Being my first podcast recording and all, it honestly starts out kinda awkward! But then I get going and it's gets better. So don't give up on it after the first few minutes! 😛 I explain what the plan is for the podcast and where I'm going with my whole Jumbled Sunshine online experiment. I think I even said a few valuable things in there! ;) So if you like podcasts, here's an opportunity to check out my new one! It's kind of an experiment and we'll see how it goes.
Here's the audio of the podcast episode if you want to download it, pull it into your podcast app, or listen online:
Have a wonderful #ThankfulThursday and be sure to show those around you how much you appreciate having them in your lives!
~JS~ 🌞
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Transcript: Introduction to the Jumbled Sunshine Podcast - IDP000
Hey everybody, Jumbled Sunshine here! How are you doing today? I hope you're having a wonderful day. If everything goes the way I plan, this may be the first official podcast that I've ever recorded. But I am just getting started, so it's probably gonna be a little bit awkward.
I'm not the kind of person who has trouble talking about things. In fact, I have to be careful to not talk too much when I am in social circles, and make sure that I stop, and I listen, and I let other people share as well. So talking is not the issue. It's more thinking and pausing and saying, "Um," actually. And "actually" and "so" and "anyway." Those would be the big ones! So I apologize ahead of time for any of those that happen.
Jumbled Sunshine Online - Where I've Been
You will see that there were some years when I only wrote one post for the whole year, yikes! And that's because I was trying to decide what I was doing with it. But lately I've been posting a lot, and I have kind of started to get into a rhythm that I really love that I am hoping will help me to really get some good content and interesting information out there for people like me. If you want to know what my personality is, just keep on listening, or you can go have a look at my blog, www.jumbledsunshine.com. But you will get to know me here, and I hope that I will get to know you.
Anyway, the reason I am starting this today is because for the past while I have been doing these themed posts every day. Well, I decided I'm gonna call it nearly every day. Because ideally, I am blogging or posting or at least mentioning something about one of the themes every day. But I realize that with my personality, that may not be totally realistic. So I'm gonna call it ideally-daily, or something like that, I don't know. I'll probably change it a couple times!
But recently, most days, I have been either blogging, posting, tweeting, instagramming, steemit-ing, and I can't think of what the other social media things are at the moment, but I have been posting online about a different theme every day. My current themes are #MotivationMonday, #TechTuesday, #WellnessWednesday, #ThankfulThursday, #FamilyFriday, #StrategySaturday and #SacredSunday. And lately I've been doing that.
Podcasting Possibilities
And so the irony was not lost on me that since I have become obsessed with podcasting lately, that I should just be recording these for a podcast, instead of only for my personal self. But you know, I didn't want to start a podcast until I had my theme music and all my cover photos and the perfect title, and had my notes, and my strategy and my plan. And if you relate to this, you will probably enjoy my podcast haha.
I didn't want to start because of a couple things. One is, I was afraid that I would stop posting and recording, and that has been an issue, as you can see if you look over my blog for the past decade. But I want to point out to myself at the moment and to you for your own struggles and challenges, that I didn't stop! Because guess what? Here I am. It's 2018 and I am not only posting most days, but I am starting a podcast. And I have been just working on it a little bit at a time, every day.
What is Jumbled Sunshine All About?
And so what my blog is about, I guess I'll go into a lot more detail in the future. I'll do that later. But what it's basically about is to, I guess in the words of Dori from Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming." You need to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and moving forward, and congratulating yourself on your small wins and big wins, and recognizing those wins. And seeing the good in life around you, not just looking for the negative and the depressing and the sad.I recognize that motivational speaking and memes are necessarily going to solve your problems if you are dealing with a clinical depression, or anxiety and things like that. And I will just put out there right now that I have dealt with some of those issues myself on and off throughout my life, so I do get it. I know, of course I don't get your situation totally because nobody does except for you. But I get the idea. I have had my own struggles, as we all do, and I realize that it is not something that's just gonna be fixed by posting happy things or whatever.
However, I have also found that no matter how low I've gone in my life, just making myself look for the positive and try to do those things that they say will make you feel better, even if they're not making me feel better, those things have helped a little bit and helped me to keep going when it was tough.So yeah, I wasn't going to go into details about what the blog is about, but that's kind of a really general thing.
The other half of it is Jumbled. What does jumbled mean? So that was kind of the Sunshine side. The jumbled side, you've probably already figured out by just listening to the first couple minutes of this. But I have a ton of interests. Everything is interesting to me. I'm one of those people that can really relate to the "squirrel" thing! And I just love learning and experimenting, and trying, and doing, and creating, and sharing, and listening, and learning, and I could go on and on and on and on, about everything.
And I want ... well okay, so when I came up with the idea of Jumbled Sunshine, it was one of those things, you can go look on my blog if you want for a post called "Are You Jumbled Too?" And I can't tell you what year it is, but I will put it in the show notes because I guess if I'm doing a podcast, I need to have show notes, don't I?
When I first came up with the idea, it was because I woke up in the middle of the night and was just like, "Boom. Okay, I need to stop fighting who I am, and celebrate who I am." Rather than trying to fix all of the things around me using other people's systems and kind of looking for that perfect system, I need to just celebrate who I am, accept that I'm probably gonna try systems and read books and do things in my life that I'm gonna then completely quit and abandon. And that's fine! It doesn't matter.
Why? Because everything we do in our lives gives us wisdom. It gives us experience. It gives us fun in some cases! Everything we're doing ... you hear, "Life is a journey, not a destination." It's not just a cliché, it's true. Every single thing you do, every single day, everything you read, everything you try, is all part of the experience of what your life is.
So instead of looking for that end destination, and trying to find the perfect system that, "I will do every day from now on, all the way until the end of time," I need to just say to myself, "Hey, what did I learn from trying that system? What did I like about that system? What didn't work about that system? And why did I quit doing it?" And then acknowledge that for whatever reason, I'm moving on, and I want to try something new. And I can archive that into my experiential archive of the things that I've learned over my life.
I hope that makes sense! If it does, then this podcast is for you! Because ... I don't know where I was going with that, and that's the other part of jumbled, haha. So I think you've probably got an idea of what jumbled is. It is about enjoying and celebrating who you are, what your interests are, what's around you, and finding the joy and the positiveness in life. And recognizing that you don't have time to do all of them, all the time, in your life. And so just enjoy the jumbled sunshine of your life. That's what it's about.
I didn't even originally intend to call myself Jumbled Sunshine, it was just the blog was gonna be Jumbled Sunshine. But then over time, people would be like, "Oh, Jumbled Sunshine, that's a good name for you." Haha. "That describes you perfectly!" or whatever. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." So my actual name is Erika Ward, and I live in Utah. And I grew up in the MidWest. And that is enough background information, I probably shouldn't have even gone there. But the point is that my real name is Erika, but I will refer to myself sometimes as Jumbled Sunshine, because it's just kind of become a habit, I guess!
What's the Plan from Here?
Anyway, so I guess this is my first official podcast, and I just want to tell you what the plan is. The plan is that when I do my ideally-daily brain dumps to figure out what I'm gonna post about that day, or what I'm gonna focus on for that day, I'm going to record it into my little Easy Voice Recorder Pro app with my nice headset and microphone that I bought because I wanted to do podcasting. And I'm gonna record it in there, and then I'm going to post that.
At least right now, it will not have any frills. I don't have music, I don't have sponsors (of course because, you know, it's the first one). I don't even totally have a plan, except that ideally-daily, I will post about my themes. Motivation Monday, Tech Tuesday, Wellness Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, Family Friday, Strategy Saturday and Sacred Sunday.
Sacred Sunday
Now, let me make very clear, which you may be wondering, especially in today's world, with the Sacred Sunday on the end there. This is not a religious podcast. I am a religious person, but I will be posting things that I believe are universal principles. They may refer to God or Jesus because that's is where my belief stems from. But Sacred Sunday will be about taking a special day to reflect, and to do whatever it is you do to prepare yourself for the upcoming week.
Strategy Saturday
I guess I'll just work backwards from there. Strategy Saturday will be, at least for now, until I change it [I don't have plans to change this, so I'm not sure why I said that!] will be about strategies for making your life better. It may also have some things about online business. It may have some things about, you know, just anything that to me seems like a strategy, will probably end up on Strategy Saturday. I will also say that #StrategySaturday is probably gonna be one of the hardest ones for me to be consistent on because, you know, it's Saturday! And so I apologize ahead of time if the ideally-daily leaves out #StrategySaturday sometimes.
But I will try as best as I can to, at the very least, retweet something or post somebody else's post on my Facebook page, which by the way, you can find me at twitter.com/jumbledsunshine or Facebook.com/jumbledsunshine. I will try to at least put something out there. So if you really want to get a daily thing from me (even though I realize that's ideal and possibly won't happen totally), you will want to probably be following me on at least Facebook, as well as listening to this.
I do have a YouTube channel which I haven't posted on for awhile, but I'm hoping that I feel really motivated, and I've actually gotten dressed up, I will also video myself doing this little brain dump so that I can post it as a video. But those days where I'm not in pajamas with wet hair, like I am today haha, may be few and far between. So I may or may not always have a video up.
So I guess what I'm saying is that if you want the whole experience, you'll need to follow me on all my different social media channels, and I will put those in the show notes. But I am being diverted, as usually happens. So Strategy Saturday, yeah. My strategy for getting back on topic is to notice that I'm off, and to get right back on!
Family Friday
So Family Fridays. I am a mother of seven children. I have been married to my spouse since 1991, you can do the math. And I feel very blessed, I've got young adults, I have a couple teenagers left at home. I have one little, cute, two-week-old grandson, who's the son of my oldest son and his wife. And so that's where I'm at, at this point in my life in 2018.
I think I've probably learned a couple of things about families, so I might post things about parenting, appreciating your family, things like that. Things that have to do with family. Just pretty much, if it has to do with family, it can go on Family Friday.
As well as, family history! Because I am a little bit of a family history nut, although I am very jumbled in my application and dipping into my interest on that. So that comes and goes. But it's one of those interests that I don't think will ever go away for me. So I will also be talking a little bit about genealogy, family history, things like that. That's Family Friday.
Thankful Thursday
Thankful Thursday is about being thankful for what you have in your life. Sometimes it will just be a little quick gratitude post, or a beautiful picture of a sunset like I posted last week. Oh my gosh, I woke up and I was just like, "Oh my gosh! I need to take a picture!" I take so many pictures of sunrises ... it was a sunrise, not a sunset ... I take so many pictures of sunrises and sunsets where I live, it's just insane. It is unbelievable, I'll tell you.
Anyway, Thankful Thursday will also have a little bit to do with giving back to show your gratitude for what you have. It's gonna be about looking for the good around you, and then finding ways to give back. My husband works for an international charity and we have been involved in international charity work for awhile now. I don't want to try to even come up with a date, because I couldn't tell you, but that's a whole other story that actually, I believe is out there on my blog also, of that career change and how we made the decision to get involved in international charity work. [Here's the link from my husband's blog: http://www.lonnyward.com/p/our-journey.html]
Anyway, so sometimes it will talk about some of the projects he's doing, or maybe even encourage you to donate a little bit to either the charity that we are involved with, or other worthy charities, or wherever you want. So Thankful Thursday is about being thankful and giving back.
Wellness Wednesday
Wellness Wednesday. I've been on a journey, my whole life, as most of you probably have been, to try and be healthy. I'd better not go into a bunch of detail, because this is gonna get too long. But Wellness Wednesday will talk about things that have to do with health and wellness. Originally it was gonna be #WeightLossWednesday because I am currently in the middle of a weight loss journey. I have already lost somewhere around 25 pounds and my total goal is 50, so I'm about halfway there.
And I'll just talk about things that have to do with health and wellness. Sometimes it will have to do with weight loss. Sometimes it will be an update on my personal journey. Sometimes it will be sharing things like, tips about things that help you to be well, or taking care of yourself. So that's what Wellness Wednesday will be about.
Tech Tuesday
Tech Tuesday. Okay, so I'm a little bit of a technology geek. I mean, I'm not like ... just from the dates and things I've told you, that I'm not a young Millennial that knows current things necessarily all the time about technology. Although I do have quite a few of my children who are at that age, and so I really do know about a lot of the brand new things going on. But Tech Tuesday is really more about how we can use technology to make our life better.
Sometimes it will have to do with things that, ways that I am using technology to do things, like perhaps my podcast setup right now. Or ways that I'm using spreadsheets to organize things, or the way I made job charts for my family, using technology, when they were young, and things like that. So sometimes it might be a review about a new phone that I get, or whatever. It's just, you know, stuff that has to do with technology. So that'll be Tech Tuesday.
Motivation Monday
Motivation Monday is just all about being motivated. I came up with motivation Monday because I need to be motivated on Mondays myself, haha, and I figure most people need to be motivated that Monday. So that's what I'm going to talk about time management, things that are inspirational and get you up off your chair and things that make you want to move forward and just positive motivating stuff. So yeah, that's what motivation Monday is.
That's the Plan!
So that is the line up, and that's what I'm going to be doing. Ideally this will be daily, but I am going to promise you right now that it won't be absolutely every day, especially the podcast part. But I will try as hard as I can every day, unless I'm taking like a vacation or some kind of a hiatus, to move forward and do this and bring you along with me.
So I think it's gonna be really fun I hope that you are interested in some of those topics. I will say that I came up with those hashtags, even though as I've been posting about them I realized that a lot of other people use some of those hash tags as well. But I really did think, "Okay what are my interests and how can I make them fit the days of the week?" because that just seemed like a framework that I could work with. So I did come up with those ideas on my own but then a couple of them were tweaked by, for instance, changing Weight Loss Wednesday to Wellness Wednesday because I saw somebody else had it and I was like, "Oh, that's so much better."
So I'm not claiming to own the hash tags or be the creators of them, but I did kind of come up with those ideas because they fit my interests and I hope they fit yours. I'm gonna go ahead and end. I'm gonna try to make these always be, well I was gonna say less than fifteen minutes, but I just looked at my timer and it's twenty two! They will not go over half an hour if I have to stop in the middle and divide it in two, because I know that really long podcasts can sometimes be, well, too long.
So this is where we're at. This is my introduction post, and I just wanted to kind of put it out there and and say what I'm planning to do. I will hopefully be transcribing these to then use as online posts sometimes. I don't know, we'll just kind of see how it goes because it's a lot of work to post every day, which sounds silly but, you know, to compose something meaningful every day. So we'll see how it goes.
But I hope you stick with me, and probably if you're listening to this, it's because I actually have done it for awhile and I have a few out there, and people have started listening! So... yay! If it didn't succeed, probably nobody will ever listen to it, except maybe my future descendants haha. And they'll be like, "Oh, sweet Granny, she sure was trying!"
Anyway, I will stop rambling and end this. I hope you have a wonderful day! This is Jumbled Sunshine and I will talk to you again soon. Bye bye!
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