Secret Agent Ma’am
I have a secret apprentice.
Is that not cool?
Someone I know expressed an interest in learning to build websites, so I’m helping her get started. But because she has tried a lot of “making extra money on the side” things (**cough** Pampered Chef, Mary Kay…**cough**) she wants to actually have a nice fat check or two to show her somewhat skeptical spouse before she lets anybody know.
The really good thing is, teaching her what I’ve learned so far reinforces it for me. Plus she has like, 10 times the entrepreneurial attitude and mind that I have, whether she realizes it or not. If I start working at another webdev company, I may just give her coffee cup studio outright. It’s better than just closing it down.
Speaking of entrepreneurship, I picked up a book this week that I think would make a perfect name for Miss Jonna’s future bookshop: A Good Yarn. Given that she is obsessed with both stories and literal yarn, heck, she could sell both in the same store. 
I am passing on an interview today for a “web content writer.” Turns out, it is writing emails from Santa and the Easter Bunny. They’re branching out into Cupid and the Tooth Fairy next year. I swear I’m not making that up. It’s a seasonal job, though, and in a bad part of town in a closed Fireworks store, with only a cellular phone number. So my Spidey sense says take a pass.
In family news, we have another girl headed our way. Bobbi is officially expecting a baby sister for Lindsey.  That will make a final tally (and judging by the fact that all the daddies are currently signing up for ye olde snippety-snip, it’s the final tally) of three boys and three girls in the grandkids department for my dad. Nice and even.
Lastly, can I just say I love Dreamweaver? Love. It. I’ve even managed to get the stupid song from Wayne’s World out of my head when I open it up.  That said, when the time comes to upgrade my Flash tool (I’m currently using Motion Artist, which does the job for small projects, but is far from comprehensive), I won’t be shelling out for Flash–I’ll be picking up Swish. I’ve heard too many pros say that Macromedia (or Adobe now, I guess) Flash has just too dang much stuff in it. It’s overkill for 90% of users, and a tough learning curve. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Swish.
Squirrels and Absences
This week, I will probably not be posting much here, or anywhere. I have two brand spankin’ new coffee cup clients who I want to get substantial progress on this week. I have the imminent inlaw invasion which commences Saturday night. And I have a 3-5 page essay to write as part of the interview process for the copywriting job.
Last week, I didn’t write alot, but it wasn’t so much because I was busy (although I was) as it was because the squirrels ate my internet again.
Periodically, squirrels gnaw on the cabling beneath our house causing broadband outages. Last week we had one such outage, although it appears to be fixed now.
I also didn’t write last week because I was upset about something that perhaps two people who read here would even be interested in hearing about. I tried posting about it three different times, and each time I ended up feeling like I gave too much power to too small a thing.
So just to get it out of the way so it doesn’t block my creativity any longer, here it is. A couple of years ago, I made a mistake. Part of the mistake was believing someone was the person he represented himself to be, even though in hindsight there were plenty of clues that he wasn’t. Part of the mistake was breaking some boundaries that I had previously set for myself in regards to my own behavior. Part of the mistake was simply flawed judgment in how I handled resolving the first two parts–although I’m still, to this day, not certain how I could have better handled it.
As a result of all this, I made an agreement with Chris that if the person who wasn’t what he pretended to be ever showed up in a public arena I visited, I would permanently leave that place. Over the last couple of years, I’d pretty much stopped even visiting that place anyway. Well, I popped my head in the door last week to check on a few people, and saw that person had been by recently. So I left. Should be end of story.
I shared what happened with some girl friends who were privvy to the whole matter. Ninety-nine percent were supportive and made some lighthearted jokes about the matter. Unfortunately, the one percent who wasn’t supportive basically made a horse’s rear of herself, and probably exposed much more about her feelings about said dishonest guy than she realized or would want people knowing.
So that’s the story behind my reticence of last week. A sticky personal situation, and squirrels eating my internet again.
However, I hate wasting anything, so I will draw a little object lesson out that is probably relevant for anybody reading here, including myself.
The more we try to hide the things we’re ashamed of or guilty about, the more we expose it. Think back to Adam and Eve in the garden. In trying to hide their shame with fig leaves, they exposed their real shame–the fact that they’d disobeyed God. The smart thing to have done would have been to keep walking around naked and hoping that God didn’t have an exact count of fruit on the Tree o’ Knowledge. It seems ridiculously obvious to an outsider that tailoring the verdage would be a major tip off to God that they now knew something they didn’t know before. But neither Adam nor Eve could see it.
Our good friends Daniel and Angel have a son, Brandon, who was once playing by himself in his room, when suddenly, apropos of nothing, he yelled out through the door “I didn’t cut my sheets with scissors!!!” Which prompted an immediate search of his room revealing… wait for it… yup! His sheets had just been cut with scissors.
As much as both his parents and the rest of us might laugh at poor Brandon, many of us use his tactic of “deny before you’re even asked” when there’s something we don’t want getting out about us. But like Brandon, all that does is serve to put a giant neon sign over our heads saying “Look Here!”
The best way to deal with the stuff we’d rather not deal with, is just to deal with it.
Heck, forget about guilt and shame, that pretty much goes for anything in your life, across the board. Don’t want to deal with the dishes? Best way to deal with it is just do them RIGHT NOW. Then it’s over with and you don’t find yourself doing a dozen other things you may or may not even really want to do, just to avoid the dishes.
Well, I think I’ve effectively made up for my lack of prose from last week now. Have a happy Monday, y’all.
More vocational musings.
I’ve loved writing since I was five and could hold a big fat Crayola halfway steady. I love words, language, stringing those modern-day cuneiforms together and achieving meaning.
Writing is more than just something I do. It’s part of who I am. It’s like breathing. I don’t journal here primarily to get rich and famous (not likely, anyway) or even to entertain you fine folks. I journal here because; well, all those words inside me need to get OUT.
I had an interview today that I’m more than halfway afraid to even discuss. Copywriter for a new media company. Now, I love the web. I love writing. Writing for the web is like fried cheesecake. You mean you can combine Mexican food and cheesecake in one dish? Egads! Sign me up!
I made it past the first round of interviews with an invite to round two. Nearly wet my pants.
I love my little fledgling web company. And I can see that running it for the rest of my life could be a path that would be very satisfying to me. And my eyes are now wide open to the trade-offs, because all jobs have trade offs.
And this copywriting job is not without it’s own tradeoffs. Primarily, not being in total control of my own time as I am as an entrepreneur.
I could be very happy either way. And I am, in fact, very happy right now. I’m no longer putting off happiness till I know how the story ends. In my heart, I always have and always will think of myself as a writer. So, yeah, it would be nice to have the validation that comes with the job title.
But it’s all good, either way.
Imminent In-Law Invasion and other Tidbits
Well, Chris’ folks are coming out for a visit starting Labor Day weekend. Which means, it is time for the cleaning frenzy to commence. I just have one word for the makers of “scrubbing bubbles” at this point: LIARS. Those bubbles not only do not scrub the grime off the tub unaided, they don’t seem to really appreciably make it any easier for ME to scrub it off, even when using a scrudgy pad.
A helpful tip I’ve picked up in the last few years: Always have some kind of continuous pleasant-scent producing product going in your house. A house that smells fresh and clean seems fresher and cleaner, even if it’s not. I got one of those “Noticeables” that changes scents every few minutes, and I swear the house looks cleaner when I get home. We’re also fond of those Filter-Mates, the scent-embedded foam sheets that attach to your central air filter. Those rock the nation, but are occasionally hard to find.
And I have broken down and bought a vacuum. The carpet flick and the broom just are not cutting it. Not with the crumb-and-debris-producing gang I have hanging out here.
Fortunately, the one aspect of Flylady’s teaching that has really stuck with me over the years is refusing to let the paper monster reach scary proportions. I weed out the junk mail at the mailbox, so most of it never even makes it into the house (having the waste-wheeler at the end of the drive all week also keeps us from forgetting to put it down there on trash day). And I periodically clear out the one pile that I will still allow to creep slowly up fairly regularly.
My big “need to get it done” project before the In-law Invasion begins is to finish painting our bedroom, which looks really sad half-painted right now. I’m hoping to get that knocked out this week.
In other news, last weeks’ meeting is now a confirmed new client. Yay! And I submitted my resume this morning on an entry-level copywriter job. Because writing is pretty much what I do best. Had a discouraging time wrestling with the bills this morning, but at least I’m facing them, not playing “if I pretend they’re not there, maybe they’ll go away.” That’s progress, right?
AFTERNOON UPDATE: The bedroom is now 3/4 painted, as opposed to roughly 1/3, and there is visible improvement in the shower department. Got an unsolicited call from a prospective client (a referral from another client) which looks pretty likely to turn into a confirmed new customer. (That’s two in two weeks–looks like things are picking up!) I also got a response and a request for more information on a resume I submitted for a web copywriter job. So on the whole, it’s been a fairly productive Monday.
Tomorrow and Wednesday, it’s all-coding, all-day. Thursday morning I have a client meeting, and I’ll probably finish up painting in the afternoon. And Friday is “whatever I didn’t get done on its designated day” day.
Movie Reviews: Red Eye and V for Vendetta
Picked up a couple of new release DVDs last weekend, so I thought I would do the Siskel & Ebert thing.
Red Eye was a nice, taut thriller in the Hitchcock vein. Despite the shot of the glowing red eye from the trailer, and the fact that it’s directed by horror-meister Wes Craven, there isn’t any supernatural content whatsoever (that “red eye” from the trailer never appears in the movie.) The plot is pretty straightforward, but thanks to solid performances from leads Rachel McAdams (from The Notebook) and Cillian Murphy (the Scarecrow in Batman Begins), still really suspenseful. Lisa Reisert finds herself trapped on a plane in a classic no-win situation: the man in the seat next to her is part of an assassination plot. If she cooperates with him, someone will die. If she refuses to cooperate, or tries to warn anyone what is going to happen, or doesn’t make the call they want made in time for the plot to go off right, the assassin’s “trigger man” stationed outside her dad’s house will kill her father. The whole movie revolves around Lisa’s increasingly creative and desperate attempts to wriggle out of the ever-tightening noose of this situation.
Rachel McAdams is very believable as the generally compliant, people-pleasing Lisa. And Cillian Murphy is alternately charming and terrifying. It’s rated PG-13 for some violence and language, but on the whole is a pretty decent flick.
Next up, V for Vendetta with Hugo Weaving (Mr. Smith from the Matrix movies and Elrond from the LOTR) and Natalie Portman. The writers have pretty faithfully adapted the original Alan Moore comic book. (Which is worth mentioning: the original comic was written in the 80’s–so any similarity, real or imagined, to current events is entirely coincidental. Interesting to debate about, but coincidental.) The acting is pretty solid throughout.  There are a couple of action sequences that will appeal to the “butt kicking counts for something in the total rating” crowd. The settings and costumes and other eye candy are beautifully well done–the visual feel of the film is flawlessly executed. And it raises a lot of good questions that it doesn’t make any attempt to answer, making it a good conversation starter for adults.
That said, it’s not a family-friendly movie. There are a lot of adult themes and content in this movie. Portman’s character is confronted by what amounts to a group of Nazi color-guard members and it’s pretty clear they intend to rape her (until V shows up). Another scene shows a powerful cleric who is regularly provided with young girls as his “compensation.” Two prominent characters are gay or lesbian (and in fact, their sexuality is a fairly significant part of the plot), and a scene about the fascist fictional government’s “roundup” of anyone different briefly shows soldiers breaking into a bedroom and dragging two sleeping men out of bed and “black bagging” them. The “hero” of the movie is a vigilante with no compunctions about blowing up large public buildings, committing what are, in fact, acts of terrorism, and killing corrupt officials out of personal vengeance as much as anything else.
All that said, the film manages to take relevant questions, set them in a near-future that seems frighteningly possible, and leave the audience to reach their own conclusions.
Well, that’s about it.Â
More Validation (Of Various Sorts)
Made excellent progress on the redesign for Georgetown Truss yesterday:
It’s still nothing spectacular, but new site validates as XHTML Strict, and I do think it looks much more professional.Â
I still want to go by and take some higher-quality pictures of their production, get a formal portrait of the owners. But the big effort left on that one, is I plan to write my own stripped-down CMS in PHP and XML for the “News & Announcements” page. It’ll be the first time I “rolled my own” Content Management System. Wish me luck.
In other vocational-related news, got two more calls on possible full-time employment yesterday and met with a new client Wednesday. Will continue to be in prayer about all these options, but I gotta say after a week of running coffee cup with the kids either at school or the sitters, I’m really starting to enjoy entrepreneurship. It makes a 180 degree difference NOT trying to do it while watching both kids. All summer, I was lucky if I got 15 minutes without an interruption. And I just can’t work like that, having my train of thought interrupted every 5 minutes. It’s fragile enough as it is, LOL.
Happy Anniversary
Today is Chris’ and my 15th wedding anniversary.
Which, as most of our friends know, is a major miracle just by virtue of happening.
He called me briefly on the cell and asked me to turn on 98.3 FM. Like a dork, I thought he’d won more tickets (earlier this year, he won Nickelback and Louisville Bats tickets on the radio).
So I actually was surprised to hear the deejay say “This is dedicated to Katina from Chris on their fifteenth anniversary…” right before playing Rob Thomas‘ “Ever The Same.”
Okay, group “Awwwww….”
Napping for Jesus
Chris and I are big fans of Lambert and Lindsey, one of the local morning show teams here in River City. Being fans of L&L, we’ve bought about all of their annual Christmas “Best of L&L” cds (the proceeds go to the Make A Wish foundation, I believe).
One of the “bits” on one of those cds is called “Napping For Jesus” wherein Linda Lambert talks about her daughter getting back from church camp and telling her that every day, they “took a nap for Jesus.” Needless to say, the guys thought that was a pretty funny concept, and started riffing on the idea of nappin’ for Jesus, as well as other unlikely pursuits for Jesus, like eating donuts for Jesus, etc.
Well lo and behold, I was reading John Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted, and came across this pearly bit o’ wisdom:
One thing I discovered when I spent a day trying to live in a loving fashion is that love requires an enormous amount of energy. And I was just too tired to give it. So I realized that–as unspiritual as it sounds–if I was serious about becoming a more loving person, I was going to have to get more sleep…
Have you ever tried to pray when you are lacking sleep? Before Elijah was to spend a prolonged time in solitude and prayer at Mount Horeb, the angel of the Lord had him take not one, but two long naps. Contrast this with the disciples at Gethsemane, who could not pray because they kept falling asleep…
For some of you reading this book, perhaps the single most spiritual thing you could do right now is to put it down and take a nap.
Personally speaking, I know I don’t get enough good quality sleep. So doggone it, I feel compelled to do the right, the noble, the selfless thing and start nappin’ for Jesus. 
Remembrance
From Sacred Space:
In prayer I am brought into the dynamic life of the Trinity through the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus, who cries out from within my soul: Abba, Father. The spirit of Jesus links me into the Blessed Trinity. When God looks at me, he desires me and is saying: You are desirable. I made you good. I want you. God sees me as his daughter or son, whom he loves. He says: You are mine. His gaze says: I delight in you. Can I accept this gaze of love? Or do I run back into disapproval of myself? His gaze is like sunshine: can I rest in it, bask in it, enabled by the Holy Spirit?
I desperately needed to hear that today. Need to drink it in. Hang from it like a rope over the river.
More later, people. You’re all a blessing to me, did you know that?
Taking care.
My Need To Read Books That Aren’t Computer Manuals
Currently in the queue to read for the first time:
The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg
Hot diggety. Another really good, practical book on spiritual formation and practices. :) Two chapters in and loving it so far.
Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby
Haven’t started it yet, but the TOC looks very good.
Revisiting / Refreshing:Â
Ready for Anything by David Allen
Helping me get back in GTD-gear. Painless Organization for the Organizationally Challenged.
Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge.
Reminding me of who I am.Â
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