jeff noel, The Blog Whisperer, with some Blog SEO tips…
Much has been said about our apparent ability to ‘control’ our attitude. And I believe the secret is in the quality and quantity of our reading, studying, thinking and practicing.
I’ve personally found the quality of my thoughts is proportional to my efforts to focus on good, decent input and fanatical effort. Period.
And I’ve discovered that jeff noel blog SEO is also proportional to focused effort. In only a few short days, Google SEO has risen for jeff noel, jeff noll, jeffrey noel, Orlando Professional Speakers and Wellness Challenge.
Simply because I was willing to try and not worry about what people think.
We all wait patiently for Sunday, to see what our Guest Blogger, Lorie Sheffer has to say. Here she is, enjoy:
I was watching a litter of stray kittens that live in my parents’ back yard, and it struck me how even in the animal world, personality is evident from a very early age. Among those kittens there is the shy one, the daredevil, the social one, and the aggressor. I am hoping to get them all tame enough to find homes. As I watched them interact, I thought how much they are like humans. We all have family dynamics, and our roles change little, if at all, through the years. Nothing brings those dynamics to the surface like group stress.
“You can’t see the forest for the trees.” Sometimes when we are part of the group or family on a daily basis, it is difficult for us to see what our role is. We are too close to get a good view. If we step back and are no longer part of that group, then return, the dynamics are as clear as day.
My mother just turned 77 years old. Her eldest sister is 88 and her middle sister passed away two years ago at the age of 82. When the three of them were in a room together it was clear what their roles had always been. They still knew what buttons to push. Apparently it never ends. “She was always such a spoiled brat!” “You were always a goody-goody suck up!” “No wonder you always got into trouble.”
My husband has clearly always been The Rebel. By that, I mean that he is able to set boundaries and to be the voice of reason. It is clear he is almost shunned within his family because of his ability to do so. I seem to be The Mediator. I hate conflict. I am hypersensitive to tension. I can spot an argument before the first voice is raised. It can be exhausting. I’ve discovered that some of my lifelong anxiety comes from my anticipation of an argument or conflict. I wasn’t raised in an abusive family, but I was raised within a big extended family where conflict was inevitable. I want everyone to be kind. I don’t care for labels, but it really does seem that some of them exist for a reason. I don’t know if we behave the way we do because we are trying to fit the label we were given or if the label was given to us because of the consistent behavior we have shown.
I believe that people do have the ability to change, but that our core personalities, just like the personalities of that litter of stray kittens, is set at a very early age. Anyone who has more than one of their own children will tell you, even though two children have the same set of parents and are raised in the same home, they can be total opposites. What is your role within your family? Think back to when you were a child, and then take a look at what your role is now. Have you really changed all that much? When you visit with family, do you see everyone falling back into those old dynamics? There is a reason that shows like Roseanne and Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as movies like Christmas Vacation and Home for the Holidays are such hits. We can all relate.
Central Pennsylvania’s Lorie Sheffer returns for her regular Sunday Guest Blog Post. Are we lucky or what? Take it away Lorie:
The Things We Do For Love. 10cc sang that one back in 1977. We’ve all done some pretty crazy things in the name of love.
I have cared for a few loved ones suffering from a serious illness, doing the really gross, not-so-pleasant tasks that entails. I’ve raised two kids and have been the primary caregiver for my grandson when his parents have to work. I’ve done my share of things for love. I’m not squeamish.
There is one thing, however, that turns me into a screaming, hyperventilating girly girl. Rodents. I cannot even walk past them in the pet store. Which, by the way, is one of life’s biggest oxymorons; pet mouse. So wouldn’t you know…
One Saturday afternoon, I was digging through the pantry when I saw them: mouse droppings. I ran screaming from my kitchen and into Gary’s arms. I was so hysterical that he couldn’t understand what I was saying, save for “kill it, kill it, KILL IT!” Strong words for a vegetarian who carries insects from the house in a paper cup and releases them back into the wild.
I was horrified to think that one of those disease-ridden little harbingers of death was attempting to reside in my house! I proceeded to throw away anything the mouse could have looked at. Sure you can sterilize glass jars and cans and whatnot, but that mouse had touched them. EUW! I blasted through at least a gallon of bleach in an attempt to disinfect my shelves. I also had Gary set a trap. And then I waited.
The next day, the trap was gone. The mouse had been caught but not killed. In what was surely an attempt to win the war, it had dragged the trap between the cupboard and the wall, where it died. I called in a professional exterminator, who thought that A: it was hysterical that I had called him in for one mouse, and B: the mouse would “dry up in a few days.”
The next few days were a nightmare. The smell in the house was something out of a Stephen King novel. I couldn’t take it. I was ready to get a circular saw and buzz my way through the kitchen cabinet. I would have agreed to put the house up for sale and live in a hotel rather than stay in my house. Gary came home to find me sitting on the bench in front of the house, sobbing, refusing to set foot inside. I asked him to please go pack some things for me, as I was going to go live with my parents.
Then something wonderful happened. He steeled his spine, puffed out his chest, and took long, deliberate strides toward the house. He came back out dressed for battle. He had on a long sleeved shirt, rubber gloves rubber-banded at the wrists, a mask and goggles. He was carrying a small mirror duct-taped to an old broom handle and a black trash bag. He was headed for the Shop Vac. “I’m going to get that mouse out of there for you.”
The theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly began playing in my mind. About a half hour later, he emerged from the hot zone, gagging, bag in hand. He plopped it into the dumpster, then looked at me and said, “Got it. I’ll open some windows, spray some Oust and take a shower. Then I’ll come back out for you.”
I can honestly say he has never looked hotter in all the years I have known him. George Clooney would play Gary in the movie version. My heart pounded and I felt like I did the first time I laid eyes on him over twenty years before. My GOD, man! “You may want to hurry up with that shower!” I said to him in a throaty voice.
Let’s just not tell him that you can buy mice at the pet store! He may try to stock my pantry with a few of them.
