By Delphi234 (Own work) ,Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There seems to be an increasing number of home invasions in a town just north of me. Now that town is a lot bigger than my town, so of course the crime rate is a lot higher. And there is gang activity up there (moreso than is down here), but it still worries me. I’ve seen some advertisements in the mail about home alarm systems and I’m thinking this is probably a really good idea. Something worth investing in. I have this fear that the gangbangers up north will realize there’s easy pickings just few minutes drive from them and start victimizing us.

There are some things to combat this threat, of course, besides the arm systems. Lock your doors. Get a dog. Things of that nature. Especially lock your doors when you’re in the back yard (that doesn’t prevent the home invasion but can prevent the sneakier types from coming in and stealing your purse, for instance). But, really, if the gangbangers are trying to be initiated into their gang, I don’t think a dead bolt’s necessarily going to stop them. If they can kick in the door, do their damage and prevent you from calling 9-1-1, then what’s the point? An alarm system will do the calling for you. And a nice bright sign in the yard will warn away any potential invaders (hopefully).

My fears aren’t helped with the commercials on television either. I’d like to see them address the growing threat of home invasion without scaring the kids to death when the commercials come on. I’ve already had a talk with Mags and am slightly worried that I’m going to give my child a complex warning her about all of these dangers. I moved to a small town so we wouldn’t have to worry about this stuff, but it still worries me.

I would personally love to see more talk of domestic terrorism when discussing these gangs. Aren’t they terrorizing us when we’re afraid to leave our doors unlocked while we’re home in broad daylight? I think so. I consider that terrorism. I consider not being able to sit on your porch at night because of the gangs to be terrorism. I’m more worried about that activity than some foreign terrorist doing damage. There are gang task forces, of course, but what good are they doing? I was watching “Gangland” on The History Channel and there is a gang in Nashville (!!) that specializes in home invasions. Doesn’t that make them terrorists?

Yes. Yes, it does. I don’t care what anyone says. These gangs target innocent people in an effort to prove their “cred” and that’s terrorism. I shouldn’t have to activate an alarm system while I’m watching the 2pm showing of “Wife Swap” because there might be someone coming to break down my door. But it seems I’m going to have to consider doing just that. No, the home invasions aren’t pervasive in my town yet. But it’s only a matter of time. And what about the people that live in the town where these things are increasing in frequency? Aren’t those people living amongst terrorism?

I try not to watch the news too often because it’s depressing and scares the ever-lovin’ crap out of me. But this is an issue that really concerns me as crime rates go up due to, well, whatever reason the professionals use to justify it. It’s no wonder so many people are shut-ins. They don’t want to deal with the cold reality that they’re not safe in their own homes. I don’t blame them.

I was right when I wrote that I needed to change direction. I started off on the right foot with this blog, but apparently I’ve fallen smack on my face. This blog was started as an effort to chronicle my journey working from home, because it is a journey and because it’s damned hard. I wanted to focus my attention on that (with this blog), but about a little over a year ago I lost that focus.

Two days ago I received an email extending an invitation to apply for an online internship. I was very excited about that and put a lot of effort into 200 words—hoping that I would be chosen. I wasn’t. The email didn’t tell me that the potential interns should be internet marketing enthusiasts as well as WAHMs.

I am incredibly disappointed by that rejection but only because I’d gotten my hopes up. I didn’t realize that I should be a student of SEO and marketing when I applied, because that wasn’t made clear. I’ve learned from that experience as I’ve learned from others. I’m not going to change into a marketing student because of it, though. At least I’m not going to write about marketing because of it.

I feel that there are plenty of people writing about that subject. I feel the blogging community is inundated  with that subject. I couldn’t open my email without finding that a marketing “expert” was now following me on Twitter (That account was closed today, by the way. I’m redirecting myself.). I thought I was going to learn about marketing and how to expand my reach and… I don’t want to write about that stuff. I think if I’d have known that particular aspect of the internship I would’ve have just sent a “thank you” note and gone about my day without wasting the time applying.

I’ve been looking for ways to make more money while staying home. My eldest daughter has moved out and my youngest is getting to the age where writing about her just won’t be cute and endearing. I haven’t stopped being a mom, though. I have other interests, but am still a woman that wants to work from home.

I’ve already delved into the world of internet marketing, to an extent. I know what it takes to get the search engines to crawl your page faster, how to get your page to the top of the SERPs, how to get links and make a sale. I know where to put my ads if I want the most clicks. I know which topics to write about if I want the traffic. I know the importance of Page Rank and the reasons why Google will strip it.

I’ve already fallen for the hype that I should have more than one blog to be profitable online. And it’s not done me any kind of good. My focus and my writing has been hurt by that. I read that I should have a “niche” blog with tons of ads and that I should join this social network or that social network. I’m told to stuff my posts with keywords so that I get “organic” traffic. I’m told to comment with my keyword in my name and make use of do-follow blogs.

That’s all well and good. Except the people with whom I’d be networking in an effort to get their traffic are going to be writing about the same things. The people that care enough to make their blogs do-follow aren’t going to come clicking on anything on my blog. The only way that’s going to happen if I somehow convince some poor saps that I’m an expert. Even though I’m not.

Chipped Polish was an experiment when I first started out. And I was doing pretty good with it. But parts of that experiment have really drained me emotionally and artistically. I haven’t even bothered to redesign my site properly! I’ve been meaning to, but more fulfilling things have taken my time. I am still writing and working, but I’m not doing it here. I’m not chronicling it, because those that were interested aren’t interested in the person behind the blog. And now they’re not interested at all because Chipped Polish is both bland and a bad neighborhood.

Isn’t that funny?

Recently the company for which I do the majority of my work opened a Twitter account. It is protected and they announced they would only accept those that do work for them as followers. So, I sent a request for permission to follow. That was in March. Before I deleted that account I went back to check to see if I’d been approved (I didn’t remember seeing any updates from them).

Nope. Nada. Even those that give me work don’t want to be bothered with me. If that sounds a little whiny, it’s supposed to be. As far as why they never bothered to follow me back, I’m pretty sure that it’s because someone thinks I’m a spy for their competition. I’m not interested in that kind of idiocy, but this particular person is paranoid and no doubt believes me to have nefarious motives. Which is really funny because that same someone has no problem following my original online persona, who apparently is more trustworthy than me.

Isn’t that funny? Oh, you’ve read this far and now you’re curious? Now I have your attention?

At any rate, somewhere along the line I’ve compromised something. This persona has become distrusted in such a way that she’s believed to be a spy. I’m not exactly sure how that rumor came to be, but that’s ok. I’ve learned something. And Lizzie Flynn has learned something. I’ve learned that passion is the key and trustworthiness goes a long way—except for those with whom you are in direct competition. They will claw your eyes out and stab you in the back as soon as read a word you wrote. I’m not exactly clear when I became the foe, but I did. And now I’ve got to deal with the repercussions of that.

The good thing is that I, separate and apart, am not afraid to be confrontational and raise the hackles of others. I’m not afraid to speak my mind. I was experimenting with being professional and polite. And now I’m over that. I do my best work when I’m not overly concerned about hurting some poor sap’s feelings. I am more passionate when I’m not trying to impress the world with my professionalism. I’ve learned that being professional and making a difference doesn’t necessarily pay the bills when working online.

Depending on what happens in the next few weeks Lizzie Flynn may go the way of the wind. If I can figure out how to make this work, though, I will keep at it. I think, maybe, I’ll stop worrying about getting money from Chipped Polish and find other venues where I can explore my talent and passion. I’m not loving this blog right now because of the choices I’ve made, the people I’ve met and the focus I’ve lost—and I’m not sure if I’m going to continue with it.

P.S.

I’m not a spy for anyone. I don’t give a damned what two completely different companies are saying about each other. I’m just trying to live my own life. Occasionally I rubberneck, but there’s plenty to see. I’m reporting to no one. Perhaps a little less paranoia will go a long way to easing some stress, huh?

I have discovered Windows Live Writer. It’s awesome! It’s a blogging tool that you download to your desktop and then you do your blogging thing and it will publish to your blog. Very sweet. I have two blogs (one very personal and this one) and I can post to both pretty much at the same time.

The only thing I don’t like is when you’re in Web layout view you can’t just delete the title to change it. It’s a pain in the butt. And you have to get plugins for some of the functionality you might be used to- I’ve got the digg plugin, technorati tags, and the text template. It downloaded all my categories from here and I can post date, which is nice. The set up looks a lot like MS Word, too.

I think that if someone is making the switch from a Blogger account to a self-hosted WordPress that they should definitely get this to start them out. The layout is a lot like the Blogger dashboard, so it could make the transition easier. I only mention that because I saw in some forums somewhere that people couldn’t understand WP and regretted switching from Blogger (that, to me, is sad because WP rocks my socks).

In case you’re wondering, I’m writing this post in the Live Writer. It’s uber nice. I don’t know any strong reasons why you’d want to use this except that it’s easy and you don’t have to login to your backend to post. Oh, and I like the way it looks. I can’t add site tags, but that’s ok. I like the technorati tags better and I couldn’t find a good enough plugin for that yet (on WordPress 2.3- which made UTW obsolete- so far as I know). I can also get some work done without blog surfing. That’s been a huge problem for me so far. I love to read, read, read when I should be writing, writing, writing.

Anyway, I’m not getting paid to write this. I just thought if someone was looking for a tool that would make blogging a lot easier they should know about WLW. Honestly, I think I might just use this from now on. We’ll see.

P.S.

You can’t make a post private through WLW either. So, if you want to write a Private post you’re stuck going to your backend and doing it from there. That’s a little bleh. Other than that, though…