Scooper, you’re lame!

If you visit here regularly or even semi-regularly I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been slipping. I haven’t been posting as often as I normally do. Occasionally, I get tired of writing and simply read. Sometimes it’s because I’m overwhelmed with life and other times it’s because I get a little depressed.

Lately, I’ve had a lot on my plate. My oldest child’s half-sisters are supposedly coming to live with us and I’m really anxious. I’m anxious about them remaining placed in my home and worried that their mother will change her mind and not send them. Their father is deceased, so I’ve no biological claim to them other than the fact that I’ve cared for them twice in the past and my child is their sister. I’ve also been looking for a full-time traditional job outside of my home.

You may remember that a couple of years ago I quit my job at a local newspaper and became a freelance writer. This worked until Google changed it’s algorithm and many companies stopped buying online content as often as they had in the past. Now, I’m barely squeaking by and the stress is piling up.

To top it all off, my sister (who has MS) has decided to get physical therapy and I’m taking her to her appointments. At the same time, my aunt had cataract surgery on both eyes and guess who was roped into taking her. I don’t mind doing it, but it stresses me out even more cause I worry that if I get a job I’ll be leaving them in a bad position.

I’ve been pretty lame when it comes to maintaining my online obligations and I’m hoping to change that this month. The plan is to jump back into reviewing with both feet and not let everyday life experiences prevent me from having fun with y’all.  I’m sorry for dumping all this on y’all and plan to do better. (Yes, this is pretty much the same speech I give once a year, but this time is slightly more stress filled than the norm.)

Advertisement

Reading as a Job

What is your dream job? For me it would be a job that allowed me to read what I want and give my opinion of the book without being attacked for the audacity of having an opinion. I think we all know that job probably won’t jump out, wave its arms at me and scream  “Pick me. Pick me.” The closest I’ve come to that is having a book review blog.

I buy/borrow/am given interesting books, which I devour and regurgitate an opinion of. I temper my negative feelings before blurting them out (most of the time), but I’ve noticed lately that I’m not a very thick-skinned person. When people react negatively to my thoughts I begin to second guess myself and my desire to share. It’s an extremely personal reaction that I’m working on improving and it will take time.

While I work on me, I’d like to know how you feel about negative comments on your blog. Do they feel like personal attacks? How do you handle the comments which tell you how stupid you are? But most importantly….how to get my dream job?

Where have you been Scooper?

If you don’t want to hear me complain skip this post!

Wondering where I’ve been? Me too. My Internet service provider Frontier, formerly Verizon, has had an outage supposedly in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois since 6 p.m. Tuesday. Lucky me has been part of the outage. They were unable to give me an estimated restart time and when you add that to all the other issues I’ve had (being on the phone with the company for 1 1/2 hour, transferred twice and no resolution) you get me being pissed off enough to cancel my service (as of 5 minutes ago) and sign up for AT&T. *Me taking a deep breath.* I’m hoping to be back in business by Tuesday, but in the meanwhile I’ll be working from the library, McDonald’s, Martin’s (local grocery store) and Borders.

The funniest part about the whole canceling my Internet service thing…they almost cut off the wrong person’s service. Yep, when the technical person tried to tell me my service was on and troubleshoot it with me so I wouldn’t cancel she was using the wrong address. LOL The disconnect lady said “just let me verify this is your address and I’ll disconnect your service. Blah Blah Blah.”

Me: “No. I live across town from that address. There are at least three other Stacy Cooper’s in my town. I know this for a fact because they used to get it confused at the public library.”

Operator: “Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me get the correct address.”

Yes, I am strange. Sometimes you just gotta laugh at the stupid little things.

What’s being read in your house?

School is back in session and I’m pleased as can be. I can work for hours without being interrupted girls fighting over who is breathing whose air. But it also means the girls must keep reading logs tracking their daily progress. My baby girl is in 2nd grade and I bought her five Horrid Henry books. They are hilarious tales about a mischievous boy’s antics.

My oldest is in 5th grade and recently read the Dork Diary series. She laughed her butt off while following the story of a girl trying to fit in at her new middle school.

Me, well I’m waiting for my Amazon order to arrive; I bought Stacia Kane’s Downside Ghost trilogy and can’t wait to read it. What about you?

Dove Part one

When I heard that Dove was looking for bloggers to try its newest product, Dove ultimate and visibly smooth deodorant, I jumped at the chance. The other day I received my kit: full size stick of rose scented deodorant, a pamphlet and a shit load of coupons.

I’ve decided that I’m going to experiment with it. I’ve washed and shaved my armpits and just put on the deodorant. I’ll put the deodorant on every day and once a week blog about what is under my arms. If it’s hard stubble, if my skin seems better conditioned and if it is smoother. Once a week I’ll post a small update.

In the meanwhile, if you’d like me to mail you a coupon (it’s a little pamphlet with two $2 off coupons inside) leave a comment and I’ll get with you to find out snail mail info. First come, first served until the coupons are gone.

Poetry from the 6-year-old

Vilis ARe Red
BOS ARe BUW
No Bude
is the Bes
As You

(Translation: Violets are red, blooms are blue. No body is the best as you.)

If I wrote a

paranormal romance. I think I would use blend Christianity with my imagination to create the following mythology. (The picture is by selfmade1 and is for sale at Deviantart.com)

It is written that God created man and woman, and placed them in a beautiful garden.  This first couple was perfect in all ways.  They were also innocent, sin did not exist.  They wanted for nothing, until the day an angel took the body of a serpent in order to tempt the first couple to break the only commandment that God had given them.

He had told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad but at the serpents urging Eve did so anyway. Adam, unable to bear life without his woman followed his wife’s example and ate from the tree too.  Instantly God knew what was done and cast the couple from the only home they had ever known, exposing them to a brutal world.

Satan, the serpent, and his fellow fallen angels were cast out of heaven to the desolate world below: the same hard world where man was cast.  The fallen angels were transformed into carnivorous men who were dependent on blood to live: the original vampire.  God knew that without protection his greatest creations would become extinct. With that thought in mind he created creatures with the ability to transform into animal form but he also tempered the creatures with mans better qualities, compassion and love.

The were-creatures could be any of the animal predators, but more than that they could co-exist with the humans while protecting them.

Because God is loving he created a means of redemption for the fallen angels.  These vampires could become mortal or human if they found their true life partner and made amends for their traitorous actions.  The bond between Fallen and mortal would make the need for blood disappear.

In the meanwhile, were-creatures live amongst the humans, co-habitating with them and protecting them from the soulless vampires that walk the earth.  Sadly humans feared that which was different and killed any were-creature they found. Those left untouched, became fearful, pessimistic and indifferent to humanity. They did as they were commanded, but learned to hide their differences from those who would hunt them.

My website is at

a standstill for the moment. I’ve got a ton of reviews to reformat, and even more to write. I need a full two or three days to focus completely on scooperspeaks.com if I’m ever going to complete it.

I think I’m going to start playing Thursday 13 again on a variety of topics. The site is also going to have more than book reviews now that I’ve got the website. The plan is to put the book reviews up on the blog and at the website at the same time. The website will only be focused on books (all kinds that I read) while the blog will begin to encompass more. Any thoughts?

Yep, computer issues

I’ve been struck by computer issues. I think the computer has a personality and it knows that I really want to be online posting, commenting and getting my site up. Hopefully I’ll be back at full force by next week (maybe sooner).

So, it’ll take me a minute to respond to comments, but don’t worry I will respond. Just not as quickly as normal.

Wizard World (Chicago’s Comic-Con)

So I went to Comic-Con/ Wizard World yesterday. It was a blast. There were all kinds of people dressed up and taking pictures. Artist’s alley was filled with talented people. I learned quickly not to look the artist in the eyes. They’d then pitch their product to me. I wanted to browse not buy. Good Lord. Did I just say that?

There was just a ton of things and a lot of it was over priced (pretty normal for festivals). I brought home a ton of freebies for my brother, light swords for my girls (the lights broke on one of them same day) and several Juno books, Buffy trading cards and comic books, and a  cheap metal lunch box for myself.

While I had fun, I’ve decided next year I’d rather go to the RT convention. What’d you do this weekend?