I Shut Down

I'm spending a little time in bed tonight catching up on my online life and setting up my new A5 Filofax. There has been a lot of goings on here in casa Kansas, but none of it should have stopped me from blogging or writing or enjoying life. But it did. I am that person that completely shuts down when all is not right and it is driving me crazy. When one aspect of my life is going wrong, I shut down in all things and can't quite manage to keep going, at least not effectively. I still move, but I move without purpose and without fulfillment. Everything slows to a crawl until that out-of-place puzzle piece catches back up and gets in line.

But now that my life is not completely my own, I really have to work on changing this. I had a great week of wedding re-cap and a giveaway all planned and a life hiccup with my husband brought that to a halt. It is almost impossible for me to be upset about something in my marriage and try to write about how happy the wedding was. It feels disingenuous. So, I shut it down and took a little time to reset and repair.

In that time, I set some boundaries and made some positives steps forward to help me keep things together and moving. I also did a lot of comfort eating so you will be hearing about me and my new Fitbit a lot! Also in that time, I got a promotion at work which prompted the purchase of the new Filofax. I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to track my group in my personal size. I will continue to use the personal size for all things personal and blogging and as a wallet.

So, look for some changes from me soon. I am hoping to revamp the blog a bit as it's been a little while since we've refreshed. And I promise the wedding re-cap and giveaway are fast approaching.

I'm All In!

I feel slightly irresponsible for going, but its just what I need right now.

I'm so excited for this creative outlet. 

Will you be there? Let me know and we can arrange a meetup.

Working, Working, Working

There is nothing going on in my life at the moment other than working. By the time I get home,  I'm too tired to do any blogging.

In the midst of checking my growing to do list,  I decided to try out the Blogger app for a little remote blogging. I don't have data service where I am but it's nice to know I can blog in the app and upload later.

Good job,  Blogger! I've been very disappointed lately when apps I have or want to use can only be used when you are on the network. What's the point of having all this processing power in the phone if everyone wants to upload to their servers for saving and processing. But,  my frustrations with technology are another topic for another day.

If this post is successful, this may be my only means of blogging for the next couple of months.

For you planner lovers out there, I have added a plain moleskine to my routine to house my work to-do list. I use mini dots as my check boxes.

Hiya!

Hello my lovelies. Yes, I’m still here but productivity has not been my friend lately. I am in Kansas now. I’m not completely relocated, but I am here and working and trying to figure out what life will look like here until the future husband joins me next year.

I foolishly thought I would be one of those bloggers that would keep everything moving during the relocation, giving you all the details here and there. The summer heat waves and shaky WIFI kept me from getting much done. Now that I’m cooler and connected, it’s still taking some effort to get back up and moving.

Soon, my friends. Soon. In he meantime, I am trying to get back into the swing of things by working on the one knitting project that I brought with me.



This is the Jared Flood Inversion Cardigan and I am casting on the final piece. I have already stitched up and joined the first two pieces. Waiting until this thing was blocked just wasn’t in my DNA so I’m piecing and joining as I go. It really does look lovely and I can’t wait to wear it when the weather cools WAY DOWN.

Needless to say I have fallen a behind on my reading goals for the year, but I am very much still committed to meeting that goal. More on that soon. For now, I am sending some productivity mojo your way and hope that it serves you well in the coming weeks/months.

What To Say?

First, I want to remind you to visit this week’s guest post and leave a comment to be included in the drawing for Sarah’s e-book. And don’t forget to visit her site to ender the drawing for the Kindle Touch. It’s quick and easy, I promise.

I feel like knowing what to say has ended up being the theme of my life this week. There are many, many changes coming the way of Casa de Moi (don’t you love when people mix languages). My way-too-long stint of unemployment is coming to an end and will require me to relocate.

Yep, this little blog and the life behind it is moving to the suburbs of Kansas City, Kansas! I’m very excited to be moving to a new place, but sad at the same time. I’ve built a nice little life here in Chattanooga over the last 11 years and I will miss the community and support system I have built. More than anything, I am dreading the packing. I have a whole house to move about 10 hours away…and into what? I have no idea. Will we rent an apartment, a house, buy a house, a condo???? So many questions need to be answered and so many books need to be packed.

But none of that will happen until I am well into working so I have a little time to think and plan, but will be bringing you all along with me. That’s the best thing about establishing online relationships…I can take you anywhere! Isn’t that fabulous.

So, be on the look out for moving and relocation blog and resources and please send those things may way. I’m going to need all the help I can get.

So many great things on the horizon...

Stop and Learn-Automation

I have been trying to get myself back into the blogging rhythm, but I ran into a little snag when trying to get new pictures onto my computer. They kept disappearing on me and going right into the trash!

I have a program running on my computer called Hazel. I love Hazel. I considering her the little cleaning script that keeps my files all nice and tidy--or as much as I have told her to. One of things I have Hazel looking out for is repeat files. When she sees a duplicate in certain places, she goes to work and she sweeps them off into the trash. She’s so efficient at her little cleaning duties that it happens within seconds of the duplicate file hitting my computer. I was transferring the files from my cell phone to the computer using bluetooth so as soon as they came in, Hazel shuttled them right back out.

I don’t blame Hazel in any way. She is doing what I asked her to do and for that reason I’m not going to shut her down to bypass the problem. Nope, I’m going to fix the problem! That means re-naming hundreds (if not thousands) of photos that I have uploaded to my system. Needless to say this is beyond tedious, but I have heard that it is possible to do this in batches.

I consulted my friend Google and found several resources for using the Mac Automator program to do the renaming for me. I’m still in the thick of it so I won’t give any final words on it just yet. The video below will give you basic instructions on how my process is going.



Those of you that are professional or budding photographers or small business owners that supplement your online presence with nice photos really should learn how to use the Automator. I’ll do some looking around to see if I can find a similar resource on the Windows side of the house.

Stay cool this summer. The temperatures and humidity levels are rising!

Blogging Tip From My Little Corner

I was spending a little time going through my RSS reader today and I ran across the message below on whoissugar, the blog. Sugar is also a YouTuber that I follow so I really felt bad when I saw this post. Unfortunately, it is not the first time that I have seen this cry and it won’t be the last. So, for those of you bloggers that do visit me on occasion, I wanted to give a little tip for avoiding this issue.



DO NOT USE ONLINE BLOGGING TEMPLATES AS YOUR ONLY METHOD FOR BLOGGING.

Basically, you need to use a desktop option for blogging that can also download from your blog when you do choose to use the web client or mobile device for posting.

For Mac users, the program that I use and recommend is MacJournal by Mariner. I have all 249 posts from this blog as well as several posts that I have in progress or ready to go. The program has all the needed credentials for my blogged stored away so as soon as I am ready to go on a post, I tell it to send it off and that little man appears next to the post letting me know it has been uploaded. I purchased MacJournal after I had started blogging so I was happy to see they have a download from blog feature that will download from 1 to all of the posts you have already published. I can edit and reposts any of these at any time so I never have to worry about blogger loosing my posts. For extra security, my data is backed up using Carbonite.



If you are a windows user, Mariner also a version of this software for you, WinJournal. I am pretty confident it works just like the Mac version with whatever tweaks needed for the Windows platform. I would also suggest using Microsoft’s Live Writer. I’ve never used it but I saw a demonstration of it at Blissdom 2012 and it would be my go-to solution if I were still a Windows user.

Backing up your work is important for any of us that use computers. For other writing projects or documents that you need to retain, I recommend Google Docs/Google Drive (Google is in the process of rebranding this service), Evernote, and Carbonite. Don’t become a victim of lost intellectual property. Some of the options I have given are free, some are not. Being able to retrieve lost data is well worth the cost.

Could You Be A Blogger?

While 700+ Blissdom attendees are still coming down from such a high HIGH, there are quite a few of them that are sitting down at their computers and starting their very first blogs. Not everyone that attends these conferences are actual bloggers. Some are thinking about it. Some are writers that want to use social media to sell their books. Some are crafters that are looking to expand. Some are going through life changes and want to do something new.

Blogging brings all kinds of people together to a common medium and gives them all a space and a platform to display their voices. Could you be one of those people? Do you have a voice that needs to be heard? I am always encouraging the people around me to start blogging, especially women. Blogging is such a wonderful outlet for creativity and frustrations but also a wonderful way of finding people that share your interest. It could even lead you to the interest that is or is to become your passion. I am an avid book reader but there aren’t many in my closest groups of friends that read or strive to carve out the time to read. The same goes for my love of technology. I can’t exactly discuss rooting an android device with the people around me. That conversation would be lost on them. But with my blogging and other online mediums, I can find just the crowd that will understand the projects and gadgets and interests that are floating around in my life.

The first thing I typically hear from people when I encourage them to blog is “I don’t know what I would write about”. There are three people in particular that I’m trying to encourage. For the sake of this conversation, I will call them D, K and R. They may not think they have anything to share but I learn so much from them each time I’m around them.

D is a stay at home mom that home schools her children. She is a beautiful Christian woman that counsels and teaches and has so much to share about religion, family, homeschooling, container gardening, vegan cooking and so many other things. The dinners I share with her family are fascinating and I always walk away with so much inspiration if nothing else. I think that is worth writing about and sharing.

K is a stay at home mom who prior to staying home specialized in working with kids with disabilities. She is such a fun and interesting mom and she is often the person that is learning right along with me when I am looking to learn something new. I love people like her because they never stop learning. Not only could she share her love for children and working with kids with disabilities, she could also teach you how to have the best kids playroom ever, how to start a small garden at home, how to entertain and how never to be afraid of learning something new.

R is a beautiful young girl with a quiet spirit that just draws you in. She is a young professional that is about to set off on the greatest adventure. I won’t speak much about it but meeting her and hearing her know exactly what she wanted out of life and marriage influenced me greatly. She is young but she has so much to share and I think she minimizes the impact she could have on the world. I met her at a time when I was struggling with the idea of being a wife and being able to talk with her about it brought clarity and comfort to my situation. She is a budding photographer and I can’t wait to see the shots she takes as she treks around the world learning about her heritage.

These are just three of the women that inspire my life everyday. They don’t think they have much to share but I see a multitude of possibilities in each of them. They fuel me to keep going if for no other reason than to find others that need to have their voices heard. Are you one of them? Do you know people in your life that could be sharing so much? Make sure you tell them how much value you get from them and maybe they’ll be encouraged to share that value with the rest of us.

Hiya!

So much as been going on but my blogging is not keeping up with it all. Not to mention, I have been getting so caught up in what’s been going on that I have been forgetting to take pictures.

Last week, my mother and grandmother came to visit. My mother, who was a transitioning natural, let me cut her hair and give her a henna treatment while my grandmother graciously tackled several of the sewing projects in my works-in-progress bin. I took no pictures. Absolutely none.

Mom and grandma also helped me visit florists for the wedding. I visited two beautiful shops and have no pictures to document the outing, but I’m sure I will be visiting them both again in the future.

And I really need to blog about the Costco that opened close to Chattanooga. They snuck that in on me while I was on business assignment in DC. Granted I was gone for two years so I should have expected some changes, but this is one I was not expecting. I am loving Costco. I was worried I wouldn’t have need for the membership, but the fruits and vegetables are enough to keep me going back. The selection is amazing and the grapefruits are the size of a child’s head! I’m serious. Check out your local Costco and you will see what I’m talking about.

I took a sewing class tonight (Big Hoop Love) and even though I did not take any pictures, I will be blogging about the projects I made and all that I learned.

Ta-Ta for now, kiddies.

Hope you are having an allergy free start to the spring. (I’m not!)

Everyday is Saturday

Today was my first day of unemployment and so far this is the best weekday I have had in quite some time. I didn’t fight with the alarm clock this morning. I did hit the snooze out of habit, but then I realized that I didn’t want to go back to sleep. For the first time in more time than I can remember, I did not dread where I had to go and what I had to do today.

For over a month, I have been under constant threat of layoff due to lack of billable work but also complete lack of good business practice. There are ways to weather the storm when facing a downturn in work, but not everyone has the presence of mind in a crisis to fall back onto these methods and not be thrown into chaos. The atmosphere at the company was that of fear and chaos and I could not take it anymore. I decided the best thing to do for me and my growing family (okay it’s just +1 but that counts) was to walk away and start anew.

So my next few weeks will be spent looking for a new job, but also doing all the things that I enjoy. I will read, I will write, I will blog, I will knit and crochet, I will make jewelry and use the rhinestones I have left to bling all the tech in my path. Okay, I’ll try not to get to crazy with it. I’ll experiment a little with my hair since I don’t have to be in an office and I will finally, FINALLY, make a little progress with the wedding planning.

Don’t get me wrong, even though I’m happy as can be to be out of such a stressful situation, I am still quite nervous and apprehensive about what is to come. My poor fiancé has bought into this crazy lifestyle of mine and no part of that included me being without a job. We’ve got a long road ahead of us, but we are together and we are forever prayerful.



I got something new. Can you guess what it is?

Blissdom Surprises

I came home to a FedEx message in my mailbox that a box was left at my front door. I thought it was something wedding related because I am waiting for a custom address stamp that I ordered. But I was surprised when I opened the box and instead of a stamp, I was faced with this.



It’s a prep kit for the upcoming Blissdom Conference in Nashville. Just a few essentials goodies.

1. When I snapped this picture, I thought it was just a package of coupons from ConAgra foods, but there is also a music CD included (see photo below). Jewel and ConAgra have teamed up in the fight against child hunger. Visit www.blissdomconference.com/childhungerendshere for more information. I’m looking forward to using the coupons as well!
2. This pamphlet has a lot of information including packing list and class schedule information. I will be going through this soon to make sure am ready.
3. Business card case from the One2One Network…another reminder that I really do need to get my cards ordered.
4. Johnson and Johnson had the best idea in putting together this little book of sticky notes (additional photos below). This will be a staple in my purse to keep my notes from getting all dirty and torn.
5. My name tag with my blog name and web address.

This is such a fantastic way to get everyone ready for the conference. BRAVO to the Blissdom team and their sponsors. This is great!

Still Learning

This is my fifth year blogging (WOW!) and there is still so much to learn about this whole process.  If you are reading this in your RSS reader, I encourage you to click over to the site and take a look at the page.  Go ahead, I'll wait for you there.  :)
I haven't changed much, but there are some things I want to point out.

1. As I mentioned before, I've done some cleanup to the tags on each of my posts, making the Tags list in the right-hand bar more useful. Just click one of the words and you get all the posts that I've assigned that tag to. I love easy to find information.
2. I've finally learned how to set up and display multiple pages to the blog. You will see those listed in the ribbon just below the title banner. These will change every few months as my focus changes, but for right now the wedding and the blogging conferences, Blogalicious and Blissdom are my areas of focus.  And I can't forget my prayer project which will be continuing throughout the year.
3. I have often had comments made to the blog that I wished I could respond to.  At one point in time, Blogger did not have a native solution for responding to comments.  This is now available and I plan to use it to continue our conversations.

I'm sure there will be other changes as I continue to learn and grow.  If you more experienced and savvy bloggers have any suggestions for me, please let me know.  I would love to get your feedback.

Blissdom 2012

You all know how much I raved about Blogalicious 2011? I was an amazing and eye opening experience. I hoping to get even more inspiration at the upcoming Blissdom Conference in Nashville, TN. This is so close to home, I just couldn’t pass it up. I have so much planning to do. I need new cards made. I need to finally get that QR code so I can easily share my contact information and blog links. And I need a plan for this blog and a press kit. Even though this blog is still really small, I’m quite interested sharing information about the products that make my life better. There isn’t anything better for spreading word of mouth information than the blogs we share with the world. I worry about the way products are marketed to us and I love seeing the truthful reviews from real people. Of course, not even every blogger can be trusted but I take the word of a real person over an advertisement any day.

And I completely blame Krystal Grant. I saw the Blissdom badge on her site and I couldn’t help but check it out. See, unspoken word of mouth.

Tackling the Backlog

Tonight, I am handling some of the backlog in my life. In terms of my hair, I’m getting in a much needed protein treatment. For my house, I am continuing to put away and clean out. And in terms of this blog, I’m adding the much needed meta data to each of my posts. For each post, you will now see labels making the label listing in the right hand border bar more usable. Increases productivity with just a little bit of effort. I love it.

Maybe this new year is turning around for me. Let’s see what else I can accomplish.

Addicted to Statistics

Attending the Blogalicious 2011 conference really opened my eyes to what is possible through the world of blogging. I can’t say that I plant to do even half of what I heard that others are doing but what I do want to do is put this blog in a position where greater things are possible. I’m all about setting myself up to have choices in life.

But building this “choice” has caused me to become a little too obsessed with the statistics. My blog posting and traffic has increased significantly since just before the conference and I’m excited about all the new readers that are coming my way. But I find myself looking a little too much at that pretty little graphic that google uses to show you how well (or not well) you are doing.

By the way, HELLO! to all my new readers. Happy to have you aboard. Remember to subscribe or comment during the month for a chance to win in my first giveaway!!!

Okay, back to the topic at hand. One key point that was made by several people at the conference was that the biggest mistake you could make is to make it all about gaining followers and having higher numbers. It is quite exciting to see my little blog growing, but my goal is to produce good and usable content.

So, I’m depending on you, dear readers to keep me accountable on my content. Leave comments often and let me know how I’m doing.

Hope you all had a great weekend and you are refreshed and ready to start a new week.

I'm Taking a Stand Now

I have a lot of blogs in my RSS reader and although I spend time catching up everyday, I very rarely get to the point of zero unread items. I feel like I get a lot of good content and inspiration but I also get a lot of useless junk mental fodder.

Today, I deleted several blogs from my stream that I just don’t seem to have use for anymore. But the ones that are really driving me carzy are the ones that post multiple times a day. I am known from time to time to put up two posts a day, but unless you are a news or social media outfit of some kine, please keep it at less than three a day.

One of these said blogs had SEVEN posts for today at the time that I am writing this. She apparently uses her mornings to post and she does it hourly. This morning’s posts were clocked in at 7:10, 8:08, 9:10, 10:05, 11:05, 12:05, and 1:05. I was amazed. Every hour! Looking back on the past two weeks 6-7 posts a day is her average, but for the content I am getting, this is a bit much for me. DELETE!

Please don’t misunderstand and think I am being a blog snob. If the content was interesting, I would save them and go back to them on the weekends when I have more time and not during my lunch breaks. During lunch, I like to consume as much content as possible. I usually find something inspiring and I’m able to get through the rest of my day. Get bogged down in multiple useless posts drains me a bit.

But, the only people that can truly judge the value of our content are our subscribers and regular readers. My goal in blogging is not to be overly prolific. My goal is to produce content that is, if not usable, then enjoyable.

We could all be happy if we exercised a little productive filtering not only in what we consume but also in what we produce.

The Prayer Project

I have decided to set up the Prayer Project as it’s own blog. You can still send prayers in using the email address upliftmewithprayer@gmail.com but I thought there would be some who would want to be anonymous so I set up the Prayer Project blog. The comments to each blog post will never become public and you can submit prayers in the comments without using an online profile. I know this opens the blog up to spam but I think it’s worth it if all the prayers are lifted!

Stop by and submit your requests and pass it along to everyone. We all need prayer and if there is anything that should go viral, it’s the act and power of prayer.

Sometimes You Just Need to Dance

Even though my fiancé and I are 19 years apart, there is one thing that we share that is very important to me. Our love for music and thank God that we actually have similar tastes. My vast music collection has always served as bit of a litmus test in my relationships. Even most of my friends give me strange looks at the selections that pop up on my shuffled playlist. I could be listening to anything from Michael Jackson to Mahalia Jackson to Snow Patrol to Darius Rucker (pre and post country), all in one sitting. I’m a very eclectic girl and my music collection reflects this with every press of the play button. I may have even lost out on a few dates after disclosing my love of country or classical music. Yo Yo Ma and Esperanza Spalding make my skin crawl in such a good way!

So, it was no surprise that I would cringe at the idea of our first 10 hour road trip together. I just knew he would look at me with that same weird look that others before had given me. But to my surprise, he loved song after song after song. He fell in love with Snow Patrol and affectionally refers to them as “Snow Ball”. The documentary, Thundersoul, was shown during the Blogalicious 2011 conference and I immediately fell in love with the music. It didn’t take me long to download three of the albums and play it for my honey. Of course he would love it. This was the music of his childhood! We had such a great time dancing in our small apartment, sharing what I now consider to be one of our great memories.

And all of this is on my mind because we are in the car, driving to our second marriage counseling session. Our homework was to make sure we shared one activity a week for the month between our sessions. Dancing around in our apartment was such a simple activity to share, but it sure was special to me.

Yay!

October #11--Progress

The month is almost over, but I have made quite a bit of progress in my goal to make 36 posts this month. And it will continue. Progress seems to be the ongoing theme for this next phase of my life. Everyone that knows me knows how much I like to be on top of things. This is not always so easy to do when you feel like a fish out of water. I don’t feel as prepared as I would like to be. I don’t feel as confident as I usually would. But through it all, I am making progress.

You will continue to see progress from me as I head into the crazy month of November. I will be doing Nanowrimo again. I am very excited going into this year. I have a fantastic idea that came to me one day in the shower. Over the next week, I will be rough outlining. I am also doing National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) this year. This is going to be a big push. Posting everyday is a challenge. I am constantly amazed at the blogs in my RSS reader that post up to 3 or 4 times a day! I will be outlining for this as well and using the technology in front of me to prepare. It’s not about being perfect. It’s all about making progress.

I am looking forward to hearing about the progress you are making in your life.

October #10--Blogalicious 2011--Swag Bag

Blogalicious 2011--Swag Bag, a photo by aldorris105 on Flickr.

I must go rest up for tomorrow, but I have to share. I am attending Blogalicious Weekend and it is off to a great start. This is the swag bag we were given at registration and I couldn't wait to get home to see what was weighing it down so much!

So, all of this came out of that bag. I still can't believe all it held.

-Que Rica Vida canvas bag
-single serving Honey Nut Cheerios
-3 books (The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate, Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones, Simply Done. Well Done by Aaron McCargo, Jr.)
-notepad
-French Roast Coffee
-plastic water bottle (clear) with filter
-plastic water bottle (red) filled with sample of OTC medicines
-reusable, foldable water bottle
-metal bag hanger
-2 CoverGirl lipsticks
-other OTC medicine samples
-clear plastic business card portfolio
-Lots and lots of coupons for products and National Harbor vendors
-paper napkins from Wine Sisterhood
-ink pen
-Shea and Cocoa Butter baby oil
-3 pair-pack Hanes low cut socks
-1 pair Susan G. Komen socks
-Motions Light Hold hair spritz
-milk protein and olive oil deep conditioning treatment
-2 Oats N Honey Nature Valley energy bars

That is a lot!!!!