Tag Archives: family

A Playlist For My Dad: Four Years Later

11 November

Some Fridays on this blog, I write about whatever I want. Because I can. :^)

Happy Veteran’s Day! I am so proud of the people who have served and grateful that their sacrifices have made my life possible. Thank you, veterans.

I usually get a lot of condolences this day every year about my father so it’s natural to think he was a veteran. He was not, he just happened to have a fatal accident on Veteran’s Day four years ago. (You can read about it here if you want.)

I also blog about this every year (I’ve had this blog since before the accident even):
http://breakingeveninc.com/about-me/one-year-later/
http://breakingeveninc.com/family-and-friends/two-years-later/ (This one in particular gives a good back story and even has a picture of my dad in it.)
(I think I must have just ignored this last year because I can’t find the post!)

Part of the reason I think I do this is that I like to take some time on this date every year and think about my father. (I usually even try to do something he would have gotten a kick out of, like drink a red wine with an ice cube in it or have a frozen Snickers bar.)

And the other part of why I revisit this every year (and a less all-about-me reason) is that I somehow want to take the shame out of grief. As a society, we don’t grieve publicly so I’ve tried to do things like write about how I joined a support group and letting people in on what you shouldn’t say to someone who is grieving. I like to be public about it not because my struggle is somehow more important or difficult than anyone else’s but because I want people to know their feelings are normal and it’s ok to talk about them and otherwise deal with them.

This year, I thought I’d change up the format. Dad, this playlist is for you. (Well, more accurately it is for me about you.) Because music helps.

Father Daughter- Paul Simon
I could totally picture my dad saying ‘Trust your intuition, it’s just like going fishin’.” He was kind of cheesy… sort of like how I’m kind of cheesy.

Cap Enrage, Zachary Richard
In case you don’t speak French, this song is about a shipwreck and someone drowning, thinking of their loved ones and what they wish they could say: “I love you, I’ve never loved anyone as much as you.” It took me a couple years to be able to even be able to listen to this song again. (Song starts about one minute in)

Life Ain’t Always Beautiful, Gary Allen
I found this song after everything happened. It’s a good one and I bet my dad would have liked it too.

Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground, Willie Nelson
This is the song my sister and my father danced to at her wedding. We remember thinking it was a slightly odd choice I think (Dad’s idea) but reminds me of him whenever I hear it and ends up being quite fitting.

Stop This World, Diana Krall
The last Christmas he was around, I remember putting Diana Krall’s CD in my dad’s CD player and him realizing my taste in music didn’t totally stink. He made me copy a bunch of my CDs so he could listen to them in his truck.

Every Day, Stevie Nicks
The other day when I was running, this came on shuffle on my iPod. It made me smile and think of Dad so it is in the mix.
http://youtu.be/IG2r3MMzm2Q (Stevie, you’re killing me by not letting me embed!)

I’m sure I’ll think of tons of other songs once I publish this. My dad loved 70s rock for example and I’m sure some Elton John or Janis Joplin song may come to mind at some point.

So if you are missing someone, I hope you take some time today and remember them, with music or otherwise. Losing someone requires a constant recovery process that is never quite over but we can take comfort in knowing we share it with many other people out there.

Anyone else have good songs to add to my playlist here? Maybe a good remembering someone song or something my dad would have gotten a kick out of (if you knew him that is)? 

This Month In Business: Needing Help Edition

17 March

So the good news is, while I used to write this business update every week, I now seem to be writing it every month. I’ve been doing this because I’ve actually had a lot of work to do. (I know, *gasp!)

But it really does help to have some kind of check in with myself, since I don’t have a weekly meeting with my boss, a quarterly report, or other sort of evaluation. You, as my blog readers, help hold me to some accountability. For that, I am very grateful. Because I totally need some!

Here’s what I’ve been up to besides actual paid work:

1. I enrolled in an online business course.

You may have heard of Earn1K which is a business course aimed at freelancers. I’ve been on the email list for awhile and finally decide to take the plunge after a couple of months of realizing I’ve been not as focused as I should be on the overall direction of this business. In terms of business course experience, I took an eight week seminar from Women, Work, and Community two years ago, read a couple business books, wrote a business plan, and called it good. Plus it’s been about 6 years since I’ve taken a full on course and I figured it was time for some much needed personal development.

So far it’s been going really well and already the time and effort I’m putting in to develop my ideas is paying off.

2. I got a cash infusion from Mom.

I realize there are a few things I’ve considered doing for money that are unrelated to my business but was considering because I needed some cash. A combination of a few projects running longer than expected and a couple bills paid at the beginning of the year meant I had less cash on hand than I was expecting at this point.

My debt to income ratio is around 1 (breaking even!) but a bank will pretty much only talk to you if you’ve got a ratio of about 1.5.

Over Christmas, my mom had told me to ask for help if I needed it so I decided to take her up on her offer and borrow some money. She was kind enough to present a zero percent interest rate and put the check in an ‘I’m proud of you’ card. Thanks Mom! I’m already sleeping better and plan to pay her back in full by the end of the year if not sooner.

3. I’ll be having two upcoming seminars which one of my more connected friends is helping me organize.
Anyone who has ever eaten dinner with me knows how much I like food. My friend Paul is a food distributor who sells to many local restaurants. When he came to me and suggested we do a couple workshops geared at the hospitality industry, I jumped at the chance.

So if you are in Downeast Maine and run a food-related business check out the two workshops: www.socialmediafood101.eventbrite.com and www.socialmediafood201.eventbrite.com

4. I finished a really big project, with much needed help.
A couple months ago, a friend of a friend wanted some help developing a real estate website. I looked at the online landscape at other real estate companies and saw that what she wanted was possible, even if the websites themselves weren’t the prettiest or most functional websites I’d ever seen. So I gave her a quote for her real estate website and she accepted.

What followed were many unexpected complications: database access issues, formatting issues, code for site design interfering with search function. You name it and it happened. It became clear very early on that I could not handle this on my own so I pulled in a friend to help. Then another. Then another. Through coding, coffee, and sheer determination, we finished the site, exhausted from late nights and early mornings.

I learned three things from this experience:

1) Don’t be cocky in your abilities to do something you’ve never done before. Take the time you think it’ll take and double it. Worse case scenario you give money back.
2) If you are pulling people in, outline the project tasks and responsibilites clearly. Chances are the work will be difficult enough and there’s no need to add communication issues to the mix.
3) You don’t have to know everything but you have to know people who can help so you can collectively know everything you need to.

So the website is launched and I thank Nicholas Peterson, Matthew Baya, and Jeremy Mason for their help with it. And that said, if you know someone who needs a real estate website, I’m now your gal.

Anything you needed help with (and got help with) this month?

(Come on, make me feel there are a couple of you out there who needed the help of other people this month!)

Marketing Monday: Valentine’s Day

14 February

I heard a story on NPR that the average person spends $150ish on Valentine’s Day. The number seems to vary based on what article you read but I couldn’t help but think this is kind of ridiculous. Yeah, I’m not very romantic but, ignoring romantic love, I’m not completely repulsed by Valentine’s Day. Here are a few interesting Valentine-related phenomenon I noticed recently:

Valentine's Day: Some good stuff with the commercialism

Valentine's Day: Some good stuff with the commercialism

This week’s episode of Community and 30 Rock
I love a good sitcom, and it’s shows like Community and 30 Rock that renew my faith in the genre. These shows crack me up, and their Valentine’s Day episodes about love of friends was very cute. I want to go to there.

Groupon FTD Coupon Scam
Groupon seems to be agitating people a bit lately. First the Superbowl ad, now this bit with FTD where they offered a discount on flowers with elevated prices. They seem to have gotten it straightened out but hey, bad press is better than no press, right?

My friend Cherie’s blog post about Valentine’s Day Competitiveness
My friend Cherie tweeted “Congratulations. Your husband sent you a teddy bear. You clearly have a much stronger marriage than me.” and I snorted. I am glad she was also inspired to write this post about Valentine’s Day competitiveness in relation to her kiddos. Hilarious.

Heart-shaped Peeps
Sure, this product is just Easter pushed at all times of the year but the white hearts have a slight vanilla flavor and if you let them age with the bag open for 1-2 weeks, you’ll have a slightly crusty snack of perfection (or you can cut them into squares and pretend they are gourmet marshmellows).

So while the idea of paying double for a meal out makes me roll my eyes, I do understand that Valentine’s Day isn’t all bad… Wow, this Peep is fantastic!

Have you noticed anything cool related to Valentine’s Day marketing?

Breaking Even: 2010 In Review

31 December

It’s been awhile since I’ve written my ‘this week in business’ series. A few large things that have happened in 2010 just to recap (some new stuff, some not so new stuff):

That’s certainly not close to everything but some of the more time intensive and interesting things for sure.

I also had a lot happen in my personal life:

  • I met a man who has put up with a year of 80 hour weeks with patience and kindness. Moreover he loves how much I care about my work.
  • I became an aunt. (Note to self: Get permission from my sister to put her baby’s photo on my website- she’s super cute!)
  • Sadie (my beagle mix) died and I adopted Gidget from Georgia.
  • I took my first vacation in two years and spent a total of three hours online that week.
  • I went with my family to Georgia (a working but fun vacation).
  • I found out my grandfather has cancer, which continues to worsen and has made me value the time I have with him.

As I’ve said already on social media today, I want to thank my family and friends for all their support this year, on the business front and other fronts as well.

2011 promises to be another exciting year and, while part of me is dreading turning 30 and what my Pepere will go through, part of me knows the alternative to moving forward is stagnating and no one wants that.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

This Week In Business: The I Have The Power Edition

24 June

It’s been an interesting two weeks in the life of my company. The highlight (ok low point but viewed in an optimistic way) was when I took down my own website for about 12 hours last week.

Apparently, I am tech savvy (but I guess in this case, more tech un-afraid) enough to do semi-powerful things, like take my site down. Please note clients reading this: I would never do this kind ofexperimental behavioron your sites.

With a few frantic phone calls and text messages to people smarter than me, all eventually became right in the world. But these two weeks, I feel like not only have I had enough power to do some damage but to actually make some real headway in a few directions. Here’s what else has been going on:

I planned and executed my first solo workshop for Downeast Learning.

My friend Matt and I are on month three of our monthly technology workshops, which we’re branding as Downeast Learning. Matt is on vacation so I thought for the first solo workshop, I’d tackle Facebook for Business. This is a topic I’m pretty comfortable with, or so I thought as I started planning the slides.

It’s funny when you have to teach something how much more about it you have to learn. Those times where you have to do something ‘just good enough’ and think ‘I’ll look it up later’. And it was finally time to try all the ideas I’ve wanted to do on my own Facebook business page, or at the very least think about step by step how I would do them.

Eleven people came and I think most everyone was pretty happy about how things went. I know I had a really fun time doing it. Based on feedback we’ve gotten, the next workshop will either be about Business Blogging or Google Analytics. If you want to sign up for email alerts when we have these sort of events, go to www.downeastlearning.com.

I wrote my second largest proposal.

It’s always interesting to get an RFP from a potential client, especially a larger business or organization. So much potential yet so many ways you can mess it up if you don’t know their bottom line, who is looking at your proposal, or some other detail that could give you a bit of an edge.
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Merry Christmas

24 December

Wishing you the happiest of holidays, whatever you celebrate, and the best for you and yours in the coming year.

I’m off to celebrate the next few days with my family and friends, and hope you are taking the time to do the same.