In Search of a Rainbow

Thought for the day: If you want to see a rainbow, you have to put up with some rain.

It seems that managing a website, even one as "simple" as blogger, is not my best bag. For eight years, I supported a wonderful amateur radio website, but all I had to do then, besides pay for the hosting and domain of the thing, was provide input to our three fabulous webmasters and PRESTO! they did some kind of mysterious voodoo with it and BAM!  posted it just like THAT! (And let me tell ya, they really made it look G-O-O-D, too.)

Now, here I am, floundering in a sink-or-swim situation, and to tell the truth, my swimming capabilities never were all that hot, and I still don't know what the heck I'm doing with this blog. Honest, it really wasn't my intention for the header and header picture for this blog to take up a whole darned screen, but shrinking it down to a more reasonable size has eluded my meager capabilities so far. Still haven't figured out how to add more than one picture to a blogpost yet, either. And alas and alack, maybe I DO need to change the title to a more "original" one, after all.

But hey, I'm still a newbie, right? This blog is only a week old, so I'm bound to get better. One can only hope. (On the other hand, I could always learn to love a full-screen header ...!)  In the meantime, I'll just keep on plugging. I don't expect to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I WOULD like to make it to the rainbow. For now, though, I reckon I'll just have to put up with the rain. And that's just fine. I have two handy-dandy yellow rain hats.

So, no time to be discouraged, right? Sure, this whole blogging thing is a little outside of my usual comfort zone, but it's time to expand something other than my girth. By George, I WILL get it! I WILL reach the rainbow! But just so ya know, I'm not ready to jump into Facebook or Twitter just yet. I'm not ready to "tweet" yet. However, I may "toot" now and then, especially after I eat some of my husband's sugar-free cookies.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other. I believe I'll take a nap.

But They're In My Heart

Nope, sorry, I'm not planning on whipping out my wallet to bribe you guys into posting a comment today. I was just wondering: do you carry around a bunch of pictures in your wallet?

Years ago, while browsing in the infant department at the local department store, I ran into an older woman who was looking rather lost in the midst of all those diapers and baby bottles. We smiled, exchanged a few friendly words, and the next thing I knew, she was showing me pictures of her grandchildren. My daughter, who was about twelve at the time, executed a perfect adolescent eye roll at me. Poor thing, she was absolutely mortified. I mean, how could her mother stand in the middle of the store carrying on like that with a complete stranger(!)?
The thing is, I didn't have any pictures in my wallet to share with that nice lady. Still don't. I'm married to the love of my life, have three wonderful children, and a whole herd of smart, beautiful grandkids. But no pics to whip out in the middle of the infant department or anywhere else. But they ARE in my heart.

How about you? Is your wallet crammed with pictures of your loved ones? (Or I suppose, nowadays, a bunch of you carry around one of those electronic gizmos that not only stores pictures ... AND videos!, but also surfs the internet, and starts your coffeepot in the morning ...)

Interesting aside: Although one of my husband's business associates had a wife and kids, he chose to carry around pictures of his DOG! I'm not sure what that meant, and have no idea if he's still married, either ...

Anyway, I'm not gonna whip out pictures of my family here, but I am going to give a shout out to one of my chicks. It's her birthday. She's no longer an eye-rolling adolescent, and I'm pleased to say, she's just as likely to strike up a lively conversation with a complete stranger(!) as I am now. Let's call her Honey Bunny, and though she's thirty-three years old today, she'll always, always be our baby. A baby with a big heart and even bigger smile. Who's very much loved.

Even if I don't have a picture of her in my wallet.

Thought for the day: The secret to eternal youth? Simple. Lie about your age.

Startling Statistics

Thought for the day: The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Geez, never did get around to posting a blog yesterday. Thought about it, though, if that counts. No, huh? Ok, so here I am today, determined to pound out something on the keyboard before another sunset.

I read somewhere that 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Could be. Could even be more. Back in the dark ages, I worked in a medical lab. We had to do some clinical stuff, but the meat of our work was in research, and since a number of the doctors had to publish research papers periodically in order to maintain their grants, let's just say that it was definitely in their best interests to produce predictable results. So, in essence, they came up with a theory, and we lowly technicians were expected to provide the data to prove it statistically. And ya know what? If you throw out enough data points, you can prove darned near anything. To tell the truth, it was never something I was entirely comfortable with doing, but since none of the work we were doing was life-and-death, I learned to let it go. (You can only get away with arguing with your bosses for so long ...)

So, what's that have to do with anything? Well, after conducting massive research, reading  hundreds a handful of blogs, I've concluded that we writers have a lot of things in common. Here are the startling statistics:

95% of us started reading at a very early age, and continue to be heavy readers today
90% of us started writing our own stories as children
85% of us are cat and/or dog lovers
80% of us are tea drinkers
75% of us enjoy (ahem) adult beverages
70% of us hear voices in our heads
BUT
100% of us doubt our own abilities.

It's true. Even the famous and oft-published are sometimes plagued with doubts. Ok, so I made that other stuff up, but I'd be willing to bet the self-doubt part is true. It isn't just us unpublished who sometimes suspect our work is a big pile of dog poo. We all do, at one time or another.

And in that, I somehow find some comfort.

So, keep on keeping on, people. Success could be just around the next corner. I'd say there's a 50% chance for it.


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