blog archive (aug 2008-december 2000)
12/31/09: Auld Lang SyneDid you ever wonder what auld lang syne actually meant?
"Auld Lang Syne" is the title of a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1788, which later became a folk song. The title means "old long since", which makes no "since" at all, so a better translation might be "days gone by."
As we herald in the New Year, we're also saying goodbye to the old one. I say: good riddance! I am a very upbeat person, most people would agree. I've even been called Pollyanna at times. But 2009? It sucked wind. That's Scottish for "sucked wind." Which may explain the bagpipes.
So without further haggis, my last Scottish joke of the year:
A bagpipe player parked at a busy shopping mall. With some trepidation, he left his bagpipes in plain view in the back seat, locking all four doors, and nervously sprinted through his shopping errands. Twenty minutes later he returned, breathless and sweaty. Sure enough, all his windows had been broken, and four more sets of bagpipes were in his back seat.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it. And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm. And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.
-- Scottish blessingHave a surprising, adventure-driven, white-hot passionate, bagpipe-less (unless, like me, you're into that sort of thing) New Year.
12/7/09: AlohaI'm in Maui again: second time in a month, this time solo. Traveling alone, without the encumbrances of high-energy children gives me time to ... work. Work? In paradise? Yes, unfortunately, or fortunately. It's a great field test for my eventual move to Maui (one day): can I actually get work done when the sky is blue, the surf frothy and untamed, the palm trees swaying gently, and the breeze tinged with tuberose? Um, yeah, sort of.
There have been many warm and wonderful distractions, but I've actually written 17,000 words of a book, sent numerous business emails, and am tackling two articles on assignment today about (get ready for the excitement) the practicality of membership buying clubs. I will probably make enough from those two articles to pay for my grocery bill: $8.09 for a dozen (albeit organic) eggs! I think I need a membership buying club.
But the price I will pay for enjoying this time in paradise will not be in the green stuff. It will be in the wrenching emotions of leaving in a few days. Maui is home to me. When I was asked by a surfer recently if I lived here I answered, "Yes, as often as I can."
Happy Birthday, Everett (71 years young yesterday)!
Aloha, A hui hou.
10/20/09: Just in Time for Halloween, I Meet a Real MonsterI met a monster recently. Under five feet tall, she was a successful businesswoman with simian features and an unfortunate haircut. She shook my world. When you surround yourself with loving, generative people, monsters can get the sneak on you because you forget they're out there.
But I learned some valuable lessons: I learned to trust my gut. I learned that I would never trade my beautiful life for any amount of material success. And I learned that all chaos is merely a time of transition to a new and better place.
"I was sitting in a sea of pity, not noticing that the winds of heaven were carrying me across the skies."
This passage was read to me quite by "accident" in the midst of the chaos, catching me just before I tumbled into the abyss, setting me back on solid ground.
When you find yourself facing a monster, be happy that you're not one! And know that life is a beautiful journey, and that sometimes it takes monsters to show us the way.
8/22/09: Happy Birthday Bro!People say that having children ages you. I disagree. When I see my two sons growing, all I feel is proud of the way they're turning out. Their energy keeps me young. What ages me is seeing my BABY BROTHER turn 40 today!
I remember when he arrived at our grandmother's house, fresh from the hospital, all 10 pounds, 13 oz. of him, nothing but golf ball cheeks and poopy diapers, and I thought he was my personal animated doll. I fed him, changed him, held him and dressed him in girly clothes because he couldn't do anything about it.
Happy Birthday, Timmy. (I'm one of five people left alive who are still allowed to call him that.)
Love, Your Sis Yvonne
5/7/09: Too Busy to Blog? ...."I've got 20 seconds while my coffee is reheating. Great! I can use that time to go to the bathroom!" This was an actual thought that ran through my head today.
I just finished a 42-page Web site (check it out at Access Feng Shui) which included editing and creating close to 80 images. It's the [fill in the blank, I've lost count] th Web site I have created in the last three months. My world is a self-imposed whirwind, and today I learned an important lesson:
S - L - O - W D - O - W - N
I got this message in a brilliant flash of light as I went through an orange-turning-red signal at NE 39th and Sandy. Yep, my picture, with morning hair, sans make-up, wearing my sweats, and probably mouthing a word I try never to say in front of my children is now being developed by a machine that will bill me $300+ for the privilege.
Today I should be editing an e-book manuscript (and I will get to it!!!) or interviewing three family business owners in various U.S. locations for an article that's due in 4 days about the state of the economy. I will get to that too. Or putting together 100 women to become muses on my soon-to-be-launching 800Muses.com Web site. Ahem. For the launch in 3 weeks! I will get to it ...
Instead I'm taking three hours out of the whirlwind to attend a Mother's Day luncheon at my son's school. If I had a job where I only worked 8 hours a day, I probably couldn't make it.
Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
4/23/09: Why I Think Twittering is for the BirdsI'm Linked In but I don't Twitter. I accidentally joined once and forgot about it, and came back and found out I had about a thousand messages from the same person who probably wonders why I never responded. I joined Facebook, after much prompting from several friends, for exactly 15 minutes before I bailed. Too much sign-my-high-school-year-book type of energy.
For business reasons I did join an online networking group for entrepreneurs, but it pales in comparison to my real, live networking group that meets twice a month. We meet in person, where we can look into each other's eyes and laugh out loud, not like this: <LOL>.
Social media has become social mania. Everyone's doing it, even Oprah. For me, that may be just enough reason not to do it. Maybe I'm behind the times, maybe I'm ahead of the curve. All I know is that reading and responding and deleting my e-mail takes enough time out of my day without having to do it at a half-dozen sites.
I don't want to join an "online community" to talk to my friends. And although I love them, I really don't care what my friends had for breakfast or what sandwich they're dreaming about for lunch. To me, "community" is comprised of the people you see eye-to-eye and talk to voice-to-voice and share an actual sandwich with. Pass the mustard, please.
4/8/09: Will You Be My Beta Tester?
It's not as romantic as a valentine, I know. I just launched my fourth site in less than 4 weeks, and this one is way over my head. I mean, WAYYYY over. I never thought Max, my 10-year-old, would be able to say "I Told You So" this early in life, but he was right: Yu-Gi-Oh! is a complicated, strategic game that's teaching him how to think in 12 dimensions.
As someone who has trouble enough with the standard three dimensions, I'd like your help. If you're a Yu-Gi-Oh! buff (and even if you're not) please beta test this newest site:
Let me know if I've got any broken links, images that don't load, etc. I'll have Max check it for Yu-Gi-Oh! accuracy. After all, he's the expert.
Thanks,
Yvonne
3/19/09: Web Site #3, Autism Answers Now
I've just launched the third Web site in three days. This one is a resource site for families whose child has just received an autism diagnosis. Included are books I found helpful, a link to my own family's story about autism, and answers to early questions about diet, supplements, and therapies.
The site is designed to answer the questions: what is autism, and what are some autism treatments? and to provide hope where there was none.
My personal belief is that autism, the "new breed" of autism that is sweeping our country is nothing more than environmental damage, be it toxins in our environment, poor diet, mercury-containing vaccines, or a combination of these, combined with some sort of genetic predisposition. I'm not alone in believing this, and hopefully some day there will be better, more complete answers. Until then, I'll do my best to answer those questions I can.
Photo from our new site, Autism Answers Now.
3/18/09: Dino-Mite Happenings
I'm becoming an e-publisher! Very exciting. Check out my first joint venture (with my lovely son, Sam), Kids Dig Dinos.com, a dinoaurs for kids site.
You'll also find my epublisher site, Knowledge Base Publishing here.
So ... what will I publish? Ebooks with informative or entertaining, but certainly niche and evergreen value (topics of interest that will be around for a long time).
Any questions, see the Knowledge Base site, or just ask!
The future is very very bright with a Christmas ribbon on top!
3/6/09: 10 Great Things About a Sucky Economy
1. Store clerks are much friendlier, especially those who work on commission
2. Better customer service all around
3. Coupon clipping has become a lot more exciting
4. You don't have to take that stinky job because guess what: no job!
5. More time with the family (see #4 above)
6. Opportunities abound, really! Anytime there's a shakeup, winners rise to the top. Be a winner.
7. Suddenly, EVERYTHING'S ON SALE!
8. The library is warmer because it's more crowded
9. More people are returning bottles
10. We all have time to focus on what really matters. To re-coin a phrase, It's not the economy, stupid.
2/16/09:
Presidents and King George
Happy President's Day. Recently my eldest son, Max, performed in his fifth grade play, a musical pageant called "Ring Out the Bells of Freedom." Max was fortunate to be given the juicy role of King George III, enabling him to deliver such spicy lines as "Balderdash!" and "Bloody rubbish!"
Today being President's Day, and given the recent historic election of our nation's president, it may be prudent to look at how history treated King George III. Wikipedia reports that historical analysis of the King's life has gone through a "kaleidoscope of changing views depending heavily on the prejudices of his biographers and the sources available to them." In my son's pageant, King George was depicted as a tyrant who was uncooperative with the colonists. In other historical references, he is looked on as very cooperative with the colonists, albeit for his own power-enhancing reasons.
The writers of our history have a responsibility to get it right, and if they present something with bias, to disclose it within the same document. Long after the man (or woman) is gone, the written word lives on. May the biographers of President Obama's tenure be fair, accurate and prejudice-free. And may our country continue to Ring Out the Bells of Freedom for our children, our children's children, and for all the generations to come.
2/10/09: Whales, Rays and Other Sea Creatures
I'm in Maui, thoroughly enjoying my second trip here in three months, feeling very lucky and spoiled. This time around is whale season, and we can see them spouting and breaching in the distance, even from the grounds of our condo.
Yesterday we snorkeled, and in addition to a nice variety of fish, we saw a manta ray, perhaps 5 feet wide and 9 feet long. It was just laying there beneath us, on the sandy ocean floor. We hovered at a safe distance, then as we began to move away, the ray lifted off the bottom and, with a few graceful sweeps of its body, swam away.
Today I go on an eco whale watching tour, hoping to see up close what we've been seeing from the beach for the past several days.There's something about the beauty and majesty of large sea creatures like the ray and the whale that makes me wonder which is the more intelligent creature: the one who tries to master and tame its environment, or the one that moves through it with dignity, accepting what is.
In my next life I'll be a crew member on the Calypso. For now I've joined the Pacific Whale Foundation. It's the least I can do for Ray and Friends.
1/29/09: Writing for Human Beings
I was reading through a user manual recently and found myself reading the same paragraph 147 times. What is it about some tech writers that makes them think they have to write for computers rather than people? A good writer, techie or otherwise, doesn't try to use all their vocabulary in one sentence. Babe, save that for the college term papers. Good writers use words that don't require the reader to break out their secret decoder ring.
In graduate school we studied the Plain English Movement. The Movement was an attempt by the government a couple of decades ago to clear away the high-fog factor in governmental and legal documents. It failed miserably. Apparently, some government workers and lawyers like it foggy. Fog provides job security because: (1) they've got the decoder rings, and (2) they can alter the interpretation depending on weather, mood, or how much they stand to gain from a particular interpretation.
A good writer, and especially a technical one, conveys information, something that only happens when the audience can understand what's being read. No decoder ring required.
1/10/09: Shaping Up after 40
I'm on a major shape-up bent lately, and I'm loving it! I guess you could call it a New Year's resolution but I started 12/30. (I'm early for everything, so no surprise there.)
Like everyone else on the planet, I have tried just about every diet out there to lose that last 10 (and later, 20 pounds): Jenny Craig, Slim Fast, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss, Isagenix, and all the fad diets: the 9-day diet, the cabbage soup diet, the banana and hamburger diet, cleanses, fasts. I've hired personal trainers, joined a gym, bought the equipment, bought the clothes. If I had all the money I've spent on quick fixes and accessories I could afford major body surgery. There's a quick fix.
But this time is different. There's a lot to be said for reaching 40-something beyond the slower metabolism. You get a little wiser. By then you've learned how to create a plan and stick to it. And you've learned that, outside of the operating room, there's no such thing as a quick fix that's also lasting. So I'm doing it right. I'm working with my metabolism instead of against it, eating right, drinking 8 glasses of water a day (it's really easy once you're in the habit), exercising 6 days a week, incorporating strength training, educating myself on the subject, and not expecting overnight results. I don't weigh myself daily or even weekly. Every 4 weeks is my plan. This way I won't be discouraged by temporary fluctuations. The number on the scale means very little anyway. It's about how you feel and look.
I intend to arrive at my new body by my birthday, June 1. With five months to work it, I think my plan has a serious chance for success. It helps to have little goals to work for along the way, and little rewards too. So I'm going to Maui again in February. That's something Jenny Craig never did for me.
12/14/08: Silver Bells and Christmas Pageants
One of my sons attends a private school in Lake Oswego. We live in Northeast Portland, so the location isn't exactly convenient. Once in a while I wonder if I should put him in a school closer to home. But he's thriving. This weekend I saw another example of this.
Every year the school puts on a Christmas pageant. It's months in the making, and for the week leading up to it, there's no academic homework so the kids can work at home rehearsing their lines for their part of Mary, Joseph, angel, etc. In Sam's first two years at Childrens Hour Academy, he was in the choir, no speaking parts, so we rehearsed the songs he needed to memorize. He was terrified. At the events themselves he cried and trembled for the duration. I had to stand with him to keep him from fleeing.
The following two years Sam held his own, and I watched from the audience, incredulous and proud.
This year Sam, in third grade, was one of 8 Wisemen. He stood in front of the mike, drew it closer to him when it was time to speak (much to the audience's delight), enunciated clearly and with appropriate emphasis, and angled it toward the next speaker when it was their turn. He showed amazing stage presence.
When it was time to disassemble, he gave me the obligatory hug and went off to find his best friend. I've become superfluous, and for that I am truly grateful.
12/12/08: Finding the Silver Lining [Part 1 of 2]
My car was vandalized. Twice in one week. At night, under a working security light, while I and my two angels were sleeping, a vandal walked 8 feet up my driveway and punctured the sidewall of my right front tire. The next day I took it to Les Schwab and bought a new tire: $140. Four nights later the vandal did the same thing to my right rear tire. Another $140, but even worse, I now realized it was something that could (and probably would) happen again and again, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I reported it to the police, and learned there's nothing THEY can do about it either. They didn't want my punctured tires as evidence. They didn't want to send an officer to take my sworn statement. They took my story over the phone, and that and my $280 bought me a lovely little case number and a vague assurance that the officer taking my information would TRY to contact the officer who patrols my area and let him/her know what happened.
I was angry. I was frustrated. I wanted to inflict violence. I drove in rush hour across town to a car alarm shop called "Stop-the-Criminals-and-Blow-Their-Eardrums-Out 'R Us" (or something close to that) and found out that the only alarm sensitive enough to detect a tire slashing would also be set off by mosquito landings. I didn't ask around, but I'm pretty sure my neighbors would rather I keep buying tires.
I began to fantasize about sleeping, propped up on my porch holding a shotgun. I seriously considered renting a Rottweiler. I thought about moving. In a weak moment I thought about putting something sharp in my driveway that the vandal might step on. "Booby traps are illegal," my boyfriend, Dean, informed me. Dang.
[Part 2]
12/11/08: The Unbearable Lightness of Being ... Free
I recently took a job that had great promise initially but turned out to be an oppressive, humiliating, dark experience. At the brink of losing myself completely to the dark side, I jumped free. Back in the sunshine, I now see with new eyes.
Feng shui practitioners will tell you to “clear your space” because you can’t bring new things into your life until you make room for them. I finally see the absolute beauty and truth in this. While driving to meet a friend for breakfast this morning [quick aside: you MUST do abelskivers at HASH in Sellwood at least ONCE in your lifetime!!!], a 20-minute drive, I got so many ideas for the future I can’t possibly act on them all. Everywhere I look is opportunity and abundance.
I had seen in the job possibility: security, challenge, reward. When it turned out to be none of these I felt like I’d just wasted three months of my life (except for the many wonderful human connections that will stay with me always). I thought, “What was THAT all about? What lesson am I supposed to take away from that?!”
Now I see there were many lessons. They keep revealing themselves to me one after the other. One was: never take a job beneath your capabilities. Another: I have great survival instincts. And: We sometimes have to go into the dark to truly see the light.
Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!
8/30/08: Got Links?
It always surprises me when one of my savvier communications friends hasn’t heard about linkedin. It’s a site where professionals can reconnect and make new connections. You create a profile, search for folks you know, and ask to be linked. When you’re linked to them, you’re also linked to their network and their network’s network and ... like that old shampoo commercial: “She tells two friends, and she tells two friends ...” Viral marketing at its finest. Facebook for the post-acne years. Enough analogy, just go get linked.
And don’t worry: no spam has ever come to my e-mail box through linkedin. Just some wonderful blasts from the past and some cool new connections.
You’re welcome.
8/22/08: He’ll Always Be Timmy To Me (Happy B’Day, Bro!)
One afternoon
my sister Kathy and I were playing with our favorite Christmas gift: a
mint green Easy Bake Oven. It was a miraculous thing, that oven. In addition
to being an actual appliance with hot surfaces that we could use unsupervised,
it also popped out chocolate cake in record time. We were just getting
ready to start a new batch when our mom dropped Timmy, the baby, into
my lap.
“Keep an eye on your brother while I get dinner started.”
We looked after her departing figure and began plotting. Timmy had just
started crawling, so we had to be able to contain him and yet still have
our hands free for baking. Finally we hatched an idea: we pulled a chair
in from the dining room and put our brother, in a cardboard box, on it.
At some point Timmy must have become curious about what we were up to.
He leaned forward and for one magnificent moment turned into Flying Box
Baby. Box Baby landed with a thud, and on the way down caught his temple
on the corner of the Easy Bake Oven. The screaming was loud, the gash
was deep, and the blood was plentiful. And the cake still had 10 minutes
to go.
8/20/08: Waging War Against Spam
Once in a while you come across a FREE resource that’s so good you want to tell everyone. Thanks to PDX Synergy’s* newest member, Julia Stoops, Web Designer for Blue Mouse Monkey Designs, I now have something too good not to share.
You know how every time your e-mail address gets posted on a Web site you get tons of spam? There’s a great FREE encryption program you can add to your sites that will prevent spam bots from finding it.
You just put in the link text, the e-mail address, hit a button, and you get a paragraph of code you paste into your html page exactly where the e-mail address would normally go. Julia says, “I have been using this service for years and it’s very reliable.” Julia, where have you been all my life? Here it is again in case you missed it the first time: Great FREE encryption program to prevent spam
Um, and like
I said, it’s FREE. Can’t beat that. Thanks, Julia!
*(Synergy
is my baby, my love, my networking group)
8/13/08: The State of Being Fat
We Americans are eating ourselves to death. Sedentary lifestyles, stress eating, an abundance of fast food, foodie ad bombardment, non-food foods our bodies can’t process, these are some of the reasons. But there may be another factor. States with the highest poverty levels also have the highest levels of obesity. Take a look at some of the fattest states in the U.S. Mississippi and Alabama rank high; Colorado and Hawaii rank low, corresponding to their poverty levels. Why would poverty and obesity be linked? One reason proposed is that unhealthy food is cheap. But so are snap peas and broccoli. Maybe the problem is a lack of education, say some government officials. South Los Angeles, which has a higher poverty level and a higher obesity level than other areas of L.A., has put a moratorium on new fast food restaurants. The government is trying to save us from ourselves. Many people think there should be more government restrictions.
Here’s what one blog entry on the subject states: “Losing weight is simply eating less and moving more. It’s not the government’s fault if you can’t manage those two simple things.”
Pardon me while I go for a jog.
8/10/08: Incandescent Fluorescent Obsolescence
Lighting companies aren’t making fixtures for incandescent lights anymore. Why? The familiar lightbulb is making way for the newer more energy efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). But at what cost to our environment? CFLs contain mercury, sure in trace amounts, but how much additional mercury do we WANT in our atmosphere?
Proponents of CFLs say that it takes mercury to run the power plants to produce the incandescents, and that CFLs contain relatively little mercury. But take a look at the instructions for what happens when you break one: Leave the room for 15 minutes. Use a wet rag to wipe up all pieces and liquid. Wrap in plastic, then wrap again. Dispose as hazardous waste. Hmm. What happens when you break an incandescent? Toss it in the garbage.
I’m all for saving energy. But we already have too much mercury in the environment. Why are we manufacturing anything with more mercury? Not to mention the aesthetic issue. Fluorescent bulbs, and the bug-zapper glow they emit, are just plain ugly.
A ray of hope is on the horizon: light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The technology is new and expensive, but it will get better and less expensive. LEDs are highly energy efficient and contain no mercury. I say CFLs are obsolete already. Let’s wait for LEDs to get it right, use the incandescents until they do, and hold the mercury, please.
8/4/08: If It Was Easy Anyone Could Do It
I’m painting my house. It’s two stories with a steeply pitched roof and cedar shake siding. The previous owner thought a good look for the house would be clown-makeup blue, along with several other colors on the eaves, gutters and trim, and had it painted just before she put it on the market. I had sold my previous house in 45 minutes and was desperate to find a place to land, but even though the house was for sale in my neighborhood of choice, I drove past it many times before going in because I couldn’t imagine living in a clown’s house. Now, eight months later, it’s becoming a sensible tan.
Most people don’t paint their own houses, I know. They hire professionals. But I wanted to save a few grand and was looking for a summer project. Full of optimism when the project began, I thought I could knock it out in a weekend. Several weekends later I have become Elden, the ubiquitous house painter from “Murphy Brown” who never quite finished painting Murphy’s house. So far I have refused to let anyone else pick up a paint brush. I want the feeling of accomplishment that comes from knowing I did it myself. Juggling a paint brush and paint can while standing on an aluminum ladder 20 feet above terra firma, I’ve had moments when I doubted my sanity. But then I remember something my dad used to say: “If it was easy, anyone could do it.” The implication was that what made it hard was exactly what made it worth doing. I’m almost done now, should be by next weekend, and I am keeping the brushes to myself. I want my boys to remember the summer their mom painted the house. Because she could. Because it was hard.
Updated 8/12: I finished! I finished!
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