Good Morning, I am tired of all the negative things I have seen on Facebook the past few weeks so help me spread joy today. Let’s make Joy go viral. Spread the joy. Every day we can find joy in the midst of sorrows and in the smallest details of life if we look for it. Today look for joy and spread the word. I’ll be watching to see how many of you are with me in this. Joy can change the world.
Published in The Albert Lea Tribune week of May 25, 2016. Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf
Do you leave reviews for your favorite spaces and places? In the olden days we had to rely on newspaper advertisements and radio advertisements to find if the places we wanted to shop or dine were good establishments to visit. Or businesses had to rely on the word-of-mouth of customers who had used their establishment.
Things have changed and now businesses and other venues can be reviewed online by those who loved their services or did not have a good experience. Places such as Yelp.com, Angieslist.com, tripadvisor.com and many others, along with the buzz of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and the other gazillion sites out there will tell you the ups and downs of places and products. And if you are a business in a small community and think you are safe from these reviews — well think again — you are probably listed somewhere out there.
Most businesses now have their own websites and Facebook pages and customers also leave reviews on these pages. Can you rely on these reviews?
Recently a friend and I were in Shakopee, and we were dining out. We chose a restaurant in downtown Shakopee. We checked out the reviews and most were positive. Many stated fast service.
We arrived and the place was packed and very busy. We were on a tight schedule and thought perhaps we wouldn’t be served and out in time to make our movie. The reviews were right. We had excellent, fast service and our waitress was outstanding. She earned a big tip. In that case the reviews could be trusted.
In the olden days when we wanted to check out a product we possibly would buy the Consumer Reports Magazine. These days, if we want to investigate a product we can go online and find the reviews for the model we want to buy. I always check the reviews before I buy. As an author, book reviews on my books by my readers are very important to me. If I want to advertise my book on a book site or in a magazine, the key to acceptance in many places are the reviews on your books and the number of reviews you have. So for me and other authors, reviews are important.
Bigger companies take reviews seriously. I have a friend who reviews products for companies that are sold on Amazon. The companies send her products; she reviews them on Amazon honestly and reveals she has been given a product to review. I know I can trust her reviews.
When you are reading reviews on anything, please take the time to consider those reviews and the person making the statements. A product, website or even books that have 100 percent five star reviews are not always what they seem. Can all people love the products? A few bad reviews are not necessarily a bad thing. It means the reviews are by real consumers and not a paid review. Yes, there are places where you can pay to buy reviews.
When reading a bad review, take time to investigate who is leaving the review and why; there are people out there who leave bad reviews just to leave bad reviews. There are people out there who don’t like any products. Also a review is one person’s opinion.
For instance, two and three star reviews on movies and books do not always deter me. I look at the reviewer’s history of reviews and see perhaps the items this person gave three star reviews to be because their taste was of different genres than the movie or book being reviewed. They have different tastes.
I myself would not give a five-star review to a bloody, gory movie or to a graphic book. It is not my cup of tea. But my review would be constructive rather than destructive. Always remember there is a person behind the product and they have feelings too especially if you are reviewing a book or a blog.
Reviews are also a way businesses can improve their services if the review is fair and constructive. For instance, I have had some landscape work done and I am not exactly a happy camper. I feel I am not being listened to. When all is said and done I will leave a review online but I won’t trash the people or the business but I will leave constructive comments that may help them improve other people’s experience with this company. The thing to remember is this is my experience; someone else may have had a great experience with the same company.
The same can be said for other businesses that get a bad review — perhaps the business was just having an off day or the customer was having an off day.
If I positively do not like a book and don’t finish it I don’t leave a review at all. It might not have been my cup of tea but someone else will love it.
The best negative review I received on one of my books was this, “The author must have scrambled eggs for brains. She writes like Dr. Seuss.” I loved this person’s negativity.
Review away, make someone’s day. Be positive or constructive but don’t be destructive.
– See more at: http://www.albertleatribune.com/2016/05/be-constructive-not-negative-in-reviews/#sthash.7LF7o4LH.dpuf
I have my mother’s hands. When I look at my hands today I see my mother’s hands. How did it happen? Where did the time go? My hands have aged into my mother’s aged hands that I remember.
My mother’s hands were not the hands of many women of her day or of today. In her older years her hands were gnarled with arthritis and bumpy from broken fingers and broken bones and wear earned during her years of hard work. My mother had a worker’s hands. She wasn’t afraid to use her hands to dig in her garden, help take care of the farm animals and scrub floors or do other tasks. She often wore gloves and she used lotion religiously, but still her hands were dry and cracked, and her skin as she got older thinned out and bruised easily. I remember looking at her hands and listening to her explanation that nothing she did to take care of them made a difference.
I don’t have worker hands or at least I don’t work as hard as my mother did at manual labor. I too use lotion and try and do the best I can to take care of my hands, but they are my mother’s hands. The skin has thinned with age and they bruise easily. My knuckles show the signs of aging and creaky bones. It doesn’t matter how much lotion I use, if I skip a day my hands become dry and bleed easily. When I look at my hands and see my mother’s hands, it brings me comfort and the blessing of memories.
I was an only child. My mother and I didn’t always see eye to eye. I didn’t understand her and she didn’t understand me. I didn’t always treat her the way she should have been treated but there is one thing we both knew through all our trials and that is our love bound us together through the good and bad.
Mother’s Day is this week, and I miss my mother on Mother’s Day. I don’t think I ever missed a Mother’s Day with my mother. I might not always have spent the entire day with her, but we did see each other on Mother’s Day. And even through my busy life and move, we talked every week — a couple times a week.
My mom didn’t really care about gifts. What she cherished the most was seeing and hearing from her grandchildren on her special days and during the week. To her those were her gifts.
As I ponder Mother’s Day in 2016 I want to offer a little advice for those younger whose busy lives lead them in other directions away from home. I have heard the words in conversations with others, “Oh, my kids are busy. They don’t have time to call. I understand that because they are busy with work and family. They have their life. It’s OK because I want them to be happy and they are so stressed I don’t want to add to it.”
Those words are words of love from a mother’s heart because that is what mothers do, they sacrifice for their children even after their children have left home. Mothers put aside their feelings because they love their family. Until you become a parent and reach older age you might not understand the love it takes for an older parent to put aside feelings on special days because they want their children to have it easier.
As a daughter I would give anything to be able to pick up the phone each week and talk to my mother. I would give anything to be able to ask her about her day and her week. I would give anything to be able to tell her I love her and I am sorry for all the times I didn’t take time to listen to her if only for a few minutes.
The best gift you can give your mother on Mother’s Day is the gift of a call and the promise you will take time to call regularly throughout the year. Ask her about her life and what she is doing. Show an interest in her day-to-day activities. Even in our older age we need someone to be interested in what we are doing. That’s all a mother wants is to be shown a little love and given a little time, even if it is a few minutes on the phone. The next time you think about telling your mom you haven’t called because you are too busy, remember that time waits for no one and there will come a day when you call, and she is no longer able to answer.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there. I wish you the gift of feeling loved and cherished because you had and have the most important job in the world, that is raising up children in the way they should go.
As I look at my hands and remember my mother’s hands I still feel the love of a touch, the hands on my brow when I was sick, the feel of her hug and the squeeze of her hand giving me assurance. Happy Mother’s Day in heaven, Mom. I love you, and I love the heaven line to talk to you. It is never busy.
Sprinkled Notes 