Author Archives: Lauri Rottmayer

About Lauri Rottmayer

I'm a speaker and writer and social media queen. Married to my best friend for 38 years, we have two amazing men children, two gorgeous daughters-in-love, a precious glambaby, and a cute boy dog, Frankie Bolwahnn.

Krispie Brownies, Yum

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This weekend was a fun one. I went to visit my mini-me, Lyndzee. I was going to teach her how to cook some easy dinners and then she and her new husband were going to have a gender reveal party to tell everyone the sex of their baby that will be born in November.

Lauri & Lyndzee

I like to cook but sometimes I get really busy and run out of time. We try and eat a healthy paleo diet much of the time.

I asked Lyndzee if she had a George Foreman grill and she didn’t. We use the GF Grill at a minimum of five nights a week and often for lunch. Honestly, I can’t imagine how I would get along without my GF Grill. I brought one for Lyndzee so she will be able to see how fast and easy she can make dinner.

Most nights, I told her, I put the potatoes in the microwave when the GF Grill is heating up. Then, when the potatoes are done, put the meat on the grill and veggies in the microwave and, voila!, dinner in 15 minutes. There’s enough time to chop up an easy salad, too.

I taught her how to make spaghetti squash and meat sauce, a dish that both of us love. Mr. Lyndzee took a tiny portion to be sure he liked it.

Spaghetti Squash

And his review was two thumbs down. Oh well.

Although I was cooking healthy, Lyndzee is pregnant and she wanted treats so I brought a terrific dessert that I love but hadn’t made in years, Krispie Brownies. They are easy and so delicious.

They are so good, that Lyndzee wanted to eat a piece this big:

brownies

Here is the recipe so you can make your own awesome Krispie Brownies.

1 pkg fudge brownie mix, family size
1 (10 1/2 oz) pkg mini marshmallows
1 1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c creamy peanut butter
1 T butter
1 1/2 c Rice Krispies

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom of 13×9 in baking pan. Prepare and bake brownies according to pkg directions for original recipe. Remove from oven. Sprinkle marshmallows on hot brownies. Return to oven. Bake 3 more minutes. Place chocolate chips and peanut butter in medium saucepan, cook on low heat, stirring constantly, until chips are melted. Add cereal, mix well. Spread mixture over marshmallow layer. Refrigerate until chilled. Cut into bars. Makes about 24 bars or one uber large brownie. 😉

The next day was gender reveal day and

cupcake

It’s a GIRL!

We are so excited to welcome this little girl when she arrives in November. I hope she will be an extra-mini-me. 🙂

Eat Move Sleep

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Eat Move Sleep: Why Small Choices Make a Big DifferenceEat Move Sleep: Why Small Choices Make a Big Difference by Tom Rath

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Eat Move Sleep is a great little book full of practical health advice. Written by a man who has every reason to eat and live healthfully, each chapter ends with three action items you can put into practice immediately. There are thirty chapters so by the end of a month, you will be practicing a lot better lifestyle habits.

One of the most powerful statements in the book is that sugar is the new tobacco. I believe this! Sugar is in all of our food even in places you wouldn’t think to look for it. I believe that if people get the sugar out of their diets, they will be taking a huge step towards good health.

I highly recommend this book if you want to head into a more healthful way of living. It’s great advice! 🙂

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Directing Your Destiny

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Directing Your Destiny: How to Become the Writer, Producer, and Director of Your DreamsDirecting Your Destiny: How to Become the Writer, Producer, and Director of Your Dreams by Jennifer Grace
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Directing Your Destiny was a terrific book that landed in my hands at just the time when I needed it. I’ve been trying to sort out what I want to do with my life and along came this book. As the author would say, it divinely landed in my hands because I was ready for it.

This easy to read book is full of exercises to use to figure out what you want your life to look like and how to achieve it. Or, how to write, produce and direct your dreams. I like the idea of a positive, directed mindset and this book is all about how to achieve that.

If you’re in a place where you need to stop and reflect on which direction your life is taking, I highly recommend this book. It’s good! 🙂

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Mad skillz – EATS FIRE

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logo-linkedin

I remember the first couple of times I got an endorsement on Linkedin. The new kind of endorsement where you just have to check a box easy-peasy and you don’t have to give any great thought to being a perceived hero in someone’s life. I was flattered. “Oh, thank you!”, I tweeted to the person who did the grand and glorious act of kindness and insight.

At that time, I wasn’t very familiar with Linkedin and didn’t realized they had changed things to make this a pretty easy process that doesn’t require much time.

Now, though, it’s a different story. I’m always stumped when people I don’t know, but with whom I’ve connected  on Linkedin, endorse my skills. How do they know these things about me when I’ve never done business with them or, in fact, interacted with them at all past agreeing to connect with them?

If I add “Fire Eating” to my skills, how long do you think it will be before someone endorses me for that? Social media, marketing, fire eating. My skill level is all the same when you don’t know me, right? 😉

fireeater

I am starting to think that people whom I don’t know have ulterior motives for endorsing me. i.e. They expect me to return the favor. Today, I received an inbox message from a guy who has been endorsing me the last couple of weeks asking me to do just that which confirms this. But I don’t know him!

I think these endorsements are so ridiculous and unimportant that after I read this article I just went in and shut them off. So, if you DO decide to endorse me for eating fire, sadly, my future employer (nor anyone else) will never see it.

I love the idea of the written endorsements offered at Linkedin. If I worked with someone and I knew their abilities and was incredibly impressed with them, it’s nice to know there is a spot there where I can write something to that effect and have it stand out on their profile. I believe that these endorsements have real value and if someone asked me or I felt compelled to write one, I would.

Until then, I’m going to go eat some fire.

To those of you whom I know that have endorsed me, I do appreciate and thank you. I just don’t put a lot of stock in Linkedin endorsements as you can see. 🙂

 

Raise the Goose Bumps!

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I’ve been reading a really terrific book by Stephen King called Under The Dome.

Under The Dome

Like most books by King it starts getting a little scary. I’ll never forget reading The Shining when I was about 18 and being scared out of my mind in broad daylight.

This one has been intriguing with shades of the scary to come but nothing outright scary up to this point – page 754.

In the story, one of the town politicians on a power trip is bringing in teenagers and young men to serve as a police force that will always support him. One of the older policemen, reflecting on the recent firing of another longer term member of the force, starts thinking that maybe he should have taken a job on the Orono police force when it was offered to him the previous year. Yes, he would have had to drive drunken UMO kids home but it would have beaten what he was currently experiencing waiting for his own, probably imminent, firing.

After I read this portion of the book. I decided to take a break. The book is heavy. Physically heavy, weighing 3.5 lbs.

I checked in on facebook and sitting right at the top of my newsfeed I see this:

umo

Wowza. Raise the goose bumps!

I had never before heard of this town or school in Maine before I read about it three pages before I took a break.

LOL! If I wasn’t reading Stephen King, I may not have thought twice about it. But I am, completely, creeped out 😉

Looking For Me

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Looking for MeLooking for Me by Beth Hoffman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading Saving CeeCee Honeycutt in 2010 and deciding it was one of my favorite books of all time, I was really looking forward to Beth Hoffman’s next book.

Looking for Me is a wonderful story filled with terrific characters, just like her first book. It made me laugh, it made me cry. It made me decide to plan our 35th anniversary trip next April in Charleston.

I loved the descriptions of Teddi’s shop and the work that she and Albert did. I loved the descriptions of Charleston. The story line about Teddi’s brother, Josh, was interesting and sweet.

Terrific book, terrific story, terrific author! 🙂

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Unfriend Yourself

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I got the book Unfriend Yourself by Kyle Tennant and read it this past weekend. It’s not a long book and I was actually finished with it early on Friday but decided to go ahead and take the challenge to unfriend myself for three days on social media.

Unfriend Yourself

The book is interesting and poses some intriguing questions on how we use social media. Tennant also lines up social media usage with Scripture. Thought provoking.

What I got from this book, other than the challenge of staying off of social media for three days, was confirmation that I’m doing it right. At least according to the book.

I love social media and I love the people I have met through twitter. My goal in life is to meet my twitter friends and make them into real life friends. I believe that I could have coffee in any part of the world with someone that I “know” from twitter. That’s a cool feeling.

java

As you know, twitter is my favorite in the social media realm. I have found, as the author did, that Facebook can be a little fake. And I’ve found it can also be a little mean. Mostly, I use Facebook to see photos of the #glambaby. And other people’s little kids. The photos of little kids is my favorite part of Facebook.

Tennant says that social media offers a new kind of social and intellectual environment encouraging false intimacy and feigning friendship. I can see how it could be perceived as that if you aren’t being true to yourself or your friends/followers.

If you know me at all, you know I believe in being REAL. With me, what you see is what you get. The person I am on social media is the person I will be when you meet me in real life. I think it could be very easy to try and let yourself be someone you’re not but since my ultimate goal is to meet every one of my followers in person, being real seems more practical to me.

I wrote in my book that I feel that twitter actually allowed me to be the real me. I tweet what I tweet. Then, when people meet me in real life, they expect me to be me and it’s so cool! 🙂

The one person who came to mind when I was reading this book was Afton Fisher. I love Afton and if I had not been on twitter, I am not sure I ever would have met her in real life. She is a wonderful, kind, and precious soul. She’s a fabulous mommy and wife and I love her. For real.

Afton has told me that she practices WWLD. What Would Lauri Do? Ohhhh. Oh. That always gives me pause. It’s constantly in the back of my head that, at least one person that I love and respect completely, is looking up to me. This would keep me real if nothing else did.

Tennant suggests that we make sure not to forgo in life communion with online communication. This is good advice. When I meet my twitter friends in real life I am SO delighted! It’s really the cherry on top of an already good ice cream sundae.

I think that you can use social media and not be used by it. This would be a good goal to have if you feel that you are becoming enslaved by the medium.

All in all, I think this was a good book to read. It gave me some good things to think about but mostly it confirmed that I’m using social media in a way that is well balanced. And that makes me happy.

So? Did I pop into my social media accounts these three days? I did, I cannot tell a lie. I got an email with three direct messages from a friend who wanted me to call her. While I didn’t go into twitter itself, I did see the direct messages in email form. I also logged into Facebook so I could see a photo of my son’s birthday donuts which were cool and also to tell Beth Hoffman that I really love her new book because I couldn’t wait until Monday. Also, I checked into foursquare today. But, for me, mostly I did a great job on the challenge.

donuts

I can’t wait for Monday to get back to normal! 🙂

 

The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell

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The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann LobdellThe Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell by William Klaber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down.

I’m not usually a fan of historical fiction but this story, based on a real woman, captivated me. She left her home to make a life for her daughter and herself by posing as a man. I liked her spunky attitude earlier in her life and it was sad to see how society (and her family!) treated her as she continued trying to be the person that she was.

Reading this book really let me see how blessed we are as women in this day and age! 🙂

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