I had a really nice birthday. It completely wore me out and has taken a few days to recover.

I don’t have pictures of everything we did. We were too busy to spend the day snapping pics, plus at the Titanic Museum they don’t allow cameras inside. They would have taken our picture using a backdrop, but I wanted a picture of us sitting on the Grand Staircase–not us standing in front of a backdrop of it. Pfft!

There were a lot of rude people there, hogging the displays. It would have been much more enjoyable if they had let smaller groups of people go through. But, it is a business and even though they only allow a certain number each hour, I would have preferred a smaller number.

As you “board” the ship, you are given a card with a name on it and a bit of history. I was Clara Hayes, aged 52. A first class passenger, I might add. Oh yeah! Kevin was Thomas Knowles, one of the crew members. At the end of the tour you get to find out the fate of the passenger’s name you’ve carried. We both survived.

Silver Dollar City

Our big outing was Friday afternoon. We ate at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, and then spent about 5 hours walking around SDC.

I took a few pictures. :)

This first one is a culinary school/class. I mostly loved the azalea bushes, the rose bushes and the house. I could live there.

And here’s another angle of it.

Next is the giant swing, at the giant barn. No we didn’t ride it. The only things we rode were the Tea Cups and the Train. I know, we live life on the edge. LOL

This is a picture of the giant rooster on top of the barn.

This image is a grain silo climb. It’s next to the big barn. You sit in a seat and hoist yourself up to the top with ropes. You then let go of the rope and repel down to the ground.

Running next to these two attractions is the River Run. It’s round rubber boats floating down a man-made river.

The last few pictures are just various things we did.

Me modeling a trendy hat in the toy store:

Kevin and I in front of the water wheel at the swinging bridge:

A shot of me standing at the end of the swinging bridge by the water wheel.

A large chalice we liked in the pottery store:

There’s a ton of other things to do and see at Silver Dollar City. We just didn’t spend the day taking a lot of photos.

After our excursion to the Titanic, we headed to Springfield to eat Chinese and hit our favorite store: Brown Derby – The International Wine Company. I don’t have pictures uploaded here, but I have them available at Facebook.

Two days of fun with my awesome husband. A girl can’t ask for any more than that.

I was going to call myself a stinkin’ cheater, but I combined it into stinker. Why? Because I am so gonna cheat on a blog post today.

It’s been a busy week, but I got a pack of PLR out and another one almost ready. And I discovered this morning that my baby girl is coming for the weekend.

My cheat is to link you to other things I’ve written.

My post at Blogging Tips today was a Blog Round Up where I shared some of the best stuff I read this week. Go check it out!

And my next cheat is a link to the PLR I released today. It’s in the personal development niche. If that’s your thing, go grab it here.

Better run. I still haven’t done much housework. It’s not bad, but Kevin is a bit pickier than I am and he may freak because it looks like we live here. ROFL. No, that’s not an exaggeration, he is that OCD sometimes. :) But, I adore him.

Have a great weekend!

Some days it’s hard to decide what to write about. You want every post to be your best. You want to give your readers some valid and valuable information, but it often eludes you as to what to share this time. Lynn Terry  recently shared a blog post about being consistent with your content. It seems that many of us have trouble in this area because we often leave our personal lives out of the equation. It should not be this way. We are real people. We scrub our toilets just like everyone else. Well, unless we hire a housekeeper to do those things. I’m not there yet. I still scrub my own toilet and mop my own floors. It’s not always a glamourous life. There’s also a lot of days I sit here thinking the only thing I have to tell people that day is I’m jamming out with Billy Squier or Iron Maiden, but I don’t do it. Would people really want to know that? Well, yeah, I think they do. It’s no secret that I’m an 80′s metal head who also listens to Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.

I’m also the kind of person that feels completely blessed when I have a spoon and a jar of peanut butter. I don’t have to have a steak dinner every night. In fact, there are many nights when I have a spoon and a jar of peanut butter and call it dinner.

Do you want to hear about these things? My mundane day to day life? Well, if you don’t then you probably don’t want to follow me. I want to bring more socializing into my blog. It is my blog, has my name on it. I can do that. If you follow me on social media you already know that I don’t share biz-related stuff very often. I have a mixture that I’m happy with. I would say it’s about 60% inspirational, 10% of my silly self, 10% of my business related stuff and about 10% of promoting other people’s stuff. I know, that’s only 90%. I reserve 10% to be opinionated and for weilding my duties as a grammar nazi.

I often give advice over at Blogging Tips about being yourself and adding yourself into the marketing mix, but I don’t always practice this consistently. People really do want to know you. That’s how you create friendships and a following. At least that’s my opinion. In all my years online, I’ve rarely ever followed just a name. I follow people. People have faces. They share the bad times and the good times. That’s the kind of people you want to follow. I even follow some of the richest people in the world. They have funny kitchen mishaps and pet problems and share real life things too.

So, as part of my New Year goals, I will be more personal. If I can’t share the latest and greatest gadget, I’ll share my life. Okay, I’ll skip the bathroom cleaning, but otherwise I will show me and my life on my blog.

What’s on your agenda for the week? Any great plans? I love to hear about your life and business too. Just leave a comment and feel free to be you. :)

If you’re here, chances are you’re a writer. It’s what we do. We write, we get paid. We get a new gig or assignment, we write it, we get paid. It’s a great way to make a good income, but is that all there is to it? Just writing every day with no form of passive income or no multiple streams of income? I don’t think so. I follow several marketers. They all started out writing to earn extra income and have since built up great marketing and affiliate marketing businesses. It seems like a natural transition to me. And yes, I even know fiction writers that are marketers, so don’t think you can’t do it just because you prefer fiction over freelance.

I’m new at marketing, but I know it’s something I want to follow. I don’t know much at this point, but I am learning. I know much of it is trial and error, but isn’t everything in life that’s worth doing?

I’d love to share this journey with you. From time to time I will post about things I’m learning, things I’m finding and people I follow. Sometimes I will use affiliate links. That simply means if you follow the link and decide to make a purchase, I will earn a little bit of money from it.

That can turn a lot of people off, but it’s also one of the great things about being a marketer/writer. These people have grown their business by paying other people to promote them. It’s much the same as the advertisements you see in newspapers, magazines, on TV and radio and even the ones you see online. However, the money isn’t so important that I would ever promote junk. I only promote products/services that I have used and approve of or have been highly recommended to me by a very trusted source.

If you’re here for the writing, or for my personal wisdom/silliness, you will still see that. If you’d like to follow me into the world of marketing, you’ll find some of that here.

If you’re a freelance writer and want to create passive income so you can make money even when you aren’t writing–then lets take this journey together and share what we learn.

Thanks for being here with me.

To your success!
Patti

I have a private blog that I write in once in awhile. No one can see it except me and I think one other person, but the point is it’s private.

I was looking through it today and found something I had written in August of last year. I should (wish) I had read it on a weekly or even daily basis. But that’s okay. I just wanted to share it with you today. Hope you enjoy. :)

My private blog is straight out of my head – I don’t edit the posts, so if you see something horrible, just cringe and keep reading. LOL

Here it is:

I’ve had some pretty BIG “Wow!” moments today. This post is mainly just some ideas I need to get written down..no particular order and possibly not even proof read.

Why don’t we think big?

Why do we think small?

Why are we conditioned to think small?

Who conditions us to think small?

In answer to the last question, it starts with our parents. They really didn’t know any better so they teach us about scarcity and limits and self limiting doubts and beliefs. As we get older and start watching TV, listening to the news—which I suggest you ignore at all costs, the media, the government–they all know the “Secret” and want to keep you in that small thinking conditioning mentality. Just look at the bullshit you’re being bombarded with on TV, in movies—almost everywhere. It’s depressing, it makes you believe life is not supposed to be big and grand and full of abundance and blessings. It’s literally bullshit! God is so much bigger than that! God wants to prosper you and bless you. He does not want you planted on the couch watching that garbage on TV. Trust me on that one! :)

I’ve been tuning into coaches and training that teaches you to think big, to use the secret, to create a life of abundance and to give gratitude to the creator. It’s all been sinking in slowly and I know God is leading me in this, but I just haven’t found my place quite yet. Today I ran across two women–one I’ve seen before, the other is totally new to me and the message I received from both of them was…

to do something bigger with what you’ve got. Something that will change people’s lives and REQUIRE ALL the belief, knowledge, skills and gumption that you can muster… and then more.

Every person has something inside of them that will make the world a better place.  EVERYONE.  Even you, especially you.  It lives inside of you as a dream, a book idea, a song, or a special gift or talent.

Yes, that’s the basic message I got from both women—to think bigger, to live bigger, to stop limiting myself, to achieve bigger things and to not care what other people think. God has given me a purpose for as long as I can remember and it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve listened and started paying more attention. I still haven’t “gotten” it yet and I still run scared—what can this little gal do to help people grow and change their lives, what can I do that has a lasting positive impact on the world? Well, in my small thinking I can’t do anything. I believe God is telling me to reach for bigger and better things—to take the first step and truly commit and He WILL be there to catch me and guide my feet.

Am I scared? You bet. This is like a whole life changing experience for me. But I know that sooner or later I have to truly listen and let God guide me and use me. I don’t know if that scares me, or if my own self limiting beliefs make me think I’m too small to take on such a big task. Even though I know God is bigger than it all–I’m still fighting the human side of my mind. But I do feel I am on my way to great things—as long as I am obedient and give Him ALL the glory.

What big things do you have planned?

What limiting beliefs do you still have?