Wednesday’s Workshop Covers Organizing Tips & Parenting When Ill

Wednesday’s program covered 2 topics: “Getting Organized” and “Parenting with Illness.”

Lisa started the show with a bit of a technical glitch but she quickly was able to get her guests through. (And Lisa was dressed today!) Karen Whiting and Marcia Ramsland spoke on organizing and time management. Karen shared one of her best parenting tips, which was to have each child assigned a color and they have everything that is theirs that color, such as a towel, toothbrush, school folders, etc. She said they never passed around the flu in her home, because there was no spread of germs this way. She also shared how helpful it can be to know your “natural energy cycle.” Know what time of day you have more energy of know the seasons that are more difficult for you to get that “spring cleaning” done (it may not be in the Spring at all!)

Marcia Ramsland shared about how the little things can make a huge impact in getting organized, like just doing a “2-minute pickup” when you leave a room or cleaning up a small drawer during the commercials on TV.

Marcia and Karen both have many articles and tips on their web sites, and Marcia also has a free download of a “Time Tracker.”

Next Jill Hart joined Lisa to talk about parenting. Lisa and Jill shared a little about how hard it can be to find the right balance between raising a compassionate kid as well as not wanting them to be the “parent” to an ill parent. Christine Miserandino and Kelly Young joined a few minutes late but Christine shared how the reason was because she’d literally just gotten home from the pediatrician with her daughter who is 3. She spoke about how important it is to have a emergency plan in place for when things like your child becoming ill happens.

Kelly shared about how a child is not like a cake mix (listen to learn more!) and then the women shared a little bit about how they are a mom, someone with an illness, AND a patient advocate online (when do they write and how do they do it all?)

One caller explained how the session had been encouraging as she and her spouse were considering if they should have a child or not. Lisa encouraged her to make the decision from the heart along with her spouse and not to give outside influences too much weight in the choice.

They closed the program with Lisa saying she’d love to have them all back sometime soon for a more in depth time, as they all are an amazing group of women with lots to share.

You can still listen this program any time as it is archived. Either go to www.invisbleillnessconference.com or click in the BlogTalkRadio blue box to the right of this post.

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Tuesday’s Workshop Panelists Share About Relationships and Chronic Illness

Our seminar today was “Relationships When You Live with a Chronic Illness” and Cheryl Ricker and Pam Farrel joined Lisa Copen to discuss friendship and marriage as they relate to chronic illness. Unfortunately Allison Bottke had an emergency and could not make it.

Lisa opened up by confessing that she was still in her PJs and had not had time to get dressed before the program. (So if you are listening in PJs, you are in good company!)

Cheryl discussed helping a friend with chronic illness and they shared what was done for them that has helped them as they cope with chronic illness. Cheryl shared the story behind her book, Friend in a Storm, of poetry written for a friend going through cancer treatment and how the gift of words is a wonderful gift.

Pam joined Lisa halfway through the program and they discussed the marriage relationship when one person is coping with chronic illness. She explained just what the difference is between men and women and what it is that makes them tick. Lisa asked Pam about the emotions involved when a spouse tells a chronically ill person, “I miss who you used to be…” Pam also shared some other tips from her book The Marriage Code.

You can still listen this program any time as it is archived. Either go to www.invisbleillnessconference.com or click in the BlogTalkRadio blue box to the right of this post.

“I loved the part on marriage and what Pam shared about how to communicate with your spouse when something slips out of your mouth that you should not have said,” shares Kelsey. “Thank you for these wonderful podcasts that I can listen to from my home!”

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• Talking To Your Spouse About Your Illness: How Much is Too Much? (invisibleillnessweek.com)

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Invisible Illness Week Online Virtual Conference Registration Now Open

You don’t even have to get out of bed for this virtual conference!

Will you be attending at least one Invisible Illness Awareness Week Workshop?

Here are the details about the seminars of Invisible Illness Week:

• This year, 2010, we will have one seminar each day, 90 minutes long, with guest experts on panels
• M-F, September 13-17
• They will be held online, for free
• 10:30 AM Pacific time, USA
• Go to www.blogtalkradio.com/invisibleillnessconf at the time of the conference and the program will play out of your computer speakers
• If you miss it you can listen to it later, and within a few days they are also imported into itunes if you listen to podcasts on an ipod.

Here is a time zone converter.

Register below. It’s free. We basically just need your name and email, but if you’d like to share anything with us (including a web site address if you blog about your illness), we’d love to get to know you better. Leave any comments in the “bio” section if you’d like.

If the form does not work for some reason, just email us “yes, I am coming/listening in!”

http://invisibleillness.eventbrite.com

Are on Facebook?

If so, be sure to RSVP there too . Why? It helps us spread the word by popping up the little Facebook ad in the right hand column. Plus, we have a better idea of how many listeners to expect.

Remember, you can listen to all of the programs from your computer. They will be broadcast via Blog Talk Radio. If for some reason you can’t get it working, within moments of the program being complete, you can listen to it archived at Blog Talk Radio and later on itunes.

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Invisible Illness Week Seminars on iTunes

Visit ITunes and download the Invisible Illness Week seminars for free on your ipod.

Now you can listen to them on your MP3 player, ipod, etc. Great while going for a walk or when you are stuck in bed.

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Get Ready By Testing Your Computer Speakers

Invisible Illness Week starts 9/14 at 9AM Pacific time in the USA. You will log onto the web site here at Blog Talk Radio.

…and if a program is currently LIVE it will start playing through your speakers.

You can also to listen to the workshops any time at www.blogtalkradio.com/invisibleillnessconf or you can download them from itunes onto your ipod. Just search “invisible illness podcast.”

Now is a great time to make sure your speakers are working!

The only thing that you will need are a pair of speakers connected to your computer! We recommend going to our programs last year that are archived at Blog Talk Radio and clicking on a few programs to see if your speakers are working.

I have logged on to Blog Talk Radio but I am not hearing anything. I can’t get it to work. What do I do?

First, don’t panic. All programs are recorded so it will be there later. Secondly, here is the help section from BlogTalkRadio.com . Make sure your speakers are also plugged in and the volume on your computer is turned up (Start>Control panel> -then look for something that is Audio/Volume, etc)

We have found the support/help at Blog Talk Radio to be very good in helping you find what may be wrong in case you cannot hear the program.

Their blog says

Visit the BlogTalkRadio Help Center – There are two great places to learn more about BlogTalkRadio and how to make it work to your advantage. The first is the BlogTalkRadio Learning Center located on the main BTR site. Included are tutorials, FAQs, screencasts and more, to help make your experience with us as simple as possible. The BlogTalkRadio Help Center, located on the BlogTalkRadio Blog, is a work in progress listing blog posts offering tips and ideas for a positive experience.

Worth noting: Lastly, we have room for 4 callers to call in to the show. You can actually listen to the show this way, but we also want to keep the lines open for callers after the workshop. So you can call to listen, but you may get bumped.

ALSO SEE: FAQ About the Conference | Overview of Conference

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RSVP That You Will Attend an II Wk Workshop

Will you be attending at least one Invisible Illness Awareness Week Workshop?

Be sure to RSVP today so we have an idea of how many will be coming!

Are you on Facebook?

If the answer is yes, be sure to RSVP to our Events. It helps us spread the word by popping up the little Facebook ad in the right hand column. Plus, we have a better idea of how many listeners to expect.

Remember, you can listen to all of the programs from your computer. They will be broadcast via Blog Talk Radio. If for some reason you can’t get it working, we have space for a few callers to call in on the phone number provided and listen. And then within moments of the program being complete, you can listen to it archived at Blog Talk Radio and later on itunes.

So even if you WONT be attending LIVE, if you plan to listen to any programs at some point, please RSVP “YES!”

(You never know who we may get the attention of out there in cyber world!)

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Social Networks Help Lots!

Perhaps one of the biggest changes in the last couple of years is the ability to spread the word about causes you care about to people who are your friends or family members.

We are excited about all “the talk” going on in social networks and hope that if you have friends, family, co-workers, people who you know have illness, etc. you will share our Twitters with them, our videos, links to last year’s seminars, etc. Nearly everything we do has a “tweet this” or “share” button on it, so if you see a page here on the blog that you think others should know about, please don’t hesitate to share it!

Here are some places you will find us! The bigger net we cast, the more people are we are able to reach. We hope you will help us cast a few nets.

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FACEBOOK

Facebook gets it’s own category due to just how much you can do here.

• Join our Facebook “Fan/Like” Page here!
• Sign up for Invisible Illness Awareness “Cause”  – click here
• Do you like groups on Facebook? Well, we’ve got one just for Invisible Illness Week! Join the Invisible Illness Awareness Week Group here
• if you want to stay in touch with whatever Rest Ministries is doing (the founder of this week!). – click here
• Note that on almost any page here, video, etc. you’ll see something that says “share.” If you are involved on Facebook, we’d love it if you would share any inf0rmation with your friends. Even put it on your calendar to post something like a link to an article, each week.
• Give II Week Gifts to people. If you are familiar with Facebook this concept may be familiar. - click here for II Week gifts
• Give someone some flair! - click here for our II Week Flair

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TWITTER & OTHER CONTENT

Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with whatever your passions are. We have a Twitter account just for Invisible Illness Week at www.twitter.com/invisibleillwk . You can also find out about everything Rest Ministries at our founder’s Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisajcopen .

How can you help through Twitter? Many people are just joining and a bit unsure how to use it. Here are some ideas:

• We have an entire web site for Invisible Illness Week Tweets. You can use anything on this site in your tweets, or follow us and ReTweet what we are tweeting (that means you copy what we are posting and in the front of it put RT @invisibleillwk
• On nearly every page of our web site we have a “twit this” button. Click it and tell your followers!
• Join our Twitter Groups for Invisible Illness Week. You can also find more interesting people to follow this week.
  • Invisible Illness Week Tribe

FRIEND FEEDER

I know I’m not all that interesting but it seems some people want to know what I am up to. If you’re one of them, you can see what my twitters and facebook posts, etc. say at friend feed. Join our Friend Feed Group for Invisible Illness Week

Friendster is a lot like friend feed.

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CONTENT

You can copy and paste code into your site, blog, etc (called a widget) and then you will receive our feeds.  We have widgets for Invisible Illness Week, II Week Tweets.

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OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

Are you on MySpace? If so, click here to add us as a friend. A lot of people with chronic illness hang out over at MySpace and in 2007, three months before Invisible Illness Week about 8000 people came to our web site through our page there. So… it’s worthwhile to have and connect with others.

Squidoo is a fun place to get a bunch of information on one page. If you visit, be sure to add a comment, vote for our page, etc. It all helps in the rankings.

Ning.com is where we host our Rest Ministries Sunroom an in the Sunroom we have an Invisible Illness Week Group. Come hang out with us here and find tons of great friends. If you are involved in other Ning.com groups be sure to post our Invisible Illness Week video, blog about Invisible Illness  Week, etc.

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PODCASTS AND VIDEO

Blog Talk Radio is where we have all our seminars hosted. It’s like a live radio show online, but the programs are also archived so you can listen any time. If you click on our Invisible Illness Week Blog Talk Radio link you will still see (and be able to listen) to all 19 programs from last year. When you are there be sure to click on anything! Make us  a favorite, get show reminders, “share” a specific show with friends. The more people click the higher we rank in their web site and the more people we can reach.

All of our radio programs are available for free at itunes too! Just click on this itunes link and it will take you right to them. The biggest perk? You can download them your ipod and listen to them while out walking or maybe when you are stuck in bed.

We have Invisible Illness Week videos available. These are great to share and the one for 2009 can even be purchased on DVD if you want to show it in high resolution for an event, church service, etc.

Tangle is another video place, but it’s a Christian site! We have some of our videos featured.  We are currently setting up our account here.

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BLOGGING

We’ve partnered with Bloggers Unite, an organization that helps causes like ours know who is blogging for them on their topic or cause. If you will help us out by posting at least one blog about Invisible Illness, it’d be great if you would sign up here so we know who you are and can make sure to let others know too! Be sure to get the badge that says, “I’m blogging for Invisible Illness Week” here!

We’re listed in Blog Catalog so more people can find us! If you are a blogger and listed here too, let’s connect!

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CAUSE-RELATED SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

At my-cause you can click a button that says you are a supporter and also copy and paste some code to get this badge below to put anywhere on your web site, blog, etc.

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