Google BOHICA

I'm very happy that I come up as the #2 result when you google BOHICA (today I do, anyway).

Those years of corporate prostitution have paid off (it wasn't sexual prostitution... or so I justify it to myself).

So, googling BOHICA is by far the number one way people get to my blog from an organic search.

Here's what's still weird. The #2 way people get to my site from organic search is by googling "vomit girl" (in quotes).

OK, I know, I blog about vomit, puke and COV (Chain of Vomit) a lot. I even have a tag for it! But what really bothers me? Why the hell are people searching for the term "vomit girl?"

A workshop for Twitter beginners

Do you live in the Central Texas area?

Have you heard about Twitter but aren’t sure how to use it?

Signed up to Twitter but don’t know what to do next… or why?

Want to find out how Twitter can help your non-profit or small business?

Here’s the workshop for you. This is a hands-on, step-by-step workshop, led by three of the most influential tweeters in Central Texas. Caryn Brown, Jay Ehret and C.J. Jackson, members of the Waco Social Media Club, will help you make sense of how and why to use Twitter to make an impact for your organization.

Sign up now at http://www.wacotwitterworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Saturday, June 20, 2009
1:00-3:00pm
Cashion Bldg, Room 404
Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University Campus

Skulls on her coffee (and her Christmas stocking)

What better way to use those small scraps that I've been saving? Coffee sleeves. Sort of recycled, because it's just left-over scraps. Green, because you won't be using those paper/cardboard sleeves they give you at the coffee shop.

Plus, you can make a statement.

My daughter, Devon (27), wanted a sleeve made from the scraps of her Christmas stocking. Guess which one that is? Yes, the skulls. LOL!

Every time I go to my local mermaid coffee shop and order my regular tall triple-shot Americano, a conversation starts about my coffee sleeve.

I'm thinking of sewing up an inventory of these sleeves, plus shopping bags and maybe even a couple of aprons, and getting a table at the annual craft fair.

Think anyone would buy this stuff? How much? Please comment below!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that these are insulated with batting and have a velcro closure, which can be adjusted for different cup sizes.

What color should I paint my front door?

I have a yearning for a more creative entry. I'd like to make a statement with the front door color. What color do you think I should paint it?

Please comment with your ideas! Be specific.

UPDATE: I should have told you that I'm thinking of bright yellow or olive green? But I'm not sure about that and I'm open to your ideas.

Coffee sleeve from scraps

Warning: this is an experiment. When I make things from scratch with no pattern, it really is an experiment. This coffee sleeve is made from some scraps I had in my scrap box. It's batted for insulation goodness and, of course, bears the embroidered xbohica. Please pretend that the "model glass" is a paper cup of java from your nearest Starbucks or other favorite coffee house.

Feedback, please? I think the xbohica is too big. What do you think?

No pearls or high-heel pumps required

This is the first of the hand made items I promised to five people before the end of 2009. This vintage-style sissy-girl (-: apron is one that "Leave it to Beaver's" mom, June Cleaver, would have been proud to wear pearls and high-heeled pumps with. It's for my friend Juli, aka @DelilahSparkle.

I've made several aprons from this pattern before. It's easy to assemble and sew and always comes out cute.

Of course, my "xbohica" brand is embroidered on the pocket.

Made from Simplicity pattern #4282.

Green fuzz and ants

There were five kids in my family. I have two brothers and two sisters. My dad worked full time. My mom worked full time. My parents had the “economy” of their marriage figured out perfectly, meaning that they had life/family chores divided. Mom did all the cooking, sewing and most child-rearing. Dad handled finances and could fix or build anything.

I understand why my mother wasn’t in the mood to cook when she came home from work to us, her brood of hungry raucous children. I am totally empathic to her plight. I was a working single mom of two and I’m not ashamed to admit that often, I felt completely overwhelmed when I got home from work and had to feed just a couple of hungry children.

My mom is the best seamstress I’ve ever seen. She can knit, crochet, quilt, pitch a tent, coax an ornery burp from any baby and has made the most beautiful wedding dresses for young brides I’ve ever seen. She’s awesome. She is gifted and wonderful. I’m not judging my mom. But let’s just say that cooking was not always the thing that she was passionate about.

My mom was one of those saintly women who volunteers for the Girl Scouts. She was heavily involved in Girl Scout camp every summer and led a Girl Scout troop. One summer, our troop was camping. We had brought just enough food for each night. There was no extra food. So when I opened the pot by the campfire to stir our dinner (a mixture of macaroni, ground beef and tomato sauce), I was freaked out. Bits of the hamburger were wiggling, moving. I looked more closely.

“Mom!!!” I wailed, aghast. Gross! She came over and looked down at the pot. She locked eyes with me.

“Hush,” she said in an intense whisper, with a hard look. “Hush!” (No one in my family ever said the words “shut up.”)

“But there’s…”

“I said hush!”

She took the wooden spoon from my hand and stirred the pot. Then she put the lid back on and walked away toward the group of girls doing a crafting project.

I looked at her back walking away. I looked at the pot. I knew we were going to eat those ants for dinner. That night, around the campfire, all my friends kept asking me why I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t say a word.

Many times when Mom got home from a long day working in the office at Montgomery Ward, you could see the fatigue in her face. She’d walk in the kitchen, open the refrigerator door and then start pulling things out. On some weeknights the things that were pulled out of the refrigerator were leftovers. Bowls and plates with food from last night. Or last week. Or sometime we couldn’t remember.

If the leftover food had a little moldy spot, there were no worries. Simply scrape off the green fuzzy spots and it’s as good as new. At least that’s what Mom said. Throw it in a pan on the stove and warm it up. It’s dinner. Eat that or make yourself a peanut butter sandwich.

I ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. Or I’d wait until everyone else in the family had finished and then I would throw my food in the trash bin. I was very careful to do it artfully, so as not to have my sin discovered. The correct technique is simple and effective: reach into the bin and lift the top layers of trash up, scrape your food off into the bin and then simply replace the trash that was on the top. Ta-da. No one was the wiser. And I could do this all very quietly.

When I was 16 I had access to my Dad’s old car and I had my driver’s license. Almost every night I ate all by myself at the Taco Time fast-food restaurant. I told Mom I had to do that because I had to eat before theatre rehearsal. It was kind of true, too.

And I still won’t eat leftovers.

I do not want green fuzz and ants.

Don’t stir them in. Don’t scrape them out.
Don’t make me eat them. I will pout.
I do not want them after school. I do not want them in a pool.
I do not want them with some salt. I will not eat them; you must halt.
I do not want green fuzz and ants.
I will not eat them, no. No chance!

Marketing and communications in the business school

BizEd ran a feature about Marketing the business school. My colleagues, Yvonne Martin-Kidd at Vanderbilt, Margaret Andrews at Mind and Hand, Gary McKillips at Georgia State and me are quoted extensively.

Free hand made item from me in 2009

It started on facebook (http://profile.to/c.j.jackson) and spilled over into twitter (http://twitter.com/JacksonCJ1).

I offered to make something for the first five people who responded.

Winners are:
-Franci
- Juli (aka @DelilahSparkle)
- Megan
- Oscar
- Kara (aka @kealex02)

Each winner (LOLing as I write that word) may choose from one of these:
- pair of cloth shopping bags
- apron
- baby wrap
- dog coat

I'll be posting the photos. And I'll be expecting them to send me photos of these items in use!

These gifts will be completed and given before the end of 2009.

Twits, you are on notice!

I love Twitter. Anyone who knows me knows I am totally hooked on the micro-blogging phenom. I started using twitter about 17 months ago and it is now, well, part of my life.

Other people have caught the twitter bug, too. The social media platform has gone from traffic of about 2 million users to more than 15 million users in a matter of 3 months.

Somehow, some twits out there have found me and decided to follow me on twitter. Gradually, that number of followers has started to grow. I have varied interests and so do they. We converse about the things we like. Some like sewing. Some like PBS. Some like NPR. Some like marketing. Some like social media. Some live in Waco and/or work for Baylor. Some love Iowa... like me. I have conversations with them about all of those things, because we share these as interests.

Let me be clear. I am not a big deal in the twitterverse. I don't have tens of thousands of followers. I am not one of the "twiteratti." Again, I am simply interested in having conversations with people who share my interests. I am interested in sharing useful information, ideas, solutions, and having some fun with it along the way.

So, for all you twitter users who are "gaming the system," I would like to put you on notice:

If you have the word CASH or MONEY in your name, I will not follow you. (Updated note: unless that's your real name, of course!)

If you tweet quote after quote after quote from famous (or semi-famous) people, I will not follow you. Have you no original thoughts to add to this conversation?

If you are into multi-level-marketing (MLM), I will not follow you. I do not want to be in your downline, I promise.

If you tweet about getting 1000s of followers in a day (or week or whatever), I will not follow you.

If you tweet that you are getting twitter followers automatically, I will not follow you.

For everyone else: I look forward to joining in that big, messy, tweety conversation with you -- that conversation that is never farther from my reach than a computer or my Blackberry. Thanks for being there, peeps.

Theory: hot chubbies with cheese are recession-proof

Selling hot chubbies with cheese might be the right line of business to be in during these challenging economic times.

I don't go to West, Texas often. West is the name of the city. It's about a half hour north of Waco, about an hour south of Dallas, on I-35. When Mike lived in Dallas, I drove back and forth from Waco often, stopping in West on the way. Now that my family lives in San Antonio and Austin, I don't go north on I-35 from Waco very often. But when I do, the Czech Stop beckons. And I stop.

Kolache (ko-lah-chee): a pastry that may be filled with any number of things, including sausage, cheese, jalapenos, cream cheese, fruit.

I stopped there yesterday on my way back from a work day in Dallas. The traffic was brisk. The line was longer than usual, snaking along the glass pastry cases, around the racks of fresh bread and jars of homemade candies, and almost out the door of the little place. People ordering "hot chubbies with cheese," blueberry kolaches, peach kolaches, cream cheese kolaches, jalapeno kolaches, getting cups of coffee after gassing up their cars outside at the gas pumps.

My theory: kolaches are recession-proof.

I bought a dozen "breakfast sausage" kolaches (filled with breakfast sausage and cheese). I brought them home, wrapped them individually in wax paper, then put them in a big plastic zipper bag and into the freezer. They have to last... until the next time I get there.

A sweet escape: kolaches

The town of West, Texas: "Home of the Official Kolache of the Texas Legislature"

Which tarot card are you?

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.