5 Ways Extension Transforms My World

January 25, 2012 in Family Life with 0 Comments

“Share your stories,” I was told last week at my first PCaret meeting in Indianapolis. PCaret, or the Purdue Council for Research, Extension, and Teaching. PCaret brings together people who have been impacted by and see the benefits of Extension programming. Here’s my story.

Getting my kids to join 4-H 8 years ago was the best decision I made as a mother.  I never knew it would change our lives.

Computer Hardware Workshop With Webcam

    1. 4-H Prepared My Kids for a Changing World. As my kids begin their college search, their 4-H experiences have prepared them to handle challenges. It’s not just the skills they learned showing chickens, baking pies, or building rockets. It’s their experiences as 4-H camp counselors or leadership training. It’s competing in state contests, managing food booths, volunteering at the State Fair, and more. It’s leadership training in Washington, D.C. and white water rafting in Georgia. Later this spring, my daughter will serve as 1 of 2 Indiana delegates at the National 4-H Conference. 4-H pranks have inspired their creativity. My daughter my son’s Christmas present with duct tape last year (after seeing a 4-H prank). Last weekend at a Product Innovation team scholarship contest, she covered a container with yellow duct tape the same way. Her graphic skills she learned doing project posters helped her, as did experiences working on projects late the night before the fair. She could handle the stress of  getting a challenge at 8 p.m. and working with her team until 3 a.m. to present to faculty members of a university’s School of Business at 9 a.m. the next morning. (They won 1st place.)
    2. 4-H Broadens Knowledge Bases. 4-H is working to build 1 million new scientists with its programming. Locally, I started a Tech Club 6 years ago that offers monthly science workshops. Last year, through corporate donations, we sponsored our first all-club rocket built and launch. With an all-new Junk Box Robotics curriculum designed by national 4-H, we have a template for affordable hands-on workshops that will teach physics, robotics, engineering, and more to our members through workshops for several years.
    3. Extension Homemakers Still Thrives. Last year, I became a Ya-Ya, a local extension club. Our meetings are  my Moms Night Out, when I can learn new things and am encouraged by other busy wives and moms. The younger moms there keep me current on changing trends and technology.  We teach and encourage each other through meeting programs. We share ideas for our homes and families via Pinterest.

    4. 2008 Small Garden Contest Entry

      Master Gardeners Builds Skills. When my daughter went through the Master Gardener program last term, she learned how Japanese beetle traps were made. During last week’s Product Innovation contest, she applied that to her team’s Leprechaun Trap, using a pretty female leprechaun as bait to capture greedy leprechauns. She sold her team members with the point structure (learned from 4-H projects) – half of the points were for creativity and innovation. Like all the other Master Gardeners in our county, she will volunteer 40 hours this year to share knowledge and work in community gardens.

Extension Becomes Extended Family.

    We live in a world where many of us no longer have the support of extended families. Many youth don’t have strong role models. Many of our county’s 4-H leaders are 2nd and 3rd generation volunteers. Some have volunteered more than 40 years. That stability transforms lives.

Thanks to the Millers who helped lead Energetics for 37 years.

Extension’s programs have extended not only our family’s experiences but also our opportunities.

As Extension has transformed my family’s world, it’s inspired us to create a better world for others.


Healthful Eating = More with Less

January 23, 2012 in Family Life with 2 Comments

The cookbook More with Less by the Mennonite Doris Jansen Longacre can give steps for families to climb out of the obesity and nutrition crisis. It gives not only recipe ideas but a mindset on how to incorporate healthier choices into a family menu and how to cook the foods involved. The premise is that we can learn to eat better and consume less of the world’s limited food resources.

Grocery shopping is sometimes an obstacle course for me because I see families with children who pile their carts full of junk with minimal if any nutritious choices in the basket. Some say that fresh fruits or vegetables are too expensive.  They are more affordable if the chips, desserts, sodas, and fruit juices are left out of the cart. That  cuts across social-economic classes. On my last trip, I held my tongue when a girl told her affluent mother, “I will only eat chicken nuggets, hamburger helper, and cookies,” and the mother nodded yes. The mother gave her daughter permission to eat a diet that would result in a lifetime of health issues.

Longacre pulls no punches as she describes our overdependence on processed foods. Just because we use vegetables in a casserole doesn’t make it healthful if we pile empty calories with it. She writes:

Casserole recipes must be evaluated for what they involve. For example, some people reject old-fashioned gravy because it’s too caloric but use commercial source cream. Herb-seasoned stuffing mix is the latest fashionable casserole-topper, while in many homes stale heels mold in a corner of the breadbox…Contemporary casserole recipes all seem to call for a can of soup. Will future cooks be born, live, and die without knowing how to stir up a smooth white sauce? Will there finally be only three flavors identified at a carry-in dinner – cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, and cream of celery? Buy a wire whisk and break the mushroom soup cycle. Save money and cans by returning to the basic 5-minute white sauce. Variations are as infinite as the herbs and seasonings on your cupboard shelf and the cheeses, broths, and vegetables in your refrigerator.

It is key for parents to help their kids develop a taste for nutritious choices. It takes at least 17 times for a food to be introduced before kids decide whether or not they like it. An unexpected consequence of my trying to fix foods for my kids without the mushroom soups/mayonnaise products is that they prefer the real taste of foods instead of the processed masking. Whenever we donate food to a food drive, my son’s first choice are cream soup cans because he doesn’t like how they taste.

I have cooked for my family since I was 9 years old. Longacre’s cookbook is one of the resources that helped me learn to really cook instead of lean on rice mixes, burger helpers, and canned sauces.

What I like is that she describes simple, nutritious recipes, and explains how to combine proteins and carbs.  The cookbook shows how to incorporate whole grains, beans, and fresh vegetables into a family meal plan. The cookbook introduces international recipes and varied ways to fix vegetables.

We can all improve our nutrition choices – start with our own dinner table. Then expand to our communities. If you are in a church or other civic group that sometimes offer meals, be the one who prepares the healthful menu choice. If you serve or sell foods for fundraiser find ways to add healthier choices – serve some bananas. Go to whole grains. Add vegetables. Add it as an option with the others and help us all see that nutritious food options can taste good.

Relying on a casserole loaded with soups, creams, mayonnaise, cheese, and potato chips plus a token vegetable isn’t going to keep that boneless skinless chicken breast a low fat menu option. Serving it with low fat varieties of all of the above is simply going to add to the cost and add other health issues. The low fat food often has more sugar or sodium to replace the fat flavor. Serving those options long term masks the taste of real food instead of teaching us to savor it. It’s time we set higher standards for ourselves.

If you would like to learn how to make the most nutritious meals possible on limited resources, I highly recommend More with Less.  (an affiliate link)


6 Ways to Succeed at Pinterest With a Little Bit of Trying

January 20, 2012 in Social Media with 0 Comments

Pinterest can be a great tool to gather new ideas from your friends and inspire one another.  If you are new to Pinterest, here are steps to follow to make it work for you.

  1. Content first, numbers second. When people start on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter, they may at first worry about how many are following them and who they are following. Don’t. Follow great people who share great stuff and then you share it.  The more good stuff you share, the more others interested in your areas will find you and follow you.
  2. Make your boards. Then pin cool things on them. Create boards with clearly specific titles on them of things that interest you. Then fill them.
  3. Put great photos on your web pages and blogs. This is the number one most important note for web designers and bloggers. The picture on the page is the new king – make it big enough and interesting enough to grab attention on Pinterest when you share anything from a home tip to a recipe. (Note to photographers and digital artists – Pinterest is a prime time business opportunity.)
  4. A hard sell will fail. People go to Pinterest to glean ideas. If you post a hard sell that teaches me nothing, I will not not follow and will not share it.
  5. Check your snarkiness at the door. The people I see on Pinterest are interested in constructive pins that build communities and help others. I’ve seen a few try to lower the Pinterest tone with mean boards that make fun of things; this is the wrong platform for that. Tweet your snarky frustrations instead of pinning them.
  6. Don’t just sit there – pin something. The best way to learn to use Pinterest is to jump in and start pinning.  If you start a Pinterest and create no boards and post nothing, it looks like the person who starts Twitter and never tweets.

The first hour I was on Pinterest, I had the same gut instinct I felt 17 years ago, when I was working in a maternity/baby store, and we unpacked our first shipment of Beanie Babies to put on the shelves. I immediately told my husband those ducks and everythiing else would be the biggest thing since pet rocks. Now, I wish I had bought very one of those first shipments that day.

What strikes me about Pinterest is that women I know who have Facebook accounts but rarely if ever share anything are pinning their hopes and dreams on boards on Pinterest and inspiring their friends to do the same.  A pin at a time, they are socially sharing their dreams and ideas.


Stopping Jerry Springer Syndrome in Social Media

January 13, 2012 in Social Media with 4 Comments

Social media that inspires people and builds communities must be on guard not to fall into a Gotcha Social Media trap.

Social media can be a fantastic venue by which we can shed light on customer service problems quickly. However, it also runs the risk of thoughtless, tweet on the impulse rants that can go viral and don’t give people a first chance to fix mistakes without public humiliation or virtual lynching.

Two weeks ago, when I was angry about a horrid dressing room experience, I wrote a livid blog that roasted the company involved. Leveler heads than my own, especially that of my husband, told me to NOT post the company’s name but give them a chance to fix the problem. So I wrote my blog without mentioning the company, went through corporate channels, and watched to see what would happen. And I chomped at the bit, wanting to do more.

Through my blog, awareness of dressing room safety was raised. The company involved sent national representatives into the store with the problem and fixed them. If the solution works, they will broaden what they have tried here and expand it nationally.

Bottom line? A problem was addressed and fixed without my publicly crucifying the company and turning loose a virtual lynch mob where every socially conscious social media expert jumps on the bandwagon, retweets and shares the incident so we can “make” the company fix it.

So now corporate America knows the effects of gotcha social media. We who are on social media must guard ourselves and our keyboards so we don’t devolve into a Jerry Springer studio audience lynch mob where we yell “fight! fight! fight!” whenever there is an injustice in this world. Sometimes, it’s ok to keep our social powder dry until we determine whether or not we really need to use it.

As the mother of teenagers, I have another worry about gotcha social media. In the past week, we’ve seen what happened when a teen-aged cashier put something racist, offensive, and inappropriate on a restaurant receipt. It went viral, went global, the teen got fired, and the restaurant went into major damage control.

As the mom of 2 teenagers and the friend of others, I worry about what happens to a teen who makes a stupid mistake and does the wrong thing. I’m an adult and I still do wrong, stupid things sometimes. Instead of crucifying the kid who does something wrong, would it sometimes not be more constructive to make it a teachable moment and give a second chance?

It’s easy as someone who can instantly communicate with thousands of people with a single tweet, Facebook status, blog, or pin on a corkboard to air what is wrong with our world.  In the process we might just wreck a life and dismiss it as collateral damage, done as a testament to our new power with social media.

But I wonder – should we find a way to think twice and try to work within the system and work to preserve the dignity of those involved, including those who wronged us, before we rant in front of the whole planet?

Would it hurt us to work a little harder to err on the side of mercy? Isn’t that what the song “Give Peace a Chance” was supposed to mean?


Global is the New Local

January 11, 2012 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

As technology advances, the size of our planet shrinks. It takes less time to conduct business with partners on the other side of the planet.

We can talk in real time, share projects, and more. Smart businesses will analyze their product mixes and determine if there is a way they can broaden their reach to other geographic areas. Social media, blogging, and web design that are fully integrated can make that happen.

This morning, I’m giving a talk, Global is the New Local to an area business group. Local entrepreneurs and businesses in my area are making wise use of social media to grow their business bases and develop strategic relationships. Because of their savvy efforts, they have a crisis management team in place in the unfortunate event it might one day be needed.

Global is the New Local

 

 


How to Rebuild Your House?

January 9, 2012 in Inspiration with 0 Comments

If you grow up with less than perfect beginnings, and you want to make a better life for yourself, how do you get started? In my book He Uses It For Good, I described how God used various bad beginnings in my life for good purpose later. Changing my mindset and the direction of my life, so my kids have a strong foundation, has required hard work, lots of faith, and the support of good friends.

It’s a total life makeover, a rebuilding of your interior house. You clear out the old and build anew.

It’s hard to create healthy when you don’t know what healthy looks or feels like. I remember not realizing that healthy people make mistakes, have bad days, get into disagreements, and later work them out – and that that is normal. A blow up today does not mean I’ve put on the dark magic transporter ring that shoves my family into the Bizarro world of my own childhood. Sometimes a bad day is just a bad day, and tomorrow will be better. It’s taken me years to recognize that not only in my head but in my heart.

I realized after writing my book that I needed a follow up on what to do for someone with a similar background to mine who wants to create a better life. Here’s my next book I plan to write this year:

Rebuild Your House: How to Create a Great Life After Bad Beginnings

It will include strategies to create second chances and new beginnings.

And here’s where you can help. I have friends and know other people who have flipped their life script for a new beginning. If you’ve done so and would like to share your strategies for the book, let me know. I would love to include different perspectives and ideas.

And finally, I would ask for prayers. Mother Theresa often said she was God’s pencil, and I identify with that.  My hope and prayer is my next book will be divinely inspired and will help me help others, to offer hope for the future.


God Will Take Care of It

January 8, 2012 in Family Life with 1 Comment

“God will take care of it,” a friend consoled me after I burst into tears when I saw her while shopping just after Christmas.

It was the evening I wrote about with my bad dressing room experience. I had certain shopping that had to be finished before New Year’s Eve, and that evening was my only time to finish it. So, despite the the bad experience in one store, my 911 call in another parking lot, and our making decisions on what to do about the dressing room incident, I had to keep going.

To avoid any other problems, I drove to the opposite side of town and went shopping, hoping not to again see the peeping Tom. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and struggled to keep my composure. I prayed for God to help me, texting a few trusted friends and asking saints and angels to pray to God on my behalf.

Once I was in the store, I saw a friend – we don’t know each other very well but have kids the same ages and have been in several activities together. “How was your Christmas?” she asked.

As soon as she did, I was overwhelmed with the night’s drama and trauma and burst into tears, sobbing on her shoulder. Then I worried – our Christmas had been wonderful, the best in years. I didn’t want her to think terrible things had happened. So as soon as I calmed down enough to choke out some words, I told her Christmas was good, but some bad things had happened that evening.

I was quiet, and few if anyone else in the store knew anything had happened or that I was upset.

She let me cry on her shoulder for a moment and told me, “Whatever it is, God will take care of it. He will handle it.” Sometimes moms are moms to their children and sometimes for their friends.

I straightened up, regained my composure, thanked her, and was able to finish my errands. Afterwards, I felt convicted to stand for what was right and tell what happened to try to prevent it from happening again. A few days later, I wrote the blog to share what had happened. Friday, I wrote how the situation resolved itself.

When I wrote how the situation resolved, I realized I left out that at each step the hand of God was there and how He helped. At the moment I needed help the most, when I felt the most powerless and alone, He sent someone to deliver a message and comfort me.

God will take care of it. He will handle it.

We have a place we can go to seek comfort and aid when we need it the most.

 


Pinterest = Next Generation Social Sharing

January 8, 2012 in Social Media with 1 Comment

As Mark Zuckerberg changed the rules and interface of his Facebook playground, he opened the door to the next generation of social sharing – beyond faces to things and ideas showcased on new platforms like Flipboard and Pinterest.

Why and What has happened to shift the direction of social media?

There’s a limited amount of time we can spend talking about ourselves and other people before we want more. We want to talk about things we enjoy and ideas we like.  The newer platforms fill this new interest.

Pinterest has created a virtual niche that people – women in particular – can embrace. I like trying new things for dinner or organizing something better. Now, instead of swapping a recipe at the office or over the back yard fence, I can see a pin on my friend’s board – or someone else’s – and if it fits me, I can repin it and share it with my own friends.

I’ve had an address book for almost 30 years and have relied on it. Now, the role of that address book has been supplanted by my phone contacts, Facebook, and LinkedIn worlds. I especially love how Facebook can link with my phone contacts so if I click on your picture, I can call, text, email, or Facebook you instantly.

However. No 2 women ever stood over a backyard fence comparing one another’s address books. The constant changing of the Facebook’s interface accelerated the interest in a different media.  Pinterest is user friendly and offers a quick start, letting me immediately watch the boards of my Facebook friends or Tweeps.

Instead of a linear list of statuses, I see cool pictures of the things that interest me the most. In my case, that involves recipes, some home decor, and home organization plus fitness info and inspiration. If you love photography or travel, you can create your own clipboard of what you love. So instead of telling what I love, I show what I love and learn more about it at the same time.

I’ll still keep my address book, Facebook, LinkedIn et al. Pinterest can’t replace those tools.  It wasn’t meant to. Instead, it takes social sharing to a new level, the new trend.

This is the beginning of the shift of social media to more sharing. If you want to do social media well in the next generation, you’ll need to bump it up a notch – a little less name dropping and personal branding and a little more sharing of content of value with a great picture attached.

I just read several leading gurus who all talked of how Google Plus will become the flavor to taste for 2012. I disagree. It’s a reworked retread of what we already have, wrapped in multicolor analytics with a Google search time bomb for a ribbon.

The real new trend will instead be social sharing that teaches and delights – by way of things and ideas more than people.


Dressing Room Privacy Renewed

January 6, 2012 in Inspiration with 0 Comments

Good things can come from bad experiences. After a terrible shopping experience last week, I wrote a blog, Dressing Room Dangers. The following has happened since that blog was written:

  1. That blog shattered my analytic records in the number of hits in a single day and on a single blog. It was shared widely.
  2. Stefanie Martinez aired a segment on Local 7 News Lifestyles, where the Evansville Police Department’s Chief Public Information Officer, Jason Collmon discussed safety tips women can follow when changing clothes in dressing rooms. Local public awareness of dressing room dangers was raised.
  3. The department store in question investigated the incident. A regional vice president from their corporate office visited the local franchise, reviewed my blog with them, and found ways to better ensure the privacy of women in their women-only dressing rooms. If those ways work in our local store, they will recommend the changes be made in other franchises as well. Further, they have made design recommendations that new franchises have taller dressing room doors.
  4. My husband got a chance to tell me “I told you so” but chose not to. He discouraged me from naming the store in the first blog because he said they needed a chance to rectify the situation.

A generation ago, when I was younger, this many constructive changes would not have happened in a week.

Social media and blogging, when done well, can shed light on problems that once would have been swept under the rug. It can be used for good.  Stand up for what’s right.

And for my daughter and young professional women, who are living in a new century:

  • Take classes in self defense and find other ways to equip yourself to handle unpleasant situations.
  • If someone tries to steal your dignity or take advantage of you, get help.
  • Know that there are good people who will stand with you. You are not alone.

 


Dressing Room Dangers – a Warning for Women

January 3, 2012 in Business with 14 Comments

This is for all women: be on your guard the next time you try on clothes in a store’s dressing room. You need to be prepared to protect your privacy. Last week, I had a terrible shopping experience; not only did the store fail to have procedures in place to protect women from predators but the first step of the legal system failed as well.

Last week, I was shopping with a friend when she went into a dressing room to try on clothes. As soon as she went into her dressing room, a couple walked out of the dressing room beside her: a female and her boyfriend, who was about 6 foot 6 inches tall. He was so tall that he could see over all the women’s dressing room doors and was looking for a show. Because he was so big, I immediately went to find help and told the first cashier I found.

“There’s a tall peeping Tom going through the women’s dressing room.”

The cashier and I returned and could not find him. Then he walked out of the dressing room with his girlfriend again, again getting a peep show as he left (my friend could see him walk by). I called to the cashier and pointed him out. She approached him and walked away with him.

I then stood guard at the dressing rooms, waiting for my friend to exit.  She found clothes to buy. As she checked out, I asked the cashier (different from the first one) to call the store manager. I wanted to know what had happened to the peeping pervert. The manager knew nothing of it. My new cashier, as I described the peeper, commented he had just left the store with his friend. I got angry and asked about the store’s procedures to protect women’s privacy, and I asked about security tapes. The cashier I originally approached came up and said she had just told the guy he couldn’t be in the dressing rooms.  The store cashier deliberately let the peeping Tom get away.

The store’s manager was patronizing. I gave my phone number and asked for a follow up report. A week later, I have heard nothing. I emailed the national website and have heard nothing. I called their complaint number (buried on the website and they nearly didn’t want to talk to me) and have heard nothing. When I wrote on the national chain’s Facebook wall, they responded in 2 hours and apologized.

The story gets worse. We then went to shop at another nearby store and saw the peeping pervert with his girlfriend going in. I took down his car and plates, and we called 911. I spoke with a police officer. He pulled the guy’s record and said he had no priors. We were given a choice of having him arrested so he might be charged with a misdemeanor. The police officer said if we did not he would talk to the guy when he left the store.  We opted for the talking to and assumed the police report would be a beginning record of incidents if this guy repeated them later. We erred on the side of mercy.

When I called police records the next day, I learned that the officer did not file a police report. All there is is a run report. Our legal options are limited.

Then I learned that other dress stores in our area have an increased problem with couples going into dressing rooms to play show and tell. Had I known then what I do now, we would have gone for the arrest.

A generation ago, sexual harassment was typical in the workplace and beyond. I thought that my daughter would not face the same gropes and disrespect that were typical when I was her age. I was wrong. 

Lesson learned – if stores can’t or won’t protect women in dressing rooms, and law enforcement fails to take this seriously, it’s up to us to take care of ourselves. Suggestions:

  1. Share this blog with your family and friends so they are aware of the problem.
  2. Go in pairs to women’s dressing rooms. One should watch guard while the other tries on clothes. Scope out a dressing room and make sure no one is in it.
  3. The one watching guard should have a cell phone with a camera or video cam ready to snap photos. Then you have evidence.
  4. Before going into a dressing room, see where the nearest clerks are should you need assistance.
  5. Have a phone ready to call 911 from the dressing room to ask for help. If an incident like what we saw happens, insist the perpetrator be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the current laws.
  6. If an incident happens, contact your local news media and tell them what happened. Show your photos and videos to them.

Long term ways to take care of ourselves:

  1. Insist stores have dressing room doors that are taller.
  2. Spend more money in stores with a dressing room attendant.
  3. Ask lawmakers if they have laws to protect the privacy of women in dressing rooms. If your state doesn’t, ask that laws be written.
  4. Hold law enforcement accountable to defend the rights of women and their privacy.

Bottom line for stores that sell women’s clothes: 

  • If you want us to spend money to buy your clothes, take care of us.
  • Protect our privacy in dressing rooms.
  • If you fail to do so, we’ll spend our money elsewhere. Why bother shopping in your store when I can go elsewhere, buy online, or enjoy a home fashion party of CAbi or Vault jeans with my friends?
  • And  then we’ll tell a few thousand of our closest friends – in blogs, on Facebook, Google Plus, Youtube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Clothes stores that fail to honor the privacy rights of women in their dressing rooms seal the coffin of their own demise.


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