A DIY in a HSTDI world

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As I turned the corner I noticed a man in my neighbor’s driveway busy taking the car seats out of the neighbor’s car. As I continued walking, he continued removing bits of the car. Before I drew level with my neighbor’s house a good portion of the interior of the car was strewn about the front yard.

I couldn’t help but be curious. Then I noticed the truck loaded with cleaning supplies parked in front of my neighbor’s house and I realized what was happening.

The neighbor was having the car detailed. Right there in the driveway. The car was stripped bare, naked for all the world to see.

I looked away, somewhat embarrassed. I had never seen a car detailed in such a public manner before. It felt almost like I had pulled back a curtain and discovered someone taking a shower. Like my very presence was an intrusion, an invasion of privacy.

I hurried back to my own house. As I closed the door I thought about the many different workers I passed every day as I walked my dog and I was struck by an epiphany.

I was a Do-It-Yourselfer living in a Hire-Someone-To-Do-It neighborhood.

No wonder I sometimes felt so out of place!

The people of my neighborhood have groceries delivered, hire contractors to remodel, maids to clean their house, dog walkers to exercise their dogs, landscapers to mow their grass, and even nannies to raise their children.

And those are just the things I know about. For all I know many of my neighbors may have personal chefs who prepare a daily menu of nutritious and tasty food while a personal assistant pays their bills for them.

The odd thing is that I don’t live in a ritzy neighborhood. I have no idea how all my neighbors have so much disposable cash.

Part of me wonders why they don’t just do the work themselves. The other part of me is jealous.

I probably should do a little digging in my yard. The only explanation I can come up with is that my neighborhood is built on an oil reserve. Maybe I can find my own source of disposable cash.

GUSHER!

Learning to fly in Tweetland

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In March I wrote about my efforts to jump into social networking on Facebook. I compared it to walking a tightrope across the ocean.

Now I’m tackling Twitter (twitter.com/veronicatabares), and have found it’s pretty much like jumping off a cliff. I’d better learn to fly pretty fast, or I just might regret it.

I’ve had a Twitter account for a couple of years but it was extremely lame. I had twelve followers, and I followed about nineteen people.

So a couple of days ago I decided it was time to get my act together. I prettified my Twitter page and contacted an acquaintance who said she could help me find a few followers to get me started.

After a day she contacted me to say I now had several thousand followers. I thanked her and went to take a look.

Sure enough, I had thousands of followers, and as I watched the number kept inching higher.

Nettiquette (or should I say twitteriquette) requires me to return the favor and follow my followers. So I began the tedious process of clicking on each follower, reading about him/her, and following the ones who seemed appropriate for me.

After about an hour I looked and found I had only followed about 150 people. At that rate I’d be spending weeks just following.

So I took a short cut and randomly followed the next 50 people. Then I turned off my computer. I was done for the day.

This morning I opened my Twitter account and found some very suspicious feeds. It took very little checking to discover that one of those last 50 people I had randomly followed was a very bad choice. I blush just remembering the posts I read.

So it is back to the slow and steady approach. I will check each and every person I follow from now on.

I plan to reciprocate with as many of my followers as I can, but it might take me a while. As of this morning I didn’t have several thousand, I had many several thousand of followers.


Gulp!


I wonder how many of them are real people?


I guess I’d better start flapping my arms. It’s time to learn how to fly around Tweetland.

 

Identity theft?

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Now I’ve seen everything!

Yesterday I was searching the Internet, trying to find any new review that might have been posted for one of my books.

I came across this photo.

I recognized it immediately. It’s a picture of me at about 4 years old. I have an exact duplicate of this picture in my photo album. A real, physical photo album.
My cousin had posted it on her Facebook page and tagged it as me a couple of years ago.
Now here’s where things get strange. The photo was not from my cousin’s page, but had been reposted to three separate pages and had been tagged as being three separate people. None of them me.
Is this a new form of identity theft? Is my childhood being stolen?
Or have I just entered…the Twilight Zone?
Da – da – dum!

 

Why so fascinating?

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I’m not really sure why the sight of a half demolished house is so fascinating.

 

Maybe it reminds us of unfinished business.

Or the promise of what will be. What wonderful structure will take its place.

Or it could simply be that a half destroyed house sparks our imagination. Allows us to see that big yellow machine licking its jagged lips in preparation for the next crunchy bite.

I’m not sure why the sight of a half demolished house is so fascinating. It just is.

Department of Temporal Adjustment video review

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I remember well those days of waiting for a baby to be born. No matter what else was going on in the world, that due date seemed to creep closer at an ultra slow speed.
Or at least that was how it was for me.
Thank you, Tina, for taking the time and effort to make this video. I sincerely appreciate it!
Good luck with your new addition!

A day begins

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People in this black and white world are milling around, laughing and talking as they choose food from the buffet, but I can hear no sound.
I move to the center of the room where I spot a small child, a girl with the slightly flattened features typical of children born with Down Syndrome, sitting alone and dejected at a table.
As I watch a woman places one hand on the child’s chair and uses her other to set a plate heaped with food onto the table in front of the girl.
Instantly, the child’s frown transforms into a smile and her happiness seems to light up the room.
Crash. A sound breaks through the barrier of my dream and I can feel myself being pulled through a long dark tunnel toward consciousness.
Click, click, shuffle, ping.  As the noises become clearer I realize that any chance I have of
returning to my dream state is quickly fading.
Sizzle, scrape, slap. The smell of French toast wafts into the room and I breathe deeply to capture as much of the delicious aroma as I can.

Click, rrrrr, click.  Now the heady fragrance of freshly made espresso invades the room and tickles my nose.
With a sigh I concede defeat, push aside my warm blankets, and swing my feet over the edge of the bed. As my bare feet hit the hard, cold floor it becomes official—I am awake and the day has begin.

Those 10%

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“Don’t listen to the naysayers,” the motivational speaker told the crowd of entrepreneurs. “For every nine people who like what you do, there will be one who hates it, and that one will shout his dislike from the rooftops.”

As a writer, it’s something I’ve already experienced. Every writer has. Yet I listened avidly because it never hurts to be reminded that thick skin is needed for success. Or maybe a bit of armor plating. Just enough to deflect the nastiest of barbs by wannabe critics.

“They hate you because you’ve done what they want to do,” he continued. “They’re jealous of your success.”

Hmm. I’d never looked at it from that angle before.

But I realized that the speaker might possibly be right, especially where writing is concerned.

Based on what I’ve observed, and numerous Craigslist posts I’ve come across, many people have odd views about the profession of writing. They seem to think that a writer simply puts words on paper.

No craft needed–just type. It’ll all be good.

Because in their view everyone who writes is a writer. 

That’s like saying everyone who boils an egg is a chef. Or anyone who sticks a bandaid on a cut is a doctor.

That has never been my view. So before I added the title ‘Writer’ to my business card I made sure I deserved it.

I now have more than a decade of the craft under my belt, as well as a Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts and five published books.

So when I say I’m a writer I don’t merely mean that I write.
I’m an author.
I’m a novelist.
I’m a screenwriter.

My skin should be pretty thick by now. But sadly, I’m still not faster than a speeding barb, more powerful than a snarky comment, or able to leap a bad review in a single bound.

So I’ll just work on adding that extra layer of armor.

And I’ll keep telling myself to ignore those 10% who’ll never like what I do. Whatever their reason.

I must focus on the 90%.

Success will only possible if I ignore those no’s.

 

Parenting. What it’s about.

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I watch the news. I listen to other parents talk. I read articles and books.

Wow. There certainly are some confused people out there. Especially when it comes to parenting philosophies.

I am amazed at how often I see, hear, or read about people who think all it takes to be a good parent is a car to whisk kids from activity to activity, money to buy lots of games and toys, and a day camp to keep the kids busy the rest of the time.

As if it were that easy.

They might as well hire a nanny and stop pretending they’re putting in the time that’s needed to bond with their child.

Because rushing around from activity to activity to keep kids busy is not what parenting is about. That is attempting to parent by auto-pilot, and it doesn’t work well.

Sure, it will probably work just fine while the kids are little. But as soon as the little ones become big ones the burner gets turned up under the kettle and trouble starts brewing.

Ever seen an angry teenager?

Kids getting a clue is inevitable once they learn math. They soon figure out just how small that percentage of time is that the parent is spending, really spending, with them.

Auto-pilot parents appear to spend time with their kids, good parents really do it. I’m talking here about a great quantity of time. That old myth about quality time is just that, a myth.

So just to be clear I’ll lay it out for all to read.
Good parenting is about sacrifices, big and small.

It’s about an hour spent shuffling through news articles–even though you have a hard deadline on a project due the next day–so a freaked out fifth grader will be able to complete her homework assignment.

It’s about hours spent in the emergency room watching, just watching, each painful breath of an asthmatic child.

It’s about attending every teacher conference, concert, and talent show, even if it means rescheduling that important meeting.

It’s about watching television with your children and labeling bad behavior as bad, unnecessary, and sometimes silly.

It’s about asking questions about each child’s day, and not taking “Fine,” as an answer.

It’s about listening, really listening. Then taking the time to have a real conversation about what you heard.

It’s about recognizing that children are not perfect and will require discipline.

It’s about not always being on the child’s side. Sometimes the child IS in the wrong and it is a parent’s job to correct bad behavior.

It’s about not trying to be your child’s friend.

It’s about being a parent. That rock on which children can build their lives. The giver of guidance and receiver of confidences. The person that can be relied upon in times of trouble.

It takes time to build that kind of trust.

Lots and lots of time.

 

One step

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Lately I’ve been working very hard on marketing. If people don’t know about my books I’m pretty sure they won’t buy them. And if they don’t buy them I might have to stop writing.

Sigh.

The problem is that I don’t know how to do marketing. How do I get my writing discovered by the people who will most enjoy it?

Especially since I have little or no money to spend on that oh-so-important marketing.

So I turned to Facebook. I’ve been a busy little bee, sharing and posting, doing everything in my power to increase the traffic to my Facebook Fan page.

After all, the more people who see my page, the more who will buy my books. Right?

Wrong! I’ve managed to get a ton of traffic to my Facebook page without any increase in book sales.

What I’ve gotten instead are requests for relationships.

I showed the requests to my best friend, who also happens to be my husband. He just shook his head and grimaced.

Then I deleted the requests since they give me an uneasy feeling.

Almost like I just looked down and discovered that I’m balanced on a tightrope that’s been strung across the ocean. Just below me, circling and watching with greedy little eyes, is a massive school of ravenous sharks.

Waiting for me to take one wrong step.