How do you react when someone compliments you? Do you make a joke out of it? Do you blush and stammer and feel awkward? Do you thank them? Or do you just feel they are telling you what you want to hear to get something out of you? It’s getting harder to give a sincere compliment. Not because there are not good things to compliment people about. But, I feel people will not believe I am sincere or they will be embarrassed. It’s a shame.

Have you heard of Operation Beautiful? It’s random acts of kindness based where you leave a note for any stranger just saying something positive. Especially geared to making women feel good about themselves. You can join the Facebook group, or better yet write out some notes and leave them to be found around wherever you will be today.

I’ve been wracking my brain cells for an image that will give the feeling of Creative Fat Grrl to use in a link exchange. After much searching of soul and Google Images I have come up with a plan to use paper chain dolls. Do you remember those? Have you ever made one? I’m still in the drawing stages for mine but I did find interesting links and ideas for making more of your own. Maybe you will try it, again, or for the first time. It’s a simple way to create something nice.

Fancy Nancy Paper Chain Dolls has a pattern with a ruffled skirt.

Kiddley is making paper doll chains and decorating them.

Mumsgather has ballerina and boy paper chain dolls.

Stampington & Company has a chain doll pattern with braids.

Sketch & Jones has a really nice design that would be hard to cut out.

The Origami Resource Center has patterns for making a variety of paper dolls including one in a circle.

Sue has very fancy chain paper dolls photographed on Flickr.

Kraken Crafts made a paper gnome chain.

Mad Gardener has a curly haired paper doll chain.

Creative Muse has a chain with winged dolls.

In making my own this afternoon I found it crucial to have the hands a bit larger than you would choose so that the connection between each doll is strong enough to survive the unfolding. If you make any yourself please post pictures and add the link in comments here. My own pattern turned out kind of nice. :)

In my other life I’m a freelance writer.

It’s not an easy thing to claim to be a writer. Brady, in his blog Hunting the Muse, did a great job of writing about this feeling. The ever inadequate feeling of being someone who writes versus a writer.

When I was still a kid, a young teenaged human versus a young goat (just in case the thought occurred to you), my Uncle told me no one under the age of 40 could be a real writer. Anyone under 40 hasn’t experienced enough life to write about it. This really discouraged me for years. I think it still does even though I will be 45 this December. I understand his feelings yet he really was so very wrong. Life happens from the time you are in the womb until the time you leave the planet. No point in the path should be glossed over as not important or worth writing about.

Anyway, I still find it hard to believe in myself as a writer. I love to write. I love the words. I love hearing the sound of myself writing. At times I even talk out loud when I read my words back to myself. I like the audience of one however. I can laugh at my own words, find the humour in them cause I know it will be there right where I left it. Someone else might laugh at the wrong parts.

Writing was easier when I was doing more of it. That much I have learned from my experience. If you learn anything today, learn that from me. When you are in the world of writing (even if it’s not for greater publications) you are involved, you are active and your brain is in gear. You feel the words in your mind and they flow much faster and simpler. There is more confidence in your ability when you are using it.

Anyway, if I could arrange my life the way I would like it (like playing a simulation game on the computer) I would be writing a weekly column for newspapers, syndicated all over the places. I like writing short pieces. I can find a beginning, a middle and an end for them. Longer work has too much middle. I get lost in there and don’t know if I really can write my way to the end of it all. I’m going to try though. I’ve come up with a plan and they say that is how it starts.

Do you feel you are a writer? Do you feel sure about yourself if you tell someone else you are a writer? If not, what would it take for you to feel you are a writer? What kind of success do you need? How can you get there? Maybe you can try something today, take some steps to walk into that bigger picture.

Win some M&M's from A Quad Mom Named Suz Tell her about your day of indulgence. What would you do if you could do anything and everything in the world, your one day of self indulgence?

This is my day of indulgence:

My day would start with a handsome and charming chauffeur coming to my door very early in the morning. I'd direct him to several places where there are abandoned farmhouses in the area. I'd take all the photos I could, until I was too cold to do any more and the light was fading. In between there would be stops for coffee and a nice lunch somewhere in some little town. I'd have a book to read over lunch, or chat up the chauffeur if he could carry a conversation. At the end of the day, when it was too dark for photos I'd go to the big bookstore for a latte and a book shopping. Then the chauffeur drives me to a nice motel so I can have a hot shower with delicious smelling body soap and shampoo. I spend the night reading snuggled up in bed. The beach is there in the morning, so even though my day is over I can zip out for an early morning of beach combing and sandcastle building before I have to get back to the real world and regular scheduled life.

I would have added more to that if I had thought about it first. Like shopping at the Body Shop for the most luxurious scented shampoo and soap for my shower at the motel. I really like showering at night, when the house is quiet and no one else is awake. It's so quiet and I feel at peace for at least awhile.

You can also try for the M&Ms at Michelle Woo's blog.

What makes you melt?

I wrote:

My nephew’s real laugh. He’s 13 now, the start of so many changes and so much growing up. Though I haven’t had children of my own he is like my own son. I’ve helped raise him through my sister’s divorce and my own. He is a lovely boy turning into a young man and his laughs don’t come so easily as they did when he was a little boy. They are a treasure now and I melt when I think of all that has been and all that is yet ahead of him. I’m so glad to be someone he counts on and so glad to still be someone who can make him laugh and feel better when things are not always so easy in his life.

I'm itchy and yucky feeling. My throat is sore, even ice cream didn't help beyond a slight freezing for a few seconds. I have a Christmas tree pulled upstairs to put up and I have people over-running the house who don't fit into friends or family, not for me anyway. I'm sick of renovations that drag on for years. I'm fed up with worrying about money when the bills don't reflect reality, at least not mine. And I'm cold too. We have already gotten a few feet of snow outside. I should write something more interesting but I just feel too yucky.