Letting the haters hate

Earlier this morning, I was doing something that is part of my “morning activities”: I was on Pinterest. So there I was just innocently pinning away and then I started to experience trouble pinning some things. Apparently, some people who I don’t know have blocked me on Pinterest. At first, I joked about it. Seriously, I had a good laugh. “I’m so evil!” I chortled. But I started to wonder why these people blocked me. I didn’t know them and weren’t following them or anything. I guess new people who join Pinterest get an email telling them, “Welcome to Pinterest! Be sure to block Dawn Wilson!” LOL

But, ya know, the whole blocking thing on Pinterest really doesn’t bother me. Like I said, it makes me laugh. I didn’t do anything to these people. I wasn’t mean to them. I didn’t send them spam or anything. So, I dunno. Whateva.

But it doesn’t hurt me. And if those people think it hurts me, then they really need to get a life!

That got me to thinking: There are other things people do on the Internet – specifically, social media – that can be seen as bullying or as being negative. Now, getting your ass torn out in a comment war is one thing. That is not cool. But the whole blocking on Pinterest, unfriending on Facebook and tagging people on Twitter with negative tweets can be used as a way of bullying and hurting others.

Me, I don’t give a shit.

Seriously, haters gonna hate! And you know what? I don’t care. Let me rephrase that: I. Don’t. Care.

I am too busy living my life and doing my own thing to give a flying fuck about people on the Internet deciding to put me on their shit list. Especially when it comes to people I don’t know.

You wanna block me on Pinterest for no reason? Go right ahead!

You wanna unfriend me on Facebook because I hurt your mom’s feelings? Fine!

You wanna point and laugh at my small number of followers on Twitter and tell everybody “don’t buy her books because she hurt me” or “don’t buy her books because she’s a two-faced liar” or “don’t buy her books because she worships the devil”? Have at it!

Meanwhile, I’m gonna be over here not giving a crap!

I am going to continue doing my own thing, just as I have always done my own thing. I will continue to write books because I want to write books. I will continue to pin things on Pinterest because I want to pin things on Pinterest. I will continue to be active on Twitter and Facebook because I WANT to be active on Twiter and Facebook.

And I REALLY don’t care if that bothers someone!

I have the right to live my life. Deal with it.

If people are all gonna be a bunch of crybabies or whiners or haters on the Internet because of something I did or said or shared or…WHATEVER then they can either take it up with me personally and we can work that out or they can waste their time and their life by hating on me and doing silly shit thinking it will hurt MY feelings. And if they choose the latter, then I guess they REALLY need to have more drama in their lives. I guess they HAVE to have something to cry into their pillows about. I guess they want that one Horrible Thing from the past to hold against someone for the rest of their lives. That’s too bad, but I’m not going to disappear because of it.

I am still here. I am still doing my own thing. And regardless of what kind of crap I have to take from people on the Internet, I will ALWAYS be here. I will NOT go away. I will not kill myself over their petty shit. I will not bury myself into a hole and hope the world forgets my shame.

Nope. I’m not going anywhere. I write what I want to write. I don’t do shit to get people’s attention or to get on someone’s nerves or to intentionally hurt another person. (Gotta keep in mind all the pussies out there who can’t take a joke!!) I’m not doing stuff to make up for anything because if I HAVE hurt someone’s feelings AND they actually take the time to talk to me about it instead of holding a grudge FOREVER and spreading hate, then it’s all good. I AM willing to work things out with people. I AM willing to acknowledge if I made a mistake, apologize and make things right with people.

But if instead they choose to do things on the Internet like blocking me or unfriending me or whatever, then they are just wasting their time. None of that shit hurts me at all. So you go right ahead and keep doing your passive-aggressive bullying tactics thinking it’ll make me fall apart into a million pieces. You go right ahead! It’s not going to work! I am going to continue living my life and doing my own thing! And none of that negativity coming from the haters is gonna stop me at all.

Bento box lunches?

This morning, while I was drinking my first cup of coffee, I was going through my email accounts and I came across an article written by a mom who started giving her kids Bento box lunches. I have heard of the Bento box lunches but never really got into them. But after reading this article, I decided to look into that further. In fact, I’d been thinking of creating a board on Pinterest about school lunches so I decided to “just do it” today and created the board, but in this case pinning stuff about Bento box lunches. And I gotta say, wow! This is a really big thing! There were tons of images and articles on Bento box lunch ideas. It really grabbed my interest in using them all the more!

So when Jesse finished getting dressed for school, I asked him if he was interested in me packing him some Bento box lunches for school. I showed him a picture of a Bento box lunch in another article and he scowled. “That’s for babies,” he said. I assured him that kids of all ages were using Bento boxes for their school lunches and there were even adults packing their work lunch into Bento boxes. I also showed him the many different types of Bento box lunches I had pinned on my board.

Still, he wasn’t very interested in them. He thought the cool shapes were neat but he just wasn’t interested.

I guess some school years will be different with his lunches. One year, he only wanted Lunchables for his lunch. At one point during that time, however, one of the lunch volunteers took me aside when I was visiting one day and told me that Jesse was not eating the meat in his Lunchables. She also told me she had been sitting with him to encourage him to eat the lunch meat in his meals. Even though I was irritated that she was forcing my son to eat something he doesn’t like, I thanked her for the info. (My son is not a big meat-eater. He likes hot dogs and chicken nuggets, and every once in a while he eats bacon or a corn dog, but he’s just not into eating that much meat.)

This year, however, any time he wants to take a lunch to school, Jesse always requests the same thing:

Juice box
Peanut butter sandwich, without crust and cut into 4 triangles
Crackers (either Ritz, Cheez-It, Goldfish or Wheat Thins)
Raisins
Treat (either a cookie, fruit snack, Twinkie, cupcake or some other sweet item)

And so far, he hasn’t asked for anything different! I did consider asking him if he’d like those foods in a Bento box, but not sure if that will catch on for him.

Later, I told my daughter about the Bento box lunches too. I told her it was like a Lunchables but with more variety and you don’t always get the same thing. She was curious about it and said that she might want to start taking a Bento box lunch to school. I made a mental note to look for them at the store. I know that some parents are even creating their own Bento-style-boxes with used containers and muffin cups. It’s something else to think about too. I’m just glad I have some lunch ideas now!

I think the Bento box lunches are cool. At first, I thought maybe it would be bad in case it’s lost at the school or maybe they’ll end up in the trash can instead of being brought back home, but it might work out okay. I am totally for trying new foods and trying new things and if this is something that the kids want to use, or even one of my kids, then I think it might be a nice change from what they normally eat for lunch.

Pinterest drama

Over the weekend, something very strange happened while I was on Pinterest. I got an invitation to join a group board – I get a lot of those – but before I accepted the invitation, I checked out the board first. I wanted to have a good look at it first. I ended up liking A LOT of pins on that board and started pinning like crazy. I guess the person who owned the board got offended that I did not accept her invite right away because she ended up blocking me. (It’s too bad; I also checked out her profile and she had some really awesome boards and I wanted to follow her but I couldn’t because she had blocked me.)

I tried to figure out if I had done something wrong. Did I break some kind of Pinterest etiquette rule? Was I in the wrong to FIRST pin from that board before addressing the invitation? I would’ve accepted the invitation but could not do that anymore. Still, I was already following that board, and I was not banned from it, so I was still able to pin from that board.

But, still. I was confused. This was a really bizarre thing to happen. I was trying to figure out if I had done something wrong or if I was being affected by somebody else’s drama.

So I contacted the folks at Pinterest to see if I had committed some kind of goof. I have NEVER run into this problem so the whole thing had me a bit flummoxed. Because it was the weekend, I knew it would be a while before I heard back from TPTB at Pinterest. I contacted a friend of mine who is also on Pinterest and who I follow and I asked her about it. She said it sounded strange to her, too, and she hasn’t run into something like this either despite being on Pinterest for a long time. After that talk, I figured that maybe it was the board owner taking issue and that I had not done anything wrong. It struck me as silly that we would HAVE to accept a group board invitation. I don’t think we should be forced to.

Well, I heard back from Pinterest today. The person said A: The board owner is allowed to block anyone for whatever reason. B: I was not obligated to accept an invitation to join a group board. And C: I was still allowed to pin from that board if I wanted to.

I am so glad I got answers! So apparently the bottom line is that the whole “crisis” was about someone else’s drama. NMP!

I have to admit, though, that I’ve since been wary of group boards. I REALLY don’t want to run into a situation like this again. To be honest, this is the first time since I started using Pinterest years ago that I have run into drama on Pinterest. The BIG thing I have always loved about Pinterest is that it’s been drama-free (up until now, I guess). So many people on there are SO NICE and KIND and UNDERSTANDING. And fellow fangirls get the way we talk and act crazy over pins related to our fandoms. So now I guess the drama will be everywhere, even on Pinterest.

That said, I am now wary of group boards. Unless I know the person IRL or we’ve been Internet buddies for years, I won’t follow anymore group boards. I’m not gonna deal with other people freaking out over me not accepting their invitations to join their group boards. Yeah, I know it means less boards for me to follow, but that’s okay. There are lots more out there.

And now I can just walk away from this whole situation untroubled and keep doing my own thing!

Mother's Day 2015

Before today came along, I had an idea of some things I hoped to be able to do or get done today. I carried them around in my head for a while before finally writing them all down. Mother’s Day this year seemed to be pretty blessed for me, because I was able to check off almost everything on that list!

The day started with me sleeping in. Then I got to watch Sherlock while Jesse played. (So nice to watch TV without interruption!!) After that, I enjoyed two cups of coffee while reading a novel – also without interruption. (That item got crossed off my list!) Then I took a long, hot shower. After that, hubby and kids gave me their gifts. I received a box of chocolates (yay! I’d hoped to be able to eat some chocolate today, so that item got checked off). I also received a scented pillar candle and a salted rock that lights up. (I’d been wanting one of those for a long time!) Jesse gave me not one but 3 Mother’s Day cards this years (one of them a shared card). Two of them were homemade cards. They were soo cute! He also gave me a cute project he worked on at school for Mother’s Day and a coupon for “uninterrupted reading time.” That’s always nice! I also got artificial lilies from Trev. (I actually wanted artificial flowers, not real flowers. I am hopeless with plants. I don’t have a green thumb, unfortunately. So if I’m given real flowers, they don’t last long!)

I also spent some uninterrupted time on Pinterest. I enjoy pinning stuff on Pinterest. Don’t hate!

Another thing I hoped would happen is going to IHOP for lunch. At first, hubby suggested Ye Olde Pancake House since IHOP was so far, but by the time we got to the Pancake House, they were closed. So we went to IHOP! Yay! I just wish there was an IHOP that was closer to us. We’d go there more often! We had a nice lunch at IHOP. The food was delicious.

After we came home from IHOP, I took a nap. Then I watched a TV show called Nature’s Weirdest. It was pretty cool! After that, the kids and I went to a playground that we’d never been to before. So fun to explore a new place! They have a different kind of monkey bars there. They are like a twisty kind. Jesse tried to go on top of them and at first he was scared, then after a while he did it. Woo-hoo! We had a great time there and it was nice to check out that area.

When we got home, we just chilled out around the house. Hubby got us McDonald’s for dinner and now I have written this blog post, another item I hoped to check off my list. I also hope I will be able to check off the last item: Watch Supernatural!

It’s been a great Mother’s Day and I feel so blessed to enjoy it with my kids.

Pinterest grievances

Some time ago, I joined Pinterest. I got interested in it after I noticed the child I was babysitting was using it on her phone. Curious, I asked her about it, then checked it out myself. I liked what I saw so I signed up. Soon I learned people I knew were also using Pinterest so I started following them. I also followed people who shared my interests, as well as boards that I liked. Wasn’t long before it became an addiction for me, and I am happy to report that I curbed that addiction in time. I set up a system of “Pinterest use” where I was not ALWAYS on Pinterest.

Still, it’s a fun site. I have enjoyed using it.

That was, until I followed someone who thought it was okay to spam his followers.

Because my son plays soccer, I set up a soccer board on Pinterest. This is for me to learn more about the sport, pin pictures about it and just anything related to soccer, really. I did the same with baseball because my daughter used to play baseball – and I just love baseball, anyway.

Well, I followed one particular pinner who has a lot of soccer boards on his account. In fact, he wrote an ebook about soccer playing tips. I know this because I saw it advertised as a free download when I read his “About” description. (I read that of everyone who follows me on Pinterest.) Soon after I followed this guy, he sent me a message letting me know he had a FREE ebook about soccer and I could just email him for a copy. That particular message irritated me, first of all because I already KNEW about the free ebook, and if I wanted a copy, I would’ve contacted him about it. Second, it’s outright spam. And spamming people is NOT cool!
 
This dude also used something called a “pinbot” to send me pins he thought I might like. I did not look at these pins. I did the same thing I do when Pinterest sends me such emails: I DELETED THEM.

I don’t want people sending me pins to check out on Pinterest. When my family or friends do it, fine. But with people I barely know? Not so much. It’s really annoying because they do not know me at all, I do not know them, and why the heck do they think it’s okay to send me pins I might like? Let me find it on my own! Even better: Just pin it! I’ll see it in the feed! Y’know?

Despite these grievances with this person, I have not unfollowed him. I ignored him, yes, but he’s got good soccer stuff on his boards I know I’ll want to check out. But if he does spam me again, or uses that “pinbot” thing again, he’s gone. I won’t tolerate that from people I don’t know.

Pinterest has been a pleasant experience thus far and I enjoy using it. I only hope the spamming and the “pinbotting” thing does not come at me from strangers in a flood of emails. I really don’t want to deal with that. I am fine with people commenting on pins -- and, sometimes, I'll even comment, too, if I have something to say. Comments are not the problem. Spam is the problem. And if it gets out of hand, I might contact Pinterest about it or set something up where messages have tighter filters.

P.S. I also find it annoying they changed the way the pins appear when you click on it in the feed. In the past, I clicked on a pin so I could see the WHOLE thing or read it better or watch a clip, and it would come up without the feed changing or anything. Then it closed right back to where it was. Then they changed it. If I click on a pin, it goes to that page. I have to go BACK to get back to the feed but it automatically reloads with NEW pins added when I do that, taking me back to the top to see all the new pins. And thereby losing my place. I can’t go back to where I was. It’s REALLY aggravating! I have started to open pins in new tabs to avoid this but sometimes I forget and lose my place in the feed. And I lose pins, too. I don’t have the TIME for that, people. But that’s just me!  NOTE: They changed it back! YAY!!! Thank you, Pinterest! You rock!

 

My Pinterest boards

Not too long ago, I signed up at Pinterest. Some people I knew were using it so I decided to get in on that, too. It's been something of an addictive pastime for me. I started using Pinterest just to kill time when I added it to my smartphone but lately it's been hard to resist. So far, I have managed to take care of my other responsibilities and use Pinterest at least once a day (because I have found if I miss a day, there's a TON of new pins I'll have to wade through when I log in again), but lately it's been pretty hard to STOP pinning. Ack! It's getting addictive. I will have to nip that in the bud eventually, because I have too much else going on!

The boards I have on Pinterest either reflect things I am interested in, things I am researching and things that I love. I love lighthouses, so I have a "Lighthouse love" board. Doesn't mean I live in a lighthouse! (Though that would probably be neat!) And I love baseball, so I have a "Baseball love" board (which also includes softball stuff, as a nod to my cousin, the minor league softball player). And I love horses – though I DO NOT own horses or have any horses or see horses at all in my everyday life. But I love horses and so I have a board called "Horses." Decided not to call it "Horse love" because, well, that doesn't sound right. And it's just a kooky way of describing a form of love, methinks. I created the "Horses" board because, one day, I was browsing my "Animals" board and I realized that, gosh, I sure had a lot of horse pins! So, just as I did with the cat pins, I created a board just for the horse pins!

I have a Pinterest board called "Book love" that includes books I have read and loved. As well as anything about being a bookworm, libraries, a blibliophile and cool ways to store books or have a reading corner. I LOVE books!!

I also have a board called "Books I wanna read." These are books I don't have but wanna read.

After seeing some pins, maybe I should make a board that's called "Books I own AND wanna read.... eventually." Because I see pins of books that I have but have not read YET. I will read them soon, though. One book at a time.

And this is me on Pinterest.

Five days without Internet

Last weekend, I spent some time trying to finish up a project I’d been working on during the week. I had another on my plate waiting for me to get around to it, but with my very limited time on the computer during this summer, and a hundred other things requiring my attention, completing this one was slow going. I figured I would finish it over the weekend, when my husband would be at home to watch the kids, and then I could upload it and, on Monday get to work on the next one.

That was the plan, anyway!

The good news, I did finish this project (formatting a manuscript for Createspace). The bad news? There was NO Internet! I got online to try to upload it but there was no connection.

Turned out we had no cable, either. Jesse was so upset because our cable was shut off while he was watching SpongeBob and he cried when he missed out on the rest of the show.

What happened was that my husband thought he had paid the cable bill (we have a cable/Internet/phone bundle), but it had been our electric bill he had actually paid. And the funds to pay our Very Expensive cable bill were NOT available. So the cable company shut off our Internet, phone and cable. Without any warning, either! They didn’t even send a reminder. Sheesh!

To be honest, given a choice between having electricity and having cable, I was glad we had electricity! Still, I had things to do that required an Internet connection. For one thing, I have been in the process of editing/revising/updating a manuscript I had to get back to my publisher. For another thing, I had to upload this other book! I have another one waiting (actually, two more) and that one was time-sensitive. So I was pretty darn nervous each day I could not do those things.

Of course, I worried that my email inbox would overflow. This is where my smartphone came in handy. I contacted my publisher through my smartphone to let her know what was up, and I also got some other work done for other books. I managed my email account in the best way I could, but could not get done everything I needed to do to keep it from filling up. But, that’s okay! No biggie! I realize I could’ve gone to the library to use Internet there to handle email, but I’m too paranoid to use library computers for email.

I was also unable to post anything at my picture blog, for some reason, so I could not share the picture of the moon that I took on the night it was orange on account of the fires in California. Again, no biggie. Sometimes I can post on the blogs and sometimes not!

Jennifer, however, had a harder time dealing with no Internet. Surprisingly, she winged not having cable. (The kid has had to live without cable before!) But no Internet was another thing. She and a friend have been emailing each other new passages they write in a fan fiction story they’ve got going on, so no Internet meant no more writing the story! She also creates short story booklets on another site, and when she was inspired to write a new story, she was upset she could not upload it. (I told her to just write her story then she could upload it when we had Internet again.) She also missed out on using tumblr and Pinterest.

Jesse was also not happy he could not use Internet. He likes to play games. Still, the games on my smartphone were enough to satisfy his gaming fix.

I also managed to use Netflix on my smartphone, as well as Pinterest.

So, basically, we DID survive not having Internet, but it was hard. (For those five days, I was practically biting my nails off thinking Mustsendbook.Mustsendbook.Mustsendbook.)

Our Internet was finally turned back on today. (They turned on our cable first. Jesse was happy he got to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles again.) I finally got to send my book back to my publisher. (Yay!) Getting THAT done lifted a HUGE weight off of my shoulders, believe me! And Jennifer was happy she got to do her Internet stuff again today. I am happy I got to do Internet stuff again, too. My email inbox still needs some attention, but I hope I can weed through it over the weekend. (That’s when I get caught up on email!)

This has definitely made us take a closer look at just how we spend our time on the Internet, what we can do when we don’t have it, and, ultimately, WHY it is important to us. What can we do on the Internet that we can’t do on a smartphone or in some other way? Indeed, the Internet does play an important role in our lives, but it’s not the end of the world if we have to do without it for a short time. There are just some things we need a computer with working Internet for that a smartphone will not be able to do for us. (I will say that it is insanely annoying typing on small keys and squinting to read the tiny screen on my smartphone, so blogging on my smartphone is definitely OUT!) Given there are flash drives, there are other solutions if we lose Internet. But it’s still a nice thing to have.