New Beginnings

2008 has been some year. I spent the first few months of it trying to recover from the sudden, overwhelming loss of both my grandmother and my 10-year old dog Sheba. Later came the suggestion from my kids' pediatrician that I should have my son evaluated for a couple of potential developmental issues. So I spent the first half of the year extremely distracted. I wasn't able to function at work the way I had envisioned early fall of last year. I was on a roll back in Sept 2007, and figured I'd be at a certain point by Sept 2008 that would seriously catapult my career-path. However, I spent most of my time dealing with the heartbreaking agony of death and focused on ensuring the mental health and development of my children to the best of my ability. I have been emotionally exhausted overall. But the Lord has carried me through all of this, no doubt about that. I wouldn't even be able to type this, let alone function normally these days otherwise.



Tomorrow, I will be working from home, and Tuesday begins my son's first day of Pre-K in a new Christian school in our area. I will be praying for his continued health, safety, growth, development, and protection everyday of his life. His classroom will be on the same hall as 2nd and 3rd graders. He will be taking his lunch to school and eating in the cafeteria. He will be going to the library for quiet reading time! My little 4-year old baby boy!! My daughter just started a new school last Wednesday; I will continue praying the same blessings over her life. Both kids' schools are within minutes of our home, and will thus cut our daily commute time by an entire hour and a half!! I'm getting an hour and a half of my day back to spend with my family instead of sitting on the roads of Atlanta cursing out stupid non-driving morons and asking my kids to stop whining on our LONG drive home everyday! Thank God.

I feel like with these new opportunities comes the opportunity for growth in different areas of my life (family, job, church, friends). I will continue to pray over this and do the best I can to stay focused on the heart of God and live as a true example of His grace and love as much as possible. One thing we know for sure...tomorrow on Earth isn't promised to any of us, and I'm going to start living like it!!

Privacy is becoming a thing of the past...

This tech-savvy world that we live in is pretty cool. I'll be the first to admit this. One of the more interesting things to me about this age we're living in is how readily available information is. I'm not even referring to everyday things such as searching for "World War II" or browsing youtube.com for your favorite video. I'm talking about the fact that with the click of a button, you can pretty much find out ANYTHING you want about someone.

Let's go even further. We have Facebook.com, which is by far the BEST online social networking site of all times. Even CNN utilizes it while reporting news stories! At its inception, Facebook seemed completely unique and much "safer" than Myspace. Privacy options within Facebook are more detailed; in fact, the default privacy settings are always pretty high, which means you have to intentionally make yourself available to be found.

If you're heavy into Facebook, then you know that it has become almost a brand new animal over the past 24 months. External applications can be built by developers and hooked into the Facebook API and used by any "Facebookers" that want to install them. One such application is the "Compare People" application developed by Ivko Maksimovic.

Compare People allows you to rate your friends. Upon running the application, you will be asked 20 questions. EX: "Who is smarter?", "Who would you rather sleep with?", "Who is more punctual?" With each question, two of your friends Facebook profile pictures are randomly selected and displayed on the screen. You click on the picture of the friend that you would like to select as an answer to the question. So if, say, my boss has Facebook and has added me to his friend list, he can run the Compare People application and get a question that says "Who is prettier?". My profile picture could be one of his choices. If he selects me as "prettiest", my "social rankings" will change within the Compare People application. I happen to have the app installed; here is a list of my current social rankings:




Seems pretty slick (from a programmer's point of view) and pretty harmless (if you've already graduated from high school/college or are over the age of 25, at least). The good news is that even though you can check your social rankings, you can never actually find out who voted for or against you for any given category. Even though the anonymity is comforting, there is a caveat. Also available within the social rankings list are specific details of who you won and lost against! You may be thinking NO BIGGIE since you still don't know WHO voted for or against you. Not so fast. Take a look at specific details of who I won and lost against in the category "Who is Prettier?":



Notice, the person I lost against is anonymous. This probably means 1 of 2 things: either they don't have the Compare App installed, or they installed it and later changed their privacy settings so that they will not be shown in the Compare App or listed in the Social Rankings. That's fine, but here's why it still kind of sucks. Look at the image directly above again. The two individuals that I won against happen to be my co-workers. Both of their profile names and pictures are displayed (I removed their names and whited-out their faces) which means they have the Compare App installed. I only have a small amount of co-workers listed as Facebook friends, and an even smaller number who installed the Compare People app! Like 6 or 7 tops. So it's not difficult to narrow down who probably voted. Doesn't seem so cool anymore does it?

I'm not trying to make something out of nothing. Just wanted to point out that we still have to be socially responsible and sometimes pick things apart a little bit deeper on our own to discover what we're making available. Happy Facebooking! :-)

Spousal Advice of the Day

My husband gives the best advice. The times that I have heeded it, I have been saved lots of heartache and potential disaster. The Lord has blessed him with a lot of foresight and wisdom that most people just don't have. As an example, I think of all of the times years back that he told me not to worry over certain stressful situations at work with certain people based on what he knew would be the resulting outcome. He was right EVERY SINGLE TIME. I can now sit back and smile when I think of the people that I could wasted my time stressing over who are now having to face the consequences of their actions. I am not smiling due to happiness that they are suffering; it's purely a satisfaction that the Lord is true to His word and will not be mocked. Ever.

This afternoon, the hubby and I discussed my goals for our family and my career. He noted that I have a propensity toward living my life on a roller coaster...only highs and lows. I don't live my life with a normal, natural progression of learning and growing as I should. For example, I decided last week that by the end of August, I want to complete two technical books that I own (high). So I was planning to read two technical books, take care of my two toddlers, keep my house in order, work 40 hours per week, and spend time with my family and friends from time to time. My husband pointed out that this would leave me NO time for sleeping, eating or exercising. LOL! But if he hadn't pointed this out to me, I would have attempted this feat doomed for failure, and by mid-September, I'd be convincing myself of why I suck and will never, ever be successful (low). This is the story of my life; it's so cyclical. At the end of each cycle, I'm that much more convinced that I will never successfully reach my goals.

So my soul-mate gave me sage wisdom that I want to share: less is more. We can all stand to improve. Choose one thing to improve upon, and focus on that one thing. The key is to get better, and that only happens gradually. Okay, sure, if pack your brain with a lot of information at once you may pick up enough knowledge to impress others temporarily. But long-term, how productive will you really be with bits of knowledge that you rushed through? Exactly.

Hopefully this advice will actually stick, and won't roll off and out of existence as soon as I get to my desk tomorrow morning. Because heeding this advice could really be what I've needed for a very long time.

Weekend Roundup

The Good:

Work - This was an exceptionally productive week. I got about 10 different tasks completed this week that were each slated to take close to a week each to finish! Actually, I put in a lot of time in the evenings this week since I couldn't sleep due to Cassie's cold. Turner got their money's worth and then some out of me this week! :-)

Home - Cassie is feeling MUCH better now. This morning, I noticed that a molar is cutting through, so I wonder if that was a major contributing factor to her horrible cold. Praise God for two healthy kids! Also, Chris finally completed his oral argument this morning in front of a few judges. He called me to tell me that they were very impressed with him!! YAY!!

Church - Tomorrow might be the first day that I get to teach Sunday School in over a month!! You would really have to be in my shoes to understand the sadness that takes over me when so much time goes by without me seeing my kids. They are so honest, and full of innocence (regardless of their individual situations, they are still pure at heart at this point in their lives). I also miss my adult friends that I have very strong bonds with. My life has had a huge void for quite some time, and I will pray that this much time never passes without me seeing my extended family.

The World - I was very encouraged by the way political pundits on all sides have come together to lift up prayers and send well-wishes to Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, who just found out that her cancer has returned in an incurable form, according to doctors. I am NO fan of John Edwards as a politician, but I was very proud of the way he and his wife stood together with such strength when making the announcement to the world. I wish God's blessings over the both of them as well as their family.

The Bad:

Work - Since I got so much accomplished, I've finally been pulled into the most high profile task going on at CNN.com in several years. This is great news to me, but I'm absolutely terrified due to the strain it has taken on several of my co-workers who are the best we've got at CNN. Do you believe that a few of them have actually quit due to the stress this task has caused? And they don't even have children!! YIKES!

Home - The house is a complete disaster. A wreck. The kids are napping, so once I post this, I will try to begin cleaning up this place.

Church - I feel very out-of-the-loop since I've been away for so long. I haven't been to any of the kids' plays, and I won't be able to attend ANY retreats this year since I've already used half my vacation time in the first quarter of the year! This makes me really sad. :-(

The World - Cathy Seipp passed away this week. She was a well-known freelance writer of the weekly column "From the Left Coast" for National Review Online. She succumbed to lung cancer on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. R.I.P. Cathy. My prayers go out to her family and friends. (Note: I'll post more about Cathy Seipp a little later. She and I definitely have something in common in our personal lives).


Wow, I hate to end on a bad note like that. Um, let's see...it's 82 degrees outside and I'm wearing summer clothes WOO HOO!!!