Deanna Doss Shrodes

I've been showered with flowers this week for my birthday ~ Just thought I'd take a photo of these bouquets from...... Susan, Marcus, and my life coaching ladies! Thanks guys ~ you light my world. After the flowers are gone, I will have this photo to to remind me of how you reached out to me in love. xoxo

So here are photos of my new pink highlights! Larry says I look like a kid who was playing with a can of paint, but I don't care! Remember this is just a baby step... a little highlight on one side, because I did think it would be good to preserve some degree of matrimonial peace. :) lol By the way if you are someone who reads my blog on facebook, these photos may not come up. If you are not seeing photos please go to my original blog site at http://www.deannashrodes.com/ if there is nothing posted here or if five photos don't come up! (Sometimes everything doesn't come through when my original blog feeds onto facebook.) By the way, my stylist is Ada Alfonso at Continental Hair. I always give her credit...she's an amazing hairdresser, and friend.

From time to time here at deannashrodes.com I'm going to give some career coach advice. I thought this may be something at least a few blog readers may be interested in. I can't promise that I'll do this every single week because to be quite honest I don't want to have the pressure of coming up with a subject to talk about every week. And, I like freedom to write about what I wanna write about. And, if I want to write a blog about the fact that I finally put some pink highlights in my hair, I don't want to be locked in to talking about resumes, marketing or interviews. By the way, yes I did get some pink highlights yesterday! It's my birthday gift to myself. So, if you're out of a job, one of the first things that is a good idea to do is give yourself a project or volunteer job that will give you valuable experience to put on your resume. This is particularly important if you want to change careers but don't have the experience to do what you

Tuesday I had my weekly meeting Kathryn , who is my manager at my career coaching job. She's an amazing woman that I've learned so much from in a very short time. It's seriously mind boggling to me, this blessing I have. Others pay thousands of dollars for Kathryn's time, to receive her advice, and I not only pay nothing to receive it, but I actually get paid to receive it. That's not lost on me for a second and I don't ever resent her interjection in my life or work, I absolutely LOVE it. I've decided that from time to time when Kathryn gives me some great nuggets, I'll pass them on here, periodically. This week, I was talking with her about challenges I have in client conversations at times when it comes to making decisions. There are times that I end up making decisions I'm not happy with myself for in the end. For instance, if a client is late or a no show, I'm supposed to dock them time for it. It costs them 30 minutes of time every time th

A friend of mine recently posted on their facebook status, asking if anyone else had lost old friends over a social networking site. It appears that they had lost long time friends they have known over many years after just recently becoming friends on a social networking site. Evidently the friends discovered more about them than they previously knew. It was nothing illegal or inappropriate, just the same thing most all of us share such as status updates, foods we're eating, movies we're seeing, places we're going, photos, blog posts on various subjects not to mention a political view or two. After the "friends" post a nasty dissenting comment or two, they "de-friend" the person or become such an argumentative nuisance, they wish they did! My friend was a bit disheartened that this happened to them, yet not enough to stop being exactly who they are. I have other pastor friends who have actually lost people from their church through involvement with a s

I have a friend who was repeatedly molested by her grandfather as a child. She now gives her testimony about healing from her abuse, speaks on a national level, and has written a book. However, all of this has to be kept quiet whenever her mother or other members of the family are around. It's not that they don't believe her about the abuse. They know it's true, however, they believe that her testimony isn't appropriate to share. She hears things like: "What would your grandmother think if she heard you say that?" "You are causing more pain in the family by sharing your testimony." "You just need to move on and stop talking about it." "You've got to think of someone besides yourself..." Some things are better left unsaid..." "Some things are meant to be kept within the family..." "Cant you just tell people God healed you without sharing any details of what happened to you? Why are the details so important?

The other day on vaca I was sitting at the kitchen table having coffee and talking with my longtime close friend Mike Gibson. Among the myriad of topics we discussed, were things that puzzle us about social networking sites like facebook. There are many things rolling around in my mind about this so it won't be my last post along these lines, but today I specifically wanted to share my thoughts about friend requests. I almost never request friends on facebook. It's not that I'm snobby. I figure if I know you and you are a part of my life and you actually have a facebook page, we are already friends or family. If I am not currently your friend on facebook either you don’t have one, (at least that I am aware of) or we are really not all that close in relationship. In contrast to me, Mike requests friends all the time even though he already has a lot of good friends and a full life. Our conversation turned to the issue of people who we might be on awkward terms with who have r

Great day at church today... It was an incredibly busy weekend and I did not have a whole day off this week as Friday was the Christmas in July event and every day was full this week with something going on. Tonight was the leadership meeting and that always means a late night even if we end on time, (which we normally do), but at least a people always stay to hang out with us afterwards. I like that -- so it's not a complaint, just an explanation for why I feel totally spent tonight. I am looking forward to a slower paced week. I need it. It has been a week since Larry and I have been home from vaca and still we have not had time to ourselves nor a date. We have worked non-stop and not so much as had one private adult conversation beyond work and even that has been difficult. Our schedules have been so packed on individual projects it's been mostly 5 or 10 minute conversations here and there, strictly on business subjects. I am really, really, really looking forward to havin

This morning at life coaching my ladies had a surprise birthday party for me. I came in and everything was PINK, PINK, PINK!! There was a cake with candles, a beautiful huge arrangement of fresh roses, some gifts, and an amazing array of food including homemade chocolate stuffed crepes, cherry pie (my favorite) and more! They gave me a little dress for Maddie and also a beautiful silver bracelet that I just LOVE. I am so blessed with such loving, and caring women that surround me. They are my dearest friends. Every day...every single day, I thank God for them. I really don't think they have any comprehension what this means to me but I really hope God shows them just a glimpse.

You'll love it, I promise. Trina Grimm, a friend at our previous church, found this recipe and shared it with us at the party we had with our previous church folks from Maryland on vacation, and it was a huge hit. Since then I've served it at some things for church and people have gone wild over it. It's so simple but I tell you, it's so good it would make a tadpole slap a whale! :) You can also make a lite version of this simply by using low fat or no sugar ingredients. Graham Cracker Dip 2 (8 oz) packages of cream cheese 1 small can of crushed pineapple (drain in colander first) 1 small package of vanilla pudding (dry mix - you don't add milk) Take all that and put in a food processor. Blend it completely. Take graham crackers and break into four pieces each. Serve on tray with the bowl of dip. You can either spread the dip on the crackers or just let people take a spoonful of it and dip it from their plate. DEE-LICIOUS!!!! And it's only four ingredients, can

"Perhaps if one really knew when one was happy, one would know the things that were necessary for one's life." ~ Joanna Field Years ago, I started a "things I love" journal. It's nothing more than a book where I sat and wrote an exhaustive list of things I'm crazy about. We can find no shortage of things to bellyache about in life. I'm not immune to this and the penchant to whine is ever a factor. I really don't want to be that way so I've spent a lot of years resisting it hard and refusing to let what makes me unhappy swallow me up. I remain convinced that the list of things that makes most of us happy is much longer than that which makes us unhappy, but our focus is most often broken. The lack of focus leads to perpetual doldrums simply because we are fixated on something negative instead of concentrating on what delights us. I have realized that all of us have problems, myself included -- that if focused on would destroy us. We have to mak

So I will not kid you, hearing my manager, Kathryn, say that life for two weeks was hell without me gave me a rush. I'm just admitting it...in this regard I guess I'm a little shallow. Oh, she didn't really mean it was hell. Not literally of course. Nobody was hurt or maimed. There was no weeping, wailing or nashing of teeth. Things just evidently weren't the same. I was surprised as I didn't think it would be a blip on the screen that I was gone, especially since I had organized my work well and dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" on all my stuff before I left. What was there to do? What was there to miss? I took care of it all before I left. I was away for two weeks on my family vacation ~ away from both the church, and my career coaching job. Tuesday evenings is my weekly one on one call with Kathryn, who lives in San Francisco. So I got on the phone for our first weekly call after getting back from vaca and these were the first words out o

Make sure you have a box of kleenex nearby before you read this...I didn't write it, I found it in blogland, but it struck a chord with me because of how much I love Maddie. I Am Your Dog Author Unknown I am your dog, and I have a little something I'd like to whisper in your ear. I know that you humans lead busy lives. Some have to work, some have children to raise. It always seems like you are running here and there, often much too fast, often never noticing the truly grand things in life. Look down at me now, while you sit there at your computer. See the way my dark brown eyes look at yours? They are slightly cloudy now. That comes with age. The gray hairs are beginning to ring my soft muzzle. You smile at me; I see love in your eyes. What do you see in mine? Do you see a spirit? Someone who loves you as no other could in the world? A spirit that would forgive all trespasses of prior wrong doing for just a simple moment of your time? That is all I ask. To slow down, if even f

“Ugh! I hate when this happens!!” “Did you seriously just cut in front of me in this Wal-mart line I’ve been standing in for 20 minutes?” "Lack of preparation on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part...“ “Somebody get me a Paris tea! I’m ready to ring someone’s neck…” At times when I get my flakes frosted about something, I quickly rattle off a twitter something like the above. In 140 characters or less, I get to spout off to any of my friends listening at their computer or on their mobile about whatever is irritating me. I don’t use twitter for this all the time of course. Most of the time it’s to share fun tidbits of info about my day or what I’m thinking. But occasionally I just want to quickly spout off. Usually it brings a funny or comforting comment from a friend or two. When I’m angry my husband will sometimes see me texting furiously and he’ll say, “Are you seriously twittering about that?!!” My standard response is, “Yes Larry…I’ve told you, it jus

Photo from vacation Today was an incredibly busy day. I knew it would be coming back from vacation. I determined to stay away from my work completely while on vacation and with the exception of about one hour of things I had to take care of, I did. Today was pretty insane with catching up with things, or should I say endeavoring to catch up. I got a tremendous amount of things done however it's going to be another busy day tomorrow and hopefully by days end I will have made enough of a dent to not have a totally insane remainder of my week. I taught a career workshop tonight at church and although I was exhausted it was a blessing to connect with those who attended. When she came in tonight Gayle said, "I know you have to be exhausted!" I said, "I know Gayle, what was I thinking to schedule this workshop the Monday I get back from vaca?" It was worth it, though. I am going to be blogging on a few topics the rest of this week that I've really been thinking a

Well now that we've been to church it officially feels like we're home. Last night I enjoyed being back in my big tub, in our bed (THE most comfortable in the world), in my shower this morning (seriously, it's amazing -- a water pic with a bunch of different massage settings) and then being back with our precious people this morning at church. There were lots of surprises in store. While we were gone they did a major amount of remodeling, decorating and cleaning. They had a major workday in our absence and in addition to the nursery almost being done, two bathrooms were completely re-done with a third close to being done, painting done outside, pressure washing, new flower arrangements and more. Wow, what a blessing. Candy and Janice called this project "operation face lift" and said there are three more on the way. Can't even imagine what's next! We are all excited about what God is doing in and through His church. Had a great choir lunch and practice th

Traveling home today and I will finally get to see my Madeline tonight. Yes! Yes! Yes!

One of my favorite parts of vacation is driving home because we always take our time and try to stop someplace overnight that we haven't been before. This time we stopped in Savannah, GA and after sleeping in today we took a trolley tour through the city. I loved it! How beautiful! These are some of the photos we took: After the trolley tour most everyone came back to lay down and take a nap but Savanna went downstairs to the workout room and got on the machines and I had the pool all to myself. Later on she came over and we were in the jacuzzi together and spent some time talking before we went to get cleaned up for dinner. It was a nice relaxing day and tomorrow we will make the rest of the journey home. It seems like forever since I've seen my friends at home...and Maddie.