A friend of mine is starting a new ministry called Turning Point Ministries. (Yes, there already is one by that name, but when God tells you what to call it you just do what He says, right?) Among the many services that will focus on meeting people’s needs is the ministry of counseling. I’m sure my friend is well qualified and will take a different approach than the one you are about to see. This video is a humorous look at what counseling should not be.
I know I have some people out there who read my blog. Now I’m going to find out how much they pay attention. I’m going to giveaway $20 to a person at random who does the following:
1. Subscribe for updates to my blog. (See right —–> )
2. Leave a comment on this post.
The cut off is 11:59 PM EST June 1, 2009. I will select someone at random to get $20. It will take you just a few minutes to do this. Think of how much per hour you get paid to sign up and this is a great deal. Cost to you? $0.00
Have a great day.
When my brother was little he had a couple of hamsters name cardamom and cinnamon. Hamsters are interesting creatures. They take the natural resources around them and build homes for themselves. 
They build tunnels and places to hide using the material around them. Kind of like my kids. A kid can be a virtual hamster. We have a pile of laundry that they have turned into a hide out. They can crawl around inside it and play all kinds of things. There is a secret door, an opening covered with a blanket. There is another door on the other side. I’m not sure if that is a secret or not. I’m not told everything. But as Robert Frost says, “Something there is, that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.” We want the wall of laundry down. We are running out of clean clothes around here so the laundry fort must come down, one load at a time. But our kids are creatures of habit. Once the natural resources are replenished the virtual hamsters will again rebuild their habitat. They will scurry around in their little home and hide from their natural predator, the tickle monster. So should you have hamsters or kids? Kids eat a lot more. But they are a lot more fun. If they want a wheel to run on, well, I’m drawing the line there.
I want to share something with you that might save you some headaches later. Sometimes I use the Windows clipboard to copy and paste text from one program to another. Although this is usually easy and non-eventful yesterday I copied a large amount of text that I had written. I was not careful which button I pushed and I erased it all when I copied one word into the same clipboard that was storing a few paragraphs of text that I had just made up off the top of my head. I could never remember exactly what I had written. This annoyed me. There has to be a better way. Well, there is. But you need to know about this before you need it. It is a prevention, not a cure. There is a program called Clipboard Recovery that saves everything you place into the clipboard. You can retrieve it even after other things have taken its place on the clipboard. This really is a great tool to have, and the best part is the price. Install it today or you will one day say, “Oops, I should have listened to Steve.”
“The software works by adding itself to the clipboard viewer chain. When the clipboard is updated, the software saves the current content to a temporary file. Users have the option to preview previous clipboard items or set previous items back to the clipboard. Clipboard Recovery supports graphics and text, and has an unlimited amount of previous items to recover.”
Watch this video for more.
Well, my parents finally got into the 21st century and got high speed Internet. I suppose now that I’m learning how to put video on the Internet this is a good time for them to have a high speed connection. Here is just a sample, sort of a test video. I usually like to edit video but this one is too cute the way it is. More high speed video to come, I’m sure.
I finally got a few parts for my mower. I replaced the air filter and spark plug. All new oil, and gas treated with something, I forget what, to help clean the engine. The mower is several years old so it needs a little tlc. (tender loving care)
The one thing I really didn’t miss about mowing is the dandelions. It’s not that I mind them on the ground so much but when the dandelion seeds blow up and get in my eyes I really prefer that not to happen. My allergies are bad enough without stiring things up by mowing. And I avoid the poison ivy as much as possible. If I get that I usually have it for weeks, if not longer.
It’s just as sign of the time of year we are in I guess. Dandelion seeds blowing in the air. I hope you are not downwind of us when I mow.
Sometimes you need to stop and smell the roses. Or sometimes, listen to your kids. It can be great therapy. Tonight at Giant Eagle, our local grocery store, I had Caleb (5) and Hannah (3) with me. Hannah wanted to walk this time instead of riding in the cart. Caleb pushed the cart. He usually does. Hannah said, “What is next?” I said broccoli. “Oh, good, I love broccoli. Broccoli, broccoli, broccoli . . .” Their cheerfulness could be heard half way across the store. I didn’t mind tonight. That place needed some cheering up. Everything in life is exciting from their point of view. With each new aisle we entered they joyfully announce the number. “We’re in aisle 5!” “We’re in aisle 7!” It was just such a happy time for them to be walking through the grocery store and enjoying life. Pointing to everything, “Are we out of this?” “Are we out of that?” Yes get one of those. No, we don’t need that. “Are we out of this?” And on it went. 
At times I wish I were five years old and completely oblivious to the world around me except that which I can see from our house. What a different world it was back when I was five. If I could go back to that time I would. I would live more fully in the moment. I would do more things. I would push myself more and have more experiences. I would make more friends. I would hit my brother less; well, maybe. And when I turned 16 I would have borrowed as much money as I could and invested in Microsoft.
PS Once we got home, Hannah would not eat the broccoli.
There is a book I picked up a couple of years ago at a library sale. It is called You, Inc. Discover the CEO Within. Author: Burke Hedges. It is a great look at the idea that you need to promote yourself rather than your company. In traditional businesses as well as MLM or direct selling if you have people who follow you they will follow wherever you lead. If you go to another company they will go with you. If your company gets shut down or you get laid off you still have contacts that you can influence from another company. Do you have all your contact info at work? What happens if you lose your job? If you use a contact manager system that is online, your company can’t take it from you. It is also free from the hazards of hard drive failure, theft, natural disaster, etc. The book You, Inc. is a great source for getting your mind wrapped around the idea that you can promote yourself above your current job or company. It’s not just a good idea, it’s critical in this economy. Example: http://steveorris.com I’m not promoting Yahoo, Wordpress, or Blogspot; I’m promoting myself because I have something to bring to the table no matter what company I represent at the time. (Not that I’m thinking of changing companies.) Pick up a copy of this book. If you don’t have a business of your own it can apply to you too.
Boston tea party. Taxes. Is it time for another American Revolution like in 1773? The continued bailout of badly run corporations in America is going to have a huge impact on the taxes we pay later. What are the biggest expenses in this life? Taxes and interest on debt. How can we stop the madness? I’m not sure how to stop the taxes completely. But how can we pay less in interest? Did you think your house was your biggest expense? It should be, but it isn’t. The truth is most people pay more in taxes in their lifetime than they do for their house. Most people pay more in interest than they pay for their house. You would have better cash flow and more discretionary income by paying less in taxes. A great way to do that is through legitimate home based businesses. To pay less in interest, saving potentially tens of thousands of dollars on your mortgage, you need the Money Merge AccountTM program. This proven system has already taken ordinary people with years’ worth of debt and gotten them out of debt ahead of schedule. In many cases there was no change to their budget or standard of living. They tried to do it on their own but there is no way to match the performance or convenience of the Money Merge Account system. Give yourself a financial bailout, one that puts you in control of your financial future. An American Revolution has begun in taking back control of our financial future. Don’t get left behind.
Today is Good Friday. A very good day for me. About 2000 years ago my worst debts were forgiven. There are other forms of forgiveness of debt as well. In this video Tim Clue gives us a different and humorous look at debt forgiveness. This is also what America needs (in a weird sort of way).
Step 1. Don’t take debt so seriously.
Step 2. Take debt seriously.
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Step 1:
Step 2. Use the Money Merge Account™ system to get out of debt.
I’m just starting to see the real value of the Bizpack™ suite of business tools. The Bizpack marketing system can help any small or home based business. Learn how to use your advertising dollars better. The Bizpack Udeduct program can help me to track deductable expenses. Keeping track, or rather, not keeping track of expenses has cost me a lot of unnecessary expense. Now I have a tool that will help me get organized. 
The other tools in the Bizpack suite will help as well with my main business. If you have any of the legitimate home based businesses that are available today you need to take a look at the Bizpack suite of business tools.
My brother has flown with these people before and he laughed for days afterward. After a rough landing the announcer said, “The city we just attacked is called Chicago.”
I’m not much for rap but this you absolutely must hear.
Special thanks to Brian Nates from United First Financial for bringing this video to my attention.
Have you noticed that over time the meaning of words change?
It’s not just the everyday language of teenagers that changes but the advertising words loose their meaning after a while. Some words are over used. Others are misused or even abused. Words have meaning, sometimes in the context, sometimes in and of themselves.
Here are some words I can think of that don’t mean what they did even a few years ago. Please comment at the end with any additions to this list you can think of.
In no particular order. . .
heavy duty
healthy
green
non-stick
limited time offer
everyday low price
national debt
republican
American Dream
hope
freedom
cell phone
discrimination
tolerance
diversity
equality
What do you do with a coconut? If you ask my wife she would tell you to throw it out. But that would make a very short post. Instead, I have a couple of coconut recipes for you.
These are not time tested, professionally reviewed coconut recipes. I just made them up. But I’m entitled to my opinion and so are you so take some notes. First a bit of background. I always liked shredded coconut on the various things my mom used to put it on, which wasn’t often. Occasionally, between those coconut recipes she made, I would find the bag of shredded coconut and help myself to a handful of it. I grew up liking it. My wife Lisa did not. I got away with it last week because it was a homeschooling lesson. The kids got to see me break open a coconut with a hammer. Then I offered them a piece to eat and they ran away. Sometimes the kids are like me and sometimes they are like Lisa.
Anyway I looked up some health benefits of coconuts on google and Lisa said I could eat it. (How nice of her.) The coconut was ok but I was thinking coconut milk might be nice. The coconut didn’t come with much milk so I bought a can of it. To my surprise it was a bit chunky and the flavor was a bit strong. Now what do I do?
I don’t want to drink it straight (any more) so I came up some coconut recipes that are edible. I love hot chocolate. I usually make it a bit too hot and add some milk to make it creamier and bring it down to the right temperature. I just added some cold coconut milk instead for a great flavored treat. I also added a little coconut milk to a basic vanilla shake. I added some coconut milk and a banana. Yummy.
I hope you like my coconut recipes. I suppose you can use coconut milk in cooking too but I haven’t ventured out that direction since I’m the only one in my family that would eat it.
I like the wordpress theme on my blog. It lets me have several pictures at the top and at the right that go through a random rotation. If you haven’t noticed this yet, simply refresh this page. One or both of the pictures will change. (Or click on “Home”, “Steve’s Random Thoughts”, or any other link - like the archives.) I will keep adding more pictures as I have time. It keeps things slightly more interesting than having the same picture every time you come back. Which, of course, I hope you do. Keep coming back. My brain occasionally comes up with something worth reading and I don’t want you to miss it.
