by jphilo | Feb 24, 2014 | Current Events
Today’s post is devoted to monkey business, courtesy of the email marketing service, Mail Chimp. That’s the service I use for a quarterly newsletter at Different Dream, my special needs website. The company held a drawing and pulled our my name as the winner Freddie, their little mascot.
Freddie’s kinda cute, about four inches tall, and he’s made of plastic. He’s also quite versatile, with arms that can be positioned in the picture above and the one below.
And even like this:
The view from the back isn’t bad, either. Especially if you’re into back packs. And heart-shaped butt tattoos.
The problem with Freddie is that he doesn’t fit in with the Purgeal Vortex theme I’ve been pursuing with a vengeance for the past two months. The massive purge has continued unabated for 7 Saturdays in a row, and my clutter tolerance is at an all time low. So Freddie has to go.
And, since he came to this house via a drawing, I’d like to select his new home in the same way. To enter the drawing, go to Different Dream and sign up for the quarterly newsletter by March 1, 2014. (Scroll down to locate it on the right hand side of the page.) Those who already receive the newsletter can enter by leaving a comment below by March 1, 2014. I’ll email the winner about mailing information and send Freddie in his original box, so he’ll be worth oodles more as a collector’s item in 50 years.
Quite the deal, huh? Who can resist, huh? Don’t everyone head over there at once!
by jphilo | Sep 30, 2009 | Book Updates
Yesterday one of my writer friends directed me to a snazzy feature available at the Amazon web page for A Different Dream for My Child. Now, I knew the page was the place to buy the book, which you’re all welcome to do if you have some spare dollars burning a hole in your pocket. But I didn’t know that partway down the page were the statistics about how the book was selling. I’m not sure if the information is available to the general public, but somehow it shows up for me. Hmm.
Initially, I thought this feature was just about the coolest thing ever. Especially since my book was #17 in the category of Books > Children’s Books > Religions > Christianity > Devotional. Of course, that was before I realized what you may already have noticed. Different Dream is categorized as a children’s book, which it’s not. But still, I decided, when I discovered that narrow category had over 100 books in it, my baby was holding its own.
And this morning, when I checked the stats again, I was overjoyed to see Different Dream at #12 in its narrow category, and it had cracked the top #100 in the wider category of all Christian devotional books. “How about them apples?” I was thinking as my emotions soared. “Best sellers list, here I come.”
I was pretty smug, dollar signs dancing in my eyes, until I had to go to the page again this afternoon (Okay, so I didn’t have to go to the page; I just wanted to) and saw it had dropped to #27 in its narrow category, which as we know is the wrong category, and my spirits plunged.
By this point I was fed up, tired of my feelings rising and plummeting like those pesky line graphs we made in junior high math class. I hated making them way back when, and now here my innards were, an emotional facsimile of the same, dratted things. Dry, boring statistics I didn’t know existed had invaded and taken control of my life. Eww!
But, no more. From now on, to the best of my ability, I resolve to ignore the Amazon statistics. And I will implement that resolution after checking my stats one last time.
Bummer. #31
by jphilo | Aug 21, 2009 | Book Updates
The first copy of
A DIfferent Dream for My Child:
Meditations for Parents of Critically or Chronically
Ill Children
was safely delivered on August 20, 2009
to Jolene Philo
Length: 267 pages
Gestation Period: Three years
Available for viewing: Immediately
Available for purchase: September 1, 2009
Purchase Locations:
Discovery House Publisher (receive a 10% discount)
Amazon
Christian Book Distributors
Christian Book Stores
Signed copies can be purchased from their mother, Jolene Philo.
by jphilo | Feb 27, 2009 | Out and About
Okay, go ahead and laugh. We’re not in California and won’t get there until this evening since our morning flight to Minneapolis was delayed (mandatory rest for crew) so we missed our connecting flight. Our new flight doesn’t leave until later this afternoon, so Hiram and I are enjoying a day in the Omaha airport. Guess we can check that one off our Bucket Lists.
My sister, who drove to the Minneapolis airport through the snow, made her connection just fine. And to think that last night we were congratulating ourselves for picking the cheaper Omaha flight and missing the Minnesota snowstorm we would have driven through to fly out with her. She’s a really good sister. She didn’t even say “I told you so.”
But to wet my ocean whistle, I found this photo I took a few years ago. My friend, Helen, and I had a great afternoon, walking on the Atlantic beach and wading through the warm August ocean. After visiting Helen for a few days, I went to a writers’ conference near Boston. At that conference I hatched the idea for A Different Dream for My Child with the woman who advocated for my book and Discovery House Publishers and is now my editor.
This morning, we chatted with our linemates as we inched toward the ticket counter. We talked about our jobs and my book came up. One man asked how he could buy the book. He and his wife have one child, a five-year-old son with severe autism. I directed him to my website and gave him my business card, wishing the book was already published. Suddenly, the line moved. He went one way, we went another.
Afterwards I realized I didn’t know his name. But his son’s a beautiful, brown-eyed boy named Conner. And Conner’s dad said what every parent who needs the book says when they hear its title. “That’s exactly what it is,” he said. “A Different Dream, not a bad one.”
His attitude put one less day at the beach in perspective. It’s a different dream, not a bad one.
