Ready...Set...Share on Giving Tuesday!
Unless your eyes are just now opening for the very first time today, you already know today is Giving Tuesday. Today’s newsletter is short and sweet – if you’ll be giving today, please share the link to the organization you’re supporting. If you give at other times of the year, share the link. If you’ve got a group you’d like to give to and are waiting for the perfect time, share the link.
If you're on Linked In, share your links here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6983192207608479744/
If you're on Facebook, share your links here: https://www.facebook.com/SandyJWeaver
Whether you give time, talent, or treasure, please share the group, organization, or cause you support. And on this Giving Tuesday, please remember to give to yourself, too. Here are three episodes of the world’s second-shortest podcast to help you remember that you matter, too.
Are you giving away your own power? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!
Need to stop...
Got Big Plans for Halloween Tonight?
Full disclosure – today’s post is just for fun. OK, you’re right – fun is important for team cohesion, stress relief, and for mental wellbeing, so today’s newsletter might be useful, too.
And it’s mainly for fun, and yes, there’s a prize involved!
Do you love Halloween? I love Halloween – always have. Mom made our costumes because she loved Halloween, too. My two brothers and I were all sorts of craziness as we headed off to school on costume day, and as soon as I was old enough, I helped Mom with the make-up and accessories. There was that one year when I was sent home because my I Dream of Jeanie outfit was deemed too risqué for 5th grade, so I put on a pink t-shirt under the top, tucked it into the harem pants, and went right back and won a prize in the costume contest.
Fast-forward to adulthood, when Halloween got even more fun when the candy came with a side of adult beverages and semi-suggestive fun. (Yes, the leopard...
Do You Know Who Your Vet Tech Is?
What do they do, these vet’s assistants?
They have the best job ever!
All day with kittens and puppies they play
Getting wags and kisses – so clever!
You’d almost pay to have their day
It just sounds so life-giving…
Vet technicians are almost magicians
Turning snuggles into a living!
What you don’t realize with those stars in your eyes
Kisses aren’t all they are getting.
Listen up, listen well – get a clue
And you’ll find out what techs really do!
Welcome to Veterinary Technician Week, a week that recognizes those who support veterinarians in caring for pets. There's a lot of misunderstanding about what vet techs do - let's clear that up, shall we?
Vet technicians – what people think they do:
- Play with kittens and puppies all day
- Assist the veterinarian with all the fun things they do
- Play with kittens and puppies some more
Vet technicians – a partial list of what they really do:
- Check on animals hospitalized overnight,...
Were You Bullied or Were You the Bully?
Quick – think back to your early school days – were you bullied or were you the bully? Yes, those are the only two choices I’m giving you.
“But wait,” you might be thinking, “I wasn’t the bully and I wasn’t bullied.” OK, I hear you. Did you know someone who was being bullied? Did you do anything about it? No? Then you assisted the bully, putting you on Team Bully.
This way of thinking about bullying may feel very harsh to you, and you’d be right. It is harsh. It’s unrealistic to expect children to automatically step in to protect someone from a bully, because as humans we have a strong pull toward self-preservation. Plus, children’s brains aren’t fully developed and they don’t have the variety of life experiences, not to mention the confidence level, that would help them spot and report, or stop, a bully.
But we’re all adults here – let’s talk about the bullying that goes on in your...
Do You Follow or Do You Flaunt?
Are you a rule-follower or a rule-flaunter? Most of us are firmly in the “it depends” category. Most rules we follow, some of them to the letter, and some we think don’t even apply to us or shouldn’t be rules at all. So why are there rules and why do we follow them?
A pair of researchers, Sven Steinmo and Celine Colombo, set about to understand why people follow rules, why the impulse or need to have and follow rules exists, and how well it’s working for humanity. They found that norms of trust and cooperation need to be an intrinsic part of members of society in order for that society to thrive and prosper. You don’t have to look very far to see where rules came from – religions, races, and governments have been the impetus for complex sets of rules intended to govern and control the behavior of the people in their sphere of influence.
Why do people choose to be part of something that seeks to control their behavior, even to the point...
Do You Want to Experience Joy
Today, can you focus on spreading joy? Can you find ways to delight people you don’t know, probably won’t ever be friends with, and show them you see and appreciate them?
Why, you ask? Hang on – I’ll spill the beans. First, full disclosure – one of my current dogs is a therapy dog, the third one I’ve had the privilege of living with in my 40+ years of owning dogs. There’s something quite special, calming, and joyous about a therapy dog that they’re born with. You can train behaviors – therapy dogs are born with a heart and ability to connect that’s stronger than the normal dog.
There’s a holiday today inspired by a therapy dog. Since 2017, August 22nd has been designated as “Never Bean Better Day,” named after Bean, a medium-sized Golden Retriever who lived and warmed hearts in Morgantown PA. If you saw the Animal Planet show “The Haunted” Bean played Riley, the dog who could...
Your License to Chill is Your License to Fly
Today is National Relaxation Day and this week is National Aviation Week. What do those two have to do with each other and why should you care? This will tie them together, ease your stress, and give you wings, so read on.
Wilbur and Orville Wright didn’t have pilot’s licenses, and no one needs a license to chill.
The same year that the first states – Massachusetts and Missouri – began requiring drivers licenses of anyone who wanted to operate a car on public roads, Orville and his older brother Wilbur made the first powered flight. They didn’t even have drivers’ licenses, and certainly didn’t have pilots’ licenses because those hadn’t been invented yet. Neither brother had a high school diploma, neither attended college, and yet with their fascination for aviation, their insatiable desire for experimentation, and their commitment to manned flight in a heavier-than-air motorized vehicle, they made discoveries and...
Do Your To-Do's Include You?
Caution: cliché alert!!!
- You can’t pour from an empty vessel.
- Almost everything will work if you unplug it for a few minutes – even you.
- We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
Yes, you’re right – this edition of the newsletter is about self-care. July is Self-Care month and yesterday was International Self-Care Day. And if you’re like nearly everyone else, me included, self-care isn’t at the top of your to-do list each day, and it needs to be, for both of us.
Why? Don’t make me point you back up to those cliches, ok? The reason phrases become repeated so often that they become trite and clichéd is because – drum roll please – they’re true. They resonate, and have resonated for decades, if not hundreds of years. And yet here we are, talking about how we neglect our own self-care.
How can we make our own care a priority? First, give yourself credit for the things you already do for yourself:
- ...
Can You Forgive, and Do You Even Want To?
About 120 years ago a phrase came into being: “get out of the doghouse.” If a couple had a fight and one locked the other out of the house, unless there was a barn on the property, the only shelter was likely to be the family dog’s house. Hence, a bid for forgiveness was characterized as a bid to get out of the doghouse.
Humans have a difficult relationship with the concept of forgiveness. We get irritated by the behaviors of others every day in small ways, and sometimes even suffer hardship, hurt, or loss through the actions of others. Both the small slights and the larger ones spark a level of negative emotion pointed toward the perceived perpetrator. Behavioral scientists agree there are at least two components to forgiveness, emotional and behavioral, and while there’s not a lot of research on them, it’s likely that most acts of forgiveness include a blend of both. Let’s look at two examples where an offense is given, and forgiveness might be...
Cheer Up the Lonely - Maybe You, Too!
Do you know a lonely person? Especially since the pandemic isolation has ended, you might be surprised to learn that there are more people who say they’re lonely now than before the pandemic.
Just what is loneliness, anyway? Noted researcher Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad has been studying loneliness for over two decades and says it’s “often defined as being based on the discrepancy between our desired level of connection and actual level of connection.” Before the pandemic, levels of social isolation were rising, and post-pandemic that trend has continued. The worst thing is that social isolation is as bad for our physical and mental health as stress, increasing the risk for heart attack and stroke, and according to some research, increasing the chance of premature death by 15%.
Today is Cheer Up the Lonely Day, started in Detroit Michigan by Francis Pesek, a man who wanted to brighten the days of shut-ins, those who lived alone, and people in nursing homes....
