RAMBLINGS
When you don’t respect my boundaries and manipulate my voice, you don’t respect my choices thus you don’t respect my identity.
You never let me become me because you were always wrapped up in you becoming you.
In the process, I was lost.
[ Continue ]Last night we had a few inches of that heavy wet yucky snow dumped on us. I know I shouldn’t complain. It has been a VERY MILD winter this year in Chicago. Last year around this time we were still seeing piles and piles of snow everywhere from our 20+ inch snowfall in one day. That was awful. As I get older, I am starting to detest winter more and more – read that as HATE WITH A PASSION. I never thought I’d be one of those people who would move to Florida when they got older but I am really thinking about it lately. Why wait for older? I’m ready now. This is what the bottom of my driveway looks like. It’s what most of the streets around here look like. It’s worse where they haven’t plowed. The school parking lot was incredibly bad this morning. You think they’d plow the damn thing from a safety standpoint. Nope. Hopefully it’ll be plowed when I go pick up Dan. But as I was driving back from the gym this morning (yes I have gotten myself back to the gym this week!) and I saw this mess all over the streets, I looked up. Boy what a view change! It was BEAUTIFUL! I’ll have to remember to look up more often. My photo doesn’t do the snow covered trees justice. This week in life I posted a separate update about my running and my return to the gym here. Dan is doing well in Karate so much so that they want to move him up to the official “adult belt” class. In the class he’s currently in they let the kids slide more on discipline. The new class will still have kids Dan’s age but it’s focus is very different. Instead of being … Read more
[ Continue ]I’ve been thinking about what my word for 2012 will be. In order to figure out where I want to go this year, I stopped and took a look back at the last two years to see where I’ve been. 2010 2010 was the year I came to terms with my failed business partnership and dealt with the emotional aftermath of that “divorce”. It was a year of healing. I had lost my way. I had lost my drive. I was depressed. I had completely lost myself. Who the hell was this person? It certainly wasn’t me. I had been hurt so deeply and my recovery process was painfully slow. It was a year of reflection. How had I gotten to this point? What part did I play in all of it? Could I have prevented it? Why did it happen in the first place? Could I have chosen better path for myself? It was a year of decision making. What did I really want to do? What would make me happy? It was a year of rebuilding. Where did I want to go from here? How was I going to get there? It was a year of rediscovery. Where was the “professional” I used to be? Did I still have any design talent? Was I even any good anymore? I had so much to re-learn. 2010 was a very hard year for me. 2011 2011 was my year of moving forward. At times it doesn’t feel like much happened in 2011. But looking back I found that I really did accomplish a lot of great things last year. More than I thought I did. I designed. A LOT. I got back into designing on a regular schedule. I found some mojo along the way. I designed more in 2011 then I have in … Read more
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This was my goal list for last week… Business Goals Biggest goal – to get back into the swing of designing again. I’m still making this a priority goal. I did okay last week but need to keep this front and center as a goal. I’m trying to get at least 3 days of active designing in somewhere… hoping that will be a 5 day thing down the road. SORT OF – Still working on this one. Didn’t get 3 days of designing in this week – only one. I am really trying to make this a priority. Rework, refresh and stock 2 of my oldies. SORT OF – Got one oldie reworked and stocked. I did get my Pick Ur Bits paper pack previewed and uploaded. So I got two products uploaded… but only one oldie refreshed.. Break out my design stuff from my personal blog. At least I’d like to have the new blog installed and design things moved over. SORT OF – I got the blog installed at least. But didn’t get farther than that. 🙁 Personal Goals Stay on track with my cool running – M-W-F DONE! Do 30 minutes of aerobic walking on T-Th (we’ll see how this one goes) NOPE Sit outside for an hour every day and read. I’d like to finish the ChiWalking book. This one might be easier since I’ll get some time during swimming lessons to sit out and read. SORT OF – Some days rained and I didn’t get outside. I also only got halfway through ChiWalking. Clean something every day for 30 minutes. SORT OF – I did this two of the 5 days. LOL! Work more on Dan’s room. NOPE Hmm… only one blue goal this past week… This week was the first week of camp… and next … Read more
[ Continue ] I’m going to try – try I said – to keep up with doing a review of the goals I set for the last week. I did pretty well this past week actually. This was my goal list for last week… Biggest goal – to get back into the swing of designing again. I have been gone from the digiscrap industry for 3 years now. My last release under my own name was back in 2007 and prior to that I didn’t release a lot of things (always wrapped up in the backend technical admin of various sites). So just DESIGNING… is going to be my biggest goal for awhile. DONE – I’m excited to say I met this goal. I was able to design 3 days of the week. That’s a great step for me actually. My eventual plan is try and design some every day… but for now 3 days was a great accomplishment. 🙂 Blogging regularly – I actually created a weekly blogging calendar for myself. lol! Maybe that will kick me in the ass to blog more. I was never a very good blogger so this is a bit scary. lol! DONE – I actually met this one too… WOO HOO!!!! Finalizing my own store site – I am almost there with this one. Have some finishing things I need to tweak before I go live with the site. DONE – I got my store up! I had actually been working on this on and off for the last two weeks… but it needed some final tweaking and testing before I put it out live. I’m sure there are little things that still need to be tweaked and maybe things that are off a bit… but I’m happy with how it is starting off. Oh… and … Read more
[ Continue ]Awhile back I exchanged the furniture between my front room and my back room. I had always intended that to be the first step towards a living room makeover. This past month, I finally was able to complete the makeover – including getting a new couch, loveseat and chair set. Here are the BEFORE photos which were the AFTER photos from the post above (I only had iphone before photos so the quality is rather poor). As you can see my walls were mauve/pink as were my blinds and the couches (that were not purchased for this room) were a nice green. What a perfect match! lol! So as part of the makeover, we picked up new couches and new drapes (couldn’t wait to get rid of the venetian blinds). I also refinished the tables and the coat/shoe racks. This was the end result. What a difference a coat of paint makes.. 😉 We have a beautiful bay window that we never saw with the other drapes. They were just so cumbersome to open that we always left them closed. With the new drapes, I can open them and see those wonderful windows and all that light. Love it! 🙂 I always wanted a big clock for the front room. Picked this one up at Kohl’s during their clock sale last week. The photos in the frame are 8 x 10 to give you an idea of the size of the clock. Nice! (also that door is actually in the hall… looks like a door to this room in this photo) All the couches and the chair have recliners in them which the kids LOVE! You can see in the before photo above how light the wood was for our corner storage units. I sanded both of them and stained. … Read more
[ Continue ]Well it looks like Shawn Michaels is officially retiring after last night’s “Career vs Streak” match with the Undertaker. My two favorite wrestlers of all time are Shawn and Taker so if Shawn is leaving, going out to the Undertaker is the way to go, IMHO. Still sad. Rick and I were at Wrestlemania 13 in Chicago when Undertaker beat Sid Vicious. Got my official Undertaker shirt (that has since disappeared)… but last night, I was wearing my Shawn shirt. Hoping that Shawn would pull out the win… But after several kick-outs when Shawn knelt before the Taker and Taker didn’t want to pin him… somehow I knew… I had seen it before… the look in the eyes… the pleading… Shawn pleaded for Undertaker to just DO IT… Rick Flair had also begged a hesitant Shawn not too long ago to “end it” too. Flair went out to Michaels and Michaels has now gone out to Taker. 🙁 I have mixed feelings… I think it’s great to see Shawn, my HBK, go out on top. He really is retiring as The Show Stopper and Mr. Wrestlemania. Flair needed to retire a long time before he “did”… he lost his shine… I say “did” because he is now back wrestling on TNA these days looking half past dead. He supposedly pissed all his money away and can’t retire. hmmm… It was also nice to see Bret and Shawn make amends. Their feud was real and very personal. Shawn was able to move on but Bret has been living ’97 Survivor Series over and over for the last 13 years and it’s torn his entire life apart. Wrestlemania 26 tried to wrap everything up in a nice little bow… Bret comes back, Stu gets inducted in the Hall of Fame, Bret and … Read more
[ Continue ]Today’s horoscope seems awfully on target with my life… Interesting when that happens… I have been fascinated with horoscopes since I was little. I’ve got a bit of my Dad in me. Jan. 29 Capricorn Horoscope You’ve got something to say, and you won’t be able to hold it back another second. This has been a long time coming, but with the stars’ intense emotional energy arriving this morning, keeping quiet any longer isn’t necessary, and won’t be possible. You’re being asked to express yourself, and knowing you, you’ll find a gracious, affable way to do it — even if what emerges is a good-bye. You have to do this. Now do it. Wow… But I think I’ll pull a Costanza instead and do the opposite of what I would normally do. I’ll just do and say nothing… well… maybe just a quick Goodbye as it really has been a long time coming.
[ Continue ]A few weeks back, I saw a posting on the MomPack looking for a web designer who would barter design services. It’s been so long since I’ve taken on any web design clients and even longer since I’ve donated or did design work pro-bono. The first websites I ever designed were back in 1996 (yes that means I’m old). lol! My first design clients came in 2000. And some of those I took on as pro-bono sites to help me build a portfolio. One of those sites (which is no longer up and running) was done for an older woman who created handmade floral craft items. I took her site on for free so I could learn more about shopping carts. In the end, I had created a very large ordering site for her that brought her a nice chunk of regular orders and income to supplement her retirement. It was a website that she could never have afforded. It was a great feeling. I’m not sure what spurred me to e-mail this particular lady back. I have no idea how I even caught the e-mail because I haven’t been actively reading the MomPack list in a long time. But I did. So I checked out her current site and saw that it had enough content in place that it would work as a wordpress site. Having just redid my blog, I thought it would be nice to delve a little more into wordpress. So I e-mailed the lady. The non-profit is an Indiana organization run by Christine Martin. She started it last year in hopes of helping local single parent families and families who have experienced a loss of a child. It hit a little too close to home. Having just helped Jeanine get through a nasty divorce and … Read more
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