Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Unless this is your first episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, you’re probably well aware that I spent nearly 19 years working at a local bookstore. When I first started with the company the store I worked at was about 12,000 square feet in size. About two years later we moved to a much larger location, that gave us a lot more space and opportunity. However, there were some nice things about the old smaller location. After I’d been working there about a year I was promoted to oversee the Bibles and church supplies department. These items took up about two thirds of the back wall. We also imprinted names on Bibles, so I spent a lot of time at the imprinting machines. From my view at the imprinter, I could look down one of the two main aisles all the way to the front register and out through the front door. Read More...

I grew up in a home that always had music playing. Sometimes it was my own radio, but most of the time it came from another source. My step brother loved heavy metal music, and everyone knows that you can’t listen to heavy metal music unless it’s cranked up to 11. So if he was listening to his music, we were all listening to his music. My parents were fans of country music. Every morning as they got ready for work they would turn on one of the local country stations and fill the house with the steel guitar and fiddles. I’ve mentioned before that my dad is one of the very best Hank Williams tribute singers on the planet, so there were many times when our home was filled with the sounds of my dad playing his guitar and singing songs that Hank wrote. Read More...

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share contributions from Jeremy and Justina. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page Read More...

You know how there are those moments etched in time, where everything feels clear and patent? This was one of them for me. I was sitting in Marin’s room, lit softly by a lamp as butterfly shaped shadows danced around me. I was cuddled in a sage green microfiber rocking chair, with both of my children on my lap, rocking and reading a book before bedtime. Clint came in to grab Jonas and tuck him into his bed, so I gave him goodnight kisses, and was left snuggling with Marin, before getting her tucked in as well. I smelled the sweet top of her head, and rested my cheek softly against hers, admiring her long eyelashes and rosy cheeks and lips as I gently tucked her dark brown hair back behind her delicate ears. I whispered a little prayer of thankfulness and wept, feeling so grateful for the family I had been given and so fortunate to have been entrusted to be these children’s mother. Read More...

Now I'm sure you know, just like the majority of people out there know, that most New Year resolutions are not followed through with. In fact, the number I found is 92% of resolutions are discarded within 30 days of making them. And this isn't just for New Years resolutions either. Almost every time you make a resolution without an end goal in mind you will probably fail. So what's the point of making resolutions? The point is, resolutions are needed in order to reach an end goal.

Today I’ll be wrapping up my series on goals. I hope this series of episodes has been helpful for you and has inspired you to dream big for 2015. As I bring this series to a close, I’d like to share a different perspective on goals. I want to share a story that taught me that it is possible to achieve goals and still fail. How is that possible? It’s possible when we miss the point and focus too much on goals and not enough on the other things around us. In the summer of 2002 I was offered a position within the bookstore chain I was working at that I had wanted for a long time. It was a job that dreamed about getting soon after I began working with the company 8 years prior. The position was the position of buyer. Read More...

Today is the day! For the last two weeks I’ve been talking about setting goals, and today I’m going to share my 2015 goals with you. This has been a really difficult process for me this year. In fact, I don’t recall a year that I’ve had this much difficulty setting goals. The issue wasn’t coming up with goals, the issue was deciding which of the things I want to achieve were going to make it to the top of my priority list. I spoke last week about setting milestone moments where you can asses the progress you’ve made on reaching your goals. Today, as I share each of my goals, I’ll be sharing another critical component of goal achievement. For most of us, maybe even all of us, it’s not enough to simply set a goal and then go achieve it. Instead, we must also set up the guidelines which we will bring us to achieving the goal. Read More...

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Faith. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page Read More...

When I was about 12 I got the best invitation in the mail. I opened up the envelope and confetti and glitter popped out! I had been invited to a birthday party on New Year’s Eve! I was elated. Nothing sounded better than the promise of shenanigans, pot banging, dancing and loud celebrations into the wee hours of the morning with friends. There was all kinds of fun promised and I was pretty happy my mom agreed to let my younger sister and I both go! Read More...

Standing up for what you believe in isn't always easy. In fact it can be downright terrifying sometimes. Drinking and driving wasn't talked about much back then but we still knew of the consequences.

I like goals because it gives me a target. When I have a target, I can aim. I’m this way with a lot of things. In fact, sometimes I’ll sit down to start a new project and not know where to begin. I don’t know where to begin because I’m not sure where I’m going. If I can set up the place where I want to end up, I find it easier to begin. In a way I suppose it’s like working a maze from the end point to the starting point. I also like setting goals because it forces me to think things through before I leap. That is, I don’t just set arbitrary goals, I set goals that I believe will be true measurements of success. I set goals that will help keep me focused on where I want to be in the long term. So I not only set a goal that is an ultimate achievement, I set goals that can serve as checkpoints or measuring points along the way. Read More...

So here we are at the end of 2014. Your Facebook timeline has been filling up with those automated Year-in-Review slideshows, websites are taking a look back at the the best and worst of 2014, entertainment media is looking back at those who passed away in 2014, and I’m sure we can all name several other things that are designed to offer a look back at the year we’ve all just experienced. I’ve been doing this podcast for just over 9 months now and I’ve done a few milestone types of episodes along the way. So it should come as no surprise that I like looking back at things. Today I’m going to take a look back at 2014, tell you why I find value in looking back, and use the information I gather to chart my course for 2015. Read More...

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Barb. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page Read More...

When I was young, my sister and I would get so excited about Christmas. We would think about it for weeks on end and look forward to its arrival as we counted down the final days leading up to Christmas day. We would tear through the house at the crack of dawn Christmas morning; my parents were lucky to convince us to hold off until 6:00am. We would usually burst into our living room to examine the tree and gifts, hunting for our names on the tags and the traces of soot and ash boot prints that Santa left for us. We’d also examine the cookies and carrots we left out the night before to make sure that Santa had his fill and that the reindeer were full and happy as well. Once we had checked these boxes, my younger sister and I would dash back into my parents bedroom, to pounce on them as they rested bleary eyed and exhausted from a long night of wrapping and taking care of the aforementioned evidence of Santa’s visit to our home. Read More...

I think that was the first time I ever saw an adult cry, even though they were tears of joy. I remember standing there next to by brother holding boxes while my mom and dad rang on door bells and explained to the families, that we, complete strangers, were giving them all this excess food we had. Some of them broke down in tears as they took the boxes and hugged each of us, saying it was a Christmas Miracle. Every one of them invited us in but my dad kindly refused, saying we had to move on to another house.