Mo*Bee's Blog #1: The Adventure Begins

Blog #1:  The Adventure Begins

For my very first blog, I wanted to let people know how I came up with the idea to do Mo*Bee's and a little of what went into getting this website off the ground. The whole thing started because I wanted to find a sculpting class nearby and couldn't.  The town that I live in and the surrounding areas are artsy communities, so, I was rather surprised not to find a single sculpting class locally.  The thought of starting this website, however, actually came to me far away from my computer, which was happily gathering dust at my house, just exactly the way I had trained it to from the time I bought it.

I was sitting in a kayak just out of the shade of a bridge above me, holding a fishing pole on a long stretch of the Green River.  This particular spot on the Green River is one of my favorite places to kayak and fish.  The water moves at a pace similar to the walks that I used to take with my grandfather.  It's smooth, slow and steady, never in a hurry and can bring to mind thought-provoking questions.  I was perfectly okay poking along this river on this beautiful summer day.  

Kelly, who is now my partner on this adventure, was not quite as content with the pace that the river and I had chosen to run.  She was not here to meander across these still waters, nor was she here to fish. 

Kelly in a kayak, but not on the Green River.

Kelly had joined me on this day so that she could exercise outside, breathe outside air, and feel outside sunshine.  So, while she sped past me yet again, making her way up the river and then back again, I reeled in the only live worm I brought with me that day.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I love fishing here because I'm rarely bothered by actually catching a fish.  You see, while I absolutely love to fish, I'm not very good at it.  Although I love the challenge and the excitement of actually catching a fish, I really, really, really don't want to have to remove it from that hook.  So, I should give you all a heads up now if I ever invite you to go fishing with me.  I do look forward to your company but I also want you there to remove that fish from the hook.  

Kelly has known this for a long time now.  And while she rarely fishes, she still knows that going fishing with me requires her to remove the fish.  By the way, Kelly doesn't like removing the fish either, but she will do it, protesting loudly each time, "If you're going to fish, you should have to remove it from the hook!"

I only do catch and release.  That's not to say I wouldn't love to be able to take a huge fish home and fry it up in a pan.  However, two things prevent me from this.  One, if I won't take it off the hook, I'm sure not going to clean it. Two, there's only been three times in my whole life that I ever caught a fish that was even big enough to keep.  If I ever did catch a really big one, I wonder if Kelly would agree to clean it if I agreed to cook a big dinner with it. Oh well, I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when it happens.  

   Like I always tell Crazy Ann, "My little fish is bigger than your no fish."                               Kelly releasing a fish for me.

Well, back to the story…Like I said, I was sitting in my kayak fishing, watching Kelly feverishly race up and down the river.  My mind wandered back to how hard it was to try and find one local sculpting class. 

Kelly stopped at that time and said, “What are you thinking about?”

I said, “I'm going to start a website where you can find any kind of class you want to take, really fast, and really easy.  Here's the thing though, being dyslexic, I'm going need your help with the typing.” 

With a perplexed tone, she said okay perhaps thinking that I was just kidding. To this day I can't help but laugh and wonder how many times she had wished I had just caught a fish and not caught a big idea.  

The more I started checking in to doing this website, the more I saw how badly it needed to be done.  There are so many wonderful things out there to learn how to do.  Hopefully Mo*Bee’s will not only help you find the class you're looking for, but I hope it also helps you find something you never thought about learning until you saw it on this website.  I have found that it’s often the surprises in my life that have brought me the greatest joy. You can’t tell me it's not a lot more fun to find that dollar bill on the ground than it is to get the one you know is coming on your paycheck.  

Once I made the decision to actually do this website, I started the work of finding who I would hire to actually build the website.  As I mentioned before I am dyslexic.  For those of you who are not familiar with this, part of what this means for me is I'm a slow reader and a horrible speller.  Not too bad of a trade-off considering I think being dyslexic makes me super creative.  It also helped me, I think, design and create an uncluttered, simple, fun, and easy website.  That brings me to Drew...    

Drew is the president of Hannush Web.  I met with Drew the first time at one of our local Mexican restaurants.  Drew is a tall, handsome man, with a voice that complements his looks.  That aside, I had two main criteria for hiring a web designer.  One, can he or she build the website I want?  Two, does he or she have the patience of a saint?  I have worked with me all my life, and I must confesses, if there was any way that I could have gotten out of it, I would have. 


Check out Drew's website.

On that day I told Drew, I did not even know the simplest things about technology.  At this point, I could not text, send an email, or even open word document much less write a letter using it.  I know some of you may be thinking that I'm exaggerating. I think Drew must have thought the same thing when I told him.  I assure you now that he can attest to the fact that I can barely do these things now.  Thankfully, he did not know then what he certainly knows now – building a website for me was going to take all the strength and patience that any one man has ever been given.  Dealing with me alone would leave most folks running and screaming for the hills.  

Somehow, even after I declared my computer ignorance, I still roped Drew into accepting the job.  Since the computer is not my forte, I had to figure out what was the best way for me to draw Drew a picture of how I wanted Mo*Bee’s Class Finder to look and work.  This is what I came up with…I’ll draw Drew a picture of how I want Mo*Bee’s Class Finder to look and work. Once my sketches were complete, Kelly scanned them and sent them to Drew. 

I'm not kidding. These are actual design pages that I pulled out of the file so I could show you what Drew's team had to work from.  (You're probably just starting to truly appreciate why I hold Drew and his team in such high regard.) 

Can you find Mo*Bee?

Actual "design" pages.

While MacGyver could save the day with just a paperclip and wad of chewing gum, Drew and his team were able to build a fully functional website with just a few stick figures and pages upon pages of misspelled words.  They dealt with all this, having the knowledge, that all they would have to do to get rid of me would be to unplug my computer and tell me apparently the World Wide Web has gone out of business.  I would've believed them, having no way that I could prove them wrong.  

Yet somehow they fought the urge to do this, and accepted the challenge that lay before them.  Hannush Web has so far been victorious over insurmountable odds.   I have never met any of Drew's team in person; although I feel sure this was probably Drew's doing, for my own safety and protection.  I can't blame him for that. Looking back it was probably a good call.  Surely, by now his team must see me just as a rambunctious puppy on a leash - exhausting at times, no danger to them or others, uncontrollable yet manageable.  So, thanks to you Drew and your team at Hannush Web for your patience and excellent work.  To put it lightly, building this website has been a challenge for everyone involved.

While I can never thank everyone who has helped me near enough, I do want to publicly acknowledge them. They deserve that and so much more. Starting with the main players here at Mo*Bee's:  Kelly, Drew, and Candice, my grown daughter.  You'll hear me talk about these people a lot in future posts.

But I also want to go ahead and talk about some of my friends who somehow knew the right time to call and suggest all sorts of fun distractions before my head exploded.  They may have been as simple as, “We are having a get together at my house, so come over.” (Rory) to as big as, “Let’s go to Aruba!” (Ashley & Allison).  Great moments like watching the finale of The Voice with my friend, Little Peg to a fishing trip with “Crazy Ann.” Oh yeah, thanks for taking all my little fish off the hooks, Ann.  By the way, do you know how to clean a fish?  Just wanted to know for future reference… If not, I'm sure you, Kelly, and Candice can soon find a class on Mo*Bee's that will teach you that very thing.  

Hat day for Kelly, Dee, Peggy & Dawn

Allison & Ashley

Crazy Ann

Fred & Rory

Friends, I know there have not been as many get togethers as we would like. However, those times away just to relax and laugh allowed me to refocus, recharge, and be able to take the next step in what sometimes has been a long and tedious process. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Then there's Beth...ah Beth. She is a good friend of many years who in an unguarded moment, made the mistake of saying, "Hey, Dee if there's anything I can do to help you with your website just let me know."  And with the speed and focus that an Olympic gold medalist would be proud of I said, "Okay, here's what I need you to do…”.  With that, the trap had been set and sprung. Beth along with Kelly had been given the daunting task of finding and letting me know if they hit any roadblocks while navigating through the website. 

Thank goodness Beth was there to help me on this fishing trip!

Lucky for me, we still remain very good friends through this process.  It could be that's because usually anything she needed to bring to my attention was technically way over my head.  So, she passed on what she had found to Kelly, who somehow always found a way to translate this into a language that I could comprehend.  I have to admit sometimes that has meant drawing caveman like story lines in the dirt or snow or on whatever bar napkin was available, until finally she got the point across.  I then had to figure out a different way of going about whatever feature on Mo*Bee's that I insisted on keeping.

As for my family, my daughter, Candice, has helped when she can on this project.  She lives about thirty minutes away from me and has a full-time job that takes her a little over an hour to drive to one way.  That being said, it was sometimes hard to get our schedules to cooperate so that we could work on Mo*Bee's together.  Like me, she does a great job of any project that you put her on, so long as it is something that she's interested in.  So, I guess that I should not have been surprised that it takes an act of Congress in order to get her to do some of the things that I asked her to do.  I have had to drag her to attend business seminars with me so I could have her take legible notes.  Bribery was necessary to have her type numerous emails that I dictated to her so that people would have a small clue as to what I was trying to tell them. 

Candice 

You may not be able to recognize her from this photo because she is 23 now, but she still looks like this to me ... well plus tattoos and some piercings.

Yet, if I asked her if she could do some crazy promotional stunt, not only could she find time to do it, she acted like she had all the time in the world. She was actually glad to help me with that project.  By the way, if you ever get the chance to meet her while she's out promoting Mo*Bee's, how about do me a favor and tell her, for each and every little thing that she does, her mom sees it, knows it, and appreciates it.  Then give her a hug from me and tell her to get back to work.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about Dawn.  I didn't forget about Dawn, for she crosses my mind daily.  I only forgot to tell you about her until now.  Dawn is my big sister.  If you don't already know her because she is one of the kindest, most awesome people you could ever meet, then you probably at least know her husband, Joe.  You probably know Joe or know of him because he's one of the kindest, most awesome people you could ever want to meet.  

Dawn & Joe

Dawn is and has always been my reality check.  Most likely anytime you find something on Mo*Bee's website and think, “Wow, that was really well thought out.”  It's there because Dawn has had me go over it and over it and over it again.  So each time you do something on Mo*Bee's and think, “That’s cool or that was easy,” she probably had a little something to do with that. 

I can't thank Joe and Dawn enough.  They have been able to put me in contact with people who could advise me when I got to forks in the road and needed direction on which way to go. You're sure to hear more about these two if you continue to read my post.

When building a website, you are going to come across a lot of forks in the road.

I am very much looking forward to the day when I will be able to spend some time taking classes that I have found on Mo*Bee's Class Finder.  I will report back to you about all the new, fun things that are out there to learn. 

Whether you are looking to take a class or teach a class, my ultimate goal is that Mo*Bee's Class Finder helps you.  Instructors, I hope Mo*Bee’s is a platform to promote the knowledge, skills and services that you have to offer. At the same time, I hope Mo*Bee's will be the students’ source for class finding made easy.  




Home page of Mo*Bee's.  Looks a little better than my drawings, you think?

Education is the power to change our lives, our communities, and our world.  I look forward to hearing about your class experiences and how you are using “the power.”  Encourage others by sharing your fun, serious, uplifting and heartbreaking stories on our Facebook page.   

Until next time…..if you see my daughter, give her a hug from me and tell her, her mother said, "Get back to work".

Dee 
a.k.a. Mo*Bee



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