Category Archives: Health

You Make a Difference

April 21, 2011 Joan Y Edwards 2 Comments

“You Make a Difference” by Joan Y. Edwards

You make a difference
You are important to me.
You have made a wonderful difference in my life.

“Make a Difference” Movie – Fictional Story by Mary Reynolds about a teacher named, Miss Thompson and Teddy Stallard http://www.makeadifferencemovie.com/.

Quotes about helping and/or making a difference http://www.quotegarden.com/helping.html

“Acknowledgment” Movie “Who You Are Makes a Difference,” a true story of a teacher named Helice “Sparky” Bridges, the creator of the Acknowledgment Ceremony and author of book, “Who I Am Makes A Difference,” http://www.acknowledgmentmovie.com/

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The following email was sent to me several times since 2005. The words are almost the same as in the “Acknowledgment” Movie. Here’s what Snopes has to say: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/difference.asp.

You are making a difference today. You are important to this earth. Be thankful. Believe in yourself. Take time to tell others you appreciate them and what they mean to you.

“In 1988, a teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. She called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told each of them how they had made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read, “Who I Am Makes a Difference.” Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community.

She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week.

One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two extra ribbons and said, “We’re doing a class project on recognition, and we’d like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell me what happened.

Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, “Well, sure.” The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss’s jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he said, “Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring somebody else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people.

That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down, He said, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine. He thinks I’m a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says ‘Who I Am Makes A Difference’ on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honor you. My days are really hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you!”

The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, “I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow, Dad, because I didn’t think you loved me. Now I know you care. This is the happiest day I’ve known.”

The boss went back to work a changed man. He was no longer a grouch but made sure to let all his employees know that they made a difference. The junior executive helped several other young people with career planning and never forgot to let them know that they made a difference in his life…one being the bosses son. And the young boy and his classmates learned a valuable lesson. Who you are DOES make a difference!”

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I’ll leave you with this beautiful, inspiring, and powerful video, “One Person Can Make a Difference,” created by CJ Broen in 2007 to apply for a scholarship. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdojxtLI25g

Thank you for being on my path and filling my life with joy! You Have Made a Difference in My World. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Never Give Up!
Joan Y. Edwards
Copyright © 2011 Joan Y. Edwards and her licensors.

Health

Wonderfully Funny Analogies and Metaphors

July 28, 2010 Joan Y Edwards 6 Comments

Dear Honored Readers,

Humor is good for your spirit, it helps keep you going. It heals you from the tip of your toes, to the top layer of hairs on your head.

To help you keep on going, read my post.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/metaphor.asp

According to SNOPES.COM The following humorous analogies and metaphors came from the Washington Post’s Style Invitational from 1995 and 1999. On the internet they are often credited as collections from actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. Snopes says this is not true. Wherever they came from, they brought so much laughter to David Greenberg at the Oregon Coast Children’s Book Writers Workshop this year that he could hardly read them. That’s when the laughter got so contagious, the whole room laughed with him. I hope these descriptions bring you much laughter.

If you enjoy the following descriptions, you might enjoy Richard Lederer’s Book, “Anguished English.”

I. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse
without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a
formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
II. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and
Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. At a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land
mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

I hope you are laughing so hard, you feel rejuvenated all over!

Thanks for reading.
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Giveaway complete in 2010.

Health

Songs Cheer and Heal

May 8, 2010 Joan Y Edwards 4 Comments

“Songs Cheer and Heal” by Joan Y. Edwards

Singing songs can cheer you. Songs can change your mood. More than likely the songs you hear have the sounds that heal you.

My sister, Judith, (God bless her soul) studied with Native Americans who believe that each of us has a sound that when we hear it, it heals us spiritually, physically, and emotionally.

When you were a baby, perhaps your Mother and/or Father sang lullabies to help you relax and go to sleep.

When you were just learning to walk, you heard certain sounds that made you want to dance.

When you were a teenager some music made you feel in love or swoon over the person who sang it. You imagined they were singing that particular song just for you.

If you were married, you chose songs to be played at your wedding. Chances are you didn’t choose Wagner’s Operatic music for your wedding.

If you’re feeling bad and sad and want to linger this mood and feel sorry for yourself, there are songs that will also help prolong that mood.

A song I have sung from the time I was five years old that gives me life is Flip Flap Floodle. Each time I tell the story and sing the song, I feel invigorated. I feel like I can keep on going. It’s a catchy tune. It has the same effect on the children and adults who hear it.

Flip Flap Floodle‘s Song. You keep singing it over and over again. It’s fun. It’s healing. I tried for many years to get the story published. I self-published it in 2004. It gave me a great deal of joy to accomplish this. You can buy it or only $10.00 on Amazon.com: Flip Flap Floodle.

Beginning in 1985, I cared for my Mother, Ethel D. Meyer for 14 years. During that time I noticed the power that music played in her moods and emotions. From my bedroom one day in 2000, I heard her shout, “WHOO EEE! WHOO EEE!”

I wondered what was going on that had her so excited. It must be good. I went to her room to see why she was so happy. When I entered her room she was sitting up watching television. I looked on the television screen and I saw a man singing. It was one of those programs where they earn money for Public Television stations. Across the bottom of the screen, it flashed his name: Daniel O’Donnell. He was from Ireland. Mother was mesmerized by him. You can see why by listening to him sing “You Raise Me Up.”

Mother looked at me and said, “He shakes my corpuscles.” She used to say Daddy shook her corpuscles. He died in 1978.

I thought if this man, Daniel O’Donnell brings her so much joy, I’ll buy a video tape so she can watch him whenever she wants. They were asking $100.00 for a video. I found his videos cheaper on the internet. I believe this was the end of November 2000. I purchased one for Christmas and the next one would come for Mother’s birthday in January. I also paid for Mother to join the Daniel O’Donnell.

When Mother got the video at Christmas, she held it close to her heart and said, “MY MAN.”

Sometimes she would go around singing, “Meet me in St. Louis, Louie. Meet me at the Fair.” So I found videos of many great musicals that may have been popular when she younger. She loved watching them. She didn’t mind seeing them over and over again.

When Mother’s left hip broke and she fell earlier that year, I sang songs from my childhood and hymns that I liked. I was so frightened. The songs I sang had to be ones I knew the words to, or the melody to sing or hum. Singing these songs gave me strength to know that I’d be able to make it. They also seemed to calm Mother down. Her facial expression showed it calmed her to sing along with me or just to listen.

When Mother was in the hospital in 2009 before she died, I started singing these songs and hymns again. My sister, Janet and I sang her favorite songs and ours over and over again. Although it was her time to go have her special meeting with God in heaven, it still brought peace to her body and mind. She wasn’t able to sing this time, but you could tell by her body language that it relaxed her.

Mother died on March 18, 2009. She was 92 years young. She taught me so much about a positive attitude and about how music healed her and gave her life.

My husband, Carl, loves the music of the fifties. He can be down and out. If he hears music from the 50’s, he’s immediately upbeat and ready to face the world.

At the memorial service, funeral mass and graveside service for my Mother, we sang these hymns, folks songs, Daniel O’Donnell songs to celebrate her life.

I discovered that music was the way for healing for my Mother, my sister, my husband, my family and friends, and me, I thought I would share this information with you, in hopes that it will help you love living.

Enjoy being your sweet self.

Writing, Inspiration