TheListServe Blog

Goodbyes. I've had to say goodbye more times than I would have liked. But I guess everyone can say that. I'm not talking about the see you later goodbye or the goodbye we automatically address to a waiter. I refer to THE goodbye. The one that tears up our throat and make our eyes go all wetty when we say it. We all know it. No matter what the circumstance is. This goodbye is usually said to people who really matter to us and it for instance occurs when we are moving far enough from them that they won't be as easily reachable as they were. What makes this moment difficult is that we are aware that not only we're saying goodbye to a person, we're saying goodbye to a relationship. Deep down we know that this bond won't be the same anymore. It may progressively vanished as the time goes by or get stronger. It merely depends on individuals. But when we say goodbye we don't know how things will be and it's confusing. It feels like a chapter of our lif...

Once upon a time — and listen, for although this sounds like a fable, I will try to make every word true — once upon a time there was a young boy named Patrick, a young Christian boy whose father was a deacon, and whose grandfather was a priest. Patrick, though he was raised in a Christian household did not himself know God. I imagine he was like most people, just living his life out without much concern for spiritual things. But then something really terrible happened. Raiders attacked his parents’ villa, and Patrick was taken off to be a slave in Ireland. I suspect that his parents had plans for him to go off to the city to become an educated gentleman. Instead, he was taken off at age sixteen to become a slave. Instead of going to school, he was forced to become a shepherd. In his loneliness and emptiness, he began to remember what he knew about God. And he started to pray the prayers he had been taught; I don’t know what prayers, but I imagine he prayed the “Our Father.” He start...

Hi all, I want to write about a subject that is very close to my heart - bees! I started bee keeping last year, and have two colonies right now. These two already managed to supply my family and my friends with more than enough honey, and keeping the bees is a tremendously satisfying activity. They smell so good, and are very tidy animals, and are just very, very interesting overall. The insects' way of dealing with the world is just so very different from how we as mammals approach it - it seems almost alien. Anyways, what is probably most impressive is the workload these little animals deal with. For one kilo of honey, they visit 4 million flowers, and fly a distance equivalent of more than 4 times around the earth. Think about that for a second. And then, if you start to think about how they "furniture" their housing themselves by the wax they sweat out, how they can control temperature inside the hive to the tenth of a degree, how they collectively make decisions i...

I've been in business for a long time now, and every once in awhile, I'll get friends and family asking me to talk through their business plans with them. It's one of my favorite things to do! Along the way, I've come up with a few things that seem to apply to every type of business. If you're thinking about starting a business, or in the beginning stages, here are a few tips to help you start your venture. 1) Decide what your goals are, and how hard you want to work. There's a big difference between a plan that ends with you making a comfortable living vs. one with a $100M payout. Decide what route is right for you. 2) Do something you're truly passionate about. If it doesn't sound like an exciting adventure, to you, from the beginning, keep looking for the right opportunity. Starting a new business can be a rough road, and requires a certain level of belief and momentum to keep going. If you're not into it, it's hard to keep it going during ...

To begin, let me say that I live a blessed life, surrounded by friends and family that love and support me. I attempt to appreciate such great fortune as much as I am able, especially as I have grown older and seen such disparity between friends of mine who do not enjoy my same socioeconomic advantages. Even now, as I am preparing to leave for college, which promises to be a separate segment of my life entirely, I know I have my parents and friends to look to in times of trouble. That is not to say I haven't lived without struggle. From the onset of my life, at the very inception of my beginning days, I endured disappointment. I was an unhealthily premature baby, 8 weeks ahead of schedule by the doctors shared estimations. Naturally, this made me extremely fragile and unhealthy. I had to extend my stay in the hospital from a single night to almost two weeks as my parents weighed the magnitude of the reality they were facing: if their first-born son would ...

Hello world! I just got the first Listserve email, and it was a little bit too similar to what I was originally going to send so I deleted my email and started again. I feel as though this is going to turn into a mass swapping of inspirational quotes for us to all live our lives by…but hopefully it will vary more as time goes on. I’m going to just share some secrets with you instead. 1. When no one is watching, I like to dance as if I’m in a hip hop music video. 2. I haven’t washed my hair for four days. Dry shampoo is one of my favourite inventions. 3. I’ve always wanted to break my arm or leg. I don’t want to really go through the pain, just ever since I was younger I’ve been jealous of the slings and crutches involved. 4. I like Justin Bieber’s new song… I don’t want to and it pains me to say it, but I think I do. 5. I GENUINELY (and irrationally) believe I’m going to win the jackpot on the Euromillions Lottery one day. I know people always have the...

When I turned twenty I had reached a point where my earthly possessions could be summarized as the clothes I was wearing, an old bag containing some more clothes, a few science-fiction books, and my guitar. No money, no place to live, just a bunch of friends who helped me out of the streets and put me back on my feet. Ending up in such a pit you first feel anger, then sorrow, then you make fun of it because that is the only way to make it bearable, and then you can go forward. It took me three more years to be able to shop for food without having to count change in my pockets. Twenty years later I gave the books away but I still keep the old bag as a memory and my guitar is now standing in the living-room where I occasionally use it to sing for my kids. Life has been a tough ride so far, but at least I know how to live without being bothered by simple objects. I know the only things you can count on are: - What is inside you: your skills, your knowledge - Good friends, and othe...

I want to use my fifteen minutes of fame on The Listserve to rant about something that's close to my heart: the stability of the software I use. NOTE: This is written for people who create software. If you don't do that you probably won't find this very interesting. Sorry! Maybe you could read Text from Dog if you haven't seen it already? Either way, have a nice morning/afternoon/evening! The Situation ------------- Every time I get a new computer, I go through the same song and dance: 1. Look at what programs and packages I have installed on the old computer. 2. Install these programs on the new computer. 3. Copy over my configuration files from the old computer to the new one. 4. Spend the rest of my day fixing all the things that broke because I'm using a newer version of program X. Step 4 is always the most painful part of getting a new machine. Always. Without fail I spend several hours tweaking configuration files, adjusting my workf...

She was sick of it all. Sick of the contradictions, sick of the distance, and most of all, sick of the silence that ricocheted back and forth across her ear drums, more deafening than a collapsing building. Polite conversation, with its one-worded banter laced in falsity, could be tolerated. But the silence between them was painful. She wondered what had happened to their relationship. At one point they had been much more than just roommates; they had been best friends. They knew things about each other that no one else knew, and they shared secrets that ranged from romance to regrets, from insecurities to ideologies. Their close friendship had helped make the transition from small towns to college life easier for the both of them. Although they had differing personalities, they seemed to complement each other. But, most importantly, they had trusted each other. Recently, all of that had disappeared without warning. When it was time to leave, she didn’t say that she was hea...

As my friends (and acquaintances) will attest, one thing that I’m an expert at is preaching about Diva Cups. Male readers and squeamish ladies, this might get a little rough, but stick with me for a moment because this is important. Most ladies have grown up knowing that there are two ways to deal with periods: pads and tampons. The “feminine hygiene” aisle at most stores reinforces this, and each month we drop up to $30 on an assortment of items with wings and strings to be strategically packed into hidden pockets of purses. There is a better way...Diva Cups (my brand of choice, but there’s also The Keeper, Moon Cup, and other brands) are a complete game changer. Buy it once for about $35, and use it for 10 years. You can leave it in for up to 12 hours, and it will hold quite a lot (even for those of us who are blessed with ‘extra super plus’ volumes of fun each month). Rinse it out in the sink, pop it back in, and you are good to go. Think it’s too gross? Nope. You can handle it....

The softest sound of worship; The things we can't possess Are without plan or purpose, Yet do sometimes suggest The reason in our figures, The meaning of our call, And though we cannot calculate We know the sum of all. stressfordpoet67

I'm sorry to break this to you, in an e-mail from a random stranger like this, but it needs to be said: Most of your life won't be fantastic. I'm not joking. The adventures you'll tell your children about will be a minuscule part of it. So if you want to avoid the feeling of utter disappointment as you grow older, you need to accept that fact. Sorry. This leads us to the insight: You should focus more on the non-fantastic parts. The parts where you eat breakfast, walk to the bus, have a boring day at work, eat your ordinary lunch, shop groceries, and brush your teeth. After all, this is the major part of your life, and neglecting it is a wasted opportunity. Here's the thing: Most of the boring stuff in your life is so dull, that even the tiniest thing can make it seem fun. The tiniest thing. This means the you could make it better with extremely simple means. What exactly am I talking about here? Little things. Like these: * Challenges: When brushing your te...

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