Recent Posts

Just woke up at 11am. Must not have gotten enough sleep last night considering I was awake from 3:30 to 6:30. Cutting back on the meds that used to knock me out is messing up my sleep. I see the doc on the 20th and she'll probably take me off completely.

Leo, looks like you've been making some nice runs lately.

Karen, I was going to get some stuffed shells at Sam's Club the other day, but I opted for Chicken Florentine instead. Even the picky eater loved it.

The teacher made some changes in the science fair proposal and I haven't seen them yet. He wants to get the mice today (no school), but the science fair parents meeting isn't until next Thursday so I want to wait.

We're getting so much rain that my lawn guy had to come back after 8 days.

Today author Chris Redding is interviewing me. Please stop by and check out the interesting questions she asked. Thanks!

http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/

Chicki

Good morning, everyone. Maria has overdone it with her rain dance.

Well, I'm now in Greenfield, IN. after a very nice run from VA to IN and this run from NW IN to just east of Indy. It is definitely nap time. I hope everyone had a good yesterday and has a good today once it's time for it to really be here.

[Down and Out in Paris and London]

Down and Out in Paris and London ($9.58 Kindle; $13.10 Audible US), by George Orwell, is today's free audiobook from The Guardian and Audible UK.

Book Description
This unusual fictional account, in good part autobiographical, narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-out of two great cities. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society.

Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a man living in Paris in the early 1930s without a penny. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only.

A socialist who believed that the lower classes were the wellspring of world reform, Orwell actually went to live among them in England and on the continent. His novel draws on his experiences of this world, from the bottom of the echelon in the kitchens of posh French restaurants to the free lodging houses, tramps, and street people of London. In the tales of both cities, we learn some sobering truths about poverty and society.

To sign up for the free audiobook, click HERE.

[Kindle]

The Big 5-OH! ($9.99 Kindle), by Sandra D Bricker, is free in the Barnes and Noble ebookstore tonight.

Book Description
Olivia Wallace has a birthday curse . . . or so she thinks. It was a broken heart on her 16th, a car accident on her 21st, pneumonia on her 30th, and a fall down a flight of stairs on her 35th. There were Ohio blizzards on her 38th, 39th, and 40th; and six days before her 45th, she lost the love of her life to a heart attack. Numbing grief stole that birthday and a couple more to follow and, on the morning of her 48th birthday, she received the call she’d dreaded ever since losing her mom so many years ago…she was diagnosed with stage-3 ovarian cancer. The doctors didn’t hold out a lot of hope, but Liv survived and maintained her faith. Months of surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation treatments followed.

But now, as her 50th birthday creeps up the icy Ohio path toward her, her hair has grown back, her energy level is up, and she is officially cancer free. It makes her nervous. After everything she’s gone through, Liv hates the idea of driving on icy roads and returning to work as an O.R. nurse in a local Cincinnati hospital.

Her best friend Hallie knows just the thing to break Liv out of the winter doldrums, while providing a safe haven of warmth, sunshine, and a time to regroup: a holiday in the Florida sunshine!

Click HERE to get the free book from B&N.

[The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You've Lost It)]

Five free business/self-help books:

The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You've Lost It), by Sandy Allgeier

Book Description
Can you be trusted? Right now, someone is asking that question. If they decide to trust you, they’ll work with you, care about you, open up to you…help you live a more successful, more fulfilled, happier life. If not, you’re on your own…

Build the Strong Personal Credibility You Need to Live a Truly Great Life

    * Learn the secrets of personal credibility that make trust possible
    * Use the plan to earn trust and respect from those you encounter in your daily life
    * Enable others to have confidence in you by following the 7 easy steps
    * Follow the Personal Credibility Factor’s steps to repairing credibility when you’ve lost it

There’s no fakery here: In the long run, you either earn trust or you don’t. This book gives you the tools to earn it for life.


The Truth About Personal Performance, by Robert E. Gunther, James O'Rourke & Leigh L. Thompson

Book Description
A brand new collection of essential insights for your business and career from world-renowned experts-now in a convenient e-format, at a great price.

150+ secrets of exceptional personal performance: how to present confidently, negotiate successfully, and make smarter decisions--anywhere, anytime!

Three full books of proven solutions for supercharging personal performance! Prepare for any audience, negotiation, or decision-compel attention and motivate action-manage anxiety or anger-use nonverbal communication-negotiate with people you love (or hate)-build (or repair) trust-make decisions with imperfect data-and much more!


How McDonald's Got Its Groove Back, from the editors of New Word City, is a business short from FT Press.

Book Description
How did the lumbering fast-food giant McDonald's cure its own sclerosis and become a newly lean, hungry competitor? Its comeback offers lessons for leaders everywhere in focusing on what their customers really want. For example, don't react to competitors, react to customers. When you broaden your market appeal, don't abandon your first customers. Don't skimp on product development.

McDonald's hit bottom early in 2003. Sure, it was still the biggest fast-food provider in the world. But the stock collapsed after the company reported its first-ever quarterly loss. Battered by critics, nibbled at by new competitors (Subway, Sonic, Quiznos), undermined by overbuilding and a failure to adapt to changes in consumer habits and tastes, the giant was out of breath and sagging over its belt. Behind the scenes, though, a turnaround had begun. A new team of leaders was out to rejuvenate the core brand, shed irrelevant activities, and adjust McDonald's operations to what the customer really wanted. The story of how they did it holds copious lessons for any business faced with bringing new life to a lagging brand. It demanded changes in every phase of a worldwide enterprise with $23 billion in sales, 31,000 restaurants, and fully 1.6 million employees. But the new McDonald's team had patience, determination, and a "Plan to Win"....


33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking, by Juliette Powell

Book Description
Social networks are no fad. They’re a permanent reality: one that offers immense opportunities to smart, innovative businesses. Now, top social networking consultant Juliette Powell reveals how dozens of innovators are driving real ROI through social networks–and how you can, too.

Powell’s wide-ranging research, including coverage on Barack Obama's successful online strategy in his bid for the presidency, focuses on technology, media and gaming companies, leaders in fashion, beauty, publishing, finance, retail, event planning, and beyond. These powerful narratives illuminate the reality of doing business on today’s social networks as never before.


So What?: How to Communicate What Really Matters to Your Audience, by Mark Magnacca

Book Description
Supercharge Your Success by Answering the One Question That Everyone Cares About:

    * Answer the “So What?” question quickly, succinctly, convincingly—every time!
    * Practical techniques, examples, and exercises proven with thousands of winning salespeople.
    * Straight from Mark Magnacca, one of the world’s leading sales consultants.
    * For all your personal interactions—in business and in life!

It’s tough, but true—the people you’re trying to communicate with, sell to, or convince don’t really care about you. Nor do they care what you’re offering them—until they understand exactly how it’ll benefit them. If you recognize that one hard, cold fact—and you know what to do about it—you’ll make more money, achieve greater success, and even have more fun!

In this book, world-renowned sales consultant Mark Magnacca shows you how to answer the “So What?” question brilliantly, every time—no matter who’s asking it or what you’re trying to achieve. This book will transform the way you communicate: You’ll use it every day to get what you want—in business and in life!

Poor Sandy. Hope she feels better soon.

It's 78 here and another rainy day on the way. Must be the rainy season.

They're having a breakfast thingy for the volunteers this morning at the school. After that, I'm sending off my daughter's birthday gifts and I'm only two weeks late. Then I should be able to have an unplanned day for the remainder. Meatloaf is already cooked for dinner and Joey won't be going to TKD until 6pm.

Science Fair has reared it's ugly head already. Joey wants to test the intelligence of female mice against male mice. I actually like white mice. I think they make very good pets although they don't live long. We'll be going to Petco tomorrow night since it's close to the Pokemon League meeting place.

She is definitely better, but still not up to dry food this morning. She's also mad at me because the pills started this morning - she can open her mouth on her own, but had a fit when I tried to open it even a bit to stuff all three in. We finally found a method (give spray foam doggy treat, then slide one pill at a time between teeth, followed by more treat to "wash it down") and only have to repeat twice a day for more than a week. 

Rainy here, as well, but it's a nice gentle rain, which we really needed. Dinner last night was stuffed shells and best of all - my mom made them, all I had to do was cook them (her recipe made two 9x13 pans, not the two 8" pans she had counted on, so there was way too much for the two of them and I happened to be there when she was putting it all together). Yumm! Plenty left over to have for lunch today, as well.

Did you pick up any of the free audible UK selections from this week?

And Science Fair sounds fun ... but there will be so much room for bias in the experiment (unless he doesn't know the sex of the ones he puts thru their paces, which requires a partner in the experiment -- to be completely scientific, the two would never see each other after the mice are segregated, so no gesture would give away which group were which).

Poor Sandy. Hope she feels better soon.

It's 78 here and another rainy day on the way. Must be the rainy season.

They're having a breakfast thingy for the volunteers this morning at the school. After that, I'm sending off my daughter's birthday gifts and I'm only two weeks late. Then I should be able to have an unplanned day for the remainder. Meatloaf is already cooked for dinner and Joey won't be going to TKD until 6pm.

Science Fair has reared it's ugly head already. Joey wants to test the intelligence of female mice against male mice. I actually like white mice. I think they make very good pets although they don't live long. We'll be going to Petco tomorrow night since it's close to the Pokemon League meeting place.

Welcome to eBookGab, Eileen.