Laina Turner's Blog, page 70

A New Way to Shop for Jewelry & Makeup

A few months ago, I posted about a new online retailer, Stitch Fix — an online company that will  shop for you based on your personal profile of taste, style and budget. I’ve recently come across another similar company but this one focuses on makeup, jewelry, intimates and fitness apparel. The company is called Wantable and each month their specialists will hand-pick beauty, fashion jewelry and luxury intimate apparel products from hundreds of quality boutique stores to find the best and most stylish items for you.

The concept is similar to Stitch Fix in that you create a customer profile based on a series of product and personality questions. Stylists will then use your unique profile to hand-pick items suited to your personal taste. With each shipment, you’ll receive 4-5 personally selected items to match your profile. If you don’t like any of the items, all you have to do is send them back!

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Amazing Music – Elijah Bossenbroek

Throwback Thursday blog post – originally posted March 22nd, 2010. Still think this guy is amazingly talented. have a listen!

*****

You wouldn’t think that a 3 hour time difference would be that big of a deal, and going out to Phoenix it didn’t seem to be, but wow…I couldn’t sleep last night and I am paying for it today.

I have to share something with you all. The last night I was in Phoenix I was walking around the open air mall across from my hotel to get the kids some presents and playing the piano was this amazing guy, Elijah Bossenbroek. Check out his song I Give Up or Amazing Grace which happens to be my all time favorite religious song and every time I have listened to his it makes me cry. I am in awe of this incredible talent.

Listening to him Saturday and just watching the intensity and passion with which he played for nothing but hopes of people enjoying his music really moved me and made me even more certain that life is way too short to not follow your heart and dreams. Even if that path might not be the most lucrative.

Please take a moment out today and listen to this beautiful music and think about what beautiful music you want to make.

Laina


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Accessories & Alibis – a chick lit mystery

It’s here. Accessories & Alibis, Presley Thurman Chick Lit Mystery #10.

Presley buys failing retail boutique, Silk, and on the first day of business ownership the store manager Roxanne is arrested for murdering her boyfriend. Roxanne insists she’s innocent and asks for Presley’s help.

Presley believes her and tries to help while getting the boutique up and running just to find out someone has been paying themselves from company funds? Who is stealing from Silk and is there more to Rod and Roxanne’s relationship than meets the eye?

Officially released today. Grab it today at .99 before the price goes up on Monday Oct. 27th to 2.99! Available on Amazon.

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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What’s In My Closet

I’ve never been a big jeans fan. They just don’t look great on me. On the weekends I have fallen into the pattern of wearing yoga pants. Even when not doing yoga. They are super comfy but makes me feel sloppy. While on the weekends, I am mostly consumed with kids activities, there is no reason to look sloppy.

So this weekend I went to my closet in search of a casual, yet not sloppy, outfit. I pulled out this skirt from the Gap that I bought at Goodwill for $2.99 and paired it with a simple T-shirt from Old Navy, and a belt from Kohl’s. The whole outfit cost less than $20.

I threw on some casual boots and off I went.

 

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Peanuts + Candy Corn = Yum!

While I not a master chef who can just invent amazing recipes on the fly, I do like to dabble and try new things. Since its candy corn season, and I love those nutritionless little things, I thought I would combine them with a good source of protein and make a healthier sweet treat.

Who am I kidding, peanuts or not there is no nutritious value in these, but who cares they are YUMMY!

And EASY!

 

1 cup candy corn (makes about 12)

¼ cup milk

1 cup peanuts

Put candy corn and milk in a saucepan on medium heat. Stir frequently as the candy corn melts so it won’t burn. It will take about 5-7 minutes to melt completely.

Once melted take off the heat and stir in 1 cup peanuts.

Drop by spoonfuls on wax paper and let cool.

In my opinion, they taste like a payday candy bar.

Enjoy!

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Stilettos & Scoundrels – a cozy mystery

I am excited to announce that the 3rd edition of Stilettos & Scoundrels, a Presley Thurman cozy mystery, is now available. This was my first book and originally came out in the spring of 2009 in paperback. E-books were just starting to gain popularity and I was one of the holdouts who didn’t want to give up my traditional paper books. I loved, and still do, going to bookstores and looking at all the colorful covers, being able to pick up a book and read the back, before deciding if I wanted to buy it or not. I couldn’t imagine not going to the bookstore for my book.

I didn’t even put Stilettos up for sale as an e version until May of 2010. Even then I didn’t think about it until a few months later when someone asked me if I had sold any e-book versions and I said I had no idea and I went and looked. Much to my surprise I had sold a handful, which was more than I had sold of my paperbacks and I was working my butt off to do so. Going to fairs, and craft shows, coffee houses, basically any place who would let me set up a table. The fact that I had sold e-books with doing nothing other than uploading them and then forgetting about them made me realize maybe I had been to hasty in my forsaking e-books because I ‘liked’ paperbacks better.

Now, 4 years later, I have focused more on selling e-books with more recently delving into audio and now back to paperback. Through this I have also realized that my books weren’t as good as they could have been. I had been through several editors and was still continually frustrated because of the errors readers were still finding. I also have grown as a writer which I feel is a natural evolution.

I have revised Stilettos and am almost done with Mistletoe & Murder which will be ready soon.

So even if you’ve read Stilettos, I encourage you to re-download it and just skim through and notice the big improvement and share the news with others.

I truly appreciate all of you who have believed in me and stuck it out reading my books, even while not in their finest state.

 

THANK YOU…..THANK YOU…….THANK YOU!

Accessories & Alibis, the next installment of the Presley Thurman series will either be out October 22nd, 2014.

 

Have a great weekend!

 

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Fab 5 Friday

Here are some of my faves from around the web this week!

The Lean Green Bean – Easy Pumpkin Bread…because I love everything pumpkin.

iHeart Organizing – iHeart Blogging: 10 Things I’ve Learned Along the Way….can never get too many blogging tips.

Spoon Fork Bacon – Pumpkin Cornbread…did I mention I love everything pumpkin?

Kendi Everyday – Sweater Weather…my favorite part of cold weather.

Hacked by Kate – What I learned from running 13.1 miles…I enjoy (using that term loosely) running and liked what she had to say.

Put your favorite posts from the week in the comments so I can check them out.

 

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I am Fabulous!! Throwback Thursday

In the social media world,  Throw Back Thursday, has become a thing. Usually, it’s a picture but I decided to start my own version of throwback Thursday on this blog by posting an old post that still has meaning in some way today. I came up with this idea because I am redesigning my blog and as part of the aesthetic redesign I’m also working on cleaning up the interior. That includes going back through old posts and making sure links still work. Making sure photos are PIN friendly, since when I started blogging Pinterest wasn’t even around, and fun (sarcasm) stuff like that.

Today’s TBT is looking at something I wrote 5 years ago about how I was feeling and to look at how far I’ve come today. Life is pretty amazing! Sometimes it’s fun to revisit the past……

Today is Tuesday September 8th, 2009. The day after Labor Day, which for me is the start of my fall New Year. It means a few more months left in the year in which I can refocus my energies and get down to business. Recommitting to reaching those goals, I felt were all so important on January 1st. This year my refocus could almost be overwhelming as it has probably been the most interesting year of my life thus far. I haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked and in some instances have almost backslid from 2008. But after much thinking I realized you do sometimes have to take a few steps back to make even bigger strides forward and that is how I am going to view things. As daunting as it may seem.

My goals this year were simple. To finally publish my fiction book, to achieve some better inner peace, and to have a better work/life balance. I have pushed my book out to February 2010 for good reason. To make it better and to do things the right way. That goal won’t be reached, but I’m ok with it. The other two goals are not so black and white. I like things neat, tidy, and measurable but I have to allow myself to be ok with the fact that it’s not always possible to have things that way. What I have to ask myself is if I have made progress in these areas and if I have learned anything from the experience, and I have. What I have learned is that life isn’t neat and tidy. It can be, but it also can be messy and dirty which is what makes it life. I have spent most of my life trying to conform and putting aspects of my life in neat and tidy boxes. The business woman box, the wife box, the mother box, the teacher box, the writer box to name a few. Once I got done with those there wasn’t much left for the Laina box. In fact, I got to where I wasn’t even sure what should be in the Laina box as I had lost part of her in the search to be all of those other things.

The pressure I felt to be the best at all I did and live up to what I perceived as others expectations of me (to which I have found were mostly my perceptions, not reality) was unreal. In a lot of ways in contradiction to the real me inside. As I started this self-discovery, I was able to narrow those boxes down to four. Business women, college professor, fiction writer, and mother. As you can see there still wasn’t a Laina box. To make it even more convoluted, I decided to write my fiction under a pen name as to not infringe on my academic persona. There I was again trying to keep things separate. God forbid another Ph.D. would find out I wrote romantic/mystery fiction.

A few weeks ago as I was trying to keep myself from going crazy (an ongoing struggle) and I had an epiphany. I was stressed and miserable because I still was trying to be “things” and not myself. Laina is all these boxes, these boxes aren’t Laina. I have to stop defining who I am by what I am because who I am, shapes all those boxes whether I want to admit it or not. Great revelation but then I got stuck on the now what part. Coming out to be who I am and not what I prefer to project is scary. For me anyways. But for once instead of over thinking it (as I have been accused of on occasion), I decided to take the plunge and today is a new me.

I am who I am…no excuses and no disclaimers.

I made myself a new website over the weekend to embrace my new self. It’s not perfect and that’s part of why I am using it today. It is what it is. Like it or not, I’m not doing it to be perfect. I’m doing it to be real as I am finally going to embrace my reality. What can you do to embrace yours?

Laina

Link up one of your posts for TBT!

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What is a Lifestyle Blogger

I am in the process of rebranding and redesigning my blog because I’m ready to take it to the next level. The launch is December 1st and even though I’ve been working on it since May; I can’t believe it’s only 6 weeks away and there is still so much to do. Freaking out just a little (ok a lot) but I tend to be one of those people who work best under pressure. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Incidentally, if you want to participate in the blog launch week festivities by hosting me on your blog or showing a little social media love let me know in the comments section. How’s that for shameless self-promotion? Yeah, I feel kind of tacky asking but it’s for a good cause and I will totally reciprocate.  The launch party is going to be a blast!

Anyways, my new blog is partly why I decided to start this series on building your blog as a business. I’ve spent years in the business world (have a PhD in business and try to inspire minds at the college level) and I realized I wasn’t using that business mind of mine toward this business venture. I’ve approached things willy nilly and without a business plan. I‘ve told business owners I’ve worked with who didn’t have a solid business plan that they consistently reviewed, revised, and updated that they were cra-cra.  So why didn’t I have one? I think I thought of my blog (and fiction writing) as the creative me and separate from the business me. Silly, silly me right? Well, I’m fixing that now!

So as I am working through all the important steps needed to take my blog to the next level I thought it would be fun to write about the process. Plus it’s a great way for me to work out my ideas.

Last time I talked about focus and how hard it can be to really define the niche we see ourselves in as bloggers. At least it has been for me. This week I thought I would talk about how I determined my niche and myself as a lifestyle blogger (don’t worry I will be writing about the business plan soon).

Lifestyle blogger, what the heck does that mean anyway? Isn’t it kind of a catch-all for those who aren’t food bloggers, or fashion bloggers, or tech bloggers? For a while, I almost felt guilty saying I was a lifestyle blogger because it felt so vague to me. In my research, I found this great article that defined lifestyle blogger just the way I do. The article said, “a lifestyle blogger is one who writes a blog that pertains more to life than to products and services .”

That’s totally me (and I’m sure other lifestyle bloggers). I write about my life because I enjoy it. I have fun sharing with others what I’m doing, and I’m just lucky people like to read what I write. There are several lifestyle blogs I read daily for the same reason. I enjoy getting a small glimpse into their life and how they do things. I am a big believer that we can all learn from one another.

But then I ran across this other article that talked about how blogs were bad for women. Setting unrealistic expectations women tried to emulate. And that I don’t agree with. I’m a lifestyle blogger because I want to share. Not because I’m trying to create some cult of women who want to be like me. Why the heck would anyone want to do that? The beauty of who we are is that we’re all different. Do we all sometimes think the grass is greener and want to have someone else’s life…well yeah. We have those moments. Do I think that women who read blogs are immediately drawn to try and be just like the person in the blog they are reading? No. They just want to be entertained or to maybe learn something new.

How did you define your niche? What do you think about the Forbes article?

Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment and link up your favorite blogging tip post!

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From My Closet

In today’s, From My Closet, I want to talk about black. Black is one of my favorite colors for clothing. It’s slimming, doesn’t show spills, most blacks match, and its versatile for almost any occasion. It also goes with many other colors. Especially white. Few things look as pretty together than black and white.

I bought this dress a while back from The Limited. I worked there ages ago, and I love their clothes. In fact, I can’t wait to go check out the Scandal collection. I love Kerry Washington/Olivia Pope.

The shoes from DSW and I rarely wear them as the 4 inch heels are a bit difficult to walk in, but they look darn good standing still.

What’s in your closet?

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