I just read a blog post from an author who had been sued for using a photo.  She thought she’d offered enough disclaimer and credit and the photographer asked her to remove it, but even once it was removed still moved forward with legal action.

So, then, I guess, the person’s really not making money from taking pictures, per se.

I digress.

I’ve borrowed some photos recently.  It took a lot for me to really start doing that.  But having fallen in with the “switch me over” company that I did, I have this plain vanilla blog.  I need color, movement and texture.  Especially while I am learning to bring my point home in under 1000 words.

The box my camera came in claims 7mp.  I’m telling you…4.  There are preschoolers carrying around devices that offer more resolution and control.  I have tried everything to fit a smartphone for the grown ups into the budget category, and I can’t.

Plus.  The background of my photos is urban decay, one-eyed dogs, and a renovated-but-not-restored-too-small-if-I-want-it-clean-I-can-by-God-clean-it-myself house.  I am taking a lot of pictures. But like the mirror.  I don’t want anyone to see me like I see myself right now.

So…  The borrowed photos are coming down.

The author went on to say that Pinterest is another source of legal exposure.  If you pin something, you claim permission to use it and if the originator takes a mind, they can sue you.  This isn’t the first time I’ve come across this.  The first time I avoided Pinterest entirely for several months.  I just got back on in June.  Now, fun and helpful as it is, I just might delete my account.

SOPA…called me a pirate.  On my birthday.

I took the first recommendation I got on companies who’ll switch you from blogger to wp.  WITH A DESIGN.  I trusted the person making the recommendation because he spoke at [conference] and I liked what he had to say.

They switched me over…  When I asked questions, the agent treated me like I was being difficult.

Look at that design, will ya?

I’ve managed to get to a place where the difficulty of wp doesn’t lodge in my throat the minute I log in, and I’ve found a stat tracker that is more realistic.  I can’t make it stop counting my clicks.  If I try to subtract myself, I find that I have a fistful of people in China.  Carrie.  Jennifer.  Jessica, from time to time.  And if I work SITS  like a pole on a stage, two or three other click-throughs per day.  Mickey once told me he’d heard everything in a particular post before.  So.  He reads sometimes.  We don’t discuss it.

Now, I find that an innocent blogger in pursuit of all due diligence can be sued and lose, anyway.

And even though Pinterest has an element of free advertising, someone very definitely might sue me, anyway.

And to top it all off, I just can’t write.  I have been trying for the last several weeks to just get it moving.  I hate what I read.

What I am free to say amounts to so little.  What my heart screams isn’t bloggable.

I once referred to a story.  It lived in my mind and asked everyday to be written.

It, too, has gone.

This was to be the day that I got organized and made a plan for the growth of the blog.

And the first thing this morning, I received another warning that I am exposed to risk.

And blogging is for someone else.

And now, everyone is asking my why I’m crying.

I’ll tell you why.

Because sometimes we cry when we’re angry.

We started school today.

Sort of.

Soft start.

Choir Camp is Aug. 6-8

And co-op doesn’t actually start until the 24th!!!!

But we had a problem.

Too much time on our hands was causing us to get into trouble.

And we were getting stoopid.

So.  Part of every day, we are going to be doing school work all at the same time.

And mommy is going to be learning.

Mommy is going to figure out where to go with this blog thing.

No, seriously.

I always have.

Clean Slate.

Back to School.  New Year’s, which is really December 26 because what really gets done between Christmas and Jan 2 or 3? Your Birthday.

And every single Monday.

Tomorrow morning.  New start.

1) Getting ready for 2012-2013 school while supervising You-Know-What.

2 )Lesson planning. (Makes me crave Camels and Night Train).

3) Searching Speech Therapy Services. (One of the things I spare you).

4) Getting the Laundry done. (Glamourous, I know.).

5) Cleaning the fridge. (Jealous?)

6) Doing the banking. (Won’t take long.)

7) Looking at the calendar– Starting Co-op in August, Boy having surgery in September.  Seriously.  Already scheduling the rest of the year.

8) Schedule whichever charity has home pick-up to get some larger items that I need to get out of our way.

9) Scouting extra-curriculars for the boy. He really needs to be busy. It’s what he likes best.

10) Went to the salon, Saturday.  That was the ‘me-time’ for this week.  Friday is our 21st anniversary.  ‘We-time’.  This year, we will resume our tradition of going to the best steakhouse. EVER. There may be someone from Cattle Country reading.  I realize the implications of what I’m saying.  I haven’t had a steak in two years.  I have no idea what to give Mickey.

11) Figure out what to do with this blog.  ‘Track That Stat” says I have hundreds of ‘visits’ per day.  How do I refine my focus?  Keep some of those people here?  Zero people follow by email.  I don’t need to figure out ‘What’, I need to figure out, ‘How.”  I need a look.  I’m like a blank paper.  What else?  Is backstage as simple and helpful as it can be?

12) Mop.

Come to think of it, I don’t think much of Monday, after all.

If anybody’s out there…  and not out sipping a Dos Equis and being interesting, “Psst.”

I’m about to wrap ‘er up for this week.

Got robbed.

Updated our life insurance.  (Turns out, it costs more to insure people in their mid-forties than in their late twenties.  Apparently, my stupidity didn’t offset my robust good health in my 20s, and yet, my increased wisdom and caution, earned from a lot of non-fatal hard knocks, doesn’t seem to cover the spread where my statistical likelihood of dropping dead is concerned. Ironic.)

Freaking Algebra, need I say, not done?  I’m getting desperate enough to do what I should have done in the first place.  Nothing.  Not one entertainment of any description.  Not so much as a word search or the restful quiet of a solitary poop. UNTIL IT IS DONE.

Power was out for about 4 hours last week.  At the moment my anxiety about my “first world problems” was about to spin out of control.  It came back on.  Whew.  I don’t know what might have happened if Mickey would have had to sleep without his fan.  Or what if I needed to call…  an ambulance.

Right.

Cat pees in places that are not his box.

We need phones.  Mine has a crank on the side.  All the paint’s off Mickey’s.  Who knew they painted them?  Not me.  The girls need them so they will stop bugging me to get one.  The relative weight of the responsibility/annoyance conundrum, has shifted.

We looked at a car. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve seen in a little while.  Seats 8. Integrated child seat.  My motor’s running already.

1D.  Every time they watch a You Tube video, they are all,”What does that mean?”  I’ll tell you what it means!  Harry likes sex.  Not cats. (Brits!  He uses cat instead of the P word.)

It’s been a strenuous week.  I am about to put this one in the can.  It’s a wrap.

Up in the pipeline?

-the aforementioned cultural lockdown per unfinished business.

-registration for the coming school year.

-lesson planning so we can start so we can finish (aim high, I know.)

-audition distractions from the boy band.

Good Night. The quicker I end today, the quicker I get to tomorrow.

Thanks for being quiet coming in from your fabulous party.