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	<title>WIRL Project &#187; Instagram</title>
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	<description>What It&#039;s Really Like.</description>
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		<title>What It&#8217;s Really Like &#8211; The Story Behind WIRL Project</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/what-its-really-like-the-story-behind-wirl-project/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/what-its-really-like-the-story-behind-wirl-project/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2015 07:30:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sara Brennan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CORE]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Famous Podcast]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Sara Brennan]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Struggle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[T.v. Williams]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[What It's Really Like]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=7969</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had the privilege of being invited by T.v. Williams to be on his Famous Podcast a few weeks ago. I recently shared Part 1 of the show featuring a few stories about me and my personal life. Today I&#8217;m talking more about my professional life and how I was inspired to create the WIRL Project platform. In this particular portion of the show (Part 2) I am talking about: My son Mason (a quick blurb) My career as a teacher and how I always felt compelled to do something &#8220;more&#8221;.  How my Father pushed me to follow my heart, even in his last days How I ever got started blogging in the first place How T.v. called WIRL Project the next &#8220;Billion Dollar Company&#8221;! (Hint: He compared it to Instagram!)  Why I believe that people are all alike at our core How you can get involved and start sharing your stories on the WIRL Project platform &#160; As I said with Part 1, was very honest and real in this podcast and I&#8217;m looking forward to sharing the other parts with you in the future. I love the idea of podcasting because not everyone has time to sit down and read everyday, plus you get to actually see the show in action! I also love podcasts because they&#8217;re something you can play on your phone while you are driving or cleaning your kitchen or while you have a few minutes to sit on the couch and relax. The video link is below, let me know what you think! &#160; &#160; Thanks for watching and thank you T.v. for having me on the Famous Podcast! &#160; &#160; &#160;]]></description>
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		<title>When My Pastor Said &#8220;Follow Jesus&#8221;, Did He Mean on Social Media?</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/when-my-pastor-said-follow-jesus-did-he-mean-on-social-media/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/when-my-pastor-said-follow-jesus-did-he-mean-on-social-media/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:56:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sara Brennan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Love/Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology/Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Be Real]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cleanse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Chadwick]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Instagram]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weeding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=7340</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At church, my pastor, David Chadwick, was giving his awesome sermon and he was talking about &#8220;following Jesus&#8221;. Leave it to me, being so actively involved in the social media world, to think to myself, If Jesus were on social media or had a blog and he showed up in my newsfeed, what would that be like? I&#8217;m pretty sure this is not what David meant when he said &#8220;follow&#8221; Jesus, but it really got me thinking. I began to think about the people I &#8220;follow&#8221; on social media and what impact they might have on my daily life and I also thought of what I might look like to those who &#8220;follow&#8221; me; what image do I portray and does it align with the message I&#8217;m trying to send? I think defining yourself in the social media world can be quite difficult because you have such a limited amount of space, characters, pictures, etc. to represent YOU. You have to scrunch your entire message into one photo, a few hashtags, or a status update and there isn&#8217;t a whole lot of room to explain what you mean or talk about what you really think. And even if you did, would others accept you? We all have a voice (some voices are &#8220;louder&#8221; than others) and we all deserve a fair chance to be heard. It&#8217;s how you choose to use that voice that can really define your character. We all have a voice (some voices are &#8220;louder&#8221; than others) and we all deserve a fair chance to be heard. It&#8217;s how you choose to use that voice that can really define your character. So think about it. If you&#8217;re negative, constantly ranting, bitching, and complaining online, what do you think people think of you? You may be funny, but is your sarcasm aimed at someone else&#8217;s expense? I think you see where I&#8217;m going with this, right? Is that the image you want people to see? Are you negative because you&#8217;re behind a computer and don&#8217;t have to face the repercussions of being rude or disrespectful? Or do you put up a wall because you&#8217;re insecure or lonely and desperately want someone to pay attention to SOMETHING you thought or wrote, even if it&#8217;s negative? Or are you someone who is filled with positivity, strength, and happiness? Do people smile when they see what you&#8217;ve posted or shared online? Are you displaying how loving and caring you are towards your family and friends? Is the REAL you shining through your posts? When you start to think about how other people might perceive you (like it or not, people are judging you by what you do, say, AND post) it can be a little scary. But it can also be quite interesting because YOU ARE A BRAND and people are judging your personal brand based on what you&#8217;re showing them and telling them. I&#8217;ve always been very selective in who I follow or what I &#8220;like&#8221; on social media &#8211; if I don&#8217;t actually &#8220;like&#8221; it, I&#8217;m not going to pretend I do or &#8220;pity like&#8221; something &#8211; I hate that! I try to be as genuine as I can be, I want my &#8220;virtual&#8221; self to match my &#8220;authentic self&#8221; or &#8220;personal brand&#8221;. I don&#8217;t photoshop (I do occasionally use an Instagram filter), I don&#8217;t say things I don&#8217;t mean, I don&#8217;t post things that aren&#8217;t true, or have ulterior motives. I don&#8217;t tell my friends one thing and post something completely different because I have nothing to hide, and seriously, to those who do this, who are you trying to kid? Because of my selectivity, I follow many incredible, amazing people online and I actually get inspired and happy as I&#8217;m scrolling through photos on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook &#8211; I feel connected to these like-minded people and I love it. But, have you ever wanted to &#8220;unfollow&#8221; someone (and I actually do this quite often) because you&#8217;re sick of their annoying posts or messages? Yes! And sometimes I just laugh at the silly things they say about themselves, their hashtags, and their COUNTLESS selfies (and keep them in my feed strictly for entertainment purposes), but if I&#8217;m sick of their &#8220;brand&#8221; or I&#8217;m tired of them bringing me down &#8211; I get rid of them or click &#8220;unfollow&#8221; &#8211; I don&#8217;t need their crap in my universe! I try to be as genuine as I can be, I want my &#8220;virtual&#8221; self to match my &#8220;authentic self&#8221; or &#8220;personal brand&#8221;. I don&#8217;t photoshop (I do occasionally use an Instagram filter), I don&#8217;t say things I don&#8217;t mean, I don&#8217;t post things that aren&#8217;t true, or have ulterior motives. I don&#8217;t tell my friends one thing and post something completely different because I have nothing to hide, and seriously, to those who do this, who are you trying to kid? This brings me back to the &#8220;follow Jesus&#8221; idea. I was thinking about what Jesus (or whichever higher power you believe in) would post as a &#8220;status&#8221;, or even a WIRL, if He could and how positive and awesome His messages would probably be. It would be amazing to &#8220;follow&#8221; along as He touched lives and taught lessons in such a positive, loving, incredible way. Having His updates show up on my phone or computer would probably make me want to be a better person and it would help me to see his &#8220;good&#8221; more often than just on Sundays. Wow, just the thought seems cool, right? Then I thought, if I had the privilege to follow THE MAN himself, I&#8217;d want to keep my newsfeed clean, so not to &#8220;contaminate&#8221; or &#8220;dilute&#8221; His powerful messages, photos, and posts so they could have a greater, stronger impact on my life. So I would probably start to do some &#8220;weeding&#8221; of those who I follow  &#8211; I&#8217;d get rid of anyone who doesn&#8217;t share the same message (notice I said &#8220;message&#8221; and not &#8220;beliefs&#8221;) as me (or Him), almost like a &#8220;social media cleanse&#8221; if you will, to get rid of the bad and start anew. Now, imagine this. You&#8217;ve cleansed yourself of the heavy weight of those who bring you down, you&#8217;ve shed the burden of the negativity, rants, and hate that appears on your usual social media feed and you&#8217;re only surrounded by those who share the same love, support, and inspiration for life and helping others as you do &#8211; wouldn&#8217;t that be awesome? Surrounding yourself with positive energy could really change your life &#8211; &#8220;follow&#8221; the good energy, toss away the bad. I mean, I&#8217;ve always been taught to &#8220;follow God&#8221;, but until I thought of it this way, it never really &#8220;hit home&#8221; for me. Call me crazy, stupid, or wacko, but sometimes you just have those &#8220;Ah-ha&#8221; moments where everything just falls into place. This was one of those moments for me. I mean, my whole life I&#8217;ve been taught to &#8220;follow God&#8221;, but until I thought of it this way, it never really &#8220;hit home&#8221; for me. Call me crazy, stupid, or wacko, but sometimes you just have those &#8220;Ah-ha&#8221; moments where everything just falls into place. This was one of those moments for me. So, this isn&#8217;t really about religion here, but it can be if that&#8217;s how you want to interpret it. What I&#8217;m saying is that if we look at the 21st century version of &#8220;following Jesus&#8221; and what that might actually mean if it were possible, it might mean that you would have &#8220;insider access&#8221; into the life of an incredible role model. We all have people we admire and we &#8220;follow&#8221; them online to peek into their lives and stay in the know. What we see on social media affects us, that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s such a powerful tool these days &#8211; it can make us happy, sad, jealous, frustrated, and even angry. Doesn&#8217;t it make sense to only surround yourself with people who build you up? &#8220;A rising tide lifts all boats&#8221;, right? What I took away from those two words at church last week was probably quite different than the intended message, but maybe not. I&#8217;m going to start shedding the negativity in my life by ridding of those who put it smack in front of my face everyday and I&#8217;m going to start following more people who I look up to. Truthfully, I think we should all do this and it&#8217;s so easy to do if you&#8217;re willing to make the change. So, if I &#8220;unfollow&#8221;, &#8220;unfriend&#8221;, or &#8220;unlike&#8221; you or something of yours &#8211; now you know why. You can chose to get mad or maybe you can chose to think twice about the messages you&#8217;re sending on social media. I challenge you to take a look at the life you&#8217;re portraying and ask yourself if it&#8217;s authentic. If it&#8217;s not, you might have some explaining to do, but don&#8217;t worry, I know just the platform to get you started! &#160;]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Be Careful How You Hashtag</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/be-careful-how-you-hashtag/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/be-careful-how-you-hashtag/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2015 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sara Brennan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hashtag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Instagram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MJB]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mom Moment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Motherhood]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=5668</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; When I had Mason, I swore I wouldn&#8217;t be one of those moms who blasted social media with my baby&#8217;s photos. Even during my pregnancy, I&#8217;d share a &#8220;bump&#8221; photo every now and then, but tried to keep it to a minimum because, let&#8217;s face it, it can be annoying! So, when I had my new baby boy home with me and he was resting peacefully, I found myself taking a lot of adorable pictures of him. I wanted to share them, but I wanted to make sure I was doing it in an &#8220;appropriate&#8221; way so I came up with a few hashtags that I would use with each post (to Instagram) and was confident and excited about sharing my photos of my sweet little angel baby! Although I LOVE social media, I wasn&#8217;t super knowledgable about how to use these outlets for things other than keeping up with friends. For example, I thought a hashtag (#) was just a way for me to keep track of my own photos&#8230;like organize them. So, I tagged Mason&#8217;s sweet baby photos with #MasonJames, #MyBabyBoy, and #MJB. Things were working out perfectly, until one day I accidentally clicked on the #MJB tag and I then realized why people used hashtags. I quickly learned that the tag takes all photos with that same tag and groups them together. Well, I did not know that Mary J Blige (MJB), the Grammy Award Winning &#8220;Queen of Hip-Hop Soul&#8221;, went by the hashtag #MJB&#8230; so, can you guess what was grouped in the middle of all these photos of this celebrity? Random photos of my little, precious Caucasian baby boy sleeping on my couch! He was amongst pictures and videos of R&#38;B singers, rappers, MJB herself, etc. which was SO NOT what I was initially going for!!! Although many of you probably had no idea that this even happened, I was so embarrassed for 1) Being so dumb when it came to social media and 2) &#8220;Tagging&#8221; my baby in such a WRONG group on social media. Although it may not sound that bad, but moms, especially new moms, are so caught up with emotions, guilt, fear, sleepless nights, etc. that this just rocked my world at the time (lol)! I felt so stupid and uncool! haha So, next time you go crazy with your #hashtags, make sure you know what you&#8217;re getting into!]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Raising Teenagers with Technology</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/raising-teenagers-with-technology/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/raising-teenagers-with-technology/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2015 14:00:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Heather]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology/Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cell Phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Instagram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teenager]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teenagers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=3467</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My husband (Dave) and I are very lucky to have close friends that have children around the same age as our 14 year old daughter, Devon. We get to share our concerns and frustrations with our friends as we know that they’re experiencing the same things with their children, or will be in the near future. A common topic that we discuss is how scary it is to raise a teenager in the twenty-teens (isn’t that odd to say, the twenty-teens!?!) Along with all of the worries that our parents had when raising us, we now have the added worries of technology and social media. I was 16 when I got a cell phone, it was the Nokia 5110, the one that you’d make a stop a Radio Shack to pick up a new cover when you wanted to “change things up”. I had my cell phone “just in case” I had an emergency while away from my parents. There was no such thing as unlimited texting back then and we certainly could not send pictures! Now most teenagers have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SnapChat literally at their fingertips 24/7. So where do we, as parents, draw the privacy line? We got Devon a cell phone last year when she was starting to babysit. Since most people (ourselves included) do not have home phones anymore, it was very important for her to have away to get a hold of us if she needed to while she was watching some the little ones. One of our rules when we got her phone was that whenever we ask for her phone, she hands it over, no questions asked, no time to close out of what she’s looking at or to delete recent texts. We check her phone often. We know who she is texting and what she’s talking about. Do we believe she should have privacy? Of course, but we also believe that as parents of a 14 year old, we need to be PARENTS. We’re very lucky that Devon hasn’t asked for a Facebook account. We’ve actually talked about it several times and she has no interest. I know that will change and it’s only a matter of time, but when she does, she will know what our rules on Facebook will be. She’ll know that Dave and I will have her password and that we’ll be checking her account regularly. I truly believe that at 14, she does not need complete privacy when it comes to social media. She should not be putting things out online that she would be embarrassed for her parents to see and read. When she asks to start a Twitter or Instagram account, she will have the same rules. Dave and I will have complete access to her account. SnapChat scares the you know what out of me, and I don’t think that we would allow her to have a SnapChat account anytime soon. Honestly, why would a 14 year old need to send pictures that automatically get deleted after so many seconds? It sounds like a bad idea to me! I would LOVE to hear how other parents are raising their teens with technology. What scares you the most? What are your house rules for social media?]]></description>
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