Timing

Timing really is everything. As you know, my mind is very strange and often has odd thoughts. What if you left your house just one minute later or earlier than you anticipated and something happened? You could be stuck in a traffic jam because you left late. You could get into an accident because you left early. If you are speeding, you could be rushing into a bad situation. It's pretty scary when you think about it. You really never know what is going to happen or when it will happen. That's what makes life so unpredictable and interesting. Of course, the most important part of timing is showing up to wherever you are supposed to be on time. Unfortunately, you can never plan for traffic, unexpected construction, or other delays when traveling from point A to point B. I thought about that while I was driving over 350 miles this weekend. Lots of cops were out looking to meet their quotas even though it's the beginning of the month. Luckily they never stopped me for being on cruise control at 73 miles an hour. Our lives are run by the clock, not so much a watch anymore. Everyone just grabs their cell phone to check the time. I'm one of those weirdos that still has a watch. Remember, timing is everything. Now it's time for me to watch a basketball game. I don't care who wins the championship because my bracket was dead after the sweet 16...

Where Have I been?

I am so sorry for not writing over the weekend. I know you all probably missed me terribly! Anyway, on Saturday, I went to my friends house in Binghamton for his going away party. I slept over, so I didn't have a chance to write in the blog. He is moving to a different state for a job tomorrow. Yesterday, leaving my friends house, I went to Turning Stone for a big tournament. There were 102 people in it. I got 20th. Top 15 got paid. Needless to say, I was not  happy with finishing just out of the money. I didn't get home until about 10:15 and still needed to get ready for my first day back to work from vacation. I couldn't keep my eyes open to write a blog. Now I am back and better than ever. Well... at least I'm back, probably not better than ever though.

One Day at a Time

There are always lots of uncertainties in the future. What will I be doing next school year? How will my books be selling at that time? What will I be doing next weekend? I can ask a million more questions just like that. We don't know the answer to any questions that have to do with the future. My mom keeps making statements about my future as if such and such event is going to happen. She needs to stop because I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. How am I supposed to know what I'm doing in August? I have a goal for what I'll be doing in August. However, I need to take things one step at a time and day by day. Assumptions are never good to make for many reasons. Right now, I wake up every morning and decide what I need to do to get through that day. That's the only thing anyone can do to survive.

Advertising Makes a HUGE Difference

My two books were free on Tuesday. I really wasn't expecting them to sell that well because I didn't get a chance to advertise it. I was right. I sold about 100 total between the two books world-wide. I typically only offer one of the books free at a time. When I do that, I normally sell about 200+ books a day. The way I advertise is by tweeting my links to kindle book promoters on Twitter. I also found about 15 websites that will post my book for free on their website on the day it is free. Apparently these websites are viewed by many people because I noticed a huge difference in sales when I started doing this. An author I know has over 200,000 followers. Her book is free today and tomorrow and she has given away well over 5,000 copies today alone. I am nowhere near that. She practically lives on social networks. Good for her. She is very successful. Although of course I love my books and spend a lot of time promoting them, I have noticed that I've been doing much less promoting. I've been putting more focus on another important part of my life, getting a teaching job. That will take over my life the next few months. This is the year I'm getting a teaching job!

Wakes and Funerals

I went to Mrs. Bassett's wake today. I purposely got there about 10 minutes before the wake started because I knew it would be packed. There were probably about 30 people ahead of me waiting to pay respect. The line moved quickly and I was in and out in about 30 minutes. When I left, the line was incredibly long, much longer than when I got there. While there, a few questions popped into my head. Why is a wake called a wake? The person we are paying respect to is dead, not awake. I know, probably a horrible thing to think about. Why do people buy so many flowers? Although they are beautiful, they eventually die. In the Jewish community, you do not buy flowers for a funeral because when the flowers die, it reminds the person of the deceased. I think people should take the money they would have spent on flowers and donate it to a cause the deceased person would like. I donated money to the American Cancer Society in Mrs. Bassett's memory. Why is the root word of funeral fun? They are clearly not fun at all. They say that the best forms of family reunions are weddings and funerals. Unfortunately that is very true. That's typically when the entire family gets together and sees one another. Mrs. Bassett will be laid to rest tomorrow. I will not be going to the funeral because I feel that is for much closer friends and family. She will be missed by everyone but the memories people have of her will last forever.

Waking up in the Morning

It's interesting. I'm not one of those people that will tell you, "I'm not a morning person." Who is a morning person? I mean, really. What's that phrase even mean? No one likes to get up in the morning. I've noticed that when I set my alarm for work, I almost always never sleep until the alarm. I then get up a little earlier than the alarm and get my day going. When I don't work, I obviously don't set my alarm. I also don't sleep very late. When I wake up on those mornings, I typically lay there for awhile longer attempting to fall back asleep. 100 times out of 100, I don't fall back asleep. However, I take my time on my computer when I drag myself out of bed and do anything to avoid being productive. I go downstairs and eat breakfast in the clothes I went to bed in. Eventually, after probably about an hour, I finally brush my teeth, get dressed, and attempt to do something productive. It's just interesting that when I get up early, I can get ready no problem, but when I have nothing to do, I'm a bum. I love vacations!

Keeping Old Things

I went through some of my stuff today as I was moving it from wine boxes to more sturdy storage containers. I have a large box of souvenirs and awards that I have accumulated through the years. A lot of it was music stuff and sports letters from high school. I even had many ribbons from getting top 10 in swim races from my club. I read what meet it was. It was the developmental meet, haha. It must have been for the slower swimmers. I found two of my old cruise credit cards. The third card is still in my wallet. I could not find the Carnival card for my first cruise. I am almost positive I didn't throw it out. It should have been in the box with the other cards. I wanted to keep all of my cards so that I can look back on them one day, not that I will ever forget the cruises I've been on. Because I am weird, it has upset me for awhile that I could not find that one card. I'm starting to get over it. It's always fun to look at old stuff. I looked at some stories I wrote my senior year of high school. I was a terrible writer. If you think my writing is elementary now, you should have seen it in high school! I don't know why my teacher gave me a B for the paper I was reading. A fifth grader could have written better than that! On another note, if you haven't bought my first two books yet, what is wrong with you? Just kidding. If you haven't gotten them yet, they will be FREE tomorrow only because it is children's books day. I have done 0 advertising for this because it was a very spontaneous decision on my part. My mom told me earlier today that tomorrow is children's books day so I decided to make mine free. We will see how many people pick up book one and two tomorrow. I'm okay with giving them away for free tomorrow since sales have slowed down a bit. Hopefully tomorrows free day will help pick up the sales over the next few weeks!