i want to lose my voice coz i want to get out of an event thing that i don’t want to go to.i know it sounds stupid but please i need help.also how long will it last for?how long will it take to take effect on my voice? i know screaming into the pillow and just screaming and singing is one.i’m gonna try that too but any other suggestions please? also i don’t want to fake it coz i don’t really think i can. thank you in advance.

A: You don’t mention why losing your voice is the only way you can get out of going to this event. Deliberately trying to lose your voice is really hard to do. Screaming into a pillow will take quite some time and can damage your vocal cords. As for how long the effects will last - I can’t say. I suppose it depends on how much damage you’ve managed to inflict on yourself. Are there alternatives to hurting yourself? What is it about this event that makes you so determined to avoid it? Apparently your voice is required at this event so I’m guessing you either have to sing or speak and you are experiencing some major stage fright. The fear of making a major fool of yourself is everyone’s biggest nightmare. But I can assure you from personal experience that - once you have the microphone in your hand and the first few words come out - that you will relax and gain the confidence to finish the presentation. Be as prepared as you can ahead of time. Practice your speech or song until you can do it in your sleep. If you’ve done that, then your brain knows the words and they will automatically come out when required. Why don’t you go ahead and attend the event? I bet you’ll be glad you did.

Our 4-year-old granddaughter is one who should never be considered a candidate for movie theater attendance. Each movie is given a running commentary from our little munchkin along with a verbal tornado of questions. One of the first things she needs to know is ‘who is the bad guy?’ It’s important to her to be able to identify which side each cast member is on. So yesterday when she and her grandfather were watching a movie, I wasn’t surprised to hear her ask this question. But I did find it surprising when she wouldn’t take his word for it. He had to justify his decision. “But, Grandpa, why is he the bad guy?” I had to smile listening to Grandpa explain that you could tell he was a bad guy because he was taking the little dog. That wasn’t good enough for her. “But, Grandpa, does he say bad words? Does he do bad things?” Grandpa fumbled on that one while I laughed. But even as I laughed I thought ‘You go, Little One. Don’t ever take someone’s word for it when they tell you ‘that’s the bad guy‘. You hang on to that concept!’

And I sincerely hope she does. As she gets old enough to go out in the neighborhood, I hope she thinks twice before excluding that neighbor girl the others won’t play with because she doesn’t have the right toys. And I hope that if she joins the ‘in’ crowd in school that she doesn’t exclude the one who has no money or who doesn’t wear the right clothes. And I hope, as she reaches adulthood, that she discriminates rightly. That she can recognize that a certain religion, a certain race, a certain way of thinking doesn’t necessarily make them the bad guy. It just make them different. I hope she shows the love and acceptance that is so needed in our world today. I DON’T want her to be politically correct or to be so unsure of herself that she can’t stand up for what she believes is right. I just want her to know and to recognize that God made us all a little different. If we were all the same, the world would be a boring place. It is the differences that make this world a truly beautiful place. And if we love and accept others and their differences, we will have made the world we live in a little more beautiful just by being in it.

Of course, having her in our world now has already made it a little more beautiful for us.

Perfection is, unfortunately, not a state I have managed to attain yet. I just keep learning new things and realizing when I was wrong in others. Mostly I just keep realizing that I am going to have to learn to compromise more. For example, years ago, I chose to walk away from attending church services. I had not chosen to walk away from my belief in Christ. But I felt that churches, pastors, and people who congregated together in the church building made fantastic claims that they based on the Bible but couldn’t be verified in real life. I felt that churches often made sweeping judgments against those whose lifestyles didn’t conform 100% with their requirements. There were rules that had to be followed to be a ‘true’ christian. Deviating from those rules made you less than worthy. So I walked. I continued to want to know what the truth was so I kept studying various teachings including those in the Bible to see if I could separate the truth from the claims of the churches and the regulations laid down by them. In my studies, I recently came across this passage in the Bible that told of Jesus on the Sabbath in the synagogue. A sick woman was there and He healed her. This, of course, annoyed the leaders. Jesus was breaking a rule and working on the Sabbath. The leader didn’t complain to Jesus about this. I don’t know if he was in awe of Jesus or if he had just given up trying to get Jesus to conform to the rules. This leader went to the woman and scolded her for being healed on the Sabbath. So Jesus turned around and scolded him. Called him a hypocrite. Said he would have fed his donkey on the Sabbath, wasn’t this woman more important?

There were several little things that occurred to me when I read this. First, Jesus wasn’t always all that fond of the teaching of the elders. Second, rules weren’t His primary consideration - people were. And thirdly, he was in the synagogue. In spite of the fact that He didn’t always follow the rules, and He didn’t always like the elders, and He didn’t always believe they were teaching the actual truths God wanted the people to hear, where would you see Him on the Sabbath? He would be in the synagogue. He didn’t have to agree with them. He just kept doing what He thought was right. If He saw them hurting others, He spoke up. Obviously He didn’t make Himself real popular with the elders.

Anyway, it came to me there were some things I needed to learn from this. One, I should just keep on doing what I think is right. Two, if I see someone being hurt by the rules imposed by the church, I should speak up. And, three, I need to rethink my stand on church attendance.

So - I keep learning. I hope you do too.

Love

Mom

I read about an actuary who calculated that the odds of a man’s trousers falling down if he was wearing both a belt and suspenders was about 35,000 to one. What would be the odds of a man’s trousers falling down while wearing only a belt? What about only suspenders?

?A: Darned if I know. Does anyone else know? Send me a comment and I’ll post it.

Hello. This is kind of an “unconventional” question , but have other visitors asked you how get the menu bar to look like you’ve got it? I also have a blog and am really looking to alter around the theme, however am scared to death to mess with it for fear of the search engines punishing me. I am very new to all of this …so i am just not positive exactly how to try to to it all yet. I’ll just keep working on it one day at a time Thanks for any help you can offer here.

This was a question I had to ask my husband to answer. He is the one who set up my website. He tells me the menu bar was a part of the template provided by VodaHost for the Word Pro’s. It was written in PHP and was easily modified for our needs.

Great discussion and I appreciate your input. Quick question. We are making plans to install wordpress ourselves. Can you point out a good resource for templates and the best plug ins to make it easy for staff to update content in a nice user friendly way? Thx in advance.

A: I had to poll my husband for the answer to this question because I am technologically disadvantaged (which should answer your question about your staff updating content). Our website is set up using Voda Host. They have the templates and everything you need to set up your site.  They offer several website builders along with a video for setting up websites. These websites come with the wordpress blog at no additional cost. He tells me it was quite simple to set up. They have a forum page to ask questions on how to do things and to see what other people do. All that was necessary to set up our wordpress was to add our logo, the pull down options, and contact information.

do you have any pics for this post?

A:  No, we don’t have pictures on this post.

What is the amazing to begin my blog free?

A:  There is no charge for using this site.  Just click on the ‘email mom’ icon and send me your question or comment.  I will post it with my answer.  If you wish to post an answer of your own to a question, just click on the ‘comment’ icon under the question.  All postings go through the administration site to avoid pornography or other issues.  Once they are approved, they will show up on the site.

I am so sick of everyone telling me to stop smoking!  I’ve tried.  I’ve been smoking two packs a day for at least a year.  Even if I didn’t crave the nicotine, it’s just too much of a habit for me to break.  I tried a program my company paid for.  I managed a whole week while I was at work.  But on the weekend, while I was home alone, I just kept grabbing cigarettes without even thinking.  I tried to stop myself but by the time the weekend was over, I had smoked a whole pack.  So maybe you should start telling people to mind their own business!  We smokers know it’s not good for us.  We just can’t do anything about it.

A:  People who care about you are always going to be encouraging you to live a healthier life.  After all, they love you and want you around for a while.  And you can do something about it!  You are seeing yourself as a failure when, in fact, you were improving.  You tell me you smoked two packs a day for almost a year.  All week, you smoked nothing.  And then, on the weekend, when you did smoke, you only smoked one pack.  That’s three packs better than you had been doing before you started the program.  Everything you do in life takes practice to get it right.  Those Olympic swimmers didn’t just jump in the water and start swimming.  It took practice to get it right.  They were slow at first but they kept on pushing.  You do the same thing with that smoking habit.  Just keep on practicing until you get it right. 

I am a sophomore in college this year. I have been staying with my father this summer. I have mostly lived with him as I have been growing up. He has had a lot of different girlfriends, some who have lived with us, and two that I have close relationships with. I am getting married and want to invite some of my father’s old girlfriends to the wedding. His new girlfriend, who is almost my age, is really upset. My father hasn’t said  much. Do you think I should?

 A:  I think that this is your wedding and the people that have been close to you should be invited to help you celebrate this occasion.  If your father objected to his old girlfriends attending you might want to give it further thought.  After all, your parents are the ones who have always had your best interests at heart.  They are also the ones who have been with you all your life and will continue to do so as long as they live.  Since he doesn’t seem to be objecting, I would say go ahead with your plans to invite whomever you choose.