Category: My So-Called Life

Work, work, work

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

bedtime for workaholic 1

I have to say, I’m working my butt off over at the other place for the past few weeks. It’s kind of addicting, putting stuff up and seeing the page views jump like that. It’s been years since I had that experience!

But of course many of the regulars are very angry. Change is hard, routine is comforting, and many of them hate the design. They ridicule almost everything we put up, and complain that we don’t do more.

I don’t get to vent over there, so I will here. Here it is: Political blogs do not run on rainbows and unicorns, especially the big ones. All those little goodies readers like, like the videos and the daily newsletter, cost money. It’s a couple of thousand dollars a month just to rent the servers to host the videos. And as far as donations go: meh. Here’s the weird part: I get more in donations than they do, and I’m just this small blog.

And the readers are being quite vocal and nasty. They accuse us of selling out (we didn’t). If I put up an interesting story in the tech section about some new gadget (you know how I like this stuff), they insist it’s a paid ad. (I wish.) Then they complain if no one writes a post about something in the news — as if, you know, I had a staff and could make assignments. I don’t and I can’t. It’s not 100% volunteer, but maybe 98%.

Anyway, the contrast reminds how much I like the little community we have here. It keeps getting smaller, but I like y’all and I’m glad you’re here. Now just turn off your Adblocker (because that’s how I make money) and I’ll be happy as a pig in shit.

I’m not having a great day

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Attachment

I woke up at dawn, in pain. It felt like my face hurt, but then I realized it was coming from my jaw — a full-fledged TMJ episode. It might have been from chewing gum the other day.

My chiro can’t see me until this afternoon. In the meantime, I’m alternating heat and ice. And Aleve. But nothing really helps.

Catching up

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, folks, but all that hard work is paying off. Traffic over at C&L is through the roof and I’m so happy we’re doing well.

I got to spend my day off with a couple of friends. We went to the holiday craft fair at Greensgrow, my local urban farm, had breakfast at the Memphis Taproom (you might have seen it on the Food Network’s “Diners Drive-Ins and Dives”) and then headed downtown to see the Christmas show at the Comcast Center.

Then we headed over to the annual Christmas Village at the city’s Love Park. (A short walk from Suburban Station, for your suburbanites.) I’m embarrassed to say I’ve driven past it for the ten years or so it’s been around. I just assumed it was junk, so never stopped to check it out. It’s not. It’s a bunch of cool, curated, high-quality stuff with prices ranging from low to out of this world. (I bought myself a nice little laughing Buddha for $4!) There’s a MASSIVE tent of high-quality German Christmas ornaments that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.

There’s still time to do some shopping, and you can grab some hot chocolate and Belgian waffles while you’re there.

Obamacare follies

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Still trying to delete my last application. I spoke to someone Thursday night, who assured me it would be taken care of and to call back in 24 hours to verify. And of course it’s not deleted.

This isn’t an IT problem. It’s a process problem. How could they not have designed and implemented a workable system for removing an application? They have buttons on the site to remove applications — but when you press it, it goes right back to the call center, and they don’t know how to do it. No one does.

The short version is, there’s no way in hell I’m going to have insurance in time for the deadline. Pray that I don’t have any health emergencies in January, because I’m going without insurance again.

I guess the only option I have left is to call my congress critter’s office Monday and see if they can help.

Sorry

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

For being so distracted, but as you may already know, we’ve given birth to a new design over at C&L and I’ve been working like crazy this week. Please stop by when you can and take a look!

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Holiday greens

~ susie

Bartram's Garden

My neighbor and I went to Bartram’s Gardens for their annual Greens Sale today.

I love the place; when I was a kid, this is where we used to hold our family picnics. John Bartram was America’s first botanist and a good friend of Benjamin Franklin’s. (Franklin once brought the Continental Congress here to distract them and break a deadlock.)

Anyway, I now have a beautiful assortment of greens. And since I’m greatly allergic to them, they will soon be festooning the front of my house.

I stepped on my phone today

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

irepaircells.com

And cracked the glass. Badly. When I touch the screen, I get little splinters in my finger.

It’s not that it’s such a big deal. Really, it’s just an inconvenience, albeit money I’d rather not spend this close to Christmas. But it was the only thing I splurged on with the money my mother left me (the rest went to dental expenses and rent), and it makes me a little sad because I always think of her when I use it.

I ordered a used phone from ebay. In the meantime, it only works some of the time. Like, if I call people, they can’t hear me, but if they call me, they can.

Obamacare

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Spent almost three hours last night dealing with it, which doesn’t bother me all that much because it takes that long to buy health insurance, anyway. I’m happy that I’m going to have dental again, but so far, it looks like none of the plans cover my dentist. I’ll have to call his office today and find out.