Deborah Woehr

Last night, I was supposed to change my clocks back one hour to observe the Daylight Savings. So far, I haven’t made it. I was curious to see if my computer would automatically change the clock, falling back one hour as I blogsurfed, returning me to Saturday night instead of Sunday morning.

It didn’t. Oh, well. Nighty night!

I know, I know. We haven’t gotten to Halloween yet. But for those of you who like to shop early for Christmas, here is an idea for the women in your lives.

I bought this purse back in August via Amazon and just love it. It’s big enough to hold a man’s style wallet, your cell phone, and your keys with a bit more room to spare. I get compliments on it from strangers all the time, including men.

The purse comes in two styles–box and cyclone (tubular). The designs range from state license plates to designer plates. They also carry license plate photo and CD albums, plus bottle cap belts.

The cost for the purse runs at $64, which isn’t much more expensive than a good leather purse from Macy’s, except these purses will last much longer (provided you don’t leave it in the rain).

If you’re interested, check out the Littlearth site.

These ribbons are about as useless as those stupid yellow diamond things that said, “Baby On Board.” But it just goes to show that people will buy anything to “fit in.” The Bay Area is rife with yellow and patriotic magnet ribbons, with the occasional pink just to take away the monotony.

But people, we need more color. So, please, if you really must be a follower in this stupid ribbon craze, might I suggest you visit this site, where you can get your very own customized ribbon in a wide varay of colors, patterns, and sports themes. Sorry, Soccer Moms, you’re screwed.

Source: Ramblings from the Desert

Here’s another personality quiz that I found on Carter’s blog, this time coming from an astrological point of view.

.:the Sun:.
“You are the leader of the system. While you
are always willing to give, you don’t like it
when people ask for things. You like material
goods and you desire a mate that puts you on a
pedestal. You are not always easy to work with
because you can be impatient and a bit bossy.
You are also very direct, sometimes to a
fault.”

. : : Which Astrological Planet are You? : : . [10 Gorgeous Pics!]
brought to you by Quizilla

Me bossy and impatient? Direct to a fault? Guilty on all three counts, although I’ve tried my best over the years to tone them down.

Okay, they got me on perfectionism. I had to delete all the hard breaks that made the text look strange. As for popularity, I value quality over quantity.

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You’ve got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don’t care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

Monday started off just like any other, but with one thought on my mind: Please let my car get through the next nine days without any major mishaps.

Well . . .

I was driving along, thinking about the things I needed to do that night, when I felt the car jerk. My first thought was a flat tire. California’s freeways are atrocious, to say the least. But then my car started losing power. Fortunately, I didn’t have to fight traffic to move over.

Sitting on the side of the highway, with semis hurtling inches away is not fun. The first thing I did was call my husband to go pick up the kids. Then I got out and walked to the nearest exit, where there was supposed to be a gas station. But of course the gas station was boarded up.

To cut this scene short, I had the car towed to a friend’s garage. My original thought was that my transmission broke. I was able to turn the car on, but it wouldn’t move. When I arrived at his garage and he tried to start the car, it wouldn’t. He’s 99% sure that my fuel pump gave out. That’s a helluva lot cheaper than a new transmission.

The final cap of this glorious day was an abcessed tooth that decided to come alive. This sent me to the dentist on Tuesday. Basically, I have to have a specialist yank out both of my bottom 13-year molars. Not fun and very expensive.

The good news is that my husband just walked in the door and told me that my car is fixed. I’m blessed to have mechanics in my life. Here’s more good news . . . I won’t have to see my boss for the rest of my time at that company.

I apologized to the new secretary for having to endure this woman’s tirade. Apparently, my boss was going off about everybody, including the secretary’s innocent mistake of mailing something instead of sending it via Fed Ex. The good news is that my boss hasn’t chased the new girl off, which was exactly what I was afraid she would do.

This list is a combination of a self-assessment and To-Do list. The reason I’m compiling this list is to determine my marketability as a freelancer and to organize my thoughts. I’ll be updating this list periodically, as I master the skills on the Average and Beginner level lists.

Strongest Skills

Typing: 71 wpm
Word Processing
Data Entry, database management, and information retrieval
Customer Service
Human Resources: Resumes, recruiting, interviewing, background checks, hiring and firing
User Guides & Training Manuals
Business Correspondence
Internet Research
Email Management
Fundraising (I raised $30,000 for my kids’ school in 2000.)
Travel Arrangements
Appointment Setting
Event Planning & Execution
Blogging: Administration and customization with WordPress

Average-Level Skills

MS Word
PDF Conversions
Webmastering: FTP, program installation, webmail, statistics

Beginner-Level Skills

Desktop Publishing
Internet Marketing
Direct Mail Advertising
Search Engine Optimization
HTML
CSS
Excel
Power Point
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
Movable Type

After a decade of dial-up, we’ve finally decided that it’s time to upgrade to DSL. We’re also going to go wireless. This will be great because right now, I have a long telephone cord spanning from the family room and into my office. This is not a good thing when you have two boys that like to get rowdy in the hallway. Come next week, that won’t be a problem anymore.

I’d made up my mind last week that this move was going to be good for me in more ways than one. The house is definitely a step up from the rental we had been living in for thirteen years. And, we’ve needed to declutter our household for the past five years or so.

By Sunday evening, I was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms every time I looked at my Mac. So, I decided to start another writing project to distract me until our phone line kicked in. This project based on a couple of guys who use Blogger for their sites. Both had no clue as to how to use WordPress.

One figured out how to post his articles in Bloggers Weekly, but the other was thoroughly intimidated. I asked them if they would be interested in a visual guide, and both were excited by the idea. So, that’s what I’m working on right now.

But I immediately ran into the problem of not being able to capture screenshots from my Mac, which has no Internet connection right now. The work I’ve done with the book so far has resulted from the bit of research I’d done a couple of months ago, as well as the screenshots I had taken back then.

By yesterday, I was really starting to climb the walls. This withdrawal attack resulted in thirteen pages over a two-day period, which is something I haven’t accomplished in a long time. We got our phoneline today, which still doesn’t allow me to connect with my Mac, but I can go online and do my research until my husband gets the DSL router. Now, it’s all about practicing patience.