Do it again! Do it again! We like it! We like it!

4 November 2010, 10:05 am by Giggles
Categories: Family, Happy Things

According to my mom, that was a BYU cheer many many years ago. And I think it is a great cheer. After touchdowns or baskets you’d do that cheer. Seems fitting.

My parents have always been my biggest cheerleaders. My mom came to all of my jr. high track meets. I probably still owe her for the one up in Los Alamos. She did not like the winding road up there on the edge of the mountain. And she’d cheer and yell. I remember being cheerleaders with my dad at scout pinewood derbies. And when we were all in high school my parents went to a lot of football games – to cheer for the marching bands we were in. They cheered for us at everything we did, just not always the yelling kind of cheering. My parents are awesome cheerleaders.

Brett is a great cheerleader in my life too. As I’ve gotten scholarships this past year he’s been very excited. And even at non-competition type things (my sewing or blog designing things) he cheers me on.

And I try to be a good cheerleader. I found myself cheering just like my mom at the young women basketball games this fall. Woowoowoowoo!!! :woot: I do high-fives and “Yea!”s for my friends when they do great or do something they didn’t think they could as well.

We all need some cheerleaders in our life, a little outside encouragement. Who are your cheerleaders?

And just for fun, here’s my new favorite “cheerleading” song. Brett Dennen – Don’t Forget. It came up on Pandora last week and I was instantly smitten. Book Guardian posted it on her blog on Tuesday along with some other lovely music.

2 Shared thoughts

Crayons!

3 November 2010, 7:51 am by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things, Learn Something

I have a slight Crayola problem (not a crayon problem, because I’m very picky about which crayons I will buy (only Crayola) and I like other things by Crayola as well), and have pretty much my whole life.

I remember watching this clip when I was a kid. It fascinated me seeing how my favorite crayons were made. It was great.

What’s your favorite Crayola product? What’s your favorite Crayola color?

I challenge you to add some color to your life today. You choose the medium – crayons, markers, water colors, colored pencils. But make your life more colorful. It’s amazing how relaxing coloring is.

4 Shared thoughts

Ballot Boxes

2 November 2010, 7:24 am by Giggles
Categories: Politics

Few people like confrontation. Granted, there are those that seem to thrive on it. But I’m not talking about those people. (They also generally tend to speak without thinking or reasoning first, which makes things very difficult for the rest of us when we try to have a conversation with them.) And this is probably why I’ve been looking forward to this day for a few weeks now. The other day the only things I could find on the radio while I was out running errands were political ads or music I wasn’t particularly interested in. It was very disappointing. So after today the voting will be over and we can go back to regular bad commercials instead of confrontational political ads.

Some of the ads have been rather amusing though. The house race here has been real heated. And watching them has made me laugh a few times though. Some of the ads have been very clever.

I recently found this quote about our political system that I found particularly thought provoking.

American political institutions cannot work as intended unless they are inhabited by citizens who possess what Alexis de Tocqueville called democratic “habits of the heart.” Today we are in particular need of two such habits: humility and chutzpah. “Humility” means knowing I must listen to others – especially to those who seem most alien to me – in order to understand and feel at home in a diverse world. … “Chutzpah” means knowing my own voice and having the courage to speak it – with respect for others and in confidence that my voice counts. … Too many Americans allow the tensions of diversity to tear them and their communities apart. They retreat from the public realm to the foxholes of private life, from which they lob rhetorical grenades at “the enemy,” producing more psychodrama than social change.
P. J. Palmer, “Humility, Chutzpah, and the Future of Democracy.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 29 Aug 2010.

There are several issues right now where it seems the majority is lacking a little chutzpah. They become the silent majority. And because they are silent it is easy to believe they do not exist. And that can be very dangerous. If you do not share your opinion or act on your opinion, does it matter that you have it?

Today you can share your opinion by putting it in a ballot box. Vote! Be heard! Show some chutzpah and get a sticker. Do not fear your voice.

3 Shared thoughts

All the random things that make me giggle, and some that don’t.

1 November 2010, 8:03 am by Giggles
Categories: Education, Happy Things, Life

That’s the tagline for this blog. And I think it encompasses what I do here very well. I like to smile. I like to be happy. I don’t think I’m annoyingly giggly or bubbly. I have known those people. But I love a good laugh.

Yet there are those times when you just don’t want to laugh. Where life isn’t exactly all happy and joyful at the time. And we all have to find ways to deal with those times as well.

And then there’s the whole random side to this blog. My life can appear rather random at times. B doesn’t always follow A. The jump from one point to another doesn’t always work as directly as I’d planned or even seem direct. Just last night I was talking to my dad about how I’m emphasizing teacher education in my Ph.D. because that’s what I originally started going to graduate school for. He wanted to know where I got off track. I didn’t exactly get off track, more like I changed tracks. During my Masters I had one semester where I was taking both learning theory and teaching theory at the same time. And it was the learning theory that was so much more fascinating to me. And that is the reason I’m now in the Ed. Psych. department emphasizing Teacher Ed. rather than in the Teacher Ed. department and emphasizing Ed. Psych.

Some times the things that make me giggle can be a bit out there and random too. When Brett and I go to ward choir the street we turn on is the third right. The first time we drove there I counted those three streets Sesame Street Count style with a laugh after each number. Now every time we go I still count, but Brett does the laughing. Big Count style laughs for the first two streets, and then a tiny giggle for the third. And it cracks me up every time.

This month, as I’m posting every day, it’s going to be a random collection of my thoughts. It’s going to be some of the things that make me giggle and some of the things that make me rant more than laugh. But isn’t that what life is? A seemingly random ride that makes us laugh, cry, scream, and smile.

Here’s to November – 30 posts, 30 random giggles or not, in 30 days.

2 Shared thoughts

Wants? Needs? Have!

29 October 2010, 8:25 pm by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things

There are probably a lot of things I could list that I want or that I think I need.

Instead, gearing up for November and Thanksgiving, here’s a list of a few of the small things I have this week that make me happy. 🙂

  1. :x: Butterflies flitting around the flower bush outside our back door that I can watch from my computer desk. :butterfly:
  2. :x: Harry Potter 7 tickets! Ah yeah! :woot: For the midnight showing too. And I have two friends going with me so Brett doesn’t have to sacrifice to stay up that late. Brett is not a night person. But he did offer if I was going to go alone.
  3. :x: A working car. The fuel pump gave out on us last week. But it’s fixed now. :cactus:
  4. :x: Fun large stripped black and white socks that I wore to school today. :silly:

And a note. I will be participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) again this November. Inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in which participants write an entire 50,000 word novel (or at least the first draft) in one month, NaBloPoMo challenges participants to write one blog post a day for 30 days. Some people then decided they’d do it for an entire year, but that’s a bit much for me.

This will be my fourth November aiming for 30 posts in 30 days. Hopefully it will be my fourth success. It’s a good chance to finally get all the drafts I’ve been building cleared out. The first year I just aimed to get all 30 posts in. The last two years I’ve upped the ante on myself and tried to carry a theme throughout the entire month. I’m going to try something similar this year.

If you’re also participating, leave me a comment and I’ll come support you with comments. I try to comment every day during November as well.

So check back often. You wouldn’t want to get too far behind in the randomness that is Random Giggles.

Share your thoughts

Music for a Monday

25 October 2010, 9:32 am by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things, Random

Here’s some fun music for your Monday morning.

2 Shared thoughts

Happy 7th Birthday Miss Giggles!

20 October 2010, 6:05 am by Giggles
Categories: Life

It’s been seven years since Miss Giggles went live on the internet. And my how it’s grown! It’s expanded out into two blogs – Random Giggles and Miss Giggles’ Book Log. And there are well over 300 pages on the static part of the site as well. There have been a total of 36,362 visitors since the start (well, since I started counting), and over 6,000 of those have been in the last year alone.

So it was time for a bit of a face lift as well. The blog changed a week and a half ago. So today we’re putting the new look on the original part of the site. The photos that were on the background are now in the header image. The menus are now a single bar and include drop down menus to help organize it. You can still see blog updates on the main page, just down at the bottom now. And the calendar items have been moved from the left to the right. I’m liking it. It has a clean look to it.

I’ve been playing with it all month, which has been good, because this is the biggest change since I created it. It had remained relatively the same over the last seven years. So this is an adjustment for me, but I’m ready for it. Plus, this is the first time that the whole site has a similar look between the blog and the static half. It’s more uniform now.

Here’s to many more years of giggles.

5 Shared thoughts