A little LOST tribute there with wishes for my only bro. Tuesday, August 3, is older brother’s birthday. (I’m the youngest of three. Yes, I rub it in. Yes, he’s the father of the gal I mentioned last week.) Sending good vibes his way for another great year and many more.
Excited to wave good-bye to July as we enter the month that school starts up again! Was that too enthusiastic? I can’t help it — I like having a schedule and of course, I work better with the kids in school all day.
Anyhoo, back to work. Lots to do… so keeping this short.
Brain food…
For fun because we’re allowed…
World Record for Most T-Shirts Worn at Once: My daughter did this for a video in honor of a friend’s birthday where she put on ALL of her shirts, but it was more like 25 shirts.I debated whether to attend this annual sale after ridding my house of 300+ books. George Angus convinced me. I survived the sale and walked away with just FOUR books! It’s amazing when you find a book that you have on your “to read” list.
My youngest went to see the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. I have yet to get there myself. He also met former Cowboy receiver Michael Irvin. For non-sports fan, Irvin was a former Dancing with the Stars contestant.
Brain food…
For fun because we’re allowed…
Y’all know I love my books. They’re cheaper than gadgets (I love them, too) and reveal all kinds of wonderful stuff. My seven-year-old’s book shelves overflowed that I couldn’t straighten it anymore. His shelves were the culmination of Mom’s pre-children collection, big sister’s outgrown collection and big brother’s dumped collection.
He let go of many picture books (Aw, I’m proud since it means he wants to challenge himself with harder reading material) and then I reviewed his 250+ books to see what I wanted to keep. This task scared me as I feared I would hold on to too many. Well, I managed to select no more than 20. Proud of myself. Repeat with older son’s books. Survived again.
Plus it’s summer time. You know what that means? It means I start watching Style, Food Network, Bravo type stuff with shows like Clean House and Hoarders. These also motivated me to dump a lot of stuff. I’m even trying to find a home for my precious Theatre World Annual collectible books. These I won’t just give away.
The local Friends of the Public Library is having its annual book sale this month. Debating whether to go. Do I really need to haul in more books? Of course, it won’t be 100 books — I don’t think I’ve ever bought more than 10 (used much restraint!).
Another openin’, another set of links…
Brain food…
And for fun because we’re allowed…
How do you manage your book collection?
What’s with the noisy title in this edition? Thank you for asking. I bet that those of you with young kids may have figured it out. We met Doreen Cronin, author of Click, Clack, Moo; Thump, Quack, Moo; Duck for President and Diary of a Worm (Amazon affiliate links) — to name a handful. I think a parents enjoyment of reading a book is a good way to measure the quality of a children’s book. You can bet I laugh lots when we read Cronin’s books especially the ones with the cows and duck.
I asked her what she was working on. She said it was the sequel of a chapter book that comes out in the spring. I looked up the chapter book to see if details were available — not yet. I think it’s a great move on her part because the kids — like my youngest – who know her duck and cows book best now read chapter books and beyond. My older son could have discovered her books when he was in the picture book stage — but we didn’t meet them until later.
Dallas Children’s Theater is performing a musical version of Giggle, Giggle, Quack. We hope to catch that one.
Brain food…
And for fun because we’re allowed…
Tell us about a time when you met an author in person or a celebrity.
I Be One Decade Old
Goodness gracious! This blog’s 10th birthday passed and I never noticed until today. My first blog post went up on June 1, 2000. This place is a decade old. What does that translate into Internet years? Anyway, thank you to every single pair of eyes for reading in the last seven years or so. (I don’t think anyone read my blah blahs in the first few years.)
I’m glad HAGS short for “Have a great summer” didn’t come along when my friends and I signed each other’s yearbook. Nowadays, I see my kid’s yearbooks riddled with “HAGS” and little else. OK, elementary school kids — I understand. (Yearbooks only came out for high schoolers during my school days. Now elementary and junior high are in the game.) But high school kids can add a little more thought to what they write.
5th Grade Graduations
School ended today. Second child graduated from elementary school last Tuesday — the photos turned out lousy. Thank goodness, a photographer took a picture of every kid with the teacher. That one turned out great. My husband thinks my digital camera doesn’t do a good job. Ohh… I don’t even want to start comparing cameras again. Anyone get a rec? I love small ones that can also do videos.
I had a graduation ceremony in 5th grade, which I can only recall walking in the auditorium and nothing more. I asked my mom what she remembers. She said she can only recall worrying about my busing to 6th grade. (She has great instincts because 6th grade was my worst year in my school career.)
Mom remembers my sister’s 5th grade graduation because they marched in to “Hey, Jude” and it went on forever.
Wish I had kept a journal back then as a reminder of what I did, but being a typical kid — I’m sure the thought of doing it would’ve been a good laugh. At least, I captured my two kids’ 5th grade graduations in the journal that I’ve kept since 1989.
Fleeting Youth
The entire 5th grade year helps parents prepare for their child’s transition to middle school. The kids act confident, rule the school and show their readiness to move on to middle school (or junior high as some of you may call it). I could never imagine my youngest going to middle school. I’m not ready. But come 5th grade, I’ll get there. However, since he’d be my last in elementary school, I imagine it’ll be harder. We’ve been at this elementary school since 1999.
Over a decade has passed since I graduated college. For a long time, my time in school outlasted my adult years. Now the tide turns as adulthood surpasses the school career. Somehow, I wish we could package the insight that childhood makes up only a small part of your life that you need to enjoy it and not be in a hurry to grow up like my daughter is.
“Youth is wasted on the young.” — George Bernard Shaw
Brain food…
And for fun because we’re allowed…
My youngest of three turned seven on April 28. My little guy is the only one of the five of us born outside of the January – February and Capricorn – Aquarius months (or Capriquarius as I call ‘em because my birthday falls right where one ends and another begins). Winter birthdays are awesome, but it’s nice having one in the spring and get a break from all the celebrating that occurs within one month (January 14 – February 10). He loves drawing, playing Chuzzle and doing whatever his big brother does.
Gosh, seven years since I touched the baby blog that began with the pregnancy test and ended shortly after his arrival. Anyway, enough indulging Mom. And onto more important things for you… the weekly links.
Brain food…
And for fun because we’re allowed…
Where else but Texas can you experience four seasons in less than a week? Last weekend, we had five inches of snow here in Plano (skip north of Dallas). Monday felt like spring. The sun shined hard on Tuesday to give us a feeling of summer. It rained Wednesday to bring us back to fall. I played tennis yesterday on a cold cloudy and blowy day: The wind won.
Oh, what’s up with that embarrassing prom photo? Inspired by “When Prom Dresses Go Bad” link below. Fact: My escort later became my husband.
Brain food…
For fun because we’re allowed…
My family doesn’t have a drop of Irishness in our blood — that we know of, anyway. But that never stopped my dad and me from wearing green on March 17th. Dad went the extra mile by wearing a dark green suit to work with some silly button like, “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” Obviously, he liked to have fun and I am sure some folks today would say the button is harassment. No matter, count on my wearing green.
Brain food…
And for fun because we’re allowed…
I can remember being big on the Olympics back to 1976 watching gymnastics and pretending to be one of the Romanian gymnasts with a friend of mine. We even made our own banners with the country on it. Then when I went to basketball camp in 1984, I went to the TV room to catch whatever I could. Well, to my surprise, my younger two kids took an interest in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and I let them watch it even when TV watching time was over. I think I finally understand Curling.
What are your favorite Olympic stories or memories?
Brain food…
And for fun because we’re allowed…
I avoid in-person events as much as possible. It’s not because I’m an introvert. It’s not because I look hideous. (Although we should know better than to let our looks get in the way of meetings.) It’s because I’m deaf. Most people understand me when I speak. It’s the other side — the more important part– of the conversation that’s a problem for me: Listening.
It’s true that the average lipreader catches only one-third of what people say. Try reading every third word in this post or another and see how much you understand. I can usually fill in the gaps, but not always. “My name is [mumble]” is a biggie. I might ask the person to repeat once, but no more. In a book club meeting, someone mentioned that reading the book and seeing the movie version was not a good movie. I asked the name of the book. Missed it. Repeated once and missed it again. Gave up.
While this sounds innocent and no big deal, it is. People judge you when you don’t catch things because it makes a person look obtuse or not smart. With online marketing, I don’t miss a single thing and I catch every name and title. What you see of me online is all me without the barriers or presumptions. Writers can do more than just publish content to market themselves. These work well and take up whatever time you put into it.
1. Create a web site with a personal URL. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to build and update a web site. Using blogging applications like WordPress and Tumblr work well. They also have a lot of free and low-price templates available. A customized design adds a personal touch to your brand, but sometimes people don’t have the funds available right away. You can work it out so the only cost you incur is the yearly fee to buy your own URL. writer.blogspot.com hurts the professionalism. You have a lot of options for creating a web site using a blog app. Whether you should blog or not is a different discussion.
2. Set up social media profiles. The web site and blog is your home on the Internet. Social media sites give you a meeting place. Many, many social media sites exist. Forget that. Don’t let it faze you. Pick two or three and completely fill your profile on those sites. Currently, the biggies are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. That can and will change. Remember MySpace was hot? I have a page that receives updates from my blog and Twitter account, but I don’t visit it. I’ll set up accounts on other social media sites, but only on a “come across it” basis. Usually I get an invite from a colleague and join up then. I fill in the profile as much as I can.
3. Join conversations. It doesn’t matter where. I go to blogs and leave comments, participate in scheduled Twitter chats, respond to people’s Facebook messages and reply and retweet tweets. Some people love to talk in forums. Notice this says “join conversations,” not “give soliloquies.” People who talk to no one in particular or don’t acknowledge other people’s existence are not listening or becoming a part of the community. The only folks who can get away with this are celebrities.
4. Do the guest thing. Invite and ask. Invite others to be a guest in your blog or community, and ask if you can do the same for others. You’re reaching two new audiences: the other person’s audience and the other person. The other person has a following and will ask people to check out the guest post in your community. Most guest posts come with a byline, which means link juice for your site and getting your name out there.
5. Link to your site and accounts. On your web site, link to your Twitter and other IDs. In your email signature, link to your web site and important IDs. Make sure everything points everywhere else. Do you have an email newsletter? Put your links there, too. This covers all your bases. Those who prefer email updates, RSS feeds and social media IDs.
These five I do on an almost daily basis. It works because I have a comfortable workload. You can do much more with online marketing, but other online marketing tools take more time. Some people do videos. Some do podcasts. Some do webinars. Some do email newsletters. Doing a video or podcast requires thinking about the goals, writing the script, recording and editing before you can publish. With social media, you have control over how much time you spend.
What online marketing tools work well for you?