Snow all day kept me home and busy.

On a cold snowy day like today, I get so much done at home. Today I went down to my studio in my basement and turned on my old desktop computer. That is where many photos and older files are found. I had Bob, my computer guru, clean up that old dinosaur.

View from my deck looking off into the woods and the snow covered mountains

 Now it is quick and I enjoy it more than my fancy new desktop in my office. I am still struggling with learning Windows 8, Microsoft Office Word 2010, and I get frustrated when I have to search for all the new ways of doing things.

I have learned that not all young people know more about computers than I do. In fact, I find that most of them know how to use their smart phones, but when it comes to what I need to learn, they tell me they don't know anything about computers.

The next time someone tells me to just ask a twelve year old how to hook up my computer or use a program that is new to me, I will tell them that I don't have time to teach a kid or have the patience to try to get him/her off their cell phone. 

I hope that Ronda Birtha's class on using Social Media for marketing your writing will make. I look forward to learning how to do that properly and how to be safe on Facebook and Twitter. I see people giving out their home addresses on FB, and putting their young children's pictures online and I wonder if that is safe. I know I wouldn't give out my home address on Facebook. But Ronda is an expert in all this and I'm sure she can tell us what to do and what is not safe to do. 
Mainly, I hope she will help our writers see how they can promote their writing and reach a larger audience.

I hope all of you are warm tonight. I think about my parents and grand parents on cold nights like this. They couldn't go in and flip the thermostat higher to take the chill off.
Even when I was a small child we had only one heater in the house. Mother would warm a blanket and wrap up our feet when we climbed into the cold bed. Then she would pile quilts on us and we slept warm, my little sister and me, cuddled up together.