Email Etiquette

Hey Y'all:

This is totally unrelated to my blog... I love to share information with my peeps.

I just received a work email where the font was tiny and the text went on and on and on. As soon as I opened it I closed it. I wasn't compelled to read it AT ALL.I was so disturbed by this that I went on a quick search for email etiquette and found this great list from www.emailreplies.com. I liked so I'm sharing.

32 most important email etiquette tips:

1. Be concise and to the point
2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions
3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation
4. Make it personal
5. Use templates for frequently used responses
6. Answer swiftly
7. Do not attach unnecessary files
8. Use proper structure & layout
9. Do not overuse the high priority option
10. Do not write in CAPITALS
11. Don't leave out the message thread
12. Add disclaimers to your emails
13. Read the email before you send it
14. Do not overuse Reply to All
15. Mailings > use the bcc: field or do a mail merge
16. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons
17. Be careful with formatting
18. Take care with rich text and HTML messages
19. Do not forward chain letters
20. Do not request delivery and read receipts
21. Do not ask to recall a message.
22. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission
23. Do not use email to discuss confidential information
24. Use a meaningful subject
25. Use active instead of passive
26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT
27. Avoid long sentences
28. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks
29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters
30. Keep your language gender neutral
31. Don't reply to spam
32. Use cc: field sparingly

Until next time...
MUAH!

25 Days of Christmas

Hey Y'all:

The countdown has begun, I know I'm a little late but the 25 Days of Christmas is here! We are just 2 and a half weeks til Christmas. I don't know about you but I'M NOT READY. I haven't purchased gift one but I will say that I'm excited for the holiday. Last year I started a family tradition of putting up the Christmas tree on my oldest son's birthday! So next week the fun begins.

Although I haven't decorated yet, we are enjoying the holiday season with ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas! Last night when I got home from work my son was excited to share with me the box that came in the mail. It was Christmas themed and he was confident that the box contained something for him. Sadly (for him) it was a box just for me :-)

ABC Family shared with me their programming for the 25 Days of Christmas so I'll know exactly when to tune in, along with a pretty cool BPA Free cup with a cute candy cane straw.

Do you remember Frosty's Winter Wonderland or Jack Frost? What about Home Alone 1 & 2 and of course the classic Miracle on 34th Street? Well they will all air this year with so many more wonderful shows on ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas, check out the list here which includes some original programming and great movies. Bake some cookies with the kiddies and get into the holiday spirit.

Until next time...

MUAH!

'Tis The Season... TO GIVE BACK

Hey Y'all:

I know that most of you have already started your holiday shopping (it is just a short few weeks until the big day) I do hope however that you have either set aside some funds or some time to give back!

Here's what I'm talking about... if you head into any store you'll see the Salvation Army folks ringing those bells and if you work in a office I'm almost positive that you'll see a Toys for Tot's box in the lobby. Folks it's the holiday season and there are lots of people out there who are in need. Especially during the financial time that we are in. Some people have had to downsize and Hanukkah, Christmas and even Kwanzaa won't be as plentiful this year.

Here are a few great ways to make someone else smile this holiday season.

1. Drop a gift(s) into the toys for tots boxes you see in the lobby



2. Give some money that folds not jingles into the Salvation Army bucket



3. Check out the following sites http://www.newyorkcares.org/volunteer/holiday_volunteering/winter_wishes/ if you live in NYC, http://www.beanelf.org/, http://www.catholiccharitiesny.org/make-a-donation/ways-of-giving/st-nicholas-project/



4. Work with your kids to collect their gently used now ignored toys and donate them to a shelter or children's hospital



5. Send gifts to our troops!

Please share your ideas on how you plan to give back this holiday season!

Until next time...

MUAH!

Wordless Wednesday: Sleep Happens!

Epic Fail... my 2010 "list"

Hey Y'all:

Hope you are enjoying the final days of 2010. I was thinking about where I was this time last year and figured I'd look at that list I created at the beginning of the year. My lofty list of 10 things I planned to accomplish this year... I shared it here and I'm sad to say many of them have gone undone and will carry over into 2011.

Here was my list of 5 business and 5 personal goals:

1. Blog notoriety. I want to Blow up! Not like KABOOM but you know what I mean, I want to be known in the blogosphere and turn a profit so Mrs. Deveter can really go on a journey!
   
2. Become an Associated Content Provider
3. Get to writing my first children's book
4. Incorporate my side business (Bee & Bee Creations)
5. Become a notary (something I've wanted to do for a while)
   
6. Get Life Insurance. I did a whole post on it now I really need to get to it. I want my family to be well taken care of if something should happen to me. You know, for the "If's in life."
7. Take a Mother Daughter vacation with my Mom and Leah.
8. Go back to Curves! No more excuses
9. Potty train the twins
10. Plan my wedding vow renewal.

I completed ONE thing on this list and truth be told I didn't even do it. Item #9 is done, signed, sealed and delivered and my mom did it! She potty trained the twins this summer.

I know a few more people in the blogging world but I'm no further today then I was when I posted this list on 1/4/10. I haven't visited the Associated Content site since I signed up, haven't jotted down a thing for my first book, I can't help a soul with a notary stamp, and if the "if's" in life happened today I would be up a creek without a paddle. My mother daughter trip is still in my thoughts but no chance of that happening within the next 30 days. Curves is no where in my future and the wedding vow renewal has been pushed back 6 years for our 20th wedding anniversary!

I've always been a 'list' person.

I love them... in theory they help me. They make me feel like I've fully thought out my plans and listed them in the order I would like them completed. For as long as I've been creating these lists or set these goals for the year I've always only been able to check off one or two items. Is it me? I mean really why can't I make things happen?
Oh I know... lots of living gets in the way. I may not have completed this 'published' list but I've done so many awesome things this past year that I feel accomplished and poised to succeed!

So what I didn't complete all of these items; they are still top of mind and will happen in time. I'm just going to continue living (and making lists) knowing that one day I'll look back and see that I've accomplished everything I've had in mind.

Until next time...
MUAH!

3 of my favorite lists:

1. Reasons Why I love Being a Mommy
2. Reasons Why I love the Internet
3. Reasons Why I love Being Married
   

Hey Y'all:

I found this list on one of my favorite sites www.hellobeautiful.com and thought I would share a little more about me with you! Feel free to re post.

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1. What is your greatest fear? Failure

2. Who are your heroes in real life? My mother and husband

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? My inability to lose weight!

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Inconsistency

5. What is your greatest extravagance? My biweekly manicure (with three kids and a musician for a husband a $40 ‘hand job’ is an extravagance)

6. What is your greatest regret? Not going to grad school right after college. Not that it’s to late but it’s going to be a struggle to go back now.

7. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? I don’t think any of them are overrated. They are all need to make for a well rounded God focused life. Without chastity you fall into lust, without temperance you fall into gluttony, without charity you lead a life of greed, without diligence you deal with sloth, without patience you are full of wrath, without kindness you have envy and without humility you are doomed to the failure of pride

8. What is your current state of mind? Hopeful

9. What talent would you most like to have? I would love to have musical talent i.e. playing the piano.

10. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I’d be more patient with myself

11. What do you consider your greatest achievement? my marriage of 14 years

12. On what occasion do you lie? I try not to... but I would if it saved a life

13. What is your most treasured possession? my children. although they aren't possessions they are the most precious things in my life!

14. What is your perfect happiness? having my children, husband and mother in the same room at the same time

15. What do you like most about your appearance? the gap between my front teeth

16. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? I've never been there I have no idea

17. What is your most marked characteristic? my silver bracelets, I've been wearing them since I was about a year old and was upset that my mother made me remove them when I got married.

18. What is it that you most dislike? that I'm not making a living doing what I love.

19. What do you value most in your friends? Honesty and patience

20. What is your motto? Life is a Journey Live Fabulously

Share with me.

Until next time...
MUAH!

The Unwanted.... unplanned vist

Hey Y'all:

Earlier this week one of my blogging mama's posted a tweet alerting us that she was headed to the ER with her little guy due to an injury that required stitches. I told her that she was in my prayers and that I hoped everything worked out well. She told me that she knew I had some experience with ER's since I'm the mommy of boys as well. Little does she know my boys weren't the ones to take me on my first ER visit it was my girl! I actually wrote a blurb about my first visit quite a few months ago and made it short and sweet.


Tuesday started off great... and then we had a major issue. I always
thought my first visit to the ER would be with one of my boys most likely
Myles. Boy was I WRONG. While hanging out at their great grandmother's house
Leah fell and hit the back of her head on the hard cement floor. I was
sitting right there so I know there was no one to blame. She was screaming
in pain, when I picked her up I rubbed her head and kissed her boo boo. I
thought she just bumped it really hard UNTIL... I saw red! Ugh my baby girl
had a gash the size of a thumb nail in the back of her pretty little head in
the middle of a braid. I had to undo the braid to get to the gash and find
out how deep it was. When I realized it would require stitches I freaked
out. Didn't know how to find an urgent care center, couldn't remember who
had the medical cards; I was just a mess. Thankfully my sister in law and
grandmother were there to help me pull it together for Leah's
sake. Long story short after stopping by an ER in the 'hood' that was packed
with people; off to Long Island we went, where my little girl was taken care of.
Three staples, a banana and cute little white teddy bear, a mother's resolve
to forgo the cute little beads in Leah's hair later; we were headed back to
great grandma's where Myles and Erick greeted their sister with hugs and
kisses.

Now that I am past the excitement of the experience and my little one's head is fully healed with a tiny unnoticeable scar I can share what I really learned from this.

When an accident happens BREATHE. It might seem like a simple thing but breathing is the first thing you stop doing when something goes wrong. Take a deep breath, say a prayer and look the situation in the face head on and deal. When Leah fell, at first I thought there was just going to be a little bump on her head, until I saw the blood. Then I panicked. That doesn't help anyone. I stopped breathing pretty much and couldn't think. My brain wasn't getting enough oxygen or something so I was of no help to my child.

Listen to suggestions. When I called my husband to tell him I was on the way to the hospital he told me where to go first but I was so out of it that I was trying to get to the quickest place not the best place. By doing so I wasted about half an hour. Thankfully my sister in law was driving and I wasn't by myself because truth be told I would have called the darn ambulance if I didn't have some folks with good sense around me. Say yes to help. You cannot do it all. If someone offers to help you sort out the situation accept it. Folks care and come through in the midst of trouble.

When you get to the ER tell them everything you know and be patient. If it's crowded make sure they know you have a bleeding child and they should take you right away. During the exam if the gash is small it's best to just let them stitch it up without trying to numb the area, my daughter screamed for about a minute and then she was fine. If the Dr. had put the long needle in her head to numb the area there would have been a whole lot more screaming. In everything use your best judgment. I haven't had to deal with a broken limb yet (knocking on wood) so I don't know what kind of pain management is administered for that.

Try not to be offended if someone from social services wants to speak to you (unless you are guilty of child abuse!) They are just doing their job and trying to protect your child. Tell them about the situation and thank them for doing their job.

It's hard being a parent and even more difficult when you have to deal with illness and accidents. We mother's however are cut out to have nerves of steel (well sometimes anyway) so grin and bear it for your little one's sake. If they see you freaking out there is no doubt that they will loose it as well.

Until next time...

MUAH!