Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

Retargeting? Remarketing? It's all in the cookie. Sponsored Ad for Kirkus Reviews Ads following you? I am sure you have noticed that you are on one site and then next thing you know the very thing you were looking at starts showing up as "Sponsored Ads" on other websites you visit. Facebook is a prime example of where ads follow me. I had just been looking at where I could get a review of my book, you know the one I've been talking about writing since forever? Well, since I encourage myself to dawdle and delay and not actually WRITE, it seemed a good idea to look at how to get a Kirkus review for my non-existent book. Retargeting or remarketing, regardless of what you call it, it seems creepy to me. Interest-based advertising This is the world of interest-based advertising apparently. You show an interest  in something and then pay the price afterwards.  Everywhere that Google Ads are served is fair game to give you that "nudge" to buy...

Pigeon Point, Tobago - My new profile pic! Blogger vs Google+ ? Creating a brand? My head is spinning! You may notice that I've updated my profile picture, both here as well as on my social media accounts. I've also moved away from the CEO Human Capital blog name and embraced the persona "Austin Trini". Please update your bookmarks accordingly (because I know you have my site bookmarked if not subscribed to receive my feed the instant I post). Why change? When I first started as CEO, Family Human Capital, I had just become the stay-at-home parent/homemaker/domestic executive. I was in charge of the family human capital: my children. By now, I have to admit to myself (and yes to the world), that I have succumbed to the twin evils of laziness and selfishness. Laziness because I am not improving their human capital at all (and if you ask them, I am in fact doing the opposite of that). Frankly, as my children get older, I am less and less able to inf...

Gender and Stereotypes I appear to be quite fascinated by gender differences and stereotypes. Why? Well, it is a topic I find myself repeating. The first time I blogged about gender was way back in 2009 when I was trying to figure out how come boys become boys. Then I pointed out the differences between my husband's reading shelf and mine in 2012 and most recently when I talked about the boys' and girls' soccer team names in 2013. More Gender Stereotypes Well, I recently visited my son's class to help with a writing assignment - the assignment was to write a "how-to" report: procedural writing. It is always enjoyable to see how they think, and the things that are top-of-mind for them. Here are some of the topics the kids chose - HTML Tables Topic Gender How to braid your hair Girl How to do the highschool cheer Girl How to do the crow (a yoga) pose Girl How to lace your ice-skates Girl How to tie your laces Girl, but f...

This is my update post on things that you may not have been hearing much about recently. First up, summer camp. First Day Science Camp (to Lucas) "So what did you do today?" "We learnt about cells" He hands me a model of  a cell - a round, clear plastic container with stuff floating around in a clear liquid. Me pointing to something in it, "So, what's this? Is this the nucleus?" "No!", looks at me, "It's a cotton ball."  My Writing I've scaled back my ambitions to writing something very small that I can complete. A book for my 2-yr old. Well, I've finished the words and I am trying very hard to get time to illustrate it (at least roughly), for my own benefit to see how it could work. And that is where I've been for a few weeks. I did a few sketches and realized that I need to do some more. An illustrator I am not. My Vitiligo It's been a while since my last post about my condition. Since then, ...

It's been some time since I wrote about my writing (yes, that does sound odd), and I wanted to give everyone an update. I realized that in the last post referencing my writing Are you brave? , I didn't actually admit that I was working on an article to submit to a magazine (example of me being not brave). Well, I finished the article, submitted it and was rejected forthwith. Unsurprisingly, the comment back was while "good" it wasn't appropriate for the readership of the magazine I'd selected. I re-wrote the article, re-submitted it and haven't heard back. I'd planned to follow-up in two weeks which turned into three then four. The truth is, once I had written the piece, it wasn't urgent anymore and I lost interest in it. Who knows, it might make an appearance on this blog at some point in the future. In the meantime I am working on a submission (1,500 words or less) to the Writer's Digest annual competition . Sad to admit, but what I am...

(I know I need show some pictures of Trinidad and finish my post, but this seemed to be more important to post, besides, my BROTHER who owes me some pics, hasn't sent them on yet.) I can't exactly recall what we were talking about, but Lucas mentioned that he thought I was brave. "So babe, why do you say so?" "Well you try to play video games with me even though you don't know the games and you don't play well." At least he was honest about it and since I am very happy to accept any praise from my children, I lapped it up. But as we are on the topic of cowardice :) you might be wondering about my writing. Even if you aren't the least bit interested, I'm going to tell you. I went to a free writing workshop in the library which I enjoyed. (It was on memoir writing facilitated by Ms. Spike Gillespie ). One writing exercise was to write about one decade in your life using 3 words to describe each year. At the end of it, a few participants re...

I was at our monthly book club meeting recently (and yes, I do go to those because it is in a 3-block radius of my home and it is after baby sleeps), and someone was talking about her sister-in-law's blog. She was shocked at the kinds of posts that make it to the blog. Me, not so much anymore. I can see my internal machinations creeping into my own blog. I started off talking a lot about what I did in the day, then I realized that my more recent posts have been about what I think. I know that people post for many reasons, and I initially started as a test to myself to see if I could write anything remotely interesting and then if I could sustain a blog or if I really only had like 2 ideas and that was it. A few months on, I think I am doing ok. (Still not so sure that this is interesting to anyone but me.) As a blogger it is very easy to view the post as your own personal diary, and to ignore the fact that any Tom, Dick and Jane could be reading it...and do! But then, you don...