Goodbye 2017 – Welcome 2018 – Happy New Year!
Dec 31 2017

It certainly has been an interesting year politically, economically, medically, and professionally for many.  Living in Austin has proven to be a good vantage point to see and read about the big changes throughout the world in 2017.

I still haven’t figured out how to use this blog to add consistent value on the topics of business, parenthood, or music in the already noisy Internet of information. Not that all of my prior posts have added tremendous value, but many were inspired by events, people, and situations (muses of sorts) in my life at the time. The words used to flow fairly effortlessly and some would likely argue without too much needed editing. 😀

So as we say goodbye to 2017 and hello to all of our continued life stories in 2018, I thought I’d share below some shows and recent blog posts that you may find interesting.

Some good and mostly family friendly shows we’ve watched this year (most are on Netflix) that kept me easily distracted from writing and singing:

• Stranger Things
• The Flash
• Super Girl
• The Arrow
• Agents of Shield
• Legends of Tomorrow
• Series of Unfortunate Events
• Once Upon A Time
• The Crown
• Big Bang Theory
• Modern Family
• black-ish

Some good reads:

What Happened in 2017 – Fred Wilson discusses changes in the business of technology: Crypto, The Beginning of the End of White Male Dominance, and The Tech Backlash.

Kindness Scales – Seth Godin

Smartphones Are the New Cigarettes – Mark Manson

Wishing those of you, who for some reason still read my blog, as well as those who happen upon it during a random Internet search, a very HAPPY, PROSPEROUS, and HEALTHY 2018!

Entrepreneurial Traits and Multi-tasking
Jan 15 2015

Happy New Year!  I thought I’d get a new post out before the 15th of January, but here we are half way through the first month of 2015!

My boss shared this link: The 7 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs (Tenacity, Passion, Tolerance of Ambiguity, Vision, Self-belief, Flexibility, and Rule-breaking) with our team a while back.  I was surprised that they said most entrepreneurs weren’t neurotic.  I’ve met more than a few neurotic entrepreneurs and have felt like one myself at times…maybe they define it differently than I have seen others exhibit it.

There are so many moving parts to a new business that I think it helps to be able to multitask, but sometimes it hurts a business too.  A friend sent me the article below about the Supertasker test that helps you figure out if you are one of the 2% of the people in the world who can actually multitask vs. ineffectively task switch.  It made me wonder who those supertaskers were and if they could do the same thing they were able to do with two kids in the back seat asking you every 5 minutes to look at something, change the radio station, or telling their sibling to quit making some noise or the other. 🙂  Check out these articles:

Only 2% of People Can Multitask Successfully [INFOGRAPHIC] – Mashable

Take The ‘Supertasker’ Test To See If You’re A Genius – lifehacker

Is Your Brain Multitasking – Psychology Today

How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking – Harvard Business Review

Go With The Flow – Happy New Year 2014
Jan 1 2014

¡Feliz Año Nuevo 2014! Another year has passed and boy/girl what an entrepreneurial year it has been!  I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix the spam (stupidity) hack that someone has done to my email feed, but after checking feedburner, feedblitz, WordPress, and staring into space, a solution/fix hasn’t surfaced.  Thank you to all of you who replied to my email feed noticing the insertion of random, annoying spam ads.  The emailed version of this post may have spam inserted, so please don’t click on the spam links…unless of course you are “looking for a good time via potency drugs.”  Fortunately, the post itself as it shows up on my blog and the RSS feed do not have spam links, just the email feed and I have no idea why!

While I am writing this post, I’m listening to final mixes of two of my songs: Save Me From Myself and Soul Escape.  Pretty soon you can sing them in your shower without worries of copyright violations!  🙂  It’s been close to a 3 year process to get to this point, but I can check “having a professional song produced” off my list soon…

Just like Fred Wilson, I am Unresolved this year, and I couldn’t feel happier about it.  When you think about it, it’s almost kind of stupid to make resolutions when so much of life is out of your freaking control.  Sure, I can eat better, exercise, laugh more, cry more, make sure I have the best career ever, piss off more people, etc. but it seems to me it’s best to just “Go With The Flow,” be as honest as you can be, and “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.”  Why humans don’t get this simplicity (see Scott Adams’ article below) after thousands of years is perplexing.  We must be a slow species that likes to complicate things.

But in other good reads:

The Non-Movie Version of Entrepreneurship – Francine Hardaway

How to Burst the “Filter Bubble” that Protects Us from Opposing Views – MIT Technology Review

Changing What You Do Versus Changing How You Think – IttyBiz

Simplifiers and Optimizers – BoingBoing by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert

Rethinking the Job Search – Scott Uhrig of White Rock Partners (also relevant to Sales and Fundraising)

I Don’t Need To Search Anymore – gaping void

The care and feeding (and shunning) of vampires – Seth Godin

To copy what I posted on facebook: “Happy New Year! May 2014 be full of love, laughter, joy, and mind blowing (lovely) adventures with good health and peace mixed in for good luck!“

Imagine That. It’s 2013!
Jan 6 2013

Happy New Year!   From what I’ve observed at this point in my life, it seems to me that there really is no telling what awaits around the corner with regards to jobs, kids, health, love, or whatever, so I’ve given up on resolutions for the time being.  We are living in interesting times, and I have been fortunate/unfortunate enough to experience many things…some of my choosing and most not of my choosing.  Maybe I will live long enough and happen upon the right muse(s) along the way to enable me to write more about it…

So in 2013 I’ll just do my best to breathe deep, laugh with my kids, and spend time with people who support/love me & my kids (i.e., no fair weather friends or family).  I’ll continue to do my best at whatever I’m attempting to do and support others even if I find myself in less than ideal circumstances or around negative people, which seems to be happening less and less.  I also will continue to come to grips with the reality of my busy life (e.g., it took me close to 5 days to actually finish writing this short post because of work, facebook, watching TV, words with friends, going to the movies, spending time with real offline friends, downtime, and kid stuff!). 🙂

May you experience the most peace, love, and joy possible in 2013!

Happy New Year – It’s Gonna Be Grand!
Jan 1 2011

2011 will be a great year.  It will be.  It has to be.  I say it proudly and loudly, so it must be so!  The economy seems to be getting a bit better (at least here in Texas) and many people are excited about the new year of the Rabbit (starting Feb 3, 2011 to Jan 22, 2012) and us leaving the hard Chinese year of the Tiger behind us.

My resolutions this year are to believe/trust in myself, believe in my kids, believe in the kindness and beauty in others, smile/laugh more, make others smile/laugh more, create songs and sing a song (Carpenter’s lyrics link).

Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud, sing out strong
Sing of good things not bad
Sing of happy not sad

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last your whole life long
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song .

Oh and LOVE more!  As Hugh McLeod (@gapingvoid) cartoons Love, regardless of cost.  For those curious folks, here is what I wrote for Resolutions Past:

Once In A Blue Moon – It’s Complicated – 2010
Resolutions Anyone? – 2009
One Entrepreneur’s 2008 Goals – 2008

Happy New Year to all of you my loyal readers and everyone else who happens upon my blog when searching for something to help them with their life, their posts, their kids, or their businesses.  May you find the courage to follow your dreams…in other words your heart! <3  <— that’s a heart symbol for those of you who didn’t know that.

We’ve all heard the saying “You only live once,” so may you conquer your fear just a little bit at a time to live life (at least next year) grandly and to it’s fullest.  It’s not easy but it’s worth it…even if you get what “it” means for a few short minutes…you will never forget, can never go back, and will never compromise to the point that you lose yourself again.

In The Blink Of An Eye, It Is Over
Dec 31 2008

And so 2008 comes to an end and the old saying ‘time flies’ is yet again reaffirmed.  It seems to go faster with each passing year, especially with little kids jumping all over you, sucking your energy dry underfoot.  Each year is a smaller fraction of our total lives.  To our kids each day seems like an eternity full of laughter, playing, occasional tantrums, asking their parents for candy, and fun!  And to us grown ups, the movie of our lives keeps going faster…slipping through our fingers….with fond and sometimes hard memories behind us and interesting times ahead. 

So I’d like to thank all of you dear readers for joining me on my entrepreneurial parenting and business journeys.  I haven’t spent much time trying to monetize my blog, and I don’t make much money from it.  So your blog comments, your emails, your conversations, and your tweets mean so much to me!  Most of us bloggers don’t blog for money, we blog to share ideas and to create conversations whether on or off the blog that might not have happened before. 

My favorite form of compensation comes from those of you who comment directly on a particular blog post.  The way to a blogger’s heart, after all, is through comments left on her blog. 😀

But, I also very much enjoy the comments from those who recieve the free blog updates via email who simply hit ‘reply’ and let me know their thoughts.  I get many replies on twitter, and I wish someone would figure out how to integrate tweet replies directly into the blog comments, but that hasn’t happened yet (as far as I know).  

And then there are those of you who I talk to on the phone or see in the business community who mention they read my blog and mention a particular post.  I’m often taken by surprise by who reads my blog and what their interpretations are of my posts.   The people who know me well usually know how to read in between the lines, and I keep it fairly tame because my mother and my favorite aunt read my blog!  I wouldn’t want to shock them too much.

Special thanks goes to my husband, Erin, (who I honestly don’t think really reads most of my blog posts or he might feel more compelled to comment on some of my snarkier ones) for making sure this blog works smoothly.  He upgrades the blog when a new version comes out, he installs the latest/greatest WordPress plugins that help make this blog as effective as it can be, and helps troubleshoot any random technical glitches that occur.  He is our resident rocket scientist, and I have yet to see a technical problem that he can’t figure out. 

THANK YOU AGAIN DEAR READERS for enriching my life!  Have a HAPPY, PROSPEROUS, and JOY-FILLED NEW YEAR!