How to Get Away With Grinding | 4 Realizations About Hustling & Life

Like any individual, I’ve been spending my time bumping up and sending out my resume.  (Disdain ever so present to get back into someone else’s career wheel but my own.)  And yet, regardless of the change, I’ve hardened my endeavors here.  When I stepped out to share my passions over three years ago, it was to create a better future.  A future that didn't involve punching another 15 years' worth of time clocks.

But there are things that come with such positions.  Money, ambition, and your personal life turns into a juggling act.  (Though my personal life qualifies as coffee and books, thank you Jesus.)  And it's an act performed between looking for another job and your personal grind.  It’s a sticky position.  It's also a position I’m almost privy to believe not few can relate to, as I feel unaccompanied within mine.  No one I know has attempted to start a blog, YouTube channel, Zazzle store, etc.  So there’s no one I can turn to when my endeavors feel… well… insignificant to my cause.  There's no one to bounce real ideas off of.  To soak in genuine, experience-based encouragement.  As opposed to those water-downed affirming cliches and platitudes the unawares always seem to give.  And give they do, until you realize you've had enough and draw inward for your strength to keep moving.  

So alone you continue to throw the soil, plant the seeds, walk in faith.  And you have to do so in the isolation of believing in yourself.  And that’s where this post leads me to.

These are four things I’ve discovered in the position I’ve just described.  Though it applies to anyone who find resonance with the struggle of grinding out your own path in life.  So, see if you can relate...

CASE #1: DRAMA VS. BUSINESS

Do  not waste my time with drama!

You don’t have the energy to listen to other people’s problems anymore–nor do you want to.  Unless it’s in the spirit of entrepreneurship, ideas, or action-taking plans, you don’t want to hear it.  If it’s not about risks, creativity, fueling ambitions, or personal transformation, you zone out of the conversation.  If it’s not about marketing, blogs, YouTube, web stores, writing, you’ll pass.   

The one caveat is family and friends’ real life issues that is easily discern as in need of your support.  As for routine gossip about people you don’t know or care about (or no longer go to battle for), you’re good where you are.  And you avoid conversations with people who are all talk and no action.  That, in itself, is sucking away your own valuable gusto to continue your fight.  Basically, the people around you better build a real case to draw your attention away from the grind.

Putting the Public Library to Use this Weekend

The book/series collector in me says, “no, no, no.”  The hungry reader says, “yes, yes, yes.”

A.     My ordered copy of Liberty Falling is slated for a June 14th delivery, instead of the May 27th that was originally tracked and posted.  This, effectively, cut me out of ever ordering books from this particular marketplace seller.  May 23: SHIPPED.  June 14: DELIVERED.  Do the math.  Or maybe I’m just tripping.  But I mean, really?  I have to wait until June 14 to get my hands on Pigeon #7?  Hell, no!  

Waiter!  I want my check!  PLEASE!  

Backstory stuck in the middle. Going about my Saturday morning (after a post office and Dollar General trip), a light bulb lit up in my brain.  Why not go to the public library and check out a copy of Liberty Falling until your personal one comes in.  Bing.  Bing.  Bing.  And take your laptop along to also get some blog post drafts together, Mr. Lazy. 

B.      As for Susan Wittig Albert’s Rueful Death, I tittered around until I decided to take it.  It’s book #5 in Albert’s China Bayles series.  I’m currently less than 90 pages away from the end of book #4, Rosemary Remembered.  And, just in case I get impatient and don’t want to order and wait for a personal copy, I grouchily took Rueful Death.  Will catch up on ordering a personal copy later.  In the meantime, China Bayles is too charming to not take home.

Oh, check it out!  I also found out I have a $3 outstanding balance at the public library.  Now where did that come from?  And when did I last use my card?  Oh…wait….  I didn’t use my card for myself last time.  I let...

NICHOLE DID THIS!

LOL.  HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND, FOLKS!

Using Canva to Create the Perfect Spreadshirt Banner Size

Okay.  So to save someone the trouble, I present to you how to create the perfect size Spreadshirt banner.  And it's all done via the online creation tool, Canva.  This is for those who want a nice banner that stretches properly over their web shop.  And not so much sitting above the fold as a box surrounded by negative space.  (Anyone else hates that?)

First.  Get into your Canva account.  Duh, right? Anyway, in the top right-hand corner is the option of creating your own dimensions.  You want that, as opposed to using the templates Canva has already prepared.  Naturally, you’ll need to input the right width and height.  Go for 1280 x 343 in pixel size.

WDEA 1370 AM Interview with Nevada Barr on New Book, Boar Island

The Anna Pigeon Beat Goes ON!

Just finished the amazing Blind Descent and must gathered Anna Pigeon #7, Liberty Falling.  After all that used bookstore issues, this was an immediate choice.

Need to know what happens in the next book!

This Ever Happen to You? | Used Book Struggles

NOTE: Because of some technical issues around the image folder, I lost all the "proof" and "evidence" spoken about in this post.  And, since I returned the book, I have no way of getting it back on track.  Sorry!

Had me a good cup of coffee.  Caught up on all my TV shows (can we talk Empire and Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D?).  And was ready to take down the last 125 pages of Nevada Barr’s Blind Descent (Anna Pigeon #6).  I was getting into the reading when I reminded myself how I didn’t have the following book, Liberty Falling, in my possession.  As of late, I haven't been into reading anything but Barr's park ranger sleuthing adventures.  My momentum was going just too damn good to break; I needed to exhaust myself of Barr's shit-stirring and pessimistic Anna Pigeon character.  Besides, Barr had an overarching sub-narrative of Anna's story begging for resolution.  It's a "Damn!  What's gonna happen?  I need the next book!" situation.

Y'all know how it is! 

So what to do other than dash through upcoming rain to the used bookstore to find a copy?  Partially tattered or not, I needed Anna's next adventure.  And with an easy $5 bill tucked in my struggling wallet, I was ready to rectify my situation.

I saw this moderately decent and only available copy of Liberty Falling.  And as always in used bookstores, I flipped through it a couple of times.  I do this mostly to feel a book's handling–particularly with mass markets.  I think we all know some people can get out of control with mass markets.  Bending and breaking spines.  Dog-eared pages.  A little too much yellowing for an individual's taste.  Torn pages.  Burnt pages.  The occasion buried bookmark.  Sometimes strands of hair and food residue.  Or mysterious residue.

None.  With the exception of its age and a temperately blitzed spine, all seemed acceptable.  Workable.  Manageable, if you will.  I would grabbing a matching colored marker to "paint" over the spine's creases later.  You know, bookshelf whip appeal.  

We have a deal.  My Saturday and Sunday was set.  

$3.85 broken out of $5.

I got home to sanitize the book.  Yes, I use sanitizing wipes on used books.  Followed by a sage smudging.  And yes, I believe in spirit attachments.  I have this niggling superstition that for every used book I buy, some dead person’s relative brought his or her stack in to unload a house going up for sale.  I'm from the South.  Blame parts of my folkloric upbringing.

Anyway, I took an anxious, closer look before putting the book on my shelf as my next reading.  This is what halted me…!  And no, for whatever blind and desperately-seeking-Anna reason, I didn't notice this before buying it.

Kdrama Factor: Incomplete Life

Now the second Kdrama I’m watching is Incomplete Life.  The Korean word, per its Korean title, is misaeng.  Apparently the drama is based off a web comic by a Korean cartoonist named Yoo Tae-Ho.  The comic ran from January 2012 to October 2013.  As for Incomplete Life, it aired from October to December of 2014.  Twenty episodes even.

So what’s it about?  Twenty-something Jang Geu-Rae was once a thriving and prolific baduk player.  From his childhood forward he dedicated himself to the game.  So as an adult he stood on the threshold of becoming a professional.  He even forfeited completing high school and earning his GED to continue his passion, by sliding up in rank.  

Now this next part of his story I think I understood correctly.  Anyway, somewhere in the mix Geu-Rae's father dies, leaving just him and his mother.  Now the man of the house, Geu-Rae gives up baduk and starts working odd jobs to keep the house running.  He works as a delivery boy, bathhouse cleaner, and a convenience store clerk simultaneously.  His dad is gone, and now baduk and his education is sailing by him.  With what remains as a stream of dead end jobs, Geu-Rae is left disappointed and hurt by life. 

Then a secret–and unconfirmed as far as I’ve gotten–consociate recommends Geu-Rae into an internship with One International trading firm.  Pushed by his mother, Geu-Rae walks into the offer.

But with absolutely no education or credentials to back him up, Geu-Rae faces bullying taunts once his background is found out.  And the more he insist on pushing forward with his internship, the more he suffers navigating his way through what’s deemed the “real world.”  Yet, he has a little help along the way in the form of warmer friendships with other peers.  And when situations get too tight, he employs his strategic thinking skills developed from excelling at baduk.  This allows him to chess piece his way in and out of trouble, as he finds acceptance in the office.  As well as in himself.