Free Enterprise is Alive and Well

I have four nephews. Three of them are married and have children. All of their wives are lovely young ladies,  stay at home moms for their adorable children.  OK, I may be a little biased, but they have the cutest kids.

All three of them are creative as well, and have their own business on the side. Seriously.  If I was a stay at home mom, I'd consider that more than enough work.

Two of my nieces, Colleen and Mandi, have a business designing and creating fashion accessories, like brooches, belts and hats. Their website is www.leeandis.com. My sisters bought me the cutest little hat from them for my birthday. I love hats!

And then just today I received some info about my niece Kristine's new business making soaps and lotions. This is the really good stuff. We all got a little basket for Christmas and it was amazing. She gave me a lavender and basil soap that smells heavenly and some of the lotion, which is thick and creamy and non-greasy, just the way I like I lotion to be.

Kristine's site is not yet up, so I thought I would post a few pics of her stuff here.  If you're interested in buying anything, let me know and I can hook you up.

More Pics

Phones Are Smarter Than People

As I may have mentioned, we just got new phones. My husband started out as one of those people who didn't think he needed a cell phone. He held out for a while, but eventually gave in. Of course, this was years and years ago. I'm sort of a techie person, so I like to have things.

In any case, once he had a cell phone, he didn't want a belt clip or anything like that.  Too Star Trek for him. Like having a phone clipped on your belt is some sort of pocket protector that proclaims you a geek.

Then, even though I upgraded to a smart phone more than two years ago, he was happy with a more basic model.  He carries it in his pocket. (Which is exactly why he dropped one phone into a can of paint and, later, put the same phone through the wash. But that's another post.)

So this time, when I was ready to upgrade once more, he again stuck by wanting a regular phone.  He was also going to need a Day Runner, he told me, to keep track of all his appointments in his new job.  I tried to tell him that with a smart phone, he could put all his appointments into his calendar and they would be on the phone and on his computer's Google Calendar.  But he had to have a real Day Runner, you know, to write things down and carry around with him.

I patiently explained that since he already carried his cell phone, this way he didn't have to carry around another book, too.  He didn't care. What if I lost the phone, he asked me?  Well, I told him, if you lose the phone, your appointments and all your contacts have already synced with the computer, so you still have everything you need. If you lose a Day Runner, it's all gone for good.  He didn't believe me.  He didn't think it would work.

But ignored him and got him the G2.

The first thing he did was put an appointment into his phone's calendar and then he went to look at his Google Calendar.  Wow, surprisingly, I was right. It did work.

He hasn't mentioned buying a Day Runner since Wednesday.

He's even talking about getting a blue tooth. I'm guessing a belt clip is not far behind.

Idol Continues

Another ep of American Idol to sit through. I could be ironing my husband's shirt right now. Maybe even having oral surgery. But, no, I have to be tortured by bad singing, weird costumes, freaky people and Randy Jackson. Dawg.

Any one have any ideas why Ryan looked so much cuter in the black and white re-takes? Did I miss something? Was that an old clip showing him younger and rounder than now?

So my friend Beau texted me during the show saying that he thinks this is the best season ever. But he's wrong. The best season ever was the first season, when I wasn't watching.

I have so far noticed a lack of people assaulting me through the camera. You know, those failures who are turned away because of their utter suckitude and who don't take it well. They swear and jump around and yell and say stupid things. But now that I think about it, those remarks are usually addressed to Simon and since he's not here...(Note to self: See if it's possible to work Simon Cowell's name into every single post about Idol this year.)

Anyway, not much happened. There was singing and some of it was OK and some was less OK. There was the kid who looks like he's 12. He was decent. If he gets through Hollywood week and they get him a makeover, he could possibly be a Justin Bieber 2.0. Then lots of silly little girls and disgusting old ladies can drool over him.

American Idol, It Sucks and It Sucks You In

So, you may not know this, but I'm kinda known as an American Idol blogger. OK, not really known, so much as I used to blog about it and one or two people read my posts.  Like, mostly people I know.

This year I had determined that I was neither blogging about nor watching AI. Just a simple little life long blood vow.  But this stupid show is like crack. It pulls you back in and makes you watch.  I had even gone back and read through some of my posts from previous years, just to remind myself how much I've grown to hate the show.

It wasn't enough.  Last night, at 8 pm, I found myself right where I never wanted to be. Looking at a newly formed panel of smiling judges. Or, I don't know, maybe they weren't smiling.  Looking at Steven Tyler creeps me out so I mostly kept my eye averted.

If I'm being honest (and, right, no one will say that this year, because Simon is gone!!), I was a bit preoccupied with setting up our new phones last night so I truly wasn't watching as much as I was allowing AI to be background noise.

But even so, I came away with a couple of thoughts that would make the show better as we go forward. That is,  if I even keep watching.

JLo needs to be less wimpy and Steven Tyler needs to be less creepy. Randy can go on being totally irrelevant, though, cause he does that so well.

Wanna See My New Phone?

I got a new phone!!!!

Yes, that is a good reason for a blog post.

I know I've been sadly remiss in my posts lately.  The truth is, I start lots of posts, but then I get busy or distracted or just plain bored with what I'm saying and I walk away.  Maybe some day when I go back to them, those posts will be more interesting and then you can read them.

But right now, the most interesting thing I have to say is that I got a new phone.

Just Another "A Year Has Passed" Post

I'm glad 2010 is over. I'm sure lots of people will be writing posts like this one. Starting a new year makes us all feel retrospective. But I'm just really glad 2010 is over. I was pretty happy to see the backside of 2009, too. I thought 2010 had to be a better year. In some ways, it was and, yet, it wasn't either.

Actually, as I think back over this entire decade, from 2001 to 2010, things haven't been good overall. It seems like one or the other of us was out of work or ill. We had our own business going into 2001 which did very well initially and yet somehow managed to tank a couple of years later, costing us thousands of dollars that we had to struggle to pay back. We had just finished paying that off in 2007, when I became ill and ended up losing my job. Then I had lots of health issues so that  I didn't work for most of 2008.  I went back to work in 2009, but then my husband was laid off and he still isn't back to work full-time.


Last year was also a year of loss.  Two of my cousins, Judy and Marianne, both passed away in 2010, along with my baby girl, Bambi. So the year will always invoke thoughts of sadness.


So, yes, the past decade wasn't my friend but I have high hopes for the new decade to come. And that's the point. Even after all we went through in the past year, the year before that, the year before that, and beyond, even so, I still have hope. Everything worked out and even at the worst of times, we made it through.

We're still here, still together and we have everything we need; food to eat, a beautiful home, a wonderful family, great friends. I'm sure there are more challenges to come in 2011. But I'm ready.

Things I Learned by Joining NaNoWriMo

This year, for the first time, I decided to join NaNoWriMo. I had no real idea what to expect, but since I love to write and I always have lots to say, it didn't seem that scary. I wasn't really sure what my novel would be about, but I decided not to take the term too literally. Maybe it wouldn't really be a novel, maybe it would just be me rambling. But at least I would be writing.

I started out well, as I'd been told would happen. People do well for the first few days and then they fall off.  Maybe they can't keep up the pace or just run out of things to say.  I wasn't sure if I could keep up the pace, but I didn't think of myself as a quitter, per se. I figured I could at least hold out a month. Plus, I knew I had lots and lots to say.

I did have my doubts about November, though, cause so many things happen in November. It's not a good month to avoid distractions. Honestly, I'm not sure there is a good month, but November is really bad, since Thanksgiving is my big holiday and it takes me a whole week to prepare, what with cleaning and shopping and cooking.  And this year I had just started my job in the middle of October so I knew I wouldn't be able to take days off. I'd need to work every day and do all that other stuff at night. 

Yep, I was a little worried. I should have been more worried.

I did pretty well for the first week, keeping to my daily goal most of the time. I even did well into the second week.  I made up for time lost on the weekend when I didn't have time to write.  But then it all started to get away from me. One day after the next day I just didn't have the time or the energy or the inspiration to write anything. At all. I lost track of the story I was writing and I would just end up going in a completely different direction.  Overall, I think I ended up with about five completely unrelated stories and around 12,000 words.

So although I didn't make the 50,000 word goal and I didn't actually win, I don't feel like a loser either.  For one thing, NaNo taught me a few things:

1. No matter how any words I think I have inside me, there aren't enough to write 1667 every day in a related fashion. Maybe not even every other day.
2. All my time on Twitter may have caused me to think in short spurts.  I would have preferred long lovely run on sentences.
3. I need a better plan. Maybe if I had gone into it with an actual idea for a novel and not just all these jumbled up thoughts in my head I would have accomplished more.
4. Organization is a good thing. I am a fairly organized person, but I may have allowed myself a little bit too much latitude in terms of my writing schedule. 
5. I've always thought of myself as very goal oriented and yet I didn't come close to making the goal. I'm OK with that.
6. I'm not very competitive, but I think I already knew that. Which is probably why I'm OK with not making the goal.
7. You need a lot of energy to write a novel.  I may be more of a short story person.
8. Although I did go into NaNo without an actual plan, I did manage to keep coming up with new ideas to move things along. Of course, they don't all fit together yet, but some day they might.
9. I don't perform well without sleep, even if I have had lots of coffee.
10. I will participate in NaNo again, cause overall the experience was fun and enlightening.

NaNo is over for this year, and although I didn't make the goal, I did achieve something.  I didn't write as much as I planned to and I didn't write every day, but I did write. I have thousands of words now that I didn't have in October. So far they don't make up anything great, but I believe there may be something in there that could turn into something else. And it might even be worth reading.