Blog Olympics: Legos Beat Kardashians

I haven't been blogging much lately, for reasons that wouldn't interest anyone but the terminally bored. I've been involved in the normal range of activities that most people find manageable, but I, for some reason, don't. I've got the usual number of piles and projects deposited around the house in varying states of incompleteness, attesting to the fact that blogging hasn't lost out to productivity just yet.

I can't blame "not blogging" on the Olympics, either. I'm apparently a lousy American, because I barely watched 10 minutes total. And I followed the preparations in London like the sad Anglophile I am, thinking I'd finally watch "The Games" this year. I always think that, but then the coverage actually commences and I find I'm not interested. I watch highlights and recaps with the sound off, but beyond that, I'm content to look at Wheaties boxes to find out who won.

The competitive activity I've been glued to is the statistical analysis of my neglected blog. I have been trying to look at what I'm writing that "works," and what I post that falls flat. Blogger, the Google blogging platform I publish through, makes it very easy to analyze the impact of my writing. Studying my statistics, sparse as they are, is usually a pretty dull experience. As regular readers know, some months ago I attempted to build my readership by invoking the most trendy word I could think of: Kardashian. I used the name multiple times in a blog to see if the Google search insects would calculate that, based on the frequent appearance of such an important word (Kardashian), my article must be important and should therefore be featured high on any keyword search.

At least this is how savvy bloggers claim to get more traffic - choose trending keywords and execute careful keyword placement. So I gave it a go a few months back, writing not one, but two articles about the Kardashian phenomenon and how it has personally affected my family. If you missed them, the one about Eric's notorious extramarital affair with one or more Kardashians is here, while the recap of my blog's influence on the Kardashian's endorsement deal with Sears is covered here. Feel free to go back and read them, since you are really not missing much here.

Aaaaanyway, it was fun, and I'm sure a few random teenage girls stumbled on my blog before hurriedly clicking the "back" button, but other than a brief spike in hits on the day I published those two, I detected no lasting increase in traffic. I decided to let the Kardashians to go find another housewife to do their publicity. I was clearly not cut out for such a glamorous assignment.

So I went back to the tried-and-true philosophy of "Write What You Know," cranked out a few articles that were probably examples of better writing, but still my same predictable housewife schtick. Google Analytics showed very steady, undramatic charts and graphs to indicate a small dedicated readership, with only the occasional "Kardashian" search.

Real life continued to get in the way of meaningful writing, spring turned to summer, and one day I decided to look at my stats again, to see who or what was going on behind the scenes at "Polite Ravings" while I was ignoring it.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a different Registered Trademark had overtaken the Kardashians in keyword search frequency in my traffic analytics? I'd always hoped the gushing odes to my Keurig or Dyson would finally draw in some random readers (or advertisers), but the magic product that attracted so much attention was one I don't even own:

Legos.

I wrote about my introduction to today's microscopic building sets in a fun blog you can find rat-cheer. The post was really about how much I enjoyed the job of babysitting a charming 5 year old, owner of enough Legos to construct a mid-sized strip mall. Looking back, I'd have to say I was writing about how Legos brought this little boy and I closer. The catalyst could have been confusing baseball cards or a violent video game, but fortunately, we bonded over wholesome building blocks.

Legos, and their ninja subsidiary, Ninjagos, have propelled me to the highest number of search hits in my 2.5 year blogging history. If you include my favorite Ninjago character, Kai, in the keyword search data, the collective impact of Legos on my blog traffic is a staggering three times the total of the Kardashians!

I now see which side my bread is buttered on.

Oh, the Kardashians haven't heard the last of me - I'm sure they are shaking in their stilettoes as they read that promise. I browsed their trashy, poorly-made Klearance racks while at Sears yesterday. Not surprisingly, there were more Kardashian Kollection fashions on Klearance than there were new product. I could have left that store with four complete slutty outfits and a scarf for under $100, which is not a bad bit of shopping by my standards. But the stuff is hideous. That's just an opinion, but the racks echo my sentiment. It warms my heart to think that there are more sleazy clothes than sleazy people to buy them. I'm sure I'll be forced to bring up the Kardashians from time to time, just to keep them on their toes.

But what does it mean, that more people search "Legos" than "Kardashians?" What does it portend for hopeless, imitative bloggers? Do I have a future in toy reviewing or babysitting? How can I capitalize on my unintended success with Lego shoppers? Is there some way to combine the concepts of chin hairs and toys for profit?

Yes, these questions provide ample opportunity to think more and do less, which may have become my personal motto by default. In the medal count, I may not get any gold for blogging, but I'm clearly a world-class procrastinator.

Fifty Shades of Wasted

I frequently apologize and/or make excuses for my old-fashioned tastes, limited understanding of current trends and cluelessness as regards popular culture. I could never be mistaken for a person who knows what's new, what's hot, what's in. I'm pretty stagnant in my interests and don't usually explore "the latest" of anything. 


And I'm usually satisfied being out of the pop culture loop. I'm okay not knowing who is the latest favorite on American Idol, or what color is the new black, or the wedding plans of Brangelina.


The only niggling doubt I have is when it comes to books. Sometimes I just can't resist the urge to read the latest bestseller that everyone is talking about. I almost always regret that decision. I know what I like - why do I let myself get talked into reading something that doesn't interest me?


That's what happened this week. I finally broke down and bought Fifty Shades of Grey for my Kindle - at $9.99, the most expensive e-book I've bought - and began reading immediately.


Many of my friends have enjoyed this book, I assumed I was just being a stick-in-the-mud and missing out on a good story.


Note: What follows is purely my opinion. I am not trying to influence anyone. It's just a rant.


What a complete waste of my time! I'd give anything to be able to get back the hours I spent trudging through this juvenile, redundant, predictable excuse for a novel. I'd rather have a refund on the time than the money, and if you know how cheap I am, you know that's saying something.


The narrator and ingenue, Anastasia Steele, is only fractionally more likeable than Twilight's Bella Swann. She's a about to graduate from college with honors, is a dutiful daughter, a Brit Lit devotee', shy, gorgeous and a virgin. If she had ever 1) made one single intelligent decision during the course of the story or, 2) pulled the plug on her continuous stream-of-consciousness narration, I may have been able to find something about her to like or admire. But Ana quickly changes the very core of her character in order to be able to become sexually involved with Mr. Hottie Hot Hot Rich Gorgeous Stud. She's about as admirable a role model for women today as a certain aspiring Dallas Cowboy cheerleader named Debbie was to my generation. Completely unbelievable character development, in my opinion. 


The male love interest - I cannot call this character a hero with a straight face -  is Christian Grey, a 26-year old self-made telecommunications billionaire  who is frequently described by his physical beauty (redundantly and ad nauseum). He is also an accomplished pilot, classical pianist, has impeccable manners and speaks like he reads Lord Byron for breakfast. He's a bona fide sex god, whether indulging in his obsession with BDSM or just dabbling in "vanilla" carnality. In other words, he's off-the-chart implausible, which made it very difficult for me to give a rat's derriere what his emotional problems stem from.


I wish I'd listened to my own "inner goddess" and skipped this tripe. I'm doomed to remember this sub-par story and these annoying whiners for years, until the inevitable dementia sets in and I can hopefully forget this book. Meanwhile, I can't escape them in my head. I can't un-read the story or erase the memory of their kinky goings-on.


Let me be clear: I'm not opposed to the sexy aspects of the novel. It's just that the writing was so bad, the characterizations so infantile and the narrative so annoying that I can't see how anyone could enjoy any aspect of the story - sex, dialog, "inner goddess," what have you.  I was warned that it is poorly written, but I couldn't believe that something selling millions in hardback could be as bad as all that. I was mistaken.


Next time, if I think I don't want to read what everyone is reading, watch what everyone is watching or go where everyone is going, I hope I can remember this experience. I'm a boring, middle-aged woman, the perfect candidate for this mindless titillation, but I pray that next time a "can't-miss" opportunity comes along that truly doesn't appeal to me, I have the sense to save my limited time, money and brain space for finer, worthier things.


On the bright side, I'm feeling much more confident and ambitious about my own writing!

Starring In My Own Miniseries

I suppose you could say I'm anti-trendy - if everyone is doing it, I'm much too busy.  If everyone eats there, I've never tried it.  If everyone plays that game, I'm sidelined with injuries.  And most of all, if everyone is watching it, I'm doing something, anything else.  I'm not much of a series TV watcher.  If I watch at all, I come to popular shows a few years after they start. I never saw "Cheers" until Diane left, the first time I watched "The Simpsons" was when I saw the theatrical movie, and Scully was an already an abductee by the time I watched my first "X-Files."  Being "in-the-know" about popular shows has never been a priority for me.

I don't think the rest of the TV generation is like me.  Raised on series TV of the 1970s, my family watched very few interesting shows.  Carol Burnett was the highlight of my week.  My parents didn't allow "All in the Family," "Soap" or "One Day at a Time," because characters on those shows espoused subversive, non-traditional views that could be damaging to the values of growing children.  Bah! It just made those shows seem more attractive to the loser who had to go to school not knowing if Barbara took "The Pill" or Archie  invited Mr. Jefferson into the house.

In my teens, the American mini-series was very popular. "Roots" is some people's idea of the definitive mini-series, and I know it is a classic on many levels, but it didn't typify the popular mini-series because it was so good, so worthwhile, so educational.  Most of the minis that I remember had more superficial values - good-looking leads, exotic locales, tried-and-true storylines.

I'm not sure about the evolution of the mini, whether it was an outgrowth of the TV-movie or a genre of its own. I only know that when they began to appear in my house, family life was scheduled around these ground-breaking events.

The first mini I remember well is "Rich Man, Poor Man," based on the Irwin Shaw novel of the same name. Peter Strauss and Nick Nolte played brothers who take vastly different paths on their route to happiness and success. Who ends up rich, who ends up poor? That's about the only nuanced message of the opus, but I won't spoil it for you. It celebrated many things Americans love to observe - hard work, education, sex, greed, running away from your problems and revenge. My family ate it up.

Others I recall from that era are "The Thorn Birds," "North and South,"  and "Holocaust." Somehow, the phenomenon of extended storytelling was re-invented for the TV generation.

There have been many more worthy titles in the miniseries category, but as I reached adulthood, I lost interest in TV for many years, and cannot comment sensibly on anything from the middle 80s to the late 90s.  It wasn't until the BBC/A&E production of "Pride and Prejudice" was on its second or third running in the US that I finally heard that my favorite novel had been made into a miniseries worth watching.

My devotion to all things P&P is a source of embarrassment to my family, so I won't dwell on it at this time (I have something planned for later, though). Suffice to say that the beautifully-produced and essentially true-to-the-book adaptation simultaneously revived the miniseries, the American love of the miniseries, American interest in all things upper-crust British, the book and movie career of Jane Austen, and spillover rediscoveries of Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, the Bronte sisters and, of course, the Bard.

I love everything to do with English history.  No era is too bloody, to excessive, too full of plague, or conquest or intolerance to make it uninteresting to me.  Kings and commoners, queens and scullerymaids, they all make for great storytelling.  I've indoctrinated one of my two daughters into my love affair with castles, costumes and  courtship. The whole family thoroughly enjoyed the miniseries "Pillars of the Earth," a wonderful story of the individual and collective  fifty-year effort to build a cathedral in 12th-century England. (Based on the almost 1,000 page book by Ken Follett, I highly recommend the DVD for those not inclined to stout reading assignments.)

Any time I want to treat myself to a full day (6 hours) of watching P&P, I just go around collecting clothes that need ironing, so as to have a convenient excuse to stand in front of the TV all day.  Sometimes I run out of clothes before I run out of episodes, but I can usually find a button to sew or pants to hem so that I can at least get to the awkward scene at Pemberly, after Mr. Darcy's gratuitous yet satisfying splash in the pond.

I started to hear the buzz about a new miniseries that sounded a bit like "Upstairs, Downstairs" sometime last summer.  With other matters on my mind, I never considered checking it out.  Meanwhile, friends who know my fondness for Brit-lit and the BBC incarnations of those stories were untiring in their pestering that I should be watching this new drama.  Well, nothing assures my disinterest like people telling me I should be interested, particularly where TV is concerned.  I'm proud to say I never watched "Survivor" in any of its locales, or even one episode of "American Idol." I'm clueless about many shows that are part of the cultural fabric, hence my frequent cluelessness about culture.  I missed "The Sopranos," "24," "Lost," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Friends," and, alas, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." (I was forced to watch "Dancing with the Stars," because Camille was a fan, but I never inhaled.)

Clearly, without ties to continuing weekly TV sagas, I could be a much more productive member of society than all the zombies watching the idiot box, right?  And here on the pages of this blog you have learned just how productive I can be - if by productive I mean "producer of excuses." Anyway, after the second season debut of "Downton Abbey," I could no longer ignore the "must-see TV" talk about the show.  A quick peek at the homepage on PBS.org whetted my appetite, but again, other priorities got my attention and I never got around to watching.

Until yesterday.  Or should I say last night into the wee hours of the morning.

I'm hooked.  I'm so hooked I want to scrap the chores, skip the kids awards ceremony and band concert tonight and just watch it again, from start to finish. It is a feast for my eyes, a caress of my ears, food to nurture my romantic soul. I want to move into Downton and set things right for all my new best friends...especially Mr. Bates. I want to be there when the telegram about the Titanic arrives, and when the rally for women's suffrage gets violent, and when Lord Grantham attempts to explain why the death of a Turkish attache under his roof could have international consequences.

I've only got the DVD until Friday, then it goes back to the library for the next person on the very long hold list. I hope my wait for a copy of season two isn't unbearably long. I also want the girls to see it, and maybe Eric will even give it another try.  He dismissed it as a soap opera after one hour last night.  But he, the productive breadwinner, had to go to bed and just needed an excuse. I'll bet he's been daydreaming about the love/hate relationship between Lady Mary and Mr. Crawley, unable to engineer for wondering.

Ahem. Begging your pardon, I think I just remembered some ironing that needs attending to.

Domestic Diva and some Drivel about Drudgery

I'd like to begin today's rant with a lesson in logic and syntax. Read and analyze these two sentences:

I cleaned my house.

My house is clean.

It seems to me that, if you "do" the first sentence, then the second sentence would be a true statement.  In logic, this rule is called "transposition." Doubtless you all remember this from classical logic, but just in case, here's the cheat sheet:

  transposition is the rule of inference that permits one to infer from the truth of "A implies B" the truth of "Not-B implies not-A", and conversely.

Or, to clarify,

(P → Q) ↔ (~Q → ~P)

Got it?


So why, if I just cleaned my house, is my house already a mess?  Logic dictates that, if I clean my house, my house should be clean. And maybe it is, for a minute, but therein lies the problem.  Time passes and the statement becomes false.  It seems illogical to engage in unpleasant behavior (housework) that yields such temporary and illusory results.


I've noticed this fallacy often occurs with organizing projects as well. After several junk explosions and a scary visit from the closet police, I discovered that closets were not supposed to be stuffed to the hinges with stuff, but should be nicely organized into boxes, totes, bags, racks, shelves and baskets of stuff. To achieve this lofty goal, I spent months on an organizational odyssey around my house.  "Sort, categorize, contain" became my mantra. Be an HGTV before and after success story, I told myself.


I worked so hard.  I wanted spaces to look like this:

But this is my craft desk:

Not a pretty sight, is it?

But back to logic and ipso facto and stuff.

I did pretty well with the kitchen pantry, the linen closet, the medicine cabinet and actually merged three junk drawers into one.  But my issue remains with the fleeting nature of such jobs. Just take a moment to consider the tragic nature of this statement:

                      I organized my pantry ≠ My pantry is organized

It only takes one teenager 3 minutes of foraging for an after-school snack to undo hours of organizing.  Thanks to one or more of my "helpers," while trying to pack lunches one recent morning, I discovered I had zero granola bars (helpers usually eat >3/day) but there were four kinds of cookies, all open, none in airtight containers, ready to blithely be eaten by the handful, right where the box of granola bars should be. 

Speaking of the fleeting nature of success, don't even get me started on the joy of mopping or steaming a hardwood floor.  Unless you are one of the highly intelligent people who don't own dogs or children, you already know where I'm going with this.  I love to see a freshly vacuumed and mopped wood floor more than almost any other completed task, but dog hair, crumbs, footprints, sloshed drinks, etc., appear in nanoseconds to kill the moment. It's a documented fact that when scientists need to measure the shortest length of time that a feeling can possibly exist, they watch the face a woman who has just mopped her floor.

It frustrates me that I can finish a job, but it's never "done." It makes laziness and procrastination such attractive and sensible lifestyle choices. I seem to do the same unpleasant jobs over and over, but they always reappear on next week's to-do list. That just seems wrong. Isn't Einstein credited with defining insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"? Look at him, the smug genius - I'll bet he never cleaned a toilet in his life.








Yet here I go, off to the grocery store, where I'll read nutrition labels, compare costs per ounce of hundreds of items, juggle coupons and a calculator, try to resist buying junk, crap and non-essential, experience a sphincter spasm when the dollar total flashes on the screen, then come home and try to find a place for all the crap I had to buy. Seems like I just did that last week!







Then I'll tackle some equally repetitive and unsatisfying tasks, like laundry, ironing and scrubbing the kitchen sink.  I hope you enjoyed my whining as much as I enjoyed the time I got to waste looking up Latin phrases and pictures of Einstein.  I guess this blog is my ultimate example of an unfinished task, because no matter what I say, or how redundant my ideas are, I never seem to run out of them.

Be All That You Can Be - Digitially, That Is

Oh, no.  Not again.  I just spent hours and hours and hours that I can never recapture reading stuff I don't understand.  Why do I search the technology topics?  It's worse than looking at Cosmo before going shopping for a bathing suit.  I feel so hopelessly unfit, unfashionable and uninformed.

I love having a computer - specifically a laptop - that I can use to for fairly simple tasks.  I generally only have a few tabs open at any given time:  Facebook, AT&T (email), Accuweather, Ebay, Craigslist, and RealClearPolitics are my most frequently-visited sites.  I know that's boring but I'm just being honest.

When I need to know about something boring, particularly about computers or technology, I search the question or topic, and read until I find my answer.  Then I close the window and go about my business.  I'm rarely curious enough to go surfing around once I've found what I was looking for.  I squander enough time chatting on Facebook and dreaming on Ebay.  God help my children when I look up something about the Norman Conquest or anything else interesting to me on Wikipedia; I start link-hopping and lose track of time.  Last time I did that those poor girls didn't bathe for a week - I got very caught up in the bloodbath at Hastings and the Plantagenet succession.  So I have to keep my "surfing" to a minimum if I ever want to get anything done.

Turns out, this is the wrong way to be on the Web.  Especially if you want to build traffic to your own site, like my blog.  I should be interacting more at the sites where I find interesting stuff.  I am supposed to introduce myself everywhere I go, being sure to drop lots of hints about what I buy, where I live, my areas of expertise, etc., while I visit.

That's exactly the sort of indiscriminate information-sharing I've been trying to steer clear of and teach my children to avoid.  But it is the number one piece of advice for increasing readership.  One of the articles I read suggested registering at 10 new sites per day.  What?  By the time I do that, I've used all my allotted writing time.  Do I really have to flirt openly with 10 websites per day to get noticed?  Really, I'm just not that kind of girl.

But this is the advice I keep getting from Google searches like "get my blog read."  As poorly-crafted as that search term sounds, it netted about 2,760,000,000 results in 0.19 seconds and yielded some amazing articles with tremendous potential.  Problem is, they are over my head.   I enjoyed the initial pleasantries of "21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic,"  by Rand Fishkin (click here to leave my whining and read his article), but it quickly became a how-to for the cyber-savvy, which isn't me.  It's not that I can't understand the vocabulary, acronyms, charts, graphs or suggestions.  It's just that the thought of going to all those sites and registering and interacting with lots of strangers kind of scares me.

This article, and the other six I read before I was overcome with temporary pupil vibration and scrambled brain wave syndrome (the dreaded TEPVI/SCRABRAW syndrome - warn you loved ones!) desperately want me to become more connected to the Web via a multitude of helpful social networking sites.  To get maximum exposure, I need to be on Twitter, LinkIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest and Reddit, in addition to Facebook, which already helps me waste an enormous amount of time daily.  How am I ever supposed to get the laundry done if I have to go 'round to all those places all the time?

And then there's the content.  Well, I write what I want to write, so there's no getting around the fact that my topics may not be from the top-tier buzzwords.  But all the experts say that, if the writing is good, all you have to do it drop in a few keywords so that the SEO (search engine optimization) machine can do all the work to get you found by millions of readers.  Um, sorry...does that mean I need to title all my blogs including the word "Kardashian?"  That could actually be fun, and I may give that a try one of these days.  I'll bet traffic would double if the title also included the word "affair."  How about this one:  "I Think My Husband is Having an Affair with a Kardashian."  I think I'll try it and see what happens.

So I have to join a bunch of online country clubs and special-interest groups, then I have to use subliminal tricks to embed my otherwise-innocent text with search-worthy terms.  I also have to let Google do some analytics and tell me all about you, my readers.  I have only twelve followers and only average around 20 visits per day (need to post more), but somehow Google can extract meaningful data from that traffic.  Google can tell me what other sites my readers visited, suggesting topics that may generate more interest.  Even with my tiny bit of traffic, Google says I should have advertisers.  Those must be some pretty desperate companies, if they want to advertise on the blog equivalent of "Current Trends in Telegraph Communications."

I'm also supposed to offer to guest-blog for some of my favorite bloggers. Unfortunately, the few I read are huge and mega-successful, like Confessions of a Pioneer Woman.   I expect that'll go over big.

Dear Pioneer Woman,

   I really love your blog.  You make me laugh and cry.  I love the pictures of Charlie.  Now that you have a bestselling cookbook and and a bestselling biography, you are probably tired of writing.  Plus you are just so busy being Pioneer Woman, it's probably a drag to have to stop and write about it all the time.  So on that odd day where you are hungover or there's a brush fire that your whole resourceful family spends hours and hours putting out, I'd be glad to step in and throw together a blurb so you can have the day off.  Just let me know.

Sincerely,

Michele Arnett

Composing a letter is easy compared to some of the suggestions.  One tip is to add a link to my blog in my email signature.  I've been trying to figure out how to have an email signature since the first time I noticed how my husband's emails always end with the same long jumble of information, like his job title and three phone numbers, which I already know.  I'd like to have one of those cute signatures, because I write and answer a ton of emails (since I don't text and no one else I know talks on the phone).  I could add a nice signature and include my blog link, so that innocent, unsuspecting people would spend hours distractedly reading my wit and wisdom, thus increasing my traffic and making me more attractive to paying advertisers, like the Vienna Sausage people or perhaps a foot fungus treatment.

Naturally, every article suggests using design features that make your blog look professional.  I definitely need help in that department. (I wonder what the experts would say about the picture that used to be my header - me asleep on the chaise, with a book and 3 dogs on my lap - not very professional...)  My daughter keeps asking me to let her redesign my page, and I know I should let her work her magic.   I try adding gadgets (see the survey on the right sidebar) and changing around pictures, but it's really not my thing.  I'd rather be writing and let someone else be my style consultant, you know?

Below is Suggestion #20 from the article I mentioned.  See if this makes any sense to you:

 Many of you likely have profiles on services like YouTube, Slideshare, Yahoo!, DeviantArt and dozens of other social and Web 1.0 sites. You might be uploading content to Flickr, to Facebook, to Picasa or even something more esoteric like Prezi. Whatever you're producing on the web and wherever you're doing it, tie it back to your blog.

I thought most of these sites are for photos, videos and artwork.  Why would a writer have a profile on YouTube?  I thought that was for funny dog tricks and the secret cameras at WalMart.  Anyone who has seen my blog knows I am no photographer.  What on earth am I going to do for YouTube?  Produce a how-to video for making cushioned clothes hangers?  And what is a Web 1.0 site?  Clearly, I'm doomed to be trampled in the frantic race of ever-improving technology, just as surely as the pony express was trampled by the telegraph.  Woe is me.

So I think I'm going to hang up the idea of expansion/improvement/modernization.  I don't think I'm a multi-platform kind of blogger.  I don't think I'll be doing any guest-blogging gigs.  I don't think I'll subscribe to weekly updates of search terms and traffic vector/trajectory reports.  I think what I'll do is keep writing about what strikes me as interesting, without regard to Kardashians, Eli Manning or The Voice (popular search terms - can't hurt).  I'll keep working on my novel, which is going in crazy directions without my permission.  I'll remain a low-tech kind of entity, and allow the potential for advertising revenues and millions of followers to pass me by, because I'm too lazy and/or too scared to jump into the cybersphere with both of my virtual feet.

I'm just here, writing my schtick.  I won't waste any more time reading articles when I have no intention of following the advice.  Either people find me or they don't.  Right now I'm just like any other old. unremarkable hardbound book on the shelf, dusty with few signs of handling.  Hopefully one day I'll get moved to the nightstand.

Those Who Can't, Blog.

I've decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month this year.  Considering my abysmal record of consistency in blog-production, I expect to stink and fail, but I intend to give it a go.  After all, stinkage and failure are nothing new for me.  Both daughters are taking the challenge, too, so we are approaching it as a lazy yet meaningful family activity.

Older daughter Mary has been involved in this national creative writing effort for the last two years.  When she first began telling us about it, I thought it was a ploy her English teacher cooked up to trick the class into experimental writing.  Turns out, it really is a growing, coordinated movement intended to connect novice, struggling or insecure novel-writers and create a supportive, encouraging atmosphere that will allow anyone to produce a 50,000 word novel, or fraction of one, in 30 days. (Note how my list-heavy, adjective-laden prose and run-on sentences are just bursting onto the page already!)   Check out the detailed NaNoWriMo event webpage at http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

Now, since I never seem to start anything on time, I'm sitting down this morning, November 1, the first day of NaNoWriMo, to begin reading a book that tells how to best succeed at this effort.  In typical illogical fashion, I've decided to write a blog about starting to write a novel, right after I read the book about writing a novel in 30 days.  To add to the irony, it's been about 30 days since I posted a blog entry.  I've almost talked myself out of it already.  I'll make this a short post so I can get on with my reading about writing so I can get on with writing.  Should I write about reading?  Write about writing?  Ugh!

Mary's first year's effort was a disappointment to her - she didn't quite make the 50,000 word mark by November 30th.  I was impressed by her determination and hours of labor.  She says she tried to change her plot in mid-stream and bumped into a dead-end from which she couldn't escape.  I think they call this writer's block in the trade.

However, last year, she read the book No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, which is designed to prepare the fledgling NaNoWriMo participant for the experience of grinding out approximately 1,600 words per day.

Mary took the lessons in the book to heart, to the point that she can give official-sounding lectures about the book and its principles of draft writing.  She completed the challenge last year and has been editing her novel off and on since then.  When she's done, we will order a few bound copies of her story about good and evil in a feline alternative dimension. She hasn't let me read much yet, but the few parts I've read are very promising.  She has a wonderful, evocative vocabulary and more imagination than anyone I know.  I envy her her early recognition and dedicated use of her creative and artistic gifts.

She convinced Camille and I to pursue the NaNoWriMo challenge this year.  Camille actually wrote a few paragraphs before school this morning.  She has a plot idea that seems to stem from a combination of teenage angst and a fascination with super-powers.  Mary is not working in the cat universe this year, but I still think talking animals figure into her plot idea.  Updates to follow.

And me, well, I'm practicing my considerable skill of avoiding starting something. (What a terrible sentence!)  So after I dig up some suitable pictures to round out this anemic entry, I'll cuddle up with No Plot? No Problem! (click here for an amazon link) and see if I can read 172 pages and write 1,600 words before the girls get home from school.  Because the only thing I like better than impressing my kids is embarrassing them:

Anyway, with kids this cute, do I really need any more accomplishments?

Ten Commandments of a Failed Domestic Diva

Looking around at my house on this peaceful Sunday morning, I'm stunned that I would ever refer to myself as a Domestic Diva, even in jest. From the mushy comforts of my favorite chair, seated twenty feet from my kitchen, I can see piles of some sort of debris on the counter that may actually be bacterial colonies at this point.  My October calendar workpile is leaning precipitously toward sliding off the breakfast table and onto a sticky floor that is insulated with a heavy layer of dog fur. Since I can't work up the moral or hygenic indignation to do anything about this state of affairs, I feel the need to convert my laziness into a haphazard philosophy that can benefit others.  Draw near, Gentle Reader, and learn from my practical strategies and attitude of contentedness:

1.  When there are several unfinished projects taking up needed space around the house, go see a good movie.  (I saw "The Debt" yesterday, leaving behind a house full of cluttered horizontal surfaces.)  A quick procrastinatory dose of escapism makes the mundane seem more manageable.

2.  Never ask your spouse if they need help doing a job you desperately don't want to do.  Examples of this mistake generally involve the yard, basement and/or the garage.  If they ask you, plead "Weaker Sex" status or lack of certified training.  If all else fails, make a vague reference to your "cycle."  That should send them running to a male neighbor for help,

3. When carpet stains reappear, or you notice that a room needs touch-up painting, or your windows are too dirty to see out of, rearrange your furniture.  It takes several days for the novelty to wear off and for you to remember what you were trying to hide.  And once it's hidden, it may as well have disappeared.

4.  Do not waste time or energy trying to train dogs to stay off furniture, or stop barking at other dogs or jumping on people they like.  Find a professional and get a quote for the service.  Then laugh hysterically as you watch your spouse turn blue at the cost of the estimate.  If years of effort have failed, accept that both you and your dogs are stupid and/or lazy, and just give up.

5.  Feel free to leave things out on counters and tables to provide reminders (wink) or "visual cues" (wink wink), but don't pretend those cues hasten the speed those items get attended to and put away.

6.  Cook what you like to eat, and don't spend time trying to get people to eat healthy stuff they hate.  Like you, they'll just sneak the bad stuff the first chance they get.

7.  Corollary to #6:  Cleaning the kitchen after a meal no one liked is 10 times more unpleasant than cleaning a kitchen full of clean plates and empty pots and pans, and much more likely to involve profanity.

8.  Calling friends to talk about how much you dread all the jobs on your to-do list only magnifies the unpleasantness and delays the inevitable.  Try calling a friend to celebrate a completed task.  They'll resent you for it, but it makes more sense.  And write the annoying call on your to-do list so you can check it off too - a win/win!

9.  Basements, upstairs bedrooms and attics are out of sight of visitors for a reason.  Don't ruin it for the rest of us by keeping them clean for anyone but the most important, discerning guests, like your mother-in-law.

10.  If you want to decorate like Martha Stewart, cook like Rachel Ray or exercise like Jillan (what's her last name?), be my guest.  I admire your dedication to excellence.  At one time, I felt that way too, but visible evidence proves it was a fleeting aspiration.  I can finally admit that I like my hodge-podge furniture, slap-dash meals and leisurely strolls on my treadmill.

If you closely follow these Ten Commandments, as I have, you are clearly headed for Housework Hell, or some variation thereof.  However, you are welcome to help me think of a new, more suitable nickname for myself, since "Domestic Diva" has outlived its ironic usefulness.  Right now, I'm leaning toward "Malingering Matron" or "Contented Cow."

Am I a Hoarder?

Dictionary.com defines hoard as

2. (v):to accumulate for preservation, future use, etc., in a hidden or carefully guarded place:; as, to hoard food during a shortage

Clearly, the negative connotation attached to the term "hoarder" is not inherent in the definition, but is a more of a cultural judgment in a time of plenty and/or excess.

According to the strict definition, I am, in fact, a hoarder.  But most of my hoarded goods are hidden, or more likely stored, unlike some of those poor folks on the reality show who cannot walk through their own home.


Although I don't watch the show, I've see enough footage in the commercials to get a feel for the level of hoarding necessary to be a candidate for that show.  I'm not there, not even close.  But I've been wondering if I'm more of a hoarder than I need to be.  Because clearly my friends and neighbors don't reuse or save some of the things that I do.  I know, because if I see something I like in their trash, I ask for it.  Creepy, huh?


Today I will probably solidify my status as a slightly addled girl fast on my way to becoming a very addled old lady.

You see, I mentioned in a blog that I am a "waste not, want not" type of person, which resulted in a few questions about that term, and at least one outright challenge to prove it.  So today I commit myself to making a list of the things I save, reuse, up-cycle, re-purpose and otherwise don't waste.  Prepare to be puzzled, amused and possibly horrified.

1.  Plastic and metal canisters.  If you received Christmas candy from me, you already know about this one.  When my children were younger, we'd use these (or oatmeal containers, or coffee cans) for craft projects.  Lots of family members received adorably decorated pencil cups which I am sure they are still using to this day - made with love by the Arnett girls.  I can't in good conscience throw out powdered drink containers that I use at the rate of 1 per week, so I began saving them.  Eric started threatening to throw them out, (the boat was just sitting there empty at the time - geez)...so I had to find a new place to collect them.  Anyway, I spent one tedious November afternoon covering 35 of them in wrapping paper so that they would make suitable candy gift holders.  Add homemade candy and voila! instant Christmas present.  I never wanted to compare the cost of making homemade candy and decorating cans to the cost of buying a similar (nicer) product at a store.  That would mean computing my labor cost, which would be too depressing. 

2.  Zippered plastic bags.  Please, please, please someone -  tell me I'm not alone!  I wash and reuse the gallon and quart sized bags, unless they contained raw meat or something that went nasty on me.  I've endured lectures and ridicule from people who've seen them in my dish drying rack.  The unit cost of those handy bags is too high to just toss them, after holding nothing more sinister than Oreos.

3.  Plastic water bottles.  See explanation above, with similar caveats and not shared outside the family germ pool.

Since it is quickly becoming a time-sucking chore to find nice pictures of the trash I save, I'll just finish this out in list form:

4.  Miscellaneous fasteners and clips.  

5.  Slightly used pieces of aluminum foil.

6.  Cardboard and corrugated boxes.

7.  Nylon strapping.

8.  Sturdy paper and plastic shopping bags.

9.  Miscellaneous office supplies.  

10. Envelopes, bubble wrap, twist ties, rubber bands.

11. Lightly used tissue and wrapping paper and gift bags.

12. Zippered bags that linens, bedding, drapes and tablecloths       are sold in.

13. Cut glass decanters and jars.

14. Scrap fabric, ribbon and sewing notions.

15. Coffee grounds.

I always thought I was being a good steward of the Earth, recycling and upcycling my stuff.  I've been deeply influenced by relatives and friends who were reared during the Great Depression, many of whom have passed on their values as well as their reuse ideas to me.  It would be an insult to my beloved grandmother's memory to throw out an empty Tic-Tac container - they are so convenient for storing excess needles and straight pins!  Paper towel tubes protect artwork that my daughter Mary cannot bear to part with, but I don't wish to frame.  Ribbon and lace scraps make any shabbily wrapped gift look instantly less shabby - let someone else experience a guilt trip after throwing away perfectly good ribbon!

I knew my penchant for reusing had possibly reached the level of unreasonable when we had a plumbing disaster here last fall.  

I dumped some leftover pasta down the garbage disposal and ended up with the clog to end all clogs (warning: root word for pasta means "paste.")  Naturally, Eric was out of town, so after a day of trying all the physical, chemical, mechanical and mystical unclogging strategies the Internet has to offer, I accepted help from a neighbor and her husband.

Tom approached my problem as men are wont to do: he used large tools to make loud noises.  When that didn't work, he started taking things apart.  Gravity being the prevailing physical principle at work, the clog and all the water behind it began rushing toward the center of the earth, first stopping beneath my sink.  There was a bucket nearby, but not close enough, and a goodly quantity of indescribable sludge with chunks of pasta primavera drained onto the cabinet floor before we got the bucket in place.

It was a mess, and cleanup was a pain, but the telling moment came later, when I discovered the only item touched by the foul spillage was an unused strip of twist-ties.  I was halfway done wiping them off with a paper towel laced with hand sanitizer before I realized the utter madness of my actions.

I was trying to rescue twist-ties.  They are a cheap, useful, easily-replaceable commodity, and I was trying to wash and sanitize them!  Perhaps I was going a tad overboard?

Well, I threw out the nasty twist-ties, but I haven't exactly changed my hoarding ways.  In the full throes of cleaning and organizing during school spring break, I kept scouting around for new and better uses for all the empty cardboard shoeboxes I've amassed.  They seem too useful for the recycle bin just yet.

And I got to wondering if other people have as much trouble throwing things out as I do.  I confess, I've never watched the reality show about hoarders.  It's not because I'm afraid I'll see myself in some of those pitiful, ill individuals, but because I'm afraid I'll become inspired by their hoards!  Do any of those sickos ever seem to be onto a good idea?

Which leads me to my newest repurposing venture:  wire clothes hangers.  Some folks hate them, but I dislike the plastic ones, because they are breakable.  If a kid needs something off a hanger, the item gets jerked off the hanger, right?  No child in this house has ever removed the hanger from the closet rod, then removed the garment from the hanger.  It's just too exhausting.  So I'm constantly finding hangers with the top snapped off, or the cross piece broken when a pair of pants got yanked a little too hard.

Why buy more hangers when I have millions of the wire type laying around?  What to do, what to do?

Using a bunch of leftover potholder loops that never got as far as the loom, I make long fabric chains that I wrap around wire hangers to make them cushioned and secure for almost any garment.  They are colorful and tacky and I'm addicted to the process of making them, attractive or not.  I'm looking for a suitably wretched craft fair to try my hand at selling these poor, sad inventions of mine.  My grandmother (and many others) used yarn to knit or crochet hanger covers, but I've yet to master those needle arts, so mine aren't as pretty as some you'll see.

Here's a look at a few of my masterpieces:

Clearly, I have more time on my hands than talent or taste, but hey, I'm saving the planet, right?

If you want a case or two for your home, shoot me an email and we'll cut a deal.

And if no one is interested, well, you can guess what I'll be giving out this Christmas!

Letting March slip through my fingers

If I died today, the most truthful thing that could be chiseled on my tombstone would be:

Here lies Michele Arnett, who never ran out of excuses.

I mean, today is the last day of March, and for reasons I can't explain, I still have roughly the same to-do list as I did at the beginning of this month.  Where did the time go?

I don't watch much tv, I'm not having an affair, I don't drink (during the day, anyway), I'm not a therapeudic shopper, I don't have a month's worth of dinners in the freezer...what the heck have I been doing this month?

Answer:  Internet.

I can lose an entire morning looking at the antiques for sale on craigslist Chicago.

I spend valuable hours chasing down k-cup deals on ebay, effectively canceling my minuscule cost savings in lost time.

  And facebook - well, facebook has become a problem for me.

Once I get caught up on everyone else's business, I jump on a word game and blow another hour.  It's inexcuseable, and I'm preparing to disentangle myself from all but the most cursory involvement on that site.  I'll check in on my kids' activity and a few friends who are far away and not available for regular conversation, but I need to quit posting the status of my laundry on that site.  And the local weather.  And my complaints about the length of whatever season I happen to find myself in today.  I truly don't care about your laundry or your weather - what makes me think you care about mine?


Like many in these parts, the long winter, cold temps and long-lived snow made it very easy to commune via laptop, Ipad, etc., for months on end.  I'd go from facebook to craigslist to ebay to Land's End Overstocks to various news and blog sites before the kids were even on the bus.  Fire off a few emails, play a few games of Word Drop, glance at the clock and it's noon.  Time loses all meaning when you get caught up in surfing, shopping, catching up on stuff.  But when I look up and and entire month is gone, it's time to take my time more seriously, while taking a vacation from OPS (other people's stuff) shopping.

 So I'm setting this goal for myself - wean self from facebook over spring break (next week).  I still want to publish my blog posts there, because frankly, I don't think anyone besides my mother would read Polite Ravings if I didn't smear it all over facebook and Google Buzz.  So I'll stay plugged in, but I'm going to attempt to severely limit my visits to the virtual party room and try to see and talk to people the old fashioned way - in person, or on the phone.

That's right, I'm going to waste more time and precious natural resources dropping by your houses, calling you during dinner, sending silly cards with dogs in sunglasses for no reason, and emailing hilarious recycled jokes and videos to you.  I know you can't wait until I stop using facebook for my social hub.  Now I'm going to be bothering you from multiple communication platforms.

It's going to take some planning, but I'm committed to rediscovering social networking without the aid of a computer.  Today I already talked to 3 people on the phone, and visited two at their homes.  It felt good, and I even got hugs.

And there is no doubt that hugs beat

 

by a country mile.