I’m feeling a bit like Target putting out Valentine’s Day merchandise with that title since the holiday season hasn’t even passed. However, we are seven days from the winter solstice and that means the shortest day of the year. It also means we start to add daylight to the day. It’s all downhill from there to spring!
I love the holidays and I’m not one to wish time away. However, spring and summer are my favorite seasons of the year.
Sunshine is one of my favorite things. At the moment, I’m looking forward to when there is more of it. Even if that means I’m putting cherry blossoms up in the middle of evergreen season.
I mentioned in a previous post [here] some reasons why I build with Lego and take photos with them. One of those reasons is mental health. I have been dealing with sciatica for several years and trying to understand what I needed to do to fix it. If you’ve ever dealt with it, I’m so sorry. In my case, the pain has been, at times, intense. I’ve worked on many things to correct it.
I’ve walked, and I’m going to the gym. However, some days, I have to convince myself to go inside. I ride the stationary bike once I do and when I do I picture myself other places like…
And ride like the wind. But it hasn’t been working.
This week, I visited the chiropractor between working on homework, and my new website (which is on the way)r.
Sometimes, you find moments of incredible beauty during errands, doctor appointments, homework, and other day-to-day tasks. This week was one of those moments for me. Not every moment was amazing. Some moments were challenging and painful. Then, in the middle of some of the worst of it, an extreme solar storm bombarded Earth.
On the night of October 10th, visibility of the Northern Lights extended to New Mexico. We stepped out on the deck behind our home in Virginia and saw them by using the cameras on our phones to magnify the different light spectrums.
Then, I went on social media and saw the experiences of others worldwide. In this instance, seeing the event through countless different perspectives magnified its beauty.
After, I returned to working on homework, but I was smiling.
This past week, my thoughts have been with those affected by Hurricane Helene. I have personal ties to many of the areas affected. The photo above was taken near the Virginia Creeper Trail in Southwest Virginia just over a year ago.
There are many ways to help. In addition to your church organization, I have researched other ways to help and wanted to share those here. The following is a sampling of what I’ve collected through the week.
There are many ways to help the Red Cross. Direct Donation to Hurricane Helene, Volunteer in needed positions (there is training), or give blood (the need spikes especially after a disaster).
World Central Kitchen
World Central Kitchen works with local chefs to provide meals, water, and assistance when these events happen. They began staging in Florida before the Hurricane and are now in the other areas providing help. The above is only a short list of where meals are available. More information is available on their Facebook page. You can volunteer with the organization or donate through information on their website.
Over the past several months, I’ve had a business project in mind. To this end, I took a class to organize things. The class takes things from the marketing side to build an online business, and by mid-December, I’ll have it up and running.
This week, we jumped into understanding different business models, a topic I’ve previously discussed in other classes and researched so I could know my options for my own business. We will be creating an online business in one semester. So, we need to understand the costs involved in the methods.
If you plan to sell a product, some, like drop-shipping, don’t require you to keep the product on hand. Another company does the management of this. However, you might lose some profits in the arrangement. You need to examine how those balance against possible storage costs. Other models don’t include physical stock at all. These involve services, affiliates, and subscription-based businesses.
Another part of the week involved working with Google Ads and generating keywords to understand demand and competition. In this instance, we used the keywords to test how high (or low) the competition currently is for a given topic. Then, the possible demand was determined based on expected click-through and impression rates for a given budget. I think an important aspect of this is finding the right keywords for a project to generate the appropriate
Most of my training has been from the design side of things. We’re in week two in this class and I’ll be writing a weekly reflection of the process. Come along for the ride.
