It’s that time of year again! It’s National Delurking Day!
Who are you? Why are you here? How did you find me? Will you be my friend? Will you tell me a story?
Will you leave a comment? Show me some love up in da club!
(Badge blatantly stolen from Loralee.)
(Do the Truffle Shuffle!)
De-lurk, show me some comment love, say Hi, and let’s put the “social” back into Social Media!
(Image shamelessly stolen from Karen.)
I’ve seen this going around (the latest from Crisitunity), so I figured, eh, what the heck.
1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Took a 3,026 mile road trip to Wyoming (by way of Utah and Idaho, guest starring Colorado).
Started writing professionally.
Got paid to take pictures.
I started blogging under my real name.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t make any resolutions last year! I’m not making any resolutions this year! It’s very liberating.
3. How did you spend New Year’s Eve?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank goodness!
5. What countries did you visit?
My own. Hopefully by this time next year I’ll be able to say, “Canada!”
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
50% less unsecured debt.
7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 14th. Bill and I had a fight that was monumentally awful at the time, but the after-effects caused us to re-evaluate how we treat one another and I believe we came out the other side stronger than we were before.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Going professional with my writing and photography. I’m particularly proud of the latter.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Not having the handle on our debt that I wanted to have by the end of the year. I’m hoping this year will be better!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a long and sucky bout with plantar faciitis early on in the year. And I had a cold or some such thing that prevented me from being there for Oliver’s birth.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The leather jacket Bill picked out for me in Cody, Wyoming. Also, Moto GP tickets.
12. Where did most of your money go?
The mortgage, followed closely by the credit cards.
13. What song will always remind you of 2009?
It’s a toss-up between these two (really, the whole Voices album):
14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends better. Written letters, made phone calls, and let them know I was thinking of them.
15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being depressed and anxious and sleeping a lot because of it and being lazy and sitting on my fat ass getting fatter.
16. What was your favourite TV program?
Big Bang Theory, Bones, Supernatural, Castle, Fringe, Criminal Minds, Californication (more or less in order)
17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Don’t hate anybody!
18. What was the best book you read?
The Charlaine Harris “Sookie” series (True Blood), and Patricia Briggs’ “Mercy” series.
19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Intervision. (Website has sound.)
20. What was your favorite film of this year?
Star Trek!!!!!
21. What did you do on your birthday?
Bill and I cooked a steak dinner together, and I made THE Pie(tm).
22. What kept you sane?
I don’t think anything did. I think I’m just now starting to realize just how BAD 2009 was, mentally speaking.
23. Who did you miss?
Grandma, Heather (though I got to see her!), and the grandbabies.
24. Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t think that I really made any new friends (IRL) in ’09. Lots of fun folks at Sandstone, I guess, but the “old” people I know are still the nearest and dearest to my heart!
25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
To let go of the things I can’t control and just believe that everything will work out in the end.
———-
Today’s 3P:
Positive: I did get to Trader Joe’s yesterday, and I’m having a truly yummy breakfast of TJ’s nonfat vanilla yogurt with TJ’s lowfat mixed berry granola. I love breakfast.
Productive: Dig up my bike lock and pump up the tires on my bike – I want to start riding my bike to work some day soon.
Plan: Put together a writing schedule for the next week.
I’m starting a new blog project. I’ve come to realize that the only real, true way to manage my depression and anxiety, if I choose to go the drug-free route, is to be proactive. I am responsible for my own mental health, and just like my physical health, it requires that I take steps on a daily basis to maintain and support it.
Thus, the 3P Project:
P #1 – Recognize what was Positive about my day. There are things – tiny things, or big things – about each and every day that are positive. I need to recognize them for what they are, no matter how simple or insignificant they may seem. By recognizing the positive I can stop focusing on the negative.
P #2 – Be Productive, in some way, every day. Just because I get up and go to work, or “get stuff done”, or barely keep up with the daily chores, does not mean I’m being productive. Productivity doesn’t have to be huge – it can be making a phone call I’ve been putting off, or making a recipe that’s languished in my “to try” pile. Just something that I can say, “There. That’s done now.” It always makes me feel so much better when I’ve accomplished something, and I don’t know why my productivity has languished for so long.
P #3 – Make a Plan. By having a plan, I keep anxiety at bay. So I will make a plan for each day. Nothing hugely specific or detailed to the hour or something inflexible. Just small steps or tasks or even indulgences that will help me keep my momentum going.
These are the things that I know work for me. You are the gentle snowflakes who get to be tortured by this, my latest idea for supporting my mental health. You lucky things. Feel free to adopt it yourselves, if you’d like.
Watch the stats on this site and win! The readers who are visitor numbers 99,999, 100,000, and 100,001 will win a prize the likes of which will amaze and enthrall! Here’s how you enter:
Watch the stats (at the bottom of the right-hand frame). If you are visitor number 99,999, 100,000, or 100,001, take a screen shot of the stat and send it to me in e-mail, along with your mailing address. Actually, you might give it a shot if you’re 99,998, or 100,002, or somewhere around there, just in case the actual visitors miss that they’re the lucky number. Bottom line, three winners, three prizes.
Good luck! Love ya!
(Fresh content below.)
This one is the fault of The Bloggess.
Typed “why” into the Google search engine, got this:
Typed “do”, got this:
Changed “do” to “does”, got this:
Typed “my”, got this:
Typed “husband”, got this:
To be fair, replaced “husband” with “wife”, got this:
Replaced “wife” with “child”, got this:
Try it yourself. You’ll get interesting results with dog, cat, daughter, son, boss, boyfriend, girlfriend, and goldfish. Review. Ponder. Discuss what this says about the most popular reasons to use a search engine. Insert social commentary here.
Okay, one more, just for fun:
Oh, and this one’s for my friends in Canada!
Okay, I’m done now. Swear.
This one is Karen’s fault:
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Living in Maine, in a loft in downtown Portland, with my husband. Making a living out of my writing and photography, such that Calvin doesn’t have to work and we have plenty of leisure time.
What is your greatest fear?
Death. Mine or my loved ones.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Sometimes I don’t try hard enough. I have to battle through the white noise in my head, and it comes across occasionally as not caring, or indifference.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Laziness.
On what occasion do you lie?
When I’m hiding something positive, like a surprise or a gift.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I won’t get my hair cut at one of those chain places, I spend $60 for a scalp massage and a layered cut at Chris Anthony’s.
What is your current state of mind?
Enforced relaxation. There’s stuff I could be stressing or worrying about, but I absolutely REFUSE. I spend enough goddamn time stressing.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
A giving heart.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
A positive attitude.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“You know I’m not wrong.”
When and where were you happiest?
On the beach, barefoot, at the ocean, hand in hand with my husband.
Who are your favorite writers?
Mary Stewart, Susan Cooper, JK Rowling, and a bunch of others.
Which talent would you most like to have?
I wish that I could play the piano, play the guitar, and speak Italian.
If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
Immediate family: I wish my daughter was more secure in herself, I wish my son would find a vocation that he was really enthusiastic about, I wish my husband and I saw eye to eye on everything. Extended family: yeah. I wish we all just got along.
If you died and came back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
It would be just like “What Dreams May Come”. Calvin and I would find each other, every single time.
What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I’m chubbier than I would like to be.
Where would you like to live?
Maine. And, Maine. And also, Maine.
What is your most treasured possession?
All of our photographs. And my journals, hand-written and on-line. And the starfish necklace that Calvin gave me. That’s three, I’m a rule-breaker.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Mourning.
What do you most value in your friends?
Constancy.
What are your favorite names?
Cricket and Firefly – pet names my husband has called me, that make me smile every time.
What is it that you most dislike?
Light: stupid commercials. Heavy: selfishness.
What is your greatest regret?
I haven’t finished my degree yet.
How would you like to die?
In a non-violent, painless way, surrounded by the people who love me.
What is your motto?
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
There are two locations at home, from which I conduct all of my writing and on-line business.
The living room couch, on my lap desk (70% of the time):
The desk in the bedroom (30% of the time):
I spend more time in the living room than the bedroom so that I can hang out with Calvin while I work. Also, we like to have the laptop handy so that we can research such esoteric information as, “Who was that one guy who played that dude on that one TV show?” (Answer: Howard Morris as “Ernest T. Bass” on The Andy Griffith Show.)
It is from one of these two locations that I shall be regaling my lovely readers with fascinating and pithy topics as I participate in the daily-for-the-month-of-November blogging extravaganza of National Blog Writing Month.
Upcoming topics include:
– The change in my AcronymCo work schedule.
– My “writing process” (topic request courtesy of Dys).
– Oliver’s birth story (cuz you’re never gonna get a birth story of my own) from the unique perspective of the photographer. (Oliver hasn’t been born yet, by the way, I’m just anticipating a November delivery!)
– Thanksgiving, in nauseating detail.
– My 50mm lens, in excruciating detail.
– Eleventy-seven stream-of-consciousness entries.
– Photo-a-day stuff (a self-imposed goal to take daily pictures).
– Health and fitness stuff (which I will probably post on No Butts and pimp here – that counts!).
I’d love to hear from you all – what kind of topics would you like me to write about? Anything goes, my friends! I need writing fodder if I’m gonna get through NaBloWriMo!
Hey, gang! Things have been quiet on the Snerkology front for the past few days, eh? Well, I now have News To Share. I am very excited to say that I have joined the ranks of freelance writers! I waited to say anything until the deal was sealed and the contract was signed. Now that it has been, and I’ve officially started work, I can share the deets with you all.
I will be blogging, several times per week, at UpTake. I will be participating on the Vacations Blog as “LauraC”, and I will write about the vacations we’ve taken, the trips we will be taking, local guide articles, my favorite places to visit, etc. etc. etc.
Here’s a blurb from UpTake’s About page:
“UpTake.com is a travel search and discovery site – the first step for travelers to decide where to go, where to stay or what to do. We help users make informed decisions about what best fits their travel preferences. We scoured more than 5,000 sites to collect 775,000 places to go, things to do and places to stay in the U.S. Then we analyzed and organized over 20 million U.S. travelers’ opinions to enable search based on exact travel requirements and preferences.”
I’m very excited about this opportunity. Obviously, as you all know by now, I will not be particularly challenged for subject matter. This gig jives so well with what I like to write about, and photograph, that I’ve got a million ideas just off the top of my head already. It won’t make me rich, but it’s a foot in the door, perhaps, to other professional writing opportunities.
Hah! I can call myself a professional writer, now, and it’ll be the truth!
So, if you’re interested, you can subscribe to my RSS feed over there and follow my posts. I’ll probably post links from here over to my entries after they’re published, as well. Such as this one, my inaugural post (be kind – it sounded stilted to me, who knew I’d be nervous?). I’ve also put an UpTake badge on the left-hand frame of this site, which will take you directly to the Vacations Blog, as well.
So! That’s the news! I’m kind of proud of myself, actually.
(p.s. – I’d like to thank Miss Britt, who pointed me toward the opportunity in the first place, AND gave me a nice recommendation. She’s an absolute peach, she is.)
I used to post a list of search terms that brought people to this site on a fairly regular basis, back when I maintained everything on the Snerkology domain. I haven’t done it in a while, but after perusing my WordPress stats today I laughed out loud and was thus motivated to share. My particular favorites are bolded.
henry viii family tree
photoshop diffuse tutorial
i want to be married widow
visit mike arizona coffee (editor’s note: “I wonder who Mike is.”)
da doo doo doo da daa daa daa (editor’s note: “Is all I want to say to you…”)
it started over coffee, we started out as friends
how to install chip slr motorsports (editor’s note: “Fuck SLR Motorsports.”)
does whiskey work like xanax? (editor’s note: “Yes… and no.”)
asu palm walk
“she snored”(editor’s note: “Nuh uh!”)
feeding of reptiles
vas ist der uppenzie (editor’s note: “Can you spot it?”)
east carolina university dorms
adam avitable eats dog poop
That last one just keeps making me giggle and giggle…
Some other interesting (well, okay, YMMV) things of note:
– My single most popular entry (of the WordPress domain) is this one, strangely enough. 1,302 hits, as opposed to its next closest competitor, this entry at 533 hits. I guess more people than I thought give a hot red cent about inbreeding in British royalty.
– On my busiest day, December 5th 2008, I had 333 hits. I’m not completely positive why I got so many hits that day – my post was this one. Le shrug.
– As of this moment in time, I have 58,255 total visits, and 1,169 posts, and 2,090 comments.
I used to use SiteMeter for my website stats, and what I miss most about it is it would show me where the visitors were coming from, from around the globe. WordPress doesn’t do that, at least not to my knowledge.
Ih, I know little of this is of interest to you, my gentle snowflakes. I just like to take a snapshot of things every now and then, for the sake of posterity.
Snerkology 