Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Oh My!

I've been on facebook since just around Christmas and true confession: I was immediately hooked.

Yes, it is time consuming and that's the downside, no doubt. But while my husband watches sports, I'm next to him with my laptop humming, couch potatoing in my own unique way: chick-chatting at the big virtual, 24 hour, neverending Kitchen Table Conversation, filled with family and friends, they call Facebook.

Here's why I love Facebook:

1. I can peek in on our six adult children & find out about their days, the grandkids, and their moods -- all without being a pesky mom or mother-in-law. (Complete with pictures!) Is this a curious mama's dream come true, or what?

2. I have renewed 30 year old friendships ending in wonderful conversations, and face to face meetings. Love that. My friends have aged like fine wine, to a person.

3. Tomorrow I am meeting a fascinating new friend, a therapist, who read This is Your Brain on Joy, did an enthusiastic review and found me on facebook. She lives near me and we've observed enough about each other's lives to know, yes, we'd like to do lunch and maybe a real friendship!

4. I find cooking and sharing recipes fun and therapeutic; Facebook gives me an appreciative audience and test kitchen. I'm now in the process of creating a new blog inspired by FB friends, and who knows? A book may follow. ( I promise to let you know when Becky's Bistro is up and running!)

5. It's allowed Dr. Henslin and I to connect with readers of This is Your Brain on Joy, to hear great stories of how our book has changed lives.

So, this 50 year old woman has learned to facebook and blog. Proving you can teach an old mom some spiffy new social networking tricks. (And brain science tells us that when we learn something new our neurons began branching wildly-- keeping our brain cells active and alert. I think I've grown a live oak in my head this week.)

And tonight, I challenged my brain to learn yet another skill. Yes, tonight (drumroll please)...

I tweeted.

I don't yet know if I'll love Twitter, but "they say" that if you want to let people know about your books -- you must get out of your comfy nest, and tweet your little heart out.

I have to say that Dr.Henslin, in spite of wild month (one daughter graduated from highschool, another from college, and another got married -- all in 3 weeks time)beat me to the tweet. Oh, and did I mention he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle, sustaining a gash that required mucho antibiotics during this time as well? He's still limping in person, but he's flying in Tweetland.



So if you read this blog and you'd like to follow me on Twitter, my "Twitter name" is BeckyAJohnson and Dr. Henlin's is Drearlh.

As an aside, we just finished final edits for This is Your Brain in Love, to be released next February. The editors gave us thumbs way up! I am so proud of it, but more than that, I cannot wait to see it encourage and possibly even save marriages, the way that This is Your Brain on Joy is changing and yes, sometimes even saving lives.

That's something to smile about. And I guess, something to tweet about as well!