Oprah’s show yesterday was all about good news. One of her guests was Pastor Will Bowen from Kansas City and how a challenge to his congregation has taken off into a national movement.

The pastor gave members of his congregation a purple bracelet and challenged them to not complain for 21 days. It is said that afer 3 weeks – 21 days – of doing something, it becomes routine. The idea is to get rid of the negative energy that complaining can bring into our lives.

You were the bracelet on one wrist. If you complain, then switch the braclet to the opposite wrist. The idea is to wear the bracelet on the same wrist for 21 days in a row. Will said that he did achieve this, but it was a test because he had to be accountable to his congregation.

Christ Church Unity has a website A Complaint Free World.org where you can order a bracelet. The bracelets are free. The past 7 months the church has mailed over 1 million bracelets. It can take up to 5 weeks for delivery. Some people have actually complained about it taking so long to receive their free bracelet. I think they are kind of missing the whole point of the idea.

If you want to start, then you really don’t need a bracelet. These bracelets are very popular, and you might have one stuck in a drawer. It may not be purple, but that really doesn’t matter. You can even wear a rubber band if you don’t have any of thes bracelets. Follow the same rules and try to keep it on the same wrist for 21 days.

I complain so much that this will be a real challenge. I really have nothing to complain about. It’s like the this quote I’ve heard before, “I use to complain about not having shoes until I met a man with no feet..” Oprah was funny because she said she knew a couple of people she wanted to give one of these bracelets. I had the same thought. She asked if that counted as a complaint, and the pastor told her he would leave it up to her to decide. It really has to do with how you mean a comment rather than what you say. A good rule of thumb is that if you are questioning whether it’s a complaint, then you probably already know the answer. Switch that bracelet to the other wrist, and move on.

I splurged yesterday and bought some ouchless ponytail holders. They were a whopping $2 for 12. Spring has arrived, or should I say pre-Summer. It’s been pretty warm. Until I can get my hair chopped off, it has to go up in a ponytail.

I have to report they work well. It doesn’t hurt when you pull them out, which means more of my hair stays to my scalp. That’s what bugs me about regular ponytail holders is the mass of hair I have to unknot before I use the holder again.

Now to keep up with them. It never fails I will lose half before the week is over. It’s why I hate to buy barrettes and other hair accessories. I can’t keep up with them at all. I’ve added a hanging scarf to the bathroom to place some hair accessories on. Hopefully that will help me keep track of them for a little longer, at least until I get my $2 worth out of them.

I bought some shoebox size storage boxes a while back. They have a pullout drawer and are very versatile. I have used them at work where I shared a cubicle space with another person, so there was really no space for any personal items. When I left that job, I added those boxes to a few that I had bought for the house.

I have used them for several different functions. Their latest incarnation has been to hold baby items. Now that the baby is a toddler, it’s time to find a new purpose for them. I cleaned them out and put them under my bed. It’s almost like having a drawer under the bed. Hopefully this will be a good way to hold that clutter that accumulates by the bed.

These plastic boxes have really been worth their price. They are a bargain at only $4 and found at most discount stores.

I saw the Twitter badge on Jason Calacanis’ blog and thought how cool is that? My husband always IMs me from work to ask what I’m doing. Now he can just read it on Twitter.

It’s a little addicting. I hope I don’t update it more than I do my blog.

I had my first spam comment today. Naturally I deleted it. I get a ton of spam on my other blog and was wondering when the spam would start to trickle in through comments at Geeky Housewife.

I use Akismet since I have a WordPress blog. It helps a lot, but I’m sure there are other plugins. My spam problem isn’t as huge as other people who get hundreds of comments per day. Until my spam comments become a lot, I won’t seek another spam plugin.

Rae loves to eat fruit. She especially likes it from the fruit cups. The only problem is that it is very messy when she eats it. She just dives in with both hands, sucks the juice off her hands and then crams the fruit into her mouth.

She loves the computer keyboard. So, as you can see where I’m going with this, I now have a sticky keyboard. A good cleaning trick I learned while working in a computer lab was to clean keyboards with rubbing alcohol.

Rubbing alcohol gets rid of sticky, gooey, yucky stuff off of keyboards. Take a cotton ball and dip it into the rubbing alcohol. Apply a little elbow grease, and that keyboard will be good as the day it came out of the box. Use a Q-tip to get in between keys for a deep cleaning.

Rubbing alcohol dries really fast, so there’s no risk to your keyboard. Although I have read to clean your keyboard just pop it in the dishwasher. I’m very skeptical of that, not unless you have three weeks or so to kill while your keyboard dries out.

Another good reason to use rubbing alcohol is price- you can pick up a bottle for under $1. It will also kill any lurking germs. Sickness has run amock this Winter in our house. The last thing we want is a Spring cold.

Spring is here, and the little ones will be spending much more time outside. Chances are you will buy at least one blowing bubbles container. It never fails with little kids that soon that soapy mixture will be spilled. Now you can go buy more, or you can even buy a gallon bubble refill. A cheaper alterative is to mix up your own bubble concoction.

Use one part dishwashing liquid to about 8 parts water. Voila! You have your own bubble blowing refill. It’s a lot cheaper than buying it from the store, which will mean less frustration when kids spill it all over the place. Well, if they spill it outside that is.

I already have more toolbars than I really need, but I couldn’t pass up learning more about one more. The Agloco Viewbar can earn you money just by surfing and searching the Internet. Members share in the money earned from the viewbar. Their share of the pie depends upon their participation.

The AGLOCO Viewbar is a brand new service, but since I could possibly get some money for doing what I already do is worth a test run. The more people who partcipate, the more money is earned through the viewbar. AGLOCO makes money from several different sources, including but not limited to advertising and transaction commissions. There are four ways for members to make money:

1. Members get a monthly share of the revenue based on the use to the Viewbar.

2. Members earn a part of the company based use to the Viewbar.

3. Members earn money through referrals.

4. Members share any commissions earned when members buy a product/service from the Viewbar.

AGLOCO is free to join. You can also donate your earnings to charity. ALGLOCO has some great ideas that hopefully will net some pocket money for its members.

It seems every toy Rae has makes some kind of noise. She figures out really fast how to make that doll talk, the pig oink, and so forth. Some toys are louder than others. Way louder. While I use to think this to be an annoyance to us, it might not be that good for her to listen to these loud toys.

I was reading in Prevention magazine – my new favorite mag – that toys that are louder than normal speech aren’t good for babies and toddlers. Some of her toys have a volume control but some don’t. My geeky husband thinks he can tone down loud toys with a little soldering. I might let him try as I hate the idea of a taking away a toy that she loves but even further hate the idea of her hearing being damaged.

Hopefully we can find a fix for these loud toys that won’t completely render them soundless.

I accidently messed up the other theme I had been using. So instead of spending time trying to decipher what I had done, I decided to look for a theme that is more the idea I have for the theme I am going to build.

Although I love orange, I will not be keeping it as the primary color. The layout of this theme is almost what I want. I will be making changes here and there to it as I have time and desire.