Sunday, December 27, 2015

Post-Holiday Hodge Podge

I sat down thinking I might start on my annual end of year wrap up post, but then I saw how long it had been since I'd posted anything and thought that I should write something I could finish and post tonight. And so you get a hodge podge post.

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Today is the first day of the Fill Your eReader sale that I'm running. If you've been tempted by any of the books I've published at Annorlunda Books, you have two weeks in which you can buy them for just $0.99.  Tell all your friends!

In other company news, a website overhaul is coming soon. The current Annorlunda website was a bit of a placeholder that I put in place before I had much content. It is time to make something better. I like making websites, so I'm looking forward to this. I'm less enthused about the need to make a new header for the Annorlunda Books Facebook page, but that really needs to get done, too. I am developing a social media content strategy for both Annorlunda and Tungsten Hippo, too. That is more interesting than I expected it to be, so I suspect I'll end up liking that, too.

As I've said for quite awhile now, the success of this company is going to come down to how well I figure out a marketing strategy, and it is time to focus some attention on that. I am glad to discover that there are parts of it I will enjoy.

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We had a very good Christmas. Petunia loves the Frozen skateboard that Santa brought her, and is already making progress on learning how to skateboard. Today, I took her to a nearby park to practice. She pushed 1-2-3 times and then coasted. After a few repetitions of this, she said she was ready to try riding down some steps. Luckily for me, there were no steps at that park, so it was easy to convince her to keep practicing the basics instead. I think my future holds some interesting discussions, though.

My Mom saw that I wanted to learn how to crochet, so put a "learn to crochet" kit in Pumpkin's gift. She also brought some crochet hooks that belonged to either my great-grandmother or my grandmother, and so Pumpkin and I have been learning our chain stitch together. Petunia saw my Mom, me, and Pumpkin all sitting on the sofa trying to crochet, and announced she wanted to learn, too. We gave her one of the hooks, and my Mom showed her how to do the stitch. Petunia then announced she was going to crochet a rugby jersey to go with the rugby bear she got from Mr. Snarky's parents. I love her ambition. I try to find the right balance between injecting some realism and supporting her aspirations, because sometimes she surprises us with what she can do.

If she does crochet a rugby jersey for her bear, I'll be sure to post a photo. Don't hold your breath, though.

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On Christmas night, I was snuggling Petunia to sleep, and she said "Mommy, you forgot to tell me whether Santa is real." I asked her what she thought, and she thought he wasn't real. I asked her if she was sure she wanted me to tell her, and she was. So I told her. She didn't mind the truth. She agreed that it was a nice story and fun to pretend, and that we could keep doing stockings and Santa gifts. Then I told her that she shouldn't tell any of her friends and school, because some of them might still want to believe. She said she wouldn't, but that a boy in her class had already told them, anyway.

So now we know where the doubt about Santa came from. I can't complain, though, because I suspect Pumpkin played that role for some other kids, despite our injunction against telling other people what she'd figured out,

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The kids are done with their bath. They convinced my Mom to give them a bath instead of their usual shower. There was much silliness. I don't think she'll fall for that request again anytime soon. I should go and get them their snack, and pack my lunch for tomorrow. Everyone else gets to stay home, but I have to go work at a client's site tomorrow. Bah.

I hope all of you who were celebrating it had a nice Christmas, and that the rest of you had a nice weekend. I'll post my year end wrap up later this week, and I may also get some weekend links out this week.

1 comment:

  1. I love crocheting. I used to do it quite a lot, and made many baby gifts for friends. When I was pregnant with Baguette, though, I was only able to make one blanket for her due to carpal tunnel. I still can't do it for very long--and I've realized that I need to work more on evenness and consistency, because I have friends whose work is far more precise than mine, and that's the quality I want to be giving people.

    On the other hand, since I physically can't do much of it, I'm not making that a priority. But it is a lot of fun, and I miss being able to do that while I watch TV. Also, I miss being able to watch TV.

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