When Paul, my husband, was in his late 30s, I started thinking about how I could surprise him for his 40th. It’s hard to be surprised when turning 30, 40, 50 and so on. Paul surprised me for my 30th. To be honest, I wasn’t that surprised. I have a weird radar that figures out surprises. That, and my five-year-old made a comment — but she only confirmed what I thought.

So I decided to do something drastic… celebrate his 40th when he’s 39 1/2. This put the date in the summer and right between my daughter’s camp sessions, so she was home for the celebration. Frisco RoughRiders, a minor league baseball team, plays within a couple of miles from our house. Hmm… how about an old fashioned ball game for a party?

The day arrived. Paul isn’t one of those who feels the need to show up early especially for a ball game. Of all times, he decided he wanted to leave earlier. Oh, fine. I went with it delaying as much as I could.

We ran into my parents in the parking lot. (They lived an hour away.) So I came up with a perfect explanation on the spot. (And I’m not usually good at on-the-spot situations.) “Dad won tickets to the game and had plenty for the family.” Oh, it was very plausible. Everyone knew Dad was lucky. He won a car, a bike, trips.

We went to our seats and ran into my brother and sister. No big deal. Then our friends started showing up causing my husband’s face to turn curious confused. We revealed the party. Surprise! He was surprised even though we didn’t arrive after everyone else did as I had hoped.

All of us received an unexpected surprise… us adults with black tongues from the red and black — RoughRider colors — frosting on the cake.

Everybody’s Talking about Surprises

I wrote today’s post as part of the WOW-Women on Writing Blanket Tour for Letter from Home by Kristina McMorris (www.kristinamcmorris.com). This debut novel is the story of three young women during World War II and the identity misunderstandings they and the men in their lives have. Ask yourself: Can a soldier fall in love with a woman through letters? and What happens if the woman writing the letters is different from the woman he met the might before he shipped out, the woman he thought was writing the letters? Is it still love or just a lie?

Like many authors, Kristina has had a wild selection of “real jobs” everything from wedding planner to actress to publicist. She finally added novelist to the list after Kristina got a peek at the letters her grandfather wrote to his sweetheart (a.k.a. Grandma Jean) while he was serving in the Navy during World War II. That got her wondering how much two people could truly know each other just from letter writing and became the nugget of her novel. In honor of her grandparents, and all the other families kept apart by military service, Kristina is donating a portion of her book’s profits to United Through Reading, a nonprofit organization that video records deployed U.S. military personnel reading bedtime stories to their children.

Comment for a Chance to Win

If you comment on today’s post on this blog or any of the others participating in Everybody’s Talking About Surprises by 11:59pm on March 17, you’ll be entered to win a special surprise prize! It includes an personalized copy of Letters from Home, a Big Band CD, Victory Garden seeds, and a $20 gift card the winner can use at … well, it’s a surprise! All wrapped up in a vintage WWII box. To read Kristina’s post about surprises and a list of other blogs participating in Everybody’s Talking about Surprises visit The Muffin.

Tell us about a time when you were surprised.

I mentioned last week that my daughter made her first appearance right after the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl. Wow. 17 years. And by this time next year, she might have a decision where she’ll be going to college in the Fall of 2012. I hope we’ll be done with the college application process. Looking at the list of things to do during the junior and senior years is the fastest way to give a heartburn to a parent. I think Tums is calling me. (I prefer Dicarbosil, but they’re no longer on the market.)

As hard as we might live in the moment and appreciate each day, time races on at high speeds. (That’s the best I could come up with to avoid the tired “Time flies.”)

Best headline from “North Texas” ice week: “Snow MG!”

Speaking of OMG, Bitrebels listed me as one of Twitter’s Top 75 Bad*bleep* Women. (I have three kids, you know. This is a safe for work website. *grin*) I followed over half of these great women before the list came out, so I’d say it’s a valid list — not another popularity thing. Me and popularity never go together. OK, better stop with the self-deprecating business before it spins out of control. Anyway, thank you, Bitrebels.

Lots of brain food this week! Not to worry,  it won’t take up your weekend.

Brain food…

• Nancy Pearl’s Rule of 50 for dropping a bad book: Writers, another reason why those first few pages must grip readers. Readers, we have so many books to read — don’t waste it on the ones that don’t captivate you. [Link: Daphne Gray-Grant]
• Amazon Kindle Firmware 3.1 Update: Right now, the update is only available to the latest generation of Kindles (third). I hope they plan to make it available for earlier generations as I’ve been longing for print page numbers. If I can upgrade to 3.1, it’ll be another reason to like the Kindle. It’s growing on me.
• 40 Ways to Build Trust in Your Brand: Excellent tips for every business.
• How Your Name May Cost You at the Mall: Fascinating. Those of ya with last names R through Z (women, go based on your maiden name), what’s your experience? Thinking about it, I don’t recall doing anything in alphabet order other than lining up for 5th grade and high school graduations.
• How the Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie Can Help You Improve Your Problem Solving Skills: I remember trying to read this book in high school as I’m an Agatha Christie fan. I couldn’t get into it. But of course, that could change today. Anyway, I love Avil’s use of the book to share lessons learned.
• Post Super Bowl Twitter Hangover: Frank’s experience of using social media too much during the Super Bowl is a lesson we need to learn. This is one reason why I stop participating in Twitter chats. It took time away from family and getting things done and didn’t pay off enough to make these sacrifices.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• What Lies Are We Telling Our Loved Ones: Hmm… don’t think I’ve committed these… am I lying to myself now? [Link: Guy Kawasaki]
• Chart: It’s Valentine’s Day. What Should You Get Him? Not Kosher, but funny.
• The Social Media World Before Twitter and Facebook: I used bulletin board systems (BBS). In fact, I met my husband through one. I wouldn’t tell people this in the ’90s, but thanks to the Internet and social networking — I shout it from the social media rooftops.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I share today’s birthday with many friends. Having a inaugurabirthday makes it easier to remember special days like today. My fondest memory comes from 1981 when we watched the inauguration in social studies class. A TV in the classroom was an occasion in itself.

We saw the hostages freed from Iran and exiting the plane. We watched Reagan take oath with Mrs. Reagan looking on.

While we didn’t see many babies named Ron or Nancy, it wouldn’t surprise me if the following comic comes true in a classroom in 2014 (click to view larger).

I love that many parents take their heritage in consideration when they name their kids these days. It adds to the diversity that’s America.

My hope for this year is that thing economy turns around for the better and see more efforts to make peace and green our world.

Wow. I’m eight. Old enough to be …

• In second grade.
• 56-years old in dog years.
• An octagon.
• A sphenic number.
• 1000 in binary code.
• The atomic number of oxygen.
• The second magic number in physics.
• “Strength” in a tarot card.
• Lucky in Asian culture.
• An octave.
• A byte (eight bits make a byte).
• The number furlongs in a mile (eight furlongs = one mile).
• Number of kids in Eight Is Enough.
• The number of men out.
• The number of people in The Brady Bunch family.
• The time required for rodeo cowboys to stay on a bull to receive scores. 8 Seconds. Meryl grew up in Fort Worth — like I am going to skip a rodeo fact.

The guest bloggers have submitted some great stuff. Their entries will start appearing tomorrow.

$5000 jump out of a plane challenge. If we had raised $5000 by today, Meryl would’ve had to jump out of a plane. Fell short by one c-note ($100)! I did a lousy job telling the world about my birthday. Typically, Meryl would say it was close enough and just do it. But seriously, this girl is scared of jumping out of a plane.

Not gonna be sad I couldn’t add a little excitement to my birthday celebration. It’s supposed to be a happy occasion.

So get ready to win some prizes! Oh, if you still want to contribute a guest post — it’s not too late. Just let me know. Meryl said I could use her contact form as I don’t have my own physical inbox.

It may be this blog’s birthday, but the presents will go to readers like you. All the birthday details here. Here are the games up for winning!

• Reflexive contributes a total of 10 copies of three games! Some are for Mac.
  • Big Kahuna Reef 2: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
  • Ricochet Infinity: 2 copies (PC)
  • Airport Mania: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
  • One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
  • One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93.
• Unicorn Castle from PC game from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93.
• One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.

What a week to be busy serving clients! I’ve hardly social networked this week, so it’s a good thing Twitter hasn’t been feeling well.

Oh man… $100 from $5,000. No more prizes! Hurry up, June 1!

Anything you do from now through most of June counts toward entries for the prizes. So you don’t have to wait until June 1 to do anything. (Initial birthday bash entry)

Reader entries

• 25 entries: Create a video mentioning meryl.net and post it on Youtube (send us the URL. Add 5 more if we can see the meryl.net mention for those of us who can’t hear.
• 10 entries: Follow me at Twitter at http://twitter.com/merylkevans
• 10 entries: Make a blog post about the birthday celebration, the prizes, and link to this page.
• 10 entries: Link to any May or June meryl.net blog entry.
• 10 entries: Subscribe and activate to our RSS feed by email.
  • Subscribe to both meryl’s notes blog and games
  • Subscribe only to meryl’s notes blog
  • Subscribe only to games
  • Subscribe to Bionic Ear Blog
  • Subscribe to meryl’s notes, the newsletter (not the same thing as the above)
• 5 entries: Twitter about meryl’s notes and link to this page (Need to comment a link to your twitter so we can verify it)

Post-specific Prizes and Rules

Some prizes will be given away on a specific day (the post will let you know). So check back often to get a chance to win these prizes. Since only those responding to the post receive an entry for these prizes, your chances for winning are higher than the rest. Plus, you can win more than one of these prizes. A person can only win one of the rest of the prizes.

These prizes are those with specific requirements that not everyone has. For example, software may only be available for Windows users and not Macs. I will put these up in a blog entry and anyone who comments within five days of the blog post (to be fair to those on vacation) will get an entry for the prize of the blog entry. Comments must be at least 30 words to ensure they’re valuable to readers.

Here are the prizes that will be up for specific posts (more prizes may be added… watch the blog for more prizes given away for commenting on a post).

• $800 DVD set from marketing extraordinaire Seth Godin.
• $450 basic WordPress customization package from Kim Beasley.
• Lifetime subscription for RadioTime.com RedButton software — TiVO for radio where you can pause and record live radio.
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
• One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
• One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.
• Ted Demopoulos: One copy of Secrets of a Successful Blogging System digital audiobook with What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting (in which Meryl appears).
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.
• Big Kahuna Reef 2: 2 copies (1 Mac and 1 PC)
• Ricochet Infinity: 1 copies (PC)
• Airport Mania: 2 copies (1 Mac and 1 PC)

You can still be a guest blogger and earn 25 entries. Just contact me.

As always, if you keep a list of what you do to qualify for entries and send it to me before the drawings for the final prizes — it’d be much appreciated.

Here are the details about the meryl’s notes blog’s 8th birthday celebration. Yes, that ugly logo up on the blog’s home page is the blog’s original logo.

You’ll get the following amount of entries based on the following guidelines:

• 25 entries: Be a guest blogger.
• 25 entries: Create a video mentioning meryl.net and post it on Youtube (send us the URL. Add 5 more if we can see the meryl.net mention for those of us who can’t hear.
• 10 entries: Contribute a prize.
• 10 entries: Twitter a post and become a follower of my Twitter at http://twitter.com/merylkevans
• 10 entries: Make a blog post about the birthday celebration, the prizes, and link to this page
• 10 entries: Subscribe and activate to our RSS feed by email.
  • Subscribe to both meryl’s notes blog and games
  • Subscribe only to meryl’s notes blog
  • Subscribe only to games
  • Subscribe to Bionic Ear Blog
  • Subscribe to meryl’s notes, the newsletter (not the same thing as the above)
• 10 entries: Link to any meryl.net blog entry.
• 5 entries: Twitter about meryl’s notes and link to this page (Need to comment a link to your twitter so we can verify it)

Sound good? Go!

We’d appreciate it if you track your entries — this way we ensure we don’t miss any. Email them to merylk [at] gmail dot com with subject “Happy 8th Birthday.” Deadline will be on the date of the last guest blogger entry (sometime after June 1). Keep checking here for the deadline.

We’ll use Random.org to draw the entries.

While the games section is new to meryl.net, the original blog has been around for eight years as of June 1. meryl’s notes blog birthday celebration includes prizes and some of them are PC games! Check out the birthday celebration and how you can get entries to win prizes.

Wow! Meryl is overwhelmed at the generosity of donated prizes and guest blog posts in celebration of this blog’s 8th birthday on June 1, 2008. Thank you for helping me (the blog) give her a little break. If only she would take a vacation OUTSIDE of Texas. That’s another battle.

There’s still time to contribute a prize (Help us get Meryl to jump out of a plane! Keep reading.) or to an article. Here are the upcoming guest bloggers and prizes.

Guest Bloggers

• John Hewitt of poewar.com
• Janet Lee Johnson of janetleejohnson.com
• Peter Bowerman, the The-Well Fed Writer author
• Yuwanda Black of InkwellEditorial.com
• Paige Eissinger, one of 2smartchix.com
• James Chartrand, one of the menwithpens.ca
• Bob Younce, The Writing Journey
• Jamie Grove, How Not to Write
• Anne Wayman, The Golden Pencil
• Yvonne Russell, Grow Your Writing Business
• Jon Phillips of Spyre Studio and Freelance Folder
• Joanna Young of Confident Writing

Prizes – Almost $6000 as of June 25

If we get We received $5000 worth of prizes by June 1 (birthday), so Meryl has to jump out of a plane at Skydive Dallas. This is no easy task for Meryl as she’s afraid of doing such a thing (she’d do the tandem jump complete with a video). Looking at a later June date.

She did it!

Now $5000 sounds impossible, but we have two sponsors that are coming who should help things along.

Prizes added June 26, 2008

It’s never too late to add a prize… well, maybe 2009 would be ridiculous.

• Softpowerhouse donates three copies of PowerReuse, a document assembly software designed for boosting productivity for professionals.

Prizes added June 16, 2008

• Five copies of Andy King’s Website Optimization.

Prizes added June 4, 2008

• Four copies of Business Daffynitions: Humor from the Workplace, one copy of Wit and Wisdom of a Regular Joe, and one copy of New Idiot-Proof Guide to Customer Loyalty from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.

Prizes added June 2, 2008

• Two full copies of Unicorn Castle Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger.

Prizes added May 29, 2008

• Custom blog design by Jon of Spyre Studios and Freelance Folder. Prize includes:
  • typical blog layout.
  • design mock-ups (usually two to four designs)
  • coding: css and xhtml valid
  • Provides the design files (PNG/PSD if needed)
  • Built on WordPress (the person would need his/her own domain name and hosting plan)
  • 30-day support + PDF ‘how your new WP theme works’
  • WP installation and plugin configuration
  • link in the portfolio section of spyrestudio.com
• Reflexive contributes a total of 10 copies of three games! Some are for Mac.
  • Big Kahuna Reef 2: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
  • Ricochet Infinity: 2 copies (PC)
  • Airport Mania: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)

Prizes added May 23, 2008

• AWAI’s Nick Usborne’s Million Dollar Secrets for Online Copywriting
• How to Make a Living as an SEO Writer from Yuwanda Black
• Access to Teaching Sells for two months from Copyblogger Brian Clark
• 80 Photoshop Brush Packs from Jacob Cass
• Five ebooks on writing from Anne Wayman

Prizes added May 22, 2008

• $800 DVD set from marketing extraordinaire Seth Godin. The guy admits he skipped the books so he can get Meryl closer to jumping off a plane (yes, the plane is way up in the air, not on the ground).
• AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting
• $450 basic WordPress customization package from Kim Beasley.
• One $100 gift certificate to Amazon from Mark Wegner of The Diamond Games — the guy responsible for me starting the separate games section.
• Lifetime subscription for RadioTime.com RedButton software — TiVO for radio where you can pause and record live radio.
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
• One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
• One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.

Original Prizes

• One $80 gift certificate to Amazon from Meryl ($10 for every year)
• Full version of Microsoft Expression Studio 2.
• Tara Calishain, two books
• Peter Shankman: signed copy of his book, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media‘s Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design.
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media‘s Indi Young’s Mental Models.
• Ted Demopoulos: Two copies of Secrets of a Successful Blogging System digital audiobook with What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting (in which Meryl appears).
• Problogger Darren Rowse provides a copy of his book, Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.
• Men with Pens: one custom banner for a blog or website created to the winner’s specs and preferences, valued at $200. They ask for a 7 to 10 day turnaround from the point that the winner transmits her/his specs.
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.
• Microsoft Expression Software (more details coming soon).

How You Can Win

The contest has three (ouch, not “two” as I put in the first entry — Boy, I was not off to a good start with my notes about this. I also messed up the email I sent to friends and colleagues about this.) parts: Readers, prize sponsors, and authors.

1. Readers get entries for a chance to win prizes by simply leaving valuable comments, linking to this blog and its sponsors from their own blog, and telling others about it by Stumbling, Digging, and all that (keep track of what you do so you can get an entry for each one!).
2. Readers part 2: Some prizes will be available only to those who comment. These prizes are those with specific requirements that not everyone has. For example, software may only be available for Windows users and not Macs. I will put these up in a blog entry and anyone who comments within five days of the blog post (to be fair to those on vacation) will get an entry for the prize of the blog entry. These are the ones where you can win more than one! Comments must be at least 30 words to ensure they’re valuable to readers.
3. Prize sponsors: Automatically get 10 entries for donating a prize and links to their sites. Readers gain entries for linking to sponsors, which means more linkage!
4. Authors get entries into author-only prizes for their contributions. Articles can cover any of the following:
   1. Writing
   2. Freelancing
   3. Marketing
   4. Web site design, usability, etc.
   5. Technology

Participation rules coming soon. Meryl needs to take care of her clients. Here are the entry guidelines. If you want to contribute a prize or an article, we’d appreciate hearing from you by June 1.

Here are the guidelines for articles — and yes, it’s OK to have a longer article, but we’re trying to respect your time.

Guest Blogging Guidelines

* 400-800 words
* Self-promotion / bio goes in last paragraph (About the Author).
* Material must be original (it’s OK to re-use material with modifications) and first published on this site. 30 days after publication, you can re-use the article anywhere you please.
* I reserve the right to edit or reject the article for any reason (rare as most of you are great writers.)
* Due June 1 (willing to negotiate if needed).

The list will be updated as more offers come in. Thank you to everyone who stepped up.

Like I would let this day go by without saying a word about my dad who celebrates 75 years of his life today. Dad may not read my blog or even know what a blog is, but he’s largely responsible for who I am today (Mom and me, too, but it’s not our birthdays.).

I wrote about my dad in Stories of Strength. The younger kids love him as he can imitate Donald Duck. His office is full of Donald Duck stuff as a result of his wife, children, and friends buying him stuff. An accidental collection, for sure.

He loves sports. He was my go to parent for that as I played softball, volleyball, basketball, and soccer. Heck, I even did track (shotput and discus). Dad played football for James Madison High in Brooklyn and was offered a scholarship. But instead, he had to go to the local college and help with the family business.

Happy three-quarters of a century, Dad! It’s appropriate that his birthday is on Super Bowl XL Sunday. Dad’s one XL guy!

From the sponsor: OK, get ready to crack lawyer jokes. But seriously, there are justifiable times when we need a personal injury lawyer.