Sally's World

The kids showed me this, it's excellent, I've seen several spoofs of this video, but this is my favourite to date...he's surprisingly good!!!

Seeing as tomorrow is the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, it seemed fitting to talk about his book "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" which I originally bought for Dave for Xmas, but somehow managed to get my hands on it first.

I found the book to be an inspiring story about some of the different influences and events that helped to shape Barack Obama into the man he is today. It was written almost ten years ago now, so you are left wanting the next installment as it were. Barack openly discusses trying to come to grips with his racial identity; he speaks about a period of rebellion that included drug us and a party lifestyle.

He talks of his love of political science and becoming a community activist in Chicago. Obama is candid in his account of the racism, poverty and corruption in Chicago. The book ends in 1995 when he enters Harvard Law School, and provides a great insight into Obama's history up to that point.

As a mum myself, I would have loved him to spend a little more time writing about his mother and the influence her side of the family has had on him. This is something Obama acknowledges and expresses regret over in the preface. He talks about his mother’s help with the book even though she was ill, giving us a glimpse of the strong woman had to have been to have raised the man she did.

Obama also talks of traveling to Kenya to try and understand his father's past. He talks of his time in Kenya and how he discovered a nation with forty tribes, each of them with stereotypes of the others. I found this to be quite powerful and emotional.

This book is a very worthwhile look into the personal background of the new US President. I would recommend it, and now my son, Jordan is reading it. Dave will manage to get his hands on his present soon I should think!

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend.

We got together again yesterday for our twelfth video blog. We spoke about people that influence and inspire us, we had five separate categories i.e. family, friend, historical figure e.t.c. and had to name one person in each category.

This is not as easy as you might think…first of all, when put on the spot, ones mind tends to go blank (well mine does any way) and secondly, it is hard to pick just one as so many people influence us over the years, sometimes in the most unexpected places and ways!

Well, rather than try and explain it all, you can have a watch/laugh/cringe/whatever!

This week, my daughter Robyn came with me to see how it all works, and she got roped in to a short blog on her visit to the studio (a.k.a Trojans bedroom), she acted all shy and sweet in front of the camera…but we know her better, so we'll drag her more aggressive side out another time. Now she wants to come again and has lots of ideas for blogs. So watch this space, we’ve created a monster!

Have a great week, hope you enjoy our videos.

Trojan, Sally and Robyn xxx

When Trojan opened the front door to me yesterday, I noticed that his skin looked suspiciously smooth. He insisted that he’d done nothing more than have a shave, yet it looked a little more like he’d had a facial to me…mmmm!

I felt a little insecure then, I had intended, as I do every week for the video blog, to brush my hair, slap on a bit of lipstick and make myself look half presentable. As usual, by the time I’d sorted out the kids, the cooking, washing and ironing of uniforms, answered e-mails and restored some sort of order to the house, I didn’t have time to even locate my hairbrush, let alone use it.

I can’t help feeling that it’s so much easier for men!

Well, Trojan is a few years younger than me; I guess I can’t resent his youthful complexion… I’m not bitter…honest!

Anyway, I digress,

We did the second radio blog, we spoke about what’s been going on this week, about Barack Obama being elected into the white house and what it means to us, what we feel it means to this country also. Of course, it wasn’t going to go completely smoothly, we knew that as I accidently introduced myself during the music intro.

And it wasn’t until we listened back an hour or so later that we realised we didn’t shut off the live feed and we can be heard chatting away about the blogs and various other things…thank goodness we weren’t saying anything derogatory about anyone…and we weren’t using bad language (which makes a change for us…...kidding!)

We also did our fourth video blog, a brief version of the radio blog if you like, this went well, we are getting quite good at these now, no nerves, it’s just like we’re sitting having a chat.

We did try something new, and that was a brief advert for the t-shirts, I looked a bit too serious…but I’ll expect QVC to be recruiting Trojan any time now. We had a couple of bloopers, and we left one in because it made us laugh so much and kind of depicts what we are all about, not perfection (if only) but fun and getting a message out there.

So please log on to the video and radio blogs, as usual all comments are greatly appreciated.

We’ll be back….If you want Trojans autograph, please send and SAE to……

Trojan and Sal xxx

Dave and I sat up last night watching the progress in the presidential elections. And were pleased to be able to tell the kids this morning that Barack Obama is the new president of the United States of America.

Wow…history has been made.

We spend so much time telling our children that the colour of their skin and their disabilities have no bearing on what they can achieve, that if they work hard, believe in themselves and have faith, they can achieve anything they want.

But nothing we have said over the years can have got this message across to them better than when Barack Obama stood on the podium and gave his speech. An African America elected into the oval office. He let nothing, least of all the colour of his skin stop him becoming the next president.

What better example could we have chosen to give our children this message? What better example to send to the children across the world.

xxx