It is hard to say good bye…

Snowed in car in 1978 Pickerington Ohio
(c) 2015 Google.com

To January 2015.  I really did not think much about January.  I never do.  It is a hard act to follow after December of the previous year.  Yes, it is the first month of the new year, but if you live in a mini snow belt, like Ohio (the first snow belt being the New York/New England area of the country), it can be a hit or miss. 

There are some years, where Ohio can get as much snow as the first Snow Belt, especially around the Cleveland area.  These are the days, where if you venture out of the house at all, it is to go to the local store, get your goods, and go home, never vowing to go out again as long as you live.  Then there are the years where you feel like that God forgot to let Mother Nature know that it is winter, and temps stay decent and no snow is to be seen for miles (unless you are in Cleveland).  I live in Columbus, so snow is a hit or miss, unless you were around last year (2014) or the Blizzard of 1978.  Now those were some doozies.

In 1978, I was in the 8^th grade.  We had just moved from McGuire AFB, NJ a few months prior.  I was loving my new school, and everything was going great.  My brother was in the 1^st grade, and my parents have never consider being foster care parents (that came much, much later).  My father was working on base as a security police officer, which was totally different than your mall cops (sorry if I am throwing shade at your occupation, you are important).  It had been snowing, but Joe Holbrook (my Grandmother’s favorite weatherman) had forecast 1” or 2” inches, that’s it.  All I remember was there was no school the next day, in fact the next couple of days, and I loved it.  What kid would not?  My father was stuck in a barracks on base, until the streets were clear enough for him to come home.

Last year was a little different.  I do not mind blizzards (especially the kind with chocolate-ok wrong type of Blizzard), but I hate polar vortexes.  These are the kind that do not allow a person to get into their garage of their condo, without taking out their car and/or the side of the building.  I did not do that, but I did not get in.  1998 Honda Accords are not good snow plows to pack down the snow. Now a 2013 Cadillac CTS is.  I went back to my parent’s house and my father went back to my house and mowed over the snow with his car.   Now I see why his car cost more than mine, LOL.  1998 Honda=burnt rubber, 2013 Caddies=snow plow/snow packer.  You know a polar vortex is bad when Mickey Mouse cannot come out and play (Disney saw this thing to and shut down the parks).

January is supposed to end with a bang for Central Ohio, because we are supposed to get a good one tonight.  I am glad that our Mayor, Mike Coleman is not having a new conference telling us how to prepare for the next wave of snow coming.  I would hate to see him end up like the mayor of New York City. (Yellow does not look good on him-egg yolk)

In other news…

Sales are not looking great this month, and I am talking mine. I know this a writing blog, but how would you like to hear about what is going on with my other blogs from time to time?   I am thinking of doing that, and by doing so may mean I have to plop a sale or two on here.  I have a blog called Tricia’s baskets, and I am an Independent Longaberger® Home Consultant.  In case you are wondering what Longaberger sells, it is a direct selling company that makes baskets, pottery, and wrought iron pieces.  They make their sales through independent consultants like myself and in their showrooms.  The company is based in Newark, Ohio, with a showroom called The Homestead.  It was founded by the late Dave Longaberger, and you can read about the history here. I have been a proud member of the sales field for over 14 years.

This is the end of my January posts for the month.  I did not contribute too much in the way of my writing prompts and that is something that I have been trying to do for months.   It is not easy when you have a busy life, even when you are single and have No Kids.  I do help out my oldest nephew, who will have a birthday next month.  Wow, 19 year old.  I remember 19.  More on that later.  My sister is in crisis mode, but I have to get permission to share what she needs.   I made that mistake with asking for prayer for my mom in November, and got chewed out by my father.  I did on Facebook.  He felt it was no one’s business, so lesson learned (or learnt as they say these days)  My brother is good, and so are my parents.

Bye January.

Renewing old habits

I am renewing something that I use to do.  It is a habit that I almost took up religiously.  I had a very distinct routine, and dare I miss one day of it.  The good news is that it was good for me, and I loved every minute of it.  You want to know what it is.   Well wait for it…wait for it…still waiting for it?

OK….

It is tap dancing.  Yes, if you have been following my blog for a while, you know I took ballet and jazz, but I am a tapper also.  I will not say used to, because once you are a tapper, it never leaves you.  The only problem is the last pair of tap shoes is a size 4 ½ and I am a 6-6 ½.  They tell you when you are fitted with tap shoes that your shoes need to be a half size bigger than your street shoe size.  I am sure that I will be comfortable wearing a size 6 ½ shoe size, because my feet are also narrow width, not average width.

Now you may be wondering why I decided to renew this habit.  Well for one thing, it is good exercise.  It increases the blood flow, and tap dancing is like running.  Once you get the combos together (and I thank the YouTube tappers for that), and your heart is racing.  At one point, I had an athletic heart, if you can call it that, because once you flap, shuffle, piddle-diddle, and wing yourself into shape, you heart rate is that of a runner.  I have developed high blood pressure since my last performance as a dancer (all three types) at Susie’s Dance Studio, I had to ask my doctor if it was ok, and of course she said yes.    I am just taking it in strive as I renew my habit. 

My first song I am dancing to is Uptown Funk by Mark Robinson, featuring Bruno Mars.  I could turn it into a jazz contemporary number as well.  I am not sure about it being a ballet number yet.  I am not auditioning to be on So You Think You Can Dance any time soon. There are no other dance competitions I can go to, and since Abby Lee Miller is not excepting adults, I think I will stay at home, unless I decide to try the exercise place in the next town that offers a class, which uses the ballet barre.

Writing and advertising

(c) Kim Rempel

OK, I want an honest answer.  How do you feel when you see these two words in the title?  They are very simple to interpret, but I have come to find out after earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing and advertising, and now running my own blogs, that a person perceives it in one or two ways: Yeah and nah.

First the yah (yes for proper English enthusiasts, such as myself).  Writing and advertising go hand and hand, like peas and carrots, Fred and Barney, shoes and socks, and Mickey and Minnie.  You cannot have one without the other.  (Well you can, but that is not the point I am trying to make).  In order to succeed in marketing, you have to know how to write well. Advertisers do not like misspelled words, unless it is a play on words, and then you have to know when and how to use them. 

People live for advertising.  After all, what influenced you to buy the kind of car you have, the clothes you are wearing, and phone you are talking on? There are more than one type of advertising.  There is print, internet (online), television, radio, and word or mouth advertising for starters.  When a friend tells you that they like a certain brand of food for the economic value of that food (AKA price) that is advertising.  When you go to the library, and you see that the branch you are in have Dell computers with the Windows operating system in them that is advertising.  Want Coke and the venue you are at carries Pepsi products?  You guess it, advertising.  Think of advertising as a major influence factor in your decision making.

On the other hand, there are the naysayers. (Or no for again proper English).  They loath adverting because it either promotes greed, lust, and want.  I have not seen protests against advertisers or writing for advertisers in my lifetime, but I know they are there.  Perhaps against polluting the air, the environment.  Again it is mostly word of mouth.  They do not like the commercials online, on the airwaves.  I wonder if these naysayers say anything, do they know that’s advertising too.  I do not have a problem with advertising, I just have a problem with what is being advertised to our young.

Today, I saw a video on Facebook.  It was tagged by a friend of mine, and he had a problem with this boy dancing like a girl.  You know, very female-like.  The child had to been about 7 or 8.  He was doing a dance battle with a girl.  I watched the video, and I had a problem with both of them.  The girl was around the same age, and she did a little acro, (what they call gymnastics these days), a little twerking, the same as the boy, and again I had a problem with both of them.  You know where I am going with this, and you know where they learned it from.  It was part sass, part dance studio taught, but look what is on tube.  Sex and sass is all the rage, and these kids do not want to learn the cutesy dances.  OH no, that is too babyish, but even the babies do not want to learn it.  I am going to leave it at that, because we will be having a whole new conversation here.

The point I am making is love it or leave today’s advertising, it requires writing, even if you are writing out a plan of attack.  I even pointed it out in one of my posts last year that you need to have good writing skills.

So how do you feel about writing and advertising?

Top 10 posts of 2014 (and goals for 2015)

(c) jks Lola

This is my first time writing a top 10 list of my posts for the past year.  I love to blog, there is no question about it.  There is something about it that is informative, and I can be that ambassador to the world.  This I how many bloggers feel as they put pen to paper, or as I call it fingertips to keyboard.  Everyone has a different style about going at it, and if you never have done this before, it is a fun experience that one should not take too light.  You are not just simply giving your opinion on a subject, but your opinions and views on the subject should there to inform, enlighten, and keep them coming back for more.

How did I make my selection?

I made my selection based on the number of views according to Blogger, not Google Analytic.  I also based it on how much I enjoyed writing that post.  I will get to my complete list in a moment, but first I have to give you what I enjoyed writing the most and the least favorite to write:

This first post gave me joy, because of how I feel about my parents, especially now.  I wrote and posted it on February 25, 2014.  It is called My Parents are so Cute.  In this post, I told the story of the Sunday before (or that day), which my father wanted to watch a movie on Egypt, so he tried to find it first on Netflix (which he can either use mine or my cousin Derrick’s account), and then my dad wanted to know if the movie was on his cable company’s pay per view list.  Later on, my dad was doing “love picking” at my mom to the point where she said something to him, and he asked me a question about how many years he had to put up with it so far (53 years), to the point of me my shaking my head, and deciding to writing this post.

My least favorite post:

I, as well as many other people were shocked and upset by the passing of Robin Williams and how he died.  I decided to write something on the subject, and even though the page views were not that great (28 views), it is a subject that many people do not like talking about, and I had a hard time writing it.  I think it is because everyone, especially teens and young adults, go through a period in their lives where they do not fit in, and that was the reason behind my own attempts. (I had 4, neither of them landed me in the ER).  In the case of Robin Williams and many adults, they are tired of dealing with the same thing every time, and they do not want to be a burden to their family and friends.  I do not know what was going through his mind when he took his last breath.

My list of top 10 posts of 2014 (in terms of page views)

Post	Date	Views
Happy Ballet Day	Monday, February 17, 2014	148
Opportunity Alert, Freelancer	Tuesday, January 14, 2014	85
How I write a post	Saturday, March 15, 2014	70
It's never been about the Easter Bunny	Thursday, April 24, 2014	67
Call of Jury Duty	Monday, May 19, 2014	65
Vacation time in San Antonio	Sunday, March 9, 2014	58
My parents are so cute	Monday, March 3, 2014	53
Keep a good thing going: Inspire Someone Today	Wednesday, April 16, 2014	51
Why I can't Enjoy Food Anymore	Wednesday, June 25, 2014	51
Correction is a big thing for me: 5 ways to improve your writing	Saturday, July 19, 2014	46

So there you have it.  I hope you go back to read them, I had fun writing them.  If you have any comments, let me know.

What’s new and the goal for 2015?

I am going to try to write more regular than I did in 2014.  I have lots of things to accomplish with this blog and my other blogs I write and own.  I want to get my freelancing writing back started again, and well as my freelance scrapbooking and greeting cards.  You can learn more about that in my P.Lynne Designs blog.  I am trying to do other things with this blog, such as switching platforms.  I love blogger, but as I read more about Google, the more that I learn that if I rub Google the wrong way, this blog, as well as my other blogs can be taken down without explanation, because Google decides to change the algorithm or the rules of what makes a worthy blog to them.  It is bad enough that I am trying to build up traffic, without worrying about that.

Anyway, what will I cover?

For now, it will be the same.  I will still do BlogHer’s writing prompts, and I may sprinkle in other writing prompts as well.  I will find more things for inspiring people to write more, such as how to get started, how to find something to write about, and how to get traffic and people to read your blog.  I am getting more into the aspect of writing blogs, as opposed to just straight writing.  There are lots of subjects on creative writing, technical writing, and others.  I will still write on subjects that touch others (more opinionated), and finding the goofy.  I may also expand from my other blogs to get a writer’s prospective on the subject, such as how does one find time to plan a Disney Vacation when you write for a living from my Traveling To the Mouse's House Blog to the comparison between a writing layout and a scrapbook layout.  Who knows, it may lead to a collaboration with another writer.   I will also be vlogging from time to time, and place a copy of it on my You Tube channel.

This is only the third day of the year, and the wheels in my head are turning like mad.   So with that note, I will talk at you later.