Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Forty Acts of Kindness


Meet Baby Mel. 

In twelve days, this baby turns forty. FORTY! In those forty years I've accomplished a lot of amazing things. I've loved. I've lost. I've survived. I've triumphed. All in all, those forty years have been incredibly generous to me. My world is filled with friends, family and loved ones who've made my life richer.

When I turned thirty-nine last year, I told my friends and family, "Forty is a big deal and I want a big deal made out of it. I want a party. I want cake. I want to have the time of my life." I've reminded them numerous times in this last year and last month, I found out that my bestie and my hubby worked together to send me to Las Vegas around my birthday to see New Kids on the Block. I. Am. THRILLED!  I can't wait to leave and I really hope the Lyme is willing to take a three day break so I can thoroughly enjoy my vacation.

That being said, I still want my fortieth birthday to be something special - not just for me, though. With this illness has come a lot of self-reflection. Some of it has been hard to swallow, but mostly, it's been a good thing. I've realized that as far as an impact on the world goes, I haven't made much of one. I'm not saying I haven't impacted people's lives; I've been told I have and I believe that. But I want to go bigger. Be bigger. DO bigger.

That's where you come in.

Between now and July 6th, I am asking everyone who reads this to do ONE random act of kindness and then tell me what it was. Just one. It can be simple, it can be complicated. It can be expensive or it can be priceless. Just pick one thing that you can do for someone else who hasn't asked you to. There are too many examples to list here, but some that come to mind are buying someone's lunch at a restaurant, adopting a shelter animal, plugging a quarter in someone's parking meter, sending a card to someone whose life could use some brightening, offering a stranger a hug. If you need ideas, go here, or here, or even here. The ideas are truly endless. 

Like I said, though, I want to know what you've done. If you want to tell me anonymously, that's fine. But I'd like to update this blog in a couple weeks and fill it with the things that people have done to help make the world a better place. I tend to be a bit cynical at times and I know others can be too, so I want to inspire them...to convince them that the world isn't as bad as we think it is.

Will you help?

You can let me know in numerous ways what fun and selfless thing you've done:
Twitter: @OUBad
Email: mel.henry at gmail dot com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MelHenryAuthor
Or by commenting here in this blog

I, too, will be doing acts of kindness. Forty of them, as a matter of fact. I can't wait!

I'm looking forward to seeing the creative ways we all come up with for giving back!!

P.S. Can I still get the cake, too?

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Blocking game requests on Facebook

I'm fifty shades of fed up with people complaining about receiving game invitations. Of course, they're also fifty shades of fed up with getting game invitations, so I suppose we're equal. A friend of mine asked me to explain how to block game requests so he doesn't get them anymore.

Now, please keep in mind that many games (especially those that are played on mobile devices) don't always give us accurate options. Some games will tell us that people are playing the game when in fact they're not, so when it gives us the option to send lives to someone, if we don't know for sure that you don't play a game, we may accidentally send you a request. Please don't yell at us. Just do the steps below and block the game. Not all invitations are intentional. 

When you log into your Facebook account on your computer (blocking requests on mobile devices isn't possible that I'm aware of), your notifications that someone has sent you a request will be shown on the upper right corner (assuming Facebook doesn't change things again). Don't click on those notifications regarding games if you want to block. Instead, go to your left side menu, as shown below:

(Click on any photograph to make it bigger.)

Notice just under the Apps menu, there's a Games link. Click on that. (Not the "Games Feed" link at the bottom of that list.) That will bring up the following options:


Notice toward the bottom left there's a link for "Requests" with a number next to it. Click on it. That will bring up this page:


Let's say that Trivia Crack is the game I don't want to receive requests from. If you click the X next to the "Play Now" button, it will bring up the next page:


This is normally where most people stop clicking and they hit their home page link, not realizing that they can block all invitations both from the game AND the person sending them. Typically, I don't block all requests from the person, because they may play one of the games I want to get invitations from, but for some reason if you're still getting requests from games you've blocked, it might help to block the person. Let's just say for now you only want to block the game.  Notice in the cream colored box where you just had the request, it says, "You hid a Trivia Crack request from ______." Then a link that says "Block Trivia Crack?" is right beneath it. Click that link. (If you chose to block all requests from a person, then click the link under that option.) This will bring up this pop-up option:

Click "Confirm" to block the game. (I believe the pop-up is similar if you choose to block all requests from a person.)


Congratulations! You've figured out how not to lose your shit when somebody sends you requests.

Hope this helps!

Friday, June 6, 2014

An update on me, "Better in Time," and the general outlook from here

Hey all!
I wanted to take a few minutes and fill you all in with what's going on with me. 

As many of you may know, my health has been giving me a lot of problems over the last several months. After a stint in the hospital and more tests than I can even keep track of, it has been determined that I have chronic Lyme disease. While I am on antibiotics and am taking numerous supplements to boost my immunity, I still battle daily with the symptoms. For me, that means extreme and overwhelming exhaustion, brain fog, and a lot of joint pain. I can sleep 8-12 hours at night, be up for a couple hours and be tired again. Add in household chores, errands, doctor appointments or other events and I'm wiped out for days. While this doesn't affect most of you directly, it does affect my ability to do my job as an author.

I have been working on the next book in my Time After Time series, Better in Time but due to the pain and exhaustion, it's been in very small stints at a time. I have the story in my head mostly worked out, but putting it down on paper is difficult right now. I hope as the antibiotics and supplements do their job, these symptoms will minimize and I can get back to doing what I need (and want!) to be doing. 

Because of these delays, I don't know when the second book will be finished and I'm reluctant to give a publish date. Please just know that I haven't forgotten about you, Josh, or Carly. I promise their stories will continue as soon as I am able. I ask for your patience and understanding, and hopefully I will be back to my old self before we know it.

Thanks,
Mel