Today I am honored to have Tara Tyler as my guest in the Dragon Cave. This is part of her Pop Travel Tour. She brings me ideas on how to be a good Lazy Dragon. I should have asked her also how to be an Intelligent Dragon, as to make sure this post was correctly programmed. I'm so sorry. Blame on the imitation of Jezebel's punch. But here is wonderful, awesome, and talented Tara Tyler!
First, I must say happy birthday to my honored host, Father Dragon! (It was yesterday) And thank you for having me. I love the beautiful garden outside the ominous lair! He must have some good minions to tend it. No?
 |
| Tara made this guy! |
Today, I have the pleasure of writing a post for the Lazy Dragon – similar to my Lazy Housewife posts with tips to minimize housework. When taking care of a lair, we all need help. The Lazy Dragon has dwarf minions and I have minion sons. But getting the minions to help around the cave can be more trouble than it's worth. They complain, want to play not work, and sometimes fight with each other. So, for those of you with hem-hawing helpers, here are a couple of motivational tips!
- Positive Reinforcement - Let them earn money, privileges (extra video game time or a friend over), and power (choose the movie, or dinner selection)
- Negative Reinforcement - When they give too much back sass, they must also realize their fun time and luxuries are not free and disrespect will cost them - warnings first, then, restrictions, privileges taken away, grounding, with good behavior to earn back
Ah, but some chores are too big or complicated for the mere minions and must be done by the Big Lazy Dragon himself. Here are my tips for making the most of that dreaded chore time.
- Prioritize – Take care of the things that need the most attention first
- Reward yourself – When you finish something, you get to have a treat, your choice!
- Less clutter = less to clean – Keeping surfaces free of knick knacks gives a cleaner look and less to dust
- Take breaks – For large jobs, set goals for phases and with each completed phase, take a coffee/tea break, but not for too long, make sure the task gets done. If it doesn't, there's always…
- Put off to tomorrow – Just make it the priority to finish first thing. Sometimes it's okay to procrastinate because you should only…
- Do what you can handle – What good is it to wear yourself out cleaning and not be able to relax and enjoy it?
And when chores or life's low moments give you stress, take a time out to meditate.
Dear Lazy Father Dragon, close your eyes and picture this image –
You are in the backyard of your lovely waterfront home in the Pacific, standing in the clearing of an extravagant, lush garden, surrounded by tropical trees, hanging vines, colorful flowers, and butterflies. An aisle stretches in front of you, amidst friends and relatives, seated before a white stage. They are waiting for you to perform a moving scene, and you are ready. You take a deep breath, dance a few steps down the aisle, leap onto the stage, and give them an oration of immense magnitude. They weep, they laugh, they sigh, at all the right moments. And when it is over, you bow to a standing ovation! Bravo!!
I hope you enjoyed your Lazy Dragon meditation getaway! This was fun for me! Thanks again! And here is the info for my recently released techno-thriller, Pop Travel.
 |
| Cooper thought he could get through life without having to pop... |
A tale of deception and teleportation.
When a crazy client enters J.L. Cooper's small town detective agency babbling about a pop travel teleportation cover up, he takes the case. Cooper never liked pop travel and blames it indirectly for his wife's death. He'd love to expose a glitch in it.
But the glitch turns out to be disintegrating travelers. And now, his client is dead, his secretary is missing, and a hitman is stalking him. Plus there's all the webcams watching his every move. So, Cooper has to find a way to expose the deadly flaw, while using pop travel to escape the maniacs covering it up, not to mention save a couple of tag-alongs he's not sure he can trust. No problem.
Available now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
About the author:
Tara Tyler started out as a math teacher. After having a hand in everything from waitressing to rocket engineering and living up and down the Eastern US, she finally found some roots, writing and teaching in Ohio with her three active boys and Coach Husband. In addition to her novels, she has published short stories and poetry in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, and Humor. So many stories to tell!
