ARDELL DellaLoggia

I apologize for making you go someplace else to read this post. But it's long and it took a lot of time and Google doesn't like it when I cut and paste from one site to another.

I think it is an important read for every agent and anyone who has anything to do with mls systems and how they function.

Thank you for taking the time. Open Letter to NWMLS and Local Agents

Someone did a class at Inman Connect awhile back on "Inbox Zero". My first thought was, that's a dumb idea. I hope I NEVER have an empty Inbox. I didn't go to the class :)

Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to FILL my inbox with one email from every important person in my life, so I can hit Reply to and get in touch with everyone I know in the first two weeks of the new year. Past clients, current clients, future clients in my prospect folder, family, friends, FULL!

I WANT A FULL LIFE AND I WANT A FULL INBOX!

AN EMPTY INBOX IS LIKE THE PHONE NOT RINGING!!! I HAD ENOUGH OF THAT IN 2008!

2009? Give me a FULL Inbox!

Long before...well, just about anything, the visual influence of the moon's cycle was used as a planning tool for people of many cultures. It was everyone's "monthly planner".

It is now 2009 and we have a little over 20 days until The First New Moon of the New Year. That is what Chinese New Year is...the first new moon of the new year.

For Christians, the concept of "an empty vessell" is the equivalent of "the new moon" in the cycle. It's the time you empty the old, the stale, the rotted, the dusty and you make way for new ideas and concepts. It's when you plant a seed for something new to grow.

While everyone and their mother talks about New Year's Resolutions and the beginning of The Year of the Ox on January 26th, we all know what happens. By February everyone's back to same old, same old for a WHOLE YEAR! But if you grasp the concept of the rough month cycle of the moon, you have 12 chances for a "do over". We all need our "do overs" because life is too short to get only one shot a year to set goals.

Take your life into 12 priorities. Health, Family, Volunteerism, Adventure, Spiritual Renewal...just some examples. The problem with setting goals and resolutions on only one day of the year, is we tend to skip something important, and focus mostly on ourselves and our work. But if you give yourself TWELVE NEW DAYS in the 12 new moons, you can set a plan in motion 12 times in a year for 12 different aspects of your life.

Take a really hard look at that chart. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU? Maybe you want to start YOUR cycle when the moon is FULL. How many people really want empty these days? Not many.

Maybe you want to start your cyle when "the glass is half full"! Yeah, that's the ticket! Room for new without throwing away all my good stuff that I want to keep. What do the Chinese know or the Native Americans, for that matter. I wouldn't trade their life for mine in a million years! Yeah...let's reinvent the Almanac, let's be rebels...Let's start a revolution!

...and let's do that again and again. Happy New Moon! Happy Full Moon! Happy...Happy!

I have given out some of these ideas to people in financial distress, or families who just got snowed in and couldn't get out to buy Christmas Ornaments this year. The younger you are, the more you may need "fillers" in the early years as you grow your collection of ornaments.

These are all very low cost ideas you can make between now and tonight using things you may have around the house.

The above is a simple hand made fan that you can sit right on the tree without a hook. This one is many years old and is made from left over scraps of foil wrapping paper. It's double sided with two pieces of paper glued together, so it is heavier and colored on both sides.

You can use any wrapping paper, or even copy paper that you paint green and red stripes on. Get creative!

If you have plain ornaments that were economical, and the tree just looks a little to "plain", try painting a few stripes in different colors on the plain ornament.

This one was done on colored cross stitch cloth, but you can create the same affect pretty quickly with any colored cloth. Great idea for people who like safe ornaments that won't break.

If you just opened your ornaments and find some that have peeled or as my Mom would say "have seen better days", you can usually wash off the color altogether and paint them. Sometimes they will be clear underneath like this one. Sometimes they will be silver underneath. Either way, a little paint and glitter on the washed off ball will look better than one that with peeled off color. Fun idea for the kids to get creative with as well.

These are really, really old. My sister and I doctored these up with some glitter and paint twenty years ago, and they were at least 20 years old then! LOL. On the right you can see the satin balls with sequins and pinned beads. If you have plain satin balls, letting the children who are old enough to handle pins make their own special ball is something they will treasure years later.

I made this one from glass back when I was a teenager, but you can make something similar out of cardboard. I painted two different pictures (the paint is on the inside) and put a piece of tinfoil in the middle and glued them together. Opague paint on the faces and background, stained glass paint where you want the foil to sparkle from the lights. A wrapped present, a toy soldier, many different designs that don't involve face painting :). I'm surprised these are still around after 30+ years. A piece of gold brick-a-brac glued to the edge.

Andrea, who is now 20, made this in kindergarten. A child's block with the initial of their first name and some felt and puffs glued on. One of my most prized possessions :) Could be a little too late to put this one together by tonight without the materials. But I wish I had one for each of my children, so here's an idea for future Christmas craft.

This star is cut from thin styrofoam, but you can use cardboard and glitter.

Now the the Chunukah Bush ideas. Easy. Just make the fans out of Blue and Silver foil paper. Make the Star a six-pointed star with blue glitter on the circle and gold or silver glitter for the star. Or paint. Whatever you have around. The little felt man can be made of blue and gold or silver or blue and white.

My Mom was Jewish and we were all raised Catholic. My Mom worked in a Pizza Parlor when we were kids and a man came to pick up his Pizza with his very young child who hadn't seen a Christmas Tree. My Mom knew the man and knew he was Jewish. The little boy pointed at the Christmas Tree my Mom had in the store and asked his father what it was. He seemed a little stuck for an answer, so my Mom quickly said "It's a Chanukah Bush!" to the man's great relief.

Never disappoint a child. Make a Chanukah Bush.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I don't know how old I was, but I do know the stuffed panda was a lot bigger than I was. So I must have been pretty young.

I will forever appreciate the perspective I gained from growing up poor in a very large family of 7 children.

Santa always brought our tree AFTER we went to bed on Christmas Eve. I later learned that my parents always went out to get a tree just as the Tree Sellers were packing up to go home on Christmas Eve. They were able to get a screaming good deal at that time. If they hadn't found a way to buy one at a fraction of the cost in that manner, we couldn't afford to have one. I guess my older brothers and sister knew that, but I've always been more of a believer than a skeptic. I also believed all the kids who had trees before Santa brought them on Christmas Eve had not been as good as I was, and so their parents had to buy their tree, while mine was a true "Santa Tree" because I was a good girl. I expect my parents encouraged that belief and I was just the most gullible. My brother would never believe that...because he really wasn't "good" all year like I was.

We would put up the platform and the trains that run around under the tree before bed. Then Santa would come while we slept and put the tree up on the platform by Christmas morning along with the presents.

Most kids find out there is no Santa from other kids. My Mom had to tell me there was no Santa. Thinking back on that Christmas Eve Night, I'm sure it was as hard for her to tell me that, as it was for us many years later to tell my 7 year old sister that Daddy had died the night before. No one wants to look their small child in the eye and explain there will be no Santa or presents tonight.

It was "A White Christmas" and for whatever reason, my parents had ordered all of our presents from SEARS. Maybe it was the first time they had to use a credit card for the presents, or maybe it was the same logic of catching the just before Christmas sales. In any case, the presents had not arrived by Christmas Eve due to heavy snow for days before Christmas.

Finally, around 5 o'clock p.m., by Mom had to tell us the presents would be coming in a big Sears truck...or not. We all sat on the top floor (we had a storefront "home" in Philly and lived above my Dad's record store). At first we were all looking and praying for the Sears truck. I think the original story was that Santa's sleigh was stuck and Sears was helping Santa out by getting the toys to all the kids on Christmas Eve. Maybe my parents said Santa was sick, I'm not sure. But Sears had to help with the delivery.

We sat looking out the window for hours and hours. "I think I see it coming!" "Where?" "No, look left!...no...just a truck. It doesn't say SEARS on it, and it's not stopping at our house :(" Soon we started playing that car game where you pick a color and whoever picks the color that equals the most cars that pass by, wins. Knowing me, I probably picked purple and lost. I'm always picking "the dark horse".

I don't remember going to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head that night. In fact, I don't remember going to bed at all. I think I fell asleep still looking for the Sears truck, until my Dad carried me off to bed in his arms. That was gift enough for me. I adored my Dad, and even used to go to sleep on the top of my dresser at times, so he would have to lift me up and carry me to my bed. Competing with 6 other children for attention can breed creative thinking.

I don't remember Christmas morning at all. What I do remember was how extraordinarily happy we were when SEARS gave us a "double credit" for all the things my Mom had ordered! SEARS invited us to come to the store and spend it. If my Mom had ordered $100 worth of presents, then we had a credit of $200! AND we got to pick ONE thing ourselves! My Mom picked the other things we NEEDED, like clothes and socks and stuff. We each got to pick one toy.

I still remember the store clerk crying as he saw me coming up to the check out. I didn't know why he was crying. I didn't often see grown men crying in those days...never really. It was one of those smiling through tears kind of crying. I had picked a big stuffed panda that was twice as big as I was. I still remember struggling with taking him with me everywhere, even after we got home. I have a clear memory of trying to take him upstairs to bed with me...no easy feat.

Watershed Events, those terrible things that turn into our most happy memories, are always the best. Perhaps it's my perspective of finding the silver lining for each cloud, that has made so many watershed events in my life. "ARDELL living in ARDELL's World", as they say. Still, I thank whomever instilled in me the ability to find the silver lining...most every time.

I want to thank Jim Kukral and his SEAR's Contest for inspiring me to write this post. I have no idea what the rules are for the contest, so I'm sure I didn't follow them :) But seeing the kids pictured in the post, shopping for their presents at SEARS, reminded me of that special Christmas Season, so very long ago.