Lisa Hendrix

I was reading a Family Circle article about kids and social networking, and it was all “MySpace is the biggest thing around, but you might want to be aware of these up and comers” — one of which was Facebook. I looked at the cover

.

It was from July 2007 — just five years ago.

Now FB is going public, and all that personal info we’ve given them will be in the hands of a board of directors beholden to stockholders. I can’t help but wonder where FB will be in 5 years. Where our information will be. And where everyone will go after Facebook palls.

What’s the next big social network?

Look what I got to giveaway at the RT Booklovers Convention that’s coming up.

It has a nice strong magnet on the back, too. Snazzy, huh?

Lisa

This morning, I walked into the kitchen to find this:

I wish I’d written this. Read it. Spread it. Believe it.

http://amandaching.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/67/

Lisa

____

For my birthday last year, my former critique partner and very wise friend, Sheila Roberts, sent me a copy of START LATE, FINISH RICH by David Bach, the personal finance expert who appears a couple of times a month on the Today Show. There was nothing in it I didn’t already know, and yet I was using very little of that knowledge. But now, with books to write, two kids in college next year, and a house to spruce up, I decided I needed to put a few of Mr. Bach’s (and Sheila’s!) principles in place.

First up: Automating our finances.

You’d think a person on the computer as much as I have been for the past 20+ years (almost daily since, oh, about 1989), I’d have long since relegated every repetitive function I could to the electronics. But no. I’ve been a holdout. I’ve paid some bills online for a while, but I never bumped up to the next level and set up auto-pay.

Until yesterday.

I finally got sick of the whole bill paying thing, and now, almost every bill that can be on auto-pay is, and the rest will be as soon as the billing cycle comes around. I also put the recurring payments in my accounting program so I don’t forget about them.  Once all the auto-pay plans are in place and I’m sure the system’s working smoothly (my husband’s company pays every two weeks instead of twice a month, which makes payday shift around in an uncomfortable fashion), I’ll also automate transfers into  savings.

It doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but I already feel less stressed By my (top of the head) calculation, this will save me 8-10 hours a month in writing checks/logging onto websites, recording checks/payments, and general fussing with money. Plus I’ll never run the risk of missing a payment and the resulting late fee and interest rate penalty.  I heartily recommend it. You can find more from David Bach HERE.

Sheila’s a pro at making dollars go farther, too, and I’ve never seen anyone have as much fun as she does while doing it. She even wrote about three friends who had to make over their finances in her book, SMALL CHANGE. Check out her blog and newsletter for her tips for living like a millionaire on a dime store budget.

What do you think? Do you use auto-pay, and if so, how is it working for you?

Lisa

OK, I know it's not New Year's Day in the modern western world, but using January 1 as the start of the civil year is fairly recent. For much of the Middle Ages, the year was considered to begin either at Christmas or on March 15 (the start of spring). In fact, in England, the official switch to a January 1 start for the year only happened in 1752.

As for why I'm personally starting the year late: frankly, this January pretty much sucked for me. I had pneumonia that took me out for the whole month, and February was spent catching up on everything I got behind on and getting my energy back. So I've decided to make a fresh start to 2012, and make this, March 1, my New Year's Day. My blank page.

Part of filling that blank page is to reactivate this blog, which I basically abandoned about a year ago.  Later today, I'm going to sit down and create a blog schedule and brainstorm ideas for posts. One of my ideas is to devote each month to developing a new skill or habit or learning something new and documenting that, along with, of course, updates on my books, snippets of the Work in Progress, and other news. But I'd also like your input for both the blog and my upcoming site refresh.

Tell me:

What do you like to see on an author blog? Whose blog keeps you going back over and over and why? What kinds of things get you excited about an author's website? Are there extras/widgets you particularly enjoy?

Answer in comments and I'll pick one commenter to win their choice of my books.

Not that Chrissy…

A reader named Krissy contacted me today with a question, but when I answered, my message bounced back, saying that the gmail account she gaveme doesn’t exist. I suspect she mistyped her address, so I’m posting here in the hopes she’ll see it and give it another shot.

Even though I’m deep in the last chapters of Immortal Defender (coming sometime in 2012, btw), I’m managing to get around a little.

First,  an “appearance” I just found out about that left me gobsmacked: Wordsmith.org, the “A Word a Day” people, quoted from Immortal Champion in their word of the day for 7/13/11.  Really. Go look for yourself:

— Medieval collier, woodcut. Unknown artist —

http://wordsmith.org/words/collier.html

As a person who’s been known to read the dictionary for fun, this left me smiling all day. Upwards of a million people get the Word a Day email everyday—it’s hard to get an accurate number because the found stopped keeping track at 550,000 in 2003. And every one of them saw my usage of collier in Immortal Champion.  <g> If you don’t subscribe to A Word a Day, you should. It’s the best daily email you’ll get. Just click here.

Second, a slightly more traditional appearance coming up quickly:

Thursday, July 14, I have an interview and live chat on sister sites Book Monster Reviews and Literal Addiction Paranormal Book Club. The interview will be posted to both sites by 10am EST. The Live Chat will take place on the Literal Addiction site from 8-10pm EDT ((7-9pm CDT/6-8pm MDT/5-7pm PDT). I’ll be giving away signed copies of Immortal Champion at both sites, so be sure to drop by and comment, then join the chat this evening. You’ll need to register for the Author’s Corner forum at Literal Addiction in order to comment on their site, but it’s easy, so be sure to do that so you’re eligible to win. (The forum is on the Author Corner page, where the second part of the interview appears.)

The chat itself will be in in the chatroom on the Contact Page of Literal Addicition. Sign in this evening and ask your best questions. I’ll answer anything! Remember, 8-10pm EDT/5-7pm PDT.

See you there,

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

On this, Towel Day, the 25th day of May, we celebrate the life and writings of Douglas Adams, whose sublime silliness has kept my family entertained on long car trips and brought us some of the most memorable—and occasionally annoying—catch phrases ever, including such treasures as:

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Ford, you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.

If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

You should send that in to the Reader’s Digest. They’ve got a page for people like you.

There’s no point in acting surprised about it.

Apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all.

If you’re so clever, you tell us what colour it should be.

Funny how just when you think life can’t possibly get any worse it suddenly does.

The first nonabsolute number is the number of people for whom the table is reserved.

Stick it up your nose.

The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.

Life is like a grapefruit. (It’s sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It’s got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.)

Forty-two.

Once you know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.

And the most important advice ever given, in any book ever in the history of the Universe:

DON’T PANIC!

You may ask yourself, Why the 25 of May?

Why not?

You may also ask, Why Towel Day?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

~Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

 

Of course, Gunnar and the rest of my guys each carry a towel everywhere.

Today, you  should join them, in memory of Douglas Adams. Carry your towel proudly, and if anyone gives you an odd look, tell him to stick it up his nose.