This is a bit off track, but sadness has hit home.  We run a small rescue of parrots.  Our very first purchase was a blue headed Pionus, who after 6 years have only recently learned that we have a female.  Anyway, Diego (Diega) has gotten a bug of some sort.  And this is affecting my husband Roger so very much.  You see I wanted her and after bringing her home there was never any doubt that she wanted roger as her favorite human companion.  Funny thing is though she was Roger's #1 bird, she would only talk with me.  She would say hi to roger, but would speak with me.  This use to frustrate him so.

But now she is ill and we are not sure if she is going to make it.  Roger called our vet and he was not going to be in but his staff recommended another doctor to take her to.  They did her blook work and took xray, but you know - if you have a doctor that you are familiar with and trust - it is hard and pretty expensive going to a different vet.  In our case we had no choice.

This is so hard for Roger.  You see, he was never a bird person until he met me, I should say till he met Diego.  The two of them would be in his office to the small hours of the night.  Diego would sit on his shoulder and just watch him.  They are pretty cute to watch.

To hear the distress cries - just eats at Roger.  I keep telling him that just like he can feel Diego's not feeling well - Diego can feel his distress too.   It just about broke my heart to hear Roger say that the new sentence Diego was saying to him "Love You" was really him crying that she was not feeling good.  I tried, but not too successfully I might add, that the bird was saying love you, because he does.

Just watching him makes me sad because there is nothing I can do to relieve him or Diego except be there for each of them.

"love you" Roger from Diego and all your other feathered children.

It seems like forever since I have posted, but I hope that it will not happen again.  Many changes, some good, some not so good have been rolling though this household that made me not so concerned about this blog.

I looked over some of my past blogs and found that I fall under all the procrastinators out there.  Not having the motivation, even though I wrote about just that thing.  I would have to say that I am one of those who has been a perpetual student.  Reading this, not understanding that, and not really having anyone to talk to about getting my foot wet.

I guess that is the point – getting your feet wet.  Whether you are a success or not will never be seen – if you don’t at least try to get your feet wet – hell – get the whole body wet for that matter.  Just jump the hell in and maybe you  - ME – will sink or swim.

I want to swim – but I have to admit that I am a visual person – I learn best if someone talks me though something, so much better than just reading about stuff.

Like I have all these applications for blogging, article marketing, some really good software, BUT I still have no clue how to work any of it.  And as much as I hate to admit it, I have been on the net for over a year – hell lets be honest, its more like 2 years and still have nothing to show for all the reading and buying this or that.  I have been paying for the last 3 years for 3 or 4 domains and nothing on them.  I did have one that I was working on – looked pretty good, but still nothing.

Here’s two questions:  Do you need to have a website or can you just have a blog for everything?  I have yet to get anyone to answer that one.   And second I have my domain host, but have not been able to figure out how to get my domains to work independently of each other.  I.e.  newbies2pro.net – I tried to start another domain: beaksbarksmeow.com, but found that it got listed under newbies2pro, what gives with that?

Well this one is going to be short, but I will look in on this to see if anyone has an answer for the above question or maybe even a suggestion on how to really get started.

Hi Everybody.  I wanted to talk to you about Motivation or the Lack There Of.

Try as I might I can't seem to get started.  Distractions are in the way at every turn.  Last night I was raring to go on a project that I was consigned to do (business cards) and after about 2 hours of designing the card, contacting the client with the ok, I was going to start printing

Well that was a mistake!  First the printer would not turn on, then it would not recognize my computer.  After calling my husband to take a look - he comes in turns the switch on - throws me a look like "Duh" then walks away with this smirk like "Woman!"  Don't you just hate when that happens.  I just thanked him, then pushed his smirky self out of my office.

Ok, now we are ready to print, right?  Wrong!!!!!  The printer's colors are off.  I tried cleaning the heads, changing cartridges - nothing worked.  I looked at my test page and only certain colors are printing.

I did a test page of my project and none of the colors were as they should have been.  We are now 4 hours into an evening where I thought I was pretty MOTIVATED.  So what happened.  I know, I know

It's those damn GREMLINS again.  That can be the only answer.  It is the only answer that will allow me to remain calm now that I know who is responsible.  At least I know it is not something that I have done or not done.  Otherwise, I would probably throw the machine out, holler at my husband, shout at the parrots, and then go and have a good cry, and start over again.  Since acknowledging that it was the Gremlins, I turned the computer off and decided to wait until tomorrow (meaning today) to try again and maybe see where the problem is - or heck maybe it will have mysteriously fixed itself and I can then become MOTIVATED again and finish this project.  Did I mention that this is a PAID PROJECT that has to be completed within a week or so.

Well cheerio and all that.  I'll let you know the outcome.

It is good to be back.  Due to some unexpected medical issues in the family I have had to be away from the computer to devote all my time to my husband and his health issues.

6 months ago he was diagnosised with lung cancer.  He is now on the mend, and we hope to see him back to work in November and then we can both get on with living our lives. 

I have to tell you that this experience has shown me that starting your business online is an integral part of keep up and moving above your life and lifestyle.  Had my business been further along than it was, I would have made a concerted effort to fit it in between doctors, treatment, etc. But you know there really was no excuse for leaving everyone high and dry.

In the coming weeks there will be some exciting news about a couple of great spots I have found that have tips, tutorials, videos, you name it they got it.  Both sites are friendly and do not mind answering questions out of the clear blue sky.

I'm looking forward to share new ideas with you.  So until next time - Sit Back - Relax - and Remember to Breathe.

Teresa Rothove

Excerpts from a conversation with a colleague and friend. 

You can learn how to do anything and everything if you look and   carefully weight what is important and what is hype.  It is difficult of course, especially if you are new to the whole internet marketing business.  There are so many people offering videos and pdf’s galore.  

There is a great little program that I have been using.  Don't know what your finances are (if they are like mine - tighter than a new pair of shoes) but compared to most, this is inexpensive. 

If you go to www.newbiestopro.com at the bottom of the page is a link      to this program I have been using.  It teaches you from scratch how to create a site, with a couple bells and whistles.  

I made my own header, unfortunately, I lost something in my html and it does not appear on the site.  I have someone looking into what I may  have done or deleted so that my header will appear.   I created the   header (that you can’t see it at this time) from scratch and believe me         I am not a graphics designer.  I did one for my husband also.  I did all the gradients I just had so much fun doing it.  

This program will direct you to a free html editor, different places to get other designs, scripts (for bells and whistles).    

With this program you will also be able to promote it to others if you      want so that you can make a couple of bucks on the side.

That is one of many things that I like about this program.  It is the right program for Newbies, intermediate, as well as the experienced internet marketing, etc,   It is for people just like us - new to the whole thing but wanting to make a difference personally, social and individually. 

You got to see it to believe it, Check out this program.  Don’t wait  another minute.

Teresa Rothove

You know from my 2 previous entries that I was not a happy camper.  I was throughly disappointed that the program, that I was looking forward to using, caused my computer to crash.  

After only a couple of hours of notifying the owner of the program, I found an email from Paypal stating that there was a refund.  When I went to my Yahoo account there was a letter from the owner apolgizing for any inconvience that I may have experienced.  He/She posed a couple of questions that I will be asking my computer guys on Monday, but I have to tell you.

As upset as I have been over the last couple of days, I can Breathe.  Patience they say is a virtue.  One sadly I don't always posses.  The mere fact that I got a response (and not a form letter), makes me feel much better.  You see, they showed what I believe is so important and one of the very things I will be talking about at my site: CUSTOMER SERVICE.  You are as good as your Customer Service.

To many times you deal with people and then they leave you high and dry.  It's nice to deal with people with integrity.  It makes experience on the Internet so much more pleasureable.  I believe that if you want to have a following and make a difference in your business - you have to show that your Customer Service manners are an important part of your business - not just trying to sell your product - You have to Sell People on YOU.

Well it's nice to have a happy ending.  I can honestly say that I have written by to the owner letting them know that I have another program of theirs and have had no problem with it and because of the quick response with this particular problem  -  that I would have no problem looking into more of their product, but as I mentioned in the last entry - I will do more investigation on ANY program I may be interested.  It is better to be Safe than Sorry.

Well I'm out of here at least until next time.  "Sit Back and Just Breathe"

Teresa Rothove

www.newbiestopro.com

www.teresarothove.ws

The Insidious GREMLINS  Part II

OK, remember I mentioned pour a really BIG DRINK?  I am not a real drinker,
an occasional I will have a ladies drink (Kahlua and milk).  Well on Thursday,
right after downloading the unnamed program I left it and continued
working on my website www.newbiestopro.com.  Oh I was happy.  I put a link
on the site and guess what, it worked the first time I previewed the page.
I published it and when I went to look at it , IT WAS A MESS.  I went in to fix
the crazy characters that were there and redid it.  Now I'm cursing all the
Gremlins of the world.

Roger comes to my office door to remind me that we have 5 parrots and they
would be sounding like sailors if I did not calm down.  I tried to explain what
was going on, and of course he looked at me like I was crazy.  Then I showed him
what I had done (I actually deleted the index page and pulled it in from my
hard drive and put the extra features I had on.  Published it again, and sure
enough there was this crazy page facing me on the Internet. 

Now if you have ever had a chance to check out my site, its all about Newbies
to Pro.  That there comes a time when you have to stop thinking like a newbie,
because we really do know more than we give ourselves credit for.  (Though that                                          does not mean that we should not continue to learn.)  I mean at my site, I talk                                                         about Gremlins, and how they make people think that are dumb, can't do anything, etc. etc.,
because they want you to stop.  I am telling people NOT TO GIVE UP.
Stop Feeding The Gremlins.   Well here I am in tears talking about that was it.                                  I quit!!!!!!!    I went outside had a cigarette, major deep breaths and a complete mental meltdown.       Here I am trying to emphazis how not to given in.  Who did I think I was trying to tell anyone
else not to quit, and here that is just what I wanted to do.  I went back inside (we do not smoke in the house), went into the kitchen and poured me a BIG DRINK, went back upstairs and fixed most of the problems.  (I just went to my site and most of it back to where it is suppose to be except that                          my header is missing and there is a line of code that has no business there, but that is minor.)

Don't know if that drink had anything to do with it -but it certainly tasted good. :)

You know by the previous blog entry that, the following day we  found that my  computer crashed         overnite and lead to my find out that it was due to the program I  had downloaded the night before.            The only good thing about this was that we at least now  we now know what was making my website          go ballistic on me.

I will not say that I am completely back from my meltdown, would be a lie.  I will be picking up my          computer on Monday, and that makes me happy so that I can get off this laptop,  That will be a joy.

I will leave this note with you:  Do not download anything new (particularly a program)
unless you have talked with someone - anyone about the program, the ease of
installing anything, if there has been anything negative that you should be aware of before downloading.  There are to many forums out there to not take the time to ask if anyone has heard of the program,          have they used it, etc.  It will save you time and money in the long run.  I certainly did not adhere to my      own rule that I tell others. :(

OK this book is done for the time being.  Stay tuned to see how I try to resolve this
problem with asking for a refund.  ( I do not feel comfortable trying to redownload
this program, at this time.)

Until next time:  Sit back and Just Breathe.  I promise it will get better.  right?

Teresa Rothove
www.newbiestopro.com
www.teresarothove.ws

You have heard me talk about those little Gremlins that seem to embedd them selves into our computer, driving us complete crazy.  Well they are at it again.  "Again", you ask.  Yes they are still here!!!!!!

Let me recap.  A couple of weeks ago I had to have the computer fixed, with upgrade.   It was really     working good, that was until Thursday, Without naming names, I downloaded a program that crashed       my computer.  It appears that there was something corrupt in a segment of the program.

Now you have to understand this was a program that I had been waffling for a couple of weeks, but             as time was running out before an increase I decided to rob Peter to purchase this program.  I just knew that in the long run I would benefit by the solutions it would do, when I was ready to utilize it.  OH YEAH,
did I mention that I was not even going to use it right away. But I knew that I did not want to pay more for it later.

Ok I have to take the computer back to the shop, and after going through their process, checking for hardware problems, viruses, etc. (oh did I mention that forgot to mention to them that I downloaded   anything new, duh!!!!).  Anyway, I get this call Teresa what is ___________.  Oh that is a new program,       ah why???????    Yeah we finally figured out what your problem was.  they found error upon error,     because Windows was trying to find and set up something that must have been corrupt. 

So now I paid for the program, and now I'm out additional money because it was not something they did when they worked on my computer just a few weeks ago, but something I DID.  No it was the GREMLINS.  I'm sure other people downloaded this program and OF COURSE they did not have a problem, and
if they did no one is aware of it, plus they down have my GREMLINS. 

I appreciate you all letting me vent - actually it's kind of fun.

I'll tell you all about what happened next - in the next entry.

Remember pour a really BIG DRINK, sit back and Just Breathe.

Teresa Rothove

www.teresarothove.ws

Hi I'm back again to talk to you about working at the computer - you notice I did not say working on the computer.

If you listen to all the noise on the Net, it sounds as though all that you have to do, besides building a website, is to make sure you have traffic, that you have a good rating, traffic, that your site be appealing for those that pass through,etc., and don't forget TRAFFIC.

There are many of us who are constainly buying anything that comes along that will make all this easy.  That we just have to buy it because they say we need it, and we will accomplish more by having it.  That is easy to say but Not At All True!

I have things on my computer that I picked up several years ago (Admit it.  So do you).  At the present time, they are all gathering dust in the computer archives.  Don't you just love that word archives.  We can go back and see if they still work, if we could only find them, and let's not forget if only we could remember all the ones that we thought were going to make life easy and make tons of money.

Fortunately for me, I just had my computer worked on and the additional hard drive I had installed (80 gigs) is going to allow me time (don't know when I will have that lovely word TIME) go through and evaluate if it still has any meaning in todays techie world or just taking up valuable computer space.  I truly believe that we all need to do a Spring/Winter/Summer/Fall cleaning or whatever you want to call it. 

Now that is not to say that there are not some really old things that we have ever opened and never looked at, would not still be helpful.  There are articles that can be revamped, there are tips that could still work with a bit of tweeking.  Get the Picture.  Go through your computer, maybe 1/2 hr each day, an hour if you are lucky (please let us know where you found that hour), and weed out what is taking up precious space.  (You need the space to put more STUFF on).

But here is the ticket.  If it sounds good, If it looks like it is something that can be useful - DO SOMETHING WITH IT.  I believe that is the #1 problem with all of us, me included.  We gather all the freebies, but what do we do with them.  We load up our computer with the thought that I'll look at later, and later comes and you forget what you downloaded or worse you can't remember where you downloaded it.

Tomorrow I will give you some tips regarding downloading things like software, ebooks, etc.

Until then, "Remember to Relax and Breath, it will all come together with a bit of Patience".

Teresa Rothove

www.teresarothove.ws

Hi the last time I was here I was having problems with my computer and left the blame onto the Gremlins who lived in my computer.

Well I took the computer into the shop and let 2 wonderful guys have what they thought would be a few hours worth of work - perform Magic on my computer DAYS LATER.  Their names are Vinnie and Guido (no I'm not making up their names).  They have a website called, get this, TechMonkey.com. 

Well like I said it took a couple of days because they went far beyond what most techies would do. I had a email program, some may know the name Incredimail.  Well I liked the backgrounds you could give to your emails.  Had this account for a few years and saved emails to folders that were created.  Guess what?  You CANNOT export those files, emails, nada (spanish for nothing), to Outlook or any sensible place that makes life easy.

Anyway Vinnie, bless his soul, took each file/folder and moved them to his computer, reconstructed each one, wiped out my old hard drive, put my operating system there, installed a new 80 gig hard drive, then set up Outlook for me and moved all of those emails over into folders.  Most people would have said, "Look, Lady, you got what we can give you"!!!!!!!   Not these guys.  Though it cost more than expected, for what these guys did you cannot put a price on.

They did for me what I hope to be able to do for others.  I want to be of service to those who need a hand in getting started and moving on to the real guts of the internet.

It might seem scary, but with patience and someone who has been there, knows - you just got to grab a cup of tea, sit back and BREATH.

Thanks TechMonkey

Teresa Rothove

http://teresarothove.ws