One of the writing sites I follow had an essay contest asking what my word for the year was. The essay also needed to explain why I chose that word, and all of this needed to be done in 500 words or less.
Like I’m able to keep things that short very easily 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 (my emoji version of ROFL) I did write the essay and stopped it at about 450 words, but I could have gone so much longer.
The word I chose was focus. I’ve been scattered since I lost my job. I’ve been learning programming, and looking at different sales funnels and looking at finishing my book (finally!) and thinking about buying a Cricut and a press to start selling t-shirts and cups on Etsy, and possibly at the ComiCon in town in August.
I need to buckle down and actually settle on something. I did when I started thinking about what word I wanted for this year. I’ve spent the day narrowing it down, and I have a very good idea where to start. I may end up busier than ever for a bit, but it has to be better than putting in 3 applications a day and hearing nothing back. I love the sound of crickets, but it’s frustrating when it’s crickets in response to my emails.
Once I start where I need to, I will either go on Guru or Textbroker and do some random writing to get money in while I’m getting the other process set up. I will eventually be writing emails for travel companies to send out to their customers or address lists to show why we need to get away from it all. It’s been a heck of a two years, and doesn’t look like it’s getting better any time soon. We all need a vacation.
I was on a webinar late last week, talking about publishing on Amazon. It was interesting, but a lot of information.
I was also working on a crochet project a friend paid me to do. Then I had to go to a financial planner to get something set up for the 401k from my last job.
All of this means I didn’t get my normal things done those days – I didn’t put in job applications. I didn’t work on my Udemy course, or the work/refresher on copywriting. I have blocks of time set for everything.
I had to add time to write my stories that I used to write. I forgot how much I enjoy writing. I’ve got the story I’m working on outlined. I’ve got the characters fleshed out. I’ve got the location determined and made notes on average temperatures. I am working on it at least 15 minutes a day. The nest step is to pad the outline more and start writing the story.
We have two dogs. One of them is little and mouthy. You can tell her something and it’ll seem like she’s talking back to you. One day I’ll have to record her and post it for the giggles.
Anyway, it often seems like she is the dumb one of our dogs. She does odd things all the time. She’ll sometimes get the chain tangled. We were playing Ticket to Ride last week, and she kept walking across the board. The other dog laid herself across the board.
Last week, the little dog proved she’s smarter than it seems.
First, my son fed the dogs, but forgot to get them water. She brought the water bowl in to the living room to show it was empty.
Then, we gave both dogs treats. The little one hid hers in the front room. The big one put hers down in the middle of the floor. After they watched us eat – we don’t feed them, but they watch anyway – the little dog got the treat that the other dog put down. My daughter went to get her treat to give to the big dog.
After she finished her treat, she went into the front room to go get her treat. She thought she was going to get two.
Earlier this week, I had a headache for two days. It would go away with ibuprofen, but then come back. When I lay down in the dark waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in, I started thinking about possible reasons that my head would be hurting. (Turns out, it was stress from job hunting, I managed to kick the headache eventually).
I started thinking about my father. He was only 5 years older than I am when he had his first stroke. My older sister had a stent put in at that same age. I remember thinking at that time, that it would be a long time before I got that old. Not so much, now lol.
My mom is in her late 70’s and hasn’t had health problems, but she’s always stayed pretty active.
It is definitely past time for me to pay more attention to my health. I need to start going for walks. I was going to the gym with my youngest. I don’t even remember why we stopped. I’ve also bought the things I need to eat healthier. Frozen and fresh fruit, salad makings, chicken, brown rice, frozen vegetables, oatmeal, green tea. All yummy, I just need to start making my meal plans ahead of time again.
Today, I’m really missing my web developer job, and the coworkers I had back then. I am working my way through a web development boot camp on Udemy, and she started touching on wire framing websites. This is a technique that I haven’t used in years, but it helps you determine the layout of a website you’re developing, and make sure that the flow makes sense.
Since my current sites are blogs, I really don’t need to use it. But if/when I get back into web design, I will.
The teacher brought up a site called Balsamiq. With this site, you can do the wire frame for your website. I started to geek out about this site, but unless you design websites, it wouldn’t really matter.
But it just made me think about how much one of my former coworkers would have loved the site. He would have gone on and on like I almost did.
Since this person died in 2006, I’ve realized how important it is to hold your friends close.
In the last month, there have been multiple deaths that have hit close to home. My step-son’s mother died. A friend from work died. Several people at church, including one baby. The week after my step-son’s mother died, the pastor at church said that he had 9 funerals coming up. Then the friend from work died, and he’ll be doing her funeral as well.
Keeping friends close and treasure the time you get with them. It doesn’t last long enough.
My daughter has started doing commissions on Instagram. I asked her to redo the girl at the top of the page to look more like an elf. Since my daughter specializes in anime type drawings, it’ll probably end up with bigger eyes and crazy hair as well. We’ll see. I told her I’d give her the same $5 I’m thinking I’d have to pay on Fiverr. Since that’s more than she has been charging, she jumped at it.
Christmas is entirely too close. We are doing a show at church next Sunday, and I do not feel prepared right now. I guess we will see how Saturday’s dress rehearsal goes.
My step son’s mother died Tuesday. I feel so bad. He is only 21 and has 2 younger brothers. One is only a year older than my youngest. My step son had fought with his mom a lot 2 (almost 3) years ago and was working on fixing his relationship with her. He’s feeling bad that they hadn’t finished fixing it when she died.
I have a headache tonight even though I took ibuprofen. I’m not going to stay online long tonight. I’m drinking water and crocheting to see if I can get rid of the headache. I might look at a massage at the rate things are going. Before I left my job, I received a gift certificate that would get me 3 massages. After the first one, my muscles ached for about 3 days, but then most of the tension in my neck was gone. I didn’t even realize that was possible the muscles had been knotted so long lol
Anyway, I’m going to crochet and try to see if I can get rid of the headache.
I subscribe to a newsletter from Popular Information. From everything I can tell, he’s apolitical, which I like, since I’m a political independent. I like how Judd and his team investigate corporations, their political donations, their corporate messaging and comparing it to everything reported in SEC filings.
For example, corporations promised not to donate to congress people who endorsed and even encouraged the insurrection and treason on January 6th, 2021. There are a number of them who have started donating to these people again. They think no one is paying attention.
This time, he’s addressing the inflation, and the stories that we’ve been hearing that it’s because of Biden’s infrastructure plan that hasn’t even taken effect yet, and using it as a reason not to endorse the build back better program.
That’s not the real reason that prices are going up.
Yeah, that’s not much of a surprise. They’re squeezing at both ends to give themselves record profits.
Anyway, just a note tonight. I’ve got a bunch of work to do since I spent the day doing not much other than watching Doctor Who and knitting lol.
I’m just going to geek out here for a minute or two. I have been doing a refresher on HTML and learning CSS since I never really got into it when I was designing sites in the early 2000’s. I think CSS had really just started coming on the scene when I stopped with the full time design in 2003.
I started learning more about CSS tonight and I gotta say I’m excited. All these things I used to have to do with nesting tables can be done more easily and cleanly with CSS than it could with tables. I’m having a lot of fun playing with the code and the colors in the text.
I think there will probably be a redesign of this site for the first time in at least 13 years. I don’t think I’ve touched it much in that time. The only thing I need to work on is redesigning the WordPress theme I’m using to accommodate what I want to do. We shall see what happens. I just need to download a graphics program – maybe GIMP if it’s still available. I’ll have to do some looking. The design is the most fun part 🙂
Anyway, it’s getting late. I still need to do some Duolingo and then read to relax before bed. The kids bus gets here early in the morning.
