Happy New Year! Didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything, didn't buy the t-shirt and had a wonderful time.

The job search continues but I am really enjoying many domestic moments. Yesterday I made a homemade suet pine cone for the birds outside my window. And today I am making a homemade peach cobbler. The smells of cinnamon and fruit baking and warming the house even brought the reclusive man-child out of his cave and video game haze.

I've been reading too much internet blogs and articles and not writing enough, at least that's what those nagging voices tell me. I realise I don't have an easy time talking about myself and an especially difficult time trying to sell myself. That is the hardest part of job-hunting for me.

On the other hand, it seems there is a whole new generation (at least in the online personas I've been reading) where there is no shortage of people who have an extraordinary ability to do just that - sell themselves. There is a whole online community of self-promoters and I really can't see that they're offering anything more than they want to teach me to become a self-promoter too. I've tried to find some value in them as I am always looking for ways of self-improvement but seriously they all seem to be touting this message of snake-oil charm - "You too can have all this, great looks, great health, great smile and hair, make more money than you ever have all for just $1200 I can send you my secrets in ten easy lessons..." Where is the substance. Where is the nugget of truth?

Maybe it is a generational thing. I was born in the early sixties when children were incidental, meant to serve their parents own ends, seen and not heard. By the late sixties and early seventies a shift occurred in parenting styles for many. More liberal minded parents began to make the child a central figure, children were given more liberties, they were often treated as equals and only received positive reinforcement. And I'm not arguing against any of these parenting methods per se but now that generation is entering their late 30s and early 40s and they seem to be vapid, self-absorbed nincompoops who have mastered nothing more that recycling old cliches and creating new buzz words.

It can be hard to keep one's focus with all of that chatter going on and I know that I AM my best coach.