i swear i'm going to try to make
this short today .. i have a ton of work piling up from the office and
my next chemo date is coming up too quickly for my comfort .. in the
past few days i've been using up all available energy writing in my
journal and calling my mom and family .. today i need to refocus and get
some office work done as those deadlines are approaching very quickly!!
my
sister, Susie came to rescue me yesterday .. removing all the leftovers
from my fridge (since i simply cannot stand the smell of food in my
fridge) and then she went to work on my to-do list and did the rest of
my shopping while i slept .. can you believe what a gracious host i am?
she drives 40 minutes, arrives bearing gifts and housecleaning supplies
and i take a nap lol
which is odd, because when i'm alone, i
cannot nap .. i rest, i close my eyes, but if i don't take an
anti-anxiety pill, there is NO way i can nap .. unless there is someone
else in my house
and my house is spotless ::big sigh of relief::
not that i was some super extraordinary housekeeper before all of this
.. but at least before, i would have cleaned up before my sister arrived
;-)
y'all know i adopt homeless cats right? y'all know that all
the cats were born and raised outside before i got my hands on them ..
not one indoor cat owns me .. the oldest of our cats, momma skittles,
removed the metal grating from the vent in the laundry room and now all
the cats use it as a kitty door .. and they all come and go as they
please
well, except our big boy, Mocha Stud .. he's probably
close to 35 pounds now and can't get his huge ass through the tiny vent
hole .. so he stands outside my window and calls me to open the door
should he want to sleep on my bed for a few days :)
and y'all know that i live in a orchard right?
see
.. down there .. the orchard i live in is at the upper left corner ..
and just so you're not fooled into believing i live in the boonies ..
i've made sure and included the nearest freeway interchanges (we call
those which-way-bridges in my family lol)
oh .. and if you want your own map .. you can download the coolest program free from http://earth.google.com/
well my kitties keep the orchards clear of vermin, varmints and critters
several
months after i moved into our tiny little cottage, the prior resident
stopped by .. oh so casually he asks "so what do you think of all the
mice?" .. "MICE?" i wailed? come to find out, when he was living here
(and before my next door neighbor was the proud owner of 10 cats that
they no longer wanted) he goes on to tell me that when he lived in my
cottage, they would get 20 - 30 mice a day running through .. i've been
here 5 years and have had ZERO live ones run through .. i do however
have to deal with dead ones, parts of dead ones and those smart ones
that just "play dead" until i rescue them .. thankfully we've had no
activity in the pest area since my chemo started
until yesterday
morning when i discovered critter parts in my kitchen, i freaked out ..
100% total hysteria .. i think i even threatened to kill my cats .. so
Sister Susie calmed me down, had me throw a towel over the creature ..
and immediately, momma, who is also known as the "feline shredder" runs
over thinking "OH Goody !! more paper for me to shred !!"
actually,
i have a picture of shredder momma .. she got ahold of a paper bag,
shredded it so carefully and then made a bed out of it lol
so i scream and then grab a bowl to throw over the entire mess until my sister could arrive a few hours later
oh
.. by the way .. Susie? if you're reading this, there is yet another
critter this morning .. not parts .. the entire huge friggin creature ..
on my kitchen rug .. and i don't know if he's dead cause he's not in
parts .. but he's safely (?) covered by tupperware so in case he IS
still alive he'll be fresh by the time i can find someone to rescue me
::sigh:: yet again
my niece Sue-Sue (no, thats her nickname .. to
distinguish her from Aunt Susie and wife-in-ex-law Suzan) dropped by
yesterday afternoon since they were driving right by my house so i
called and asked them to drop by .. she had my nephew Michael, his
friend, and her son Ty-Ty
(Sue-Sue and my other niece Jen are the daughters of Aunt Susie's fraternal twin sister, Charlene)
yes, i know this gets complicated .. but i DO have 7 siblings so it will get even more complicated lol
i
even made sure and got my nieces permission to put a picture of her in
myjournal .. (hehe .. she just didn't say EXACTLY which picture i could
put so i left it to my own discretion)
i've decided to post 2 pictures .. the first, i am smiling, she's not smiling but looking all cute and stuff
the
second picture, i look like a creature from a scary movie BUT the
camera caught her laughing at something .. i think she looks better when
she is smiling so i included that picture too
i
had thoughts of just editing myself out of the picture so y'all
wouldn't have to see how ill looking i've become in the past 10 days ..
but ya know .. thats how i look ::shrugging:: i may as well get used to
it i guess and besides .. i can delete comments that are unflattering
hehe
oh, and before i end this journal entry cause i'm getting a
migraine in my right eye and i can barely make out letters any longer..
here is a cute pic (hope you can make it out) of my nieces son, and
friend, playing a weird form of Twister :)
oh .. no cancer or chemo talk today .. i'll make sure and fill y'all in on all those wonderful details later :) xoxoxox
my journal has finally reached the milestone of 30,000 visitors !! yea yea i know .. kinda sappy i know, but still !!
thank you so much to ALL the readers who've visited my journal since July 20, 2003 !!
and especially, a huge thanks to my distinguished milestone visitor ..
Comment Added
A comment has been posted to the Journal:Just One Girls Head Noise
Monday Photo Shoot : Night Scenes
Comment from: plittle
Well, I had something very clever to say, until I found out that I had been beaten to it. Three or four times.
-Paulhttp://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/
and
now for something even more sappy .. i'm saving this screen shot as
proof cause i plan on taking down my tracker/counter from sitemeter.com
.. even though i still don't trust the counter supplied by aol not to
reset to zero again, i really would like to put something more
interesting in my all about me section
by way of Mr Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot: Night Scenes Your Monday Photo Shoot: Night Scenes while
i wouldn't particularly call this photo a "striking scene at night" ..
(ok, i wouldn't call it anything remotely close to that) it just happens
to be the only night photo that i've ever taken that was in any way
worth keeping
as i
went out one evening to have a quick smoke, i decided to try to capture a
shot of the full moon with my digital camera .. what i ended up
capturing was instead my cigarette smoke .. turned out kinda of eerie eh
!!
my son just finished his "drive by"
ya know .. drive up to moms house, take a shower, get something to eat .. leave ..
least
he stopped long enough to find out if his grades had been posted from
his sophomore year at University of Hawaii .. yup .. they had .. he just
earned a 3.4 GPA !!! and not that animated gif this has anything to do with anything but its so cute i couldn't resist lol i must have watched this thing 10 times now and i'm still laughing !!!
this entry is my attempt to
answer some of the questions i've been receiving lately from new
journalers who are interested in increasing their readership
i have a few suggestions, please,
just keep in mind that these are MY personal opinion .. i am confident
that there is more than one way to skin a cat and not everyone will
agree with my suggestions, but here are a few things you might want to
consider ...
first, be aware of the simple
fact that not everyone appreciates or enjoys an identical type of
journal content or format, so the more people that read your journal,
the better chance you have of finding regular readers who are
considerate enough to leave encouraging comments
ADVERTISE YOUR JOURNAL
!! i would suggest that you pick a handful of journals you consider
enjoyable .. journals that have the same "audience" that you feel might
be interested in your journal
make it a point to
visit those journals on a regular basis and introduce yourself .. let
them know how you found their journal .. then keep going back and leave
comments along with the FULL url for your journal (http://journals.aol.com/yourscreenname/yourjournalname)
remember that the url for aol
journals IS case sensitive (there is nothing more frustrating than for
someone to leave a comment with a note to "visit my journal" yet they
don't take the time to let you know where their journal is .. or worse
yet, give the wrong url !!)
if someone is considerate enough
to leave well thought out and encouraging comments in MY journal, you
can bet that i'm going to be motivated to return the favor !!
put the links to those handful of
journals in your Other Journals section .. that section is one of the
deciding factors when i choose to visit another journal on a regular
basis .. if their other journal section is empty it is an indication to
me that they have no interest in other journals and i quickly lose
interest in their journal
TARGET YOUR READERS !!
is the font you use in your journal large enough for most readers to
see? are your selected journal colors inviting? while a size 10 purple
font on a burgundy background might look good to you, what you might be
doing is eliminating a large number of aol members that simply can't
see what you are attempting to share
CHOOSE YOUR CONTENT !!
be aware of who you envision is your "target audience" and when you
write, keep them in mind .. if it is your desire to attract people who
complain and moan .. then by all means, fill each journal entry with
complaining and negativity .. but remember that if you intend on
attracting humorous thoughtful readers then you need to post similar
content so that they want to come back for more
are you a collector of jokes,
memorable quotes or recipes? are you are family oriented? then visit
journals with similar content and target those readers !!
BECOME INVOLVED !!
there is a growing community of aol journalers who are connected by one
single commonality, we each have an AOL Journal .. become "involved" in
the community .. start by joining and becoming involved in the Born to Blog Community and the AOL Journal Message Board .. you might also want to check out the member guided message board J-land Bar and Grill
PARTICIPATE in one of the interactive journals mr scalzi's weekend assignment - check out an example here Weekend Assignment #58: Mothers and Children check his journal daily for the newest Assignment - By The Way... participate in patricks place "Saturday Six" - The Saturday Six - Episode 56
participate in the Journal Jar - The Journal Jar
MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO FIND YOUR JOURNAL .. add the link to your journal(s) on your message board signature and your AOL profile
to add a link to your journal in your message board signature:
click "setup" or "preferences" at the top of any message board
click "signature"
open your journal
click on the favorite place heart (the little red heart appearing in the right hand corner)
hold the button down and drag the heart over to the signature area
click "save"
now anytime you post to a message board, as long as the "use signature" box is checked, your link will appear
to add your link to your AOL profile:go to keyword: myprofile
click on "my profile" in the upper right corner
click on "links" from list in the left column
open your journal click and drag the favorite place heart from your journal into the text area
click "finish"
there
are 2 known publicly used and member created AOL Journal Directories
that are used by journalers to find other journals to read .. you can
leave the link to your journal in the comment section of either
directory to have your journal added
AOL Journal Directory (journals listed by screen name) created by myself : AOL Journal Directory
The Unofficial AOL Journal (journals listed by interest) created by lioneyes4you : The Unofficial AOL Journal Directory
there
are some of us that werelucky enough to have started a journal back
when it was first introduced in beta testing .. with only a handful of
journals to choose from, things were less complicated
!! but with the recent surge in aol journals, i have a hard time
deciding which journals i choose to visit and contribute to
MAKE AN EFFORT TO FIND READERS !! you need to go out and find your readers !!
USE YOUR JOURNAL to
share other journals that you find interesting .. both by using the
other journals section and perhaps highlighting selected journals in
entries
BE CONSISTENT .. be
patient .. be uplifting and encouraging .. if you are just now finding
your way to aol journals,be aware that most of us have already used up
the allotment of links in our other journals sections .. its just a tad
more competitive than it was when AOL Journals were initially
created for that limited and valuable space to add links to other
journals
even i was forced a few days ago
to sit down and take a serious look at the links in my other journals
section .. i was finding new and interesting journals to read but there
simply wasn't room to add them all .. i had to sit down and decide which
links to eliminate .. those that were filled with constant negativity
or had fonts that were too small to read or had backgrounds that were
too dark, or journals that were no longer posting daily updates were the
ones to be removed so that i could add new links to journals with more
appealing content
if its not your nature to compete with the established journals then go out and find other new journals and target them !!
show them how to entice readers
through adding comments to other journals .. put up a link in your
journal to the Born to Blog community
MAKE A COMMITMENT !! it
does take a lot of time and effort to get your journal established ..
if you are just starting out, plan on spending several hours a day to
compose your journal entries and make the rounds to leave comments ..
the established journalers can vouch for the fact that you can't expect
to take a few days off and retain your readership until well after you
are established
above all, try to have fun !!
although it has become more competitive .. the rewards of having
regular, considerate readers makes this all worthwhile
ok .. i know "officially" Mother's Day was sunday .. but i decided to take a rain check
i'm counting down till the days my 20 year old son arrives home from hawaii after completing his 2nd year of college
6 days and counting !!
i haven't seen my boy since Christmas .. 5 months .. 5 very long months
ask me if i'm just a little excited !!!
he's
hoping to stay for just a few weeks and then head back to hawaii .. a
few weeks .. a few days .. hell, i've got withdrawal and i'd settle for a
few glorious hours with my boy
since he went back to school
shortly after Christmas, he's celebrated his 20th birthday .. i've
celebrated my 48th birthday .. mothers day has come and gone .. nobody
asked, but it pretty much felt like every other day to me .. there was
still laundry to be done .. dishes to be washed .. cats to be fed ..
carpets to be vacuumed .. and so forth and so on
still i'm a
proud momma .. my baby boy is finishing up his 2nd year of college .. in
a few short months my baby girl will be heading off to high school
where i've decided to enroll her in "How not to lose your cellphone 101"
"mom
.. i pretty much plan on staying with you (instead of with dad) when i
come home this summer" my son told me this weekend, wanting to know if
that was ok ..
hmmmm .. let me think about it !!
;-)
first thing this morning i noticed
one of our cats, momma, scratching frantically trying to get something
out from under the stove .. great .. i haven't recovered from the last
creature and here we go with another one
except this was a little different .. obviously the creature was still alive or it wouldn't have taken refuge under the stove
i wondered if i had time to pack and move before it ventures out of its safe hiding space
eventually momma
cat gave up trying to retrieve her newest toy and went outside again to
play .. the creature decided it was time to make a break for it
to
give you some perspective as to its enormity, the glass is 6 1/2 inches
tall and the diameter of the rim of the glass is 3 INCHES and it barely
covered this killer moth .. and yes, its alive
this creature is
now on its way to my daughters science teacher .. there was NO way i was
terminating its life nor could i risk letting it free with the outside
chance that it might return when i least expect it
i guess its a step up from rats eh?
