| Welcome to Whine Time: Happy Holidays to you and yours! Click below for January's YouTube welcome and introduction to her holiday interviews.
It's the most wonderful time of the year and now that all the hustle and bustle are over it is time to
Whine Down!
I have chosen the most inspiring interview that I did this year as a little Holiday gift for you to enjoy.
My guest is Anne Ginther who is with Random Kids and shares with us a truly inspiring story about kids who will amuse, amaze and astound you.
Anne Ginther is the President and a founder of RandomKid. She recruited and placed executives with fortune 100 companies for over 15 years until the hurricane of Biblical proportions in 2005 (Katrina) made a Biblical impact on her life! She shut down her successful recruitment firm to start and run RandomKid for free. RandomKid is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization that believes that any random kid has the power to solve real world problems, and they're helping kids do just that. RandomKid brings kids of all abilities and all walks of life together to make an impact on the problems our world faces. In just two years, children have unified their little cottage industry efforts to ultimately raise over $10 Million for Hurricane Relief.
Recently RandomKid worked with three elementary classrooms to educate and empower children to create their own bottled water businesses--selling enough water in just 6 months to fund a pump in South Africa that for the first time provides clean safe water to a school of 700 children, and up to 2500 people in the surrounding community. They worked with kids from 20 different countries to fund a school that the kids will get to name on opening day this July. And they've also helped kids help children and families right in their own communities. USA Today calls Anne "The Pied Piper" guiding child-led initiatives. Anne is just back from showcasing RandomKid at a global event about raising compassionate children featuring The Dalai Lama. www.randomkid.org
Now sit back and relax with a cup of tea or hot chocolate & click the link below to listen to our show:
Then I have a really, really fun interview that I did on Christmas eve morning with Mary Jane Popp on her PoppOff syndicated radio show from KIAM 950:
Just click the link below and enjoy the show: I have included an excerpt from my book to honor all of our dear ones who are gone but never forgotten.
Now sit back and enjoy reading about :
The Pity Party Cure
A lot of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
Oprah Winfrey
My Mother had a cure for whining that she used on me, and it’s one that I have successfully used on my own kids. It’s similar to the Norwegian Ris-pa-rumpin Cure but not nearly as charming. Basically, it’s another question approach with consequences. The question is always asked in a mother’s “I mean business” tone of voice, and it goes like this: “If you want to whine, do you want me to give you something to really whine about right now?” It worked then and it works now.
Then I didn’t know anything about what really whining meant. Nor did I know anything about consequences. Now I do. When my first husband, David, a Navy test pilot, was tragically killed in a crash, I quickly found out what it really meant to really have something to whine about.
Somehow I survived, but only because of my best friend, Jane. We had become fast friends when fate found us buying new homes next door to each other back in 1968. We were pioneers in a newly suburbanized area north of Los Angeles called Westlake Village, The City in The Country.
Jane and I had a lot in common. I knew immediately that we were a perfect match the day our new carpets were installed. Jane’s floor covering was lime green while I had chosen bright orange. Remember, it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. We were determined that our homes would be psychedelically correct. We weren’t just California dreaming, we were California living.
Despite the ray of sunlight Jane’s friendship provided, David was dead and, frankly, I wished I were, too. My babies missed their daddy. We all did. My first year of widowhood was tough, but Jane ushered me through it by being my one and only guest at a yearlong pity party. Jane knew a lot about whining since she had survived an incredibly tragic childhood. She stepped up to the table with innovative, cutting edge whining techniques that she generously shared with me.
For instance, Jane knew all about looking vulnerable and helpless. She had the biggest, saddest eyes in the world. Together we had the best pity party imaginable. It consisted of a few martinis and lots of commiserating, followed by lots of laughing, and it went on evening after evening. We functioned well during the day knowing happy hour was coming.
Then one day, I was finally all talked and cried out. Jane made me go out to mark the occasion. It was Christmas time. She forced me to go to a party. I resisted but she insisted. Friends don’t let friends whine forever. At that party, I met my second husband. Jane was my matron of honor at our wedding and again at our twenty-fifth anniversary. At that point, we put our pity parties on hiatus for many years while various personal developments took us away from each other. They started up again when Jane got divorced, and then found out she had Stage-3 colon cancer. Now our roles were reversed. She talked while I listened. It was her turn to be angry. It was my turn to listen with unconditional love.
Our final pity party lasted for three years, during which she fought the cancer. We had some of our best times during these years. When I would spend the nights with her at the hospital, we would try not to cry, but laugh instead. It felt so good just to be together at our own private slumber party that laughing came naturally, in fluid waves. It helped us both to relive and recount all of our old, fun times. Our sweet silliness helped to make the long nights shorter.
I was devastated when I lost my best friend. It really hit me hard on the first March 12th after she was gone. My husband, David had died on that day. It was the first time in thirty-two years that Jane hadn’t called me to see how I was doing on that anniversary. She was the only one who always remembered. It had always been a tough day for me, but now it was even tougher without Jane. I still miss her so much that I haven’t removed her from my cell phone speed dial list, just in case.
Aside from helping us get through major tragedies, whining can also accomplish many other wonderful things. Whining works because it gets you attention. It can get what you want or may need. Also, whining is an avenue for communicating that lets you bond with family or friends. As Jane and I proved, it can be very therapeutic. It is important to reach out to others. It can’t hurt but it could help.
After the whining dies down, you will find solutions that will replace the sorrow. Companions can become conduits of compassion. They will help you to make a new plan, an aggressive attack on whatever ails you. It just takes a steady pace of one step at a time, with no looking back. Your best friends will help you face the truth when you can’t do it yourself, and listen to your stories no matter how sad they get—while at the same time making you laugh. With your best friend along for the ride, anything is possible. Just ask Lucy and Ethel or Jane and January.
A good friend is a connection to life,
a tie to the past, a road to the future,
the key to sanity in a totally insane world.
Lois Wyse
Excerpted: Thou Shalt Not Whine...The Eleventh Commandment by January Jones
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