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The Random Rebel Coffee Blog:

Lifestyle HUMOR from The Rebel Housewife: Anecdotes, observations, experiences
On LIFE AT 30 & BEYOND: kids, family, men, BOOKS, cars, pets, tattoos...NASCAR, Aspergers/Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Virtual/Home Schooling, teenagers, Navy Mom...




Wednesday
Jul072004

The Early Morning Hours

It's 5:30 a.m. I'm up. I tried for an hour to just go back to sleep--to snuggle in across the bed from hubby, with one child sprawled out in-between, and the other child gently snoring away on the "kid bed" on the floor (a fold-out futon cushion that has been a lifesaver for our marriage!). The third child is away at Camp Aunt Joan for a couple of weeks, or I'm sure he'd be in the bedroom with us too. The dog decided it was time to get up and get outside--I don't blame her.

This summer schedule is rough, even though I have one kid away and the other two were at pre-school and camp all day yesterday--finally a break, and a chance to catch up, after several long weeks of the full-time, at-home thing with one or more children--and in-laws too!

By the end of the day, I'm still exhausted. Hubby and I are on a staggered schedule--the whole "ships passing the night" thing. We're both up early, but then he stays up late to catch up on "The Daily Show" (his mental pressure release) on Tivo, after we finally get the kids to bed. (They start off in their own beds.) I tip over early, and finally sneak off to bed to read a little while I wait for him...and usually pass out with the light on, holding my book. Dead to the world. There will be no sex (again) tonight. He carefully puts my bookmark in place, turns out the lights, and claims his territory on the bed against whatever child will appear in the middle of the night seeking asylum from bad dreams or monsters under the bed.

Because I fell asleep so early, I wake up early...and here I am...
By the way, THE NEW WEBSITE IS UP--AND IT'S FABULOUS!
Thanks to my wonderful (if somewhat frustrated) (in more than one way) hubby for helping me with the technical stuff--he's the BEST!
Stop by and visit http://www.rebelhousewife.com!
Tuesday
Jul062004

Happy 4th of July!

Two days later--we survived the long holiday weekend with in-laws visiting and Tiger's 4th birthday! The website is DONE (for now) and will be live and online in the next couple of days as the update works its way around the world through the magic of the Internet. I hope you like it! I'll have the first ezine update out this week--pulling out classic columns and reviews until I can get back on a weekly writing schedule after the RTIR Publicity Summit NEXT WEEK!
Thursday
Jul012004

RTIR National Publicity Summit - Prep for The Big Time

Today was definitely a stressful, hectic Rebel Housewife kind of day. The in-laws are visiting, which is great, but I actually feel the need to keep the house and kids under some degree of control and act the calm, collected Mommy, and put together meals...not easy when I'm trying to be The Rebel Housewife too!

Website Update: Still working on it! But it's coming together and looking GREAT and will be 'live' in the next couple of days.

Preparing for the RTIR (Radio Television Interview Report) National Publicity Summit in New York, July 14 - 17th--less than two weeks away! This is a gathering of about 100 authors and publicity seekers, meeting face-to-face with 50 - 70 media people: television producers, journalists, agents and publishers to pitch for publicity, i.e. Who am I and Why I should be on your show...and it's more complicated than "because I wrote this great book!" They don't want to talk about the book itself--that would be a commercial--they want a full-fledged segment idea for their show or publication--What can you do for the show, our ratings, and our audience/readers?

It's a shift in thinking about what I'll actually be doing when I sit down on the couch with Oprah (for example! ;-). I'm learning--

These last several weeks before the Publicity Summit, the great people at Bradley Communications (publishers of RTIR and Book Marketing Update--another great publication for authors) are offering teleconference training, personal consultations, and opportunities to practice and perfect The Pitch, before we get face-to-face with the media people.

Today was my first opportunity to practice the pitch--I was SO nervous! Everything that could go wrong prior to my appointed time did go wrong, so I didn't have a chance to prepare as well as I had planned, and I was frazzled. I listened to the man before me go through his pitch and he was incredible--very polished, smooth, interesting and entertaining. "Please don't make me go right after him..."

Sure enough, 10 minutes early, Steve Harrison asked if Sherri Caldwell (that's me!) was on the line...gulp! Suddenly I really wasn't nervous at all--I gave my pitch, 2 1/2 minutes of intro and enticement...and I waited to be picked apart (they can be quite frank and brutally honest--constructive criticism, which is great, but still...) "That was great!" "REALLY?!" Whew!

We went on to talk about fleshing out my pitch with some concrete ideas and examples, and how I could make my tips and strategies "visual". He also suggested I think about how to make the pitch appeal to a male audience as well...and my 10 minutes was over just like that--it was GREAT! I can do this!

Of course, as soon as I got off the phone, I was off and running all day long with the kids and the in-laws, and then worked on the website tonight, so I haven't had a chance to sit down and flesh it out, but I will--I'm putting together a one-page pitch presentation to take with me and hand to the media people.

I can't believe it's less than two weeks away!
Thursday
Jun242004

Wednesday's News...

I spent the day at Six Flags with my 9-year-old son and his buddy--woo hoo! Actually, the boys were great; we had a great time. I get to go back next week with my 6-year-old daughter and her 1st grade class! (Thanks, Six Flags, for the Six Flags Six Hour Reading Program--the kids read to earn a free ticket to the park, Mom gets to pay her own way, plus parking, plus (overpriced) food, drinks, and extras! (Although there were no extras today--I'm not that cool.)

In other news, I am trying to move my blog over from www.rebelhousewife.blogspot.com. Technical issues--something that should be so easy...isn't! We'll see how that goes, but I like it here at Squarespace. I liked Blogger, too, but I can do a lot more over here with Squarespace Website Management (http://www.squarespace.com).
Tuesday
Jun222004

NEW www.RebelHousewife.com IN PROGRESS!

Brand-new & improved website is now in progress...you will see many changes in the hours and days ahead. Please feel free to comment! Try the COMMENT FEATURE here (I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm working on it!) or send email to sherri@rebelhousewife.com.