Secret Santa Meets Spock

This is what I found on my desk this morning from my secret santa:


This is gift 3. Gift 1 was Rudolph's Rockin' Raspberry Lip Balm. Hmm. Someone knows I am addicted to chapstick but the world can tell that.

Gift 2 is when I knew my SS was asking someone what I liked. I found chocolate covered cherries on my desk yesterday. No one outside of my department would know I love those as much as I do. AND they got the kind with the clear liquid, not the milky stuff. Kudos to them!

Today, gift 3, it's Star Trek, and Spock no less, who has always been my favorite. Don't recall telling that particular detail to the elf helping my Secret Santa so if he or she (I think it's a he) is guessing, then it might be a little scary. Especially if the person is who I think it is.

Thursday shall tell all!

Children Say the Dumbest Things

I was born and lived in southeast D.C. until I was 9. I went to a private school, where the teachers sometimes let you spend the night at their homes. (It was indeed a different time.) My best friend at school was one of the most popular kids in school even though we were on the younger end of things. We mostly got along with the older kids, though, simply because they adored my cute and friendly best friend so life was good.

I lived on a REALLY long street (at least that's how I recall it) where you could literally see the financial differences between the homes as you drove from one end to the other. I was in the middle. My best friend's house on my street was pretty much as far as I could go on one end. It was headed toward the rougher end. Maybe that was partly why. We had block parties and everyone played together. I was even Miss B Street one year because of my grades. Life was good there too.

Right before 5th grade, my family and I moved to Philly. That's when life became a challenge. The kids in Philly had a knack for knowing I wasn't from there because I spoke "proper" or "white." (My private school was all black, by the way, including most if not all of the teachers.) If you don't know what speaking proper means, it means I use nouns AND verbs and some of my words may be more than 2 syllables. I'm sure any African-American can tell you the deal with this particular issue. It's right up there with the light-skinned/dark-skinned and good hair/bad hair crap we still struggle with today. (Oh yeah. My hair was long too and so in the early days some kids believed it was fake even when it was pinned up.) Basically, this is all stupid. But it's still very much alive and ruining lives on a daily basis.

I eventually found my people in Philly and by high school, found some relative peace. But you never forget the dumb things kids say to each other. As much as you hate to let it get to you, you know you are shaped by it for life.

That's why it slightly pains but mostly angers me when my kids come home with the latest grievance.

Today from 4th-grade Son: "Today I was mostly ignored. I spoke to them but no one really spoke back."

Yesterday from Son: "Mommy, some people told me my eyebrows make me look angry. When I raise them up, I look friendlier. Can I make them thinner?"

Last week from 1st-grade Daughter: "Today I was drawing and (Nameless Child) told me I have no imagination."

Last month from Daughter: "Mommy, ever since I started wearing glasses, people don't speak to me anymore. The only ones who speak to me are the other kids with glasses."

My response to every one of these? "Are you alright? Did that hurt your feelings? Well, do you know why that happened?" Generally, they say they are OK and they didn't know why the kids said what they did. After I see they aren't literally crying over it and feel certain they aren't going to have a break down or start trying to be different, I tell them that "friends" don't talk to friends that way. I tell them they can feel free to say, "Why do you feel that way? Yeah? Well, that's just stupid and you can keep on walking."

I do not love children. I love MY children. Big difference. So "stupid" is not a word I want to teach my kids but mainly because I want them to respect each other. They are the only siblings they have. I tell them not to use that word on each other but I'm short on patience so when I hear this, I tell them that kids sometimes just say stupid things to each other, like that black people aren't "s**t," (uttered by a Jamaican child), but they can't let it ruin their day. As long as THEY don't agree and WE don't agree, then nothing else matters. In the words of Mariah Carey, we gotta shake it off.

"Daughter, your glasses are super cute and you are super cute in them, I tell you. I never wore them but they look GOOD on you, girl! (They really do.) You tell them if they don't want to be your friend because you wear glasses, then they are ridiculous and you don't have time for it. Not talking to someone because of glasses is just DUMB. You tell them that, Daughter."

"OK."

"No, Son, I am not going to let you make your eyebrows thinner. Your eyebrows are perfect. In fact, they are MINE (before I started getting them waxed). And anyone who knows you knows you are not angry. You tell them that's just the silliest thing you've ever heard and you keep on going."

"OK."

Son already has to deal with the foolish friends who tell him that he's "big" while they are skinny. Um, yeah, silly ones. His father is 6' 3", you little loonies. His cousins are drafted for pro basketball. Stop trying to make him feel badly for being a developing child. One day you'll strain your neck looking up at him.

I hate to see them getting their feelings hurt over things they have no control over or that simply aren't true but the little tykes are too limited in their world view to know it. I hate to keep telling them their so-called friends are silly and maybe they need to rethink their definition of a friend, or at the very least teach those kids how to treat them - give respect, get respect. Give nonsense, get the back of the head as you walk away. (Fingers together. Let us chant - We will not resort to smacking people. We will not resort to smacking people.) I suspect one day they will say exactly what I said and then we'll have all this politically correct crap to deal with, but I'll be all too happy to show my color then and share with the school admins/parents that my children are my primary concern, not their need to placate everyone.

I am SO glad not to be growing up at this time. The stupidity just flows from old to young to younger to youngest. My son's sensitive nature makes me concerned for him. He internalizes and keeps it there but he still tells me about it - for now. My daughter tends to wear her heart on her sleeve too but her hurt turns to anger and eventually she shakes you off, but all the world will hear her shaking you off. My concern for her is that someone ELSE will get hurt one day.

They tell me these things and I get thrown back to my own childhood every single time. I come back verbally swinging and hand them the bat, but yet trying not to make these things into baggage they will carry one day. I may not be winning that particular battle. But for now, we'll keep on cleaning Daughter's glasses, rubbing Son's eyebrows in the mornings so they lay straight and telling them they are the coolest kids we know - because they are.

Coming to the Finish/Starting Line

It's feels good to finish things. I've got two pressing unfinished projects in my life that I know I will complete eventually. For now, I've allowed myself to be consumed by Village Works and that's OK because there have been lots of things to start and complete there too. It's been funny, though, because out of the three completely sets of jobs we have pressing right now, 2 of them are not complete because of outside forces - one printer screwed up and now we're waiting on the fix so our customers will get their greeting cards before they start singing Auld Lang Syne. The other is one last person waiting to receive their custom puzzle, which seems to be AWOL. Thankfully, we never do just one of anything and a replacement was easy to send off yet again. Still, this particular job was already held up by - you guessed it - issues with the printer, a different one from the one just mentioned above.

Bizzy Girl and I started this year saying it was a do-or-die year. We knew what we wanted to do and simply needed to get ourselves there. We knew what we wanted to earn but it wasn't really about the money just yet. It was about creating the space to have the success we know we can have. She and I teamed up with Graphic Guru and together we planned out the year, month by month, sale by sale, greeting card by greeting card. Even though Graphic Guru had her own budding business, we wanted to work together to help each other - she helped us develop a new line of greeting cards and we took her wherever we went vending and the like. We also needed new greeting card jigsaw puzzles. But first our focus this year would be the website.

It was a do-or-die year, a year of life-altering changes. And now, 23 days away from a new year and 1 project away from wrapping up this season, Bizzy Girl and I took a quick moment to realize it was a very good year.

• Lots more consistency with our newsletter and special offers.
• Bizzy Girl's summer program that took her away for months is now no more (but this was also one of our best clients so it's a mixed blessing).
• We did our first big 2-day expo and met all sorts of great people.
• THE WEBSITE IS REVAMPED AND READY FOR ACTION!
• Graphic Guru finished the business workshop that Bizzy Girl and I completed some years back and now she's ready to step forward.
• Graphic Guru also had to lay to rest a marriage that never quite got off the ground and by 2010, she will be literally in a new space ready to breathe again.
• I don't know yet how many custom jobs we had this year but more than ever before.
• Did I mention, THE WEBSITE IS REVAMPED AND READY FOR ACTION! This means in 2010, a whole new focus on marketing.

It's all good. Great, even. When we thought about it, we realized we were truly nonstop there from September until now. I've barely written about anything else because I am inhaling and exhaling Village Works. And there is still so much more on our list of things to do. Since we're not yet profitable, you'd think this was really a year to give up. But how can we? We learned we were capable of so much more than we knew or wanted to admit.

Growing a business when you have a family and full-time job is not easy. at. all. If you a super-disciplined person who can stay on course no matter what, you might have some of what you need to get to your goal. But it won't be easy for you either. Sacrifice is a part of this and something or someone gets shortchanged in this process. It may be us not being our healthiest or doing the little things here and there that make us feel good. It may be our kids who, in my case, stay up late a little too much waiting for me to come home to check homework and do all the before-bed rituals because daddy just doesn't do the homework thing. It may be our homes, like Bizzy Girl who has been organizing her office bit by bit for more months (years?) than I care to recall, or mine that still looks like we just moved in a month ago (well, just downstairs which is what everyone sees first). It may be our relationships, which Bizzy Girl isn't really seeking as long as her daughter is young and I can't complain about given how well things flow for Mr. T and me but do we see each other long? Well, his schedule is as much to blame as mine. It could be our jobs but Bizzy Girl and I have been blessed with jobs that we pour ourselves into and when we need to pull back, we have some room to do so. Still, how long can one do that before it's time to figure out a real schedule to balance the job with the business until the business can take over?

Sacrifice is what makes the process take so long for us. We simply aren't willing to take the all big steps we need to at the moment people tell us we need to, at least not all at once. A few late nights for my kids are just golden opportunities to goof off but I won't keep them on the back burner. Sometimes they have to wait. Sometimes the business has to wait. Sometimes I need time to convince Bizzy Girl to just pick up her fears and let's go! Sometimes she has to tell me to slow down. Sometimes the money goes to VWE. Sometimes it goes to our own needs. It's a bus probably riding its brakes a bit too much but we're all going to get their, families, futures, ourselves intact.

I was afraid we might have to make this our last year. Bizzy Girl and I, as different as we are in how we handle things, came out in the same place once again - you ain't seen nothing yet.

It's All About the Business

I didn't do it. I didn't even try. Well, I WANTED to try so I signed up. But NaNo was a NoGo this year. I didn't write word one. It was all about the VWE website and let me tell you, it was truly all consuming. Calling the company during the day when I could to ask a question here. Logging on to the online support at night to ask a question there. I now have a favorite support person, I have contacted them so much. Her name is Hazel (I really think they are using pseudonyms) and she is on at 6:30 in the morning. Hazel is one smart cookie and the only one I would truly believe if she said there was no way to do something I wanted to do. Everyone else - just about - has proven to me that if they say it's not possible and if I even suspect it might be, then I am right, they are wrong and all I have to do is keep studying the problem. I can think of a least 2 times when someone said I couldn't do something, then as they continued looking for the answer or verifying it with someone else, I figured out the way around it. Yeah. I'm pretty proud of that. If you could see all the button and links and fill-in-the-blanks I had to deal with, you'd be proud of me too and doing the happy dance with like we were Pigpen's long lost cousins. This website project proved one thing for sure - that I am primarily a big picture person. I need to know the details AFTER I know the overall goal. But inside the working of a website template, all you see are details. It's a puzzle with no boxtop to guide you.

Thank God I love puzzles.

You see, our website is powered by StoresOnline. I won't bore you with the details of how we came to work with them but I can tell you this, we do not regret signing up not one little bit. We LOVE it. Now, that being said, it is a TON of work to get your website up with them because after all, unless you pay them to do it (and you can if you have a small fortune), you are the web designer and developer. So you better bring your imagination, your time and your patience or you better not come at all. I didn't watch TV for about 2 weeks during the most intense part of this thing, except to watch Nip/Tuck. Had to keep up with my show. But otherwise, my DVR overfloweth.

The things we can do with this site are more than what you see online right now. Have you seen it? www.vwepuzzles.com. Yeah, baby. I'm plugging away because that site represents about 2 months, late nights, early morning, lunchtime phone calls and loads of juggling my job and my website work to keep it all going because the site had to be done the day before Thanksgiving.

There were way more pictures to find and resize than anticipated. Lots of copy to rewrite because suddenly it just wasn't good enough. Lots of people to solicit for testimonials, which we should have gotten when we first did the jobs for them. (Those are slowly trickling in as we talk to people one on one.)

There was inventory to figure out and math - yes, math - as we worked on the pricing and payment methods. If you can see it, read it, click on it, my hand was in it some kind of way in order for it to be there. Sometimes, there was frustration and hours just doing one seemingly little thing. Sometimes I hummed along checking off one thing after another as the site started to take shape.

Part of the reason I am particularly thrilled with this site is because this was truly sweat equity. The price we paid to have this service was the sweetest ever. And it's far from done on that front because the homepage is not the homepage that will eventually lead you into the site. What I have there now is my own doing because I refused to let my deadline sweep by, but there is a graphic designer working on a special homepage that will allow us to have something a little less busy and a little more visually interesting for people to see. She is a very busy designer, however, with the added skill of teaching and she has been very much in the world of teaching so that my homepage has had to take a backpage until she is free again.

But that's OK. I'm still happy.

And now we have the work of maintaining the site and growing it from there. As we do that, there are more custom jobs we are working on and as we do that, we are finally prioritizing our creation process. Things simply are not as streamlined as I'd like them to be and it's time to get the wrinkles ironed out. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say and drop the stupid added explanations of why we can't do things the way people would like us to. That means Bizzy Girl having some meetings on her free Mondays. That means me better organizing our customer information as new people take us on and others become repeats. That means us taking more risks and even finding out about one risk that's not risky at all. If we get a shot at doing that one, I will happily blog about it and share it with the world.

This year, Bizzy Girl and I said this was a do or die year. Something changed in us and we have been more driven than ever. I suppose we simply aren't going to let things die because it took so much of our life to create it in the first place. And it feels good. The business is picking up and the dream of doing this full-time (aloing with my writing) becomes even more real to me.

And now, I need to get to my office and package up the most recent set of completed puzzles so their owners can get what they have been waiting for. After that, the next round of puzzles wait for me to get them going. Oh, and the church newsletter isn't going to edit itself. Don't I still need to get the greeting card order filled? I need some sleep.

I had a dream that a recent vending event would net us three new custom jobs.
We got three new custom jobs.

I told a friend in her first trimester that she would be having a girl because I wanted that for her.
She told us today that she found out it's a girl. (Yes. She wanted it for herself too.)

If you say it AND believe it AND work for it, it can happen right? Right.

No Love Lost Over Web Work

The past couple of weeks have been all about the Village Works website redesign - and "Lost." I don't really know much else, not even my book right now. I've been watching Lost in the between times because I wanted to watch it when it first came on but it didn't work out. So for all these seasons I've been listening to my co-workers rave about it. I decided to just do it because that is what I do - pile too much on my little plate of little time. So as I work on my website, I might watch an episode or two. I made it through season one and through lots of angst over the site, trying to figure out how to do what was in my head. After about 2 months of on and off attention, frustration, questions to support, and much thinking, the bells went off, the big picture finally came in clearly and I went into website design overdrive.

I took a tiny break to clean my office one Sunday afternoon and do laundry. I also watched more Lost - a lot more Lost. Truly I am lost in Lost. I am one DVD away from finishing season 2 but season 3 was nebulous. One co-worker had loaned me season 1. Another one had 2. But her season 3 is currently being sloooowly devoured by her sister so what would I do after I finished season 2? Netflix, here I come.

Monday was another night of hard website work and now I am a Netflix member to boot. Season 3 DVD 1 is on its way, though I still have to watch that last DVD from 2. The new and final season - 6 - starts mid-January, I am told, and I am pretty determined to be caught up by then. And you know what else will happen by then? Before then? The website will launch. That's the plan.

This website design has been a major exercise in patience and creativity. My laptop seems to be getting tired too and I can feel my hand being forced to go figure out how to speed it up as well as my desktop. It's the holidays (yeah. Admit it. It is.) and I don't want to spend money on computer issues right now. But my kids are on there as much as I am, so that can't be helping. Darn it all, I don't have time to learn how to care for computers but I have to if I want to get this operational some time this decade. I'll start with the computer people I know to guide me (thank God for people I trust who have this kind of knowledge).

In the meanwhile, I am pressing on. trying to work on one thing at a time and always finding something else to do that will improve some tiny little thing. Last night's "little" improvement took me about 5 hours to implement. It was a custom form I created to go along with the puzzles we offer for customization. I couldn't display those in the same way I could the regular puzzles we can sell one at a time. So I had to figure out how to create a similar display that worked differently. It was a simple form. That's all it was. Or it was supposed to be simple. I am still thinking of ways to tweak it.

The upside is by adding that form, I may have figured out how to do something the support people said I couldn't do and that will majorly improve what my customers experience on our site. I would tell you what it is but first I have to get it to work and then I'll announce it in one of our newsletters one day. It'll be one of the many little bells & whistles we'll be looking to add over time. Well, little to the rest of the world but no small feat to implement.

It wouldn't have been the first time I figured out how to do something the support people said I couldn't so as they say, where there is a will, there is a way. And if you can call/IM the support people multiple times over multiple days, you will probably find the person who DOES know how to do what you want to do.

I have to admit. I have worked with 2 web developers, interviewed maybe 2 more after them, I am working with yet another to do just a custom homepage and I knew this wasn't easy work. But I have a whole new appreciation for what they do. The time it takes to do the simplest of things. I am working with a template which is harder to wrangle than you might think. I can't imagine building things from scratch in code! And oh yes, I do use a little code here and there too. Our template is full - FULL - of all kinds of things to discover and when they said it was customizable, I thought it was a sales pitch. But they were right. And having all those options makes the work that much more challenging, though rewarding as you watch your vision come to life.

It is amazing to finally see all of Village Works in one place, at last. It's like going from a studio apartment to a high-tech mansion. And we aren't even fully moved in. So many buttons to push and colors to add. Our plan was to make our online store the only place you need to go for all things Village Works. You can see everything we offer. You can communicate with us. You can sign up for our newsletter. You can get quotes. You can find out how to work with us as wholesellers. You can find out how we can help you do a fundraiser. And hopefully, later, you can find out much more that is specific to you, the individual customer. And all you have to remember - and bookmark - and share with rest of the world - is www.vwepuzzles.com.

I am truly happy we went this particular templated road. I didn't want to. Didn't expect to. But it was a good deal, even with all the work involved. Right now if you go to www.vwepuzzles.com, you get an under construction page that looks like you got a computer error. It's not my style in the least. So hopefully tomorrow you will see a better looking under construction page. And soon, I'll have a select few testing out what I've done so far as I keep going. The plan is to launch before Thanksgiving and even then it will be just the beginning. You know I'll let you all know when you can see it live and online!

Web Wonders

If it's November, it must be NaNoWriMo time. I didn't do it last year, but because of the book I am working on, I quickly signed up this year as my way to force myself to get some more work done on it. And I have been. I started in October though, gathering the info. Now it's time to write. But I haven't. Not yet. Because I've been so very tied up in our revamped website. It's fun and tiring and overwhelming and so full of potential.

I am building it. I didn't want to. I tried not to. I wanted to give it away but it was so very hard finding someone with a vision that already was in line with my own so I'd feel like I could trust them to get the job done. But either the person was a disappointment and/or too small (we need major customer support at all times. No more 1-man operations for us.), or the company was too expensive for what we wanted. And I've always had a hard time settling for less. I do it when I have to but I go down fighting. Trust me.

So after a good year of searching and interviewing and maybe figuring out how we'll do this, we landed on our solution. The price was right - even better than the reasonably priced plan we thought we were going to go with - and I could get what I wanted...for the most part. And we were even able to get Graphic Guru in on it for herself. Truly a win-win.

Still, some concessions had to be made, but way less than before. It would simply require more work on our part to get there. We could have a site that showed what we wanted, when we wanted. People could EASILY buy. Everything connects there and it is good. On top of that, we have the extra bonus of being able to control our SEO work on the site and we even learned how to watch the competition too. Then I found a designer who could do some of the custom work I knew I couldn't do myself. We spoke on the phone and we clicked. I haven't seen her first draft yet but being the controlling person I am, I had already made a really detailed plan of what I wanted and created a visual to go along with it. You'd have to be totally about your own agenda and clueless to miss the mark on this. If she comes through like I think she will, it will be the icing on the cake.

So I haven't written yet. Because I have been wrapped up in the site. It is amazing just how many little pieces there are to put in place. And while doing this, we are also following though on Step 1 of our online marketing plan. But that will require time to complete since it shouldn't all be done at once. Bizzy Girl's sister agreed to help us out with all this and it's about time for me to bring her in on it now that I have a better handle on things. And that will free me up to write.

Am I being a little vague? Yeah. I know it. I can't give away all my business secrets after all. Though they aren't MY secrets. Just things we learned and decided to do. Anyone could do the same but I'm afraid you'll have to just watch us and see how we do. If you like it and want to do the same, I may be persuaded to share a tip or two. :-)

And don't worry. I will make time for some writing too and end the month with 50,000 more words to add to my book.

Movie Review: Drag Me to Hell

As much as I love movies, you'd think I'd share my personal reviews with you more often. This was the last time I did it, I think, but it didn't even come up when I searched my own blog. Gotta remedy that. Anyway, let's see if I can make this a habit.

Note: If you want to see this movie, some of this talk may be considered spoilers but movies don't get spoiled easily for me, even if you tell me everything that happened, so just consider the source before you read this.

I got to see Drag Me to Hell recently via a friend of mine who loves horror as much as - or maybe even more than - I do. It was not as serious as I expected it to be based on the trailers when they were out this past year. But I didn't know who the director was then - Sam Raimi who also did the Evil Dead movies (loved them but poor Bruce Campbell will never be able to escape being my visual icon for those movies), all gross and highly laughable but in a fun way. I got the same vibe from this movie so if you like Evil Dead, you'll like Drag Me to Hell.

There were some unfair times to me, and not just unfair in terms of what's happening to the loan officer heroine (that was unfair in a good way). Instead, there were clear moments that made you go, "Uh uh! That can't happen in real life!" It's not real life, Monica. It's a movie. Yes, I know, but even in the movies, you have to keep it honest if you want me to buy even a campy story like this one. I mean, really. NO ONE thinks her gusher of a nosebleed is something to worry about? Can one really get thrown about their home and NOT suffer a broken bone or twisted something or other? Not even once? But the whole thing was still fun. It made me jump big time even though I knew something was coming. There are plenty of startling moments to make the whole thing worthwhile but I can't help but go back to some things I thought were missed opportunities - like the very ending. I won't tell you what happened but I would be willing to bet you'd see this movie and just know it was going to end one way, it doesn't, and you're like, "Wait! My ending was way better!" Also, I was talking to the same friend about this and she made a good point - in most movies where any kind of devil is the nemesis, the main character or someone around them has the idea to try the church. Even the atheists. But God doesn't come up once as her possible solution to the problem. That was just odd. Maybe it's a reflection of the writer's/director's belief system? Maybe they are setting things up for a part 2?

I don't know. I just know this movie was fun but I warn you - if you have a sensitive stomach, don't eat before you see it. Just trust me on that.

Today is Her Birthday...

...Happy Birthday to her!

Daughter is 6. Daughter told the world she was 6. There's nothing monumental about 6 but she's loving it. Daughter went to the cub scout pack meeting with her brother and got to touch a snake - 2 actually - a bearded dragon and a hissing cockroach, to name a few.

Ew.

Daughter is happy. See?



She was up a little late eating candy from the pack meeting and ice cream cake. Don't ask me if she ate food. That was her daddy's job before we went to the pack meeting. Her brother signed her up for Club Penguin - his FREE gift to her.

Oh, and here's one of the snakes. That's Son at the head. He was going for the tail but the man switched it up on him. (God said He'd make us you the head, not the tail, right?)



Oh yes. It was that big. And Daughter took the picture. (That's why I'm getting her a camera for Christmas. Shhhh.) Clearly few things phase her.

Daughter was happy. Her birthday party is Saturday but for now, it was a good day.

Happy birthday, baby.