1. I had epilepsy when I was a kid. From the ages of 4-17, I took phenobarbital 3 times a day and went in for the occasional EEG (electroencephalagraph). As a kid, I thought it was cool to have a bunch of wires glued to my head. One day, at the age of 17, I was told I didn’t have epilepsy any longer. That was even cooler.

2. From 2nd grade through 8th grade, I was a cheerleader. Actually, I think I was considered a “mascot” in 2nd-4th grades, which meant that I dressed like a cheerleader and acted like a cheerleader, but the difference is that I would occasionally get thrown up into the air by the “real” cheerleaders. Or at least that’s the way I remember it!

3. I had a funky appendix once. When I was 14, I woke in the middle of the night screaming in pain. Although my parents rushed me to the hospital, the doctors in the emergency room didn’t know what was wrong with me. They didn’t suspect appendicitis because I didn’t hurt in the normal place for that. Many hours of pain later, they finally decided to go in and do exploratory surgery. Turns out, it was appendicitis, but my appendix was in the wrong place! It was attached to my backbone apparently. Luckily, they found it in time before it burst.

4. The “biggest” natural disasters tend to occur wherever I happen to live. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but at least two of the “biggies” occured where I lived. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake happened while I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Hurricane Katrina happened while I was living here, just north of New Orleans. If I ever move to your neck of the woods, you might want to stock up on emergency supplies.

5. I was severely attacked by a trained guard dog when I was 17, but now I love dogs more than just about anything. The attack happened in my neighborhood. Here’s the story on that. A new family had just moved into our neighborhood, so I invited one of the kids who was about my age to ride bikes around the neighborhood so I could show her around. We hopped on our bicycles and had ridden about 1/4 mile when I pointed out one of the nicer homes in the neighborhood. “That”, I said, “is the [name intentionally left out] house. And those are [blank's] dogs, Kaiser, and …” I never made it past that, because Kaiser, one of the two trained guard dogs (Great Danes), broke his metal chain, jumped over the six foot electrified fence, ran in front of our bikes, came around the back of my bike to my right side, grabbed my arm, and pulled me off my bike and to the ground. He then dragged me about half a mile down the road, threw me into a ditch, and proceeded to eat his way through my arm and back. The poor girl who was riding with me (in this brand new neighborhood of hers) was standing in shock next to her bike, not knowing what to do. Luckily, a few minutes later, an older gentleman who lived nearby happened to drive down and saw what was happening. I really don’t know how he separated me from the dog, but somehow I ended up in his car, and he took my mangled body home. From there, my brave mom rushed me to the hospital. I’m not quite sure how she managed to calmly get me there when my arm and back looked so terrible, but she held up nicely. Although I spent a few years being terrified of dogs afterwards (even teeny tiny ones), I eventually got over it, and I’m a huge, huge fan of dogs now. Go figure. A few scars can’t stop me!

6. I’m an absolute NUTCASE about the color purple. But you probably already knew that. What can I say? I like it – a lot. That’s all there is to say about that.

7. Speaking of nutcases, I’m a wee bit on the paranoid side. Maybe that’s because of the disasters I’ve been through (see #4 above), or maybe it’s just that I like tinfoil hats, but if I could (in other words, if my family wouldn’t completely disown me), I’d build myself a nice underground bunker and stock it with a few years’ worth of food, emergency supplies, weapons, and ammunition to get me through any disaster that might arise. As it is, I have a meager supply of “stuff” that should get us through at least a couple of months, should another disaster strike.

So that’s that. Now you know more about me than you’d care to, I’m sure. And now it’s time to pass the torch, and tag 7 others. Hopefully, they won’t hate me too much.

David Harry
John Mueller
Judith Lewis
Melanie Phung
Julie Joyce
Lisa Roberson
Dianne Aull

Just a few days left before the first recipient of Project Jump Start ’09 is chosen! If you haven’t yet let me know you’re interested, there’s still time!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: appendicitis, cheerleader, David Harry, Dianne Aull, epilepsy, food, guard, John Mueller, Judith Lewis, Julie Joyce, Lisa Roberson, location, Melanie Phung, metal chain, New Orleans, pain, San Francisco, scars, surgery
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Now is the time to start your ebusiness. It may not help you financially in the short term, since few new sites make much money right away. But you’ll be that much closer to pulling a profit from it later on when you need it most, if you start now. While you still have a job, it can begin to supplement your income, helping you pay the extra costs for gas and food. If you later lose your job, it may be doing well enough to help you get by while you search for another. And with any luck (and some hard work), it may even be able to completely replace that 9-5 job at some point.

I like to always follow the “just in case” theory. Being prepared “just in case” something goes wrong is a good plan. Waiting to start an ebusiness after you’ve been laid off (like I did several years ago) means you’ll be making next to nothing at a time when you need money the most. You’re much better off to have started your site, developed it over time, discovered ways to make it grow and become profitable, so that when the pink slip arrives at your desk, you’ve got a little peace of mind knowing you are somewhat ahead of the game.

And if you never get that pink slip? Great! All that means is that your ebusiness is supplementing your income, and that’s always a good thing.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: e - business, ebusiness, economy, food, just in case, layoffs, online ebusiness, pink slip, recession, supplemental income
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That is a huge and wonderful truth about this business of working online (in your pajamas). It isn’t the fact that I can take long, luxurious vacations when I want. (I never do that, but I guess I could). It isn’t the fact that I can take short, weekend vacations in the middle of the week (I sometimes do that). The wonderful freedoms of what I do are the littlest freedoms of all.

If I get bored, I can get up and go watch the hummingbirds fight over the food in the feeder, without timing myself to make sure I don’t go over my allotted 10 minutes for a break. Or, if I can’t figure something out, and really need some quality “think time”, I can get up, walk around my land, and let the heat and hay smells clear my brain enough to let the creative thoughts through. Again, I don’t have to look at the time to make sure I get back to the office before the boss notices I’m gone.

Every day, after lunch, when that oh-so-sleepy feeling washes over me, I don’t have to struggle to fight it. I don’t have to continue to work through it, hoping my boss won’t notice I’m not being very productive. I just get up, crawl into my bed, and take a nap. A nap is the biggest little freedom I have these days, and I absolutely love being able to sleep for an hour or two in the middle of the day.

I could ramble on and on about all of the little freedoms that working from home has given me, but I think you get the point. I never underestimate these little freedoms. I know that no matter how many more hours I may work, each one of those little freedoms makes it all seem like no work at all.

I don’t need to be rich, and I don’t need to travel to far-off exotic lands. I only need to make a living, and have the little freedoms that I’m blessed with by working from home. Those things mean the world to me.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dawud Miracle, food, freedom, in your pajamas, little freedoms, naps, self-employed, work from home, working online
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