Today, I worked on the next Tips, Tools & Resources Fact Sheet for the parent mailing. It will not be going out until March 1st, but with a few big projects coming up, I decided to tackle the job.

This is the second one I wrote from start to finish, instead of compiling information that I researched. The first one I did was on literacy matters, so it was basically a matter of trying to figure out how to fit three college degrees on one page. This one, however, was based on a comment my friend D made a few weeks ago.

He and I, as older singles, have spent quite a bit of time hanging around families since we do not have one of our own. His comment had to do with something that had actually been bothering me for a while: even members of Christian families do not really speak kindly to each other.

He started noticing how little praise, encouragement, or gratitude was spoken. Instead, the general interchanges were filled with teasing, cut downs, and down right rude remarks. We commiserated a while about this, sharing examples less-than-kind speech and noting missed opportunities for kind words. So, when I set out to draft the resource page today, my mind kept returning to that conversation.

After a few rough starts, I settled on a way to express my thoughts: Honey Speak.

I built the piece around the adage " You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." It is basically filled with ideas of opportunities where families can speak words of encouragement, praise, and gratitude.

Well, I liked my idea so much that I built a wee little website around it: www.honeyspeak.com. I was having trouble getting the domain name to forward to my free website compliments of Verizon. If it is still not going through, you can see the original site here.

What do you think?