Saturday, October 24, 2009

Fall Cleaning Mode...

I woke up in "fall cleaning mode" this morning. As a result, you could probably perform surgery in three of the four rooms in my home this evening... and the fourth room already looked pretty good -- I just wouldn't suggest surgery in there yet!

My office/den looks HUGE now that the box my "new" (what -- four month old?) PC came in and the box my "new" (two week old) shredder came in have been evicted. I pushed the old CPU under a desk so it's handy if I ever need it. I went through the two inch pile of paperwork on my work desk and threw out or filed a lot of it. About ten pages remain (work-related stuff still in progress).

I went through my bedroom, too -- dusted, washed bedding (including the dust ruffle), cleaned out dressers and folded everything in them again. Laughed myself silly to discover I have at least 20 pairs of undies, some of which I don't think I've had on more than a time or two. They were hiding under some t-shirts I had packed away...

At 11 Jackie and I went to a nearby school to watch Casey play soccer with her team. It was a great game. The girls are much better this year than last.

I've been reading some of my old Dave Barry books. He cracks me up quite often. I'm trying to get myself into humor mode by reading funny stuff again. I've been reading nonfiction and listening to the news and politics for so long that I was desperately close to losing my sense of humor! That would not be good.

I finished a couple of Elance projects this weekend (short business biographies) and did the final run-through on a book I'm editing for a client in New York. It should be on bookshelves pretty soon. When it is, I'll give you the title and let you know. The author has also written a children's book that I edited and wrote the back cover blurb for. If you're the Christian parent of a difficult child or teen, you'll want to get the book! It was a real eye-opener for me. It's going to change people's lives for the better, for sure.

Oh! And I recently proofread and wrote a back cover recommendation for a children's book publisher. The book was written by a very talented 16 year old. As soon as it's out, I'll let you know about that one, too.

None of these books are Elance-related. The children's book publisher found me as a result of the online memoir writing article I did for Pat Bertram several months ago. The other one used me at Elance for four e-books over a year ago, so I'm free to work with her now independently. (The contract at Elance stipulates that I have to work with a client for a year before I can serve them independently. Makes sense. Elance is owed a "finder's fee," certainly, if they're how I connect with someone for the first time.)

I've recently been told by the Elance powers that be that I'm eligible to be a Premier Provider in the Sales and Marketing category, too -- not just the Writing category -- because of my positive reviews in that category. Very cool!

What else? Hmmm...

Mary Jo Robinson and I went to see a live play on Thursday at the Lakewood Playhouse: TUESDAY'S WITH MORRIE. "Morrie" was fantastic! "Mitch" was the least likable of the two characters but he "came around" (relationally) at the end. (If you read the book, you'll understand this.)

On November 1st Char Burley and I are going to see "THIS IS IT" at a local movie theater -- Michael Jackson's last "live" appearances (as he rehearsed for an upcoming tour that never came to pass because of his untimely death).

Next Saturday our Writer's Edge group meets again at CFAN (church) from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. We'll be finishing up and sharing the press releases the class has written since the last time I taught them PR writing more than a month ago. (We had two special guests in between -- songwriter Kim Walling and Christian fiction writer Tosca Lee.) We'll have a new member, too, a former co-worker of my nephew Phil. She writes Christian romance fiction but is not yet published. We'll see what we can do to help change her status from not-yet-published to best-selling author! WOO HOO!

Guess that's about it for this time.

Hugs all around! Send me some back, y'hear?







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