I See What You Meme

My grief journey has afforded me an opportunity for very interesting interactions with people.  One of the topics I discuss in Four Seasons for Charlotte   revolves around the idea of saying the right thing  or doing the right thing  when you try to support a person in crisis.  With that in mind, I wanted to share two very interesting interactions I had with relative strangers in the past two weeks.  Ever since Charlotte's death, I have braced myself for that inevitable question : Do you have any children? The question (and subsequent answers) take many forms, depending on the circumstances.  Sometimes I actually bring up the topic of Charlotte's life (and death) on my own.  Sometimes I wait for others to initiate.   Two weeks ago, I was expanding my knowledge of leadership in a Nonprofit Learning Point class.  During the lunch break, the conversation turned to a book I was reading and somehow the topic shifted to my own book releas...

While strolling ( not  trolling) through some of my favorite blogs, I found a fun new meme on Avitable's website.  It seems he got the idea from The Verdant Dude . The gist of the meme is to put each letter of the alphabet into your browser and see what website comes up. If you're working in Chrome or Firefox, you will get a pretty accurate collection of your most frequently visited websites.  As I type this, I haven't even tried it yet so I have no idea  what is going to come up. I promise to share my results just as I find them. Drum roll please... A - The official ABC website .  I will admit that I have been catching up on Desperate Housewives lately. How is it all going to end? B - The CJSTUF blog  (since the official web address is blog.cjstuf.org) C - The CJSTUF website . No surprise there.   D -Google Docs.  I use it a lot for work.  E -My Eagle Rare Life entry . All that daily voting certainly paid off! F -Th...

This week's Follow Friday arrives with only a few hours to spare. I will blame the heat. If you do not live somewhere that the weather reached 100+ today, consider yourself blessed.  This week we're going to talk about social media. I'm sure many of you have heard about Google's new platform, Google+ (or G+ for short).  I've been checking it out for about two weeks now so I'm going to offer my perspective on the newest Internet time-suck.  My first reaction when I heard about G+ was that I wasn't interested. I already spent plenty of time using Twitter and Facebook and it seemed that another distraction was the last thing I needed in my life. I never used the now defunct MySpace.  I've experimented with other social portals such as Foursquare, GetGlue, and LinkedIn. None of those seem to be worth a great deal of my time. After about a week of buzz, though, my curiousity was piqued about G+. I asked for an invite from a friend and joined the nerd her...

It hasn't even been 12 hours since the verdict was reached in the Casey Anthony murder trial and already the world is in an uproar. If you don't know what's going on, look it up. Go to CNN  or Fox or MSNBC or some news outlet and find out the latest NEWS information on the murder trial of 2011.  Just don't go to Facebook. Twitter is not that different at the moment. I can't say that I'm terribly surprised. Facebook has a way of creating groupthink that is alternately empowering and scary at the same time . It's amazing to post a link to an article or a profound thought or (I don't know...hmm...) a blog and see your words, thoughts or submissions reposted by friends and even strangers.  Social media is a powerful force and I owe much of my support system as well as the success of our foundation to the wonders of the Internet.  At the same time, how many of you have seen this silly meme floating around lately:  "It's official.. signal at 12:2...

For those of you not aware, after my last blog I jumped on the proverbial bandwagon and joined Twitter .  For anyone interested, you can follow me at @seewhatyoumeme.  Apparently, Don Draper now follows me on Twitter.  That, my friends, is worth the price of admission.  So far, I'm diggin' the tweetin'.  The different news feed format takes some getting used to when you've been accustomed to Facebook but now I'm learning a whole new vocabulary.  Hashtags.  Retweets. Tiny urls.  Enough to make your head spin.  It's all a necessary step in my plot for world domination.  More about Twitter in a minute.  But first... ...speaking of Facebook, we watched The Social Network on Saturday night. I found the whole story incredibly compelling and the spitfire dialogue hearkened Aaron Sorkin faves The West Wing , Sports Night , and Studio 60 .  Yes, I know.  Studio 60 was cancelled after 1 season.  I still liked it. ...

I heard an interesting story on NPR during my evening commute.  The reporter posits: "Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are helping people keep in touch with friends and family. But just how social are those networks? Are Internet communities simply "real-world" cliques moved online?" Quite honestly, I never pondered that Facebook was anything more than a digital clique.  Looking at my own cadre of friends on Facebook, I saw some interesting patterns.  I have 653 friends.  [Yes.  I know.  Those of you with more friends are thinking, "Oh how sad." and those of you with fewer friends are just jealous. It's all relative.]   For point of information, the average Facebook user has about 125 friends.  I appear to be ahead of the curve.  After my dear husband (453 mutual friends), the person with whom I share the most mutual friends  is a girl that went to my high school. We have 53 mutual friends. In...

I told you I was addicted to blogging. So much for once a week.  In my defense, I did add the qualifier "or so".  I just have a lot to say, ok?  And if you are going to listen to me, I'm just going to keep on talking.  Ask my husband about that. So there's this new-fangled thing called Facebook.  Apparently, all the hip kids are doing it these days.  Actually, when there are now fan pages for everything from Heinz Ketchup (494K+ fans) to Birds Eye Vegetables (22K+ fans) I'm trying to figure out how many people, businesses, and ideas are NOT found on Facebook these days. In the early days of Google , there was a phenomenon called Googlewhacking .  The concept was simple: put two words (without quotes) into the search bar and try to come up with one (and ONLY one) result.  Try it.  I've never succeeded.  I think that's where Facebook has gone these days.  Try searching for anything and see if there isn't a fan page of some kind....

Psst...wanna hear a secret ?   I'm addicted to blogging.  The idea to start my very own blog has been germinating in my brain for a little while.  The journey here began early in 2009 when we started our CaringBridge page for sweet Charlotte. As our vision for CJSTUF grew, we graduated to a "real" blog  dedicated to the actions of the Foundation.  Through this process I realized a few things: 1. I like writing. 2. Some people actually seem to like reading what I write. 3. I have an opinion. Ok, I have lots of opinions.  And I like sharing them.  Facebook is good for this.  I don't tweet (yet) but I have this love/hate relationship with Facebook.  I resisted it for years as friends and family joined the fray. Once I joined, I quickly descended along the slippery slope of media addiction.  Now I don't know where I would be without my daily Facebook check-ins.  We'll leave all my thoughts on Facebook for a fut...