Tuesday’s Thought For The Day!

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Just a word of advice, for those of you contemplating moving your blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org, and a self-hosting website. If you are not good with html codes, or decoding ridiculous webpages of hosts that are set up badly, do not move your blog.

I repeat, do not move your blog.

I am actually going to be very surprised if anyone sees this, because it appears that I have lost all of my followers. On 3 different blogs. 2 of which I cannot even log into any longer.

So, pay the web hosting company to help you (which is why they make it so difficult), find the IT expert in your family, or just don’t move your blog.

And how is your week going?

An update On The Not-So-Easy Blog Transfers…

Angela2 Comments

I really did not think this whole “host-your-own-blogs” thing out before I proceeded to give BlueHost a large chuck of money to move my WordPress blogs there. Not that I did not want to do this, but the timing was really, REALLY bad on my part.

  1. Last night was my last day of being a 3rd shift Supervisor. I am starting a new position with my company on Monday, and need to get used to working 1st shift again. I was on 3rd shift for 2 ½ years.
  2. Starting Monday, I will be training in above mentioned position, which I had prior to Supervising, and much has changed since then.
  3. I took a 2-3 hour “nap” this morning after I got home from work, knowing I had to be at a football game tonight and could not make it that late without some sleep.
  4. I get physically ill when I do stuff like this to my body. So I am at this moment tired, frustrated, and having pains that I only get when I pull these kinds of stunts.
  5. My Leadership class for my MBA started yesterday, and this professor seems to be especially detail-oriented. I mean more so than all of the other Professors I have had who have their Doctorate degrees.
  6. I need to get my 8th grader’s homeschooling stuff straightened out; we seem to have a disconnect between her online school database and our computer.

So, with all of this stuff going on at once, I have no idea what possessed me to just go ahead and begin switching my blogs.

On a positive note, after 2 days, I finally got the nameserver on my Books and Opinions blog to send it to BlueHost. My other 2 blogs? Not-so-well.

I am stalling on doing my discussion questions for my class which are due tomorrow. When I feel overwhelmed like this with numerous things going on at once, I tend to shut down and not take care of any of them. The smart me would do one thing at a time, then move on to the next.

I am not being smart today.

Smooth Moves and Switching Over

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I Hope This Goes Better Than I Am Expecting! Probably not what you expected either, from the title!

I am moving my blogs to a self-hosted website, so I can have more control over how my pages look, as well as what add-ins are displayed. I am hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. So, I will be absolutely devastated if my followers don’t get redirected to my new website as it states it will do.

I know several of you are following two of my blogs, and one of you is following all 3 ( J ). I do not know how long this transition may take, but I will definitely keep them open where they are at until I know I can export everything over.

So, if I disappear for a while, I apologize, I will just be sitting in front of my laptop, crying because I messed something up!

Irish Tweed – Andrew Greeley

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Irish Tweed Book CoverI absolutely love the “Irish” series of books by Andrew Greeley. He was the subject of one of my Author Information posts, and is absolutely one of my favorite authors. He was a Catholic Priest (he has passed away) and wrote many books that were full of mystery and suspense. You would never know he was a priest from reading his books, so if you have never read his work before, you should really try one of his books. It is not all religion and scriptures. At all!

His Irish series are centered on Nuala Anne McGrail, her husband Dermot Michael Coyne, and their children. The number of children increases as you continue through the series! There is always mystery, danger of lives lost, and also a good amount of history about Ireland. Not the boring history though, just the good stuff!

In Irish Tweed, Dermot is pouring over the memoir of a woman from Galway, who came to America after her family died in the famine. While Dermot is doing this, Nuala and her teenage daughter are knee deep in taekwondo classes, thanks to the bullies at the school across the street from their home.

The backstory of the Galway woman weaves in with the current plot of the story, which seems to put the family right in the middle of tensions from days gone by.

I have to say, I read so many of these books right in a row, that I began talking with the Irish dialect that is prevalent throughout the Irish series of books. It took a while to stop doing it, and people looked at me weird when I said something that sounded off-the-wall to them. Such as, instead of saying “yes”, I would say “’tis true.” People who irritate are called eejits. It was rather embarrassing, but there are 12 books in this series and I read them within less than a couple months.

I highly recommend giving one of the books in this series a try. Once you do, I promise you will need to read them all!

Need More Spooky Reads For Halloween?

Angela2 Comments

Haunted Highways: Spooky Stories, Strange Happenings, Supernatural Sightings

Haunted Highways Cover

Retold by Tom Ogden, these short stories are based on myths and urban legends. What these have in common is that they all take place on a highway, road, trail, or path of some sort. Due to the fact that there are thousands of such myths and urban legends, Mr. Ogden chose 4 categories to loosely stick to, while still sharing a good representation.

The first category is about vanishing hitchhikers (a story you have heard immediately came to mind, didn’t it?) He included The Phantom Hitchhiker, Resurrection Mary, the Weeping Woman, and The Prophecy.

The second category is titled Street Walkers. No. Not those street walkers. The firsts two stories in this section will take you to Hawaii. Next you will travel to Tokyo and learn about Oiwa’s Ghost. Back in the States, you experience The Funeral Cortege of Baynard Plantation in South Carolina. John Brown’s Body takes you through the Civil War Era, into West Virginia. The Nun’s Walk and The Occurrence at the Creek Road Bridge wraps up the 2nd section of the book.

If you haven’t been completely freaked out yet, you will continue on to the 3rd part of the book, Phantom Travelers. This immediately brings to mind many movies that scared me so much as a child, I will not watch them even now. Included are The Long Ride Home of Peter Rugg (275 years and counting!), The Return of Mad Anthony Wayne, The Man Who Disappeared, The Ghost Train (numerous people claim that while traveling the highways along the same route that President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train took, they see his train), Telly’s Phantom (yes, Telly Savalas), and The Curse of Little Bastard, in case if you ever wondered what really caused James Dean’s car accident.

Part Four is Lost Souls. A mixed bag of ghosts that include cowboys, Indians, and fair maidens of the Old West. Phantoms on horseback, an Irishman who opted to dance with the devil, and read about strangers stuck on a certain set of railroad tracks being pushed to safety by a busload of children. How better to end the book than with a tale on Route 66, or “The Highway to Hell”, as the author puts it.

These stories are all fairly short, none over a few pages long. Most of these are tame enough, without blood and gore and just scary, in that I will be sharing them with my girls with no worries.

To Heaven and Back – Mary C. Neal, MD

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To Heaven and Back book cover

Mary C. Neal, a highly skilled Orthopedic surgeon, drowned in a kayak accident. A trip down a waterfall found her pinned underwater, unable to be rescued by her companions before she drowned. This trip led to another profound trip that would change her life forever.

Mary wasn’t raised in what some may consider an overly-religious environment. She knew who God and Jesus were, but her family’s religious activities did not move beyond attending church on Sunday. The divorce of her parents at a time when divorce was still uncommon, 1971, filled Mary with embarrassment and an overpowering desire to drive away any man who was interested in her mother.

Allowing her life to spin out of control, drugs and alcohol became a part of her teenage life until an automobile accident would change her life. A missionary trip to Mexico would put her on the path to her future medical career.

As an adult, Mary had the ideal family life; the white picket fence with all the extras. After the kayaking accident, her brief trip to heaven had her feeling joy and love that she still finds difficult to describe. She was saddened when she was told it was not her time, and she had to return to Earth, and her body.

This was the beginning of a very difficult, very intense healing process for Mary, both physically and emotionally. Like others who have had this experience, Mary did not want to be on Earth, she wanted to be in her heavenly home. It was not that she did not love her family, it was due to the profound feelings she experienced while in heaven.

A premonition from her son that he would not reach his 18th birthday indeed came true, and brings another aspect to this story of how her experience helped her accept and handle such a devastating situation.

This book is one of several detailing life-after-death experiences. It does have a fairly strong religious overtone to it, but it is certainly not bashing you over the head telling you to “repent and be saved!” I do have a strong faith, but have also had others who are not religious read this book and tell me they thoroughly enjoyed it.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister – Gregory Maguire

Angela4 Comments

This is not your mother’s fairy tale! Gregory Maguire has created quite the niche for himself, reconstructing fairy tales we have heard our whole lives, giving us the backstory, and twisting it up a bit.

What really happened with Cinderella, her step-sisters, and her step-mother? It is all right here.

This story is told from the viewpoint of Iris, who is burdened with taking care of the disabled Ruth as well as keeping peace in the family. (There is even a twist there, but no spoilers from me!)Confessions of an ugly stepsister cover

Clara is beautiful. Her step-sisters Ruth and Iris do not fail to notice this. Her own mother had kept Clara locked away from the world before she died. Things would not change very much for her with her new family.

Iris wants nothing more than to paint, and be with her tutor’s apprentice.

There are many subplots, and lots of twists and turns. Everyone has an agenda, telling themselves they only want the best for themselves and their families.

This is not a complicated read, with too much going on that you cannot follow the many plots going on. If you think you know what really happened to Cinderella, I would like to suggest you open this book up and read about it from a different perspective. It is certainly worth the time and effort. You will not be disappointed.

Better Than I Hoped, and Not What I Expected

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Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Book Cover

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter – Seth Grahame-Smith

Being a huge fan of all things Abraham Lincoln, I was a little worried when I first picked up this book that it was just going to be horrible, and ruin my penchant for Abe forever. Boy was I wrong!

Even persons vaguely familiar with Abraham Lincoln are likely aware of the love he had for his mother. Her passing was devastating to the young Abe, and although he loved his step-mother very deeply, no one could fill that void.

That is where this journey begins. It begins with Abe finding out a vampire is responsible for his mother’s death. He discovers a vampire colony that is responsible for numerous unsolved deaths. And then he meets Henry Sturges. Vampire extraordinaire, Henry has the same goal as Abe. Henry teaches Abraham the ins-and-outs of vampires, and Abe is a willing student.

What did the vampires have to do with the Civil War and the reshaping of our nation? More than you would ever believe. This story is told from the 3rd person perspective, with the journal entries of Abraham Lincoln dispersed throughout.

We all know who won the war, and what became of Abe, so I will not spoil the story any more. But if you like history, Abraham Lincoln, or vampires, you definitely need to read this book!