Lately I’ve hit some rough patches. Things haven’t gone the way I’d hoped. Crossroads can be confusing times in your life.

One day my husband surprised me by saying I needed to watch It’s A Wonderful Life because I had made a difference in many lives even if I would never know it. Although I didn’t think it was obvious, at that moment I wasn’t certain of my accomplishments and his words gave me solace.

In the [...]]]>

Lately I’ve hit some rough patches. Things haven’t gone the way I’d hoped. Crossroads can be confusing times in your life.

One day my husband surprised me by saying I needed to watch It’s A Wonderful Life because I had made a difference in many lives even if I would never know it. Although I didn’t think it was obvious, at that moment I wasn’t certain of my accomplishments and his words gave me solace.

In the back of my head I believed him. I believed he knew what I meant to the lives around me even if I couldn’t see it myself.

Then small little glimpses started to be revealed.

Although I was in a slump one day, I forced myself to go to the press conference for an art installation to cover it for the local blog I spend so much time on each day. I went through the motions. I might have written down five words and took some pictures. When I came home I forced myself to write the article and a barrage of comments filled the blog post congratulating the artists. I realized by taking the time, I really made a difference for them.

This Sunday as I entered church, a woman quickly told me they were all taking the music director out to a brand new restaurant which was reviewed on the blog. Although I hadn’t written the article, I had reached out to a friend to write the review. She had enjoyed the experience and now a broader community would too.

Later when I was getting a cup of coffee, a friend told me how much reading the local blog means to her and how she tells everyone about it. Her happiness and dedication surprised me.

As I was leaving church, a boy and his mom followed me for a block in the freezing temperature because he recognized me and wanted to say hello to his cub scout leader.

As I stood on the street, a woman came up to me and started to tell me the renovation of her historic home was progressing so we could sit down together for an interview. The only other example of this type of architecture in our City had been demolished and she was excited to share the last of its kind with everyone.

Then someone wrote on my Facebook wall that she had gone to a concert because I wrote about it on the blog and “it was great”.

To finish up the day, a woman sat at my table at a family dinner. She was looking to buy a house and when I mentioned the blog. She looked at me and said, “Are you that Griffiths?” A complete stranger then told me she gets the daily email and knew about my real estate listing.

My husband was right. I don’t have any idea how many lives I touch in my community. None of these things are very big deals, just the little bits of glue which make us all feel connected.

When I’m alone with my laptop making decisions and receiving negative feedback, the experience can be difficult. Now I have my own little Wonderful Life episode to remind me we should never give up hope.

I’m sure I’ll need to read it again but I am grateful, so very grateful.

Photo from ParMieux Adventures

Three years ago the Silver Spring Zombie Walk was started by a few local bloggers who decided to invite the readers to show up as zombies. Since I wanted to see the turnout inspired by these blogs and I always enjoy a fun time, my husband and I doned some white powder and makeup and ventured back to our old Silver Spring neighborhood. Doing our best to appear to be the [...]]]>

Photo from ParMieux Adventures

Three years ago the Silver Spring Zombie Walk was started by a few local bloggers who decided to invite the readers to show up as zombies. Since I wanted to see the turnout inspired by these blogs and I always enjoy a fun time, my husband and I doned some white powder and makeup and ventured back to our old Silver Spring neighborhood. Doing our best to appear to be the walking undead, we dragged our legs along and observed. Much to our delight, everyone was friendly, talked, and a great camaraderie grew. We were immediately part of the group even though we didn’t know anyone. The spontaneous gathering attracted between 100-200 people.

With big crowds lining the route this year, the 3rd annual event grew to over 2,000. If you’ve experienced the Zombie Walk, you know the reasons why. If you see the pictures and wonder why anyone would ever do this, here’s what’s going on! The Silver Spring Zombie Walk mixes interactive theater, creativity, community, and straight-up fun for a out-of-the-ordinary escapade.

Community. People come to meet friends and see their costumes/makeup. Almost everyone walks with someone they know. The main focus is being together to share the smiles and laughs. This is something you definitely talk about around the water cooler or over the backyard fence. This year, while looking for one group of friends, I lost track of my other friends. I found myself completely alone and the Zombie Walk had started. After looking around at the crowd, I realized I’d be fine by myself because everyone in this massive crowd was in this together. You become part of a broader community.

Creativity. Dressing and pretending to be a zombie allows participants to express themselves creatively. Being a zombie goes beyond a typical Halloween costume because you need a personality too. If you don’t perform on stage or act in some capacity, you most likely don’t have many imaginative outlets in your daily life. Being a zombie allows innovative commentary about our society, our flaws, and our icons. Santa, Yogi, Superman, and Politician Zombies populate the wonderful craziness of this pretend world.

Breaking The Norms. In society we share expectations of how we all should behave. Stepping outside these learned behaviors is a treat. During the zombie walk, our norms are disregarded which results in an exciting, unstructured event. The freedom to growl, scream, and flail at strangers is certainly an attraction, but seeing others behave as zombies is just as thrilling.

Interactive Theater. The Zombie Walk is a live, free, ad lib show. This year a Zombie Hunter walked with a working chainsaw protruding through an unsuspecting zombie. A pretend policeman used his club to defend the innocent crowd. A very authentic looking Jesus attempted to bless and save lost zombie souls. If you are a zombie, each step brings an opportunity to act. These on-the-spot performances are a rare occurrence worth experiencing. When in college I did gorilla theater to create awareness about Apartheid, so I’ve always loved spontaneous theater.

Spontaneity. During the first zombie walk, almost everyone in Silver Spring was unsuspecting. The blogs informed their readers but the general population was unaware. The unsuspecting reacted. Managers locked business doors and everyone moved away from the windows. A lone security guard bravely ran toward his office building doors to lock out the chaos. One woman in a restaurant window was visibly shaken. This year the event had regional newspaper coverage and WTOP was even given traffic advisories to avoid the area during the Walk. People at outside restaurant tables had obviously planned their ring-side perch. Only one woman reacted unfavorably to the knife through my head as we walked to the event early in the evening. Although a more institutionalized and planned event can quash some of the radical uniqueness, individual behavior can always bring it back.

Escapism. If people go to see zombie movies as a form of escapism, then a live zombie walk has to be even better. When you are at a zombie walk you escape in much the same way as when you see a movie, except you are the movie. Whether zombies snarl at you when you are standing on the sidewalk or you actively participate by defending yourself from zombies or you scrape by as the undead, you are automatically participating. When bystanders hold up their phones to take a picture and the zombies react, they are brought into the performance. With so many hundreds of zombies, it’s difficult not to begin to imagine the situation is real, or could be real, while the movie rolls all around you.

Shared Experience. A professional photographer commented, “I wish they would all put down their phones so I can get a picture.” Because of the great excitement and fun, people constantly took pictures and video. Even a police officer blocking an intersection for the Walk had a gigantic smile on his face as he snapped photos nonstop with his phone. You could tell he was having the best time on duty. The Zombie Walk is not something you can keep to yourself.

It’s impossible to have this much fun and keep it a secret. Step into the zombie world and live.

Blogging has an “anything goes” reputation. Bloggers are known to go off on extreme tangents and tell you exactly what they think. Sometimes anonymous, sometimes angry, blogging has traditionally been known as ranting.

For me, blogging is the opposite. Sometimes around elections I feel like I’m going to burst.

Through the years, I’ve never been one to tell people how to vote. Often people ask me, even on Election Day, when they show up at the poles and [...]]]>  

Blogging has an “anything goes” reputation. Bloggers are known to go off on extreme tangents and tell you exactly what they think. Sometimes anonymous, sometimes angry, blogging has traditionally been known as ranting.

For me, blogging is the opposite. Sometimes around elections I feel like I’m going to burst.

Through the years, I’ve never been one to tell people how to vote. Often people ask me, even on Election Day, when they show up at the poles and want to do the right thing but realize they haven’t been paying enough attention. They don’t know the difference. They want someone they trust who has been paying attention to tell them how to vote. I won’t do it.

I’ll never forget the time I took an Iranian neighbor to the polls to vote as an American citizen for the first time. She asked me to explain the issues. I fairly and evenly laid out the arguments on both sides. After all, I was a philosophy major and that’s what we do. Then she proceeded to tell me how she was voting and it was opposite of how I was voting. At least I had proof of my abilities.

So here I am blogging for our local community blog. We don’t endorse candidates and welcome the arguments on both sides of the issues. I see comments on the blog and I can’t respond. I can’t join in with my opinion. If there are facts, I can correct them, but I can’t even tell my friends who I’m really supporting.

Last night I sat there for a long time on Facebook staring at a friend’s status. I completely agree with him. I feel people are not saying it enough. I had the comment open. I stopped myself.

Thank goodness for my husband. He gets the brunt of it and we’re not even in the same political party.

I’ve argued with a journalist on her blog about whether I can actually write about my community while participating in it. I know I can. If I have an opinion, I tell everyone up front but I won’t ever admit who’s getting my vote.

Lately I feel like everyone’s entitled to their own opinion except for me. How crazy is it that a blogger can’t give her opinion?

This really is a whole new animal.

When I was 8 years old, my favorite books were the Choose Your Own Adventure series. You know, the ones where you would read a few pages and then have to make a decision on what to do next. The story could change by [...]]]> Today is Adoption Blogger Day so I welcome a guest post by my friend Michael Mangum. I had the great honor of writing a recommendation for their adoption. Here is their story:

When I was 8 years old, my favorite books were the Choose Your Own Adventure series. You know, the ones where you would read a few pages and then have to make a decision on what to do next. The story could change by simply turning to a different page.

That’s how I feel this morning after reading the headline, “Russia suspends U.S. adoptions”. I just want to change the story.

At age 35, I now find myself having to explain to my 8 year old son why his 5 year old soon-to-be adopted brother from Russia will likely not be joining our family this summer. I shared with him the news reports of the Tennessee mom who sent her adopted 7 year old son back to Russia because she did not want him anymore.

His first question, “why isn’t she in jail?”

Regardless of the circumstances, her actions are inexcusable and she deserves to be charged with child abandonment as she is the child’s legal guardian and chose to give him up in a manner that would create an unsafe situation for the child.

Apparently, she made no attempt to seek help from her adoption agency or through the local community. I recognize that this child may have had significant attachment issues and even exhibited signs of psychotic behavior.

However, as an adoptive parent, she should have prepared herself for the worst and made certain that she had a strong support system in place before accepting this child into her home.

If given the chance to ask her one question, I would like to know whether she ever considered the impact of her planned actions on the adoption community.

There are more than 3,000 pending American adoptions of Russian children that are now “officially” interrupted due to present concerns over the safety of Russian children living in the United States.

My family’s pending adoption is one of the cases now at risk.

Here is our story..

We arrived at the decision to adopt a child from Russia after much soul searching and thoughtful consideration.

My wife and I are blessed to have conceived a child after 5 years of marriage. Our son is now 8 years old and he has brought much joy into our lives.

Ever since he was a little boy, he always asked us when he would get a little brother or sister. We both felt very strongly that the greatest gift we could give our son would be the life experience of growing up with a sibling as we did not want him to grow up as an only child.

It took us nearly seven years of trying to conceive our second child before we decided to give up. There were no medical reasons to explain our lack of success. We worked with a fertility specialist and after one miscarriage and several failed procedures we were emotionally drained. We felt like we had failed our son (and one another) and did not know where else to turn.

Frankly, neither of us had any experience with adoption and it never even crossed our minds to consider this as an alternative. That is, until we began listening to the shared experiences of friends and colleagues who had been through several successful international adoptions.

At first, we found it awkward and seemingly intrusive to ask co-workers and friends if their children were adopted. But as we asked around, we quickly realized how open people were in sharing their personal experiences. We were shocked to learn how many families were either personally involved with or knew someone who had an adoption experience to share.

In fact, we found out from three co-workers that all eight of their combined children were adopted from Russia. Ironically, we couldn’t find anyone who had successfully adopted a child from the United States, which seemed in the beginning to be a more natural place to start.

We had the fortunate luck of getting to know several adopted Russian children living in our area and were quite impressed with how well adjusted they were to American life. They all seemed happy, healthy and thankful (as much as can be expected from children).

Our minds were made up and we decided to take a leap of faith and begin our adoption journey. We re-financed our house, borrowed money, got our affairs in order and began the daunting task of completing the adoption paperwork.

Within a few months, we got a call from our agency informing us that there was a 5 year old boy, Sasha, being hosted by a family in New York City. We were given the rare opportunity to spend a few days with the host family and to get to know this child.

The next thing we knew we were on a train headed to New York around the 4th of July holiday, along with our son. We spent three wonderful days with Sasha and the host family, who welcomed us into their home with open arms. All I can say is that everything just seemed to click. The boys played well together and we could tell right away that Sasha had amazing potential. He was affectionate, playful and smart. He definitely showed some signs of behavioral problems, but what can you expect from a child who has spent his entire life in an orphanage?

On the train ride back, we looked at one another and agreed to commit ourselves to having this child join our family. We recognized that this was going to be a difficult adjustment for everyone involved but were willing to make that sacrifice.

After only a few short weeks, Sasha returned to Far East Russia and we continued our efforts to adopt him.

We received a call from our agency on a Monday morning in late December informing us that we had to be on a plane within a few days to visit with officials in the local Russian government and to meet Sasha at the orphanage.

Never having traveled internationally before, we were quite nervous about the journey ahead of us. We decided to bring our son along, as this was bound to be an experience that he would never forget.

I could go on and on about our adventures in Russia, but I will save that story for another time. Needless to say, we managed to get ourselves to the orphanage and back safely, traveling more than 10,000 miles each way. Sasha was thrilled to see us again, we met with all of the officials and signed the necessary documents. We even managed to find our way to Disneyland Paris on Christmas Day before returning home.

It has been almost four months since we returned from Russia. We are in the final stages of completing our dossier so that we can return to Russia to complete the adoption. We expect that the second trip will last about a month and were preparing to leave sometime over the summer.

That is, until this story broke.

All we can do is wait and hope that the U.S. and Russia will sign an agreement that will allow for intercountry adoptions between our two nations to continue.

In the meantime, there are a few steps that we can take now to help promote awareness of the success of international adoptions.

For starters, today is Adoption Blogger Day, which is a chance for families to share their stories with the world. So, please forward this posting onto your friends and family so that the truth about adoptions can be shared.

Also, you can sign a petition in support of allowing intercountry adoptions between Russia and the U.S. to continue.

Here is the link to the “We Are The Truth” petition.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/we-are-the-truth.html

Assuming that we can complete our adoption at some point in the near future, we recognize that the journey is just beginning. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but unlike the Tennessee mom, we have a very strong support system of Russian speaking friends and fellow adoptive parents to help guide our family along the right path.

I have spent the last few days reading internet postings about the Tennessee mom and adoptions, in general. I hope that our story helps to shed some light on the reasons why some families choose to head down the path of international adoption.

Bottom line, children need families. It should not matter where they are born. Rather, all children should be given the opportunity to reach their full potential and adoptive parents are there to help ensure that their circumstances do not get in the way of their dreams.

by Michael Mangum

When I was a child and I exaggerated a story, I remember my father calling me on it. “Did that really happen?” “Are you “telling stories”? It was code for lying because at some point, if you are telling a story and the facts aren’t true, you are lying. Storytelling has a bad connotation.

Lately I see a lot of storytelling. As people market on social media, the truth becomes distorted. People want [...]]]>

Bending the truth

When I was a child and I exaggerated a story, I remember my father calling me on it. “Did that really happen?” “Are you “telling stories”? It was code for lying because at some point, if you are telling a story and the facts aren’t true, you are lying. Storytelling has a bad connotation.

Lately I see a lot of storytelling. As people market on social media, the truth becomes distorted. People want to blog with a good hook. But reality might not be that interesting, so the writer brings out the spices. If you know the person, you might be disappointed.

Of course this has always been true in advertising. My favorite example comes from The Christmas Story when Ralph goes to such great lengths to obtain a decoder ring from Little Orphan Annie only to find out the secret code is an advertisement. His disapproval is obvious and we all know we’ve learned the same lesson. My sons have learned the hard way with dreamy toy advertisements which turn out to be nothing. Over the years I’ve warned them never to never believe advertising claims until they can be checked. This is why social media has grown. We want to benefit from other people’s experiences.

But can we trust everyone?

If you know someone closely or have been involved with a situation in a blog post, you might realize it isn’t quite true. The post might be an exaggeration when you know the true story.  When you discover inconsistencies, you never really trust the writer again.  If you find yourself thinking “That sounds good”, you immediately remember it’s probably storytelling and discard it as false.

I strive for authenticity in my writing. I’m not out to brand myself. I have nothing to sell, no image to propagate. When I communicate, I strive not to tell stories. I want to be trusted.

When you are reading a blog post, marketing materials, or even a status update, you need to be aware of the writer’s history and motivation. If it sounds too good to be true, most likely it isn’t.

We all need to keep our eye on the truth – and stop storytelling - if we are to be truly successful.

For a few years I’ve heard about the CrackBerries so I thought I should get one. Since the Storm was building on the horizon, I waited for its release. What a disappointment since it was recalled for software problems before the release date and the touch screen keyboard was impossibly small (which has been an ongoing BlackBerry problem). However, [...]]]>