Category Archives: life

BlogHer Here I Come!!!

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Well, I leave tomorrow, but same thing.  I mean I don’t know if I’ll have time to post something before I go tomorrow since I have to drop the pupster off before heading out.  And today, man, well today I still have a list of things to do…deal with our newspaper subscription (neither one of us recalls the login info), return to cient calls, write some blog posts for my other sites, get the contest up on my other site, and book my airport shuttle.  Oh yeah, and pack.

I guess I better check the forecast before I start throwing clothes in the suitcase.  Since I’ll be inside most of the day, I’m thinking that longish-sleeve tops would be fine.  And outside of the one casual dress for Thursday’s newbie event, I’ve decided to stick with a darkwash pair of jeans and call it a day.  I might wear sandals during the day, but throw my walking flats into my backpack in case I need to head out into the city.

Believe it or not, my biggest question is which jewelry to take since I have two longish silver necklaces that I love (and need to polish).  Guess I should also dig up my wedding ring too since I rarely wear that.  Hmmm..maybe I should ask for a new band for our 5th since this one is hollow and digs in a bit – but any bigger and it would be too big.

I’m also really excited that I got my Flip video camera.  I might put up a quick video tomorrow sometime.  It’s great fun to play with.  I look forward to asking various bloggers to give me a burning blogging answer to share with my biz blog readers.

And now it’s back to packing.  I expect to still be around and maybe sending out a tweet from time to time.  But I doubt I’ll be carrying my laptop with me to the event (since I’m not in the same hotel).  So don’t expect any quality blogging in my absence.

Last Week Was Crazy

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And this week doesn’t look any less crazy.  I think I must have had something going on every day last week.  In fact, one of both of us were so busy, that we only had one meal together at home (not cool).  I actually canceled my Saturday seminar so I could spend a little time at home with the husband.  Now this week isn’t looking all that much better since he leaves on Wedsnesday morning to head out to Chicago for the rest of the week and I leave on Thursday.

I’m doing another LWL workshop tonight on blogging.  But before the workshop, I’ve got a session with a client and dinner with a friend.  At least it should be a short workshop since a good quarter or third of my original attendees probably won’t be there.  I think I’ve had at least 5 cancel already.  Add to that the natural flake-factor of about a third and yep, not expecting much.

I think I’m doing it too soon on the heels of the last blogging workshop.  Which is fine.  It’s just the sort of motivation I need to get out, find a location, opening things up to the general public and start making some money at it.  I’ve been giving it away since January and I feel totally comfortable with my giving back-ness.

And of course, I’ve got BlogHer this weekend!!!  I’m really starting to get excited.  There’s been tons of talk on the BlogHer network about what to wear, what to bring, how to survive that I just can’t help but get excited.  I’m just waiting on a cute dress I ordered for Thursday’s newbie mixer and my postcards so I can promote my website.  I expect both any day now.

If you’ll be at BlogHer and would like to meet up or at least say Hi, feel free to drop me a line.  My goal is to meet people and make some connections, so don’t be shy.

Time To Look For a New Home (I Think)

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Our landlords seem to have officially crossed over into the you’ve got to be kidding me stage.

For the most part, we love our apartment.  It’s in a great part of town, somewhat quiet but super easy access to everything including freeways.  Our only major complaint was that it’s lacking central heating and air and as such, we can’t use our (crappy) kitchen from April – October or the inside temps will rise to 90+.  Even with our AC unit on, our living room (and only the living room) cools off to a whopping 84 inside (which is chilly compared to the 100+ outside temps we get).  But well, let’s face it, that’s pretty damn miserable.

I’ve not talked about this much since well, things have improved, but for our first 3 or so years, our life here was just a tad hellish.  You see, our landlord’s 90+ year old mother lives nextdoor and well, she insisted that 1) we weren’t allowed to many ANY noise past 9:00PM or she’d rant and RAGE to her daughter and 2) she swore she could hear us at all hours of the night (while were were sound asleep, mind you) typing, yes, I said TYPING on our computers and would bang on the common wall with a 2×4 at all hours of the day and night.  Thanks to much tolerance and a willingness to make things work on our part (you’ve no idea the concessions we’ve made here), lots of prayer & affirmations, and well, the old lady finally getting on some decent drugs, things have improved.  Though the woman still hates us the heat of seven burning suns.

After six summers of dealing with the heat, we figured it was about time to ask the landlord for some AC in the bedroom.  We were more than willing to install a window unit, even though we would then be boarding up our one and only window in that room.  I had also planned to finally go ahead (or as the Jersey girl in me says “g’head”) and plant a few herbs and a tomato plant in a container or two outside to get ready for some yummy, fresh summer salads.

So with our rent payment, we included a note asking if they  wouldn’t mind moving the potted plant on our side of the complex, next to our grill so we could put a couple of pots there and if they could give us a call so we could discuss the AC thing for the bedroom. It took them a week to finally call us (did I mention that they live upstairs??), but they said no on both counts.

Turns out the wife is vehemently opposed to any plants outside – well, any plants other than her plants. She’s afraid they’d die and look unsightly.  Mind you, you can’t even see that side of the house from the road.  I mean it’s not she can’t see all my indoor plants thriving just fine, but whatever.

As for the AC, we’re not allowed to put in a window unit (again, you won’t even be able to see if from the street) and they won’t cut a hole in the wall to install one that way.  But of course, they’re more than willing to let us use a portable AC unit.  You know, one that will cost us $500 vs. $150.  They also won’t allow us to hand any sort of shade on that side of the house to cut down on the sun exposure or allow us to apply any tint to the windows to help keep things a bit cooler.

And while I get that no hole in the wall, or no screens hanging down from the roof – both could be unsightly – really, no window unit?  You’ve got to be kidding me! Basically, enough is enough.

We’re thinking that it’s about time for some changes.  We’ve been more than tolerant in dealing with their crazy mother for 3+ years – including moving completely out of our second bedroom/office (though no cut in rent for any of this – we’ve since moved back into the office and could care less when the woman complains since we know it’s nothing we’re doing) and not complaining when she yells into our windows at 10:00PM in Spanish.  It seems that they just aren’t willing to work with us.  So as much as we love this place and would love to buy it once the old lady dies (what they’re waiting on so they can sell), we need something better and less restrictive.

Okay, it’s time to shake off that negativity and focus baby.  It’s time to attract our next home.  Question is…condo, townhome or house?  I mean if we’re going to manifest, we might as well go for the big guns, right? Even though I know we’d be perfectly happy with a townhome.

We’re in for a very exciting time here…I love putting things out there into the Universe and then seeing what comes our way.  Very, very exciting times and I’m really looking forward to this.  Please wish us well on our journey to our new home (more power behind the intention!)

I’ve Got a Secret & I Can’t Explain*

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Do you check your blog stats?  You know, who found you through what search words, who links to you, which posts are read, what links are followed, whatever.  I try not to do this too often as it can lead to a little craziness.  I mean, it’s just a little blog, not my company’s website or anything.**

Though pretty regularly I pop on over and check my stats.  Twice now (that I’ve seen) this one private, locked blog has sent folks directly to me.  Knowing that there are some bored and crazy (if not downright unstable) mofo’s out there, there’s a part of me that’s dying to know who it might be.  I mean, I don’t really care who they are, I just wonder what they linked to that’s sending people to me directly?  I obviously didn’t leave a comment, you know, since it’s all sorts of private and secret and all that.

But I wonder…do they know me? Am I listed on their blog roll?  Are they linking to a photo or a post that I made?  Did they find it witty or useful?  Are they laughing over my many, many typos?  Will they ever leave a comment in one of my posts?  What could it be???

Does anyone else wonder about this sort of shit?  Is this just par for the course of having a public blog? Or am I they only one seemingly, slightly paranoid (uh, yeah, right) since I’ve seen some crazy shit (and some crazier people) in my past?

Hmmm…I just can’t help but wonder.  Well either way, hello to those secret, private, anonymous readers and visitors to my blog.  Hope this finds you well 😉

UPDATE (8/20/08): After I wrote this post, that particular “secret” blog, that person has yet to return.  And yes, in case you didn’t figure it out, it was actually called “so and so’s secret blog” (hence the reason why I was so interested in the first place).  They must have realized that this post was addressing their specific blog and that it was no longer such a “secret” blog.  Interestingly though, many, many other people have returned to read this particular post – and it’s not like they’re finding it through key word searches.  Seems other people must keep “secret” blogs and think that I’m talking about them…how very odd.  This just assures me that there’s a book in all of this somewhere.

* how great was OMD?  Up until recently, they were actually one of my favorite concerts (then again, it was the 80’s)

** you can’t help but love all the specific data that those analytical site metering programs can tell you – IPs, specific locations and work URLs, keywords on how folks find you, incoming and outgoing links, etc., etc.  Truly fascinating stuff I tell ya.  A great resource and something I always advise my clients to install – especially if you ever need to cross-reference traffic and stats from one site to another.

I Smell Smoke!

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Yes, it’s nearly 1:30 in the morning and I’ve just sent my husband outside to see if he can find any fires.  I walked around the building with him, but nothing going on.  You can definitely smell the smoke from the street though.  Thing is, you can’t really tell if it’s haze/fog/smog/whatever around the streetlights or smoke.

So he thought that you know, since he’s wide awake after drinking a diet Coke after 8:00PM, that he’d take the pupster and walk up to the corner to make sure all is well.  You see, we have a park kind of behind our street and then over the freeway, we have the massive Griffith Park.  In fact, last May, we had some major fires in Griffith Park that got a little close to home. So it can be some pretty scary shit.

Okay, he just now got home…all is well in the ‘hood.  Whew.

Stupid Citibank

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I’m so worked up right now.  I’ve been a Citibank credit card holder since ’88.  I have perfect credit. No, really, last I checked my Fico was through the roof good.  I’ve also noticed that each month that I’ve gone to pay my Citibank card my due date has changed.  And not by just a day or two.  We’re talking, over the past year or so, it’s changed by weeks!

I used to be due mid-month, by the 13th.  Then suddenly I’m due by the 7th.  Then the 5th.  Then the 3rd. I’m sure you see where this is going.  Today, the 3rd, I go to pay my bill and it was due by the 2nd!!!!  What.the.fuck?!?!  Basically, I’ve been paying late fees for the past however many months because they keep changing my damn due date and I keep missing it by one day.

So today I called up and asked WTF.  Of course, I get the run around that the dates will always change because of Leap Year and how many days are in each month.  To which I reply, yeah, sure, it will change one or two days each month, but not by TWO WEEKS!  I pointed out that I’ve been with them since ’88 and that they’ve gotten a small fortune from me due to these damn changes.  Not to mention that they’re charging me 18.99% (lucky for me I rarely carry a balance on this card).  And come on, even my rent has a grace period of a couple of days and isn’t considered late on the 2nd.

Of course once I mentioned how long I’ve been with them, she was suddenly and quite magically able to assign me a specific due date and drop my rate down to 9%.  Funny how that works.  I mean she didn’t even need to think about it or check into anything, she was just able to slice it in half just like that. What a scam!

I’d read that credit card companies were doing this date changing thing now hoping to earn some money in late fees.  It just pisses me off.  I guess I’ll just go back to only using the Amex and making sure that we only use the Citibank card as a last resort.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I like having one credit card in my name only (you never know) and that I’ve been with them for 20 years, I’d just dump them all together.

The lesson here, go with the assumption that anything that’s due to a credit card company nowadays needs to be in their hands BY the first of the month.  Regardless of what the due date actually is.

I Sometimes Wish I Was Stylish

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Like many women in the blogosphere, I’m starting to worry stress think about what to wear to BlogHer in a couple of weeks.  And like many of other bloggers, I tend to spend most of my day (and night) in total loungewear – yoga pants, sweats, tanks & tees.  I’m not the most stylish, so I can use all the help I can get.

Susan Wagner to the rescue.  I read her fashion posts on a regular basis.  She’s got some great advice for the “regular” gal.  Nothing fancy and better still, nothing crazy expensive.  And today, she’s got a great post aimed right at us BlogHer gals.

Now I just have to convince myself to trust her advice.  I will not go crazy shopping (like I tend to do before a trip of any sort). I will wear what’s comfortable.  And yikes! I will leave my flip flops at home.  Yeah, it could happen.

Where Oh Where Can it Be?

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Today is the day that CA (and WA I hear) go mandatory hands-free.  No worries, I almost always (9/10x) use an ear bud while I’m driving.  Since phones keep getting smaller and smaller, there’s just no way to talk on them comfortably without being hands-free in my opinion. So I’m perfectly fine with this law.

What I’m not perfectly fine with is the fact that I can’t seem to find my Jawbone that I got a while back.  I found one in a parking lot once and figuring that there was no way I’d be able to track down an owner, I let them know inside that I found it and left my contact info.  Needless to say, it’s mine now.  I just needed to buy a charger, which I did.

I was still messing with it and hadn’t yet gotten around to syncing it to my phone.  Well, it was on the list of things to get to anyway.  I had it charged any everything.  I thought it was sitting on my desktop, but now I can’t seem to find it.  It’s clearly no where on my desk at all.

Thing is, I seem to be misplacing quite a few things lately. First the Jawbone and charger.  Then, after my trip to Jersey, I can’t seem to find the inside of my dress (basically a slip, to the more chiffon-like outside of the dress).  It was accidently dropped in the dry cleaning pile, so the last I saw of it was in my car where I left it on the seat to take back inside. Now, it appears to be missing.

A few other things have gone missing as well (though for the life of me, right at this moment, I can’t think of one thing).  So either something is in the air, or one or both of my boys have managed to stockpile my stuff for their own, four-legged enjoyment.  Or we have a ghost – it could be the peanut butter eating one from my childhood.  Maybe.

All I know is that I want my stuff back.  So if anyone has a way to conjure lost or misplaced things, please share the love.  Please.

And now I must go take allergy meds so my eyes will stop this god awful tearing and weaping.  I can barely see straight. Hey, maybe that’s why I can’t seem to find my stuff!

You Got Mud on Your Face, You Big Disgrace

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somebody better put you back into your place!

Yeah, yeah, so I’m a bit of a Queen fan.  Actually, I tend to forget just how much I love Queen until I hear them on the radio.  And well, then I just can’t seem to stop singing along and dancing in the driver’s seat.  ‘Cuz Queen, well, they totally rock.  And um…I do have mud on my face right now as I type this.

So last night we attended the Cheap Trick/LA Phil’s tribute to Sgt. Pepper.  It was an absolutely awesome show (then agian, I’d expect nothing but excellence from both Cheap Trick and the LA Phil).  There were some guest performers as well, though they only one I really enjoyed was some Ian guy from a band called Gomez (and yes, I honestly don’t know who that is).  But to listen to an entire show, outdoors, under the stars of nothing but Beatles tunes, well that was just a great night indeed.

Today we got the family together (in-laws) and celebrated the past four months of birthday season.  Out of the 14 (including the baby), 9 of our birthdays are from March through to June.  It makes for a crazy season, that’s for sure.  It was fun to hang out together though.

I was good too.  I didn’t stress about anything. I made the salad, picked up some award winning guac from the farmer’s market and we stopped by Marie Calendar’s for a strawberry pie (to offset the birthday cake and ice cream).  I left everything else to everyone else.  Overall, I think I’m doing a pretty good job of letting go the planning and coordinating of all the in-law functions if I do say so myself.

The gifts were fun too!  I got a bath & body package (hence the mudd – my face is now SO smooth!), a $25 Amex gift card and a beautiful necklace and earring set.  The hubs got all gift cards – Best Buy, Fry’s and Amex (which I’ll no doubt be spending).  But the best part…I borrowed my brother-in-law’s steam cleaner!  I can finally clean our carpets, our couch AND steam clean our ancient tile floors.  SCORE!  So excited about this.

I’ve also decided to pick up a Flip video camera.  I figure I can use it to make video blog posts both here and on my biz site.  But more importantly, I’m hoping to interview some of the gals at BlogHer so I can ask them important blogging questions – how did you get started, how did you find your niche, what can you recommend, blah, blah – so that I can post them on my biz site.  We have a batch of Amex gift cheques that have just been lying about that I’ll cash in for the camera, so it won’t cost anything out of pocket (and the hubs has those birthday giftcards for me to spend!) 😉

Okay, that’s it for me.  I’ve got to do some research on Grammar Girl so I can write up a couple of questions for her (we’ll be giving away her new book on my site the second week in July).  And tomorrow I’ve got a workshop on networking – online and off – to prepare for.  I’m changing things up from my last workshop, so it’s pretty much starting from scratch.  Should be fun though!

Hope you all have a happy Monday.

pleadin’ with you eyes gonna make you some peace someday.

Weather Can Affect Migraines: Or So They Say

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Did you know in Germany they have a phoneline you can call to get updates on the weather and how it will affect your migraines?  I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.  I’d be afraid that I’d start having more migraines since I the weather says that I should.  Yeah, not such a good idea – at least for me (though I do love my emailed pollen/allergy alerts during allergy season).

But something has been going on this past week, I’ll give you that.  First off, my snow-predicting elbow (that I broke about 10 years ago) has been aching something fierce.  And well, I’m more than a little confident that we’ll not be having any snow in the near future here in the San Fernando Valley any time soon.  Come to think of it, my snow-predicting elbow isn’t really all that useful here in SoCal much at all (though I can predict snow in the mountains).

More annoying than the aching elbow though is the migraine-that-isn’t-quite-yet-a-migraine. Meaning that for the past week, I’ve had the early twinges of a migraine that well, never came to be.  One might think that this is a good thing.  Sadly, when it just keeps dragging on and on, but isn’t quite enough to pop a pill, it’s just annoying instead – in a dull aching kind of way.  And well, there’s no real escape from it either.

So weather, if you’re listening, how ’bout a change? Maybe some rain?  Or better yet, a heavy downpour?  I know the folks up north dealing with those fires would sure appreciate it.  As would I.  And my elbow, come to think about it.  Or well, just let things turn into a migraine already so I can just take my pills and be done with it.