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Do you fall for hype?

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After closing myself off from the cyber world for a month, I noticed something I hadn’t paid attention to before. As I read through all the blogs I subscribe to on how to improve your blogging, yourself, your parenting skills, your life, etc. I asked myself, “Do we really fall for hype?” and if so, “Why?”
Standing back made me realize the amount of pressure we receive to become better at everything, faster than anyone, all of it has to be painless of course. Some examples I saw in my Inbox:
How to set and achieve your goals faster than ever before.
Perhaps if I stopped sleeping, I could achieve my goals faster.
Learn How You Can Start to Age Backwards!
If I was born old, I could age backwards. That might work.
How to Create lasting Love.
With a lot of effort, compromise and not nagging my husband.
How to Enjoy greater success, wealth and happiness quickly and easily.
If I got everything I wanted, and got it quickly and easily, would I appreciate it? What would be the point of trying?
And strangely enough, as I started writing this post, I came across the following title: Hype Copy that Sells and How to Write it, by ProCopyTips
I read the section on: How to turn bad hype into good hype,
I’m going to summarize what needs to be done according to the article in ProCopyTips.
Say you have a headline that claims the following:
All your wrinkles will miraculously disappear overnight!
Well not only do you need to let your reader have proof, but you have to place the proof wisely, so you can  “ambush” the reader. Wow, that sounds a little scary to me.
“When you finally do present your hype – your claim to have the biggest, baddest, best product on the planet, it won’t be mistaken for or accused of being hype (of the bad kind), but rather it will be seen as a descriptive and accurate statement of the obvious and the proven (hype of the good kind).”

So, my friends, do you fall for hype? If so, can you give us an example, and why it worked for you?

How to be good

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Most of us like the idea of being good, and since it can mean different things to each one of us, I’d like to explore this topic a little deeper.

As a little girl, being “good” meant obeying my parents, doing well in school and feeling good when someone told my mother, “She’s a good little girl.”

As we grow older, how to be good is generally associated with giving to others, whether it’s a listening ear, helping someone in need, or volunteering our time for what we perceive to be a “good” cause.

I don’t know if you’ve read the book, How to be Good, by Nick Hornby, but I highly recommend it. Not only is the author male, but his protagonist is a mother, wife and doctor, and Hornby captures the true essence of what it’s like to be a wife living with a grumpy, rude, negative husband, who writes a grumpy, rude, negative newspaper column about things that irritate him in his world

Wanting to file for divorce, something strange happens.Rather than trusting his wife, the Doctor, to heal his back aches and headaches, he finds a quack to heal him. His name is DJ Goodnews, and with his hot hands, he not only cures David’s aches and pains, but transforms him into a good man.

Since David is no longer the same man, and thus can no longer write negative columns, he wants to change his family, including his two kids, aged eight and ten, and forces them to give away half their toys, and one of their computers. Together with DJ Goodnews, who moves in with them, David starts an “adopt a homeless teenager into your home,” neighborhood program.

Being good, is taken to the other extreme, and he shows the consequences of what being too good can do to a family.

It’s interesting to think that there are limits on being good. What’s your opinion?
I shall write mine in the comments section,

Stepping back helps you see the obvious.

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Parents’ Weekend at NMMI (New Mexico Military Institute)
 A short visit to congratulate my sixteen-year-old son for doing so well and loving his new school.
HELLO EVERYONE.


How are you? It’s been a while hasn’t it?

Thank you for your support, your wonderful comments, and understanding my need to finish my revisions.

I’ve revised my entire manuscript based on the premise, crafting the story with conflicts and obstacles, leading up to the crisis our family faced and finally the resolution. Thanks to my talented editor, I’ve been able to weed out the unnecessary parts and transform my memoir into a cohesive story.


My editor, (I shall give you her name and link later, as she’s almost completed a brand new website) now has the task of reviewing my 311 page, 82.500 word count, starting on October 11th. This allows me to read the entire manuscript out loud and probably do some last minute editing. Is a writer ever done? I thought of recording it onto my ipod, but need to Google search how to do that first. Anyone know?


It’s been 30 days of butt-flattening exercises, (sitting still in a chair.)
I did get a break on September 16-20th, when I flew to Albuquerque, NM, rented a Kia Rio, which almost flew off the road into a neighboring sheep pasture, and landed in Roswell, 170 miles down a lonely road.
I am so proud of my son and all the other cadets, the teachers, and the structure of the school. I attended Jordan’s classes and even learned a few words in Arabic, one of his new subjects.

After a month of non-blogging and no-commenting, I feel rejuvenated. Now don’t get me wrong, of course I’ve missed you, however, my inbox was inundated with blogs I subscribe to like Copyblogger.com, Problogger.com, and you know what?


I felt sad for people who are consumed with their blogs 100% of the time. Now I’m sure there are many who would disagree, including those amazing professional bloggers I mentioned above. But in a way, I thought of the old days, where we could do other things with our lives.


Let me share something with you. When I was forced to take a break for a month, I no longer woke up
at 2 a.m., rushed to my notepad in the bathroom, closed the door, so the light wouldn’t wake up my husband, and wrote down a topic that came to mind. No, instead, I rushed to my computer and wrote down a change I came up with on my manuscript. HAHA. I guess I shall always wake up and write, no matter what project I’m working on. Those sleep through the night, nights are gone forever.

Manuscript Revision Blast

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I am working with an amazing editor. She’s an expert on story structure and I call her the Doctor Phil of book editing. She’s an award-winning playwright, published poet, and Emmy nominated writer.

I have a deadline to finish my memoir revisions by the end of September.
My goal is to finish my memoir and get it published, and in order for me to do that, I need to focus 100% on my manuscript. When a sweet lady asked me, “Can I buy your memoir?” at my last presentation on “Gutsy Blogging for Writers,” I realized, “Wow, people actually want to buy my book.” She then asked me if I would autograph a page in her notebook.
This means no blogging or visiting blogs until September 30th. (Ouch!)

It breaks my heart to do this but I have to stay focused for a month. I wish all of you Gutsy Blogging and hope you will come back and visit me when my doors open again on September 30th.
 
All the best to you, and thanks for understanding.

How to retire comfortably for under $1,500 a month.

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 Ambergris Caye, Belize, where we lived in 2005

Many of you know my family lived in Belize for one year, from 2004-2005.
A week or so ago, I received a link to an article in US News on: How to retire comfortably for under $1,500 a month. The location: Belize.

I read the article with great interest, and decided to comment on what I think is true, and what I believe may be slightly misleading.

The couple in the article moved from Canada to Belize, three years ago. They bought a piece of property on the sea, but it does not say where. My guess is perhaps in Corozal/Consejo Shores area in the north, close to the Mexican border where we lived when we first moved to Belize.

Here are their expenses: (I added my comments after each category.)

  • Rent: $300 (PROBABLY RUSTIC FOR THAT PRICE. DEPENDS ON LOCATION TOO.)
  • Utilities: telephone, and Internet: $500 (Your biggest expense in this country.) (I AGREE.)
  • Groceries: $150 (IF YOU LIVE LIKE A LOCAL IT’S CHEAP. NOT WINE, FILET MIGNON.)
  • Health insurance: $50 (WE DIDN’T HAVE ANY.)
  • Entertainment: ($100 EATING BURRITOS AND FRIED CHICKEN OUT IS CHEAP. NOT TOURIST RESTAURANTS WITH AMERICAN STYLE FOOD THOUGH.)
  • Car expenses: $300 (GAS IS EXPENSIVE.)

They barbecue lobster and filet mignon at home. They have reliable Internet to keep them connected to the outside world. My biggest disappointment in Belize was the frozen lobster in the supermarkets. I never found a store with fresh lobster. As far as filet mignon, I would not call it “filet mignon” unless you ordered it from an upscale American restaurant and it was imported from the U.S. There were two butchers on Ambergris Caye, and their meat tasted better after a few months of living on the island. Seriously, your taste buds change.

They have reliable Internet. I’m not sure about that. There were several hours a week when the electricity shut off in the entire town/country. We went for eleven hours straight without electricity. We had a satellite dish and there were also times, during heavy cloud cover, we were without Internet.

Through Belize’s Qualified Retired Persons program you can establish foreign residency as young as age 40.  We applied for our QRP cards before leaving the U.S. They were supposed to arrive within six weeks from the Belize Tourist Board. We never received them, after one and a half years and paying $5,000 for them. The reason: they were being redesigned with a security feature attached. We never saw ours.

Belize is a beautiful little country. It’s a peaceful, eco-tourist retreat home to more than 540 species of birds, 4,000 species of flowering plants, and 700 kinds of trees. That I agree with. We fell in love with the sense of adventure and the beauty of the country, especially the islands and snorkeling.


Furthermore, Kathleen Peddicord  wrote an article on , “7 affordable places to retire abroad,” and strangely enough, France is listed among countries such as Panama, Belize, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia and Malaysia. I have lived in France and Belize, and visited Mexico, and I certainly wouldn’t place France in the same category of affordability as Belize and Mexico, and not from what I hear about Panama either. So that seemed like a huge surprise.

Any tips on retiring comfortably for under $1,500 a month?
(Even if you’re 40.)

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