything that I’ve mentioned so far is FREE for you to download and try.

 

Many have asked me how I’ve grown my Twitter account.  I’ll tell you. Every day, I would spend about 15 minutes following the people that I was on lists with.  If you listed me on a list, I would assume that the others you listed were in some way “like” me, so it made sense to follow them too.  People would follow back.  I did this for 2 years!  Saturday mornings, when I had more time, I’d spend a little more time and grew my account up to 19,000 followers.   I never would have imagined that I could be spreading joy to a thousand people, much less 19k.  This year, a wonderful friend of mine that just loves super squishy hugs, gave me an awesome gift.
 Tweet Adder.  Many people are skeptical of purchasing this but I have to tell you, it is worth the one time fee of $55.00 for One Profile. You can have up to 5 Profiles for $74.00, 10 Profiles for $110.00 and Unlimited Profiles for $188.00. (Many businesses use the multiple profiles.) This has been the best gift ever.
Tweet Adder will let you follow those that follow a certain person, or by lists, or hashtags or even key words in their profile.  If  you wanted to follow all of the coffee lovers in the world, you can do so. If you want to follow everyone in your city, you can do that too.  If people decided not to follow me back, I simply have my tweet adder scheduled to unfollow in 3 days.  Easy Peasy. I can spend my time chatting, instead of spending my time following the lists I was added to & unfollowing those that don’t want to follow back.  It does so much more than this! I want my followers to see certain articles so, I use the RSS Feed to Tweet their articles.  I just copied & pasted their RSS URL and now their new blog posts will tweet automatically.
Use the link I provided and check them out. While it looks like it takes you back to a regular tweetadder site – TRUST me, it IS tracking my affiliate number and credit will be given back.  If you just go to tweetadder on your own, no credit will be given…sooo, click below KNOWING you are helping Spreading Joy
If you decide to purchase this, Spreading Joy is an affiliate and they will give us back 50% of whichever package you purchase.  You’ll be easily making a difference by doing so.  You may also like being an affiliate for them because once you get 2 others to sign up, you’ll have gotten tweet adder for free.  Only being able to give back to others when people give to us….I know that every little bit makes a HUGE difference!   Using Tweet Adder, I can focus on doing what I do best – and that is Spreading Joy and encouraging those that need it.

 

May I caution you though?

 

If you simply “grow” your account using Tweet Adder but never interact with those that you follow, you’ll miss out on some amazing friendships, wonderful laughs and some good times.  Think about it.  People like Oprah and others “stars” that only follow 20 people are missing out on some pretty cool friendships from all over the world.  I noticed that early on and wrote an article about it a few years back.  Even though it is a few years old, it still holds true today.   Click here to Read about the friendships I made early on.

 

Lastly, here are some other Twitter Apps You may Enjoy!  All Free!
  • Seesmic - Much Like TweetDeck
  • Twello – yellow pages of Twitter
  • Twitter Counter – lets you see your growth at a glance & some cool buttons
  • Nutshell Mail – Cool way to track groups, lists & is delivered to your inbox on your schedule
  • TweetReach – To see the impact of your tweet OR if you use the web, see who has RT’d you and say thank you
  • paper.li – This is an amazing app that collects “links” through the day and puts in a News Paper Format.  I have 3 of them and I subscribe to them all so that I can go back and read at my leisure each night.  The Spreading Joy Daily, The Praying Peeps Daily and the Praying Peeps2 Daily.  The SJ daily collects links from those I follow and usually has about 200 articles or ore.  The PP daily collects links from ONLY those on my 2 lists.  Awesome stuff!!

This is just a drop in the bucket compared to the things that you can find on Google or Goodsearch.  Remember, when you Goodsearch – good search for spreading joy and they will make a donation to us!

To save you some time, here are a few links to a few pages that have hundreds of Twitter helps.

Ministry and Social Media working together? You betcha! and it works well.  The gals over at @StickyJesus will help you – stickyJesus.com  exists to equip you, the Christ follower, to confidently live out your faith in the digital world. We’re here to infuse biblical perspective and daily inspiration into your online time. We’ll help you grow your technical know-how so you can share the sticky love of Jesus Christ with others. We’re teaching, listening, and collaborating with a fired-up community of digital scribes about culture, social media, and the kind of relationship building that will outlive cyberspace. Are you in?

Here is the best introduction to twitter that I’ve seen in a while! - Intro to Twitter  Thanks @partyaficionado

Over 275 items here - http://www.squidoo.com/twitterapps

99 items here - http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/17/99-essential-twitter-tools-and-applications/

Here are some CUTE & FREE Twitter “Follow Me”  Icon Buttons

Also – Do you know Twitter has limits? Yes, they do.  Check them out here.

I do have an extra account on twitter, just incase anything were to happen – feel free to follow over there too.  @jailedJOY  I don’t use it much – but sometimes it’s necessary and sometimes, I just “play” there.

One last thing and probably the most important of all!!!

HAVE FUN…plain and simple.  

What do you think? 

What are your favorite Twitter Apps?  

Talk to me….I want to know!

***I’m hoping for an iPhone for Christmas and would love to know what your favorite twitter app is***

Filed Under: frugal, fun, Spreading Joy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Confessions of a Cranky Gal

February 4, 2010 by 11 Comments

Friday morning in January….the alarm goes off, ugghh…I groan. 4:30 already? Mercy.  I hit the clock, drag myself out of bed and start the day.  It’s Friday, I should be excited.  Few more hours and the weekend will be upon me, right? Wrong!  Normally the super silliness you see here is just me.  While I am and can be completely serious when necessary, I love laughing, smiling, cutting up and just loving each and every moment that I can.

I’m not sure what is going on, but I feel anything but happy.  I start getting ready and as I normally do, spend time in prayer while getting ready.  Someone is on my heart that day, so I pray, specifically for them. Normally this would lift my spirits, but it doesn’t.  I head out the door to work. No music, no nothing, just feeling cranky.  I realize this and decide to keep my ickiness to myself.

A few hours pass and I’m diligently working through the day.  Trying not to focus on the growing crankiness within my heart.  A friend calls. “Morning!”, they say – “how are you today?”  Before I even realize what I’m doing, I laugh out loud and confess “I’m pretty cranky today, how are you?”  My friend laughs and we talk for a bit.  Then the friend realizes, wow, she’s not kidding. I admit, no, unfortunately I’m not kidding.  I don’t know why, but I’m pretty cranky and what’s worse, can’t shake it.  We talk for a few more moments and say our goodbyes.  My co-worker laughs and admits that she didn’t even know I was cranky, that I had hidden it pretty well.  I apologized and said I was trying not to be spreading crankiness and I’d keep working on it because no one should have to deal with cranky Marie.  I wasn’t even really trying to hide it, just didn’t want to “share” the crankiness and bring down the “TGIF” mood. You know what I mean?
Finally!!! Lunch time! I knew what needed to be done.  I clocked out for lunch, sent out a tweet that said:

Just Keeping It Real!

I got in my car and headed over to a near by Wal-Mart.  Trying to figure out what to get and for whom.  I knew that I needed to do something for someone – to get rid of the crankiness.  I check ubertwitter to send out a few tweets while I’m walking through Wal-Mart.  What I saw made me laugh so hard, out loud and in front of everyone.  Gene sent a reply that simply said:

Completely made me Laugh Out Loud!

With that belly laugh, I feel the crankiness slowly start lifting. Laughter truly is good medicine!  I see the perfect thing; Little Debbie Cakes.  I LOVE unwrapping smiles and so will the people I give these delicious treats to. I purchase them and see a few more replies about my crankiness.  I respond thank you to Jarrell who said “Keep raising those arms & waving hands & praising God.” Then to Catie who said “Don’t be cranky!! Here’s a hug! *HUG* hope it makes you feel better :]” and trust me…it Did make me feel better.  More crankiness, slowly oozing away.  Then I respond to Angie and Katie who both sent more HUGS, knowing I ADORE hugs.  Lastly I reply to Barbara who said “Feel better lady joy!” and head over to Subway to get a sandwich and Peanutbutter cookies for lunch.  I smile and give every Subway worker a Little Debbie Valentine Brownie and wish them a wonderful day. I send out a tweet about what I had just done.  I smile.  I noticed more crankiness oozing away, “nice feeling” I think to myself.  I’m walking through the parking lot, pull 2 cakes out for my team and then proceed to give the others away.  ”I love spreading joy”, I happily think to myself. “Does a heart good!”

I get into my car and check ubertwitter to send out a few more thank you’s and WHO do I see?Why, it’s Little Debbie herself - Saying:

I LOVE unwrapping Smiles

At this point, I’m like a kid on Christmas morning!  “OH my gosh!  Is this real or is this a bot?” I’m giggling out loud to myself.  So I ask and they reply that sure enough, they are the real deal!  Wow! As real as rain!  Some how, knowing this and the fact that the person I had been praying for much of that morning had said that the day had started out difficult, but was getting better, simply just made my day.  Those few simple, yet extremely important things helped to get rid of the crankiness.

Next to giving out Reese Cups, giving out Little Debbie Cakes is one of my favorite things to do.   They are delicious and very affordable, as well as always bring a smile!  I do love unwrapping a smile!

The moral? Am I always spreading joy? No, just ask my kids or husband or for that matter my little sister, Angie.  Can there be an easy fix to it? It’s not always easy, but I’m telling you – from experience, I know that if you’ll FORCE yourself to focus on someone else for awhile, the crankiness will leave you.  It has no choice but to run for the hills!  There will be no room in your heart for the crankies.  The joy you get from giving, even something small, will NOT leave room for the crankiness in your heart.

Don’t believe me?  Next time you are cranky, spend approximately $3.00 on a couple boxes of Little Debbie Cakes and just give them out to random people with one of your amazing smiles.  Then, after you have given them all away, come over here and describe the joy that has just flooded your heart and pushed out the crankiness.

I dare you!

I can’t wait to hear from you on what you do to get rid of the CRANKIES!

Sending {{HUGS}} of gret JOY!

Filed Under: challenge, choices, difficulties, encouraging, frugal, fun, happiness, ideas, passion, Spreading Joy, thanks, twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cheesy Glory of Pizza!

August 9, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Oh, the Cheesy Glory of Pizza

Is there anything that brings more joy to a teenager than pizza? Really – is there? Ok, yes, there may be something like getting their license or their first car. Maybe driving off for the first time without a parent in the vehicle is better than pizza. Wait…come to think of it, for a teen, anything without a parent may be better than pizza.

But back to the purpose of the blog post.

After not digesting anything other than liquids for 3 months – Megan enjoyed Pizza for the first time AND kept it down Wednesday night!

I’m so thankful for your prayers, your emails and the tweets that have encouraged us through this entire ordeal! The question is what now? Her next Doctor appointment is August 26th and we will find out more then. But until then – she will stay on currents meds and keep eating solids!

The research I’ve done says that she may go back and forth fighting this for a long time. It is probably going to be a long battle and that she will have to make dietary adjustments for the rest of her life, but this slice of pizza – this is a huge win!

Will there be future texts that says – Megan is having a hard day, can you text her? Maybe. Will there be the phone calls that ask for prayer because the digestion has stopped again? I don’t know. Will there be the 2 am tweet that cries out in the night for a hug because the battle has been long and the heart is heavy? Possibly. There are a lot of things that I do not know, but something that I do know is that I’ve had an incredible support group that has held us up in prayer. I know that God is still in control and that miracles do still happen and your love and support has blessed my heart so deeply that I could never express my gratitude completely!

My heart can never say thank you enough for your prayers, love and compassion for a 14 year old teenager that just wants to be a normal kid and that I love with all my heart!

You are amazing at spreading joy!
Kindness in words creates confidence;
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness;
Kindness in giving creates love.–Lao-tzu
Photo: Megan’s actual slice of pizza!
Filed Under: Megan, Spreading Joy, thanks Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,