Opening Sentence

“You just don’t understand the monsters I face when I’m sober.”

Would you read a book that started like that?  if it was fiction and not a memoir?  Just wonderin’.

I would love to write fiction. Harper Lee once said, “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”

Whoa.

Considering she only wrote ONE book – and a GREAT book, at that! – it makes one wonder if she never quite got that hide thick enough.

Just what I’m thinking about today…

Feeling the Same Way All Over Again

Greetings Earthlings,

I have come to find out that I know not myself or just prefer not to bring myself to those self-awareness parties.  Much more fun to bring a changeable dramatic persona than anything having to do with reality, wouldn’t you agree?

And by you, I mean ‘me’.

How freeing and fun it is to type up such nonsense when I know no one is looking!  Yet the possibility of being viewed (read) has it’s thrill.    Unfortunately, I do feel I know the one or two of you who might happen to have this blog in their Google-Reader and thus upon seeing bold NEW post, ventures over here to be amused.

But is that amusement what I am going for?   Because I *know* you.   And yet I don’t.  I know an IDEA of you.

Therein lies the rub.   I have an IDEA of me that bursts upon my insecurities and causes me great angst.   Better that I just do.  DO; than sit and think.  I think way too much.

Well?     Can I structure an entire plot-driven or character-driven or new-age story line out of such nonsense?  Have I already used the word ‘nonsense’?    Crap.   START OVER.

I need somebody – a person, character, protagonist –  to drive some plot points even if they are action in the head, so to speak.     The theme of misunderstanding.   The theme of not knowing what you think you know.  And the theme of not dealing with reality.

Which leads me to my favorite quote.    Reality is only my perception of what is real.     Who said that I do not know.    Surely it is an ancient concept…

So, What Do You Do?

I do love it when I log onto my blog and see comments from such wonderful bloggers on lots of different posts!     You make my day.  Thank you.      [ToDo #1:   Consider this IDEA:   “Do I respond to all individually or in one big post?” and then JUMP to it!]

Then I saw that one of my comments had a request so I JUMPED on that already.    If you ever have commentors whose ID won’t link back to their blog, just tell them to read this:  My POST on IN SERVICE:  the WordPress Comment Linking Issue.

After that, I saw that I had 21 trapped spam in my Akismet folder.    Most were for drugs and naughty things like “Do you want to cheat on your wife?”   But I don’t have a wife so I deleted that.     But one of them was a website that STOLE MY WORDS!!!!!!      RRrrrrrrr.

WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THIS?

I have my copyright  banner in the upper right of this page…   But what does that DO, really?    Here’s an IDEA, “C”…   Go to copyscape and jump on some RESEARCH…   [ToDo #2:   Visit copyscape and see what they have to say.]

OK, now that I’ve got some IDEA of what today’s To Dos to Do, I best JUMP on ’em.

Happy Thursday!

Ruby’s Got Some Awesome Shoes!

RubyShooz has a timely post for this time of year…   Her blog, A Piece of Peace, and this particular post, has moved me to write my own post highlighting her post.  

Which is what this great blogosphere allows us to do so easily…   Pretty terrific, huh?

Thanks, Ruby, for being a beacon of bright light on so many great ideas!    And thanks for all the encouragement you’ve given me…   

  “Don’t say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You’ll never catch up with a mere hope.”  – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

  “Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more”   -Anthony Robbins

In Service

Are you one of those WordPressers who leave comments only to realize that no one is able to link back to YOUR blog?  You have a dis-connect!

Are you a frustrated WordPresser in that you don’t even know how to ask Support for what’s going on?

Have you gotten lost in WordPressForumWorld and looked on in horror with how some poor fools are being denigrated and humiliated with disdaining answers to stupid questions?

THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS.   ONLY STUPID PEOPLE ASKING QUESTIONS.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist that.)

No, you are NOT stupid.   You just don’t know what you don’t know.   BUT…  you do know there’s something you do not know.

I feel for you.   I have been there.   I, too, have been flustrated with how to seek the answer!

If I haven’t lost you yet, and you do have the issue I asked about in the very first sentence/question of this post;  well, hot diggity!  You are in the RIGHT SPOT at the RIGHT TIME!    It’s a great feeling, isn’t it?   Knowing that FINALLY, somebody is here to help you and not make you feel more stupid.

Here’s the situation:   You leave a comment in a blog.  You are hoping that the blogger and other readers might want to find your blog.   But your name doesn’t LINK back to your blog!  Goes nowhere, instead…

Everyone else’s comments link somewhere….  WHY NOT YOURS?

Issue:    You have an empty box in your WordPress profile.   

Solution:  Enter your blog’s web address in the right box of your profile.

Three ways allow you to access your profile.    If you are already in your dashboard, you can click on USERS, then PROFILE.  

OR…  in the upper right, there should be a “Howdy, (your name).  [Sign out, My Profile].   You could do that.

OR…

If you are staring at your home page, the blue bar should have My Account in the far left spot.   Fourth menu item down is Edit Profile.

OK, are you there?   on the right side of this Profile Page is a big box with the title CONTACT INFO.    The second box inside that is Website.   Yours is most likely blank?  

Enter the http://(yourname).wordpress.com   URL.     fyi, for what URL stands for, click here.

Update your profile and then come back here and let me know by leaving a comment.   Being able to link back to your blog will tell us if it worked!    🙂  

I’m also open to any corrections or suggestions.    Sarcasm is welcome; meanness is NOT.

Resignation

Version 1

Dear Boss,

I quit.

Sincerely,

C——

       

Version 2

Dear firstname lastname & partner,

Thank you so much for the opportunity to work for you and for ___company___.     I do believe that you represent the best in the industry; this market, this locale.   It has been an honor to be involved in some small way with the beginnings of and the building up of  ___company___ .

However, it is time I must move on.     As E.B. White once said, “We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even it it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”        I do not fault current market conditions, nor blame any failures on external influences; my heart is telling me that this is not a fit for me right now.    

Respectfully submitted,

C—–

  

   

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves–there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.         – Joan Didion

Blog Post Ideas

I have had many good ideas pop into my head for what to blog on.     Blog is a verb, yes?    Usually these ideas come to me while I’m driving and thus difficult to write down for later use…     Here are a few of them (I just walked in the door from driving around…) so I don’t lose them!

Request for Letter to Friend Who Has ‘Disappeared’
Goals/Intentions aka Slow Boat to ….   Patient Plan for Self-Improvement
Being “Pleasant Persistent Pest” vs.  and.   or  “Calmly Competent”
How to Explain LUXURY to a 4 Year Old (Neighbor Boy Asked Me and I Was at a Loss)
Reactions to Having This Blog on Another’s Roll and then seeing it GONE… Hmmmm
Participating in Daily Themes ie Thursday Thirteens or “25”

and…   I take suggestions!   Have a super dooper day,  “C”

I always seem to forget to add my categories…   and have yet to do tags…  

My 30th Post: Thoughts on Blog-O-Mania

I feel like the little kid who was invited to a party and yet had no idea how exciting the party would be until I started to dance.

I’m settling in with the charged atmosphere and getting comfortable enough to go peruse the refreshment table and calmly look around.    I’m dropping into conversations, sharing a little bit of who I am, being BRAVE.    and then being THRILLED to see my blog on other’s ‘rolls’!

However, I’m starting to see vague RULES emerge.   Am I required to comment back to comments?   Do I expect others to comment back if I drop a note to their blog?    and, so for the record, NO, I don’t think so.   If I have left a comment and you feel obligated to come visit my site and also leave a note, just know that I respect your perogative to do so or NOT.      Sure, it’s thrilling to see my words in cyper-space ‘print’!   and it’s thrilling to see something I say acknowledged, either here or ‘there’.    But, I’m a newbie!   I’m having fun.

It saddens me when a blog I’ve been impressed with and maybe even intimidated too much to leave a comment and then build up the nerve to do so, is now quitting or doubting their blogs due to not having time to go visit  and return-comment on ALL their fans’s websites.   Please, again, don’t feel obligated!    

Just another reminder that most of the blogs that are well received, well read, and enjoyed seem to be written by those who do it solely for the personal enjoyment they get from their own words.   The comments are cool, yes.    But that’s not the goal.    Written for outlet and expression, written by some motivation ‘beyond’ and trusted.     Then again, do I write this post today as a missive to those who want to quit so that I don’t feel guilty for being one of those new fans requiring your attention and flattery?    

Comment back!  PLEEASSE!   I want to know if anyone is out there?!!?   not really.   do what you want.  I’ll be fine.   I’m just not writing THAT kind of blog right now…   where I get 2 cents for every one who reads and sees some ad on my site.  (only cuz I have yet to figure out how to do that!!)   which would drive my motivation to write awesome worthy posts consistently.    I’m just playing.  

I was thinking how this blog-world is like flying through the forest like Tarzan, ya know?   I swing to my FAVEs and then I jump to somewhere from their blog roll (cuz mine got too crazy and I need to weed it down – no offense, right?) and then I read comments and go see THEIR site and then I get lost.    I know I have bloggers I would love to go find again but I didn’t save thier address, so.   Not meant to be?

And then the THRILL – of seeing finding myself really far from home – reading some blog with no connection that I can trace back – and seeing in in THAT blogroll, a site I am familiar with!   Makes me think it is a small world out there.   

I have a friend who once sent me a blog link about 6 months ago and I thought it was cool.   It was a knitting blog and her topic that day was about the selfishness or not of having children.  or not.    Huge response.   Anyway, I was mildly intrigued with blogging then.   Knew about it as a concept.   Not sure what the big deal was, etc.    Not until I was reading a website of a life coach who blogs occasionally.   Someone who commented on that site, had a link back to a blog.    Hmmm.   I followed.   and explored.

 Now, I’m addicted.   Started my own blog here.    Every day, I try to limit my time to just jump around and be Tarzan swinging on the ropes and finding topics that resonate with me.

Yesterday, I was reading about wierd myths linked to one of our obscure Presidents.  Somehow got to a journalist in India.  Then to a wannabe comic.  Then to atheism.  Then to homeschooling.  Then to a tribute of a well-loved blogger who died.   I had never read this man’s words while he was alive.   Yet I was in tears of the touching comments given in this man’s honor.    I’m choking up now. 

I follow recipes a lot.  I follow cool avatars.   I jump around and pick favorites.     I can see, if you get too many favorites, how DO you keep it up?    Is this a fad that will fade?    Is it like towns you live in that eventually, you settle into a routine.   Do only what you know?  Get overwhelmed at how big a mess of un-importants that now seem to fill the hours?    LIMITS!   we need limits!     Which requires us to judge.  Compare.  Get critical.

Time to stop writing.  thinking.  typing.    (I prefer short posts!  oops)    ENJOY  LIFE.   Remember to EXPLORE and encourage the butterflies of anticipation of something new & creative. 

www.IdeaJump.com

WHO are you?   I’m not talking to the people behind the www.ideajump.com website.  (That would be ME.)  I’m talking to those who must be typing these 14 letters with 2 period dots and hitting [ENTER].     Of course, I guess they could be typing just the letters of i-d-e-a-j-u-m-p-.-c-o-m and then [ENTER], whatever. 

My blogstats are showing that every day, I get a referral from ideajump.com.    I want to know who that is.   That’s all.   My traffic is insignificant on the entire blogosphere stats track.   but this is significant due to its consistency.  

OR?  has someone added this to their blogroll and thus others from their website, see the link and pop over to mine?   I really am just curious.  Really!    What makes me curious is the years I have had www.ideajump.com (beware circular reference) without any stats tracking and thus no idea if anyone typed it to see what could be found.   (was my MLS Real Estate site…   “let me help you find your dream home…”)   Did I get that traffic then?    I have no idea if I can track that.    I laugh, it’s probable.   {nope, just went to look and I found no stats page…}

So, leave a msg even if you don’t have anything to say.    A nod and a ‘whassup’ is fine.  and I thank you.   

My Wish.

I have been invited to share MY WISH.    When I was reading Sibbia’s latest post, I saw this invitation and I admit, I had a physical reaction to the OH NO! thought that instantly occurred when I read my name.   And here’s the wish and how it explains this fear…

 I wish I knew how to respond!   On many levels, first being TECHNICAL.  I don’t know HOW to copy and add these pictures even when instructions are given.  I don’t seem to get it.    I followed the instructions and only get CODE and no image.    I do have on my to do list to learn how to do the hyper-text link so that I can provide the underlined word that would ‘click’ get the reader to the other referenced site without seeing all that distracting code language but I have yet to figure it out. 

(OK, yes, I’m lazy about this – I have yet to even try to search in wordpress help on how to do this…  I was assuming one of these icons at the top of this editing space block but nothing has revealed itself when my pointer hovers…)   

SO, my wish is that I could figure this out before admitting what a lousy blogger I am.    TOO LATE!  Ha!   I have suspicions that it could be an issue within my Presentation Template.   Hmmmm.   DOUBT THAT.   

And maybe my motivation is to have some nice blogger rescue me and share the secrets.   Or really, just to admit to Sibbia that I am truly truly honored to be tagged to respond!  yet not quite ready to participate fully.   Allow me that wall-flower status of standing slouched against the concrete-block wall of the gymnasium, at the high school dance, watching through the streamers the prom queen dance slow with her king to the Commodores ‘Three Times a Lady’, hoping and yet DREADING any geek who might ask me to the floor. 

My ignorance is my protection.      

and long term, my wish is that I would break free of this thought-pattern-chain.  To know what I truly wish for if I was stripped of the fear of finding out.