Snow Day

The Littles woke up this morning with snow on their minds. They have been wishing for snow for the past three days, so were very excited that it finally happened. The other two are still sleeping, and probably will be for a few more hours.

Our house is only about 200 feet above sea level and we rarely have snow. From the weather reports, it sounds like we are due for some sub-freezing temperatures for the next week and the snow will be sticking around for a while.

Happy Monday!

Breakfast spontaneity from the littlest of The Littles.

A Novel Idea

So I got bored with my ordinary life the other day and decided to write a book.

As I told you in my previous blog, our computer was down and I had a small chunk of free time to waste. I thought I'd check out Stephenie Meyer's "Breaking Dawn", but I realized it is the last book of a series of four and decided I had best start at the beginning.

So I read "Twilight".

I devoured it.

All five-hundred-and-some-odd pages.

In one sitting.

And the next evening I bought the second book.

And stayed up all night to read it.

And then I had to get up and go back to my ordinary boring life. I had to get the kids up, make lunches and fix breakfast, drive to school, shop, cook, remind everyone of their after school schedules, and so on. But my ordinary life wasn't working for me so well anymore. I had this insatiable desire to keep reading.

The next book wasn't in my meager budget until the next payday, a week and a day away. So after a few days I started asking coworkers if any of them had read the series and would anyone please, please, please loan me the book. One had a daughter who had read the books and she would see if the daughter would let me borrow them. Hooray!!

But it never happened. The books were on their way around Oregon. The daughter loaned them to a friend who read them and loaned them to a friend who did the same. their last known whereabouts were somewhere in Eugene. I was not likely to get them anytime soon.

So I broke my budget. Oh, the guilt. But oh, the ecstacy! I had the book in my hot little hands and....

Oh, yeah...I'm going to write a book. (And take my kids to see the Twilight movie!)

I finished reading all four books in the "Twilight" series, then started on "The Hunger Games". All this reading got me to thinking that it might be fun to try writing my own book.

I would have to come up with a plot (certainly not vampires - that's already been done) and a setting (I thought of a few places in Oregon that would make good backdrops) and maybe I could just fill in the rest.

I've been playing with ideas all week and running them past my husband and kids to see if they would read a book like mine. I don't know if they are just saying yes because they like me, but I'll take it as an encouraging sign and keep developing the story. I am quite surprised by how all the pieces are starting to fit together.

Maybe someday I will finish it and someone will read it. I would be happy even if it was just my family.

Computer Glitch

Here I am again, dealing with my recurring nightmare: hard drive failure. No email. No internet. No games. The kids have had to stay late do their homework on the computers in the school library. No calendar. Oops, missed an important appointment this morning. No contact list. I have to reenter my contact list because I couldn't get it to back up the other day?!! Aaaaaaaagh! No fun.

So, what's the problem? We have a non-descript disk read error that balks at our efforts at rehabilitation. We tried everything we know and a few things we didn't (thanks to a few kind and merciful computer geniuses we know) to make it work, but nothing helped. I have had four days of moody pre-teens and teenagers mucking about the house with complaints of boredom and endless misery. I've been without email and internet for four days and I've read two 500 page novels just to keep busy.

My husband and I have installed two hard drives in the past six months. Last night, he installed a third. We are officially back up today thanks to that wonderful man! So today I am setting up accounts, upgrading the browser, installing and configuring programs and trying to salvage anything I can get off of the old hard drive. I am hurriedly trying to catch back up with my email and am oh so happy to be in touch with the world again.

In Response to a News Article About Telemarketers

I work as a telemarketer and fundraiser for a local non-profit organization. I love my job because I can go to work part time, spend time with my kids, pick my own schedule, and still make good money. I talk to the nicest people every day. Some of them even buy what I am offering. Most of them are polite when they answer the phone and assertive enough to say what they want or don't want. For the rest of you, here are a few tips:

1. Say no if you mean no.
No, thank you. No, I'm not interested. No, I don't like your product. No way, no how. If you say maybe or if you say yes, I'm calling you back. Soon. Until you finally pick up the phone and say "no."

2. Get on the National and State Do Not Call lists.
It doesn't help right away, but after a month or so, most the people you don't want to hear from stop calling. Don't forget that there are some exemptions. You can still get calls from companies with which you have done business, non-profit organizations and a few others. If you don't want these calls, ask to be put on the company's own Do Not Call List.

3. All you have to do is ask.
If you do not ask me to put you on our Do Not Call List, I won't. If you hang up on me, your name will go back into our rotation and I will be calling you again for our next campaign. Neither one of us is looking forward to that.

4. Choose when you are available or unavailable.
If you answer your phone in the middle of a meeting, dinner or an important project, I am not the one who is responsible for interrupting you. Really, I couldn't tell as I was dialing that this was a "bad time to call." Don't answer the phone if you don't want to be interrupted.

I hope some of these tips work for you. You can practice them on me next time I call you. I promise I won't yell.

A link to the article: http://www.katu.com/news/28588599.html