Shhh! Can You Keep a Secret? It's My Birthday

Candles spell out the traditional English birthday greeting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      I don't want this getting out all over the place so I'm only telling you--today's my birthday.

      I'm keeping this a secret so don't be spreading this all around, you know like sharing it on social media. I mean I'd hate to get a barrage of FaceBook birthday greetings or have the link to this post all over Twitter. I keep a low profile, you know, and don't like to be promoting or marketing my brand or my blog or having my name Arlee Bird broadcast all over the internet. It's not like I'm trying to build a platform or anything like that. I'm just a quiet guy who wants to remain invisible.

     Well, that is, except for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. You can blurt that all over the place. Sign-ups can be found here or here or at the many sites of the A to Z Team of Co-hosts. So I guess for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge cause I'll forsake my anonymity and give you permission to send this post everywhere. All over the world even. Don't forget to tell your family, friends, neighbors, and anyone you see passing on the street.

      So since the word is out anyway I guess if you want to send me presents you can.  Gift cards are fine.  Cash is preferred.   No bills under twenties please...

        Sorry didn't mean to get out of hand there...

         Instead, to celebrate my birthday I'm going to do the unthinkable and accept a couple of awards in my own unorthodox rule-breaking method.


Very Inspiring Blogger Award

       I normally don't do the awards on my site anymore so I rarely get them offered to me, however Chrys Fey presented me with this Very Inspiring Blogger Award and how can I turn down an award with that kind of title it being my birthday as well as opening week of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge sign-ups. 

The Rules:
1. Thank the person who nominated you, and link to their blog. (see above)
2. Display the award logo. (it's up there too)
3. Nominate 15 other bloggers (more or less) and provide a link where they may be found. (here's where I break a rule--if you've signed up for A to Z then the award is yours)
4. Go to their blog, leave a comment to let them know they have been nominated. (I'm telling you now)
5. Mention three things that inspired you the most during the past few weeks.  (see below)

Three things that have inspired me recently:

1.  Getting up this morning (and every morning)

2.   The great response to A to Z sign-ups for the opening week.

3.   The beauty of God's creation and His infinite mercy.

     Thank you, Chrys for thinking of me for this award!


The Liebster Award

       This Liebster Award has been sitting in my post files for some time now so I could use it for a post like this one.  This award appeared on A to Z co-host John Holton's blog The Sound of One Hand Typing and he offered it to anyone with under 3000 followers, which unfortunately is a category I still fall into, but that fortunately allows me to accept the award to be able to blab about me since it's Me Day being my birthday and all.   I just answer questions about me and give the award to whomever I like.   If you're an A to Z participant feel free to accept this award on my behalf.

         Here is a mix of questions asked by John as well as some questions asked by previous award presenters:

1. What is your ideal vacation?   The answer involves many variables for me, but if I exclude my typical vacation of visiting family then an ideal vacation is one that requires minimal investment for me with the value of learning the most and gaining the most good memories.  It also would be a vacation shared with those I love or people who will enrich me with their presence.
2. If you had to live somewhere else, where would you move?  I've often somewhat jokingly said that I'd like to live in Grand Island, Nebraska.  I don't know why I'm so intrigued by the place, but it just always seemed kind of hometown U.S.A. to me.   I'm fairly adaptable and there are many places that might attract me and it's hard to beat the weather here in Southern California, but East Tennessee or somewhere near that has the greatest lure for me.
3. What was your first job?  The first job that I got on my own efforts was in Knoxville, Tennessee working at a wholesale carnival supply company by the name of Acme Premium Supply.  Everyone always makes the Wiley Coyote connection and no, this is not the company where he got his doo-dads, but it's kind of like that one.  We mostly sold stuffed animals and other carnival game prizes.
4. If you’re a writer, what genre do you write? What would you like to write?  Like I write on Tossing It Out, my other writing tends to be fairly eclectic.  I like to experiment with different styles and explore many topics.  My favorite thing to write is anything memoir related.  You can find some of that at my other blog Wrote By Rote.
5. What is your claim to fame?  If you Google Arlee Bird you'll mostly find links related to my blogs with a larger number of links talking about the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge which I started in 2010.  So I guess that's my biggest claim to fame in recent years.   If you want to sign up for this April's Challenge, visit a-to-zchallenge.com or click on the related tab at the top of this page.
6. What type of music do you like?   Maybe it's easier to tell what kinds of music I don't like.  I love music as might be indicated with my focus on the Battle of the Bands posts that I do on the 1st and 15th of each month.  The next Battle of the Bands post will appear here on this blog this coming Sunday February 1st.  Oh, and if I were to pick one predominate favorite music genre that would be Classical--primarily from the 1700's to mid 1900's.   
7. What motivates you to post on your blog?  All the stuff that's in my brain overflows into the pages of this blog and my brain is constantly filling up with new thoughts.   I'm also building my platform you might say.   Why I'm building that platform will hopefully become more clear in the future sometime.   
8. What’s your favorite holiday, and why?   Thanksgiving has remained a big favorite in my adult years and even as a child.  Some of my best memories stem from Thanksgiving.  It's a mostly relaxing time with food that I enjoy.   I love that Thanksgiving dinner!  And these days I'm usually the one who cooks most of it.
9. Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were a child?  I believed until I was about nine years old.  Then until about age 12 I played along with the concept so I'd be sure to get presents. After that I became an agent for Santa as I helped my mother shop for presents for my younger brothers and sisters and wrapped presents and assembled stuff on Christmas Eve so the younger kids would have a great time--and I still got presents myself.  That's when Christmas became the most fun and it was a win-win situation for me and my parents.
10. Who is your favorite writer?   The writer I immediately name is Flannery O'Connor, but I'm also a big fan of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner.  Hmm--I guess I have a preference for Southern Literature.
11. What would be your dream job?   My dream job is similar to the touring stage production job I had back in the 70's and 80's.   The job would involve plenty of travel to places I wanted to go, meeting the public, and doing something related to performing music and/or promoting my books.  Oh, so I guess that dream job would involve a lot of writing as well.  Yeah, I could live with that kind of a job.

Guessing Games

       I can't believe that from the clues I offered in my Wednesday post that no one guessed what song I'll be using in my Battle of the Bands post coming up this Sunday February 1st. I actually named the song and part of the name of the artists who originally recorded it.  It was right there!  Maybe that goes to show how closely posts are actually read, but I understand that based on how I read many posts.

         While we're bringing up guessing games I wonder if anyone can guess how old I am today?  While you're thinking about that I'll leave you with a cover version of a song that came out when I was in high school.   This is not part of my Battle of the Bands, but maybe I should have used this song since there are some pretty fine cover versions of it.  Play the song if you like and scroll down while you're listening for some more thoughts on game playing.

          Remember--the song versions  I'll be using on my next Battle of the Bands post will be covers and not the version by the original artist. Or maybe you don't want to guess.   It's donned on me that some of you all might have had your phil of guessing games!   I can hear some of you saying, "How 'bout saying 'bye-bye' to the guessing games!  I don't want any more of them--ever Lee!"

         Please stop by on Super Bowl Sunday or the following couple of days so you can find out what song I've chosen and you can vote for your favorite version.

           Did you guess the Battle of the Bands song I'll be using?   Did you guess my age?   Do you like guessing games?  Can you guess why I have these guessing games in some of my posts?

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Meet Arlee Bird's A to Z Ambassadors (Part 2)

        In my post of last Friday, I introduced two of my Ambassadors--my team who volunteered to help me patrol the A to Z sign up list and spread good will throughout the Challenge participants.  Today I bring you the other three members of my team.

Yvonne Lewis

Arlee Bird meets Yvonne Lewis in Los Angeles in 2012     

    When I first started the A to Z Challenge in 2010, I had nearly 100 bloggers sign on within the week I had announced my intentions to blog through the alphabet.   The very first to join up was Yvonne Lewis who now blogs at The Written Word of Yvonne Lewis.  Later, Yvonne would become one of the handful of bloggers I have met in person when she vacationed in Los Angeles last year.  

         Yvonne is from the United Kingdom and began blogging in 2006.  She has had two books of her delightful poetry published:   Negative V Positive, with a portion of the book blurb written by her idol, Irish singer Daniel O'Donnell, and Written from the Heart, with part of the blurb written by A to Z co-host Alex J. Cavanaugh. 

Jaimie Ramsey

Jaimie Ramsey and her husband

       Jaimie has been blogging at Living in the Light since late 2010.  Her blog title comes from the Bible verses 1 John 1:7-9.   She's not ashamed to proclaim her Christian faith and typically blogs about God, faith, and family.  Please be sure to visit Jaimie and give her your support and encouragement.

Alana Garrigues

         Alana Garrigues at Writercize is a Challenge veteran.  She is a freelance writer, journalist, and all around creative hand at all things writing and otherwise.  Alana played a big role in promoting last year's Challenge and she was a natural for me to call on to assist me with this year's Challenge.

           I'll be visiting with Alana and Nutschell "The Writing Nut" on March 30 when I go speak to their writers group about blogging and of course the A to Z Challenge.  Here is an excerpt from Alana's blog:

I have very special news for bloggers in the Los Angeles metro area. Lee (Arlee Bird) agreed to be the guest speaker at the Children's Book Writers of Los Angeles (CBW-LA) March meeting, just before the A to Z Challenge kicks off! On March 30 from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m., he will speak to a group of writers and bloggers at the El Segundo Library about the merits of blogging and social networking as it pertains to the author's platform. 

 CBW-LA is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and inspiring writers on the road to publication. It is the brainchild of another local mastermind, the fabulous Nutschell Windsor of The Writing Nut, and she dedicates countless hours and passion to sharing her knowledge of the publishing industry with writers, aspiring and published alike. 

For more info about this workshop visit Alana's blog at:

http://writercize.blogspot.com/2013/03/blogging-with-bird-atozchallenge-host.htm

You can also visit Alana at:

ww.alanagarrigues.com

For local news and writing updates: www.facebook.com/AlanaGarriguesWrites

My sincerest thank you to the entire Ambassador Team!

     Do you know of anyone who has not signed up for the Challenge yet?    You perhaps?  The final week of sign ups is ahead of us.  Be sure to tell anyone who  might be interested in joining us.  Also spread the word on social media.  Hopefully we can match the 1800 we had for last year.  We have about 500 to go to reach that goal.   Let's go A to Zingers!

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Savings and Investment

         Have you ever seen one of those fancy RVs with the bumper sticker that reads:  I'm spending my children's inheritance?  Most of us probably do not have the Rockefeller kind of wealth to leave to our heirs and we probably haven't lived on an inheritance that anyone left to us.  You and I for the most part have worked hard to sometimes barely get by or at least live pretty comfortable lives.  From a young age we have heard the admonishments to save and invest our money--save for college, save for marriage, save for retirement.  These are certainly good bits of advice, but to what extent should we make sacrifices in the now to save for the uncertain future?   Here is today's question for consideration:

          Is taking advantage of present opportunities more important than saving for an unknown future?

             Saving and investing took a hit in recent years as many with 401Ks and other retirement and investment accounts saw their values plummet.  Many retired senior citizens found themselves having to return to the work force because they no longer had the funds they had counted on to keep them in their accustomed life styles.  Others on the cusp of retirement were forced to remain in the work force to compensate for lost savings. Some even suffered health problems arising from stress or even committed suicide. The financial crisis that has been sweeping the world has had a devastating effect on the savings that people had put away.

             Perhaps our values have been misplaced.  Perhaps our children don't really have to have the education from the more expensive college or we don't really need to have more house than we can realistically afford.  Most of us would probably agree that going into excessive debt is not a sound financial plan, but could it be that setting savings goals that do not conform with our present budget might be equally ludicrous--especially when we look at the uncertainty of conditions in our world.

          I'm not advocating hiding money in a mattress or just frivolously frittering away our finances.  I'm suggesting judicial spending with some allowance for fun, fancies, and philanthropy.  Don't deprive yourselves of enjoying life now because you have to save for a future that may or may not exist.  Aren't we somewhat presumptuous to be counting on having something we don't have yet?  Sure saving for something may allow you to have something in the future that you don't have now, but then again it might not.  The only thing we ever know that we have for sure is the present, and the future is really a big maybe or maybe not.

         Sure, it's a good thing to have some savings set aside for our retirement in our current societal form.  Many years ago people often didn't live as long as they do now and families often lived together and took care of the older members.  Our thinking about families has changed to a great extent.  We rely more on government care through the programs like medicare and social security.  The alienation of familial interdependence has been supplanted by government care and the private resources of how much one has saved.   Is our modern society sacrificing something very important?

          The Bible teaches us not to worry about money and needs, and not to store up treasures on earth but to lay up treasures in Heaven.  Now whether or not you accept Christian beliefs, if you really dwell upon this concept you might see the practicality of it.  Number one--worry will make you sick, sad, and uncomfortable.  You should do what you need to do to take care of yourself and do your best to take care of others. The second point is what I have been saying--treasures here on earth are temporal and subject to loss.  If we disregard the religious aspect of the statement, we can see that intangible treasures could also be memories, traditions, and relationships.   My suggestion is that one be realistic with the money and possessions that one has, but don't depend totally upon them to the exclusion of enjoying life. 

           From the standpoint of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge, what we have been doing is time consuming, but I have seen it as a sort of investment.  At the outset, some bloggers stated that they would like to do it but they didn't have the time.  I suppose any of us could have made this excuse.  My question would be why do you blog?  What is the purpose of blogging?  For many of us we are trying to establish a "platform" as they say.  I was already blogging every day so the A to Z Challenge did not really take up that much extra time in the mere act of posting articles.  Commenting did.  It was an investment to me, but how about you?   Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section of this post or if you wish this might be part of what you would like to talk about in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge Reflections Mega Post.

200 FOR ME AND A CHALLENGE FOR YOU

....................200.....................

         

           Sometime, somewhere I had stated that I wanted to reach 200 followers by April 1.  Yesterday I reached that stated goal.  I've tried to find where I made that statement, but I could not find it anywhere in any of my blog posts.  Perhaps I mentioned it in a comment.  I guess it really doesn't matter because I am there.   I want to thank everyone of you who have signed on to follow Tossing It Out and hope that you will continue to stop by every now and then and leave a comment if you have time.  I always like to hear from you.

          Now, I don't do contests or any big whoo-hoos to celebrate my achievement, but I do feel pretty good about it.  Yesterday as I was taking my daily morning walk, I started thinking of something special to do and I came up with an idea for a blog challenge that I am going to do in April.  I would like to invite any of you who are interested to join me in this because I think it could be not only fun, but also an inspiration for your blogging activity.

        Many of you are aware that I've been blogging every day since I first started last September.  April has thirty days with four Sundays.  On Sundays I do my Bible Study and many of you don't post at all.  Since I've got my Sundays covered, that leaves twenty-six more days of blog posts for me to fill--that's one post for each letter of the alphabet.  In April I've decided to do a Blogging from A to Z theme and I'm inviting any of you who think you have what it takes to join me.  In other words, I challenge you to join me--I double dog dare you!

        The challenge would entail that each day participating bloggers post at least 100 words based on the letter of that day, starting with "A" on April 1 and ending with "Z" on April 30.  Does that sound too difficult for you?  Actually I think it gives you a prompt to make inspiration come more easily.  Let me know what you think. I will post more about this on my post coming up this Monday, which will be another in my Blog Boggled series.  I want your ideas on this since I've never done anything like a challenge before.

          If you didn't see my Blog Boggled post last Monday, it was called In a Buggy and Not Even Amish-- okay, I thought the title was kind of clever and if you're curious go back and read the post.  Last Tuesday I talked about End of the World movies .  Next Tuesday I'll be visiting Alaska--on the blog, not for real.  Then on Wednesday we'll go across the North American continent to Toronto where I will talk about some of my memorable visits to that beautiful city.  If you missed my post from last Wednesday, you missed a wonderful visit with L. Diane Wolfe and you must go back now to read it.

         This past Thursday we had a lively debate about taking vacations and we had some really great comments that you might want to read if you missed them. Yesterday I looked at some of the strange creatures that people have claimed to have seen.  Next Thursday begins my Blogging from A to Z  Challenge.   Appropriately, the first post will be A as in April Fools Day and this will be a debate topic.  Friday's post will be B as in Babylon and this will be a topic of mystery.  Then a week from today I will present my weekly blog overview in C Is For Capsulization.  I hope you will be joining me.

And Now Another Award!

                  The Beautiful Blogger Award

           Helen Ginger gave me The Beautiful Blogger Award. Thank you Helen.  Gosh, I'm so embarrassed---blush.  According to the rules I need to link to the person who nominated me for this award (done), share seven interesting things about myself, and nominate seven other beautiful bloggers.

            I've told a lot of things about myself on this blog but I'll try and dig and come up with something, but I don't know how interesting they will be.

1.   I attended the University of Tennessee for 5 years in the early 70s but never graduated.

2.   I got my B.S. in Business Management from the University of Phoenix in 2005.

3.   Dodgeball was my favorite activity in Physical Education.

4.  I was the first chair violinist in my elementary school orchestra.

5.  I've owned two dogs named "Blackie".

6.  I used to drink Tabasco Sauce out of the bottle, but not any more.

7.  I once picked up two hitchhikers dressed in white robes--they said they had sat around a campfre with Jesus the night before.
 ###########################

Now, to nominate 7 truly beautiful bloggers and certainly more interesting people:

1. Yvonne at  Welcome to My World of Poetry -- she's almost to 100 followers!  Join her blog!

2.  Ron at The Old Geezer  -- he may not look so beautiful, but a lot of folks think the world of him.

3. Leslee at Life at Number 10   she could use some more followers

4. Karen Walker at Following the Whispers  for her caring heart.

5. Greg at Gospel Driven Disciples  -- He puts a lot of thought and care into his posts and his comments

6. Debra at Dream Weaver  she's coming back after a short time away and she's always been so nice

7. Ginny the Sock Monkey  How can I resist a name like hers ----it's beautiful.

Hope everyone will drop by and give these bloggers a word of encouragement.   And you award winners:  relish it, display it proudly if you want to, and pass it on to some others if you want to take the time to recognize bloggers whom you appreciate.

My thanks to all who visited today and I hope to hear some input about my Blogging From A to Z Challenge.  Do you post at least 6 times per week?  Are you ever stumped for blog topics?