OPI Nail Polish Update

A couple of months ago, I talked about my new find: OPI nail polish. It’s what is used in salons, and the colors, besides being rich and brilliant, also seem to be chip-proof, at least when applied at the salon.

I didn’t have as much luck on my own. Within a day or two of applying, or my worst record yet, a few hours, I noticed chipping. And because the colors are so bright and, well, colorful, the chips showed up that much more glaringly.

My most recent endeavor was to buy a nail strengthener by Sally Hansen that was specifically supposed to help with weak, peeling nails. I thought maybe my chip problem was because my nails tend to peel, and that if they peel, the polish peels off, too. I had two reasons for trying the Sally Hansen fortifier: one was to try to save money, and the other was because it was convenient to buy. I paid about $7 for the bottle of miracle no-peel formula. Sally Hansen can be found in any grocery store and any drugstore, while OPI can only be found at Trade Secret at the mall. I figured that if it worked, I would save both money and time. I applied it religiously for about two weeks. I used it alone, and I used it as a base and topcoat with OPI nail polish. And I didn’t notice a difference. My most recent and monumental failure happened Sunday. I did my nails Sunday afternoon, and by Sunday evening, the color had chipped so badly, I ended up removing all the polish and went to work Monday with naked nails.

So finally, last night, I broke down and I did what I have really wanted to do: buy myself some OPI products and use them together. I bought ChipSkip, which is a clear application, that when applied directly to clean, dry nails, is supposed to prevent chipping. I also bought their three-in-one base coat, nail strengthener, and topcoat. And, of course, I bought three new nail polish colors. It was a little pricey, coming to about $44, which qualified me for a free nail polish accessory bag, perfect for feeding my addiction. Although it seems like a lot to spend on nail polish, if it works, it will have paid for itself in less than two trips to the salon for a manicure and pedicure.

The first thing I did was apply the ChipSkip, which dried instantly on contact. And when I say instant, I mean instant! Then I applied one base coat and to my surprise, it dried very quickly. I applied two coats of color, waited a bit for them to dry, and then applied one top coat. I waited about an hour and half before putting my nails to the test: peeling price tags off purchases and wrapping presents. This simple task is what ruined my nails on Sunday. And guess what this time? No chipping! This morning, my nails look great. I don’t know how to explain it, but my nails have a different quality about them, almost as if I were wearing acrylic nails, but without the hefty salon price tag that comes with a manicure. If this really works, then I’m going to be an OPI girl for life. In addition, I will never, ever assume that other products can substitute for the real thing. It only makes sense that OPI products work best with other OPI products.

I will update again, when I notice my first chip. I promise I will update this time!

P.S. If you’re stumped for what to get me for Christmas, here’s a hint: OPI Nail Polish!

The Trans Siberian Orchestra

As our Christmas present to ourselves this year, we went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra last Friday (the 15^th) at the Richmond Coliseum. Stefan had seen a commercial for them on television and thought that their mix of orchestra and progressive rock would be something I’d really enjoy, seeing as to how I’m an orchestra and progressive rock junkie.

He was right.

We splurged on second row seat tickets, and the show was worth every penny! From the very beginning to the very end, the show was a gourmet meal for the senses. The band was made up of quite a few members, all who were dressed to the nines. The men sported long hair and wore tuexdos with tails, while the women wore identical black evening gowns with fishnet stockings. It was apparent that this band truly cared about their audience. They didn’t allow the complex light and fireball displays to carry the performance, but rather every band member pushed out their passion and delight in performing onto the sold-out show. Throughout the 3-hour long performance, every member was allowed to showcase their skills.

Initially, I was concerned that we would blow out our eardrums being so close to the front, but once the band began to play, my fears were allayed. I had forgotten that TSO has a huge budget; much larger than the local bands I had seen as a teenager, and therefore, they had a super serious surround sound that local bands cannot afford. My other concern about the acoustics not being that great in the Richmond Coliseum also evaporated. The sound was mixed very well, and I could hear every instrument and voice clearly. There was no muddy or thin, reedy sound to be heard. I did notice that the entire concrete floor had been covered with plywood, and I wonder if that helped the acoustics. But whatever the case, the sound engineers of TSO definitely knew what they were doing.

The first half of the show consisted of a narrator telling the tale of the Lost Christmas Eve, and his magnificent voice told a story so beautiful that many in the audience were moved to tears. A backdrop of thousands of twinkling stars mesmerized the audience, as well as the snow that fell from above the massive lighting rig. The snow was very clever: it was made up of tiny soap bubble clusters, that when they fell, they formed various sizes of “flakes” and melted instantly on contact. Likewise, the lightness of the bubbles allowed the “snow” to fall in that same weightless gravity way that actual snow falls.

The show could have easily closed after the first half. It marked an excellent closing point, but then we were (or I was) pleasantly surprised when the director announced that they were halfway through the show. Stefan didn’t really enjoy the second half, as he does not enjoy progressive rock the way I do. I thought the first half of the show was absolutely fabulous, but then the second half started, and I felt they outdid themselves once again.

The second half of the show consisted of remakes of old familiar rock songs, with their own added twist to each song (imagine classic rock played with a progressive twist). The two guitarists took turns playing solos, and they even came down to mingle with the first row of the audience. The lead violinist came out at one point with a neon-wrapped bow, and the outline of his clear electric violin glowed beneath the black lights. As a former musician, I was mesmerized by my first “real” rock show, and Stefan grew concerned that I might lose my shirt. Apparently I got lost in the moment as the guitarists took turns rocking out just above our heads and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The one guitarist favored his Gibson Les Paul, while the other one had a penchant for Jackson Flying V’s. I lost track of how many Flying V’s he had after he emerged with his fourth one. At one point, one of the guitarists even played a double-neck. At first I thought it was just for show, but he did eventually utilize both necks, and that pleased me. The two keyboardists, who played Korg Tritons, performed a dual. I felt the dual was weak, and they could have really wowed the audience with their skills, but they chose to hold back. I felt the same way about the drum solo. But then again, I grew up listening to Neil Peart, the drummer of Rush, so I might be holding TSO to an impossible standard.

If you have never seen the Trans Siberian Orchestra, I highly recommend that you do so. It is a great family show, as well. Put it on your list of things to do before you die. And start planning now so you can get front row seats. I’m sure that the show is fantastic from any seat, but it is something really special and spectacular up close. You will not be disappointed. They get a huge thumbs up from me, and I can’t wait to see them again next year!

Chillin' wit' My BFF

Stefan and I celebrated our marriage’s first birthday last night. Yay us! We took ourselves and our marriage out to Brother’s Pizza, a local favorite restaurant, where we ordered our standard meal: a pitcher of Bud, garden salad with chunky bleu cheese dressing, and Tony’s Special. For dessert, Stefan ordered a homemade cannoli, while I opted for cheesecake slathered with strawberries. The waitress brought out the cheesecake with a lit candle on the top, and I blew out the candle on behalf of our marriage.

We spent the meal as we usually do, discussing the activities of the day, and planning for the weeks ahead. But we also talked about the past year, and how although it’s been peppered with lows and highs, with seemingly more lows than highs, it doesn’t really matter. The lows weren’t a result of our interaction with each other; they were caused by external forces. In the whole scheme of things, when looking at the bigger picture and seeing how we’re going to be together for the next 30 or 40 years, a lower-than-expected year isn’t all that surprising or even unexpected. In fact, it matters very little.

As any other thing in life, a marriage is susceptible to falling victim to entropy. Vows don’t make us immune to the nuances that can eat away at a great relationship. We can protect our marriage by communicating more than we think is necessary. The more we practice communicating, the better we will become at it, and the stronger our marriage will become because of it.

Afterwards, we didn’t feel like going home just yet, so we headed to Books-A-Million, where we cruised the aisles for reference books on editing. In the interim, Stefan spotted a stack of “I support Marriage” magnetic bumper stickers that the bookstore was selling for $3.99 a pop. This political issue is a bit of a hot-button for both of us (we do support marriage, otherwise we wouldn’t be married, but we don’t support it in the way the bumper sticker implied, which was that marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman). This served as a further reminder that we moved to the wrong part of town. Somewhere during the course of the evening, the entire stack of bumper stickers managed to fall down between some bookshelves. I have no idea how that happened, but when the store closes for good and the bookshelves are dismantled, the magnetic bumper stickers will reappear. Hopefully the store will never move or go out of business, and the bumper stickers will stay there for a long, long time.

At the checkout counter, we were again bombarded with religiously charged material (apparently this Books-A-Million is making a statement as to which political side they fall on), and Stefan spotted some little charms with pink plastic sapphires stuck to them. Engraved on the side of the charm was, “Best Friends” repeatedly, in a circle. We got a good laugh out of reminiscing back to the days when childhood friends referred to each other as BFF, or Best Friends Forever. That got us thinking about our relationship again, and on a whim, we purchased the charms and put them on our key chains. Now we can declare to the entire world (like our wedding rings and Stefan’s tattoo isn’t enough) that we indeed are Best Friends Forever.

Maybe some folks would roll their eyes or laugh at us, but we don’t care. If we remember nothing else of our first anniversary, we will remember it as the day we got our BFF charms.

Technology Killed the Job Applicant

People have always said that the newspaper is the worst place to look for a job. Those who advertised openings in the newspaper are said to receive more resumes than they could handle. Oftentimes, you’d end up writing to a generic P.O. Box, with no hope of contacting a live human being. How do you successfully follow up and show that you are ambitious? How do you make yourself stand out from the crowd when the attitude is, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you”?

I am going to take that old saying and revise it a little bit. The Internet is the worst place to look for a job, yet applicants are left with virtually no other options. An overwhelming number of companies now only accept online applications.

Online job websites have turned into recruiter junkie reunions. It has been several years since I’ve seen a “real” job posting on one of the popular job websites. Mostly, the chaff settles there – the jobs that are 3-month long contracts in far-flung places like South Dakota. Plus, you get no benefits, no overtime pay (since you’re hourly), and no stipend to support you moving somewhere else for three months while you struggle to support two households.

I may be exaggerating a bit, but I’m not far off. The last call I received was from a recruiter who happened across my online resume and he tried to interest me in a 3-month on-site contract in Alexandria, VA. I told him to Mapquest Alexandria to Petersburg and tell me what the drive time would be. Then I asked him if he would drive 3 hours one way to a job that was slated to last 3 months. He laughed and said, “No.” I said, “Neither would I.”

The next bright idea is to go directly to the company’s website you wish to work for, and apply there. Still, everything is electronic, and the attitude is the same as the newspaper ads: “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”

So what’s a girl to do? Simple. Get a contracting job working for a very large, Fortune 50 company. Ingratiate yourself into the social circle and sniff around for openings. So far, so good. An opening came up a few weeks ago. I talked with my manager about it, and she enthusiastically encouraged me to apply and to include her as a reference. While she does not have the budget or power to make hiring decisions (if she did, I wouldn’t be writing this now), she is willing to talk to anyone who does about why I would make a great choice as an employee.

The only way I could apply was through the online website, just like everyone else out there. So much for having an “in.” My manager cannot even break the chain. The best I could do was put her name down on my resume as a reference and hope they would read that far.

The HR department has taken a very hard line regarding the application process. Once they receive your application, you get a confirmation number. This number I received does very little to make me feel certain my electronic submission was received. They state only the most qualified applicants will receive further notification. Once a person has passed muster on paper, the next step is to see if they pass muster over the phone. If the phone interview goes well, then the next step is a face-to-face interview. Once all that is done, a candidate receives an offer, and the job posting is removed from the website.

I checked today, and the posting has been removed. If me contracting at the very same company at which I applied, doing the same job as advertised in the posting isn’t enough to get me in, and if my manager as a reference isn’t enough to get me in, then I don’t know what will be enough. I can only hope that I did pass muster, but the position was closed for other reasons, such as an unexpected hiring freeze.

I just sometimes feel that the HR departments running the application process live in an air-locked compartment. The application and interviewing process has changed, but nobody’s up-to-speed on it yet. There are plenty of articles on how to knock-‘em dead in your interview, but nothing written yet about how to make your electronic resume stand out from the crowd, so that you actually get an interview. The whole point of the resume is to outshine your peers, to get the attention of the decision-makers. Filling in some forms online hardly lets you do that.

I’m feeling a bit pigeonholed into contracting. It’s the next best thing to a “real” job. Yet, it’s awfully frightening to me. I know that I could be let go with no notice. I could be here this morning, and standing in the unemployment line this afternoon. That fear never, ever, ever goes away, either.

It would go away, I suppose, if I was independently wealthy, but I’m not. I still work to live, just like 99% of the rest of us. Being a contractor has made me extremely financially savvy, so I suppose that’s a plus. But it is tough, staying at a place for 2 years, getting to know everyone and their working styles and personal nuances, only to have to start the job search all over again, and start over somewhere new. I wonder if I can get used to it, to learn to accept it and embrace it, love it, even. Maybe in a few more years, after we’ve saved up 6 months’ salary and our stock portfolio has a deep cushion, I will be able to accept contracting as a lifestyle choice. Until then, I’m just going to walk around with angst.

Relevance

There is someone in my life who is trying to push my buttons. For a little while, I was determining how and when I should respond to the button-pushing. And then circumstances happened that put the whole darned thing into perspective very quickly.

For starters, Stefan and I recently decided to have Perry neutered. This was not an easy decision for either of us, as we believed we wanted all of our dogs to remain intact. No harm, no foul, right? However, as Cubby continues to mature (physically, not mentally), Perry gets all worked up and continues to instigate fights with him. He had even taken to marking inside the house. All that testosterone was making him edgy and a bit aggressive. So, the grapes had to go.

Perry went in for his procedure Wednesday morning, and I picked him up on the way home from work. He was a bit groggy, but otherwise in good shape. He’d had a pain shot (unbeknownst to us), which would wear off after the pain of the surgery went away. They did not give us any pain medication.

We spent Thanksgiving with the family, where Stefan made the Best Turkey Ever. It was so tender and juicy, he couldn’t even lift it out of the broiler without the meat falling off the bones. He didn’t even have to use the electric knife. After we all ate, we settled in to watch a movie. Perry tried to sleep on the sofa next to me, but he kept shaking and seemed very uncomfortable. I began to worry that his surgery was causing him pain. The shaking continued to worsen, and after a few hours, Perry began vomiting. I figured he was in so much pain from the surgery that the pain was making him sick to his stomach. I was cursing the vets under my breath. We’ve not had a great track record with this vet place. They make mistakes quite often, and I assumed they’d forgotten to give me some pain meds for our little guy.

After a sleepless night of worrying about Perry, I rushed him to the vet’s office as soon as it opened. I told them what was going on, and they dismissed my worries about his pain and discomfort being from his surgery, and that this new thing was merely coincidental. They decided to keep him for the day so they could take x-rays and do some blood work. It was extremely difficult to go home empty-handed, to think that something else might be seriously wrong with our little dude.

To keep ourselves occupied, we went to Home Depot, where we picked out new lighting fixtures for the kitchen. Stefan wanted to thank me in his own way for being such a wonderful wife by re-doing the kitchen. He worked for three days and three nights, painting the kitchen (by brush, no less!), and installing a wine rack, a pot rack, and two new counters. He got it done in time for Thanksgiving. Then, as I drove Amy to her friend’s house, he installed the lighting fixtures we’d picked out. He is the Most Wonderful Husband Ever!!

Saturday, we called the vet’s to see if we could bring our little dude home. When the doctor said the words, “partial kidney failure” and “he could still go on to live a long life,” things kind of blurred. Our poor dog was very, very sick, indeed. The doctor, bless his heart, happened to be a flea and tick enthusiast, and believed our Perry had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which, if left untreated, is a quick killer of dogs. It shuts down the kidneys, and the rest is basically history after that. Fortunately, there is a medication that cures the dog and can reverse the kidney failure. We were able to take Perry home Saturday, and we watched him carefully for signs of improvement or failure. I am relieved to say he is acting much more like himself – playing, laughing, smiling, eating, drinking, and generally being the mischief-maker we know him to be. He is also much more attentive and loving towards us, and not nearly as instigative towards Cubby (a result of the neutering, we believe).

As of Friday, I have also been battling a cold. It’s a minor one, thankfully, but has been just annoying enough to take the fun out of things. Stefan has been a real doll putting up with my cranky ass. He put up all the outdoor Christmas decorations by himself. And he has plans for a new kitchen floor. I’m not exactly sure how I got so lucky, but I’m not going to question it!

All of this occurred so quickly, that it put the button-pusher out of my mind completely. After things began to settle down, I thought about it some. And it dawned on me how trivial the whole thing was, in light of everything that had gone on. Someone who is not even close to me is trying to inflame me.

What really matters is what happens to those closest to me. Everything else is just a minor annoyance, not even worth a passing glance.

Actions and Consequences

Due to the massive public outcry against the upcoming televised interview with OJ Simpson and the impending release of his book, “If I Did It, Here’s How it Happened,” News Corp has cancelled both the Fox interview and the book.

Congratulations and thank you to all of you who made your voice heard. This is a huge victory!

I want to make a point clear, however. At no time did I wish to ban the book or the interview. I fully support the economical, capitalist society we live in and the rights we have under the 1st amendment. News Corp has every right to air the interview and publish the book. What I want to get across is that just as they have the right to freedom of speech, so do we. Just because an “offensive” book gets published, or anything else that hits a nerve, for that matter, doesn’t mean we have to endorse it. We can exercise our freedom of speech as well. And in this case, we did. There was enough of an outcry that we made it clear this project would not be popular or profitable, and therefore, it was tabled. Actions and consequences do exist outside of the courtroom. Sorry, OJ.

I’m going to pick on Judith Reagan for a moment. In an online article I read this morning (which I can’t find now, thanks Yahoo!, for so quickly dumping the stories before I had a chance to bookmark them), Judith Reagan claims that she pressed for the book and the interview because as a former victim of domestic violence, she felt if she could persuade Mr. Simpson to confess, she would get closure on a chapter in her personal life.

How naive.

Perhaps Ms. Reagan did suffer domestic abuse. I recall having similar feelings towards a previous abuser. That was before I realized my role in the situation. Had I had healthy self-esteem and a good sense of personal boundaries, I never would have ended up dating an abusive man. It took me about 8 years to own up to the fact that I was half of the problem. I didn’t egg the person on, but I also did not give clear action/consequence statements about his behavior towards me. I stuck around, thereby teaching him that no matter what he did to me, he didn’t suffer very severe consequences. I allowed him to damage me, until one day I decided I was done. For 8 years after that, I went around with a seething rage inside, wishing I could somehow confront my abuser and hear how apologetic he was about his treatment of me. I even wrote an unpublished book to tell my side of the story. Kind of a personal revenge, I suppose. It did a lot to soothe the rage, and I’m happy to say that my ill feelings towards this person are gone. But not just because I wrote the book. Rather, the rage evaporated when I took a hard look at myself and admitted my role in that unhealthy relationship. Ms. Reagan has yet to get to this point.

Those who abuse others will rarely, if ever, own up to what they did. Even when confronted with overwhelming evidence of their behavior. Why? Because that would mean owning up to the fact that a monster lives within themselves. It took me 8 years to face how my inaction did nothing but train this person that his abuse was okay, not according to the world’s standards, but my own personal standards. How much longer would it take for someone to admit they took advantage of another person’s weaknesses? That they exploited them? It ain’t gonna’ happen.

Every action has a consequence. We all suffer (or thrive), in some way, the consequences of our own actions. It is never completely one person’s fault (Disclaimer: this does not apply to children. Just adults. Acts against children...well that’s an entirely different topic).The sooner we figure this out, the quicker we will become healthy adults.

Making a Stand Against the OJ Circus

Shame on you, OJ Simpson. Shame on you, Judith Reagan, ReganBooks and HarperCollins. Shame on you, Fox Television.

I felt ill when I first heard that OJ was coming out with a book titled, “If I Did It,” which details, hypothetically, how OJ murdered his former wife and her boyfriend. The book is coming out on November 30, 2006. My initial thought was, “wow, someone in the publishing field is getting too greedy!”

Then, it got worse.

Fox Television just announced it is going to air a special two-day interview with none other than OJ Simpson himself and his publisher, Judith Reagan (who is interviewing him), strategically right before his book is due to be released. The special interview will air on November 27 and November 29. Can you say shameless plug? Let’s all say it together, boys and girls: SHAMELESS PLUG!

Like it’s not bad enough that the dude is telling his story in print because he got Double Jeopardy (what other conclusion am I left with?). The book is strategically dropping right before Christmas. And now, he’s getting a two-day televised interview??? Conducted by his publisher???

Does anyone else not see how dispicable this is? Now, I will admit to suffering from some mild curiousity. Just as I do when I pass an accident on the side of the road. But it’s not enough for me to want to run out and buy the book. Or watch the two-day long commercial. I don’t believe that this is something to celebrate or get excited about. To me, it feels like OJ is flaunting his supposed double jeopardy situation, and he, along with ReganBooks, HarperCollins, and now Fox, are going to get rich off what was a tragic occurence. Not to mention all the companies who choose to advertise during the interview. None of this feels right.

How about a nice, feel-good story, instead? You know, maybe a show about a community that banded together to help a fellow neighbor in need. Something that shows the good will of men. Oh, wait. That doesn’t make for a best-seller. It doesn’t make good television ratings.

This is about greed. Sheer greed, pure and simple. It shows off the one side of capitalism that makes me queasy. The side that gets warped. I’m all for individuals making money. But at the expense of others? I wonder how the Brown family and the Goldman family feel right about now?

For that, I am not going to watch Fox Television, and I am not going to purchase any items from ReganBooks and HarperCollins. I don’t want my hard-earned money supporting someone who shamelessly flaunts his power, greed, and riches in front of the nation, but more importantly, in front of the families of the victims. It makes a mockery of the court system. It tells us that if you have enough money, you can buy your way out of anything. Including murder (hypothetically speaking, of course). And then, you can take that bold step forward and turn it into a money-making scheme.

I’m sure my lousy couple of dollars I’m not spending to support OJ and all those who stand to make a killing off this deal (no pun intended), won’t cause anyone to blink an eye. Sometimes it seems to me that when I get passionate about something, I wonder what I can do, as one person, to make a difference. Especially against something so large as this. But in my heart, I know that even if I am one person making a stand, I have stayed true to my beliefs. And that makes it all worthwhile.

I encourage all of you to stay true to yourself, to make a stand when you feel it in your heart to do so. It will make a difference.

By Comparison

Sometimes I feel like I am “behind” in the world. Other times I feel like I am ahead. And on even more rare occasions, I feel that I am right where I should be. It all depends on my mindset, and who I choose to compare myself with at that moment in time. It is a strange phenomenon, really. Why do we do this? It almost seems to be a form of self-torture.

And why is it so easy to look at someone else and instantly think, “She’s so far ahead of me. Look at her. She has two degrees, she’s my age, she has a couple of kids, a nice house, and an office.” Then I look at myself and think, “Why don’t I have what she has? Why am I still sitting at a cube when she is my age and she has an office?” I begin to feel badly about myself. Maybe I should have stuck it out in college. Maybe I should have stuck with that first corporate job back in my twenties, because I probably could have worked my way up by now. But nooooo, I did neither of these things, and that’s why I’m here in my cubicle, envying her in her office. Poop.

Other times I look at someone and think, “I’ve sooooo got it made! Look at her. She’s five years older than me, she’s at least 4 dress sizes larger, still lives in an apartment, has three cats, and no love prospects on the horizon. At least I take care of myself. And I have a house and the most awesomest husband ever. I’ll never be that weird old lady with all the cats, but that’s the path she’s headed down.”

Neither of these scenarios are healthy, but we all do them. We all run these scenes in our head, every day. We do it go give ourselves a mood boost, whatever mood it is we so choose to carry with us that day.

It’s pretty self-defeating when I stop to think about it. And it’s really unfair. It’s unfair to me, and it’s unfair to the person I’m comparing myself against. It’s unfair to both parties for the same reasons: we all walk our own path in life. We are who we are, and we are where we are because of our own actions and choices.

Additionally, we are comparing ourselves to someone else in a small snap-shot of time. We may be catching them at the zenith of their career, or while they’ve got the world on a string. Or we may be catching them at a low point in their lives, where it seems nothing is going right, and they are suffering through a series of unfortunate incidents. We’ve all seen the glamorous movie star, all decked out on the red carpet, and then later seen their mug shot.

That’s when we tend to get narrow-minded. Instead of seeing someone as a whole, we take what we want from the snap-shot and turn it against them or ourselves. But when’s the last time you ever became a better person because you compared yourself with someone else? I don’t think these petty comparisons do anything more than occupy precious brain space. Yet it’s hard not to do it because it feels good. I am guilty as charged.

If our intention is to spurn ourselves to action, then we’d best select a few good role models – someone whose life we’ve observed over a large span of time, and we’ve seen qualities in them that have sustaining power. Those are the people by which we can more accurately measure ourselves. And we find we won’t be so self-deprecating or self-righteous, because these role models didn’t come out perfectly from their mold. They worked towards becoming who they are, just as we choose to do when we select them as our role model.

When we let go of these daily comparisons and select a role model, we can suddenly breathe a sigh of relief. We can begin seeing those around us with fresh eyes – eyes that try to take in the whole picture of their lives, instead of a single snap-shot. It is those moments that we can see ourselves for what we truly are and right where we should be.

New Photos Posted!

Okay, with the time change came, well, time to put up all the photos we've been taking over the last several months! They're in the gallery.

Enjoy!!

A Successful Week

We got a lot accomplished this week! Here are a few of the highlights...

Last Saturday, as we cleaned the pool, we were lamenting about how the dogs are tearing apart the yard. Cubby likes to dig potholes everywhere, while the other two like to pee on every blade of grass. And of course, none of them have a "favorite" place to poop, so the backyard is enter-at-your-own-risk. The grass, what little there is, is dead. Weeds and clay decorate everything else. And I get the distinct feeling that the neighbors dislike our trashy-looking backyard.

Yet, we refuse to do anything with it until we accomplish other tasks first. Initially, we figured it would be several years before we got to the landscaping. This, of course, means having to deal with potholes, dog poop, the smell of dog pee (on the pool, because there apparently aren't enough trees to satisfy them), and clay and weeds for the next several years. And the little bit of landscaping we had already done had been destroyed by the dogs.

It was time to take back control. We decided that we could fence the dogs off from the backyard if we built a small fence starting at the back stairs of the deck and running across to the fence on the side of the house. This would allow us to work on beautifying the backyard without our efforts getting destroyed. Stefan had watched the guys with keen interest when they built the fence around our backyard, and he was convinced we could do the job ourselves.

Off to Home Depot we go. We did that Sunday. Mind you, neither of us have much experience with building things, and many parts of this project were completely new to us. I won't go into detail about the trip to Home Depot in the ghetto - it's too depressing. Just know that Sunday night, we came home with what we thought were all the supplies we needed to build a fence.

Monday evening, we covered up the pool and chicken-wired off the spaces between the stairs where Perry could get out into the rest of the backyard.

Tuesday, we used our new post-digger to dig the post holes and we set the posts in the holes.

Wednesday, we chicken-wired off all the other parts of the deck where Perry likes to get out into the driveway. We also poured and mixed cement for the first time, and we set the posts.

Thursday, we tried to drill the posts into the supporting post on the deck, but discovered we had the wrong tool for the job. So back to Home Depot we went where we wandered about for over an hour, with not a single orange smock in sight to help us. We finally settled on an impact wrench and brought it home, only to discover we neglected to note what size drill adapters it needed, so that meant more running around until we found what we needed. It took about 2 minutes to finish the job with the right tool. So we did that, and then we also assembled the supporting rails. Stefan also used a chain saw for the first time. He has all his fingers and limbs, I am happy to report!

Friday, it rained.

Today, we broke out the boards and our new miter saw and went to town. The job of measuring each board was given to me, and miraculously, I was able to measure them straight, thanks to the help of a measuring square. Stefan cut them, and used the nail gun to erect the boards. Then we set about the task of cutting the fence to make the gate. And by gosh, we have a fence that we built all ourselves!

I am so incredibly proud of us!! Yay us! We committed to doing something new, and we took a couple of hours each day to work on it, and our efforts really paid off. Granted, it would have taken much longer if we didn't have the right tools, but we didn't mind buying them, because we will use them over and over and over again. It will save us a ton of money in the long run, since we won't have to hire others to do our home projects.

All in all, I am very, very proud of us. It is so amazing to see tangible results, and it feels really good to accomplish something that as little as 8 months ago, we would have thought we couldn't do it. So much more is now within reach! And to think, all it took was a couple of hours each day!

Holly's Soapbox Issue of the Day

I read an article today how certain school recess activities are being banned in some school districts. Activities such as playing tag, touch football, or any unsupervised chase games.

An accident might happen and the parents might hold the school liable. Gasp! Oh, no! A kid falls and hurts himself! Or a kid might run head-on into another kid!

Pretty soon, jungle gyms will be outlawed, along with monkey bars, teeter-totters, slides, swing-sets and sandboxes. Seriously, aren’t those more dangerous than being chased?

Kids have a penchant for pushing things to the extremes. Who else hung upside down from the monkey bars? We could have fallen and cracked our head open or broken our neck. Kids are brutal on the teeter-totters. I think everyone has gone home at least once with bruised butt bones because our counterpart on the teeter-totter suddenly jumped off while we were in the air, causing us to crash to the ground with sudden force. Slides are dangerous, too. Someone could slide down and crash into you while you’re trying to climb up the slide. Who didn’t try to see how high they could swing on the swing-set and then jump off, to get the feeling of flying? We could have fallen, tripped, broken our leg or nose. And sandboxes are just gross.

Wow, I can’t believe I survived childhood with all those dangerous things around me! I thought I was fortunate to have grown up before the bike helmet law went into effect. To think that I used to ride my bike on the shoulder of a road with a 55 MPH speed limit without a helmet is just beyond reproach. Yet, I have a right to engage in risky behavior if I so choose, don’t I?

Half the fun of being a kid is trading scar stories with your friends. Getting hurt when you’re young is considered regular and customary, isn’t it? You need to push the limits of your body so you know what the limits are. You need to learn you are breakable. It is part of the learning process.

Kids are full of energy, and if we take away all their outlets to release that energy in a healthy manner, we’re going to have a real mess on our hands. I personally hate video games for this reason. I don’t think video games do children any justice at all. Give a kid a fenced-in back yard and a friend, and tell them they can’t come in until dinner. They’ll find all kinds of ways to exercise their imaginations, brains and bodies.

I just think we are on a very dangerous trend by “banning” certain activities for fear of kids getting hurt. We are already trying to soften the blow of not winning by awarding trophies to the losing team. I wouldn’t be surprised if kids are no longer allowed to pick team members in gym class, because someone inevitably will be picked last, and their feelings will get hurt. This is a very socialist way of looking at things. The same goes for group projects. Don’t get me started on group projects. I was always the one doing the majority of the work so I could protect my high grade point average. And, as always, the other members of the group benefited from my work ethic, while I grudgingly toiled. I hated group projects.

That’s one of the reasons I’m so glad to be an adult. I can look at my resume, or my salary history and smile with pride. I did that. It was all me. Nobody else can take credit for my accomplishments of today, nor can they bring me down to their level. I am enjoying capitalism to its fullest.

So naturally, I am concerned about what kind of generation we are churning out. These kids will one day be my co-workers. Or my employees. And I’m going to be a hard-ass. I’m going to give the job to the person who is most qualified, or more importantly, most motivated. I mean, I hope I will be able to do that. It is possible that business will have changed to be more of a socialist environment, and I won’t be able to pick and choose by the ethics upon which I was raised. I’ll have to make a hiring decision based upon a lottery, so things are “fair,” and then I’ll have to move to a country that embraces capitalism the way it was meant to be.

That’s why this is a soapbox issue to me. It goes against everything I have worked so hard for, fought so hard for. I view it as a threat to my success and my liberties to meet and exceed my personal expectations. This is way more than a few concerned school board members, and I don’t think these folks are fully contemplating the repercussions of their rules. Frankly, someone needs to call out these trends before it’s too late.

Reverse Racism

Reverse Racism is alive and well.

Oh, yes, I'm going there!

I just want to get this off my chest...

So I was walking into work from the parking lot yesterday, when a co-worker asked if I could help her bring in some items from her car. I said, "Sure, I'd be happy to help!" She loaded me up with several bags of great smelling food - all in styrofoam containers. My goodness, it smelled awesome! Meanwhile she was saying as we walked in, "Thanks so much for your help. You're a lifesaver. I'd have had to make another trip out to the car if it weren't for you."

I said she was more than welcome, and made it clear it was no trouble for me to help out.

She put all the food in the refrigerator, and that was that.

Or so I thought.

A few hours later, a girl on my team came over to talk to me, and said co-worker's name came up (they are of the same race). The girl explained the co-worker loved to cook and this woman had cooked all this food for her birthday this past weekend, and she'd brought the left-overs in for her team. That was nice of her, I thought.

Imagine my surprise today when I saw my teammate, in the break-room with another woman (of the same race as her), eating lunch from the styrofoam containers I'd helped my co-worker bring in the day before!

So much for bringing in the extras for her teammates. So much for offering me a little something for helping her the other morning. Now she was sharing the left-overs with two other women, who were from two different teams. The connection? They were all the same race.

Glad to know I could help.

Yeah, maybe that sounds harsh, but it's not the first time it's happened to me. I've been treated differently by a boss who was not of the same race, and I notice how some folks tend to associate with others only of their same race. But that's not me and that is not how I think. I treat everyone equally. I try to treat everyone the same, regardless of race, color, sexual orientation, religion, political beliefs, etc.

But when I see this going on, well, I wonder why some folks wonder why they don't get treated fairly and equally be everyone else, if their claim is such. It's no wonder to me. Yeah, I get it - our race treated their race poorly in the past - but come on. How long must I pay for the mistakes of our forefathers when that is not my beliefs at all? Why am I being judged before I've had a chance to prove myself otherwise? If others have felt what I've felt, then we're destined to keep repeating this vicious, prejudiced cycle and nobody will benefit.

Hmph.

Okay, soapbox session is over!!

My New Tattoo and Other Musings

So I got my second tattoo (finally!). It had been in the works since June, but I wanted to wait until summer was over so it could heal in peace. If I'd gotten it during summer, I wouldn't have been able to go in our pool until it had healed, which would have taken about 3 prime weeks out of summer.

Tom at Mystic Art tattoo created the piece from a picture (he does fabulous work, is underpriced, and I highly recommend him). He does all of his work free-form. I gave him a picture of a green turban seashell, and he went from there. Last Wednesday evening, I went in to have the tattoo done. I now have a green seashell on my right hip. And let me say, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch! Too close to the bone, I guess.

What is the significance of a seashell, you ask? Simply put, I turned 30, and in the last couple of years, I have grown significantly as a person. Just like a snail, I outgrew the home I was living in, and had to go out to search for a larger home. The green turban seashell signifies the home I outgrew. It will be interesting to see what fruit the next ten years bear, and what symbol I shall choose as a tattoo representing the decade of my thirties!

On to other news....

I recently won an Ebay bid for a lot of 5 OPI nail polishes and I am very excited. OPI is used in many salons, and is known for their ability to withstand chipping. I remember when I had my acrylic nails, I could go for about a month without ever seeing a chip in my polish. And the shades, the wonderful shades! OPI has about a million different colors. For the money, they can't be beat! My shipment just arrived today, so one of the first things I did when I got home was to paint my nails. I'm wearing "Nice color, eh?" I'll update again as to when I get my first chip in the paint, or when I paint my nails again, whichever occurs first.

My new pet peeve (drumroll please)...

Customer service folks who engage me in conversation, and when I engage them back, do not acknowledge that I have spoken. Drives me up a wall!!! What is the point of saying to me, "Oh, I just bought those boots, too and they are so comfortable!" if, when I say in return, "Really? That's great, because my last pair was so comfortable I wore them for seven years and they finally wore out," if you are going to IGNORE ME. I'm only BUYING SOMETHING FROM YOU!!!!

It took me several years to train myself NOT to say "thank you" to the drive-thru person when they handed me my food with all the enthusiasm of a trained chimpanzee. Why should I thank you? I gave you money, I gave you, in essence, YOUR JOB. And you can't even acknowledge me???

Now I'm going to have to come up with a polite, yet effective way to bring attention to the fact that I am being politely ignored during the engagement of small-talk. Not sure how to do that yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with some catchy something-or-other...

The Virginia State Fair

Stefan and I went to the State Fair yesterday with our good friends, Sam and Dave. Let me just say, we had so much fun, we shut the place down! We didn’t get home until 1am this morning, so I’m wrecked today. But wrecked in that good way.

The weather was absolutely perfect. It had rained during the night, so the sky yesterday was completely blue, and a slight breeze kept the rays from getting too hot as we walked around. We visited the goats, sheep, pigeons, pigs, cows and rabbits. Stefan got up close and personal with a baby goat, and we took a bunch of pictures of the baby pigs.

Then it was on to the tropical animal display, where folks could get their picture taken with a boa constrictor. Sam, Dave and I chickened out, but Stefan went right up and got in line. For $5, they wrap the snake around your shoulders and snap a polaroid. Of course, I was right there with the digital camera, snapping away free pictures as well. Stefan has this huge grin on his face in the photos.

Stefan and I also went for a ride on a Monster Truck. There was this huge truck, all pimped out with wheels about six feet tall. Again, for $5, you could get in the truck and the crazy driver would go around in circles, making hair-pin turns. Where else do you get to do this?

We ate a corn-dog because I had never had one before, and we sampled a fried Twinkie, since neither of us had had one before. We probably won’t have one ever again, but it was a fun experience.

We walked around the exhibition hall for a while, and checked out this huge candy booth, where they carried vast amounts of all kinds of candy we used to have as kids that we never see anymore. Dave bought about 2 pounds of black licorice. I’d say he got enough to last him until about this time next year. We still couldn’t find the candies that Stefan’s grandfather used to share with him. They are molasses disks, and are two-toned. One half is molasses and the other half might be maple. If anyone has any idea what the name of this candy is, please let us know. It might help us to someday find it.

By this time, we were all getting pretty hungry, so we stuffed ourselves with over-priced, over-salted fried fair food. A huge cloud rolled in, and seemed to be sitting right over the Ferris Wheel, which we had purposely waited to go on until it had grown dark. So after we ate, we made a bee-line for the Ferris Wheel, thinking maybe we’d get a chance to on it before it began to rain. By now, it was dark, and lucky for us, the rain never made an appearance. A lot of making out and groping happened at the top. What’s a Ferris Wheel ride without getting felt up? Ahhhh, reminds me of when I was a teenager....!

Dave and I went on this ride called the Cliff Hanger. Sam and Stefan stayed planted on the ground. We had never seen this ride before, but the basic concept is the same as the swings, except in this ride, you lay down on your stomach, just as you would if you were to go hang-gliding. Waaaaay more fun than the swings!! Although, the prostrate position leaves you feeling rather vulnerable and your dignity gets a little tarnished and you wonder why you chose to wear your “nice butt” jeans, knowing all those grizzled fair workers probably fought over who got to run this ride. Have you ever noticed that the folks running the rides are some of the most grizzled people you’ve ever encountered?

Then we all went on a ride that is the equivalent of the Bobsled. This is the classic ride that goes at a pace suited for just about everyone, and it’s just not the Fair if you don’t go on this ride.

Then, Dave, Stefan and I went on this ride that is a smaller version of the Drop Zone at King’s Dominion. Basically, you sit in a seat and the ride takes you straight up, and then drops you to the ground with no notice. It happens so fast that it is a mostly quiet ride. There’s little chance to scream or think and it’s scary, scary scary! I, of course, break the silence and scream the entire 1-second down (the ride only lasts 1 second). Stefan can’t keep his eyes open to watch, and I can’t shut them. Just can’t do that. So I got the see the ground whooshing up, and our feet flying towards our face. We go on this ride again. I scream again. I subsequently have little to no voice today and my throat hurts.

We rounded out the night with a root beer float, and the purchase of several candy apples. Stefan bounced around like a kid, and it was great to see him so fully experiencing a childhood memory like the State Fair. That, right there, was worth the price of admission.

Can’t wait to go again next year!!

Wall Street, Here We Come!

Today is a history-making day. Today, we bought our very first stock, funded soley on earnings from our other holdings. This is significant. It means that our little money-making machines have made enough money to birth their very own money-making machine, with no deposit from us.

We’d hoped this would happen. We dreamed about it. It means that maybe we have figured out a winning strategy.

I am very proud of us and I’m going to shamelessly brag for a moment. If you don’t wish to hear, then I would suggest that you stop reading. Now.

Since we purchased our first holdings in March, we have averaged 32% returns. What does that mean? That means that for every $1,000 we have invested, we have made $320. It doesn’t sound like much at first. But imagine that you have $5,000. Your profit for the year would then be $1,600 (or $133/month). Add that $1,600 to your original $5,000, and you have $6,600. That $6,600 can now make you $2,112 (or $176/month). Now you have a grand total of $8,712. Keep this train going, and if you average 32% annual returns for 25 years, your initial $5,000 will grow into over 5 MILLION DOLLARS. Imagine now how much you could have if you added even just $100 of your own money every month to your original $5,000!

Our pie-in-the-sky goal is to average 40% annual returns, with the more realistic dream of coming in a little over 20% annually. We do this by carefully selecting under-valued stocks and investing the exact same amount into each stock. It makes it easier to monitor this way. We also keep a “buffer” amount available for each stock, so we can buy more if the stock dips by a certain percentage. This tactic is known as “dollar cost averaging” and it brings down your cost of the stock, so it’s not such a steep climb back up. It also prevents us from losing 100% of our investment money, should something catastrophic happen, like a bankruptcy. We have rules that help us avoid this scenario, too. The nice thing about dollar cost averaging is that we have stopped panicking when a stock drops.

Our goal for each stock is to sell when it hits 40% returns. We give each stock 90 days in which to achieve this goal. If at the end of 90 days, the stock is down, or it has not gained more than 10%, then we hold onto it and re-set the 90 day window. More often than not, our stocks have been hitting 40% within 60 days of purchase. We felt it important to put a cap on our returns, so we don’t sit too long at the poker table and lose our winnings before we realize them (I had a tendancy to want to wait and see how high it could go. Bad idea.).

Then, we take our original amount we invested and use it to purchase a new stock. The proceeds from the sale go into a holding account, where they sit until we have turned enough profit to buy a new stock. This is how we started out with 6 money-making machines, and now, today, we have 7. I am happy to announce that we are in the TOP 20% of the Motley Fool CAPS players. Yeah, baby, we are All Stars! We are beating over 7,000 other players, by using our strategy. In addition, we are beating the market.

And the best part? All it takes is a little bit of research and daily monitoring. No second job required, no business degree mandatory. No commission to a Wall Street broker. No one deciding what is best for your money (granted, all the sucess and all the failure can now be pinned on you – are you up for the challenge?). And, if we wanted, we don’t ever have to put in another dime of our own, hard-earned money. Success, however, is the best motivator of all, because now I’m itching to add to the pile.

Okay, shameless bragging session is over.

Random Thoughts

My manager paid me a high compliment yesterday. She said if a posting comes up, she hopes I would apply for it. You can't get much better than that. I have another year left on my contract and I'm hoping I'll get flipped.

Never work for a Command Sergeant Major when you are a normally sensitive person. I had a "come-to-Jesus" talk with him about his behavior towards me since he's come back from military leave. Luckily, I didn't get fired. Instead I got praised for the size of my balls. That was the last thing I expected.

Stefan and I and Dave and Sam are going to the State Fair this Sunday. The girls are really excited about going on the Ferris Wheel. Hello romance!!

We're hanging out Friday evening with Brett, and then hanging out with John, Michelle and Eryk on Saturday. Michelle and Eryk are in the process of selling their house. I wish them much luck - much more than we had!

Stefan and I are kicking around the idea of getting a gun permit. There's a shooting range down in Colonial Heights, and Cubby isn't turning into the kind of watchdog we were initially hoping for. He's great for drowning small animals with his saliva, but I don't think that will work very well against burglars. Actually, he's asleep right now - the perfect time to spend quality time with the big, slobbery polar bear.

The End of Summer

Well, summer is over according to the calendar, but the weather is still warm. There's not a whole lot of new stuff to report, but here's a little something...

Cubby is now larger than Yoda in height and length, but not in weight. He's still pretty skinny, yet his paws are noticeably larger than Yoda's. He's turning into a good dog. He is curious and mostly obedient, and has calmed down quite a bit since we decided to keep Yoda and Cubby outside at night. Perry's crush on Cubby has subsequently cooled off, as well.

Stefan and I had the opportunity to go to a prom this past weekend for people who missed theirs in high school. That was a lot of fun. We have often said to one another that we wished we'd met each other earlier in life. If we had, we would have gone to Prom together. Stefan looked so handsome in his tuxedo and we took a bunch of pictures. We got a photo taken for $5 (just like at a real prom), but the photo is pretty terrible. Bad lighting. We look orange, and it's out of focus. I kind of wish we could have given the digital camera to someone else so they could have taken a couple of photos of us together. Oh, well.

I'm in the process of organizing all our digital photos so I can start scrap-booking, now that football is starting up. Go Pats!

The State Fair is coming up in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to going to the fair with my hunny and eating fried dough and going on the ferris wheel. I hope we get stuck at the top. I'm such a sap for all those little romantic moments.

Well, that's all for now.

Corporate Musings (aka Holly has too much time on her hands)

It always amazes me when I hear of companies who are looking for candidates, and they describe themselves as a “fast-paced environment.” Every company I’ve ever worked for who has made this claim seems to move at a snail’s pace. If a snail can out-run a fast-paced environment, what would it be like to work in a slow-paced environment? I am beginning to think that the pace of the environment relies heavily upon the employees, and what state of mental zombiness they are in. The older we get, the more likely we are to be mental zombies for longer periods of time. Our problems get more complex, and we get tired. We can’t binge-drink for two days and roll out of bed first thing Monday morning. Even if we could manage to get out of bed, we can’t afford to binge-drink anymore. We have to save our paycheck so we can pay the mortgage.

We all have moments where we are mental zombies. No one is immune. You can always tell, too, who is currently a mental zombie. He’s the guy you pass in the hall who has a 2-day shadow when normally he’s clean-shaven. Or she’s the woman wearing drab clothing with bags under her eyes because she didn’t bother putting on her make-up that morning. It makes me wonder what is going on in their personal lives. I try to avoid these scenarios by taking mental health days when I don’t feel up to dragging myself in to work. I wouldn’t get much accomplished anyhow.

We always try to deny our personal selves when we work in a corporate environment, but how, exactly, is one supposed to do that? How does one function when something is going awry in the life that takes place outside the office? In order to keep up the “fast-paced environment,” we are asked to leave our problems at home. Problems such as wondering when the doctor will call with the test results, or worrying about Billy’s sudden erratic behavior at school, or thinking of how we drank til we passed out the night before, the horrible, yet more-common-than-we’d-like-to-admit fight with our spouse, lustful thoughts towards a co-worker, feeling depressed and not able to find the right mix of medications and therapy, a sudden death or illness in the family, financial woes, divorce threats. The list goes on and on and on.

Work is a funny place. We exchange the usual pleasantries, “Hi, how are you? What’d you do this weekend?” And the answer is always, “I’m good, how are you? My weekend was good. I got caught up on the yardwork.” We never hear the truth, which would be more like, “I’m functioning. This weekened sucked. I got into a fight with the wife again about the same old subjects: no sex, no money, kids out of control, and she pissed me off so bad, I couldn’t see straight, so I went out and mowed the lawn, killed the weeds, and cut the shrubs back too short. That got her going again, and instead of hitting her, I kicked the dog. Then I had to take it to the vet. I’m thinking about getting a divorce.” Or maybe the answer would be, “Wow, I feel great! I’m tired, but it’s that good kind of tired. The yard looks like shit, because I’m so far behind on the lawn. I’m sure the neighbor hates us. The wife and I decided to check out this swinger’s club and it made us so hot for each other, we spent the rest of the weekend in bed together. You really ought to try it. You won’t be able to keep your hands off each other for a month!”

The truth is, we don’t really want to know that much about the person who occupies the cube next to us.

And the Emmy Goes to....

Me.

Yup, me.

Seriously, though, I’m just going to pick on actors and actresses for a moment, and the whole entertainment industry as a whole.

You see, I have not watched television in I can’t even remember when. Here we are, with this big, beautiful plasma tv on the living room wall going to waste (thank you, Stefan for putting it up while I was at work to surprise me, even though it’s at least a 2-person job. You truly deserve an Emmy.). We have been so frickin’ busy to even watch our tivo-recorded shows. In fact, in a rare moment of downtime last night, I tried to watch an episode of House that was recorded back on June 27. The idea that we are two months’ behind on all our favorite shows is daunting. I only got about 10 minutes into the House episode before I got bored.

Bored watching television. This is a new concept, indeed. I can’t remember when the last time life was so exciting, that watching television actually bored me! I realize I might sound like I’m gloating, but I don’t mean to be. I am just surprised.

Just like I would be surprised if a big televised event occurred where I won an award for “best written user’s manual.” I mean, isn’t my job important, too? Oh, that’s right. Nobody would be interested in that. It would be, well...boring. True, I’m not entertaining the masses, but if it weren’t for people like me, people like us wouldn’t know how to run the blender or interpret the blinking signal in the airplane cockpit. Does two fast blinks mean engine failure, or is that three fast blinks? I don’t remember. Lemee see the manual....

But don’t you feel just a little bit gyyped that you don’t get awards for doing your work? Wouldn’t you love to get all dolled-up and go out to a fancy, all-expenses paid extravanganza and be pampered from head to toe because of your amazing networking skills? Or your ability to feed the dog, make dinner, and change a baby’s diaper all at the same time? Or for showing up to work on time everyday, despite the fact that everything in your personal life is taking a nose-dive down a clogged toilet? It amazes me sometimes that we even function at all. We’re expected to plow forward, personal life be-damned, and put on a pleasant face and attitude for our co-workers. If not, we’ll get canned.

And then there’s the entertainment industry, where people are waited on hand and foot, and someone makes sure there are no green M&M’s in the bowl, which must be a specific sized bowl and color, and 12 dozen peach-scented roses waiting in the green-room for your 5-minute walk-on. Only in the entertainment idustry can you get to work late, trashed, strung-out, drunk, hysterical, and treat those around you like a fungus-infected foot bath, and then you get....gasp! An AWARD.

I know, I know. I’m making blanket statements. I’m sure it takes a lot of hard work to become recognized, and not everyone is as I just described. And I’m really not as cynical as I sound. I just think award ceremonies are getting a bit ridiculous.

Owning a Pool is a Lot of Work

Owning a pool is a lot of work!

This is what people typically tell us when we tell them we have a pool. At first, I thought that what they really meant by that was, "You lucky bastards. I hate you!"

Sadly, I was mistaken.

Owning a pool is a lot of work.

We were pretty excited when we first got the pool, often going in when the air temperature was 80, and the water temperature was in the upper 60s. Unfortunately, as the days get hotter, the water actually feels better when it warms up. Ideally, to 84 degrees. I think we saw 84 degrees but once this summer. When we erected the pool, we hadn't considered the location of the trees in the wetlands, and the pool only gets direct sunlight for a few brief hours in the morning. Then the sun rises and the trees shade the pool, thus depriving it of its life-giving sunlight. Skinny-dipping is no fun when you're shivering.

Before we realized this, however, we switched from chlorine to baquacil. The reason for this was I was about to get another perm, and I wanted to maintain it to some degree over the summer without totally over-drying and destroying my hair. The chemical switch cost around $600. And the pool stank. I mean it stank like algae, although there was none, because the pool never got warm enough to encourage algae to grow. Also, sucking in baquacil-infested water is one of the nastiest things a person could ever encounter. I wish someone had warned us of this, but who's going to warn us when they're about to make a sweet commission off a $600 sale?

The quality of pool products in comparison to their price, upkeep, and lack of product review is astounding. I could go on and on about this, but I'll save it for another post. I can't help but give an example, though. Imagine you've just spent 5 grand on a pool. That's a sizeable chunk of change. You expect everything to be pristine. But the ladder is a cheap piece of crap, and in order to weigh down the ladder inside the pool, you are supplied with 2 large ziplock bags (yes, I said ziplock) that you're supposed to fill with 50 pounds of sand each. So you fill the bags and weigh down the ladder, but you're skeptical about how the bags will stay ziplocked. What will happen if they don't stay ziplocked? You dump 100 pounds of sand into your pool, which you must now vacuum out, which clogs the pump and the filter (yet another very expensive bit of equipment which ironically comes with no instructions) and nothing functions right for a week. Don't ask me how I know this. I might growl at you.

Okay, so we resign ourselves to the idea that we will have to buy a pool heater if we're going to get the full enjoyment out of our pool for years to come. We're talking dropping now $2,200 for something we can't find any reviews about to tell us whether the money is worth it or not.

We went up to Richmond today to get a week's worth of baquacil so we can get in the pool and clean it this week before closing it up for the winter. We have a pool store right around the corner from us, and we could go there, had it not been for my previous point: the quality of their products in relation to their inflated prices is mind-boggling. Literally EVERYTHING we've ever bought from them has broken or has been defective. We've had slightly better odds at the pool store in Richmond. So off to Richmond we go.

While at the pool store in Richmond, we see these sun panels that can be attached to the pool, and the idea is that they collect the sun and use it to heat the pool by pushing the heat through the pump. Cost? $365. Hmmmm, we wonder. But does it work? It claims it pushes 80,000 BTUs per day. But we have a lot of trees, and the solar panels might not get enough sun to do any good. On the other hand, if they do work....well we've just saved ourselves a ton of money....but is it worth it to spend $365 to find out? We pass for now.

We pick up the baquacil we need, and the friendly chemical guy says hello and says, oh, you need more baquacil? To which I reply yes, and it's too bad we have to buy more when we're just about ready to close up the pool, because next year, we're switching back to chlorine. At least the water smells disinfected. And he says, "Salt is the way to go. It's really the best thing." and he shows us this $400 piece of equipment which apparently you add salt to it, and the salt goes in the water and creates chlorine. He says it's way cheaper than going with chlorine, because instead of spending tons of money each year on chemicals, you only spend $50 a year on salt. Additionally, this miracle product prevents the damaging effects of chlorinated water on skin, hair and clothing.

I'm skeptical. I ask questions. Does the water smell funky? Is it salty, like sea water? Does it leave a crusty brine around the rim when the water in the pool evaporates, but the salt does not? Like he knows. He doesn't own a pool. Still, the idea is tempting...

It's almost 7:30 now, and Stefan has been in the pool since 3 this afternoon, trying to clean out all the debris from the pine tree that is dropping pine cones, bits of pine cones, and needles into the pool. These things clog up very easily, and the pool is more covered in pine by-products than I initially thought. He's gotten about a quarter of the pool clean so far.

So we decided that before we open the pool next year, we're going to take down this offensive tree. And while we're at it, we're going to take down 3 additional trees, thus leaving only one tree in our backyard, and that one is far away from the pool. We don't want to do this; we have to do this if we are going to have any fun with our pool for the next 20 years or so.

Owning a pool is a lot of work. We have spent more time fussing with the pool this summer than we have enjoying it. I keep reminding myself though, that it's only hard work now. It will get better, as we learn exactly what it means to be pool owners, and then we really will be lucky bastards.

Right? Right?!?!

Perry is the New Ghandi

Okay, so the puppy potty-training has been going well, aside from a massive slip-up earlier this week, when we were getting ready for bed as usual. This requires us rounding up the dogs and making sure they stay upstairs with us while we brush our teeth and change into our night clothes and set the alarm clock. No biggie, right? Riiiiight....

We finish brushing our teeth and Stefan heads into the bedroom where I promptly hear him yell "OH....MY....GOD!!!" I rush in, and see what he is pointing at (words have failed him now) and see a huge wet pee stain right smack in the middle of the bed. Cubby immediately tucks his tail, and makes a bee-line for his crate (his usual punishment). We pull back the comforter and sheets and only by the grace of the powers above has this massive wet stain not soaked through to the mattress, otherwise I'd be writing a different post right now about how we only have 2 dogs instead of 3 (this is a great reason to get into the habit of making your bed everyday, by the way - the layers of sheets saved us).

I'm really tired and really pissed, so I mentioned I thought Cubby did not deserve to sleep in the house tonight. We should put him in the pen outside in the back yard. Stefan agrees - his usual punishment just doesn't fit this crime. So I drag Cubby out of his crate and proceed to carry him downstairs and outside and I lock him in the pen.

Now, Cubby isn't your normal puppy. He doesn't whine or howl. He screams. And when he screams, he sounds like a goose being mercilessly chased by an ax murderer. You know how most animals and children, if given enough time, will settle down into their punishment and accept their fate and usually stop crying and fall asleep? Yeah, Cubby's not like that, either. He screamed and honked ALL NIGHT LONG. Want to know how I know? I am the world's lightest sleeper. I was ready to either bring him back into the house (which I didn't dare do, because he'd only learn that if he is persistent long enough, I will cave to his demands), or go out there and sucker-punch him. I did neither.

As customary, after the alarm went off, we let Perry outside to pee. As I looked out the bathroom window to make sure Cubby hadn't strangled himself, I saw that Cubby had worked a pretty sizeable hole in the side of the pen, where he could fit his head and shoulders through. Perry rushed out to see his brother, and next thing I knew, Perry had crawled through the hole in the pen to keep Cubby company. Then he sat down and stared back at us, as though staging his very own sit-in.

We ate breakfast, and Perry's passive resistance campaign continued. He sat stone still, never moving from his spot, never taking his eyes off the back door, ears cocked straight forward. We knew he was campaigning for the release of his brother. So we caved.

I think maybe Perry was Ghandi in a past life.

Dave and Sam's Wedding

Dave and Sam got married yesterday at Pocohontas State Park. The weather was stunning for August - a nice, balmy 80 degrees, with low humidity and just a few fluffy clouds.

Dave wore a traditional black suit, with a black button-down shirt and a snappy red tie. Sam wore an exsquisite red dress. All eyes were on her. She looked absolutely breath-taking!

The ceremony was performed by a close friend, and she kept the ceremony in proportion to the beautiful outdoor setting - simple, natural, and sweet. Another friend blessed the couple before and after the vow exchange.

Everyone enjoyed themselves. I'm truly happy for Sam and Dave. It's wonderful to witness the joy of friends in love. After enjoying a cook-out, us younger folks went back to Sam and Dave's for the adult reception (alchohol is not permitted within the park), where several folks gave toasts, Stefan included. We broke out the wine and the houkkah (did I spell that right?), and from there, things got wild. We're all a little "delicate" today. LOL

Congratulations again to Dave and Sam. You guys are so much fun to hang out with, and I'm so happy for you both. Here's to a long, happy marriage, and a long, happy friendship!

Random Stuff

So the other women I work with think I'm dumb. Obviously, it goes against their laws to be beautiful AND smart. So they load this software onto my PC, and give me an outdated manual to read, along with a dummy database. The software is nothing more than a database, which displays and cross-references all kinds of information. You can customize it to your heart's content, so it's almost pointless to read the manual. I'm not going to be customizing it. They just want to use me as a back-up to schedule training classes. Oooooh, soooooo hard! A database is a database is a database.

I digress.

So I'm playing around in the dummy database, and add a note to an employee record. I discover a MAJOR flaw: the date/time stamp can be modified! As can the "username" of the person who wrote the note. So I write this note, and maybe someday, somebody will read it:

08/03/2001 2:22 PM (disgruntled co-worker):

This employee is on the verge of being fired. He is consistently late to work, he dresses like a slob, and he smells like mothballs. Not to mention he is always sucking on hard candy, all day long. His habit of putting everyone on speakerphone, including his voicemail messages, drives everyone around him crazy. He also clips his nails at his desk, and it grosses people out. Nobody wants to hear about the latest development in his toe fungus battle. This is just one example of his lack of boundaries when he interacts with collegues and co-workers. He has recently taken to caring for a kernel of popcorn he found under his desk. He "rescued" it and taped it to his monitor. He named it Maud, and when someone visits him at his cube, he insists that they also say hello to Maud.

I've been a good girl this week. I got up everyday and swam in the pool for half an hour. That, along with Body for Life, has resulted in me losing about 2 pounds this week. Stefan found this website that had several more recipe books that follow BFL, so we got those. It even has a restaurant guide to what can be ordered that follows BFL (mind your portion sizes, of course), and this will come in handy if we ever get in a pinch.

Stefan's been writing like a fiend. We found a local coffeeshop, and he's made fast friends there. It's been great. He has more outside accountability, and since he is a social creature, he is feeding his need to be around other people. I'm really happy for him!

Our lovely neighbors have decided to cut down all the trees in their back yard. They found an after-hours contractor (aka. unlicensed guy who has a day job) to come in with a bobcat and demolition all the beautiful trees which gave us a sense of privacy. We're pretty steamed about this. Considering calling the Army Corp of Engineers, because I believe all the trees they tore down were in federally protected wetlands. We'll see....not sure of how much of a war we want to get into with them, and we want to see what they plan on doing with the land. It will affect our future plans as well. Thank goodness we own a lot of land on the other side of us and it's all federally protected wetlands, so nobody can clear that, too! So much for living in the country! Now we get to listen to the screaming trees as they are being uprooted.

On the flipside, the cutest thing I saw today was our little Perry leaping through the grass, chasing a butterfly. That's when I remember why it's so great to live out here. Our boys are happy.

Big weekend coming up. Stefan wants to spend tonight kicking my butt playing Magic. Tomorrow has turned into a crazy day, with an impromptu bbq at a friend's house, followed up by a girls' night out. One of the girls' husband has decided to banish her from their house on his poker nights. Whatever. Us girls are going out to get pedicures and then to the Melting Pot. I've only been there once, and it's to die for! It is one of my favorite dates with Stefan. We got all dressed up and went there for Valentine's Day. They took our picture, which is now the picture of me he has on his chest. Awwwww....bring out your romance puke-bags! LOL

Sunday we are spending with Sam and Dave. Only 1 week, guys until the Big Day!!!

Facing the Twilight

Once again, I had too much time on my hands at work so I ended up thinking....

Credit and health go hand-in-hand. The rules that govern revolving credit also govern our ultimate health. As most of us are overweight and out of shape, so is our credit. But, if we apply good practices in spending and in our lifestyle, both our credit and health will improve.

We all need to establish credit in order to survive in our society. We cannot do many things without credit. One of the first things we set about doing as young people is establish credit. But we all know youth is wasted on the young, so we use our credit card to buy us things NOW, and we promise ourselves we’ll pay it back later. It’s okay, though, we tell ourselves. We are young and strong and we can easily bounce back. There is plenty of time.

We all know we should eat in a healthy manner and maintain some sort of exercise. But we’re in shape, we’re young, we look good, and our metabolism has never let us down. So we indulge and tell ourselves that we’ll start eating right and exercising when the scale begins going up. It won’t be difficult, we tell ourselves. Those extra few pounds will mean we just don’t eat as much cake, and they’ll go away.

In the beginning, everything is okay. But then, life happens. Job changes. Marriage. Kids. Moving. Bills. Divorce. Unexpected expenses. Before we know it, the sun that once shone so brightly down on us is creeping over into the western hemisphere. The time for us to fulfill our promises comes and goes.

We start making minimum payments on our credit card debt. We make small, half-hearted attempts to eat better. We join a gym with the best of intentions. But the damage has already been done. Once we realize our balance is uncomfortably high, it is too late. The accruing interest on our debt practically keeps us where we are and we realize we can’t make the headway we thought we could. Our metabolism slows down. Our new, healthier eating habits and spurts at the gym are not enough to overcome our expanding waistline. Our willpower is weak. We are in denial. We know we should not use our credit card until the balance is paid down, but resistance is futile. We know that the Oreo cookie will cost us 30 minutes on a treadmill, but we don’t want to believe the cost is that high.

A few years pass like this. We’re not ready to admit our initial assumptions were wrong. If only we could hire a financial analyst or a personal trainer. But we don’t. We just tread water.

The spark of youth is visibly diminishing. We notice we don’t have the fire that our younger counterparts do. Instead, we struggle in a mire of debt and we mourn the death of our high metabolism. We still aren’t ready to do anything about it except whine.

Then, some of us will start being hit with late fees. The doctor tells us our cholesterol levels are high. With the late fees, our interest rate spikes. Now our minimum payments aren’t enough, but we can’t afford any more. Then the over limit fees begin. More serious health consequences loom in front of us if we don’t get a handle on things right away. Diabetes. Clogged arteries. Stroke. Heart attack. Early death.

Some us will heed the call and make the drastic changes necessary to get ourselves on track financially and physically. It will be the hardest thing we have ever done. Others of us will wither and file bankruptcy, both financial and emotional. Sometimes the bankruptcy is enough of a wake-up call, and those will become better because of it. But some of us will give up entirely. Nevertheless, we never know how we’re going to react until we face our own twilight.