Take responsibility for the energy you bring into any space.

Each of us project our energy to others and it is very important to be aware of the energy we bring to a room. I try very hard not to bring negative energy to a situation and I also try not to burden others with problems, but one thing Oprah helped me realize was that I can do more than just being positive most of the time. There are times when I can be more helpful and less skeptical as well as more proactive to make a situation better for everyone.

People only want to be validated. “I see you, I hear you, What you say matters.”

I do an excellent job of validating my children and a handful of other people in my life. Oprah’s point is that EVERYONE needs validation. While this seems so obvious, in the haste of day-to-day life, often I conveniently neglect to remember this fact. I hope to change this and make a conscious effort to validate every person I come into contact with. Rather than purposely looking away from a stranger at the grocery store, I hope to look them in the eyes and maybe even say Hi. What a powerful, wonderful feeling it would be to follow through on this promise.

A 2011 study on the California program (California and New Jersey are the only two states with paid leave programs), funded exclusively by worker contributions, found that employers overwhelmingly report positive or neutral effects of the program on productivity, profitability, turnover, and employee morale.

Now that I have reprinted almost the entire article, it’s probably clear that this is one of few issues I get fired up on.

As I wrote almost two years ago, we learned from Andy’s Norwegein friend that Norway’s policies on maternity and paternity leave are such that between the two parental leaves combined, they get nearly a PAID year off of work. They have recently increased the amount of paternity leave so employers will be less inclined to favor hiring a man, since women have the potential of needing to take maternity leave. I believe they said with each child the woman gets nearly seven months maternity leave followed by nearly four months of paternity leave for the man. Then, after that is over, they have laws about how to reintroduce the child to daycare. The first day, they just take the baby there for an hour and then leave with the baby, just to get the child used to the new environment. Then, the next couple of days, they leave them for two hours and then pick them up. This easing in process lasts two to three weeks and the time the woman is away from work during this time is again, paid.

Last night, Andy and I went to the Elton John concert at the Taco Bell Arena. I still despise that name and actually the venue is as bad as the name being that it has had seemingly NO improvements since it was built in 1982. Horrible acoustics and long bathroom lines were the only things that could take away from such an amazing concert experience. I mean Elton John in Boise. I still think it is amazing he came here.

Sir Elton, mostly perched at his piano, played continuously for three hours. He masterfully played the piano and sang every song and did not take a break. Early on in the concert I had a few hopes for the song list which were met quickly making me wonder what songs he had left to play for the remaining two hours. I seemed to have forgotten about 56 other hits that he still needed to play to make a full set of Elton John’s Greatest Hits. The number of hit songs you practically know by heart by that guy are amazing.

I love creative British people!!

In an attempt to distinguish myself from my fellow nerds of the male type who all carry around black backpacks with HP logos to cart their work with them to and from their homes and meeting rooms, I decided to spice things up a bit with this bag from Forgotten Shanghai, sold at Athleta.

Many of the facts in this video that was reportedly played at Sony’s recent executive conference are mind-blowing. And the funny thing is that especially because of the reference to MySpace instead of Facebook, I found myself wondering how outdated this video was.

Okay, to be fair, it could have been any one of us who lost the keys. We hadn’t driven the car since before Christmas and when Andy went to take it to work Monday, the keys were nowhere to be found…

What an awesome song to exercise to, right? And even a good message where the Dog Days can define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress, so it seems to me she is finally accepting happiness and progress in her life.

Someone should have told Florence that nobody actually gets those hairstyles in the crazy hairstyle books at the salon.

If you follow college football at all, you already know the outcome of this very sad story. BSU looks horrible almost the entire second half and Nevada is almost unstoppable and ties the game with 13 seconds left. Heisman candidate, Kellen Moore, throws an INCREDIBLE throw that is caught, also in an INCREDIBLE fashion by receiver Titus Young at the 9-yard line with two seconds to go. A timeout is called and the field goal team comes onto the field to use the remaining seconds to do their magic and subsequently win the game.

I am bummed that I missed the footage of the Rally to Restore Sanity and I didn’t even realize they had sattelite rallies all across the nation including Boise! Shoot, I would have liked to have gone.