Kristen Wambach Blog - KRISTEN WAMBACH

Day 14 | Gifts of Time and Love

12/14/2022

Gifts of Time and Love, 25 Advent Days of Christmas

a Simple Nostalgic Phone Call...

Out thoughts are running fast these December days. Hard to believe its Day 14 of our Advent Calendar. I am enjoying our little window of time together. The thoughts of giving and surprises fill my brain as I have a bit more shopping to do. Parties are on the calendar, lists are being made. In our good busy, you have thought about next year? It is time to "Level Up" and take those needed footsteps towards your dreams. Coaching for Life is a perfect fit. Professional encouragement at your fingertips.
Back to our daily story: Today, in a moment of rest: I picked up "What's App" and made a phone call to my dear friend in England. It was a surprise for both of us! It's amazing to have "apps" these days that make a phone call anywhere in the world. Mind boggling! Time and Love are inseparable, with so many ways to express it.
Moments are gathered by thought.
Do you remember party-lines?
I remember my first cell phone! How purses have changed just to have the perfect little pocket for the changing size of your cell phone.
A sound that is etched in my memories: My family has a particular car horn honk, One Long, two shorts. It is the remaining residue of the phone ring on the Iowa farm house about 100 years ago!
A new memory of time and love: My Mom came over to help decorate my Christmas Tree. As we sat for our evening meal, discussing how tart the pickled beets in our salad where. (Left from Thanksgiving) We got into an intense conversation about the family recipe. She said that she had the hardest time getting the recipe from her Mom, my Grandmas. I had proof! I have my Grandmothers recipes box.
I pulled it out from my cupboards and showed my Mom 6 recipe cards with different handwriting on them, all Pickled Beets. We had fun trying to decipher the different hand writings. I browse through the recipe box, in my care for 25 some odd years. It felt like my relatives and there friends where standing right there in the room with us.
My Great Grandmas, Great Aunts, there friends, Cousins, and Church ladies all who have shared recipes over the years. I asked my Mom what this scribble was on the edge of a very worn and food stained recipe card? My grandmas had written two phones numbers, only 6 digits! Things have changed in 75 years. What a treasure!
Gifts of Time and Love can be as easy as a real phone call. Call someone today!
See you tomorrow! Kristen

P.S. did you pick up your free gift yesterday?

Day 13...

...Day 15 & 16

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The Healing Power of Old-Fashioned Phone Calls

Credit: Jerry Windley-Daoust

Every Sunday since things shut down for the coronavirus emergency, I have been taking an hour or two to connect with far-off friends and family. And while I’ve done a few group video calls, I’ve actually logged way more time on old-fashioned voice calls. You know — no speech-to-text, no chance to review before hitting “send.” No bells and whistles; just you and your conversational dance partner, the two of you taking turns making up a shared story that neither of you could ever tell by yourselves.
Apparently, I’m not alone. In early April, AT&T reported a 35 percent surge in voice calls, and Verizon reported handling more than 800 million voice calls per weekday, more than twice as many as on Mother’s Day. Just think of that: Mother’s Day times two, every day. And those calls lasted about 33 percent longer than typical, too. Those numbers are down a little now, but we’re still making more phone calls than on a typical pre-COVID-19 day.
It makes me wonder: Faced with the biggest global crisis since 9/11, why would so many of us return to the humble voice call to “reach out and touch someone” (as the old Bell ads used to say)? Read the entire article