Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy 2010!

May this new year bring a new beginning of something awesome for you and yours! My hope for you is that this new year - the start of a new decade - brings you reflection of the awesome things in the past that you want to continue and reminders of the not so cool things that you made it through and have made you stronger.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

RESTORE

Team Jackson is not completely ‘geeked out’ but we do have our share of electronic devices. We share a family desktop computer. Mandi has a laptop, Blackberry, digital camera, and IPOD. Jared has a laptop, cell phone, and IPOD. Victoria has a digital camera, cell phone, and IPOD. I have a laptop, 2 Blackberries (1 for work and one for personal), and 2 IPODs (a Touch and a Nano). Even Gabe has his own digital camera. Ok so maybe we are completely ‘geeked out’ (LOL) and that kind of explains our skyrocketing electric bill…but I digress.

I find that often times it is necessary to restore an electronic device if it is not working properly. Sometimes “stuff” (this is NOT a technical blog) gets hung up in a device and you can pull your hair out trying to figure out what is going wrong with it. For the laptops, sometimes it is simply powering that bad boy down and letting it reset itself. When you power it back up, everything seems to be fine and in good working order.

I have been working off and on for a couple of weeks trying to transfer Mandi’s iTunes music from the family desktop over to her laptop and then sync with her IPOD. She had nearly a gig of errant data taking up space on the IPOD’s hard drive and I just could neither figure out what it was nor how to get rid of it. Finally we noticed a restore function that would set her IPOD back to the original factory setting. One click, it restored, and synced like a champ. It is completely back to normal now. For my Blackberries, I have been using the auto on/off feature for a few weeks now. They turn off each night at a certain time, restore, and then turn back on at a certain time each morning and are ready for another day of mobile computing.

I think in life we need to restore ourselves from time to time. “Stuff” gets hung up in us and sometimes we just need to restore, return to factory settings, and refresh ourselves for what life will bring next. Would be nice if we had a restore button we could push everyday wouldn’t it? I think we do have some ‘buttons’ we can push though: prayer, reflection, laughter, and good old-fashioned sleep. Don’t let ‘corrupt files’ hinder or degrade your performance. Restore, refresh, and live life to the fullest!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

You Don't Know About Me!

Kids are so funny and the thing that gets me is that often times we learn more from them than we can teach them. Our youngest Gabriel gave me a laugh – something I still recall and laugh about today – and taught me a lesson at the same time.

Gabe is 8 now but just before Beyonce’s song Irreplaceable was released in October 2006 – the ‘hook’ to that song is “you must not know ‘bout me” and the significance of that will be explained later - he had just turned 6 the month before and he and I were hanging out at home in Tennessee. It was just the two of us for the evening as the other three were out and about. We were in our upstairs family room on the floor plowing through about 3 board games at one time. Trouble, Monopoly, and I can’t remember the 3rd. So as we are playing he begins to pass gas. Yep that part is funny in and of itself but is not the really funny thing. After about three of these little 6-year-old mustard gas bombs, I tell him that clearly his body is telling him that he needs to go to the bathroom. He insists that he doesn’t and we commence gaming. About 5 minutes later the barrage begins again! After the 4th or 5th shelling, I insist that he go and relieve himself in the bathroom. He argues that he doesn’t need to go and I again tell him that clearly he DOES need to. Well he looks at me with those eyes of his and proclaims, “Daddy I don’t have to go to the bathroom, and you don’t know about me!” Oh my gosh, that comment took me so much by surprise that I belly laughed out loud for at least 3 minutes. He thought I was nuts but he didn’t go to the bathroom that evening and I guess he was right because nothing ruptured.

My takeaways from that night are two-fold. One is that I have a funny kid. He makes me laugh about something everyday. All three of our children are funny and that makes for some fun times around the house. Two is that I think it is vital that we “know” our children. I’ve made it my mission to be as connected with my kids as possible. To know what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what motivates them, and what their dreams are. Tough love is often necessary but it is not as tough I don’t think if you really “know” your kids and they know you and where you are coming from on things.

So back to Beyonce’, when that song came out a month later, Gabe instantly had a theme song. Too funny! I can’t hear that song without thinking about that night and being reminded of the lesson the evening taught me. Hey do you think Gabe is due any royalties for the song?