Why are we going?
Even though darkbluesun.com isn’t the most obvious address for us to move to. 🙂 The girls were so gracious as to agree to start blogging there (at my old personal blog) so that I may work more with my self-hosted site (on a regular basis) and not be bound by the limits of a wordpress.com blog.
Are we still going to continue writing about our work at home life?
Absolutely. In fact, now we will be able to incorporate even more interaction with you as we integrate Facebook and you’ll be able to connect to us on Facebook directly from there. Or at least we get to work more with the recommendations plug-ins and such.
What about all of the content that is already here? Will we still be able to get to it?
Yes.
Isn’t it tacky to just duplicate the content have it in both places online?
Yes. So this is what we are going to do. While we are going to leave the posts up at this location, many will be changed to a type of excerpt with a link to the full article at darkbluesun.com. We are doing this for the purpose of making sure that when people pull up a search result that has already been indexed, they won’t just get a message saying that this content doesn’t exist anymore.
We will leave this blog up and then when all of the darkbluesun.com’s links are indexed properly, we will have the option to delete this blog.
For those of you in the SEO business, this will make more sense. For everyone else just know that this process does take a long time when it is done correctly.
Wow, 2010 was a great year wasn’t it? In fact, it seems odd already talking about it in the past tense! Well, we three virtual assistants decided in December of 2009 that we would try writing together for a year. And so, we did! We plan on continuing our venture too, I’ll give you more details next week. For now though, I want to share this message we received from the people at WordPress.com letting us know how we did. And this is what it said…
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,500 times in 2010. That’s about 16 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 123 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 126 posts. There were 142 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 11mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.
The top referring sites in 2010 were stumbleupon.com, facebook.com, twitter.com, linkedin.com, and hootsuite.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for computer humor, it’s a work at home life, virtual office working at home and balancing family life, kids addicted to facebook, and virtual personal assistant.
Our Attractions in 2010
These are each of our posts that got the most hits in 2010.
Filed under: 31 Days of Wishes — Jennifer Gallaher - VAbyJen @ 12:56 pm
This is my last post of the year and since we have been contributing to the 31 Days of Wishes, I thought it would be appropriate to end on that note.
My last wish for you all is to have fun! Now that all of the stresses of the holidays are passing, take this opportunity to see the fun in your day. For me, watching my son get excited to see his big sister puts together his Thomas the Train Mega Bloks train station is fun. Seeing the sheer admiration for his big sister never gets old.
What about work? This can be fun too! Especially if you truly enjoy what you do. Maybe putting on some music and zoning out while cranking out that last big project of the year is fun for you. Or, how about the fun of actually accomplishing everything on your to-do-list? May that doesn’t sound fun to you, but you can make it fun. Try making a game out of completing things off of your list. Create mini goals and set up a little reward system for yourself that you take advantage of once you complete your goals. Just remember to make it fun! Here are a few fun or silly rewards you can use:
Turn up a song you absolutely love and dance to it (Try “Mickey” by Toni Basil) – silly I know, but how fun!
By your favorite-of-the-moment song from iTunes
Read the next chapter a book you’ve been dying to finish
Create a voice recording for someone you haven’t seen in a while and email it out.
Play drums on your desk along with a song you like (Try “We Will Rock You” by Queen)  –  come on, you know you want to!
The whole point of this exercise and post, for that matter, is to get back to finding the fun in the little everyday things you experience. Stop and slow down once in a while and experience life.Â
It feels sort of surreal for me to have this year behind me.
With graduation and having both kids in school I have been fortunate to have a LOT of changes that lead me to have more time to manage for work and home life!
As with any change it has taken so much energy and dedication to make the right adjustments to get the benefits of that change.
2011 is the year that I will see even more of those benefits!
We have decided to go ahead and move our blog to my self-hosted WordPress site so that we will no longer be limited by the wordpress.com blog rules. 🙂
I received this little story this morning forwarded to me by my mom, so I don’t know where it originated. If anyone recognizes who the original owner is, please let me know so that I can give proper credit to him/her.Â
At any rate, I realized that this was a perfect “wish” and I wanted to share it with you. Â
Christmas at the Gas Station
The old man sat in his gas station on a cold Christmas Eve. He hadn’t been anywhere in years since his wife had passed away. It was just another day to him. He didn’t hate Christmas, just couldn’t find a reason to celebrate. He was sitting there looking at the snow that had been falling for the last hour and wondering what it was all about when the door opened and a homeless man stepped through.
Instead of throwing the man out, Old George as he was known by his customers, told the man to come and sit by the heater and warm up. “Thank you, but I don’t mean to intrude,” said the stranger. “I see you’re busy, I’ll just go.”
“Not without something hot in your belly.” George said.
He turned and opened a wide mouth Thermos and handed it to the stranger. “It ain’t much, but it’s hot and tasty. Stew …. Made it myself. When you’re done, there’s coffee and it’s fresh.”
Just at that moment he heard the “ding” of the driveway bell. “Excuse me, be right back,” George said. There in the driveway was an old ’53 Chevy. Steam was rolling out of the front. The driver was panicked. “Mister can you help me!” said the driver, with a deep Spanish accent. “My wife is with child and my car is broken.” George opened the hood. It was bad. The block looked cracked from the cold, the car was dead.
“You ain’t going in this thing,” George said as he turned away.
“But Mister, please help …” The door of the office closed behind George as he went inside. He went to the office wall and got the keys to his old truck, and went back outside. He walked around the building, opened the garage, started the truck and drove it around to where the couple was waiting. “Here, take my truck,” he said. “She ain’t the best thing you ever looked at, but she runs real good.”
George helped put the woman in the truck and watched as it sped off into the night. He turned and walked back inside the office. “Glad I gave ’em the truck, their tires were shot too. That ‘ol truck has brand new .” George thought he was talking to the stranger, but the man had gone. The Thermos was on the desk, empty, with a used coffee cup beside it. “Well, at least he got something in his belly,” George thought.
George went back outside to see if the old Chevy would start. It cranked slowly, but it started. He pulled it into the garage where the truck had been. He thought he would tinker with it for something to do. Christmas Eve meant no customers. He discovered the block hadn’t cracked, it was just the bottom hose on the radiator. “Well, shoot, I can fix this,” he said to himself. So he put a new one on.
“Those tires ain’t gonna get ’em through the winter either.” He took the snow treads off of his wife’s old Lincoln. They were like new and he wasn’t going to drive the car anyway.
As he was working, he heard shots being fired. He ran outside and beside a police car an officer lay on the cold ground. Bleeding from the left shoulder, the officer moaned, “Please help me.”
George helped the officer inside as he remembered the training he had received in the Army as a medic. He knew the wound needed attention. “Pressure to stop the bleeding,” he thought. The uniform company had been there that morning and had left clean shop towels. He used those and duct tape to bind the wound. “Hey, they say duct tape can fix anythin’,” he said, trying to make the policeman feel at ease.
“Something for pain,” George thought. All he had was the pills he used for his back. “These ought to work.” He put some water in a cup and gave the policeman the pills. “You hang in there, I’m going to get you an ambulance.”
The phone was dead. “Maybe I can get one of your buddies on that there talk box out in your car.” He went out only to find that a bullet had gone into the dashboard destroying the two-way radio.
He went back in to find the policeman sitting up. “Thanks,” said the officer. “You could have left me there. The guy that shot me is still in the area.”
George sat down beside him, “I would never leave an injured man in the Army and I ain’t gonna leave you.” George pulled back the bandage to check for bleeding. “Looks worse than what it is. Bullet passed right through ‘ya. Good thing it missed the important stuff though. I think with time you’re gonna be right as rain.”
George got up and poured a cup of coffee. “How do you take it?” he asked.
“None for me,” said the officer.
“Oh, yer gonna drink this. Best in the city. Too bad I ain’t got no donuts.” The officer laughed and winced at the same time.
The front door of the office flew open. In burst a young man with a gun. “Give me all your cash! Do it now!” the young man yelled. His hand was shaking and George could tell that he had never done anything like this before.
“That’s the guy that shot me!” exclaimed the officer.
“Son, why are you doing this?” asked George, “You need to put the cannon away. Somebody else might get hurt.”
The young man was confused. “Shut up old man, or I’ll shoot you, too. Now give me the cash!”
The cop was reaching for his gun. “Put that thing away,” George said to the cop, “we got one too many in here now.”
He turned his attention to the young man. “Son, it’s Christmas Eve. If you need money, well then, here. It ain’t much but it’s all I got. Now put that pea shooter away.”
George pulled $150 out of his pocket and handed it to the young man, reaching for the barrel of the gun at the same time. The young man released his grip on the gun, fell to his knees and began to cry. “I’m not very good at this am I? All I wanted was to buy something for my wife and son,” he went on. “I’ve lost my job, my rent is due, my car got repossessed last week.”
George handed the gun to the cop. “Son, we all get in a bit of squeeze now and then. The road gets hard sometimes, but we make it through the best we can.”
He got the young man to his feet, and sat him down on a chair across from the cop. “Sometimes we do stupid things.” George handed the young man a cup of coffee. “Bein’ stupid is one of the things that makes us human. Comin’ in here with a gun ain’t the answer. Now sit there and get warm and we’ll sort this thing out.”
The young man had stopped crying. He looked over to the cop. “Sorry I shot you. It just went off. I’m sorry officer.”
“Shut up and drink your coffee ” the cop said.
George could hear the sounds of sirens outside. A police car and an ambulance skidded to a halt. Two cops came through the door, guns drawn. “Chuck! You ok?” one of the cops asked the wounded officer.
“Not bad for a guy who took a bullet. How did you find me?”
“GPS locator in the car. Best thing since sliced bread. Who did this?” the other cop asked as he approached the young man.
Chuck answered him, “I don’t know. The guy ran off into the dark. Just dropped his gun and ran.”
George and the young man both looked puzzled at each other.
“That guy work here?” the wounded cop continued.
“Yep,” George said, “just hired him this morning. Boy lost his job.”
The paramedics came in and loaded Chuck onto the stretcher. The young man leaned over the wounded cop and whispered, “Why?”
Chuck just said, “Merry Christmas boy … and you too, George, and thanks for everything.”
“Well, looks like you got one doozy of a break there. That ought to solve some of your problems.”
George went into the back room and came out with a box. He pulled out a ring box. “Here you go, something for the little woman. I don’t think Martha would mind. She said it would come in handy some day.”
The young man looked inside to see the biggest diamond ring he ever saw. “I can’t take this,” said the young man. “It means something to you.”
“And now it means something to you,” replied George. “I got my memories. That’s all I need.”
George reached into the box again. An airplane, a car and a truck appeared next. They were toys that the oil company had left for him to sell. “Here’s something for that little man of yours.”
The young man began to cry again as he handed back the $150 that the old man had handed him earlier.
“And what are you supposed to buy Christmas dinner with? You keep that too,” George said. “Now git home to your family.”
The young man turned with tears streaming down his face. “I’ll be here in the morning for work, if that job offer is still good.”
“Nope. I’m closed Christmas day,” George said. “See ya the day after.”
George turned around to find that the stranger had returned. “Where’d you come from? I thought you left?”
“I have been here. I have always been here,” said the stranger. “You say you don’t celebrate Christmas. Why?”
“Well, after my wife passed away, I just couldn’t see what all the bother was. Puttin’ up a tree and all seemed a waste of a good pine tree. Bakin’ cookies like I used to with Martha just wasn’t the same by myself and besides I was gettin’ a little chubby.”
The stranger put his hand on George’s shoulder. “But you do celebrate the holiday, George. You gave me food and drink and warmed me when I was cold and hungry. The woman with child will bear a son and he will become a great doctor.
The policeman you helped will go on to save 19 people from being killed by terrorists. The young man who tried to rob you will make you a rich man and not take any for himself. That is the spirit of the season and you keep it as good as any man.”
George was taken aback by all this stranger had said. “And how do you know all this?” asked the old man.
“Trust me, George. I have the inside track on this sort of thing. And when your days are done you will be with Martha again.”
The stranger moved toward the door. “If you will excuse me, George, I have to go now. I have to go home where there is a big celebration planned.”
George watched as the old leather jacket and the torn pants that the stranger was wearing turned into a white robe. A golden light began to fill the room.
“You see, George … it’s My birthday. Merry Christmas.”
George fell to his knees and replied, “Happy Birthday, Lord Jesus”.
Now, I realize that the ending of this story has a slight religious tone to it, but I believe the context of the story is what is important. The true meaning of Christmas is not how  many gifts you can buy or for that matter, how many you receive; it’s the little things you do for others out of the goodness of your heart all throughout the year, including Christmas day that counts! Let’s remember to take care of our fellow men and women when we see a need arise.
And for those of you who are young at heart like me, Christmas just isn’t the same without a little bit of Charlie Brown.  Even he finds out what the true meaning of Christmas is all about. Gotta love that tree, too! 🙂
This is the last post here at workathomelife.wordpress.com. I have been working in my (very scarce) spare time to get us moved to darkbluesun.com.
What a crazy year! Right? 
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