Stuff I Learned Yesterday

In the past few weeks, my life has taken some dramatic turns. With the combination of our decision for me to stay home with our children while simultaneously moving into a new home, our financial situation changed drastically. We have been stretched thin recently, but were making cuts necessary to be able to maintain life as we knew it. We did the things people normally do when faced with financial strain. We cut extras, trimmed fat and eliminated all extra spending. We quit eating out, and began shopping in more budget friendly ways as well. Read More... The post 249- Don’t Sell Yourself Short appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

We're taught as children to ask for things. Can I have a cookie? Can I go to the park? Can I buy these shoes? It's one of the fundamental principals of life. If you don't ask, you wont get. Of course we're also taught that we don't always get what we ask for. It might be too close to supper for a cookie or the shoes may be too expensive. Sure, we may be disappointed but at least we tried. Read More... The post 248- Ask And You Shall Receive appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Our winters are really fairly mild here in the Sooner state. We get 2 or 3 decent snow falls each season that will keep the kids out of school for a few days. The worst days are when we get ice instead of snow. Back in 2009 we were projected to keep a whopper of a storm. Not only was it projected to be a whopper, it was projected to hit on Christmas Eve. Back then my commute was about 30 miles each way and it took between 35 and 40 minutes. A bad day might be 45 or 50 minutes. A really bad day would take an hour. Read More... The post 247- Blitzed by a Blizzard appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Today I want to share a story that took place during the winter of my junior year of high school. I was the editor for the school yearbook and I also served as a photographer. I’ve mentioned before that I spent a lot of time outside of school with the yearbook teacher, because we traveled a lot to sporting events and venturing off to the city I now live in so that we could have access to a dark room to develop film. Read More... The post 246- The Topless Jeep and Sonic Drink appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Geoff. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More... The post 245- Friday Forum appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mandy Wichert. I think mangos are better than candy and I believe, if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’m talking about the best Valentine’s Day ever and how your experience can be shaped by taking on a […] The post 244- Valentine Showdown appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

I remember when my son was born. Like most new parents, no matter how prepared you think you are, when you're holding your newborn child in your arms for the first time you get that nudging fear that you are responsible for everything in this child's life for many, many years ahead. It can be overwhelming. Read More... The post 243- Raising Children is a Daunting Task appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Kari and I got married in 1999 and bought our first house in 2002. We’d been living in Wichita Falls, Texas for a year. We spent the first year in an apartment and when I lease was up we decided it was time to buy a place of our own. Had we known that we’d only live in the house for one year we wouldn’t have made that choice, but at the time it looked like we’d be residing in Wichita Falls for several years. It was a 3 bedroom house that had been built in the 1950’s, wiped out by a tornado in the 1970’s and then rebuilt. It had a big window in the living room and french doors in the dining room that let in a lot of natural light. The french doors opened up to a covered patio and a large size yard with a swing set and storage shed. Read More... The post 242- Let Us Eat Cake appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

As I teased on last Friday’s episode, today’s episode is going to take a look back at the episode I released last Tuesday entitled, “When Laughing is No Laughing Matter.” The truth is, it’s an episode that I almost didn’t release. In fact, both of the episodes I did last week almost didn’t get released. I almost didn’t release Monday’s episode (Can You Keep a Secret) because I didn’t want to further infringe upon the promise that I had made (and broken) to my friend. I went back and forth for weeks in my mind as I talked myself into recording it and then talked myself out of recording it. Obviously I finally settled on recording it, but I changed the the name of my friend and left out a few details. In the end, the story held true to what happened, while still protecting the people involved. It was a lesson that I felt would provide value and needed to be shared. Read More... The post 241- The Accidental Journaler appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & M

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share contributions from Bonita and Justina. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More... The post 240- Friday Forum appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

I remember in 1996 when we first got the internet in my home. Of course, it was nothing like today. Many of you can remember receiving the AOL discs in the mail, popping them into the CD drive, loading them up for the first time, and waiting for that agonizingly long dial-up ring tone. I'm sure that many of you, like me, have that tone endlessly etched in your head. Read More... The post 239- Grey Poupon and Junior Prom appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

The mind is an amazing machine. It loves routines. It loves efficiency. It loves repetitive tasks that it can do over and over. That's how you can accomplish so many tasks throughout your day without really thinking about them. Some call it multitasking. However, when you break out and veer away of those routines you are in effect, giving your mind a stressful workout. This requires more concentration, more energy and more time, which can be mentally exhausting. Your mind prefers the repetitive tasks that allow it to refuel and get ready for the next time you break from your routines. Read More... The post 238- The Routine of Creativity appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

When I was 24 years old I took over the store manager position of a bookstore in Texas. I was responsible for not only managing nearly a million dollars in inventory, but the staff of about 30 people. As anyone who has been in management can tell you, managing people is by far the harder part of the job. By that time I had worked for the company for 6 years and had spent the previous 10 months specifically training to run my own store. Still, I was not fully prepared to for the job when I accepted it. Honestly though, I think it’s one of those jobs where you can never be fully prepared until you actually do it and get real world on the job training. Read More... The post 237- When Laughing is No Laughing Matter appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

I spent nearly 19 years working for a bookstore chain. You can imagine the number of people that I worked with during that time. Fortunately, most of them were really great. I spent just over half of those years working on the frontline of the chain at several of our stores. Like many companies, there was a disconnect between those that worked in the stores, and those that worked at the corporate office. While I worked at the store, it was pretty common to hear comments from my co-workers about how clueless the corporate people were. In fact, when I eventually got a job at the corporate office, one of my co-workers at the store gave me the board game Clue as a going away present, so that I would never find myself clueless at my new job at the corporate office. Read More... The post 236- Can You Keep a Secret? appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday is a Friday Flashback. Friday Flashback episodes feature some of the most popular episodes of Stuff I Learned Yesterday. Today we hear one of the episodes that has received the most listener feedback, Stuff I Learned Yesterday Episode 102- A Teacher and a Storyteller. Read More... The post 235- Friday Flashback appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

A little over one week ago, my house was pristine. The floor was mopped and vacuumed, the countertops and sinks glistened and every stray belonging and piece of laundry had found its home. I took a deep breath, looking around and felt so proud of what I had accomplished. Then, my family came home. The weather was cold and we stayed inside most of the weekend. I picked up a few stray things here and there, and continued to cook. Then, I rested. I noticed that things were getting a little messier but thought I’d be able to get to it later. I loaded the dishwasher up and set it to run, but after that, the business of life caught up with me. Pretty soon, the clean house I’d been so proud of had vanished and now the task of cleaning at all seems daunting, because I’m already so far behind! I was almost paralyzed into doing nothing because the mountain of mess was just too hard to tackle, especially while it continued to grow! Read More... The post 234- Baby Steps appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertain

I'm going to lay my geek card right down in front of you now and tell you that I am a huge Dungeons & Dragons fan. In fact, my resume has Dungeon Master listed under interests and hobbies, I'm not kidding. I actually landed a job interview once because the HR person was curious and wanted to ask me about it. I realized at the interview that the job wasn't for me and backed out so I don't know if he would have hired me or not. Read More... The post 233- The Assumption That Got Me Killed appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

We’ve been talking a lot about goals over the last month, and I think that it’s been a great benefit to a lot of us. Yesterday over our the Stuff I Learned Yesterday Facebook page, Faith shared an update on a new script that she’s working on and Mark shared an update to his weight loss goal. Over the weekend, Davia and Geoff both shared updates on their goals. Read More... The post 232- If At First You Don’t Succeed appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

I’ve mentioned a few times on this podcast that every afternoon I stop working and go to meet my daughter at the bus stop. I really enjoy the few minutes that we spend together. Even though our conversations aren’t very deep, I value the one-on-one time that we spend together and I hope that one day she’ll look back on it fondly. Read More... The post 231- Showered With Love appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share contributions from Therissa and Melissa. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page Read More... The post 230- Friday Forum appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.