MWLM Blog

Reach Out and Touch Someone…

In 1981 AT&T ripped at our heart strings with the slogan “Reach out and touch someone”.

Think back…

You’re away at college when you see this tear jerking long distance telephone commercial on TV. Now you know, without a shadow of a doubt, how much your momma misses you. Call her!

Your sweet old Grandma doesn’t have much time left on this earth; she wants to hear your voice. Won’t you at least talk to her today?

When I hear the first few notes of this gut wrenching jingle, I instantly yearn for the yummy smells of home. My eyes well-up, I need to talk to my daddy.

Oh for crying out loud, this is one powerful commercial, my father lives next door!

Now, fast forward twenty seven years to our current lifestyle.

I'm living a dream as I walk barefoot on sugar white sands. The warm emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico gently tickle my perfectly painted toe nails.

However, my life in paradise does not keep me from popping in on my daughter, Keelyn, for a quick virtual chat. My computer’s web cam hooks up with my daughters Mac in Seattle, which is three thousand miles away. Yet, we instantly create a video/audio connection. How virtually cool is that?

This is how the ‘Baby Boomer’ parents and generation ‘X’ children communicate in 2008.

Today my seven month old grandbaby, Trista, is flapping her arms like a bird, wiggling on her momma’s lap, happily squawking showing me glimpses of her new front teeth.

I watch Charlie, my five year old grandson, bounce into the room looking straight at me on the computer screen. (The computer grandma’s virtual visit is old-hat to him.) Charlie’s big brown eyes twinkle as he smirks and says, “Gran-maw, can I have some candy?”

Thrilled to be noticed, I quickly answer, “Yes you can.” Charlie takes off on a dead run shouting back towards me, “Gran-maw you’re da best.”

My daughter instantly spews out an irritated “Mom!”

Somehow I’m not getting that warm fuzzy feeling of …‘Reach out and touch someone’.

This virtual reality ‘thang’ just got tricky. Oops, mybad!

Pam Vanden Bos, Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine Intern

My Latest Project

As a mom writer, I know that I should be raving about my latest writing project, but today I want to share my latest web design with all of you.  The company that I do technical writing for recently changed its name to Neotelis, and since I had web design experience, the boss asked me to design the new corporate website.  I worked roughly 70 hours on it over the last few months while also meeting the often tight deadlines that we have for training documentation and coordinating the work of my new assistant that they hired to give me a hand (FINALLY!!).  Of course, as a mom, I'm used to multitasking and getting the job done on time, every time, but this project was huge, and I spent few hour sleeping in the last few weeks so that it would be ready to launch on April 2.  So if any of you would like to sneak a peek, the site URL is www.neotelis.com. 

By the way, all of the Training Program Outlines listed (under Training/Training Programs List) on the site were written, or at least modified, by me.  So while I might be raving over the site work, it does include a lot of the writing that has kept me busy over the last two years.

I'm off to work on another training manual (those are not included on the site, but I"ve written a lot of those, too).  Have a great day!

Lucie Bouchard Antoniazzi, Regular Columnist, All in a Mom-Day's Work, www.luciebouchardantoniazzi.com