Northridge Earthquake 19 Year Anniversary: Are you prepared for a disaster?

Today marks the 19 year anniversary of the Northridge earthquake that shook our world and destroyed our neighborhoods for the next several years... which also makes it a good day to review my emergency preparedness / disaster kit & plan.

Here are a few sites and links to visit to ensure you are prepared for an earthquake and/or other disaster:

The U.S. Government's Earthquake Hazards Program map is the site I visit most after an earthquake to see how large an earthquake was and where was the epi-center.

FEMA offers a variety of earthquake-related information resources.

American Red Cross: Prepare Your Home And Family

American Red Cross: Earthquake Safety Checklist

EarthquakeCountry.info has a great resource guide in pdf format to download here.

DareToPrepare.org

ShakeOut.org

The City of West Hollywood's emergency services / disaster preparedness section, has a Family Disaster Supplies Kit. Check with your local city resource guide as well for additional local relevant information including city evacuation plans and strategy information.

I also registered my cell phone number at Alert LA County for the LA County mass emergency notification system where they will contact me via call/text or email with what to do in case of an emergency.


17. Today I'm grateful to be prepared in case of an emergency.

Goals are dreams with deadlines.

Goals are dreams with deadlines. ~ Diana Scharf Hunt

#2 Today I am grateful to stay focused on the tasks that will ensure I meet my larger goal objectives by creating and keeping deadlines for myself.

The older I get, time seems to slip by faster and faster. Sometimes I have felt like hours have gone by and I know I was busy but I'm really not sure where the time went. Knowing that I have a tendency to become easily distracted, this year I'd like to improve upon setting and keeping deadlines to ensure success. As I wrote down my 2013 goals last week, I added deadlines to completing each project.

When I break down my long term goals into daily tasks, one way to ensure I am staying focused on meeting my deadlines is to set timers for each task. At home as I awake in the morning and my coffee is brewing, I spend that time cleaning the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher, wiping down the counters and tidying that area. By the time the coffee is brewed 10 minutes later, I have a nice clean space ready for preparing my meals for the day. I then sit down with my coffee and spend the next 30 minutes planning my day. I know from past experience that if I don't do this daily, my highest priority items will not be my focus and I'll continue to wonder where the time went.

While working, I set a timer to stay focused on each project. For example, a daily goal is to spend 1 hour a day on research and collecting data for an idea that I've wanted to implement for a while but haven't made time to do so as of yet. I now set a timer. When the timer ends, I move on to a different task. This helps me stay productive and organized while handling multiple priorities and obligations and keeps me from getting sidetracked by distractions.

As a recommendation, I really like this great egg timer project by David LeMieux. It's a great tool to stay focused on a task for a set period of time. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do. :)

Intelligence defined. ~ by Dodinsky

Great reminder! I'm looking forward to Dodinsky's upcoming book, the Garden of Thoughts in 2013... check him out! www.dodinsky.com

It's A Boy! "Baby Feet" Baby Shower

Baby Feet

On Saturday, I co-hosted a baby shower with four amazing ladies for 30 guests for our friend's first pregnancy/baby.

Our theme was Boy Baby Feet. Our party planning duties included:

• Decor (Tables / Chairs / Plates / Cups / Napkins / Balloons / Hanging Decor / Signs / Music) 
• Appetizers (Cheese Platter)
• Main Course (Tea Sandwiches / Spinach Pesto Salad / Veggie Platter)
• Desserts (Cake / Cake Pops / Cookies / Mints)
• Drinks (Cucumber Lemon Water / Lemonade / Champagne Punch / Coffee)
• Games & Gifts (Advice For Mommy Scrapbook / Baby Gift Bingo / Guess the Jelly Beans / Guess the Baby Animal Name / Gifts for Guests & Game Winners / Guest Sign-In Plate)

I made the Cucumber Lemon Water & the Baby Feet Cheese Platter. Because we love to entertain at home, I have created a great "dinner party" playlist that we used as the background music. 

Cucumber Lemon Water

Recipe for Cucumber Lemon Water

• 5 quarts of chilled water
• 1 lemon, thinly sliced
• 1 small cucumber (5 inches), thinly sliced
• Ice

Thinly slice lemons & cucumbers and add slices to the pitcher/container. Add water & ice. Stir gently. Let sit for about an hour. Served 30 people (Just add more water to the pitcher as needed).

Baby Feet Cheese Platter

The Baby Feet Cheese Platter (Good rule: 1 oz. cheese per person)

• 6 blocks of cheese (Havarti with Dill, Gouda, Brie, Blue, Swiss Gruyere, Toscano)
• 2 packages of Sliced 4-Cheese Variety Party Pack
• Strawberries
• Grapes (Red & Green)
• Walnuts
• French Baguette
• Cracker Assortment

I used a footprint cookie cutter to cut the sliced cheese into baby feet as the border of the platter (I'm using the extra cheese bits to make a delicious quesadilla this week). I arranged the cheese on the plate, added the fresh fruit, sprinkled the walnuts into the holes. I made my own cheese labels (wrapped 2 address labels around the top of toothpicks using a pretty blue font) and supplied a separate knife for each cheese.

Gifts for the Mommy-To-Be

Instead of a guest book, the guests signed the baby feet plate. 

The "Advice for Mommy" cards were added to the scrapbook below using baby-themed stickers.

Main Lunch Course

Tea Sandwiches & Spinach Pesto Salad

Dessert / Games

Cake, Cake Pops, Diaper Cake, Guess The Jelly Beans, and Baby Feet Mints

Decor / Gifts

Wrapped potted daisy plants in a diaper were centerpieces (also, a parting table gift for guests). 

Baby Feet Lemon Cookies were a gift for guests.

The Cards on the table were for "Advice for Mommy".

What A Happy Day!!! :D

How to Put People Back in Charge by Sarah van Gelder — YES! Magazine

How to Put People Back in Charge by Sarah van Gelder — YES! Magazine

and 9 Strategies to End Corporate Rule

Creating My Vision for 2012

2012 has just begun and I'm very excited about the upcoming year. Embarrassingly late, I finally purchased my 2012 Franklin Covey Planner in the style/size that I prefer yesterday and am making my plans for the month and year. I think it's amusing that my refills for 2012 were sold out at most of the stores until yesterday and I had to compromise my usually well-organized life until I finally found one copy at Staples in Hollywood yesterday. Apparently my organizer is very popular. Next year I'll remember to order it online in advance (October To-Do) and avoid days of chaos and scratch paper.

I personally maintain balance and organization throughout the year best by writing things down. Years of experience managing multiple people, projects and priorities has taught me, If I don't write it down, I don't do it. Now I love technology that keeps me organized but it actually became tedious to manage multiple online organization system resources (including Outlook, Google Calendar & Tasks, Blackberry, etc.) some of which only worked if I was logged into that particular program on that particular computer.  Then one sad day my Blackberry crashed and I lost important irrecoverable data (with the best of intentions I didn't find or make time to backup my phone as often as necessary) and I decided that going forward I wanted to keep all of my important goals, ideas, appointments and to-do's recorded in one place that could move with me throughout the day, eliminating duplicate work and saving me time (my most valuable resource). The 2-page per day Franklin Planner has always been my most effective way to manage multiple life priorities at once. My approach to determining what will be in my calendar each year is a bit unique as explained here. I hope you find these ideas informative and helpful.

VISION CARDS
Four times each year, I sit down and brainstorm add to a list I created years ago called Vision Cards (flashcards work well). It's a simple one-word-per-card list of things I love including my highest priorities, values and joys in life. Once I've run out of ideas, I divide the Vision Cards into the following Life Categories:

• Spiritual 
• Home and Family 
• Relationship 
• Health 
• Financial Freedom 
• Career and Business 
• Friends 
• Vacation/Travel 
• Hobbies 
• Contribution to Larger Society 

It is important yet challenging to maintain balance between different areas of life. I use this system to get a better sense of my long-term goals, values and priorities in each area of life. I then honestly rate myself in each Life Category using a simple Green/Yellow/Red system. Green is good. Yellow is o.k. Red is bad. This helps me to prioritize where I most need to focus my attention. If I'm confident that I'm "Green" in a particular category, I may not spend as much time attempting to make change in that area if I have another "Red" area that truly needs more of my time and attention.

Aware that time limits the amount of goals I can focus on accomplishing in any given time frame, the next step in the process is to break each category's goals down into three specific and actionable things to accomplish over a period of time with a start and end goal date. This changes based on what the highest priority items are for that period of time and how long each goal will take to accomplish. I attempt to be realistic, specific and action-oriented when I set these goals always including one or two larger-than-life goals that I know will be more challenging. This keeps me interested by challenging myself to push the limits beyond what "I think" I can accomplish.

I keep a copy of my goals for each area visible in my organizer, reviewing them as I make my daily plans to stay on track. I also review my vision cards each quarter to track progress, adding items as I complete things and/or as my needs/values/priorities change. Not every area requires daily or even monthly focus.  For example vacation/travel is usually limited to certain times of the year. In general, any more than three goals at a time in each area becomes overwhelming and I find I'm less likely to stay focused and on target.

Next, I create a schedule of daily/weekly/monthly routines to accomplish these goals that I add to my planner daily. It works best when I review/write my list first thing in the morning and review/write it again right before bed. I add to-do items/brainstorm ideas/notes from meetings to it all day long so it is usually not far from my side.

I have two additional cards that are my personal rules guide. The first one says, "DO EVERYTHING to the best of my ability... no matter what it is!" and the definition to  Areté: being the best you can be, reaching your highest human potential. The other rule I've created for myself is, "Say NO when an activity/person does not fall into one of these categories/priorities."

If I am struggling with a particularly challenging goal, I will maintain an awareness that this may be an area of weakness for me, ask for feedback and support from friends, family and other resources and attempt to continue to keep that goal on the list until I accomplish it. Whatever it takes as long as I never give up!

One of the many commitments I've made towards progress this year count is to replace a few of my bad habits with good habits. Changing habits is a difficult thing for all of us. I googled "how to change a habit" and am committed to making my own plans using the techniques in The Habit Change Cheatsheet: 29 Ways to Successfully Ingrain a Behavior.  I will be writing down my plans this evening.

I hope that by sharing some of my successful organizational strategies throughout the year, I may help you to accomplish your goals and commitments as well. Whatever your plans for 2012, I am wishing each and every one of you to have love, peace of mind, good health, and prosperity in this new year. May your day and year be bright!

Coconut Water (Superfood) Not All It's Cracked Up To Be.

In my quest to be informed about the value or non-value of what I'm ingesting and digesting, I spend significant amounts of time researching all types of food, their nutritional value and other benefits, especially the ability of a food to heal. This process has ranged greatly to include learning what foods will help me heal quickly when ill, which foods to avoid, how to prepare a meal to receive the maximum health benefits without losing its taste, proper proportions per meal and per day, food combining for maximum efficiency, and more. I have experienced real benefits of food healing as part of my strategy to live well.

After hearing many ramblings around Los Angeles from various sources about the incredible benefits of coconut water, being handed a glass of it by a friend last weekend, and then seeing it on sale at my local supermarket, I purchased 4 boxes of Vita Coco coconut water this week and figured I'd give it a try. Their ad states it is "all-natural, super-hydrating, fat-free, cholesterol-free, nutrient-packed, potassium-stacked, mega-electrolyte coconut super water". I drank a half a glass of it this morning and had an immediate auto-reflex reaction response to vomit. My next response was... "What?!?!?" Things that are good for me usually don't trigger such immediate negative responses so I immediately ran to the computer and started googling the benefits of coconut water.

I was quickly surprised to discover that the first 20 items on my search were not linked to valid sources of food or scientific information. I found mostly blogs and a few health articles and read through a few, quickly discovering that amongst the many health benefit claims made about coconut water, the only information I could validate is that it is a good source of potassium, 600mg per 8 oz. serving vs. 537mg per cup of raw banana according to the USDA National Nutrient Database. There has been little other evidence to support any of the other claims about it's benefits, which varied from being a good cure for a hangover, a post-workout replacement drink for sports drinks and the most drastic and wild claim was that it eliminates intestinal worms. That is quite a claim to make with no evidence to support it!

Of the research I did, I found this article the most interesting and worth sharing: Sometimes you feel like a nut: Coconut water as a health elixir

My final analysis of the day being that while coconut water is a good source of potassium, may have other unsubstantiated benefits, and some may truly enjoy the taste, it is decidedly a superfood. That may sound good at first, but the word superfood has no legal definition and is commonly used as a misleading marketing tactic which has been banned in the E.U. "unless it is accompanied by a specific authorised health claim that explains to consumers why the product is good for their health."

All things considered, I think I'll stick with bananas! They're much easier to crack into.

Lulan Artisans launches at Target.com

Please support my friend and founder of Lulan Artisans, Eve Blossom, as their product launches on Target.com Red Hot Shop!

This exclusive clutch is not only beautiful, it's 100% hand-dyed, hand-woven silk by Lulan Artisans.

Design: Subtle
Movement Ikat, Color: Mulberry

Product: Clutch Purse w/snap-in silk handle

Handmade in Cambodia-hand-dyed, hand-woven

Sewn by Cambodian landmine and polio hindered persons.

Lulan Artisans supports over 650 weavers, spinners, dyers and finishers in weaving cooperatives in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and India. Lulan supports these artisans and their communities through paying sustainable wages, creating economic stability, growing local economies and assisting with other social benefits - such as education, housing, healthcare - as well as opening up new markets for their products.

Support Lulan's mission to enhance the economic development and quality of life of their weavers, spinners, dyers and finishers by purchasing one as a holiday gift today!

Mind blowing power of love

Ran across this article via a friend a few weeks ago. It blows my mind that this hasn't been discovered sooner as it seems quite obvious to me that we are linked and interconnected. As quoted in the article, "When this happens we can read each other's brains and bodies at a deeper level - a sixth sense." I'd like to see the actual research and results. I'm going to dig and see if I can find more information on the topic and will share my findings here. In the meantime, enjoy the article.

Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you.

Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me.

Probably in no particular order, except in that they are the order I think of them, and hence that probably says something about me.

IT IS BY NO MEANS AN EXHAUSTIVE LIST of books that I love.

1. Eat Pray Love
2. The Sex and The City series
3. Little House on the Prairie series
4. The Bible
5. Wild Mind
6. Writing Down the Bones
7. The Giving Tree
8. The Monster at the End of this Book
9. The Little Engine That Could
10. French Women Don't Get Fat
11. The Nancy Drew Series
12. Siddhartha
13. Little Women
14. The Success Principles
15. The Five People You Meet In Heaven

Dumbing Down My Twitter Experience

About two weeks ago, a few friends of mine finally gave me the clue to my frustrating question: "How to make Twitter a more enjoyable and user-friendly experience".

Answer: Add a Twitter app to my phone so that I don't get a million texts draining my phone and easily follow my friends who have all but abandoned Facebook and MySpace. So I downloaded ÜberTwitter to my Blackberry Tour and started playing to see what all the fuss was about.

Prior to having ÜberTwitter, Twitter wasn't user-friendly to me because I wouldn't/couldn't sit on a computer all day following and writing tweets. I have too much to do and accomplish to be glued to the PC and only sporadically remembered to text a tweet. Once I downloaded the app, I had to ask a few very silly questions. Things like: "Why are people using a bot to ask me to verify if I am 'real' using a bot?", "What do all the #'s mean?", "Why do 'people' say it matters how many followers I have?" and "What are people actually using Twitter for?"

Lucky for me, I have a lot of real life friends on my Twitter and they helpfully guided me through my questions as I figured it out. Twitter is definitely an app that you have to actually use to figure out how it works. I think that the reason most of my friends who are not on Twitter are not using it, is they don't have the time or patience to figure out how to make 140 characters useful to them and why it's worthwhile and valuable.

So to pay it forward, I will try to answer those questions via things I learned so far and dumb it down so to speak for those who are interested. Let me preface the rest of what I will write by saying that I am in no means a Twitter expert nor do I claim to be, so anything I say that is incorrect cannot be held against me at this point. I'm still a tweet newbie too, but I see potential, which is valuable and worth sharing in this space. ;)

Question #1: "Why are people using a bot to ask me to verify if I am 'real' using a bot?"

Answer: One of the first thing I noticed is there are a lot of bots on Twitter, and I personally am not at all interested in following a 'robot'. I am interested in keeping up with my friends, random and useful information, news articles and updates, inspirational quotes and sayings, having a laugh at some of the hilarious things people do and say, and most importantly using any communication tool that will spread a good and right message to the world. As it turns out, the method I've used is to look at a user's page before I follow them. If I think they have something interesting to say, I add them to my list of "following". If all I see is sales ads and pitches for products and services, I kindly bypass them with no disrespect because I certainly don't want to spend my day looking at business ads all day posted by someone I don't even know.

Question #2: What do all the #'s mean?

Simple answer: They are twitter tags of trending topics.

The tags are a good way of following a trend, especially if you don't necessarily know the people speaking about a topic and want to find more information on that topic of interest. For example, #NowPlaying is a tag I use when tweeting a song I'm currently listening to. #Quotes is a tag for inspirational quotes and sayings. #FF or Follow Friday is a tag for Follow Friday which is a great way to acknowledge the friends & people that you believe are worthy of having other Twitter users follow as well.

The question I'm now pondering and playing with is "How can I create my own trends?" as I integrate my twitter experience with my personal and professional goals and experiences.

A group of my friends at Dog Town Studios set out on a mission this week called "Project 72".

Their mission: Project 72. 4 boys setting out on a mission to create a successful iPhone game in 72 hours from start to finish and document the progress on this site for anyone interested to see.

I find this challenge completely intriguing/noteworthy/awesome (not just because they are my friends) but because they are out there pushing not only their own limits but creating new trends of proving what can be accomplished with technology in such a short time span. They not only launched a successful iPhone app from start to finish in 72 hours, but blogged the experience as well as had live feed streaming their progress while they built the app from scratch... IN 72 HOURS. Amazing. At the end of their challenge, they had about 10 minutes to spare before accomplishing their mission, submitting the app to IPhone for review and popping open the champagne in celebration of their success.

This is a perfect example of when it is a good idea to create a trend so that people can easily track and follow their project; so their Twitter tag became #Project72. This will also be useful as the word spreads as part of their long-term marketing/advertising strategies and as their product launches and people want to continue to follow their progress and projects. So while I'm not going to list all of the different tags and their translations here, I think you should now be able to easily follow trends and tag your own tweets for others to follow.

Question #3: "Why do 'people' say it matters how many followers I have?"

Answer: I don't think it really matters for my current use of Twitter during the learning experience, but I can now obviously see that if you are twittering business information or marketing a product or service, the more followers you have, the more people your message is reaching. I still haven't decided what I would like to "accomplish" with my Twitter so right now this isn't yet relevant to me. Funny enough, I think just by tweeting my random daily experiences and thoughts, I have had over 100 additional followers just in one week.

Important to note, Twitter is a "keyword driven tool". The people you will attract will find you based on what you type into your 140 character tweets. I figured this one out, very simply, because I have a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology so I have a habit of paying attention to statistics and trends. By mentally noting my tweet topics and the subsequent followers I gained, I noticed clear and consistent patterns. When I typed "eBay" while writing about my eBay experiences, eBay users followed; when I typed a quote that was running through my mind, inspirational users followed; when I typed "health", health users followed... and so on and so forth. So Twitter actually does support a law of attraction theory. You will attract the people on Twitter who have similar interests, hobbies, habits as you, or at least "what you tweet about". Likewise, you can type the name/item/hobby/topic of interest into the search bar and view/follow other users who tweet about these things at your discretion.

Question 4: "What are people actually using Twitter for?"

Answer: EVERYTHING! :)

I am only a little over a week into really testing and using Twitter but I can tell you for certain already that people are tweeting about everything and anything we can think of. With a little creative thought, by putting focused effort into your Twitter Topics and by being REAL, Twitter is an extremely useful social media tool to spread news and information on any topic you choose.

I'm still pondering what message I'd like to send to the world in a public domain. I have some ideas, but once I nail it down and feel confident that it's the "RIGHT" message, I will use it for these purposes as well. In the meantime, I'm really enjoying the Twitter experience as of now. My advice would be that the best way of learning Twitter is by actually doing it, playing with it, making mistakes and continuing forward. This is my advice for most things, but definitely applies to tweeting.

I must also note that I am not thrilled with the brevity of message content. I don't like spelling with errors and am not thrilled that Twitter is forcing me to write short-hand and/or grammatically incorrect words/sentences. Most of the time, I just need more than 140 characters to clearly and accurately portray a worthwhile thought. I'm making effort nevertheless to go with the flow on this topic.

Lastly, my favorite day of Twitter experience so far was Friday for #FF Follow Friday. It was/is so fun to acknowledge the people I know and respect as well as my new friends who are amazing and have good messages to share. That's worth tweeting about.

Decluttering my life on eBay.

I've accumulated so much great stuff over the years. In the process of moving again so I have to downsize. Visit my eBay at a_world_butterfly!

Inspired to Action ~ Bad Beat on Cancer

All of the cancer-related illness that has surrounded my friends and family has inspired me to action. It's helpless to have friends and family battling for their lives and there is not much you can do besides offer support and love. So I was inspired to action.

I am now in the process of planning a charity poker tournament to raise money for the Bad Beat on Cancer and Prevent Cancer Foundation. I can't share all the details yet, but the event will take place next February and will be a great way to show support and raise money for the cause. I'm really looking forward to it and to being able to share more details here as we go through the process.

Preparing for an Interview ~ By Vanessa Gibson

~Alot of my friends, family and colleagues have been affected by the changes in the job market. I wrote this as a simple guide for those who are going through the interview process. I hope it helps.~


1. Be prepared. Research the company you are interviewing with prior to the interview. Gather information regarding the company including the following:

• Industry of the company
• Size of the company
• Number of employees
• Who you will be interviewing with
• Title of the position you are interviewing for
• Who you will be reporting to?
• Why is the position open?
• How do your skill sets match the needs of the organization?

2. Make a good impression. Find out the dress culture of the company you will be interviewing with and dress appropriately for the interview according to their environment. If the company dresses in business attire, wear business attire. If the company dresses casually, wear business casual attire to the interview.

3. Get plenty of rest the night prior to the interview so that you are energized and alert.

4. Review your resume prior to the interview and be prepared to answer questions about the following:

• Your work history
• Educational background and additional training
• Accomplishments and recognition you have received

5. Review your previous work experiences and educational training and be prepared to answer questions about your background including contributions you have made in previous companies with examples.

6. If you will be conducting a technical interview, find out information on what type of questions you will be required to answer and review the information prior to the interview.

7. Ask questions about the position and how you will best be able to contribute to the organization.

8. Ask questions to determine your career path progression with the organization.

9. Gather information about the benefits of the organization including the following:

• Annual Performance and Salary Review Process
• Annual Bonus Potential
• Amount of Annual Vacation
• Medical, Dental and Vision
• Life Insurance
• STD & LTD
• 401k plan
• Gym Membership
• Other incentives and programs offered

10. Print your resume on professional resume paper. Bring at least 3 copies of your resume for distribution and a notepad with pen to take notes during the interview.

11. Use a firm handshake when greeting with your interviewer(s).

12. Stay calm and be polite during the interview. If you are well prepared, you will make a great impression!

13. Stand out from other applicants by sending a thank you letter or email to your interviewer(s) after the interview.