My Mom Rocks!

This past Sunday (Mother's Day) we left our own church meeting early so that we could hear my mother speak in Sacrament Meeting. I didn't feel very bad about missing out on the Mother's Day gift I would have received after our own meeting. It was a plant. It would have died a slow, painful death anyway. My mother recently turned 91. She wanted to go to college and serve a mission, but she decided to marry my father instead. (All 9 of her children are very grateful for her decision.) She has always been an avid reader and is self-educated. There is a saying about being blessed because my mother read to me. I was doubly blessed. Not only did my mother read to me, she read her own books where I could see her example.

Back to Mom's Sacrament Meeting talk. Her first sentence, which I wrote down verbatim, was "We are blessed as women to hold an equal place with men in the sight of God. But with that comes great responsibility." She then spoke about how parents bear equal responsibility to raise and nurture their children. (Incidentally, that was my father's attitude, too.) So on the outside, I was being very calm and reverent. On the inside, I was jumping up and down, yelling, "Yeah! Go, Mom!" I knew there were people there who needed to hear that. So, yeah, my Mom pretty much rocks!

"Z" is for Zumba

I really hate exercising. I don't like sweating. It's just icky. On the other hand, I don't enjoy being out of shape, having a double chin, and worrying about the heart disease and atherosclerosis that runs in my family. So anything that makes exercise less like exercise and more like fun is great. I used to go dancing a couple of times a week. Then I married a man who doesn't really like to dance. So mostly now I walk while listening to an audiobook or podcasts or music. Then my daughter and I tried a Zumba class together, and I officially declare it closer to fun than exercise. The first time I tried it, we did a solid hour of cardio. (I think I stopped for a few seconds a couple of times to sip some water.) At the end, I was absolutely dripping in sweat and feeling like every muscle in my body had been worked out. The oddest thing was, I wanted to keep going! The trickiest part is finding a class to go to that fits my schedule. So now my Zumba is limited to dancing along with videos. At least no one gets to see me sweat.

"Y" is for Youth is Wasted on the Young

Right now my daughter is at a "Black Light Splash Drum" dance fundraiser. She, along with 2 other students from our school, and going to nationals for speech and debate. (WooHoo!) So someone came up with this idea. They rented the town's old opera house/dance hall and covered it floor to ceiling in clear plastic and hung black lights. They brought in a deejay and some big old drums. I guess the idea is you poor fluorescent paint on the drums, and then when someone pounds along to the music, paint flies everywhere. She dashed home a little while ago and grabbed up all the towels. I guess all that paint splashing on the plastic covering the floor was making it slippery and people were falling down. The paint is all supposed to be washable. If not, I need new towels anyway. I can just imagine how much fun they're all having, dancing and splashing and glowing in the dark. and I think how fun it would be to be a teenager again. Then I think of all the cleanup these kids are going to have to do after the party is over. In this case, I'm glad I'm the old person staying at home.

"X" is for Xenodocheionology

Xenodocheionology means "the love of hotels." Wouldn't it just be easier to say, "I love hotels?"

"W" is for Writing versus Working for Money

You can earn money with a writing career, of course. But it takes talent, work, and time. You have to really learn the craft. There is an element of luck. Networking helps. Being in the right place at the right time to pitch an idea to an editor or agent can help. Eventually, if you do everything right, you can make a living at it. Unfortunately, bills do not wait for "eventually." So tonight, working for money trumps writing.

"V" is for Vivaldi with The Piano Guys

How awesome is this? My favorite classical musicians, The Piano Guys, released a new video with a mashup of the Bourne Soundtrack and Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto, right when I needed something for letter "V." (Check out the all-steel cello!)

"U" is for Un-Google Yourself

Recently an old friend and I had a discussion about internet privacy. My friend wanted to pull back, be more private, and pretty much be anonymous. On the other hand, I want more publicity and name recognition, because I am an author. So for all you paranoid private people (too bad today's letter isn't "P") here are some general tips I've found. 1. Don't do stupid stuff. Do not let yourself be caught in any situation that would look really bad if someone took a picture. Do not leave ranting comments on any online site under your real name. 2. If you want an online presence, but want to be anonymous, pick a good pseudonym. (Authors have been doing this for years in print. It's a pretty trick.) Use something that, if Googled, will be hidden in an avalanche of innocuous results, like "SillyCats." 3. Google yourself. (I recommend doing this on any other search engine you can find, but "Yahoo yourself" and "Bing yourself" just don't have the same verb appeal.) See what's out there. Use all variations of your name, including middle name and/or initial. Use quotation marks to narrow down the search. If something shows up that you don't want floating around in the cloud, request that it be taken down, or that you are referred to by a nickname. 4. Bury it. If there is something out there you can't get rid of, hide it. Most people using a search engine are not going to go past the first several pages. So pick some innocuous subject (recipes, gardening, model trains) and create a very professional-looking blog, using your real name. Do a short blog post at least once a day. Use lots of keyword labels. That's what will pull your posts to the top of the search engines. Enough of that kind of thing will push what you don't want seen further and further back in the search results. For more tips, try Googling "how to un-google yourself."