Today

Later this morning we have lunch w/the newest granddaughter to graduate HS, and she applied to and was accepted by UT. That’s very special, like her! ❤️

After that, back to the attempt to get ready for the holidays 😊

Now if summer would just go away, lol!

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Yesterday

Morning
Coffee!
Peruvian Organic til I can get CR again!

Short walk in the cooler than normal morning.

Made breakfast first time in over a week. Bran flakes with chopped grapes, chopped strawberries – ok, chopped everything, lol! Including the bananas, raspberries, blackberries and, uh, no, not the blueberries 😊

Added sunflower and pumpkin seeds, then glops of plain organic yogurt.

Unsweetened. Like most any/all of the name or store brands. The variety is really nice.

Who needs the added sugar of flavored yogurt with all that good fruit (embedded in fiber no less!)

Added Vanilla Almond milk, also unsweetened; then crumbles of fresh (store-bought) walnuts. I seem to get good consistency from the Premium pieces and halves from Trader Joe’s (also Amazon if u need delivered!) The best of them I pull and put in Sheila’s plastic walnuts-to-go container.

I don’t mind. I snatch a few from there during the day too 😊

Did experience a mild nausea this time after breakfast and took my 1st anti-nausea med since first 2 days after surgery (a week ago today!)

And as has been the pattern with this and what I call my anti-bloat pill I was needing to take before my gallbladder surgery, got ferociously hungry!

Had an extra banana. Then an apple pudding. An energy bar. A slice of Vermont white (cheese). Cut up one carrot into tiny slices Sheila adds to & softens/cooks with her meals for us recently – but – kept one 1 inch medium size chunk to test, ie, chew.

I chewed it slowly. I chewed it more than usual. Then swallowed it down.

It stuck, for only a moment, but it stuck, in the middle of my throat, slightly higher than where my esophagus had been straighten / narrowed, above my repaired Category 4 hiatal hernia repair – and for one brief moment – panicked.

And the well chewed obviously too large too dry (absorbed the moisture in my esophagus, as warned by my dr) so tasty organic carrot, went down.

Past the hiatal hernia repair, and into my stomach.

I literally could feel it!

The surgeon had said I could “test” certain portions and foods, and might be another week before I could re-add breads and meats, ‘cause of the way they’d absorb the moisture on the way down my throat, and “unpleasant” was – obviously – the warning bell, not the potential full concern.

So hungry or not, I’ll survive til Sheila fixes lunch later today 😊

Late Morning
Struggling to post something on FB, Instagram, and even Twitter, saying, I’ve had a couple of operations, haven’t been able to check msgs or comments or follows. But, very..definitely..will!

Did go to a very nice post my wife put up which had dozens of comments & well wishes, and finally responded to all those good people 💕

And, did post/pin a general info thing about why I’d been absent lately.

It’s a start 😊

Noon
Got a funny call from Sheila after her cardio class pretending she was one of the “many” automated health provider calls checking up on me. Seeing if I need to speak w/a real person too! Didn’t tell her about the carrot-incident. Figured best in person, make a joke about it, you know, wing it 😊

Meanwhile, had her on the phone….

“Is this…Felipe..Adan..Ler-ma?”

“No.

“I didn’t understand you. Are you….”

“Yes.” (via made up Spanish-like language) 😊

“Please press (whatever #) for another language”

“Beep” (I think I sounded like a real phone!)

“I’m sorry. We will try again later —“

“No! I’m here! It’s me!”

“Do you need assistance with —”

“No. Thank you.”

Needless to say, it was time to reveal ourselves 😊

Early Afternoon Into Early Evening
So my problem for the afternoon, a true mission impossible I’ve nevertheless chosen to accept, is to “begin” to find a plan re how to handle all my creative content (images, writings), share it via social media, and maybe make some money 💰 😂

Prioritizing what to share 1st, and how to format it, despite the weeks (mths?) I’ve spent wrangling about it, has turned out to be the easy part.

Finding / making the time to do it, that’s hard.

Very. At least for me.

I still like to eat. Walk, watch TV, read, listen to music, see if people still exist 😊

But another problem has compounded that. Or maybe there’s several. Let me see if I can make it clearer to myself, lol!

• One, which social medium is best for both the job and me?
• Two, how do I choose what new images or writings to present?
• Three, what is the way I can even begin to keep the pace up and enjoy it?
• Four, where do I put my priorities?

#4 seemed an a priori (always loved that word once I heard it as a teen), an in-your-face place to start 😊

So, seemed obvious that selling was/is my priority (w/sharing it’s best side benefit, lol!)

But..to sell, I need to list my items. On my site here, like via my Product Page Post series. On eBay. Eventually Amazon, maybe even Etsy. Where and how do I find the time for that?

Ok. First things, first thing, first thing is what?

Well, I can easily post to Twitter, easily the easiest for me 😊. But send the viewer to where? Fine Art America has all the images, and they’re archival etc but w/a price to fit the product. I want and need to also sell inexpensive print/poster versions. Decades of experience doing art fairs and church shows and malls across Texas tells me I need that option. Sure, if I was famous and fabulously in demand right now, sure.

But I’m not 😊

Though I am – in general – a happily productive artist (images & writings).

So back to a priori.

What’s 1st (vs who’s on first, lol).

What’s foundational to long lasting possible success?

And what is a priori to that – achieving long lasting success?

Outreach. Exposure. Advertising. Getting known. Getting seen….

But quite frankly, it can’t cost more than I’m already spending ‘cause it’s 1) not money I can afford to squander on apps/platforms/advertising budgets , and 3) I’ve tried many in the past; someone did make $, but not me! 😂

Not spending money, and most articles I’ve read have pointed out, means doing the work oneself. That’s ok. Been doing that anyway!

My Twitter platform has grown into a respectable reach, gets mentions & retweets, some conversations, and is great fun searching out images & quotes I like.

My Facebook “business” page is anemic + be expensive to use, though my personal wall, small in number, can be also an active interactive fun platform. There’s some good sharing groups there, even onto Twitter, but they’re focused on books vs images. So I’d need more “image” books. Definitely something for later 😊 The notifications drive me crazy though, lol 😂 And the process for turning off notifications is unwieldy and time consuming, or was, that may’ve been improved.

Instagram (IG), FB’s other side of the coin (maybe literally), seems to have plenty of possible interaction, lot of my artist & travel friends have migrated there – but I’ve never stayed with it a long enough time period to really know. And I HATE the vertical only option. My son got me an attached keypad/support for my iPad Pro (2nd Generation) because he knew how much that worked for me. Typing sideways to post content onto IG is a real bummer. ‘Specially when my attached keyboard goes airborne. Yes. I could get another stand to set my iPad on, and another wireless Bluetooth keyboard. But really? More $ to have spend? Nope.

If anyone knows a work-around with my current computer set up re using IG, please let me know in the comments. IG is promising!

Finally, Pinterest, according to the marketing books, can also do wonders.

But it’s new to me actually using it, so this still too much an unknown.
(but its ease of use & tons of images are a lot to like!

None of my irks with any of the above are killer deals, but this is –

I don’t own my platform-content with them.

I do with WordPress.

And with that, Sheila said our tuna laden pasta salads were ready!

Time to eat!

Btw, when I told her ‘bout the stuck carrot, she got the same look I could feel I’d gotten on my face, lol! But softening my veggies, esp 🥕 and having them absorb lots of water before hand, that works 😊

Late Afternoon
So, back to a priori!

On WordPress I have my own domain, FelipeAdanLerma.com.

I can download and use over nine years of content.

I can sell from it.

And –

Vs paying for ads, get paid to carry ads – very much like my Amazon Affiliate links! There’s lots of rules and guidelines to protect them, you, and me. I like that.

I could and can sign up to have Google ads, but would again need to pay more $ and upgrade my site. Nope. At least not yet. There’s also less control over what products are shown and what they look like. I’ve used Google AdSense for my previous site in the 90s and did make some $, and that’s good. So at least it’s a (to me) viable trustworthy option.

Back to Amazon Affiliate links –
I choose my own products to link to from Amazon 😊

It takes time (though kinda fun) browsing through listings of products within a product category on Amazon, getting the text or image code, and inserting it into a table on my site.

But WordPress has a table option where it can be saved as a Reusable Table. At least on my plan (Premium). And, if I change some of the content in that table, when I reuse it in another post, and in the posts it’s already in, they’ll all update! Products change, and even my preferences change.

Back to a priori
So, it seems, the best way for me to reach the most people, and feel safe about the content I have for reaching those people, and possibly also get paid a small affiliate % from Amazon & maybe eventually even WordPress itself (at no cost to the buyer), is to concentrate on my website – and then send out social media stuff to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest – and have them reach out to folks and show them what neat things I have on my site for them to read, look at, and maybe buy 😊

Back to How to Proceed – Priorities
Thus the question now is, which is more important (if I have to choose, with the holidays 👻 🦃 🎄 🎁 appearing everywhere from the Dollar Store to Walgreens) –

Post more new content (including info for posters & prints I want to sell), or update the old content first?

Or, what ratio (or so) between the two might be best?

If I concentrate more on new content, I get more new products out, but the way I do my posts, the way I prefer to present them, requires time, a lot of it. Again, for me. You may get different results with your own new fuel in your product pages 😊

If I concentrate on updating older posts, I might lose folks’ interest in the ongoing new adventures in my creative life 😊

A Possible Solution
The key, or at least the tumbler in the lock that sets the rest free, may’ve been developing all along, and became visible to me as I stare at this screen!

• These My Day Ahead posts like this one already provide me literally daily outlet and way update viewers and readers!
• I could concentrate on updating my hundreds of nearly 9 years of blog posts –
• Plus create a new post each day showing (w/links of course) which posts were updated and a (hopefully) simple sentence or two about each newly updated article!
• And occasionally create a new product post, like a newly avail poster for –
  • Costa Rica
  • Paris!
  • Volleyball Setter
  • Step Mom
  • Panoramas of Vermont!
  • Flowers!
  • Austin Texas
  • and who knows what else, lol 😊
• Plus the less frequent post of what’s been “most viewed” on my site, or Fine Art America, and Pinterest

And one day 😊 I’ll have my older posts updated, and release time – not for more new posts (though there might be spurts of that), but create more of the kind of new content that creates this content (blog posts) – ie,

• New paintings
• New photography
• New poems
• New short stories

Because that’s the real well and source of my blog / twitter / FB / Fine Art America / Pinterest / Instagram content –

And that comes from some of what you read right here, in My Day Ahead posts –

from living…. ❤️

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With that, I’m having a chocolate pudding then taking a walk 🚶 😊

Early Evening
Slowly walked 30 minutes on the treadmill at apts’ clubhouse fitness center. Chatted with the little red bird, Claris, on a corner unit, got the mail, got an extra water from the community room snack area, and went back home.

Sheila asked if I was making another honey drink for myself later, said, “Yes!”

Be 3rd night in a row.

I discovered some articles about it summer ‘bout 4 years ago when we were in Vermont ‘cause I was very very congested and couldn’t sleep.

Most the articles mention adding lemon, and hot water of course, but I also add a few crystals of Himalayan salt. It’s supposed to be purer, but I like it cause it’s pretty, lol!

My routine is to

1. use a heavy cup that’ll hold the heat well
2. fill it 1/2 way with water, then heat it 45 seconds
3. then I add at least a heaping teaspoon of raw local honey (the local part’s important, I’ve read, ‘cause the local bees collect the local pollen, which is what’s affected the person there locally 😊)
4. I stir the honey til it’s more or less melted into the warmed water
5. then I add a squirt of lemon and those gorgeous pink crystals of salt from the Himalayas!
6. and reheat the whole batch 35 to 45 more seconds, depending how much I concocted, lol!
7. drink slowly, don’t burn your mouth, and repeat if/as needed

I’ve been getting by with 1 cup last 2 nights; pretty sure tonight will too. Nice!

A word of caution though, supposedly honey is only good for around 3000 years, after that it’s a guessing game, lol! 😂

Mid-Evening
Updated one older blog post, though not that old. I have a list of posts that need updating, either cause I reference them a lot, or folks are looking at them and probably wondering, “Who are these old folks posts!” 😊

It’s a start – another day, another plan!

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My Related Blog Posts

• Adan’s Book Reviews – The Quick Guide to WordPress and Pinterest : Out-of-Date and STILL 4 Stars
• Adan’s eBay Art – New Poster Available : Eiffel Tower Bus Tour PosterAdan’s Book Reviews – The Quick Guide to WordPress and Pinterest : Out-of-Date and STILL 4 Stars
• Aging Gracefully – 2nd Update on My Amazon Affiliate Marketing – A Treat! Helped Sell Our Youngest Girl’s Children’s Book, Skydancer!
• My Top Pins On Pinterest 1st Week of September 2019 – Zumba & Paris!
• The Yoga Bowl & Florals! – My Most Viewed Images @FineArtAmerica 1st Week September 2019

Plus –

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Related Amazon Search & Products

Surgery Recovery

I do like to point out I pick my selections to showcase from my Amazon searches. May not always be the case, or wholly always the case, but for now, I prefer picking titles and book covers and gift items that just really appeal to me. There’s lots more to choose from, but only have so much room, lol! I hope you enjoy —

Thanks so much everyone! 😊

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – https://amzn.to/2YpgyUf
Fine Art America (FAA) – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html