Yippee! I got The Sunshine Award!

My friends know I like to win. That I'm hyper competitive. That I don't like games of chance because then winning didn't take anything on my part except rolling a dice. I LOVE BLOG AWARDS. I think they're such a great way of spreading community around the blogosphere – we get to know tidbits about the recipient, we get to meet some of his or her friends as the award/love is passed on, and the giver gets a big THANK YOU.

Thank you goes to Click of Click's Clan

for this Sunshine award.  OK, some have said it's creepy, but a friend of mine is making me watch The Walking Dead, so I can deal with a baby burning up...

I just met this lovely lady from Scotland through the A-Z Challenge. Please pay her a visit. She is a delight!  

Here are the 11 Questions I'm to Answer

What inspired you to start blogging?

I've loved writing for as long as I can remember. To write a book has been a life goal since my teen years. I was getting old, you know, over 40...so I decided I needed a place where I'd be accountable. People would expect content, they could critique the content, and I'd improve my writing skills. I think it's working. What I had never counted on is the amazing companionship and love and support that's out there as we interact with other bloggers. That more than anything has helped me grow, enter writing contests, join blog hops, and explore many genres of writing I hadn't even heard of before.

How did you come up with the name of your blog?
I've been working on the whole gratitude and contentment thing for a while. I've needed to, or my medical issues might have done me in. So I try to be grateful for each day, look on the bright side, and find something good in whatever happens. I fail at this daily, but having a focus gives me at least a chance to succeed.

What is your favorite blog to read?

Impossible question, seriously. There are so many fantastic blogs out there, but I guess I do have to answer it, so I'll say WaystationOne. Brian Miller is an amazing poet and observer of the human condition. His little slice of life pieces are so vivid you can see the person, empathize, and step out of your own little safe world for a bit. He's also been an amazing friend. He reads EVERY blog post I write, and has been doing so since I started in 2010. I find him everywhere I go. He's got a bazillion followers, yet return visits every comment. Amazing guy with an amazing heart. Go say hi!

Tell us about your dream job.

Probably doesn't sound dreamy to most of you, but I'd like to go back to working as an office manager/HR head. That was a fun, varied, never a dull moment job and I miss it.

Is your glass half full or half empty?

It's dirty...my kids are behind on dishes as they finish end of the year projects and study for finals. Can't find my favorite, either. Seriously though, my glass is usually empty because it's hard to stay hydrated in Colorado, and I drink my chardonnay too fast ;-)

If you could go anywhere for a week’s vacation, where would you go?

I'd go to my family's property on the waterfront near Annapolis. We've owned this place since the 60s and it's nostalgic and wonderful. There's nothing better than spending a day on the water sailing, or crabbing to have dinner, or watching your kids being dragged behind the motor boat on various flotation devices and learning centripetal force...

What food can you positively not eat?

Lima beans. Ugh. Chalky and mealy and flavorless. It's about the texture.

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

Neither, hypoglycemic. But before I knew that, I'd pick dark. Swedish dark chocolate is amazing, and my favorite is the orange infused.

How much time do you spend blogging?

If you ask my family, too much. In my opinion, not enough. I do try to block out two hours a day to visit others, return comments, and write my posts. Of course, during the Challenge, it was pretty much a full time job...but I loved it.

Do you watch t.v. and if so, what are your favorite shows?

I do watch TV, but only about an hour a day. I'm addicted to Food Network, so that's what I'd pick for by myself, and I usually allow myself a show while having lunch. Lately it's Chopped and Hell's Kitchen. When The Engineer and I watch, we alternate between Warehouse 13, The Walking Dead, and Torchwood. We were extremely sad when Eureka ended, and will never forgive them for canceling Firefly...

%%%

I'm passing this award on to the 6 members of Tina's Terrific Team! I could not have survived the Challenge without your amazing help! You made my days sunnier! Thank you.

AJ Lauer of  Naturally Sweet

Andrea of  Maybe it's Just Me

      

Hilary Melton-Butcher of  Positive Letters...Inspirational Stories...

Jolie Du Pre of Precious Monsters

JoJo of Tahoma Beadworks and Photography

PV Ariel, aka Philip of philipscom

Your turn, team. Pass this on to 6 fellow bloggers who make your days sunnier. Here are the questions for them. 

What inspired you to start blogging?
How did you come up with the name of your blog?
What is your favorite blog to read?

Tell us about your dream job.

Is your glass half full or half empty?

If you could go anywhere for a week’s vacation, where would you go?

What food can you positively not eat?

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

How much time do you spend blogging?

Do you watch t.v. and if so, what are your favorite shows?

Thanks to all my readers and blogging friends for making this world such a supportive place!  I'd give you all an award!

~Tina

Stolen Chances

How many chances should he get?

I think he's already used them up

Whether it's knives and shelves

or heating systems and pills

Call the cops, take him away

Repeat

Bail out, help out

Give him another chance

Give him money to start

Over

and over and over again

Forgive and forget

Open your heart

Have it stomped on

An endless cycle

meth and madness

self-medicate the

voices,

Calling

Can't stand jail

No privacy

Easy answer -

don't steal

Don't steal from us,

our patience is gone,

our money is gone,

your chances are gone

But you don't see,

That you're the one

Who took it all.

***

We have a close family member who has spent most of his life homeless, by his choice, and in and out of jail, always “someone else's fault”. I'm done enabling, but the rest of the family is not, and my voice isn't loud enough on Mother's Day to be heard among all the love and “second” chances. This is an example of the venting part of my tagline...

Blessed to be a Mom

This is by far my favorite picture of my miracle boys. We were on our way home from somewhere way south, and they were getting cranky and were ready to be home. They did NOT want to go stand in a field of sunflowers for their mother to take a picture. But they obeyed. They even posed nicely for me. “Can we at least shade our eyes?”

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. And to those of you desperately wanting/trying to be mothers, I cry for you this morning. My road to motherhood was a long and windy one with three lost angels along the way. I didn't think I'd ever be a mom, and mother's day was the hardest day of the year for me.

Yet here are these beautiful gifts from God, The Transporter born almost dead (9 pounds 10.5 ounces, I'm 5'3”) and in NICU for 5 days. Our Youngest Teen (OYT) a preemie, but still a healthy 7 pounds 10 ounces, after a high-risk pregnancy which I spent on the couch, verbally chasing my toddler around the house...

They give my life purpose, and joy, yet frustration and hurt.    It's the old "without the rain, we can't enjoy the sun" - an adventure I'm blessed to be a part of.

The best advice I ever got is, “The days will seem long, but the years are so very short.” It got me through the bodily fluid years, and now it makes me cry when I consider how soon my house will be empty.

Savor the moments.

~Tina

P.S It was taken in 2006, so The Tranporter is 9 and OYT 6 1/2.

Be Careful Out There with "Tech Support"...

Long time readers know that The Engineer is no ordinary, geeky, anti-social, one-track mind “normal” engineer. He's also an inventor. My house looks the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...as does my backyard. It's all good though. We are SO going to win the zombie-apocalypse! I did find out another fun character trait just this week though, which is rather amazing since we'll be celebrating 30 years together come December.

He likes to mess with telemarketers. He especially likes to mess with fraudulent ones. Me, when I smell a scam, I hang up, and not so politely. The Engineer? He likes to play along, then try to get them off script, and then smother them with technical questions.

He got a phone call last week from a “Microsoft” tech support guy in India kindly letting him know that his computer had been scanned and contained some malware, but all he had to do was go to their website, download the solution, and it would remove it. Not being an idiot, The Engineer began asking a LOT of questions. To his credit, this fake tech guy COULD keep up with most of them, until he asked, “So what kind of system am I running?” The guy said, “Well sir, it doesn't matter. Our software works with any system.” “Well if you know so much about me, why can't you answer this simple question?” Mr. Tech, of course didn't know anything, and when called on it, went on to explain that they were actually NOT from Microsoft tech support, but an independent company trying to sell their software. The Engineer left the conversation with a polite, “I don't need your service, thanks for your time.”

He then looked it up, and it's the latest scam going around. IF you've accidentally fallen for it and gone to the website and downloaded anything, you should shut off your computer and call all your financial institutions immediately. Good luck – you're identity has just been stolen.

I guess they don't give up easily, or there are multiple scammers out there using the same strategy, because of course he gets another call. This time, he interrupts very quickly with, “So what you're asking me to do is go to your website, download a virus that will give you access to all my personal information and then you'll use that information to steal my identity.” The guy ACTUALLY SAID, “Well yes, and WTF are you going to do about it?” The Engineer calmly says, “Hang up on you and tell as many people as I can about this.”

So he asked me to write this post and tell all ya'lls. You're welcome.

A Little Blogiquette

Now that the dust has settled from the whirlwind of April, I'd like to talk about an issue that has come up in almost all the Reflections Posts I've read: Not enough time for visiting other participants.

Almost everyone said, “I didn't get as much time to visit others as I wanted.” Many also said that commenting was down this year. Guess what? Cause and effect. Many bloggers go by the rule of, “If you comment on my blog, I'll go visit you and comment back.” That's the way I feel is polite and correct blogiquette. Do you see the problem though? If no one has time to visit, no one is getting comments, and no one is going to visit those who have commented. Everyone is stuck in their own little world waiting for something to happen. As I've said before, this isn't, “If you write it, they will come.” NO. It's, “If you visit, they will come.”

Please don't get me wrong - I'm not criticizing anyone - I had very little visiting time myself and have just begun to return visits and make my way through the Reflections posts. It's just life – we all have more to our lives than blogging. We all wish for more time in our days. We all make compromises of how our time is used.

I do have a “solution” for you, though. There's no need to quit visiting just because April is over! The big, long list's links will remain live until April 2014! Visit away! In fact, we have a Road Trip you can join. 

This badge is yours for the grabbing if you're joining us!

Many of us will continue visiting for as long as we want – that's all there is too it. We've just created a group for you to join for support and encouragement along the way. Head on over to the Road Trip invitation at the A-Z Blog. I'm co-hosting this after-Challenge gig with Shannon, from The Warrior Muse as usual (our third year now) and we're lucky to have the amazing Nicole, from The Madlab Post with us! More drivers is great! We hope you'll join us.  After all, you want more visitors, right?

~Tina

P.S What other blogiquette do you think is key to success? What's your blogging pet peeve? If you check out my sidebar, I think you can guess mine...

And the Winner Is...

Nope, I didn't forget. I needed some time to breathe! Plus, my “normal” Life is Good schedule is to post M-W-F. Normal should be taken as a goal, not a given. Life is also busy and unpredictable...

Without further ado, I announce the winner of the $25 IKEA gift card:

Gregg Metcalf who blogs at Gospel Driven Disciples. Please pay him a visit and say congrats!

For you mathematical types, here's how the winner was chosen. (I always like to know...) I added up all the comments I got during the A-Z. 704! Unbelievable. Wonderful! Thank you! (And thank you to all my new followers – I'm in the process of visiting...I will get to you...) Then random.org picked a number for me (10) and Gregg had the 10^th comment in my series.

Now that the dust has settled, how are you doing? What's your blogging schedule going to be like? Going on vacation from all the work or are you excited and feeling great about a re-energized blog with more followers?

A-Z Reflections 2013

Time to reflect. I HAVE time to reflect! Wow, what a month! I won't bore you with the details, but in addition to participating in the Challenge, co-hosting the Challenge, wrangling my wonderful Terrific Team of assistants who helped me manage the Challenge, it was also a very challenging time for me medically. But I survived! The badge - you have picked yours up, right? It's at the A-Z Blog, or right there in the top corner of my sidebar - really fits me this year. I was in survival mode.

I went back and read my reflections from my first two challenges, and realized that this year's reflections would be very different. No sex analogies. No sports analogies. Just the truth, in plain format.

While Life is Good, sometimes life is very hard. Sometimes God puts us through ordeals that seem insurmountable, un-doable, unconquerable, UNPLEASANT, and unending. However, He also gives us an out. This year, The Challenge was my escape. I needed it to survive. I needed the distraction. I needed the camaraderie that this community provides. I needed YOU.

I am humbled and awed and grateful for the way you responded to my stories of my first year as an immigrant. You empathized with me, you understood me, you told your  own stories in the comments, you held me up when I felt like falling down. You encouraged me. You kept me going. I had some posts pre-scheduled, but there were times I was writing my post at 4:30 am while shoveling scrambled eggs into my gut so that I could be picked up by The Swede to go to the hospital to be tortured, um, tested, for the root cause of my asthma.

I also needed my co-hosts. They came through for me as they always do, even though it was a year where many of them had challenges far worse than mine. Still, they were there, ready to help out. Of course, Tina's Terrific Team proved why they're terrific. The behind the scenes work they accomplished was phenomenal!

I suppose I should also talk about some pros and cons of the set up of the Challenge. The categories thing...dying to hear what you all thought of it, because it was last year's Reflections that prompted that change. From a co-host's perspective, that caused more grief than it was worth, in my opinion. Alex deserves a giant round of applause, and to be flown by private jet to some remote island with his wonderful wife for some R&R. How he managed that long list and all our emails about what to fix simply amazes me. All hail the Ninja Captain!

Please don't miss our annual Road Trip announcement post coming on Wednesday May 8. The Road Trip is simply those of us who aren't giving up on the visiting, and will continue to visit the participants using whatever schedule fits our lives. Please join us – it's a great way to stay in touch with friends you've made, and there are more friends out there just waiting. They may turn out to be just the friend you need to get you through the tough times. I'm blessed to have friends like that in you, dear readers. Thanks for holding me up.

~Tina