On Christmas Eve this year, a Friday, I joined in a festive dinner at my mom and dad’s house, where my brother and his wife and kids also visited for the occasion.
I get along with my brother. We usually have a Sunday phone call a few minutes in duration. However, the others, I don’t know all that well. That’s why joining everybody for dinner on Christmas Eve took me out of my comfort zone.
I did all right. I was reasonably chill–I wasn’t nervous. I listened more than I talked. I didn’t get angry or anything like that. I didn’t put myself at the center of attention.
I had a plate of food, and I got some decent Christmas presents.
On other Christmases, I have acted far more quirky. I made the decision this year not to deal with the people observing me on Christmas Eve by trying to be entertaining. I felt that acting more maturely would create a better impression than being silly.
I didn’t take a camera and so didn’t bother my brother and his family with the requirement of me pointing a camera at them and shooting photos.
As I didn’t make verbal references pointing to, say, the movies, my brother and his family weren’t put into a conversation that maybe not everybody desired.
For a change, I acted all the more dependably, and I rest easy thinking about the result that occurred. I think this ability is coming with age. I don’t need to prove, as much, that I’m still kind of bright and young.
To tell the truth, we never know if we will all be able to return for the same occasion one year into the future. Nothing is for sure, especially not something to that effect.
I was pleased with myself that my comfort zone grew.
If the subject of Facebook enters the conversation, my mom likes to say she isn’t on it.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a Facebook account in my dad’s name, and I think my mother also thinks that the two of them, my mom and my dad, have the same outlook, and disposition. By that logic, I take it that an account apiece isn’t necessary for them. Comments they leave are usually attributed to one or the other.
I have a small Facebook account. But despite having a humble reverence for the David Fincher-directed 2010 film The Social Network, my pleasure in being on Facebook is helping to run a not-for-profit business. For example, this very morning, a woman let me know, with an email to the Facebook page for the business, that she finds the business very beautiful, and you’ll understand why in a moment.
In 2007, at the sales company where I worked, Facebook on the desktop computers was blocked, so that entrance-level employee couldn’t enjoy it. At that time, even for a young man like me, Facebook was a lifeline. In 2012, Facebook App Center, an internet-based portable store, was carried out onto the market.
The store at first had 500 Facebook applications. which were. for the most part, games. I remember wondering why was this happening. Why were so many users playing games?
Around this time, my dad did kind of a noble thing, when, after years of helping manage the municipal cemetery for his job, he came across a little cemetery on the other side of town. Their trustees were hoping to share the burial ground with the district he had worked for.
My father acquired the cemetery and welcomed me on as a partner in 2012. For a nonprofit, as a retiree might characteristically enjoy working at, presently we require one day a week, ordinarily.
Louth United Church
I am not sure I suggested it myself, but it was probably me who did–making a business page on Facebook for the cemetery, so interested people could easily get ahold of us, like the woman did this morning. My dad had wanted a website for the cemetery, and this extra measure was one more step, a Facebook page
I compose posts that flow data about characteristic concerns we have. You see, I research and blog. I am an amateur writer.
I’ve composed a few brief tales, however, I don’t have the standard novel or screenplay that an essayist frequently has. I’m really an amateur blogger with family business ties. The business page on Facebook has nearly a hundred accounts of people who “like” it, and most of the control of the page falls to me.
One friend of the business, an elderly lady, I got to know a little during her brief visits to the cemetery, and also when the two of us interacted together on Facebook, had advice for me that I continue to apply on the Facebook business page.
My mother may never have signed up for Facebook, but I think she is pleased to think I show the initiative to manage the page. My mom worked for a small business for many years, as a clerk. We actually argue about many matters, but as long as I show a commitment to my dad’s retirement business, I continue to hold some cards in the game, between the three of us.
Nowadays Facebook has a significant draw, yet what we would never have expected are the losses Facebook has had to confront. Remember the lead-up to the appointment of 2016, when it was discovered that Facebook was utilizing Cambridge Analytica? That information firm gave Hillary Clinton a benefit, as her position was greater for Facebook than Donald Trump’s pass into the White House would have been.
It was trouble. Trump’s since been banned from Facebook, as well as from other social media. Granted, Maple Lawn Cemetery’s a small page, and we don’t handle cash transactions there, so the Cambridge Analytica scandal didn’t impact us much, although the distrust in the air that grew for Zuckerberg did have a toxic impact on how people used Facebook, compared to how they used it before the 2016 scandal.
Two days ago, in the early hours, CNET Tech, when reporting on Facebook going against the British Parliament, discussed online one Damian Collins, a member of parliament. Even now, Frances Haugen, CNET reports, is preparing to speak to British Parliament. It was Collins who took Cambridge Analytica to task in 2016, across the pond, and he is quoted as saying, “There needs to be greater transparency on the decisions companies like Facebook take when they trade off user safety for user engagement.”
The issue is that Facebook utilizes information about its customers to maneuver them to invest more energy, again became a national topic Sunday when Frances Haugen, a former Facebook worker, showed up on TV to clarify that Facebook is investigating strategies for better compelling and ultimately how to benefit from kids helpless against Facebook fixation.
Facebook has been successful this week demonstrating to the European Union that Facebook has adequate privacy protections in place, but they remain dodgy. Frances Haugen did them no favours, however.
You know, I don’t think my mother thinks about those kinds of things.
My mom has the perception that people are talking to each other when they are posting on Facebook. You can say that’s true, however, I think she sees those individuals “talking” rather than the more accurate description that anyone, when Facebook posts are public, can cooperate with those posts. The explanation for this is those messages from Facebook, about those individuals that you have been cooperating with, is not that those individuals posting have chosen companions to send messages to (ie my mom, I suppose).
What I mean is that when my mother is happy to leave a comment on a post, say, composed by a cousin of hers or by an aunt, with my dad’s account, the reason emails from Facebook come back to him with reminders is that my mother has initiated contact, with his account, with those family members, it is not because those family members want emails sent to him and to her (my mom and dad).
The drawback I personally have run into on Facebook is that I have that one friend who reacts to lots of the posts I do put up. He’s bizarre. I know there’s a cliched perception that if your mother is reading what you are posting on Facebook, you are dealing with trouble, but to that end I don’t remember too many times that the account that my mom and dad use came back with reactions to my posts.
My mom is good that way. Lots of times, I am dropping posts with little to no engagement, although I have an idea what works to at least merit a little bit of a reaction.
Many people prescribing what’s called a dopamine detox suggest staying off social media. Sometimes they say they never felt better after getting away from Facebook for a while (better, or clearer-headed).
I don’t think my mom ever felt Facebook was a problem among me and my brother and my sister. We aren’t children.
My mom doesn’t like me eating too much junk food, but she doesn’t raise objections to too much Facebook use. It just isn’t that Facebook is the problem its detractors say it is.
I doubt that Zuckerberg is the disrupter that Jesse Eisenberg plays him as in the David Fincher film. That really is great cinema. The brilliance of the ambiguity of the conclusion of the film leaves you with the knowledge of how the film’s events next played out in the real world and leaves the audience to ask an existential question, about the value of what Zuckerberg has done.
Jessie Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg is the Nietzschean overman who makes a brave journey, a very satisfying ideology. I find Facebook pleasant and harmless. Occasionally if I come on too strong, for a stranger’s liking, I get rebuked, but usually, I pick safe moves that don’t rock the boat too much.
The Social Network
Compared to both Facebook and Instagram, where the drawbacks are becoming ugly to discuss, I retain an optimistic view of Twitter, and I respect the measures Jack Dorsey has implemented to deal with hate speech, which while known to be a problem on Twitter, doesn’t engender the same conversation that I know of that it does about Facebook. Twitter is actually getting so it can conceivably warn you if you are writing an incendiary tweet. It is a changing attitude for the service, for sure.
About Facebook, people say things like hate content will earn more views and that is probably true, although I don’t know why. Facebook is being blamed for allowing this. I think that a person can be more attractive if they aren’t focused on material that is hateful.
A spiritual outlook is better, I think, say, like to believe that there is good in everyone, if it is only nurtured. Hate is a terrible quality to define a person by. There is vast beauty in the world, and to spend your time on Earth consumed by hatred is not a fine way to live life.
When I was a little kid, my mother would say the cliché, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do the same?” It’s not quite the same thing, as my mom doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with Facebook. I don’t, really, either, despite the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2016, and now the Frances Haugen 60 Minutes debacle.
Perhaps those people with whom my mom chats on Facebook, though they may understand Facebook better than my mother does, do like having comments from her, and like having their posts viewed. That my mother can mentally translate Facebook use into a “chat” that is organic in the sense that people are having a catch-up lets me know that there are probably many people who view Facebook, and Facebook Messenger, the same as that.
The mental concept of Facebook automatically translates into a natural style of conversation instead of being too robotic, which is old hat for anybody who can remember the days that Internet chat was a chief part of the Internet’s function, whether that was AOL or MSN Messenger, or, these days, Facebook Messenger.
Perhaps my participation in services like MSN Messenger back in the day helped elucidate for my mother how it is that Internet chat goes, but it is more likely that talk with my sister Kaite is what educated my mother into an understanding of Internet chat, as Kaite thinks of herself as an early adopter of Facebook.
Like a feedback loop, my sister’s instruction to my mother brought round for me insight into how people view Facebook and Facebook Messenger. Other people must have similar reactions when they are becoming familiar with it. While I would have understood it regularly given my experience on MSN Messenger as everybody had in the 2000s, I too feel that I am right as rain about how it is to be on Facebook, but not at the expense of how I feel it is to be part of a community inside Facebook.
The problem is the question of whether Facebook will keep a good enough reputation for itself among most Internet users around the world. Though my mom’s understanding of Facebook is probably largely due to my sister’s help, I think my mom is right that she sees the use of Facebook in a simple but useful light. None of that would be going on without my sister’s words of explanation for my mother and father.
I should remember that when I am writing emails to Kaite. Respect due, Kaite is married and has a little one at home, and has been working in the city of London, England, where their family resides.
My mom may discourage junk food, but Facebook is right by her. I remember my high school librarian who referred to many works of fiction as being “ice cream reading,” meaning they weren’t high-value books. Funny how that is.
You’re welcome to like this post, follow my blog, and leave comments. All the best, especially if you are on Facebook. If you want to contact me by email, you can, at the personal email patrickcoholan@hotmail.com
My personal Facebook account is https://www.facebook.com/findingenvirons Don’t think you can be affected? Give it a go. I hope you have a great Halloween this season.
“What better way to suggest friendliness – and to create it – than with a cup of tea?” -J. Grayson Luttrell
“Classically, a ‘tea party’ makes one think of superiorly elegant and elaborate affairs of the Victorian times. It also conjures up images of fluffy scones, flavoursome muffins, Devonshire Cream and dainty sandwiches served on fine silver or deluxe bone china. Still, the elemental part of a tea party remains the affable exchange of dialogue among the invitees. Almost indistinguishably, the tea party that I am organizing is an online social event hosted in honour of bloggers, that is US! Blogging is most enjoyable when it is done interactively. The tea party, therefore, is an ideal occasion for socialising and making, as well as maintaining the acquaintance of those in the blogosphere. It is a chance to truly relax and to take some time to recharge one’s batteries by engaging in a light-hearted conversation, to be with friends and simply delight in each other’s company…
“FOOD
“Feel free to talk about anything related to food. What’s your favorite food? Do you like cuisine from other countries? If yes, which do you like the most? How important is a healthy diet to you? What national dishes from your country would you recommend to the world?…
“-Etiquette Number 1- Introduce yourself.
“Introduce yourself, your blog or even your latest post to the community in such a way that it encourages others to converse with you. Avoid posting just a link as a comment which looks rude and spammy. Be polite.
“-Etiquette Number 2- Mix and mingle.
“Tea is a communal experience and there it requires that you meet and greet at least some of the other wonderful people in attendance. Participate by actively reading others’ comments and visiting their links/sites.
“-Etiquette Number 3- Share & reblog the most recent tea party.
“The purpose of the event is to create a platform where everyone benefits from real diversity of thought; and for that we need to find people who genuinely hold different views and invite them into the conversation. So, please spread the word in the blogosphere through reblogs.
“It’s a sure thing that the tea party ritual punctuates our day with precious, refreshing pauses. Perhaps that is the true gift of a teatime celebration: it fills our cups with joy, warmth and friendship. May the echo of the teacup’s message be heard not only at special functions, but anytime friends come together, both in the virtual world and in reality.”
A TikTokker followed me, this weekend, with the offer of a shoutout if I were to follow her account, and to tag three friends and to share her video to get an upswing startedhttps://vm.tiktok.com/JN4odUw/
“Are blogs still popular in 2020?”
“Yes, blogging in 2020 is still popular and is serving even more purpose than ever before. …68% of marketers now see blogging as a useful marketing tool.”
Just so we’re on the same page. 🙂 It’s a decent rivalry.
It is now summer. Even though the winter doesn’t usually get too severe here in Southern Ontario, we have summer which feels pretty scorching, and that is surreal. That aspect is well-intensified by strange circumstances. Writing this, in July 2020, I am beginning year no. 9 of writing my blog.
A blog, as you know, is long-form writing. It’s the opposite of microblogging, like how blogging is on Twitter. A Personal Plan on WordPress, an option on the blogging platform, lets you design a blog by choosing from among a variety of special themes, that shape how your blog looks.
On WordPress, as mine is, a regular domain doesn’t look bad, but a more ambitious blogger might start with a Personal Plan if you want a more professional-looking blog. In fact, in WordPress, the Block Editor is the design page that helps you put together blocks of paragraphs, to make writing a post easy.
I use a lot of white space, to keep my blog readable, and to keep it feeling like typewriter text transported to a computer screen, which is what early word processing programs were like. If you know about adventure games in the nineteen-seventies and -eighties, like, for example, the game company Infocom’s game Zork, or a different, earlier, hit game called Adventure, you know they consist of a paragraph of descriptive text followed by a blinking parser, at which you would enter a two-word command to play. I have that period of gaming as a primary concern, one wellspring of motivation.
My intention presently is to reach several dozen people or so with each post, possibly a hundred visitors per post, which is the typical reach I have at present. I appreciate that the odd post I’ve composed gets a couple of guests, to boot. With WordPress, the stats dashboard gives you an idea of how many visitors have turned up for your blog posts, and what they are saying their country of origin is.
I have had this blog for eight years. That’s the level of expertise I have with it, Level Nine, you might put it.
In the first edition of the former game company TSR’s classic game Dungeons & Dragons, Level Nine was known as Name Level. That is the famous tabletop game. It features in the plot of the Netflix hit Stranger Things.
Name Level means that your Dungeons & Dragons character has made a name for himself, as in “Merlin” becoming “Merlin the Wizard,” to take from Arthurian mythology an example. In Arthurian mythology, Merlin is the wizard who helps King Arthur rule at Camelot. Like Merlin and King Arthur, here on WordPress, I am leet.
Likewise, with different parts of life, you have goals with your blog, and blogging makes unobtrusive notoriety for yourself (as it is the Name Level guidelines in Dungeons & Dragons sway interaction.)
On occasion, I draw extra thoughts from patterns I see via web-based media, stages like Twitter and YouTube, and TikTok. On WordPress, I get to blog as much as I make time for it, which is a luxury I know many aspiring writers would enjoy themselves if they had it. With that sort of extravagance, I am happy with the opportunity to continue without too many time limitations. I am not too hard on myself.
My intentions, also, are to keep posting in a way that other people might relate to. When WordPress offered a fourteen-day prologue to composing verse, quite a long while back, I composed through that fourteen-day arrangement. Actually, at the time, I was kind of pleased with a few of the ideas I came up with, as I think my approach is a touch singular.
I in some cases loan support to other little bloggers. I have seen that quite a few bloggers do that. Those are probably the kind of people that I am trying to reach.
Another source of inspiration, outside WordPress, is the real world Nashville Tennessee writer Jeff Goins, an inspiring voice in blogging circles. I think Jeff Goins worked in marketing when he decided he wanted to begin writing. In fact, for his first book, he presented the title You Are A Writer.
The Art of Work is a book that explores all kinds of inspired case studies, of people who bring a special touch to the work they do. It became a bestseller. I think Goins wrote that unless your heart is in your work, it isn’t right.
As well, my father’s sister’s husband, Rick, and his wife Sue, both residing in Nashville, have written some books. They are my godparents.
To the reader, if you have ever read my blog and are returning, by all means, thank you. Such a great hobby. You’re welcome to comment or to follow.
Have a wonderful day and a terrific summer. I wish you well!
Today is my niece Clara’s tenth birthday. Happy birthday, Clara.
I have been perusing the April 2020 WordPress Discover articles. This week they are again driven by Ben Huberman.
Today’s Discover Challenge: book
Clara is in the third grade. At the point when I was in the third grade, I think my preferred intrigue was beasts, and obviously, she is a young lady. However, I think my favourite book, when I was a third-grader, was the classic, The House with a Clock in its Walls, by John Bellairs. It’s a 2018 film.
My nephew Mack, Clara’s brother, is in uni, and when I think back of books I read in college, that weren’t on the syllabus, I remember reading The Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux. I think I wanted something familiar to read. There is a film, the 1986 film featuring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. Harrison Ford had starred in the Star Wars films which saw son pitted against father. I think he was following that set of motion pictures with another film that was about the idea of Father’s relationship with the child, and furthermore about the connection among machines and nature, likewise a topic in that first Star Wars three.
If my mother were to ask me, I would recommend Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and it’s all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life, by Richard Carlson. It’s an antidote to stress.
For my dad, who has likewise been my supervisor for quite a while now, I would prescribe a progressively unordinary book, the novel Humans by Donald E. Westlake. It’s a novel truly about a fight among God, and the Devil, for the whole planet.
If Kris was still with us, as she loaned me her Holy Bible, which I wish I’d demanded to return, I figure I may have gained favour with her if I’d brought her A Million Little Pieces, the splashy novel by James Frey, that transformed into contention, with Oprah Winfrey.
Tuesday morning I went in to see that Tim’s “smile cookies” are back, which are cinnamon cookies with the icing of a smile atop them–:). That evening I bought one to take to a friend, as I am a steadfast believer in the power of kindness.
I have enjoyed browsing the tea party posts. My curiosity is piqued for what could be around the corner as The Little Mermaid posts a fourth tea party.
I have also reflected on a new idea for a post.
10 Freaky Reasons Cupcakes Could Get You Fired
TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2016
Monday
The Glass is Half Empty
1.You’re sugarcoating the truth, and it comes out easy over cupcakes in the office cafeteria party. 2.You’re entering a relationship with a girl who bakes for you and is challenging your fashion sense. 3.You’re juggling naysayers and gossips. 4.You’re coming home from work only to watch syndicated sitcom programming on late night cable… again. If you’re lucky, you have a dog. 5.You’re setting a bad example.
The Glass is Half Full
6.Your parents are out of town, her parents are out of town… when the cat’s away, the mice will play. 7.You’re asking can you spare a dollar. 8.You hope to set your Facebook privacy settings to Who Can See Your Friends… Only Me (in order to discourage gawkers.) 9.You and the girl baking for you are both Irish. 10.The cupcakes are a vanilla mix and seem to be challenging you to up your game.
In seriousness, now, 15 September marked the International Day of Democracy
You are probably familiar, to one extent or another, with the troubles in the White House. I became interested in that when Facebook came under scrutiny for the suggestion of there being misappropriated influence preceding the 2016 US Election.
Again 15 September, the United Nations has observed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for seventy years now.
The International Day of Democracy observes the importance of a democratic government for each individual member of the United Nations.
I also observed on this day the reality that I had reached the age of forty-one and a half years old. I feel reasonably good, interested in life in general and grateful for my opportunities and for my leisure time.
I am appreciative of those who “like,” “follow” and/or comment. For that, thank you.
Too much stress, “bad” stress, can weaken you, deplete your resources and waste scarce time if you are not dealing with your lifestyle well. Everybody endures stress.
Getting older, I believe that lifestyles of Generation Z are significantly common, but I am from a small town. It is important to obey the Biblical commandment, to honor thy mother and father. As the father did before you, if you are of a certain age, you too need to heed that you are following appropriately in his steps.
That being said, there is lightness. I think with a touch of envy of the comparative ease of the generation of young people often collectively referred to as Generation Z. That doesn’t mean that I can compete with the energy of the young and of the attitudes which characterize them, different than for someone my age.
Someone like me, I feel, is part of a culture that values stress, that putting a great deal of work into a lifetime is a necessity. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Shopping cart
However, it means fulltime people endure an enormous amount of stress. The more hours of work we take on, to make ends meet, the more stress we cope with.
I believe stress can easily bend one to its will rather than the other way round. It is all very hard to manage.
In the film sequence preceding the climax of the 1978 feature film Superman, Lex Luthor conquers Superman with a chain of Kryptonite, until Superman makes a personal promise to Luthor’s beautiful assistant in order that she remove the powerful amulet–but a promise that puts at risk the woman who has his heart, Lois Lane. All in all, it is an excellent film.
What I did, in my life, is an irregular passage through the years. In 2008 when my employer closed its doors, I went on to work a part-time job while reflecting on what to do with my future Then I went full time on government disability, as it was felt that I’d been “compromised” enough to give up on making a living through the avenue of work.
I had been reading some books on self-management and I didn’t think the stress of a new workplace was going to benefit me enough to do it.
A few years later, my father, perhaps frustrated by my reluctance, had an idea. He was retiring from many years with a municipal cemetery, where he’d helped manage it from its offices.
A small cemetery in our town was searching for new operators. It attracted him, and the trustees of that property were pleased to turn it over to him, so that he could direct it, pleased to have a focus in his retirement.
To my surprise, my dad invited me to help handle the operation of the cemetery. We commenced in 2011. The church at the cemetery, formerly of the United Church of Canada, had disbanded in 2006.
Important headstones of family generations in Maple Lawn Cemetery
We maintain the property ourselves, and work in the interior of the church in dire weather, setting our sights on attending to the cemetery once a week. We made a not-for-profit out of it. While I am junior, and there is no certainty how matters will proceed, in the seven years or so, lucky seven, that we’ve handled the cemetery, it has been a luxury of time and experience for me and an opportunity to enjoy the company of my father in his golden years.
We have had outside help from brothers of my father, my uncles. On a few brief occasions we have talked about growth, but I don’t know if I can turn this venture into something in which I can continue in the long-term. This post is intended to be expository writing, but working for a not-for-profit, when financial gains are generally hard-won, can lead to burnout, and to a minor degree that is what I am experiencing.
You see, I contribute several hours a week of work to the cemetery, and as my dad has spoken reassuringly of the flexibility to set our own hours, I have lately started to reduce my workload to a four-day week rather than a five-day.
I can’t help, for example, but want to relax on Saturday. I think the decision to work less on Fridays is somewhat deleterious in that if you want to get ahead, you should probably be hustling with the same energy on a Friday that you do on a Monday.
I couldn’t help, in the past several weeks, to admit that the stress of putting nonprofit work at the center of my life, was making me feel a touch sick, by which I mean I was experiencing burnout. I am sure this is common.
Photographer: Ylanite Koppens
Whether this transition, to four days of focus on the cemetery rather than on each and every business day, will contribute to a soul-searching decision by my dad to relieve me of my work, I don’t know. I think what will determine my chances of staying on are the quality of work I can produce in the time I devote to the not-for-profit.
How this has me feeling, perhaps, “sick,” is that I do care about working and I do feel some prestige enjoying the privilege of doing work that is shaped by our own efforts. This is in contrast to working for a firm that is structured in predictable ways, with employee equity and positions and demands which could easily contribute to a high-stress load.
I am taking this risk because I believe I can do better work if I make strategies to cope with the burnout before there are related consequences. I am counting on my own experience and abilities to do the same quality of work in a four-day structure than I would be getting done by committing the entirety of the work week to headway and progress.
I am sick to think of losing what I have worked for, and I am sick to think of bringing shame onto my father if the quality of my work does suffer because I am having trouble being afield of all that we do. I feel like I should write something about feeling troubled by what I have to do to manage my role as operator, and maybe even think on how I could express an appropriate apology for how I am feeling.
Writing is the act of discovery. – Natalie Goldberg
Photographer: Freestocks.org
If my father does finally decide, which I know he won’t do lightly, that I should be dismissed, it will be a sad day and for that, I will pay a price, of having the failure on my shoulders. If that scenario comes to pass I will take time to mend. It may be a self-centered attitude, but the best that can be done in the face of failure is to learn from what happened.
Everyone has experienced failure, and usually many, many times, sometimes with adverse consequences.
If you have never failed, you have stayed well inside your comfort zone. Life needs to change and grow.
If my role in the not-for-profit does end in failure, I will at least have work experience. I think I can draw on the time spent at this to draw conclusions that will inform my life in the future. The situation that I think could result, however, is not going to be completely ideal.
It will be back to being “sick,” resorting to making ends meet with the help of a pension for disability, and with the support of my mom and dad. Ain’t no one got time for that. I will have then have the opportunity to look for a job if I feel I can weather the stress, or return to freelancing and try to find my niche doing that.
Photographer: Rawpixel.com
Many members of Generation Z work as freelancers in the digital economy, and I would be competing with all of those people, which is daunting. That being said, there are a few paths ahead for me to take and I will have to ask for guidance from fate and the intentions of The Lord. I know I shouldn’t emphasize feeling sick about all this and I know I shouldn’t take on a job post that gives me more additional stress than I can handle.
For now, I will bide my time–for as much clarity as I can muster.
You are welcome to like, follow, and/or comment if you have feedback. Lately, the blog has been fairly quiet, in terms of visits it receives, but you never know when some I’ve published here will pique the interest of a reader.
I appreciate the time of those who are visitors. I have been tying my blog to the not-for-profit, and also trying to be jovial as I know it is as yet an amateur effort. I feel blogging will continue to play a role in the time I have to write, as it is a splendid little spot of fun that has a pragmatic purpose.
Blogging is a hobby I have my hand in–I like to write a little. WordPress.com is the home for my blog, as you already know.
Fallen glove
One of the blogs that I enjoy reading is that of is the Christian blogger beautybeyondbones. Beautybeyondbones writes of her path in life with the guidance of Jesus, of her personal recovery years later from a troubles with anorexia, and, rounding out these themes, she blogs her recipes that connect her readers to an additional source of goodness in her life. She writes a message of hope for troubled and confused women, along with insight into her faith.
On top of that, she adds recipes that lend themselves to preparing food, right from her kitchen. She should consider being an entrant on Top Chef!
Photographer: Aidan Meyer
I believe beautybeyondbones goes “live” Monday evenings, Wednesday evenings, and Thursday evenings. Her latest recipe from her blog is here: https://t.co/34JoyrFSye
What I have found interesting about beautybeyondbones is her writing style. She is clearly writing from the heart, and her vigor and elegance are clear.
I think of myself as a fledgling writer. Sometimes I use a free word processing tool I downloaded called Jarte. It is a comparatively simple program (compared, say, to the Office Suite from Microsoft). I think if you are writing a straightforward document, as, for example, for blogging, Jarte’s been around a long time and matches many of the most important features that you can find in a word processor.
For example, you write onto the Jarte window the way you do most other word processors, and if you want to select a feature there are drop-down windows that facilitate this. It is very ease to use.
If you want to write a list, you can organize a list in Jarte that’s either bulleted or numerical. If you are listing ingredients for a splendid recipe, like you might find in the beautybeyondbones blog, you could write a bullet list of what’s necessary to make the dish. Or you could combine bulleted and numerical lists together, as in, perhaps, the method of preparation by number, and then a bullet list of the ingredients going into the recipe.
To make your recipe clear, you could introduce more than one font into your Jarte document to emphasize different sections of your recipe in a way that is visually aesthetic. As you probably know, the font is the visual aspect of the text in your document. You can change the size of the font and also italicize, make bold, or underline.
The font of your title could be underlined, for example, and the bullet list of ingredients could be one font and the numerical steps to do the preparation of the food could be in a third font.
The Jarte word processor can handle more than one document tabs, so you can have more than one document open at the same time you are working on them. If you are organizing your recipes, you can have several of them active, for instance, so that you can go from to another by clicking on the tabs for each at the top of the Jarte program window.
The Save and Save As features work similar to how they do in other word processors. To keep a copy of your recipe or of other documents on your device, you select Save. If you want a second copy with a different filename you select Save As.
I picked Jarte for the word processor I sometimes favor because I am familiar with it and because it is a free download that runs efficiently and appeals to me. The design of the word processor is intuitive and all of its commands are easy to find. The drop-down menus in Jarte are not unlike those of other small word processors.
You can run more than one instance of the Jarte software and close one Jarte window without negatively impacting the other. It never ever seems to give me an error and the performance of the program is consistent. As well, it doesn’t seem to trouble the user with software updates like some computer tools that frequently ask you to download a new update.
Jarte is freeware and if you are starting from scratch, you could do worse! I make use of Jarte on a frequent basis. You can download the Jarte word processor here: www.jarte.com/download.html
Remember that if you are interested in recipes or have someone in your life or you yourself that is troubled by the impact of anorexia, beautybeyondbones is an excellent resource to turn to.
Photographer: Aleksandar Spasojevic
Beautybeyondbones has also published a book inspired by her diary when she was afflicted the worst in her life by anorexia. The title of this book is bloom and you can find it on blurb: www.blurb.com/b/8086385
I appreciate very much the encouragement that beautybeyondbones has given me when she actually kindly left “likes” on posts of mine that spoke true to her.
You are likewise welcome to select like. Or even “follow” and/or comment. Have some fun in the kitchen, too!
Thank you for taking an interest in my blog. All the best to you in terms of your mental health, in your faith and in your blog or other writing. Good luck to you all the more if you are a blogger and on WordPress. Take care!
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