Cat & Owl
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I hope you like this as much as I do. Their Facebook site is: https://www.facebook.com/fumandgebra

 

Video: Megaxibeca

Video: Megaxibeca

Video: fumandgebra

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Posted in Animals | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dogs vs. Cats
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I’m not a dog person.

I’m one of those ladies that will die leaving forty cats. Well, maybe not forty. The most cats I’ve ever had were eighteen and sixteen of them were feral.

If I’m a cat person, why does my husband’s dog follow me around. He walks and feeds her but other than that, his dog is with me all the time. She doesn’t get more than a few feet from me when we are both in the house.

I’m wondering if her devotion to me has something to do with the three baskets full of dog toys I bought her. Maybe, it’s because I comb and brush her or cut her nails. Could it be the water bowl in the bathroom that I fill several times a day? I know it’s not the two – three marshmallows that she shares with me every night when I make hot chocolate. 

OMG, I’m a dog person, too!

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Turning 60
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What’s it like to turn sixty? Depressing and it happens so fast. I keep thinking about how much longer I’m going to live or should I buy something with a long warranty. Maybe, I’ll outlive the warranty period. I want a kitten, but will I outlive him/her?

I can remember turning eleven, twenty-one, thirty …

What should you do for your sixtieth birthday? Whatever you want. I went to the gun range and out for a late lunch with my husband. It was a wonderful day.

Now that I am old I better find a way to enjoy it. Maybe, I should just assume I will live to be ninety and that I have lots of time left. I think that beats writing a bucket list and trying to check off the items on the list.

I think I’ll start with appreciating what I have a little more and stop thinking about when I’m going to die.

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Posted in Feeling, Health | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Adopting A Cat
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Another Mean Kitty video. The “engineers” have seventeen “Mean Kitty” videos.

TJ adopts Sweet William kitty

Video: 

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Diet Update
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My diet is going well. It’s more like a life style change. I’ve stopped eating sweets. I’ve been working out on a Total Gym and with free weights for the last three weeks. I was using my bike, but my knee was hurting.  My goal is to exercise without hurting my knee and lose weight.

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Top-Down/Bottom-Up Shades
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We’ve been living without window coverings for almost ten months and I finally broke down and ordered some blinds. I liked the shades my neighbor had so I called in Kevin Heinrich from our local Budget Blinds.  We had used him twelve years ago and liked him and his service.

Once again, Kevin did a great job.  I love our new blinds.  I’ve taken some pictures, which do NOT do the blinds justice.


The view out the breakfast nook window.

The sunset out the dinning room windows with the blinds half down.

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Posted in Home improvement | Tagged | 1 Comment

Trip down to Orange County
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Christine Taylor and I went down to Fullerton for several days to work with Jim Leonard on marketing strategies for our new book on bereavement, Tears to Laughter. We got a lot done and we came back home with a long laundry list. I had no idea how little I knew about marketing a book.

Here’s where we are on the ePub version, the printed copy and the marketing:

ePub Version:

Read by two editors; three testimonials and text customized (no tabs, etc.) for Kindle – almost ready for launch.

Good cover – the artist has completed this.

In-lieu of contracts – one outstanding contract remaining.

Bios – one outstanding bio remaining.

Printed Copy:

Good cover  – the artist hasn’t started this yet.

Convert Kindle version to print copy.

Pick POD publisher.

Marketing:

Create a buzz for the authors – I’ve been doing this for almost five years for myself.

Create a website – I’ve created many and I’ve already started the book’s website.

Special header for the website – the artist is almost done with it.

Bookmarks – the artist will work on this next.

Book radio shows.

Book magazines?

PULL HAIR OUT! 

This is where I am lost and want to scream.

 

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Posted in Books, Marketing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Technologies For Writers – Third Seminar
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Our seminar series is based on a proprietary media marketing program written by Debra Davis Hinkle.

Our third class included information on Word, specifically for Kindle publication. There were some more general editing tricks taught: creating a ePub template or an POD template, how to remove all formatting from a document, text editing using track changes, advanced find and replace commands, clearing all tabs, table of contents, etc.

This class was difficult for me because I was unfamiliar with over half of the subjects and I am using Microsoft Word 2010 which I’ve had for less than two weeks.  The class had different versions of Word which greatly slowed the instruction down, however this knowledge of Word is crucial to publishing your book.

The seminar was designed and taught mostly by Jim Leonard for writers in general and specifically for the Friday Night Writers’ Group. He’s an excellent and very patient instructor. Christine Taylor acted as his very capable assistant.

The class was intended to increase the writers’ skill and speed in editing Word documents and submissions to Kindle leaving more time for marketing their writing. There will be at least one more class in the series.

The authors will make this proprietary media marketing program and seminar series available on Kindle later this year.

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Posted in Author, Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Year – New Theme
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Christine and I finally finished our theme.  It took us a while to get back to the project. We choose Weaver 2.2.6 by Bruce Wampler and I’m very happy with it. The look is not identical, but is very close and It is extremely user friendly and has lots of options which make up for it not being perfect.

I especially like that the author’s avatar will appear automatically above their post. I’ve been putting mine in for all these years. Changing the colors and sizes were very simple. I can’t speak for Christine, but it didn’t take her long to create the blogroll, either.

 

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Posted in Artwork, Social Media | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Arborist
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Well I called in the arborist and I got arborists. They were nice and very capable. But, I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone, unless you want to feel cheated. 

That’s how I feel and it will be a long time before that feeling goes away. They didn’t arrive on time, but wanted to be paid from when they should have arrived.  They didn’t have their paper work with them so they didn’t know what to do. I had to show them again what I wanted done–more delay–still paid on time. They wanted travel time home, too.

There was suppose to be a crew of four and a crew of three showed up and while one was estimating other job(s), another was getting a piece of equipment, a third was missing, I had a crew of one for thirty – sixty minutes. In all, I paid for five hours of work that was done in four hours and done by less that the number of people stated. 

I would love to put their name is big letters on this blog. But, I don’t wish to be sued on top of the money I’ve already had ripped from my checking account. 

Bottom line is my knee feels a little better!

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Posted in Gardening | Tagged , | Leave a comment