Thinking About Advertising

I’ve thinking a lot about advertising lately. This is because not only do I have my own business but because of my English 201 class. This class was a very writing intensive class. Everything that we wrote about had something to do with the advertising industry and the many aspects surrounding it. So, lately, I’ve been thinking about all the very subtle ways that advertising has been impacting how we live today.

I’m talking about the items you see every day on television and the products you buy. Next time you buy something, anything, take a really careful look at the packaging. Look at that bag, box, jug, or container and the graphic material and text on it. Now, also take a good look at what surrounded the item on the store shelf. All of it is geared to keep it in your mind and all of it is geared to keep you coming back and buying the item again. There is a lot of advertising going on on that package holding the item in your hands. It does not stop there.

You buy it and go home. Wait! Now look at what you get inside the container a lot of the time. That’s right, more advertising in the form of leaflets, pamphlets, and sheets still trying to get you to buy this product after you already bought it. Not only that, but some of these enclosures include information on more products by the same company. What they are aiming at here is to make a repeat buyer of their products. This says to me, in a subtle way, what they really want is me to be a loyal consumer of their company products and thereby get as much of my disposable income as possible.

What got me was, one day, while at school I bought a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup package from one of the vending machines. When I got it, I opened up the package to delightfully consume the contents inside. The supportive stiff paper insert was still there but this time it was different. Instead of the usual blank white paper, the stiffener had advertising on it trying to get me to buy their product that I just bought. This is not something that would get me to buy their product again. What brings me back time and time again to Reese’s is the quality and taste of their peanut butter cups. I love the combination of the two substances together.

Watch any TV show, movie on TV or movie in the theater. Look closely at the background images. There are sometimes recognizable logos and icons hidden there is plain sight. Look at the shoes and clothes the actors are wearing. Don't stop there look at accessories too. Now look at what you might see in any kitchen scenes or whenever the characters are holding bottles. Look closely and you will probably see very definite recognizable bottles and labels even though you may not be able to the name on the label. This is a very subtle way that advertisers advertise. I don't think advertisers we even notice.

Look around and chances are you will notice other subtle ways that advertise try to appeal to us. The varieties of ways include just about every imaginable electronic device and way that people communicate electronically. Let's not forget the old visual stand-by's from the past. Yep, that's right. I'm talkin' 'bout billboards and ads on bus sides and benches. Oh, and I almost forgot. Pre-electronic era, say about 5-10 years ago, some stores had ads on their shopping carts. It's now been updated. Sometimes you see electronic devices attached store shelves with looped ads. Some stores even have electronic devices on their shopping carts.

And today my English teacher and I got to talking about those sneaky polls that you run into on the Internet. Some of them are disguised as opinion polls or other types of polls. Be careful while filling these out. There are what are called "push polls". What happens with these is advertisers convey messages and information to consumers via the questions. This seems a very questionable tactic to me and like advertisers once again attempting to mold us into good little consumers and follow their leads. Don't buy into it.

Get the picture? Look around and think about it. Lay a comment on me and let me know what you've noticed lately.

What I Plan To Do With My Summer Vacation

Now a word about the long absence between postings. It's been a while because I went back to school in January. I learned that I am not too old to learn and that I can compete academically with the younger students in the classes. Yay, me!

Grade point average between the two quarters was 3.91. Not bad for someone who had not been in school for something around 30 years.

Now looking forward to Fall Quarter where I will hopefully be able to take both English 102, Math 95, and Shakespeare. If I can fit it in I might even take a small credit class on top of that. I will have to wait and see what my advisor and I can work out with the scheduling.

In the meantime, I have a summer jammed-packed with working on my department for Grant County Fair 2007. Hoping to drum up some supporters, finish up a slide show presentation, and a score card for puppets and stuffed animals.

The rest of the summer will be used to get caught up with things like housework and working on my car, playing with my local historical medren group, maybe even some sewing, and doll and soap making.
Another thing I might try to do is to take my soap to either the Ephrata Farmers Market or the Moses Lake one. See if I can sell a few bars. I might even take a couple of my dolls for sale. Who knows? I might even get lucky.

Guess that's it for now.

Pizza Philosophy

Tonight is the standby tradition for dinner. Since my husband died almost 3 years ago, we have had pizza and a movie every Friday night. Sometimes the pizza is a frozen variety of some type or another and somtimes I make one of my masterpiece pizza recipes. Sometimes we have salad, sometimes we have chips instead with it, and sometimes we have store bought sweets for dessert or a homemade baked good for dessert.

When I make the pizza, I make it from scratch as much as possible. I start with the sauce which I flavor a lot like life really. It has some smoothness, a little sweet(good times), a little salt (tears), some spices (ups and downs), garlic (earthiness), and herbs (comforts and pleasantness). I use both tomato sauce (the thin times) and tomato paste (the rich times) when I make my sauce from scratch. After I blend them together on medium low, this is when I add the other ingredients, one at a time, and simmer them for a while together. I also add a lot of myself to it as I go.

While the sauce is going, I take the time to make the bread crust from scratch is like the foundation to one's life. Your foundation being your core values, morality, faith and belief, your spirit, and qualities and talents that make you who you are. In my bowl goes the yeast (spirituality), sugar (your spirit), and salt (core values and morality) which get swirled together to blend them. Next comes the olive oil (a good sense of humor), a good one, and hot water (faith and belief). Stirring them together and adding the first cup and a half of flour (experience) and putting in more little by little to get the dough just right. This simple bread crust is the like the foundation that you build your life on. I let it rest while the sauce is simmered a little more and then taken off the heat to cool.

While the dough is resting then I finish up the sauce by making sure it tastes just right and stir it once last time before I take it off the heat to start cooling. While the sauce is cooling and the dough is resting, it is the time to slice up the olives (family), grate the cheeses (friends) mozzarella and cheddar, and get out the parmesan, romano, mushrooms (heroes), and pepperoni (lovers). The cheese is always grated by my kids. After all the ingredients are gathered, then it is time to put build the pizza.

Build pizza is a little like building a life. There are layers to it. There is a foundation and mortar or glue. I start by laying the dough out on my pizza pan and patting out to the edges (this is when your parents teach you what you need to know to get by in life; the things that stick with you your whole life). Then comes the sauce spread evenly across the surface (education and social life). After this comes the light sprinkling of parmesan and romano before laying down the mushrooms and olives followed by a light sprinkling of all the cheeses before putting on pepperoni slices (experiences in interactions with others and learning from them). After the pepperoni slices on goes parmesan and romano then the top is smothered with the mozzarella and cheddar. A good hefty sprinkling of parmesan and romano covers this layer. Finally the top is dusted with powdered dried basil before the pizza is put in to bake for 18 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

After the pizza is baked, it is left to cool some before cutting into it. Once cut, it is time to eat and enjoy. Savoring the pizza and all its combinations of flavors and textures that have come together for pure culinary satisfaction is heavenly. Like life really, you should savor all the life has to offer you, the good and the bad, the thin times and the thick, all the flavors and opportunities that life has to offer. You should enjoy life. Like pizza, life only lasts for so long.

Something to think about, anyway.
Laura

Something I've Learned Over the Past Year

There is something I had to celebrate this past week. I finished my counseling with a wonderful therapist named Denise.

I compiled a list of techniques to cope with depression. May they help others who read my blog. These are valuable tools that I have used during the past year. They helped me to make progress along the way. They will be used by me to help from falling down into the pit of depression again. At least not so far or for a long period of time.

1. Tree Root Visualization
2. Meditation
3. Take Worry Breaks
4. Think Spontaneous Positive Thoughts.
5. Monitor Negative Thoughts
6. Spend 20-30 minutes a day for just me, I am the only who benefits.
7. Do Why/What Journaling.
8. Decide on one thing you want to accomplish that day and do it.
9. Be Thankful.
10. Be Grateful.
11. Allow myself to take a day off to do nothing.
12. Know that there will be down days.
13. Unloop the loop.
14. Allow myself to cry.
15. Get up and do something ~~ ANYTHING!

Feel free to use them. Hopefully they will help others. Questions or comments, just ask. Have a great day!

Happy Birthday to me

Well, I recently celebrated another birthday. It was a really nice mellow birthday. Very pleasant and relaxing indeed. I spent it doing what I wanted to do. I did something for somebody else, for my children and I did not forget to do something for me.

This year we started a new tradition with birthdays. When it is one of our birthdays we now celebrate the whole day. The celebrant gets to choose what they want to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They plan the activities they wish to do.

When it was Jenny's birthday we had what she wanted for breakfast, lunch, dinner and after dinner dessert. There were presents. She wanted to go shopping so we went. She got what she wanted to buy. We watched what she wanted to watch. Later in the evening after dinner I tried my hand at making strawberry daiquiries using my own original recipe. I prepared for it by reseaching recipes in as many sources as I could get my hands on. After seeing the basic ingredients, proportions and so on I created my own. We had a lot of fun, her and I. You see, it was a very special birthday for her, it was 21st birthday this year.

When it was Nathaniel's turn we did the same thing. He chose doughnuts for breakfast, something for lunch and my homemade macaroni and cheese with hot dog coins for dinner. He got to do everything he wanted to do for as long as he wanted. He got to stay up as late as he wanted to as well. Jenny and I planned for him and bought him many presents. We wrapped them up and put them all on his bed. They were there at the foot of his bed when he woke up. We got quite a few gifts for him, so many that it was almost like having Christmas in August. He thoroughly enjoyed his B-day.

This year on my birthday I decided that I did not want a traditional cake. I decided I wanted a different and sort of fun food for my birthday. Like Nathaniel, I went with the doughnut breakfast and for lunch we were going to have burritos. Dinner was fish sticks, tater tots, and Jenny's Sunny Strawberry Smoothies. What we had for after dinner was pie. I got an apple pie and a pecan pie, pecan being my favorite next to my mine or my mom's apple pie.

When I woke up I found a little tiny pile of presents at the foot of my bed, placed there by Jenny. The kids had gotten together and got me a new movie, some chocolate and new slippers. I helped a friend on my friend by playing taxi driver. It was nice. I totally felt at peace all day. Nathaniel went with me and as we ended up having to stay in town for longer than planned we all decided to go to a newly discovered diner and had lunch. Later on we watched movies and went to bed.

There was grace in my day. Is that even a word anyone even uses anymore? If not, that's sad. Maybe it is just one more of those things missing from our world and culture today. Something to think about.

It was a good day, anyway.

It's An "Adventure"!

Life is quite strange at times. My philosophy on life goes like this: "It's an Adventure!"

Many years ago when my late husband, Richard Henry Stalter, and I were newlyweds we had a crisis come up while we were going somewhere. We were both quiet for a little bit then we looked at each other and said together "It's an Adventure!" That was the start of our philosophy of weathering our way through some pretty scary stuff, car breakdowns, financial difficulties, health problems and more. We also had good and happy adventures along the way to balance all the negative ones. These we called "Serendipity".

We used this phrase many times during our marriage. What we found out was we tapped into ourselves and made it through the dark times, the sad times, the uncertain times and even happy times. With each adventure, good or bad, we learned lessons and we learned about ourselves as well as each other. We grew as people and as a couple. We became stronger individually and in our marriage.

With each lesson learned and growing stronger we gained something else. We gained wisdom, understanding and compassion. The wisdom that we gained we used to help others. We did not judge others but ourselves in their place in order to try to understand where they were coming from, in a manner of speaking. We also learned how to laugh together, have fun together and find the joys in life.

When Rick died suddenly in November of 2004, it was the beginning of yet another adventure for both of us. I don't like to think about his adventures as being over and done with. I think of him as going on and having an adventure on his own. Just as I am having my own adventures now.

I think he is up in heaven. He's meeting people that he's always wanted to know as well as finding people he knew in life like my youngest brother Donald and our friend, Steve Albus. I also know he's probably up there right now fishing, writing poetry, running and all the other things that he could no longer do or stopped doing before he died.

I have used the time since his death to grow and to learn. Slowly, I am regaining my strength again. I have begun building my life again and can now see a future for myself along with that of our son and daughter. We've met new friends and are getting reacquainted with some old ones. I want to make the best of the life I have left. I want Rick to be proud of me.

Yes, I have had some struggles, trials, tribulations, and what not. But, I am still here! I still have health and our two kids. I have had to make some decisions, not all of them good, but I still survived my booboos. I am learning to handle things on my own. Things are beginning to work and to jell. I have dared to do stuff on my own. I dared to take my son out of public school to home school him. I have dared to force our daughter to get help when it would have been easier for me to just let her go and let her stay with me for the rest of my life. I did not want that for her. In the long run, it would not have been fair to her or to myself.

This winter I will be beginning a new adventure. I will be going back to school to begin working towards an eventual Masters degree. It will be a totally new environment. Challenges, fun, social, frustration, hard work, and sacrifices are some of the things that I know are ahead of me. But I also know that there will lots of new stuff to learn, new friends to meet, and things to find out about the world we live in.

Whatever happens in the next few month or year with school and with life, no matter what, It's An Adventure!

An Observation Made Over The Last Few Months

People watching is something that has been a hobby for me a long time. One thing I have observed is that there is something missing from our lives. Indeed, I think that a lot of our today's young people don't even have these words in their vocabularies much less know that these concepts exist. Perhaps it was never been taught to their parents.

The words I speak of are instinct and intuition. What I mean by these is including them in your life. They can help make good decisions or at least avoid making some really big mistakes. Instinct is something that is inborn with each new life. Watch a mother bird with new hatchlings or a mother dog or cat with their newborn litters. You will understand what I mean. These mothers instinctively know what to do and when to do it, how to protect their young and to keep them safe. Yes, I think some of it is learned behavior but not all of it.

Instinct is one of nature's tools for species survival. It is a tool for learning. And it is a tool for interaction. It's knowing what to do in the moment.

Intuition has more to do with the future and is more of an internal reaction of sorts, in my opinion. It's that gut feeling most of us have and usually choose to ignore. It's that feeling deep down inside that you should or should not do something before you do it. It's that something that tells you within yourself something is about to happen. It's that little feeling you get about people you meet. Ever have one of those unexplained times when you absolutely had to do something and with no rhyme or reason you went ahead and did it? It could be that you knew a friend needed your help and you went to them and found out you were right. Or, it could be something you felt you should not do but went ahead and did it anyway and had it end up badly.

I mention these two concepts because I see an extreme lack of them lately. Everybody seems to be trying to live a TV life maybe. You know the kind of thing I mean. Mom and Dad are hurry, hurry, busy with their jobs and careers while at the same time trying to keep things together at home. Plus on top of everything Son has school, a job, and two or three extracurricular activities and a girlfriend (did I forget to mention he's a straight A student?). The same with his Sister. Does anyone in this family have time together to be a family much less get to know each other.

High achievement is laudably a good thing, don't get me wrong. I am in favor of it. To a point. But I also believe in Balanced Living where high achievement, busy-ness, instinct and intuition can cohabitate in harmony.

But what I also see is a lot of unhappy people living together. Is there any wonder why drugs and alcohol are getting worse as a social disease? Is there any wonder why so many people on so many prescription medications for anxiety, pain, depression, high blood pressure and high cholesterol? Is there any wonder why any job title that involves therapy and counseling is predicted to be in high demand for many years to come? Really? Really!

What I see happening is a lack of focus on the basic things of life, getting the priorities right for oneself, and a lack of really asking oneself what is important to oneself.

Each person should ask themselves what is important to them? What has meaning for them? What really matters to them? What makes them happy? Do they like where they are at in life? Do they spend enough time for themselves? Do they spend time with others? Do they spend time helping strangers? The list of questions one could ask themselves is endless. For each person that list will be different from their partner's, their childrens' and everyone else around them.

I have also seen a strange mix in people that I have observed over the past few months lately. That is people seem to be focused solely on themselves and their needs to the exclusion of almost everything else yet at the same time they don't spend any time for themselves. Do that make any sense to anyone? It sounds bizarre, I know.

Anyway, these are just my observations and opinions only. I don't have any theories or suggestions to offer here. I could also be wrong in the interpretation of what I have observed. I don't know. Time will tell though. Think about it.