Tag Archives: Work

Blog Alert: Posts Can Disappear

by

One day last year I wrote a limerick to fit with a cute picture I’d found and I posted it on my old blog, Christine’s Reflections. Yesterday I thought of that poem and decided I’d post it again so I did a search of my blog and found the Post title: “Bad Hair Day.” The title is there, the Likes and Comments are still all there — even the WordPress ad is there — but the post and image have disappeared!

Well! What happened?

Guess I’d better find my own stored copy. So I searched through my word processor and two flash drives looking for a copy and turned up Zilch. Nothing. I must have written it on an impulse, posted it, and not saved a copy. Foolish me!

I wondered if I could find that post by going through my blog’s media file. Sure enough, the image I’d used for the poem was in my media library. It gave the attachment page as “Bad Hair Day” with the date and the link. So I do have a record that I posted it August 29, 2016. Clicking on the link got me back to that title — and the empty post.

This is the second time this year that I searched for a post and found the main part gone. I’d e-mailed the link for one of my short stories to another blogger back around April, he’d read it and commented. A couple of weeks later when I wanted to find that story again and pass on the link, I found the title, the Likes and Comments still intact but the story itself had disappeared. Thankfully I had a backup copy in my file storage.

So what happened to my posts? Has this ever happened to anyone else?

I consulted the folks at Word Press and they say I must have deleted that post — which I definitely did not. I wouldn’t have because I wanted to reblog them someday. Besides, when I’ve deleted posts before, everything is gone: the title, Likes, Comments. There’s no trace it ever existed.

So either there’s some glitch in my/their system and it slurps up post texts, or someone has snitched them. Not just copied, but totally removed.

I was ready to give up hope that my poem would ever show up again when I had a bright idea. My dear husband, bless his heart, subscribes to my blog — and he never deletes his incoming e-mails. I verified the date of the post, went into his In Box, searched through his e-mails for that day — and there was my poem! Sure, it’s not anything brilliant, but we writers are quite attached to our offspring scribblings and don’t want them disappearing.

Note to self: ALWAYS SAVE a copy! that’s why DropBox and flash drives were invented.

Given my own experience I’d advise other bloggers: subscribe to your own blog and save posts when they pop into your In Box. That way you’ll have a record of having posted this item if it should ever disappear and/or show up as someone else’s work. Or partner with a blogger friend to save each other’s posts, at least the poems and stories you may want to use again. Having a record could turn out to be very important.

Copyright reminder to all bloggers:
It’s against the law to help yourself to anyone else’s writings and claim them as your own. This is THEFT and can lead to PROSECUTION. Everything posted on anyone’s blog is automatically protected by international copyright laws; copying and saving someone else’s work without permission — never mind complete removal! — is a crime.

Respecting someone’s work, and giving credit where credit is due, is a basic human decency. Most bloggers are reasonable people and if you ask permission to copy something, assuming it’s for some good purpose and you give them credit as author, they’ll give it.

Lastly, in case you’re wondering about the poem I’m making all this fuss about, I’ll post the picture and limerick in my next post. It may be a silly little verse, but it’s mine. 🙂

The Secret to Being a Model Teacher

by

We’re heading into August and all too soon summer holidays will be over for school students around the world. Recently I have found a couple of inspiring articles about being a teacher and have permission to reblog them so you can be enthused, too.
Let’s all try to encourage our teachers whenever we get the chance. With the situations they face every day they really need someone in their cheering section.

Classfired

teachingministry

Some of my most memorable moments in high school surround a teacher. Pretty strange, isn’t it? I remember her quite vividly – light brown complexion, almond eyes, wavy shoulder-length hair, radiant personality proportionately mixed with an aura of sternness. Mrs Clarke was a model teacher. She brought life to English Literature – a subject often labelled as dull and boring. She always found refreshing ways to engage us. We would view films based on the novels we were studying. And there was that time she had us memorize entire portions of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar so we could perform in class. She even made us mimic that southern drawl while reading Huckleberry Finn. I didn’t realize it at the time but she was my role model.

As much as she was creative with teaching strategies, that’s really not what stands out in my mind the most. What really touched me…

View original post 514 more words

Poetic Insight Needed

by

Good afternoon every one. I decided on Saturday that, with what I have up this week, I’d take a mini-break from blogging. But now I want to ask your opinion on a little verse I plan to include in my book — in fact it’s from this verse that I’ve taken the title.

Going back to last week, I was working on my book, Silver Morning Song, trying to get it ready to be formatted as an e-book. I also had an event to prepare for on Saturday: our local Christian bookstore was sponsoring an event and I was given a two-hour slot at their writers’ book signing tables. This was for The Rescuing Day, the cover of which is displayed at right. (Details in the My Books section under the header.)

It was an interesting day. None of us who brought books had huge sales but you have to count it as an opportunity to get your name out there. I had small postcards made up advertising my book and also my blog; I handed out a number of these and sold a few books.

Now that is behind me and this week I have two heavy irons in the fire. I’m still going over my own book, plus beta reading a book on depression written by Pastor J S Park. So I shut off the e-mail notifications on “Blogs I Follow” to cut down on the distractions while I finish these two projects.

But now I’ve come to this one tiny poem, included in my first compilation four years back. It’s from this haiku that I got the title for my book of poems and short stories.

Silver morning dew
distills on silent farm yard
sleeping cat stretches

But then I titled it Silver Morning and upgraded it to:

Silver morning dew
distills on silent farm yard
sleepy cat stretches
songbirds herald the dawn.

And finally, for more connection to the title of the book, I may tweak the title and publish it like so:

Silver Morning Song

Morning dew distills
on silent farm yard,
sleepy cat stretches,
songbirds herald the dawn
with silver morning song.

So, which do you think sounds better the blue the pink or the green? If you have any opinion or suggestion please leave a comment.  Thanks much!

Old Man Green

by

by Edgar Guest

Old Man Green you’ve never heard of,
papers never used a word of
him or anything he did.
Seems as though his light was hid
day by day from mortal eyes,
wasn’t clever, great or wise;
just a carpenter who made
odds and ends and liked his trade.

Old Man Green lived over there
in that humble cottage, where
five plump babies came to bless
those small rooms with happiness
and as time went on they grew
just as rich men’s children do:
three smart boys and two fine girls
with the prettiest of curls.

Old Man Green from day to day
put up shelves to earn his pay,
took the little that he made
following faithfully his trade
and somehow his wife and he
managed it most carefully
and five children, neat and clean,
answered to the name of Green.

Old Man Green with saw and plane
little from the world could gain,
but with that small sum he earned
many things his children learned.
“Those Green boys,” the teachers said,
“Have the stuff to get ahead.
Finest girls we’ve ever seen,
little Kate and Mary Green.”

This is all there is to tell,
boys and girls are doing well;
each with courage and with grace
fills in life an honored place.
Old Man Green is dead and gone,
but his worth is shining on;
this his praise, if praise be needed,
As a father he succeeded.

From his book The Light of Faith
©1926 by the Reilly & Lee Co.

FATHER

by

by Edgar A Guest

Used to wonder just why Father
Never had much time for play;
used to wonder why he’d rather
work each minute of the day.
Used to wonder why he never
loafed along the road an’ shirked;
can’t recall a time whenever
Father played while others worked.

Father didn’t dress in fashion,
sort of hated clothing new;
style with him was not a passion;
he had other things in view.
Boys are blind to much that’s going
on about them day by day,
and I had no way of knowing
what became of Father’s pay.

All I knew was when I needed
shoes I got ‘em on the spot;
everything for which I pleaded,
somehow Father always got.
Wondered, season after season,
why he never took a rest,
and that I might be the reason
then I never even guessed.

Father set a store on knowledge;
if he’d lived to have his way
he’d have sent me off to college
and the bills been glad to pay.
That, I know, was his ambition;
now and then he used to say
he’d have done his earthly mission
on my graduation day.

Saw his cheeks were getting paler,
didn’t understand just why;
saw his body growing frailer,
then at last I saw him die.
Rest had come! His tasks were ended,
calm was written on his brow;
Father’s life was big and splendid,
and I understand it now.

From his book, A Heap O’ Livin’
© 1916 by The Reilly & Britton Co.

Results and Roses

by

by Edgar Guest

The man who wants a garden fair,
or small or very big,
with flowers growing here and there,
must bend his back and dig.

The things are mighty few on earth
that wishes can attain;
whate’er we want of any worth
we’ve got to work to gain.

It matters not what goal you seek,
its secret here reposes:
you’ve got to dig from week to week
to get results and roses.

From his book, A Heap O’ Livin’
© 1916 by the Reilly & Britton Company

Tales Out of School

by

Mr. Hyde, the Principal, was sitting at his desk one day when his secretary knocked on the door.

“Charlie Johnson’s mother is here asking to see you, sir. Something about a comment the teacher made on her son’s report card.”

“All right, send her in.” He frowned, wondering what sort of complaint he’d have to listen to now. He stood as a thirty-something woman entered his office. “Mrs. Johnson, glad to see you.” He shook her hand politely. “How can I help you?”

She held out a report card. “Mr. Hyde, we need a little clarification on this remark Charlie’s teacher made. We just can’t make it out.”

“In fact,” she continued, “”none of our friends can decipher it, either. We had a bunch in for a party last evening and for fun we passed Charlie’s report card around — even offered a prize if anyone could tell us what it said — but none of them could. So I thought I’d better get the answer from you.”

Hyde opened the report card and looked long and hard at the comment. “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Johnson, but I simply can’t read it. I believe it’s Mr. Thwaite’s writing, though. Let’s get him in here to tell us what it says.”

Mr. Hyde reached for the intercom button by his desk and paged Mr. Thwaite, who came hurrying to the office.

Thwaite glanced at Mrs. Johnson and nodded, then asked, “What can I help you with, Mr. Hyde?”

“I can’t make out what this remark says and Mrs. Johnson here would like to know. Could you kindly interpret it for us.”

Thwaite flushed slightly and took the offered report card. He looked at the indecipherable scribble for a few minutes, looked blankly at the wall, then back at the report card. His face lit up as the light dawned. “Yes, I remember now. It says, ‘Charlie needs to take more care with his handwriting’.”

(A sad but true tale related by Principle Hyde – perhaps at his retirement party? 🙂 )

(Story redone from an old Friendship Book. Originally posted in Christine Composes March 2013)