Friday, November 17, 2017

Donna's Glorious Giveaways rebounds after a series of devastating blows

THE PRIZE PRESS
(Official Newsletter of Donna's Glorious Giveaways)

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Hey there, DGG fans - happy November! Can you believe it's Fall already? I'm still reeling from the end of Spring!

Yes, I know that I've been away for way too long, and I'm gonna explain everything that happened.

(Skip to the good stuff)

At the end of Jun, my laptop was down for 2 weeks because it wouldn't power up. You see, I damaged the battery a long time ago and never bothered to replace it, so I always had to plug it in.

Little did I know, you should remove the battery if it's no good... kinda like with alkaline batteries, except that laptop batteries don't usually leak - they just mess up the PC's circuitry.

To make matters worse, I hadn't backed up any of my DGG files for a while, so I was absolutely panicked when the laptop seemed to have "died" on me.

Fortunately, the guy at the computer store saved my life. I'd gone there to buy a new adapter/battery or, failing that, to buy something that could copy all the data from my hard drive.

The guy noticed that the battery was still installed and asked if I usually power the laptop from a wall outlet. After I said "yes", he asked if I ever tried removing the battery to see if the pc would turn on.

Taken by surprise, I was like - "No...". Then he told me that before selling me something, he'd try removing the battery and powering up the laptop with my existing adapter.

To my amazement, the laptop booted up! I was so happy, I had to restrain myself from hugging that guy to death :) I felt so obliged to him for solving my problem gratis, I picked up a few items that I didn't even need - just to earn him a commission.

Then there was my mom's 80th birthday celebration. As you can imagine, I had absolutely no time to myself. This event was even bigger than the party I had for my 40th, with nearly twice as many guests, an expensive dining hall, speeches, poetry, singing, big-time caterers - you name it.

By the time it was over, I was completely exhausted - but overjoyed at how much everyone had enjoyed themselves.

In Aug I had a shock. A couple of weeks after Mom's party, I was tending to feel a bit light-headed, despite having rested for almost a full week after the celebration.

So I went to the doctor for a checkup. To my dismay, he told me that my blood pressure was through the roof!

Since I had no history of blood pressure issues, he gave me a chance to bring it naturally under control by putting me on immediate bed rest for 6 weeks.

In fact, it was so serious that two of my sisters had to come take me home - one drove me in my car whilst the other took their car.

I was tempted to continue blogging but my husband Rick would have none of it. He hid my laptop, leaving me with my cell phone only because he knows how much I hate typing on it.

It was so hard for me to just lie down and let Rick and my sisters do everything. It got so frustrating, I started arguing with them over the smallest things just because they weren't done exactly the way I like.

Also, I barely spoke to Rick for two days because he wouldn't give me back the laptop. Yes, I definitely had some apologizing to do when I got back on my feet :)

As if that wasn't bad enough, Sep brought 3 new nightmares: Harvey, Irma and Maria.

Some of you may remember that DGG was started as a joint venture between myself and my long-time friend Kevin, owner of Casey's Bargain Basement. Up until Sep, Kevin provided about 90% of DGG's funding.

Unfortunately, this year's hurricane season brought unprecedented turmoil to Kevin's life.

First his relatives in Houston got trapped by the flood waters of Harvey, then his store was damaged by Irma and to top it all off, his homeland of Dominica was almost completely obliterated by Maria.

Needless to say, Kevin was stretched to full capacity financially, even with his insurance policies.

What little was left over after paying his deductibles and helping out his Houston relatives was completely gobbled up by his Dominican family's desperate and unending need for assistance. He even spent a week there.

Due to all of this unforeseen tragedy, DGG's funding came to an immediate halt and I was forced to go on hiatus.

My major worry for DGG was that, given my recent health issues, I wouldn't have the energy to find a new sponsor, do the blogging and plan the promos. I'd already overspent on Mom's party, so there was no money left in the family budget to invest in DGG.

All that I could do is tackle the problem one task at a time, at a slow pace... I knew that if Rick noticed me overextending myself, the laptop would disappear again :)

Well, just last weekend I finished putting together some funding on a trial basis, plus I've been able to earn some Amazon cash from surveys.

All of this should take DGG through the holiday season, after which I'll decide whether to maintain current operational levels or scale them down.

Ok, I don't want to over-stress myself, so here's what's coming next time for Thanksgiving weekend:

  • June 24th's (and today's) Word of the Week (WOW) Bonus winners

  • My list of blessings, which I'm personally counting

  • Announcement and revised plans for the launch of Donna's Diary

  • Update on the launch of my e-book about growing your social media audience organically

Alright, peeps - don't let Thanksgiving catch you unprepared!


I'll see ya next week :*

Donna (Please see page-bottom to share this post)



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