Introducing a New Category
Barb’s Personal Notes
AS A NEW BLOGGER, it took me awhile to realize that what was missing on this site was something just for me–a place where I could share not only business articles and informative posts, but personal messages. A friend suggested I call this category “Barb’s Babble,” but although one definition of that word means to divulge information or secrets and “spill the beans,” that’s not exactly what I plan to do here.
Mostly I just want a place on this site where I can simply post a personal message to all my readers about something I’m doing, thinking, or learning on any given day. Curiously, the older I get, the more I’m doing, thinking and learning. Some days I may just want to share an opinion I have about something, talk about a book I’ve just read, or a new friend I’ve made. Or maybe share a new dream or goal, or pass on a quote that speaks to me.
On my personal domain, I have a department called “Personal Interests” that links to a few articles I consider “Slice of Life” stories. This category will be a continuation of that idea, only the messages will come in smaller doses and be more like mini newsletters I hope you’ll want to read and link others to.
Meanwhile, I continue to speak personally about many things in my Brabec Bulletins, which are published irregularly whenever the spirit moves me or I have a bunch of good info to pass on. I know most visitors to this site are unlikely to subscribe to this ezine because it is not oriented to artists, crafters and designers, but rather to all individuals with an interest in home business or self employment. Many of my subscribers here are readers who have have followed my writing through the years and just want to stay in touch with me to see what I’m doing and learning.
A Few Words About Technology
I continue to be frustrated by how new technology keeps forcing me to make changes in the way I’m working, as well as how “technology breakdowns” keep robbing me of precious hours I would have preferred to spend more productively.
I’m thinking now of how, in January, my web server crashed, taking my personal domain off the web for most of four days, and then how it cost me a week’s time just to get my site operating properly on a new server. Something with the FrontPage extensions screwed up my theme settings, affecting all the borders around tables on some 200 pages that I had to tweak one page at a time because FrontPage had a “fit” and wouldn’t let me do global changes.
In early February I lost the use of my business telephone for two days because water had seeped into a switching box somewhere. But I didn’t learn that until I spent the better part of a day trying to diagnose the problem myself using AT&T’s “helpful” do-it-yourself instructions.
Then, on the morning of March 14 after a surprisingly good Friday-the-13th, I turned on my monitor to find a black screen that basically told me my Windows XP operating system had been fried sometime during the night. I lost a whole week then in shopping for a new computer and getting it up and running again. For more on this topic, see my new post, “How to Prepare for a Computer Crash.”
I’m happy to report now that March came in like a lamb–technologically speaking–and everything seems to be working right again. I’m also very happy right now because I’ve just solved a personal problem that has caused me a lot of stress and worry since my husband died in 2005.
Always in the back of my mind has been the question of whether to keep or sell the house and all the “stuff” in it, and now I’ve finally made the decision to remain here as long as I’m able to take care of the house–I figure ten years at least. Suddenly I am seeing my world in a whole new light, and I am excited about making plans for things I want to do in the yard this summer and in the house in the months and years ahead.
It has been a long, cold winter, and even though I know we’ll have more snow and maybe even an ice storm yet, I’m eagerly looking forward to spring and the planting of my flower gardens and new landscaping projects.
Meanwhile, I refuse to let all the doom-and-gloom economic news we’re getting daily on television dampen my enthusiasm for life or work, and I hope you are doing the same.
“The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what interests you and that you can do well, and put your whole soul into it — every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.” – John D. Rockefeller III
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