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Just a Bit Different.com

"I'm proud that everything I have I earned all on my own."
Building Together Again
Occupy a Better Future
Don't forget about the price tag
We are all connected
Nickel and diming our lives
Hearing and saying "I appreciate you."
The purpose of technology is community
Celebrate small moments
Thankful for people
The strength around us
The leaf is proud:
a tribute to helping each other


Cleaning the workbench:
Children become adults


No power tonight:
Quieting a busy life




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"The things we want are really the times we share."

"If I had only one thing I would take a smile over an iPad."

~ Rob Hueniken

From the category archives:

Past present future

Thumbnail image for Going Paleo – Sandwich in a Bowl

Going Paleo – Sandwich in a Bowl

February 18, 2010

Sandwich in a bowl : Tuna, cucumber and two types of peppers. Sure it’s a salad but I got it at a sandwich bar. Just ask for a bowl instead of bread ! Unlike other “diets”, the Paleo diet is actually a food lifestyle connecting us to our strong and healthy ancestors. As you can tell from its other names, the Stone-age diet and the Hunter-gatherer diet, the Paleo diet isn’t chock full of bread, cereal or deep-fried anything. “Going Paleo” means eating the great foods that were available before agriculture and livestock turned humans from lean, fit people into [...]

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Thumbnail image for Winter Sky – a poem for Spring

Winter Sky – a poem for Spring

February 15, 2010

Winter sky The winter sky looks on and dreams of warmer times of grass and streams. It scowls along from here to there and broods about the goods it bears. A snowflake here, or sleeting rain: its harvest leads us to complain. But there’s a secret that it knows: just past the edge of winter grows a bright new face to give us joy when spring does winter sky deploy. By Rob Hueniken [Return to the home page of MakingMoreOfToday.com.]

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Thumbnail image for A better life in Barbie-land

A better life in Barbie-land

December 27, 2009

One of the best-selling toys our culture has produced is the ever-pretty Barbie, by Mattel.  As the father of a former young daughter, I have experienced first-hand the playing, dressing and accessories that Barbie brings to our world. It was a positive time of fun as well as social exploration and learning. When my daughter became a teenager, I remember when she decided to remove her Barbies from her bedroom, and it was a strong and sad moment for me. I felt that I should have spent more time sitting together with her, combing Barbie’s hair and play-acting adventures in [...]

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Thumbnail image for No way to play a guitar

No way to play a guitar

December 17, 2009

I love music, and I always have. It makes my body move and my spirit soar. I have many favorite songs and passages, and I can listen to them repeatedly — thrilling to the skill and nuance of the performers. My brain plays songs I’ve heard, like a tape recorder in my head.  But sometimes it plays songs I’ve never heard, and those are the hard ones for me to hear, without the skills to make them real. When I was in first year university I lived in a residence with many other young men. It was a mix of [...]

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Thumbnail image for A Poem for Raking Leaves

A Poem for Raking Leaves

November 12, 2009

My Twitter friend, Mike Todd (miketodd07), was out raking today, and sent this tweet: Raking leaves in the sunshine, listening to Owl City on the iPod, thinking about poetry. So I wrote this poem on Twitter: Leaves & sun, together, sounding crisp & smelling soft, like earth and summer memories, fallen but still remaining and reminding. [Return to the home page of MakingMoreOfToday.com.]

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Taylor Swift is a talented and insightful singer

Know and Show your Heart

November 5, 2009

In a recent song by Taylor Swift, a young woman laments that her guy-friend cannot see that she would make a great girlfriend. The song, titled “You Belong with Me“, is beautifully written, with a simple, down home beginning and a strong, soaring finale. Listening to the song it is easy to ask, “Why is this guy so blind to what is right in front of him?” As the singer narrates, the young man is attracted — as our society encourages — to a different woman, a fancier woman, who wears short skirts and high heels. The downside? His current [...]

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Thumbnail image for The music we love

The music we love

October 29, 2009

Rooted in the deepest parts of our brains is our love of music. Starting with our body’s natural rhythms and love of patterns, music winds its way through us, to us, and from us. Everyone loves music — some type of music. And everyone makes music, whether it is a skilled performance on an instrument, singing a bit of a song, or tapping our feet. Music is the natural joy language of all humans. Mitch Miller, loving the music We each have a personal musical path through our lives, woven by deliberate forces such as radio and TV, shared experiences [...]

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Thumbnail image for Doing our part to help things work out

Doing our part to help things work out

October 21, 2009

At the core of our lives are two powerful traits: responsibility and compassion. While they sound like lofty ideals, responsibility and compassion are actually life’s calls to action, built into each of us. We know there are things we should do, and we know when we should be helpful and sensitive to others.  Knowing these things doesn’t make us responsible and compassionate — it is acting on these feelings by participating. When we are young, most things are done for us. Mothers, fathers and caregivers watch over us, and try to give us what we need — both physically and [...]

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Thumbnail image for My father’s hammer

My father’s hammer

October 19, 2009

Stepping into my father’s workshop always takes me back in time. Not only are my parents collectors of memorabilia, but they continue to make good use of the things they already have. So when I look around my father’s garage I see tools that have existed since I was a boy, including a vice, a band saw, and various ancient screw drivers. While my mother prepared our lunch, my father showed me his latest project – to add a second door to the front hallway, to keep the cold air out, but with a window to keep the light flowing [...]

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Thumbnail image for Celebrating our father’s confidence that things will work out

Celebrating our father’s confidence that things will work out

September 30, 2009

Celebrating a father’s birthday can bring out many emotions and thoughts, especially for adult children. Most of us get to experience our father for a long period of our lives, from being Daddy’s little one through to Dad seeming somehow smaller. For each of us, those days in between say a lot about how both we and our fathers matured and learned along the way, and what has stayed at our core. Every family has tough times and good times, and each person has moments of weakness and excellence. Birthdays are a natural moment in time to reflect, maybe forgive, [...]

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