Media Maven

I'm a content writer and blogger, I help writers create websites, and I've written a few novels.
6 days ago

Guard Your Small Business Management Time

If you work from home, often your time isn’t recognized as valuable business-building time. When I got sucked into a community organization, my business suffered as a result. Always be sure you’re giving your business enough time and let other obligations wait. Of course, this doesn’t include family, if you have children at home needing attention!

5 months ago

Writing Practice - a necessary process if you want to write well

I’ve got a friend who never practices his writing skills. He thinks that someday he’ll write a novel in a hot flash. Somehow the light will go on, he’ll be fully inspired, and the writing will just happen.

I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen….

Writing is a way of life. If you love to write, you’ll practice writing daily, or almost every day. It is something you learn about by doing it.

I’m a fiction writer… and I write articles. Every day I’m at my computer — writing! One of my favorite things to write during my practice writing sessions, is flash fiction. I love to write these short-short stories and someday may have enough of them to publish a book of stories, each about 500 words.

Some of my best flash fiction is written during practice writing sessions. It takes only about fifteen minutes! I usually choose a writing prompt then let my imagination take flight. I choose a character and put that person in a situation. A few minutes later, I have a story. It is so much fun.

I backup those stories in Google docs. Sometimes I post them on my blog, but usually I just let them sit, waiting for that day when I’ll have enough to publish a book…. probably a Kindle e-book!

7 months ago

Lemonade Diet and Going Vegan

My chances for getting health insurance are slim, so I’m taking charge of my own health by doing the master cleanse lemonade diet. I’m currently on day ten of a fast that will last until my tongue turns pink, 30 days, or I cave - whatever comes first.

I’m not at all hungry today. Lemonade is a terrific appetite suppressant and I’m feeling just fine energetically and mentally. They say by day ten I should be having mental clarity, and I’m kind of still waiting for improvement because I’ve been feeling more focused and clear in my thinking all along.

The cleanse removes toxins from the system, and pushes the re-set button on life so that we can make drastic life changes. For me, the big change will be going from vegetarianism to veganism … plus gluten free.

Recently I read an illuminating book about wheat - call “Wheat Belly” by Dr. William Davis. What an eye-opener. He’s helped hundreds of his patients morph into gluten-less diets and they’ve lost weight and had other impressive health benefits. I have to try it!

Going vegan has been a long-time goal of mine. Every time I got close I’d fall back into the egg and cheese eating vegetarian diet, and I’m determined at this time to give those up. Well, I already gave them up to do the master cleanse lemonade diet. After ten days I’m sure all food addictions have been broken. Now I just need to be strong and truly change my eating habits and learn a new way of cooking - all vegan! I’ll be incorporating a lot of raw foods along the way.

9 months ago

Fighting CPS for Grandparents

Nobody needs to agree with me. Even if I face opposition, I will protest the evils of child protective services as long as I need to. However, a lot of people do agree - most of them, because they’ve had children taken from their families by this over-active, family-destroying government agency. It isn’t only young parents who are feeling the pain. Many grandparents are traumatized when their grandchildren are placed in foster homes. Though the CPS rules state that extended family members should be given Kinship Care rights before a foster home is considered, that rule is often violated so that grandparents and other family members are left with the quandary of looking for legal help, paying a juvenile court lawyer, and spending many days, weeks, and months in a state of mental torture and pain.

Often it is grandparents who the children are taken away from. If a grandparent is raising grandchildren in lieu of the parents for any reason, that family group becomes an easy target for a CPS agent, because the grandparent has no legal standing in court to be given a reunification plan and an opportunity to get the child back. Many hearts have been broken. In Riverside, California, a couple managed to get Kinship Care rights for their very young granddaughter. The parents weren’t able to complete their service plan and/or weren’t able to get their daughter back. Their parental rights were terminated by the county juvenile court when the child was two years old. The grandparents who had her all those months adored her completely and were ready to adopt when CPS workers showed up at their door and informed them they no longer had grandparent rights as the parent’s rights were terminated. They removed that beautiful young girl from the family she loved and placed her with a lesbian couple for adoption. The grandparents never saw their beloved granddaughter again. They had no rights to protect her from this outrageous government agency. They protested for months. They went to court. And nothing they did made any difference. They eventually had to give up because their granddaughter was lost to them forever.

So, for all those who think “It could never happen to me” there are many thousands of heartbroken, traumatized Americans (and this happens in other countries too) who are grieving and will never fully recover from violation of family rights. This kind of experience eliminates our abilities to trust anyone, especially our government. This is why I fight CPS… to give those who are suffering legal information and support they need while they’re going through exceedingly dark days of despair.