Tag: wordpress

5 Spring Cleaning Tips

simpsons_couchYes. The flowers are budding. The birds are singing. And everything is in its state of renewal and freshness. As the children prepare for spring break there is something we adults have always looked forward to ourselves. That’s right: Spring Cleaning. It may sound simple enough, but there are lots of people with hectic schedules and little time to dedicate to the home front. But male or female, it is important to keep a clean house, especially in heat. Here are some tips to help get you motivated and to ensure that domestic duty never finds itself being neglected. They are also tips from my personal stash, meaning these are tips I actually use:

Tip #1: Paper Craze

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One of my biggest faults is having too much paper and stuff laying around. You know what I’m talking about: Those papers that are too important to throw away but not quite important enough to keep? Yea, those. I always find myself holding on to what looks needed but in reality is just occupying unnecessary space. If you don’t nip the paper craze in the bud though, it can create unnecessary mess. To solve this problem, our first tip is organization. First, set-aside a paper bin. You can even name it “Paper Bin” to add some fun to the mix (it also helps to date it so you know just how long you’ve had it). Every time you find paper you can put it in the Paper Bins. Next, clean the Paper Bin! Every so often your job is to sort through the bin for papers you know you don’t need. Be honest with yourself. Don’t try to hold on to old stuff you really don’t need. Make this a weekly chore. Once every week throw something away. This helps when you need to add more papers to the Paper Bin. The last step is very important because if you don’t start throwing stuff away the paper bin will get crowded and you’ll find yourself in the same position. Consider it taking out the trash or doing laundry. If you don’t cleanse, things can pile up around here!

Tip #2: Laundry Day

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This point is mostly for those of you with multiple little ones. If you have lots of children or just more than one (especially if they are small), laundry can be a scare. However, there is hope: Laundry Day. Set aside a day specifically for washing clothes outside of your normal household duties. By doing this, it lessens the load of everything else you already have to do. Why not give yourself room to really focus on cleaning by not worrying about the laundry too? Setting aside a separate day for washing clothes organizes your cleaning in a way that fits your schedule. I do it myself and getting laundry out of the way makes my Special Cleaning Day a breeze.

Tip #3: Special Cleaning Day

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This is especially great for those of us who work a lot throughout the week. Set aside a special cleaning day; a day that will be dedicated to scrubbing, washing, and wiping. On this day, you want to clean the house from top to bottom without sugar coating it. This is not the time to scoop things into secret places or leave lingering for too long. On special cleaning days, you clean the house spotless. Why? It will help you throughout the week!

Tip #4: Weekly Tidying

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One thing that helps me keep a clean house is to perform little jobs throughout the week. This is not the big cleaning you do on Special Cleaning Day; this is the minor stuff such as vacuuming a few rooms and keeping things out of the way. Doing something new every day helps ease the load on Special Cleaning Days and Special Cleaning Days helps to ease the load throughout the week. See how that works? It goes hand in hand.

Tip #5: Kitchen & Bathroom Taebo

1421840009_takaritasra-felThe key to maintaining a fresh look even if things aren’t really as clean as you would like them to be is all in these two places: Kitchen & Bathroom. If you manage to keep dishes out of the sink and rings from around the tub, it tends to give the house a clean feel to it. Even if your dirty clothes basket overflows and there is dust elsewhere, you can still maintain a good grip by combating these two beloved places by keeping them nice and neat. It also helps for uninvited guest. Obviously it’s not a good idea to have a nasty home, but that doesn’t mean things can’t get messy (especially if you have children). Hey, it happens. But if you understand people you know they are apt to keen in on two places: The Bathroom and The Kitchen. Someone almost always enjoys a sit at the kitchen table or need to use the bathroom. Keep these tight and there are no surprises.

And I actually have one more: Life. Don’t just stop at cleaning your home, but take this time to reflect on life. What is it about your personal life that needs a good scrub? Now is the time to do it.

Do you have a Spring Cleaning Tip? Be sure to share it with us!

400 Follows and International Support

As I approach a potential 400 subscribers (aka followers of this blog), I can only maintain the excitement that out of 400 people I am at least reaching one of you (it is my hope). I still remember when I got my first 100. It was very exciting and I told myself I would not shout from the rooftops until I reached at least 400. And as I look over the map of the locations of some of you with 3 followers short of my mini goal, I cannot help but notice something even more exciting than that: International Support.

I’ve only been blogging at this address for about 7 months. And as I continue to learn about blogging itself, about you and your interest and about how I can be of service, of friendship, and of inspiration, one of the many exciting things about Blogging is the ability to reach people across the globe. It is one of the many advantages of the internet and increase in technology. While there are many things that excite us about our writing endeavors, I especially enjoy the International views that I get from those of you across the water. I also think it is something we underestimate on a general scale. That is, the world is much bigger than the U.S.

So without further ado I would just like to take the time to thank those of you from:

Germany, Australia, France, and the UK.

Do you live outside the U.S.? Where are you from? I would love to know! Comment below!

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Why I Ignore Some of Your Ideas

“Stay true to your integrity. I can’t tell you how many times I have said no, even though it sounded like such a good platform-building opportunity. You are good enough doing exactly what you are doing.”

– Dr. Lissa Rankin, Author

In the world of Self-Publishing there are so many ideas out there. Everyone has something to say about what to do and how to do it. This supersedes Self-Publishing however, and can spill over into Blogging and Life in general. One undesirable of the internet is that you can always find someone to agree with you or to support your idea even if it is a false reality, makes no sense whatsoever, or is obviously weird. You can find any expert, and any article that will explain in sophisticated detail something that will support your point of view. The problem with this is that eventually the views of experts will cloud the view of the individual until you’re listening to everyone instead of focusing on why you began doing this in the first place. I write because I love to do it. And I believe that you put your all into those things that you love doing. You also put your all into those things to which you want to expand. Like a blog for example. Whatever personal goals you have for your blog, in order to reach them you have to put your all into it. That’s just common sense.

What I think we’re forgetting however, is to excel at being ourselves. Professional advice come a dime a dozen, but there is only one you whose going to do it the way that you would do it. In the end I believe a lot of us forget to stay true to our personal integrity and to make sure that we are not sacrificing that veracity for the sake of gain. But gain is interesting in itself. When I speak of gain I’m not talking about trying to be seen of men. By gain I mean excelling in whatever it is you wish to excel in. Whether it is a promotion at the job, a best-selling book, a new business idea, or a new blog, success consists of one key thing: those who excel at being who they are. They find something they enjoy doing and they do it well without giving too much of that self into the opinions of others. Whatever you do just do it well because it was your personality and talents that drew us in, in the first place. Be not mistaken: WordPress did not convince me to follow your blog or buy your book, and neither did your platform. The fact that you posted a thousand pictures on Instagram did not convince me to follow you, you convinced me to follow you. Marketing and Promotion is simply a leverage to help us to find you, but in the end we have to like you for who you are in order to truly support you. This is what I believe a lot of us are forgetting. That your personality, your writing, your talents, and the effort that you put into what you love will attract others who also enjoy what you love. Your light attracts the light of others.

I see it. The ease of being overwhelmed by following every Self-Published book idea and implementing everyone’s blogging idea. But the truth is that what worked for them may not work for you, and that you’re actually already doing it the way you are supposed to be doing it. I agree totally with Rankin. In that I have turned down opportunities for the sake of preserving my integrity. There are just some things I am unwilling to sacrifice because it will not be me. I love writing, but there are lots of things I love more. My truth is one of them.

The fact that someone thinks I should do something a certain way to be successful is irrelevant, especially since it depends on one’s definition of the word. My success is not yours and your success is, nine times out of ten, not mine. Thus, someone else’s concept of how it should be done does not move me. What moves me is the love I have for it. If I enjoy Twitter more than Facebook, then Twitter is the platform to which I will mostly build. And if I am lead to interact amidst the blogosphere, then Blogging is the platform to which I will mostly build. These are just examples, true examples as I do enjoy blogging and twitter, but examples nonetheless.Eventually, you will find that if you find one thing you love, and you put your everything into that one thing, it will work wonders for you.

The point is not to resist advice. For he who resists advice is nothing short of a fool. Advice is information. It is guidance, correction, instruction. The point is that whatever you choose to do, do it wholeheartedly. Do it well. It is wise to accept advice. And it is wiser to implement that advice into your daily life. And since this post is kinda advice in and of itself, it does not speak against it. But be cautious of the temptation to do more than what it is meant for you to do for the sake of “doing it right”. It may just be that you have struck gold in a particular area, and that everyone else is actually doing it wrong.

Just be yourself. And be good at it.

Emotional Hair

“Can you remove your hood in the store ma’am?”

That was the last I heard of the store clerk after removing the hood. I’d stepped once more into a sea of misplaced smiles, the check-out line occupied by a mixture of awe and wonder, of marvel and disgust alike. And it all started six years ago.

January 3, 2009

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My husband and I were in Norman Oklahoma for a documentary production to which we were preparing to premier that summer. Meanwhile, I’d become fed up with the perm and decided I was no longer going to be engaged in such a one sided relationship. I was tired of complaining about what to do with it and tired of it not growing much in return. What did this hair think it was anyway? I was supposed to spend money on perms and braids while it just sat there. Nope. I was not having it. And so while at my sister’s house, letting her husband and mine occupy the office while we did girl things, I decided right then and there to let her twist my hair.

It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I had no idea how deeply I would fall for this new thing in my life, or how much emotion something as seemingly unimportant as hair, would garner.

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It was easy in the beginning. Like any other relationship the “newlywed” phase was going smoothly. While I mostly kept it covered with head wraps to which I had also fell for, my selfie game was tight. This was before Facebook though and I wasn’t really into MySpace, so most of these pictures were not published online. That was ok though because this was just the beginning. I couldn’t be sharing this new love of my life with everyone. It was like I had met myself for the first time. I felt alive, strong, and free.

Eventually, I could not keep my hair under wraps for too long. I loved the head wraps but they had become hot and uncomfortable. My hair was growing faster than it had in my life and was attempting to crawl down my back. In addition, I started to enjoy the look of myself without the head wrap even more. My hair was no longer just a combination of DNA strands emerging from the follicles of my scalp, but it was part of everything I did. I had to take into account the way my hair looked when I got dressed, and when I added accessories. “Does this hair go with these shoes? Hmmm”. Now, I was ready to hit the streets.

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No, not like that (get your minds out the gutter). I mean I was ready to take on the world. That is when I noticed it. This hair took on more attention than I did. It stopped people in the streets. Stopped them mid-sentence. It even momentarily stopped women from shopping (now that’s serious!) How could they risk going on without asking me how I got my hair like that? Men too marveled, “See I want my hair that thick”, they would say. It was really something and opened the door to deeper questions of identity. I often get questions concerning where I’m from. They think I’m going to reply:

“Nigeria”.

Instead I say, “I’m originally from Chicago”.

“Oh”, they say and continue to stare. I smile because I get it. They are confused because I don’t look like an American. I like that.

Trouble in Paradise

Not all of the attention brought on by this hair is good. There are a lot of people who look at me like I disgust them. In truth it is because they’re curious about me. It is not just my hair that is different and they can sense it. This brings me to the beginning of this post.

“Can you remove your hood in the store ma’am?”

It was the last thing I heard before my feet was crossing the threshold out of Family Dollar. The few customers present bathed me in eyeballs and the employees spoke in whispers among themselves. After ringing me up the man didn’t bother to inform me on the final cost of my products. It was as if he thought I could read his mind. Good thing I can count. I peered over the computer screen and paid what was due. With that I walked out of the store. No one ever said a word.

First you get people all excited, then curious, angry, surprised, and even fearful. Look at you turning heads and opening minds, you emotional hair you!