Language

Travel. Love it. Hate it. I dream of going to London, Paris, Greece, Italy and other places. But then I think about all the work it takes to do overseas travel and the desire goes away… for a little while. Maybe it will be easier to do overseas travel when my life calms down — after the kids are grown. So I’m in no hurry.

Going nine years without going someplace new is a bit much. (The last few trips have been to … Austin… Austin… San Antonio slash Austin… Not a big deal when you live in Texas and they were all for events, conferences and even a volleyball tournament.) It’s not that I put off travel for when a better time comes. Life worked out that way.

I do the best I can to enjoy the moment and appreciate my life every day of every year. Working in a home office makes that possible. Some days — rainy or freezing days for one — I don’t care to walk my dog. Other days I appreciate that I can do this activity and it forces me to take a break from the computer that I might not take except to exercise.

Early this year, I got an invitation to a family event in Savannah, Georgia. Well, hey, I haven’t been to Savannah (I’ve been to Atlanta) and I love these cousins. We tried to go, but the unreasonable airfare didn’t work for us. It turned out to be a good thing because I received a surprise award that same weekend.

Another invitation arrived for a family event in Nashua, NH. The cousins are not just family, but dear friends. At one point, we lived within 30 minutes of each other and got together a few times. I’ve been to Nashua, so the location didn’t excite me. After researching, I find out the best airfare meant flying into Boston and making a road trip to Nashua instead of flying straight to NH.

Boston. I’ve never been there. When I lived in Washington, DC, I managed to visit Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York. Never made it to Massachusetts.

****IDEA****

Since I have to fly to Boston, why not go a couple of days earlier and take a mini-vacation in Boston? That’s exactly what I’m doing. I did my research and managed to get a place in the North End near a lot of the action including the Freedom Trail. So I hope to squeeze it all in two days. It may be short, but it’ll be powerful to discover a spot in the U.S. that I’ve never visited and one with a rich history.

By the time this post goes live that I’ve had a grand time in Boston and I’ll be on my way to Nashua, NH. I hope I have lots to great stuff to report in the next link post. In the meantime, I hope you had a great week and you enjoy the little moments. Despite the hectic week before my trip, I took a breath and did my marching band routine to celebrate back to school week!

Here’s a funny sign fail from right here in Boston!

Brain food…

• Cold Calling and Receiving Call Backs: Cold calling works. It’s not the only option, but it works.
• TweetPsych: Creates a psychological profile of any public Twitter account and compares it to the thousands already in the database. [Link: Top 10 Exciting Things to Do on Twitter]
• Three Keys to Being a Subject Matter Expert on Twitter: Sometimes we need to be more than just aggregators.
• 10 Rules for Negotiating Contract Work: Not a fun topic, but important for freelancers. [Link: bkmacdaddy]
• How to Develop a Case Study: A good way to market B2B services.
• 14 Resources for Free Fonts and Premium Fonts: I love fonts — just not Comic Sans.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Howdy Fail: Sure hope this sign wasn’t found in Texas, y’all.
• Comprehensive Gaming Console History Video: Geeks, prepare for memories to come flooding… they did for me.
• 15 Funny Engrish T-Shirts: Warning: A lot of cuss words.
• 10 Signs You’re in a Bad Niche: I suggest not working for peanuts especially the literal kind.
• Netflix Origami: Now you know what to do with the Netflix flaps besides throw them in the recycle bin. And a Netflix fail.

What was the last new place you traveled to? Share your experience.

OK, the summer season doesn’t end until September 21, but this refers to summer off from school. I remember discussion about year-round school when I was a student and dreaded the idea. Of course, I changed my mind about that when I became a parent. It’s not about trying to keep the kids out of the house. They’d still get summer break, just not for such a long time that they forget what they’ve learned.

Year-round school also gives them a couple of more breaks during the school year to recuperate. Every single year — without fail — the kids start acting up by April. They’re burned out and tired by then. Back before Texas legislature intervened to create a single start date for the entire state (for the sake of tourism), we used to start earlier and get one week off in the fall. This worked well because it provided older kids with the opportunity to visit college campuses at a time when colleges were in session.

Can I just say I don’t like moving a blog from one software app to another?

Brain food…

• Wordnik Online Thesaurus: Backstory [Link: Therese Walsh].
• GovDeals: Sells surplus and confiscated items that can lead to great deals.
• How to Ensure 75% of Agents Will Request Your Material: Marcus Sakey elaborates on a talk he gave the resulted in many folks getting angry saying that this wasn’t possible.
• 7 Free Health Care Options: Not everyone has a spouse to rely on for health care…
• What’s the Single Best Thing You’ve Ever Done for Your Freelancing Biz? Inspiring and you might get some great ideas.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 12 Coolest Sticky Notes: Fun ways not to forget.
• 15 Great Geeky Comic Strips: Love “The Brads” poke at Comic Sans.
• Ken Ken: Sudoku addicts, ready for something different? Took me a couple of minutes to learn the game and play it. If you don’t know how to play it, this site has a great tutorial.
• Literary Classics as Decorative Word Posters: Wow. Also, Work of Art had an episode where the artists had to create book cover artwork for a classic. [Link: Jessica Strawser]
• LOL: The Recurring Prop Newspaper: See? Newspapers still have value… again and again. OK, maybe the reuse of this one is why they’re losing money… they’re not getting new editions

What’s one memorable thing you did this summer? (Or during the time between June and August 2010 as it’s not summer everywhere!)

Shakespeare A to Z woot tee

Two more weeks until the family’s regularly schedule life resumes. w00t! Got two school registration events in the upcoming week and one the following week. I’m grateful to all schools for taking care of the supplies for family. We buy the supplies at registration and PTA takes care of the rest. No going store to store or wondering if the product is the right one. Plus, this approach also provides discounts because PTA can order them in bulk.

While it’s great to get everything done at registration, it’s hard on the wallet. Spirit wear, yearbooks, photo orders (high school only), PTA membership, supplies — everything in one shot for all kids. One school tries to ease the pain by allowing families to order school supplies at the end of the previous school year. Shame they don’t do that for spirit wear and other things so we can spread out payment. I know that it’d be more administrative work to coordinate all this.

I know… I know… I choose to have kids, now I pay for it.

I wouldn’t want to be a kid again dealing with growing pains and peer pressure. I do envy my daughter’s English reading list. Mostly, I read one Shakespeare (yes, I have that tee you see in the picture) play per year in high school and little else. She gets modern day reading. Her books this year? The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, Death of a Salesman, Walden, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (I don’t understand why this one is on 11th grade AP English reading list when I read this in 6th grade!?), Beloved and The Things They Carried. Last year, she read Ender’s Game. (How cool is that?)

The required reading varies by English class type. Standard English reads To Kill a Mockingbird (I read that in 10th grade) and The Great Gatsby (never had to read it). Standard 12th grade English has Macbeth (that I read in my senior year) and Brave New World. 12th grade AP has a long list, some of which I read in college including Heart of Darkness (I hated it). I won’t bore you with the complete list.

Brain food…

• 13 Writing Clichés That Will Kick Your Ass: These focus on writing advice not phrases.
• 50 Famously Successful People Who Failed at First: I just read a great Walt Disney story elsewhere that he was turned down by 302 lenders before getting a bank to help.
• 25 logos with hidden messages: Some very familiar and some new. All impressive stuff.
• The Age-Old Question: Can I Pick Your Brain? I’m not famous and yet, I hear from new writers on a regular basis asking about freelancing, writing and business. I don’t want to be mean or anything… I’d love to send them to this article… but I think it’d come across as mean. My current solution is to send them to several of my posts for new writers. And a long list of articles to help get started as a freelance writer.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Comic: Misplaced Apostrophes: I cringe when I see stuff like this even though I remind myself that our fingers sometimes do its own thing. I love Debbie Ohi‘s work. (P.S. Congrats to her winning two awards at SCBWI!) Goodness knows, I’ve tried drawing my own characters, but never liked the work. It’s not a picky thing, but the “I stink at drawing” thing.
• Inside Insides: Wonder cabbage, watermelon, tomato, dragon fruit and other food items look like in an MRI? Stop wondering, and start knowing.
• Space Invaders Counch: Gank the Invaders at Home: This makes a nice match to my Space Invaders shirt. Think it’s a little much to buy a couch to coordinate with my shirt
• 20 Most Inventive Cupcakes Known to Man: The most inventive… don’t know about that. I’ve seen impressive work by the bakers on Cupcake Wars — but a nom nom of a collection!
• 10 Funniest Rejection Letters: Still laughing…
• 30 Simple Family Pleasures: You don’t have to spend a lot or plan something big. The little things do matter.

What was your favorite required school reading? Why?

I’d love to read more stories like these two. They provide valuable insight in human nature, perception and more.

The Executive and the Branch Manager

The first lesson is in perception. I caught this nugget in a New York Times article [Link: Jack Scharff]. It’s a valuable lesson involving a language barrier that applies to people with hard-of-hearing or deafness. I’ve run into this many times in my life.

The interviewee asked Robert W. Selander, retiring chief executive of Mastercard, “What are the most important leadership lessons you have learned?

Brazil is a big country. I was living in Rio and it’s like living in Miami. I was out visiting a branch in the equivalent of Denver. Not everybody spoke great English and I hadn’t gotten very far in Portuguese. As I was sitting there trying to discern and understand what this branch manager was saying to me, and he was struggling with his English, the coin sort of dropped that this guy really knows what he’s talking about. He’s having a hard time getting it out.

As I thought about the places I’d been on that trip, I realized this was probably the best branch manager I’d seen, but it would have been very easy for me to think he wasn’t, because he couldn’t communicate as well as some of the others who were fluent in English.

I think that was an important lesson. It is too easy to let the person with great presentation or language skills buffalo you into thinking that they are better or more knowledgeable than someone else who might not necessarily have that particular set of skills.

I can’t tell you how many times I open my mouth and see the expression on someone’s face change when hearing something different about my voice. If I should ask someone to repeat, I’ll get a similar reaction to the one Selander described. Is it any wonder I love interacting online and social media? It filters out my accent and voice leaving the “language” barrier behind. This allows me to express myself and thoughts without any interference.

The Friend and a Family

The second lesson is in energy. A friend went to a foreign country and had dinner with a family. The family, of course, spoke in their native language. My friend only knew a touch of their language and struggled to follow the conversation. She shared this story and told me how exhausted she was after the conversation. Little did she know she taught me a lesson that I hadn’t learned in over 30 years.

I thought I wasn’t a high energy person by nature. This has nothing to do with enthusiasm, but everything to do with being able to go, go, go — which I can’t, can’t, can’t. I’ll go, go, go when I need to. However, I try to avoid it.

Listening to my friend’s story helped me realize exactly why I don’t have a lot of energy and why I collapse after just one day at a conference. Even though English is my native language, I have to work harder than the average person with hearing to “translate” everything from lips to words. Not everyone’s lips are easy to read, thus my eyes and brain go in overdrive. (It’s true that lipreaders only catch one-third of what the speaker says. Imagine reading every third word in this post.)

While this second lesson won’t affect many of you — it offers unusual insight into my life as a person who is deaf. Maybe you’ll get a different lesson out of this story.

What lessons have you learned from foreign travels or talking with people whose native language isn’t yours?

Paul & Meryl in Hawaii, July 1998

Blackjack years ago today, my husband and I said our I dos. We still very much do. He still makes me laugh and laughs at the right time when I try to say something funny. Does being married for 21 years make us officially legal as a couple? Yes, that was an oxymoron.  Wow, in 10 years of running this blog (as of June 1), I never shared the story of how Paul and I met. Would you believe I was embarrassed to tell the story until about ten years ago? I’ll let Paul tell you the story as he recently wrote this.

“The advent of home computer opened the world up for Meryl. In fact, you could call Meryl and I the original online daters. Back in the early days of home computing (pre-Internet), people joined bulletin board systems (BBSes). Meryl and I belonged to several of the same BBSes and we traded many messages back and forth.

“We finally met in person at a picnic that the SysOp (system operator who ran a BBS) held for his users. After meeting, we went back to posting back and forth and it wasn’t until months later that we actually started dating. (Two days before her 18th birthday… yes, I robbed the cradle.) Our first date was watching Tootsie in her room. It was one of the few movies at the time that were closed-captioned.”

For a long time, I told people we met at a picnic. (True! Since it was our first in-person meeting.) At the time, BBSes weren’t cool and I didn’t want to look nerdier than I already did.

The photo comes from our 10th anniversary celebration and one of the most amazing vacations we’ve ever taken together. Technically, it was our 9th anniversary. I was three months pregnant and we knew that we would prefer to stay home with the baby the following year. (That baby would be our recent 5th grade graduate.)

Brain food…

• One Week Down, A Bit of Hindsight: Allison Winn Scotch shares her experience one week after her book’s launch. Just received my copy of her latest, The One That I Want: A Novel. Now to find time to read it between club reading and business reading.
• Freelancing During an Illness: Who wants to think about such things and curse ourselves? Better to be prepared. Sometimes you can prepare when you know you’re having surgery like I did and provided 10 tasks to prepare for time off.
• 50 Fancy Words That Stump NY Times Readers: Here’s the list in PDF. Surprised to see “overhaul” and “hubris.”
• One-sentence Summary Critiques and Tips: You may think you wouldn’t do this — but sometimes we’re too close to the work.
• Sleep and Your Productivity: Count on me being asleep between 10 and 10:30pm CST every night. It’s a habit I’ve had since the first job. Oh, sure, I’ve stayed up past that and learn fast why I don’t do it often. Going to bed one hour later than normal can throw the whole next day upside down. I feel fatigued with strained eyes before I even look at the monitor. I take longer to finish tasks. The only downside is attending special nighttime events. As much fun as I’m having, it can be tough to make it past 11pm. When I threw a big family celebration in 2007, I could not function after everyone left. Thank goodness I had some wonderful family members used to staying up late who helped with cleanup while I played zombie.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 5 Unusual Stickers for Your iPad: Pac-man is my fave. [Link: Aaron Lee]
• 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling: Love this from the Oatmeal. Almost enough to buy the poster, but hey I got young’uns in the house. Oatmeal’s How to Use an Apostrophe and What Your Email Address Says about Your Computer Skills also rock. [Link: Josh Hanagarne]
• Another 10 Far-Out Father’s Day Gifts: Father’s Day is next week… some ideas.
• The Most Magical Paper Craft Castle in the World: Breathtaking especially with the lighting.
• The 25 Most Unfortunate City and Town Names in the World: Gotta be a fascinating story behind most of ‘em. I’ve been to Hell in Grand Cayman and did the tourist thing sending a postcard home from Hell through its post office.

Three generations

I’m a lucky daughter because I have a caring, sweet, intelligent and energetic woman for a mother. Growing up, I hated that she had all these evening meetings. Part of that was her job of seven years working for a community center that required nighttime meetings because they included volunteers with day jobs. Besides that, she was also on the board for non-profit organizations, and those meetings were at night.

Despite these meetings getting in the way, I’ve always wanted to be a regular volunteer like her. I volunteer almost every week, but not for as many hours as I would like — must balance my time between kids and business. She was even president of a local non-profit organization while pregnant with me and raising a 10-year-old and 12-year-old. (Yes, I was like an only child. No, I was not a “surprise.”)

She also did whatever she could to provide me with the support I needed to learn how to communicate due to my profound deafness. She drove three-year-old me to Dallas (an hour from Fort Worth) three times a week so I could go to Callier Center for speech therapy. I can’t tell you how many sad stories I’ve heard about people who were deaf and had parents that didn’t bother to learn sign language so they could communicate with their child. Just makes me more grateful for my mom.

P.S. Still need a gift for Mom? How about a computer game? Big Fish Games is offering 30% off on all games except Collector’s Editions and special deals. Or maybe you’ll like one of these far out ideas from Oddee. Gotta love the tee that says, “You can’t scare me… I have kids.”

Brain food…

• Show, Don’t Tell: Showing tells more and in a more interesting way than telling. I read these articles whenever I come across them because I need constant reminders and tips. [Link: Brad Shorr]
• What’s in a Publishing Contract?
• 5 Ways to Find Local Clients: You can apply a couple of these to find non-local clients. [Link: Karen Swim]
• Do You Need an MFA? When my kids are older, I’d love to pursue an online MFA. I’ve yet to find any — found some in other types of writing or media, but not MFA. Lots of short residencies, but not exactly what I’d like.
• SMU Cox School of Business Has Free Research Page: SMU Faculty Research Page covers accounting, marketing, finance and investing. May be a good resource for business writers. SMU rocks. I even attended the business school for one semester. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a master’s from there — just not business.
• Tools to Help You Write with Resonance: Links to lots of readability tools and resources.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Paper Airplane: Building a World Out Of Paper: Whoa… How do artists do tiny little things like the food trays? With lots of patience…
• Unusual Wedding Cakes — Have Your Cake and Eat It Too! I admire cake designs and catch the cake contests on Food Network in the summer.
• 12 Coolest Covered Cars: Well, the glass car shouldn’t have any problems with theft.
• 25 Awesome Illustrator Cartoon Tutorials: Saving it here… love to try ‘em someday… which will probably never come. I can’t draw and always wanted to learn how to do it the computer way.
• 10 Most Unique Stadiums: Betcha you’ll say, “Wow” at some point.
• A Sampling of Chinglish: “Hot Marxism…” nuff said.

Share a favorite Mom or family memory. Or share why your mom or a special family member means a lot to you.

Birthday boy with Chuzzle friends

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…

• Linkbait Generator: Plug in a couple of words from your post and let it come up with some great ideas for post ideas and titles. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a title for the bad query responses post. Maybe I could’ve saved time with this. [Link: Joan Stewart]
• Gobbledygook Grader: Enter press releases, copy and whatever content to see how it rates for gobbledygook, jargon, cliches and more. [Link: Joan Stewart]
• Do Authors Choose Their Covers? Therese Walsh shares her experience in working on the cover for The Last Will of Moira Leahy.
• Study: Brain Exercises Don’t Improve Cognition: Know all those popular brain games? They may not help after all.
• My Top 33 Email Tips Part 1 and Part 2: Hey, I actually apply most of these tips — it’s the organized freak in me that makes it possible. They do work. One feature that bugs me in some group lists: Even if you hit “Reply” — the email reply address is to the entire group, not the person who sent the message. Some services let you control this.
• Your Turn: Is it Ethical to Vent Your Personal Feelings On a Client’s Blog? Don’t burn bridges, people.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Sunday Morning at Zhongshan Park in Shanghai: They thought of everything in these rules for a Chinese public park.
• A Typical Day in the Life of an Internet Addict: High tech procrastinating.
• Top 10 Bad Beverage Ideas: New Coke is the only one I tried. Big mistake.
• Unique and Stylish Coffee Tables: Love the first two. [Link: Misty Belardo]
• Cut It Out! Amazing Paper Cut Out Art: Amazing is right.
• 23 Ingenious and Artistic 404 Error Pages: I used to collect 404 pages in the early days of my blog. Boy, have they come a long way!
• Ultimate List of Funny Bathroom Signs: H.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s. [Link: Misty Belardo]

This week is book fair week at my youngest child’s school. I’ll be volunteering at the “Book Fair Diner,” this spring’s theme, and trying my best not to buy too many books. We have a theme every book fair to make it fun.

When I was a wee kid, I loved the Scholastic Book Fairs in my elementary school. When I was a student teacher in college, the school I worked at had the book fair, too. Now as a mom, I go to at least four book fairs in a school year. Plus, my youngest brings home book club booklets for ordering in between book fairs. (Each elementary school has two book fairs per year and I have two kids in two elementary schools.)

My favorite class in college: Children’s literature. So yes, I bought children’s books after I grew up and before I had children of my own. We have so many children’s books in this household that I’ve bought duplicates. Too bad we didn’t have the apps we have today for book inventories. I could never begin such a project now.

Brain food…

• Why You Need a Content Strategist: Explains what they do and how they work with your web site. [Link: Deborah Edwards-Onoro]
• How to Find Work Without Using the Freelance Job Boards: Most of my finds are through word of mouth and referrals. I keep myself out there so people remember me when the need comes.
• 8 More Business Buzzwords I’d Like to Ban Because They Make Us Sound Like Tools (Part Two): been trying to avoid “solutions” but couldn’t find a workaround. Here’s part one. [Link: Jeff Hurt]
• Experience Is an Action Word: Christina Katz discusses experience. Know that even experienced writers have moments when they lose self-confidence or wonder why they’re in the business.
• 5 Great Reasons to Use Gmail: I’m using Gmail more and more and meryl.net email less (except for business cards and all). Spammers keep using my domain and sometimes my emails end up in people’s junk folder. So Gmail works well. [Link: Melinda Emerson]
• Public Speaking – How I Prepare Every Time: Speaking can be simple. Tim Ferriss shares his process. If you know your stuff — just practice and it’ll turn out. Be passionate like Gary Vaynerchuck — without the F-bombs. Not necessary.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps: Also from cheth.
• 826 Poster: Are you ready to publish your novel? Humorous look. [Link: WD]
• 50 Clever, Hilarious and Geeky Twitter T-Shirts and more at Zazzle. Tino Valdez made my IRL @merylkevans Twitter shirt (see photo).
• A Volcanic Rainbow in the Hottest Place on Earth. Not the colors you expect… if you’re thinking “rainbow.” [Link: Shelly Kramer]
• The Forbes Fictional 15: Who knew Forbes had a sense of humor? Of course, the top 15 richest fictional folks. [Link: Andy Hayes]
• 15 Amazingly Clever Logos: Love this stuff. Shame my domain/company name doesn’t lend itself to anything exciting.
• What Stormtroopers Do on Their Day Off: Who knew Stormtroopers had personality??? More Stormtroopers in Part One. [Link: Mark Hurst]
• 40+ Hilarious Facebook Comic Strips: Prepare to nod your head in agreement to many of them. Oh, and laugh, too.

“What the …? Julius Caesar?” OK, I used St. Patrick’s Day last week so it’d appear before the actual day. Easter and Passover (Eastover? Passter?) are not until next week. OK, so the Ides of March as mentioned in Julius Caesar comes before St. Patrick’s Day, but I was outta ideas. Since we’re talking Roman dates, this could be the XIX edition. So is this my Seinfeld post for the month where I talk about nothing?

Brain food…

• Wordoid: Creative naming service for product names, web sites, domains and whatnot.
• PaperRater: Not just for college students. Free resource to help students improve their writing. (Writers, too!) [Link: BitRebels]
• How I’d Negotiate with Clients Wanting oDesk “Features”: Great response to one writer’s experience with oDesk.
• Book Summary Template: How to Get the Most from a Book: While it’s best to pick a few books and read them often to better grasp and implement new knowledge, some of us like to read a variety. This template will help you make the most out of a book.
• How Writers Can Manage Federal Income Taxes: Don’t. Shoot. Messenger. Also, 5 tips for filing your taxes easily.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Lost Art of Handwriting: Embroidered email designs. Who knew such embroidery and email could be moving.
• Intranet Secrets: Who knew the intranet could be funny?
• Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos: How did I ever miss Apple’s original logo? First I’ve seen it.
• Sketch a Move: I’ve seen something similar where you draw the move and the car follows your drawing or maybe it was a robot? [Link: Mark Hurst]
• Paradoxymoron: Cool painting of bookshelves by Patrick Hughes. [Link: Mark, too]
• Paris 26 Gigapixels: Take an interactive trip around Paris. No plane ticket needed. [And Mark again!]

Ah, I got nothing today — no stories, nada. Just lots and lots of work since I had a few appointments not related to business. At least, it’s been beautiful and sunny all week.

Brain food…

• Bite-Size Edits: “Bite-Size Edits takes a text, chops it into pieces, and serves those pieces randomly to editors. Players get points for editing text, for providing useful comments, for helping to get a text completely edited.”
• Using Web Tools For Creating and Managing Contracts: Important topic. I had one client (I had worked with him before without problems) who failed to live up to his part of agreement and I had no contract for it. (I know. Shame on me.)
• How to Make Better Decisions: “Accepting ownership of consequences and balancing responsibility with your own personal goals lets you overcome stress, enabling you to making empowering decisions.”
• I wish I would have known: Answers from 11 top freelancers: Focus on designers, but applies to others including writers. I wish I would have known that my inability to use the phone like everyone else would be a big barrier to getting clients. But reflecting on my life and career — the path that got me here was the best route.
• The Five Best Mispronunciations I’ve Ever Heard: I love malapropisms every since I learned about them reading The Rivals
  . They’re fun. They inject humor in a conversation. Just heard one on NCIS this week: A character from another country said in reference to Kennedy shooting, “…shot from the book suppository.” More discussions over at Nathan Branford’s blog.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Cool and Unusual Business Card Designs: I love these round ups. Such creativity! And 10 free orange business card templates.
• 15 Entertaining Toilet Paper Designs: Notebook paper for writers. That’s productive!
• 15 photos that are real, not Photoshopped: My heart fell into my stomach looking at Dean Potter on tightrope walk in Yosemite.
• Cool Cupcake Creations: Tasty! Glad I haven’t seen these locally… they’d be tough to resist!
• Another 12 Unfortunate Logos: Aw, c’mon. How do you end up with these logos? Logo work isn’t something that’s done in five minutes and usually involves at least two people. Someone HAS to catch these!