Proud to be an American?

I used to be proud to be an American. I even made a conscientious effort to buy an American car the last time around. In fact, my husband and I have bought four Fords in the last five years -- three of them brand new cars. They have been great cars, so I have to disagree with the ad shown at left in one respect. I would change the headline to "You wouldn't buy our overpriced cars."

Now I bought American after years of driving expensive imports, including Saabs and Beemers. In all honesty, our decision to switch to American cars had less to do with the fact that they were American than with the fact that we live in the boonies and have a nice Ford dealership here. I used to drive a BMW sedan, but every time something went wrong -- and it was frequently -- I had to drive it to Dallas for servicing or sit and listen to some grease monkey tell me why I should buy a Ford. With my BMW, every time something went wrong it was $1500 -- minimum. So we bought Fords.

First my husband bought a small commuter car - a ZX2. It was "cute." I think I told him it was cute one time too many, so he traded it for a Mustang. The Mustang still gets good mileage, but it looks a little less "cute" and a little more "cool." It's not fancy, but it's paid for. Out of necessity for hauling kids and sports gear, I bought an SUV. Initially I bought a Ford Escape. It was brand new, and it was pretty, but it was pricey, and there was something not quite right with the size. The engine was way too fast for the size of the car, and I never felt safe in it. When I'd step on the gas, that thing would go, with the rear end fishtailing onto the highway. Within a few months I was back at the dealership asking to trade. I traded "up" to a Explorer. It has an even bigger engine, but it's a much heavier car, and I have really liked this car. It holds seven people comfortably, has a rack on the top for our luggage, the two boys can spread out on road trips, and it is hefty enough to pull our boat. It's been a great car -- for more than 180,000 miles.

I understand why American car manufacturers are in trouble though. It's not so much about the cars they make, at least not the American cars I have experience with. It's about the way you are treated at car dealerships. Through the years, and before we moved to this small town where there is a really good dealership, I had learned to avoid that car buying experience like the plague.

If you go in to trade a car, they rip you off and give you far less than the car is worth. When you're caught up in the car buying experience, you don't really notice, but most people have buyer's remorse the day after they've made the trade.

If you trade in a car that you still owe money on, they are happy to roll the balance into your new car loan. That way you start out with a new car that you owe more on than it's worth, not to mention the fact that the second you drive it off the lot, it becomes a used car and is worth far less than you paid for it.

My most recent dealings with car dealerships have come while shopping for a car for my teenage son. I'm no fool. I know that no teenager needs a new car, so I've done some shopping around. I have shopped online, on ebay, and I've shopped in person at dealerships. I am not going to make payments on a car for a kid, but no matter what you go in for, the guys on the car lot always want to sell you something else. If you want to find something for $5000, they show you something for $15000. If you decide you're willing to pay $10,000, they want you to buy a new car for $23,000.

This process has been so frustrating that I finally gave up. In fact I won't go near a car dealership, except for service. Service at a dealership is great. But apparently fewer people are having their cars serviced regularly, so those of us who do go in are footing the bill. We get upsold all sorts of things that we probably need but didn't go in for in the first place.

I've gone in for a simple oil change ($30) and spent $500 on all sorts of maintenance they said I needed. I've gone in for a tire rotation and been scared silly by mechanics who tell me I'm just miles away from a major blow out that could result in the end of my life, so I've bought new tires. I've also gone in for a simple servicing and spent WAY TOO LONG in the waiting room. The last time I went to my local dealership, I was there three hours. THREE HOURS! As much as I love those guys, there were people coming and going while I sat and sat, probably while they looked for something else to fix on my car. After the second hour, that got old.

So if people don't want to buy cars from car dealers, and they don't want to get their cars serviced at the dealers, the dealers are going to hurt. If the dealers hurt, the manufacturers hurt. If the manufacturers hurt, the auto workers hurt, and if the auto workers hurt, we're told, everyone suffers and the economy goes into a tailspin.

I don't necessarily buy it. I think if the car dealers were honest, and the service people were efficient, the general public wouldn't avoid buying cars or having them serviced.

I think the biggest problem is the price, which is caused by the unions. The union guys make $60- $80 an hour, and a lot of them don't do anything physically demanding or that requires a brain. Yet because it's the UAW, they have power. They are the cause of the high prices on American cars and the lack of competiveness for U.S. auto makers. They are the cause of making cars cost so much that the average citizen has had to go far into debt beyond what he or she could afford to buy a car to get him or her to that job where he or she doesn't make enough money to make the payment.

When combined with the unscrupulous banks that have let those people buy those expensive cars (and homes) in the first place, it's just one big circular mess. Is it an easy fix? No! Is it because American cars aren't made well? No.

I think it boils down to greed. Greed at the top of the auto companies and absolutely at the banks, greed at the union level, greed at the dealership level, and even greed at the consumer level.

Proud to be an American? Not really. But if I can ever afford to buy an American car again, I will. I have had good experience with the quality. It's the price and now the financing I have a problem with.

I do not want our government giving the auto makers federal money -- our money. They have received enough of it, and they have frittered it away. Let the auto workers lose their jobs. Let the execs at those companies lose their jobs and their golden parachutes. Let the bank executives lose their jobs. Then maybe they'll have to work for a living like the rest of us.

You know you live in a small town when...

My city slicker friends always marvel at how I manage to live out in the sticks like I do. They come visit once in a while and make a big deal out of driving CLEAR out here, a whole 45 minutes from downtown Dallas. Of course, it's true, it is a whole different lifestyle. Instead of murder and mayhem in our newspapers, we get to read about the activities of the local Garden Club, Literary Club, Civic League and Chamber of Commerce. We get to read about our student athletes and prom queens and about the sermons at the gazillion churchs that dot our byways. My mother, who is very active in just about every club in town, gets her picture in the paper quite frequently. But this past week we all had a good laugh at the "news" when we opened the local paper. To the right is the big news item about my mother, Ruth Boswell, winning a pair of pruning shears at the local garden club meeting. Now this is something you won't find in the Dallas Morning News.

Incongruity

At the risk of turning away some avid readers of this blog (welcome back both of you), I am going to share something very personal. If you're here because you're interested in publicity or copywriting services, please back out of this blog and back into http://www.outreachpr.com/copywriting.htm (my website) for a visit to my portfolio. Otherwise, get ready for something a bit .... out there.

If you're still here, remember, I warned you. This is personal.

I believe in God, and as such I pray. I took to reading the bible a few years ago, and I have learned a lot. At this point I know I have read the entire bible at least a couple of times in my life. I go to church in spurts. I've been in an off-spurt for about six months, maybe a year. Before that I was in an on-spurt for a year or so. That's sort of the longest on-spurt of my life, but it was significant.

Anyway, what I do know is that since I turned over all my troubles and concerns to God, I've been much more at peace. When you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and you're trying to make ends meet, achieve your client objectives to ensure continued business success, etc., it can be tough.

Before I gave my problems over to God I used to wake up in the middle of the night worried. I worried about whether a certain editor would write a story for a certain client. I worried about getting my work done and where the next work after it would come from. I worried about cashflow and paying my bills. I worried about my kids, their friends. I just worried. Things always seemed to work out, but I sure worked hard to make everything happen. Since I gave the worrying part over to God, it's a lot easier.

Now I focus on solving the problems, not worrying about them. I have more work than I can possibly do, with quality people who pay me when they say they will what they say they will. I didn't go find these people. Somehow they found me. Each and every one of them make my world somehow better. I help them promote their businesses and create awareness of their events and activities and I hope I make their lives better too.

They did not randomly find me. I asked for them in prayer, and they came. Call it coincidence, call it good karma, call it effective internet marketing and brandwidth...whatever you call it, it's happened.

What I do with what comes my way, I believe, determines what else I might be "eligible for." I am on a path to the next level. I want to achieve for my kids and for my own future. I don't have a lot of choice, so I have to just keep plowing ahead.

The other day when I was praying, I got a message. This has happened maybe twice in my life. (Or at least only twice when I've had ready access to pen and paper or that I've been paying attention to the idea of a RESPONSE to my prayer.) This particular day I was making breakfast and praying and being very positive, and I got these words. I wrote them on my white board in my office, because it was so clear it was like someone said it outloud. I didn't know what any of it meant, and it was coming so fast, I just stopped, went into the office and started writing. Here's what the words, still there, say:

"Do you see the ridiculousness of your endeavors?"

and

"One person can't do it all."

and

"Incongruous"

There's more, but that's a lot. So we'll start there.

That day, after I got the kids off to school I jumped back into my routine and ignored what I'd written on the board, a little, but it was definitely on my mind. I began to look for ridicuolousness and incongruity. Wow. Those are heavy, heavy, way heavy things. Who talks to you like that? I looked up incongruity, flipped it to the positive, and started evaluating my day based on the word "congruity." Pretty quickly, I found some, but not a lot. I saw opportunities for more.

I swiveled in my chair where back on the white board I'd written:

"Incongruity between your responsibilities and your lifestyle."

Wow. What does that mean? Which part of my lifestyle? Is it the "do everything for everyone while making enough money for the entire family" part? Hey, that fits with the previous thing: "One person can't do it all."

Other lifestyle issues: Hmmmm...this does get personal and although I never think about how my choices are "bad," but maybe they are. With all the work I have to do, do I really have time to go to the hockey rink four times a week, particularly when I have a spouse who is not incapable of making two round-trips if needed every few weeks at least. Can I make all the away football games, and drive taxi to the endless junior high social calendar, feed a neighborhood full of kids at the house all the time and keep the cupboards full of snacks and the fridge of drinks? Can all the laundry be clean and my clients still be served? And can I do this on my own?

No, probably not. But which part has to go. I've been evaluating. It really doesn't have to go away if I share the work. I've spent a lifetime meeting people who do what I do, but I've met very few -- maybe five -- that I would hire, and most of them are so good they're as busy or busier than I. There are another two that I would consider partnering with. Maybe three. Am I ready to give up the lifestyle and drive to the city? Do we need to change the way we get everything done so that I can have someone share the burdens and responsibility?

Also on the white board I see, from that same day:

"New Ideas"

"Seize"

"Leverage"

The day I wrote those,I remember, it was if the words were going straight from somewhere else through my arm to my brain...What the?!?!?

For the last week, with this pretty amazing conversation and documentation in mind, I've been evaluating my activities with more clarity. I've gone back and asked for focus, and I have received some, but I have a lot to figure out myself, as well.

I have been focusing on my responsibilities and evaluating my time management based on everything -- ridiculousness of the endeavor, who can help me do it (or if I can do it myself), my lifestyle, including how much sleep I try to operate without, my not infrequent evening or weekend escapes into a glass of wine (that can become a few and there goes the productivity or the interest in making dinner) and my personal need for either stimulation, focus or perhaps even medication to keep me going on the productive path. (I am one of the few unmedicated people I know. Is that in itself a problem? What is God's perspective on medication?)

Yep. It's all under the microscope, and it came not from my own mind, but from some mysterious voice. Perhaps that voice is in my head, but I really don't think so.

Can you take me higher? Let's go there....let's go there...The song by Creed is one of my favorites. I understand it better now.

If you need help understanding this, please don't hesitate to ask. I think that's part of what I'm supposed to do, and what I'm doing in my actions every day. Under a new microscope. It's an interesting place. I feel very honored to be getting direction from someone other than myself. It's hard to rely on me all the time.

Obviously, if you've read this far you have to understand that all of the above has caused a pretty brutal personal examination for me and for my work and for my life. My brain actually hurts, and I've honestly only gotten through the first half of this one converation. That whole second part -- the seize, leverage, new ideas thing is still out there. By nature I am not competitive or aggressive. I like to be comfortable and have worried about little else. I have passed up some of the most amazing opportunities that have honest to God dealt with superstars and incredible worlds well beyond my own existence. I didn't seize then and probably should have. I need to prepare to seize now. Times are going to get tough, so it's time to win the game.

First I have to master this universe.

I think my goal this week is to identify sources of help. If you're reading this and you're one of those, don't hesitate to let me know.

Far Worse than Ring Around the Collar

I grew up in the era when homemakers were proud women who took care of their families needs, cooked, cleaned, and made sure their husbands had delicious coffee to drink and "no dirty rings" around their shirt collars.

I remember my mom standing in our 1970s sunkin family room with the orange, black & brown shag carpet at the ironing board, ironing clothes while watching soap operas, the Watergate Hearings, and news, which when I was kid was a lot like an episode of G.I. Joe. Vietnam was raging, and every night on the news was like the opening of M.A.S.H., with helicopters whirring and young boys in fatigues running around.

My household is very different then that. My ironing board has never been in my living room, and in fact I have one that comes out of the wall in my laundry room, but I've never really used it. I send my husband's shirts to the dry cleaners or he takes care of them himself. I used to think I was pretty good at doing laundry, but after yesterday, I've decided differently.

In one fell swoop, yesterday I ruined my youngest son's entire "wardrobe." Fortunately that consists of t-shirts, but yesterday every one of his shirts ended up looking like something those guys on TV when I was a kid were wearing. Camo.

Now, how did I do that? Halloween actually did it to me. A week or two before Halloween the kids and the neighbor kids had been up in our attic digging around. They found my husband's hunting gear, which hasn't been used in at least 17 years, and adopted a pair of camo coveralls and the camo face paint for part of their Halloween festivities.

Sadly, the coveralls were in Dill's laundry, and the face paint was in the pocket of the coveralls, and I threw the whole mess in with about a dozen of his most favorite t-shirts and some other clothes. The best example of what happened is shown in the photo above.

Now I've been known to wash money, wallets, ipods, and telephones, because my children don't know how to clean out their pockets. If I'm picking laundry up off the bathroom floor, I rarely take the time to check all the pockets. You would think I would have learned, but I tend to be a slow learner when it comes to these types of chores.

Anyway, after four washings, the color still hasn't come out of most of the shirts. I plan to buy some of that OxiClean that guy screams about on TV to see if it will help, and if not, Dill will get a new "wardrobe" at Hollister this weekend.

Sometimes I wish times were different and I could focus solely on the chores of motherhood and wifedom. Instead, I have to make money every month to help keep this relatively crazy household afloat. Since I don't have what you might call a "real job," and haven't for more than a dozen years, I have to do that basically out of thin air every single month. To say that's pressure is an understatement. The fact that I'm even trying to do laundry at the same time should score me some points. But it doesn't. The kid with the ruined t-shirts (his favorites) gives me no points at all.

My neighbor who is almost 90 speaks of raising her kids and of the "help" she had. She had a full-time housekeeper and someone to tend to her four kids. She didn't work, but her husband was in the oil business and owned a company that did quite a bit of entertaining. Her job was the entertaining. She tells me that before he got home from work all the kids were scrubbed and clean, with combed hair. She had on a nice dress, make-up and pearls. Boy, is my house different than that.

When my husband gets home I'm usually still working. If it's a particularly busy day, it's quite possible I have on sweats and a make-up free face. If the kids are home, they certainly aren't scrubbed and clean either, and if it's toward the end of the week, it's rare that there are even groceries in the house, let alone dinner in the oven or on the table. The table is where the mail gets dumped, and where school books and backpacks and purses and other junk resides. I clean it off a couple times a week and we try to sit there and eat a few times every week, but most of the time we're running around to sports events, hockey practices, or I'm playing tennis. A lot of nights it's "fend for yourself" time with regard to food, or we're handing the kids money to go to town for pizza or burgers or Subway.

I gave up a while ago trying to be the perfect homemaker. Over the years I've been through spurts of having "help," and it was the best money I think I ever spent. I had a nanny when the boys were infants, and a sitter who spent the night when they were toddlers and pre-school age, back when I was in corporate and we had evening events to attend as part of my job. I have had cleaning ladies who kept my house looking spotless. But with the changes in the economy and the added expense of a son playing hockey, declining investments, and college looming on the horizon, I cut out a lot of the "extras" that I thought I could live without.

But after ruining my son's wardrobe yesterday and looking around my house, I think I need to reconsider. I need household help. I used to feel guilty being home, sitting at the computer while the cleaning ladies were working so hard, so I would leave and go work out. That made me feel even guiltier. But as I look at my mess of a house, and the ruined laundry, and the dirty dishes, I think I need to get some help once again.

How to be a hockey mom.

If you're looking for a political commentary, click away. This post is going to be a few dos and don'ts for real live hockey moms, in hopes that moms, dads, grandparents and any others involved in hockey or other sports may learn something.

Let me preface this post by saying I have not put a lot of thought into this, and I am certainly no expert. I've made my mistakes as a sports mom through the years. Perhaps there's something about hockey that attracts a specific breed. Or maybe it's the added stress the sport puts on your wallet, but a good hockey mom learns to manage that stress and deal with other issues, like when your kid doesn't get much ice time.

The number one rule of being a hockey mom: the MOM part, and the examples you set are WAY MORE important than the HOCKEY part. Here are a few specific dos and don'ts.

1. Ice time is not a birth right. It's something a hockey player earns. If you want your kid to have more ice time, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure he has the skills he needs. DO invest in plenty of practice time, camps, private lessons, whatever your kid needs. Otherwise, he will sit on the bench more than you'd like to see.

2. If you think your kid deserves more ice time, DON'T tell the coach he's stupid. That will not result in your son getting more ice time. Guaranteed.

3. DON'T leave it up to your teenage son to get to practice at 5:30 a.m. on his own. Get up and take him. If he shows up only every other time or shows up 15 minutes late or without a helmet or without all the equipment he needs, he's not going to get more ice time.

4. DO understand that although you can buy your way on to a team, there is no guarantee your kid will play as much as you want or even as much as the other kids on the team.

5. If you want your kid to play, DO take him to open hockey, drop-in hockey, private lessons, camps, spring training, buy him a net and a shooting pad, encourage him to practice. Support him by helping him get better. The better your kid is, the more time he'll play.

6. DO NOT isolate yourself from the other parents. If we don't know who you are, you don't bring your kid to practice or you don't come to the games, we can't tell you about all the opportunities for your son to get private lessons, open hockey, drop-in hockey, and more practice time, etc., etc.

7. DO come to practice. This is where you see exactly where your kid's skills stand up to other kids. It's where it becomes blindingly obvious whether or not your kid has what it takes or doesn't. If he doesn't, get him some more practice, camps, private lessons, put him on a second or even a third team to get the ice time. If you aren't willing to do some of this, or you really can't afford it, save your money and pull him off the ice altogether.

8. DON'T let your kid get involved in hockey unless you are ready to make some sacrifices yourself. Hockey is more than writing checks. It's spending time with your kid in the car on the way to practice, and before and after games. It's talking about what went right and wrong, about the other kids he's spending time with, about what camps, extra ice time, and additional practice he might need or about how much he's improved and how proud you are of him.

9. Hockey gives you great opportunities to talk about real life lessons like anger management, fairness, safety, nutrition, hygiene...even the importance of good grades. It's an opportunity to forge a bond with your kid that you will never regret. It's certainly worth a little lost sleep and the time it takes.

10. Finally, if you have something to say to the coach, do it in private. Do it calmly. Don't stand in the middle of the rink lobby and start pointing your finger and screaming. Calmly make an appointment to talk to the coach. Hockey coaches are great people. They know more about your kid and his ability to play hockey than you do. They don't mince words, they will tell you exactly why your kid doesn't get ice time. Coaches are about more than winning, they like to develop players. They like to see kids improve. Yelling at the coach won't buy your kid any favors.

That's it. I'm sure there's more. Like I said, I'm no expert. But in the four or five years I've been involved in hockey I've learned a few things. It can be a great sport, or it can be an agonizing sport. As with everything in life, you get out what you put in.

"Kids do the darndest things." (No wonder all my stuff needs repair.)

My kids recently made the mistake of leaving some of their home videos on my camera. When I went to download a couple of photos, I found some interesting things. This was something they apparently thought would make it on YouTube. They never got a chance. Instead, they were banned from using the golf cart (for a while). As my husband says, "Boys will be boys." My suggestion to them is to delete the evidence. It's not good when Mom sees stuff like this.

"Hey, Mom, we killed a snake in your office!"

I've lived in Texas for nearly ten years. Before I moved here, we had a going away party, and a client of mine brought a date who just went on and on about how she hated Texas because of the snakes.

She told stories of them climbing through the air conditioning ducts, and I'll admit she had me a bit freaked out. So one of the first things I did with my boys (who were little guys of 4 and 7 at the time) was make an education lesson out of an early trip to the Tyler Zoo. We went in the reptile house and learned everything we needed to know about snakes in Texas. (Basically what I learned was that if their head is shaped like an arrow, it IS poisonous.) Most snakes in Texas, I learned, were not poisonous, although some can grow to a relatively large size, and they all freak me out.

That visit to the reptile house aside, over the years, I have had very few encounters with snakes. My kids, by nature of being boys running around near a lake, and at friend's homes in the country, have seen more snakes than I. But we lived on the lake for eight years, and in that time I think we had one tiny snake in our breezeway, one (maybe two) tiny snakes in our swimming pool, and one or two instances where I saw a BIG snake in the lake or on our beach. I would say that's a fairly low snake siting incidence for that many years.


I got home from somewhere on Sunday to find out that my oldest son and his friend had killed a snake. Not in a field near our house. Not somewhere in the woods on the golf course. They had killed a snake IN MY OFFICE.


Now I wasn't home, thank goodness, but my husband insists that this particular snake probably took up residence last week when I had the door to my office wide open. There was a great breeze last Thursday, and I was having a meeting here, and I had opened the door to let the breezes and the sunshine flow freely in. I did not invite that snake. If the snake came in on Thursday, that means it was in here with me on Friday when I was working. I was in and out of the office a little on Saturday, with the snake, and then on Sunday my son came out to play the drums or lift weights or who knows what, and stepped on it.

Fortunately, my son's friend, our next door neighbor, was here, and he knew just what to do. He went to the kitchen to the knife block, grabbed a cleaver, came back to the office, and chopped the snake's head off. I am so glad I was not here, and I'm so glad I've never used (and will never use) that cleaver.

Now before you get this horrible picture in your head (like I did), understand that this snake was maybe 10 inches long and skinny. But it had fangs, and my husband said the mouth was still moving up and down when he picked up the head, but what shape the head was, I do not know. The boys were all to happy to kill it. Cleaning it up responsibilities went to my spouse. I'm just glad it happened on a weekend, because I did not have to see it or clean it up.

Anyway, now while I'm writing news releases and optimizing web copy, and conferencing with clients, I'm also looking over my shoulder. I often go outside to get some air and to proofread, and now I'm looking for snakes before I even take my first step out. It's a little freaky. I have a small foot stool under my desk where I keep my feet now -- up off the floor. I know snakes can slither up the legs of anything, but in case there was more than one...in case that little guy had a brother or sister, or heaven forbid a whole nest of brothers and sisters, I've got my eyes peeled.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing it. I guess it's on my mind. I don't think they deal with this sort of thing in corporate America, do they?