Around this time every year, I spend a few moments remembering and cherishing whatever few memories come to mind. I honor my parents now. It wasn’t always that way, but I was young and stupid once too, and there was a time when I didn’t respect my mom so much.  Fortunately we had a chance to reconcile shortly before she died.  I’m at peace with that now, but it took me a long time to get there.

They’ve been gone for a long time now.  I learned a lot of good things from then while they were here, like how to love, how to give, how to help. There is so much love in my life that they planted the seeds of, it’s pretty amazing.  They were truly good people, and anything remarkable that people see in me, came from them. They get full credit.

I also learned one very major bad thing from them.  I give Mom credit for trying to fix that for the few years before she died, but the damage was done.

My dad died of a heart attack in 1975. We didn’t know why then. His job as a plant manager was very stressful, that was blamed. His home life was happy but with two teenage sons it was work too. 

Nutrition wasn’t talked about. Back then, eating healthy meant home cooked food. We rarely ate at restaurants. Mom’s cooking was better and it was less expensive than eating out. Typically for supper, she made a meat, a potato or occasionally rice, and a veggie that the three of us kids had many different techniques to make them disappear off of our plates without getting into our stomachs.  I remember that there was a lot of bacon and eggs, and coffee cakes, and pancakes with butter and syrup at our family breakfasts.  My favorite supper was Pig in a Blanket, which back then was some round steak that had been pounded flat, then rolled up with bacon inside, and then fried, and the gravy was made from the drippings, including the bacon grease. My favorite lunch, when it was just me and mom at home, was called a “Francheezie”. It was a hotdog, that was split down the middle and then velveeta cheese was put in the slit, and the whole thing was wrapped with bacon, held together with toothpicks, and broiled until the bacon was cooked. 

Subtitle that last one, how to give a kid a heart attack before age 12.  But dang it was yummy. 

Mom learned, in the years after daddy died and she had her own heart issues and blocked arteries, that all that “good” food was not good nutrition.  She worked with what information she was given, and tried to improve our diets. She followed what was the conventional wisdom at the time. She used egg beaters instead of eggs, margarine instead of butter, turkey or soy bacon instead of real pig, diet soda, the list goes on and on. Every diet trick was tried. 

Now we know most of the “wisdom” that came out of that time was wrong.  Eggs aren’t bad for you, in fact the fat in them is the same as the good fat in olive oil, and the amino acids in the yolks are important. Transfats (read “margarine”) are unhealthy, bacon substitutes generally are not even close to the flavor of bacon, and I can’t eat soy, so most of them are out, and If I had to blame one thing for my size (besides me stuffing my face) it would be the diet coke that caused unrelenting cravings and hunger. 

On to a new chapter in my life. 

A few months ago, I changed my mindset.  If you go back to a time before there were all of the convenience foods, diet foods, pre-made sodium laden, fried in transfat crap foods, there was good wholesome nutrition.  Milk was whole, and quite often straight from the cow. Cheese was actual cheese and not that pasteurized processed cheeze food that is sold these days. Their meat sources were grain fed and free range. Vegetables and fruits weren’t “genetically enhanced” or chemically fertilized, unless you call manure a chemical. My grandparents all lived into their late 80s eating food that they made themselves, mostly from scratch, with the freshest ingredients, because they were around before proper refrigeration was too. 

 So, I thought, how hard could it be to go back to that, but to do it guided by the nutritional information that’s available now.

I didn’t go cold turkey. I still eat a frozen meal for lunch a few times a week. This is a work in progress. I did stop buying food in drive thru’s. I stopped drinking diet soda, or any soda at all.  At home, the trend is toward less ingredients, simple food, good spices and seasonings. I eat about half the meat and double the veggies that I used to for dinner.  More often than not, breakfast is oatmeal, cooked on the stove, with old fashioned oats, milk, and a little brown sugar and cinnamon. It’s really much better that way than those stupid overprocessed, over sweetened, done in 30 seconds instant things.

I’ve unlearned what I grew up with, and set out on my own path of discovery. I have to say, it’s a very tasty path. I’m still a foodie, I love it, I always will. But eating well now means eating healthfully, and that is the polar opposite of eating “diet” food or even “low fat” or “fat free”. I still buy and use real butter, and eggs, and most other things that my mom banished in the fight for her life.  Most of what I eat is naturally low fat. I don’t need to buy things that are processed to be that way.

Just a few months into this new journey, my cholesterol is excellent, my blood pressure is excellent, and I’ve lost more than 30 pounds. 

Mom would be proud.

Namaste

I got a call from an old friend last night. His name is Steve and he’s an artist, occasionally by profession, and quite possibly the most laid back, fun, creative,  person in the Northeast part of the US.  Creativity just flows from him, it’s kind of amazing.  We talked and laughed for more than an hour.  The funnest parts of the conversation are when we just take a thought and go off on a tangent.  That kind of stuff juices my own creativity. He is a rare friend that brings out that kind of creativity in me.

Steve reads my blogs pretty regularly and last night he asked me what I was doing lately to feed my creative self. Was I reading or making anything? Of course I dodged the question because I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve done nothing of the kind lately s0 I bounced the question back to him and asked the same thing. Thirty minutes after we hung up the phone, there were two versions of three amazing sketches – original and photoshopped, in my e-mail. The artist in him keeps showing up, no matter what he does for a living.

I’ve put a lot of thought into that lately. I have had a very uninspired few months. I haven’t been doing much to be creative. I’ve been too busy surviving, making a living, and exhausting myself with the mundane.

The other thing that I’m realizing lately is that my need to express myself creatively has changed. I’ve been wallowing in frustration, wandering around, looking for something that motivates and inspires me, and lately there hasn’t been much.

In my former life, I loved crafting. I still have a room full of half finished and unopened  stitchery kits, half finished painting projects, drawing supplies, knitting and crocheting supplies, and any number of other things that I no longer am eager to do. At the time, that stuff all served as a distraction from the emotional hell that I was in with my ex.  I’m pondering giving a lot of it away, possibly everything except my grandmother’s case of  knitting needles, but that can be pondered for a while. I may take up painting things again when I get better glasses later this year.

I also have a very good camera that I wish was more of a constant companion, but learning photography isn’t as instinctive as previous creative pursuits and I’m torn between forcing it, or just letting it happen when it happens.  There’s an old zen saying about when the student is ready the teacher will come. That’s the route that I’ve been taking so far.  I have two other friends that either are or could be professional photographers, and they are willing to teach me. I’m not sure I’m ready to know that much though.

I equate that to my music education where I played and learned to listen to what I was playing and trusting that process for ten years before I had any information about music theory, composition, and orchestration. Knowing all of those mechanical things changed how I hear music. It didn’t make it bad, just more complex.  I’m not sure I want to do that with photography yet.  I shoot things that are, quite simply, beautiful.  I have a little bit of control over depth of field and lighting, and a little working knowledge of photoshop and that’s enough for now. Knowing more will make it more like work and I don’t want to lose the beauty, or the creative juice. I’ll learn more in the spring, as I need to, when the things I love to shoot are back.  The midwinter bleak is less than inspiring, photographically speaking.

I haven’t been writing as much lately either.  I’m thinking about a huge writing project, letting that happen and seeing where it takes me is an interesting thought, but in the mean time I’ve been working too many hours and there’s too much to think about elsewhere to have the creative energy that I need to be a storyteller here or anywhere else in my writing.

There are a couple of people in my life that give me feedback about my writing.   They knew the people from my past that I sometimes write about. When they tell me that my writing is good enough to make them feel something,  for me, there is no higher complement.  I write decently.  I can form complete sentences when it’s necessary. I’m not a technical writer, it doesn’t need to be grammatically perfect.  That’s not where the payoff lies for me.  There’s so much unemotional, unconnected, badly written crap out there. I’m guilty of that too with a lot of my daily journal kind of blogging. Occasionally though, I have an almost transcendent moment where something flows through me and onto the proverbial page on my laptop screen. When that kind of writing touches something in one other person, my existence as a writer is justified. That’s my pay off.

That kind of creative transcendence is rare for me.  Yesterday I watched this, and she makes a lot of really good points, like in the end, to get anywhere, you have to show up and try. She also talks about those moments of genius being something outside of you, that come occasionally, and if you’re lucky enough to recognize and capture them, that’s half of the battle. It’s a really good 20 minute talk about her own process.

I am by no means the caliber writer that Elizabeth Gilbert is, but I believe that the genius isn’t external.  We all have something in us that we’re passionate about. The hard part is un-shrouding our external lives enough to figure out where that internal inspiration lies. Steve has mastered that.  His life is uncomplicated. He loves the people that he loves, and takes great joy from that. He also has real things to be concerned about, but he knows that those things will take care of themselves and to use his energy worrying about them takes him to a place where creativity is strangled and dying.

My best writings so far are about things that happened in a time in my life that was pure and simple.  I’m coming to realize that it’s not just that period in my life that inspires me, but the simplicity of the situation that is the connection.  When I can break something down to just the raw components and start from there, instead of starting from the complex and making it more complex, that’s when it touches me.

That was as hard to learn about my writing as it was to learn about simplifying my real life. I’ve spent the last couple of years realizing how many of the possessions in my life are complicating it rather than than serving to enhance it.  The same is true of my writing.  There have been so many times when I’ve started writing something and gotten caught up in the complexity so much so that I gave up and deleted it because there was no way to communicate it without confusing people.

Write about a room full of junk, and you get writing full of  junk. Write about a simple vase in that room, and what beauty it brings, and how much and why you loved or hated the person that it came from, and that’s much better writing. It clears away the junk and gets to the core of that object. Everything else in that room becomes unnecessary.

My writing is constantly evolving, as is my life.  I’ve been wallowing for a couple of months now trying to extract this lesson from it.   I think I finally got it. Maybe.  We’ll see if my writing gets better. I just need to show up and keep trying. I’ll get it right eventually.  For now, I’m going to step away from the computer and spend the afternoon cleaning and simplifying my home office. It’s become an uninspiring junk room and that needs to change today.

I’ll finish this already too long diatribe with a parable. It relates to the last few months of my life, and I think it’s an important lesson. I know how much my friend Ken likes cat stories too, so I couldn’t resist this one:

There’s a story of a young cat.  This cat lived in a mansion, was smart, and privileged, and had just attended a philosophy course at the local cat school.

He was back home, on his back veranda,  having finished the class, spinning around in circles, chasing and chasing and chasing his tail when an old tom cat who was watching him from the alley laughed and asked “Why are you chasing your tail?”

Said the young kitty, “I have mastered philosophy. I have solved the problems of the universe which no cat before me has even considered much less solved.

I have learned that the best thing for a cat is happiness, and happiness for me is in my tail. Therefore, I am chasing it, and when I catch it, I shall have happiness forever.”

The old tom replied, “My son. I haven’t had the luxurious experiences that you have. I’ve spent my life in dark alleys hunting mice and scavenging scraps, but I’ve also paid attention to the problems of the universe in a small way, and I too have formed some opinions.”

The young kitty wondered what the old tattered tom could possibly know so he stopped and asked him to go on.

The tom replied, “I do understand that happiness is a fine thing for a cat, and that happiness is in my tail. But I have noticed that when I chase my tail, it keeps running away from me.

However, when I go about my business, my tail comes after me, and so does happiness!”

The technique is called DiSC.  The premise is that everyone has all four aspects as part of their personalities, but one or another of the four aspects may be high or low, and the best way to work with people is to learn (guess at) their personality aspects from the clues that they give you and adapt your behavior to cater to theirs. Most of the participants had a problem with this idea, until it was pointed out to them that we do this every day, almost unconsciously, with the people that we love.  If you know your lover likes his coffee a certain way, you make it that way.  That adaptation  behavior carries over to friends, coworkers, etc. We continually adjust our interactions to what we know/think will work with the person we’re with at the time.

The four aspects (as I remember them 5 days later without looking at my training materials) are:

D = quick, confident, decision maker, goal oriented, high level management, not detail oriented, not particularly social unless there’s a reason to be. The example I had in my head was the guy that runs our company. He’s definitely a high D, low i.

i = the attention getter, always performing, people oriented, social, storyteller, always ready with a joke or anecdote.  I have a friend that was a professional comedian for a while, he’s definitely a high i.  He’s also extremely intelligent and effective at what he does for a living now. Enjoying the performance doesn’t exclude i’s from getting the job done. My boss is also a high i and I love him to pieces.

S = grounded in routine, goal oriented, non-confrontational, creative, just wants to get the job done without incident. S’s are the teachers. They are steady, patient, reliable.

C = the analyst, loves facts, goals are mapped out in detailed steps, can be a perfectionist, not particularly social, kind of geeky. Think of any of the characters on The Big Bang Theory.

Our instructor had them up on a board in a four square sort of like this:

++++++++++++

+  D    +    i     +

++++++++++++

+   C    +   S     +

++++++++++++

The top row (D & I) are the imaginers, the decision makers

the bottom row (S & C) are the taskers, the detail people, the ones that get things done.

The Left half  (D & C) are less social than the right half (i & S).

There are all kinds of generalizations that can be made based on your score on their “standardized” test.I should also mention that any of the characteristics above can be taken to the extreme. A high i that is ineffective at anything except being the center of attention isn’t good. The presumption in the class was that we are all effective at what we do or we wouldn’t be there.

I scored highest as a C/S and Low i.  Which means that I’m analytical, very good at tasks, organization, working my way through problems, etc.  I’m not a completely antisocial C, there’s a lot of S in me and I do have good friends and I’m not afraid of being in front of people at all. That being said, I’m also VERY low on the “i” aspect, which means I don’t crave being in front of people, I do it because it’s part of my job.   i’s crave recognition, the difference is that C’s also enjoy recognition, but they like it privately and well defined. I don’t need to be the star of the show, but a nice little e-mail with a thank you for the cool things I did for you goes a long way with me.

The problem that I’m having (other than I’m a High C and overanalyzing my already analyzed analysis) is that when I was in college, I spent a lot of time studying personality theory and particularly the world as according to the Myers Briggs personality index.

Myers Briggs divides personalities a little differently. The quick way to explain it is that they have outlined four dichotomies of personality.

It’s an either/or.   You are either Extroverted or introverted, sensing or intuitive, etc.

My personal Myers Briggs score, every time I’ve taken it is either INFP or INFJ. The latter is usually when I’m tired and crabby and ready to judge the world.

I tend to believe the INFP is more realistic for me. If you notice, on the Myers Briggs  box of dichotomies above, that’s every characteristic on the right.  I live intuitively, I trust my perceptions and feelings much more than I trust what I’m thinking or sensing.  I had a mentor in college that taught me to rely on my intuition more than I ever thought I could, and that lesson has served me well.

So, here I am, the most analytical, fact oriented (according to DiSC), intuitive, feeling (according to Myers Briggs)  person you’ll ever meet.

No wonder I’m such a mess My Psyche clashes with itself.

There has actually been research done on correlations between DiSC and Myers Briggs, but (a) the PDF that I downloaded is written in Psyc Speak and I was too tired at the time to get through more than the first page, and (b) I can find similarities between anything and anything and document it. Statistics can say anything you want them to say.

As a psych student I find these measures interesting, but not mutually exclusive systems.   I think it’s kind of funny that I scored the way I did.  I think both measures are accurate, I am all of those things. (I prefer to call it well balanced) I also think neither measure is an all encompassing test of personality. That one hasn’t been invented yet.

For the record: That’s my high C analysis of the situation.

I’ll go back to my feeling, intuitive self now and let my friends and family know that I had my 3 month check up today and I’m still clean of the cancer that I had, and also that the kitty seems to have turned the corner. She’s more energetic the last couple of days, so I think she’s getting better, even if it is taking a long time. She had a big infection to get through and she’s doing well. Her personality is showing through again too.  Based on my vast knowledge of personality I’d say that her High C/I  ESTP self is about 75% back.

Yummy stuff

My aunt is doing well, she fell asleep during the surgery that was done under a local anesthetic, and tonight she ate and enjoyed her dinner and that’s a really good sign. She’s been in so much pain even food hasn’t tasted good, her finishing her dinner is a good thing. My cousins, her sons, were both there all day today. I’ve talked to her youngest son twice today for updates (thank you for calling! That means a lot to me) and hopefully I’ll see him one more time before he leaves at the end of the week.

===============================================================

And finally a Quiz. I’ll post the answers the next time I post something

A quiz for people who know everything! I found out in a hurry that I didn’t. These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight answers

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2.. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4.. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn’t been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters ‘ dw’ and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter ‘S..’

I’ve been told many times by native Chicagoans (of which I am one) that I have a southern accent even though I’ve lived here my whole life.

I come by it honestly, I used to spend a lot of time with my grandparents in Southern Illinois, which as far as regional accents go is a lot like Kentucky/Missouri combined and not at all like the northern part of the Illinois accent. Even within Chicago itself there are regional accents. I’m a northsider. There’s also the South Side Irish accent, which is the one that all the comedians make fun of on TV, as well as the dialect used by the inner city people which is still changing based on shifting population groups. There’s much more of a Mexican influence on the inner city dialect than there used to be.

I also have friends in the deep south and southeast that I talk to frequently. My accent is worse for a few hours after we have any kind of lengthy conversations. I should mention that I live with a guy that is very well traveled but still has a touch of the same MO/KY accent that my grandparents had. It’s still really easy for me to slip into that region’s speak even though I haven’t been back to Southern IL since my grandmother died in 1984.

Figuring out where you’re from by your accent has always been a game/hobby with me.  I’ve gotten pretty good at it too.  My job allows me to talk to people all over North America, including Canada. I use both accents and linguistics to guess where they are from before they tell me. Different regions call certain things by different names.  Just ask someone what they call a can of soda (pop, soda, or coke  even if it’s not coke), a shopping cart (cart or carriage),  a milkshake (also called a carriage).  Use of the word “fixing” or “fixin’ “  will give away the difference between northerner, and a southerner, and then Texans have a more interesting application of that word. They’re not only fixin’ to go somewhere,  but they also use that word southern style as in Fixin’ Supper or the extreme “fixin’ to go fix supper”.  Breakfast is almost universally “breakfast”  but Lunch can be called “dinner” and dinner (what we call it in Chicago) is also called “Supper”.   There’s a difference in the north too. People from the northwoods in MN, WI, and MI say “eh?” at the end of most sentences, and that usually gets pinned on Canadians. but it’s not just them that do it.  You can tell a non-French Canadian by the way they say the world “about”, and the letter “Z” (”zed”).

My brother moved from Chicago to Maine for about 10 years, and now he lives in NC.  His accent is mostly NC after just a couple of years there, but he’s married for 20+ years to a woman from Maine and she’s definitely had an influence on what he sounds like.  It’s just another reason for me to make fun of him.  One of my best friends was raised in Kansas but lives in Dallas TX now.  We’ve had a lot of interesting conversations. He’s taught me how to speak Texan like a native. Most interesting to me is the use of terms referring to the person (you, y’all) or group (all of you,  y’all (southern or western), or: all y’all (only in Texas).

There are many regional clues if you just know what to listen for. That holds true for any country. I have friends in England, and the difference between northern, central, and southern English there are just as pronounced as the American versions of the language spoken  regionally here.

Anyway,  I found this test a while ago, and was sent the link to it again.  It pretty much pegged me with the regions that it lists.  It always surprises me when I see Philly on here. Philly speak and south side Irish Chicago speak aren’t that much different accent wise, but there’s not a lot of either in my own personal use of the language.  I don’t think so anyway.

All the years of growing up were real tough on him, as
all who saw the screw made fun of him. He avoided
ever leaving his house and thus, never made any friends.

One day, a mysterious stranger saw his belly and told him
of a swami in Tibet that could get rid of the screw for him.
He was thrilled. The next day he took all of his life’s savings
and bought a ticket to Nepal! After several days of climbing
up steep cliffs, he came upon a giant monastery. The swami
knew exactly why he had come. He was told to sleep in the
highest tower of the monastery and the following day when
he awoke, the screw would have been removed.

The man immediately went to the room and fell asleep.
During the night while he slept, a purple fog floated in an
open window, bearing in its mist, a golden screwdriver.

In just moments, the screwdriver removed the screw and
disappeared out the window. The next morning when the
man woke, he saw the golden screw lying on the pillow
next to him. Reaching down, he felt his navel, and there
was no screw there! Jubilant, he leaped out of bed,
….. and his butt fell off.

The moral to this is: “Don’t screw around with things you
don’t understand — you could lose your butt.”

Rule #1: If I don’t love it, I won’t do it.

There’s a lot of truth behind all those sayings about if you do what you love, it’s not really work.  That’s not saying that there won’t be tasks that I don’t enjoy, but overall, if the execution of My Business produces something that personally touches me, then it’s worth it.  Roomie and I have been talking about web marketing for a long time. It’s something that he’s been interested in and passionate about, and can easily use his talents to make a living at, but our conversations about how to execute the business part of his business never excited me.  It’s interesting, and I’m learning a few things through these conversations that we have.  At the end of the day though, the approach that he’s taking, that works so well for him, isn’t the angle that I’m pursuing. He’s an awesome salesman with plenty of experience at it. I realized a few weeks ago, that his ideas excite him, and that’s awesome because he should love what he’s doing as much as I should love what I’m doing. This business that I’m getting into is something that I can easily be equally as passionate about. It’s not web marketing in the hardcore webmarketing sense like his is.  My Business is more of a thought train that can have a few profitible stops on the way to fulfillment. Best (and scariest) of all, is that it’s ALL mine. My brain child. My responsibility. My vision. The only limitations are me, myself, and I. The First National Corporation of Grania.  What I’m doing has the potential to offer something good up to the world, to maybe reach some people (like me) that needed reaching, and that, ultimately, is what gets my creative juices running. It’s a way to take my philosophy of service to others and turn that into a business, allowing me more opportunity to serve and offer up myself in a way that can touch so many more people than I do now.

Rule #2: Learn as I go. 

If I wait until I know everything that I need to know to start a business, I’ll never get there. I guess it’s kind of ballsy getting into the web business without functional knowledge of silly things like web programming, but there are enough (free!!) tools out there that even quasi-geeks like myself can look sort of, maybe, kind of like I know what I’m doing. <shrugs>  I’ve faked that pretty good so far, and the initial investment is much more time than money.  I moved hosts and it didn’t kill me, so I figure that I can learn and actually understand the back end part as I go.  My new host offers a pretty cool package with lots and lots of tools that I’ll explore and exploit to the best of my abilities.  I’ve got enough experience in sales and marketing to put together a business plan with ideas and realistic goals. At this point I have what I think are two pretty good ideas that I’m personally interested in enough that I’d pursue learning about them even if I wasn’t building My Business around them. They are concepts that I’m (here’s that word again) passionate about, and if I can’t be passionate about it, and put myself into learning the how’s of doing it, and love what I’m doing/learning/being, then I’m not going to spend my limited free time developing something that I know from the start won’t be with me for very long because I’m not in love with the idea.  

Rule #3: Be Authentic.

There will be no hardcore selling. That’s not me. All that I’m doing, all that I have to sell, are the ideas and potential personal changes that these two concepts bring.  I think that they are both individually something that a lot of people will be interested in. I say that because I’m interested in seeing where the ideas go, watching them grow, and using them to facilitate my own personal goals. If I endorse a product or <gasp> create one, it will be something that can be used to facilitate the goals of the thought train that the websites will produce.  

Rule #4: It is a business.

The goal of business is to be profitable.  Or, conversely, not to be negative on the profit end. That being said, you’ve probably already noticed the ads on the site now.  Ads generate passive income. At this point, having ads is purely for the purpose of offsetting my hosting fees ($10 a month), paying for the backend stuff that needs to be paid for, like registering domains ($15ish each)  and eventually the amount of bandwidth that I hope to use. Maybe eventually they will pay for a few marketing tools, we’ll see. I don’t expect to get rich from the ads here, I have other ideas about real income, but for now, they can be helpful in covering the back end costs. Right now, I’ve invested less than $60 cash. I’ve also pretty much dedicated one of my laptops to the cause. That is the extent of my personal monitary risk. It is an acceptable risk level for me.

The much bigger risk for me is the part of me that isn’t quantifiable monitarily. That is where the pay off will be for me.  Yes, one of my goals is to make enough from these ideas to be comfortably self employed, but the reward, the kick ass cool part for me, is that I might help a few people that I wouldn’t have helped before.  That’s what I’m passionate about. That’s what My Business is about.  The dichotomy between living a life of service and being “successful” in the material world, can be bridged.  I’m not Mother Theresa, I don’t believe that I have to live poor to be of service. I do believe that it would be wrong to sell out and capitalize on something purely for profit.  There is a place for that in the world, and there’s nothing wrong if that’s the goal. It’s just not My Goal.  The goal in my life and my business is balance.  This is something that I’ve struggled with and will probably continue to struggle with, but, if in the end, I do launch a successful venture, if people find value in what I have to offer, then the reward for that is better than money.  Yes, if that happens, money will happen, but it won’t be an issue. I’ve always shared what I have with people that can benefit from it, that’s part of who I am, and that will continue whether I make $10 off of these ideas or $10,000,000. 

I’ll aim for the $10,000,000 and see what happens   It’s good to have goals right?

Yes, I’m intentionally being secretive about the 2 ideas that I have. I’ll talk more about them once I have a better business plan in place.  Right now that stuff is all intellectual property and I need to protect it a little bit until everything is set up.  This website will continue to be my personal journal/gallery/thought forum.  There are other domains that I already own where the business will happen. 

Wish me luck.

 There were a few other backend issues that I haven’t tested yet either.  The first step was getting it here and working enough so that you could see it.  I think I did that, and it only took a couple of hours. I’m almost a geek eh?

 I’ve got a few ideas about things that I want to do and the direction that I want to take with this site. Fixing the basic functionality was the first step toward that.   There will be some pretty cool things coming.  It will depend on my available time and level of geekdom on how much gets done how fast.  There are still projects to do at home that take priority, but hopefully I can sneak on here and do a bit here and there.  

 Peace

Ocean or Lake? Ocean. I grew up in Chicago, 5 miles from Lake Michigan, there’s something very different about an ocean. I think it’s just sheer magnitude.  There’s nothing like the primal power of crashing surf on rock, and you just don’t get that on lakes. The ocean is cleaner than the lake too.  Lakes are murky, at least around here.

Pizza or Chinese? Or Thai, or Japanese, or Italian, or Greek, or German…. I could never narrow it down to just one.  Roomie cooks a lot of Asian style stuff, so I lean that way, but every culture has its own style and it mostly depends on my mood.  I don’t eat fish or anything else that swims. I’m phobic. Someday I’ll work on getting over that.

Mansion or Penthouse? Mansion… I want out of the city. Penthouse implies high rise and they generally don’t put those on 20 acres in the middle of the country.

Have you been on a Jet Ski? Nope, and I’m fish phobic, so being that close to them doesn’t do anything for me.

Are you afraid of clowns? No. I don’t really understand them though. Other than kid amusement, they’re a little strange.

How many brothers/sisters do you have? Two older brothers

Favorite band/group? Um, apply my answer for food here… I grew up on gospel/folk, was classically trained on piano, violin, and voice, and I listen to Country and Rock… it depends on my mood.  No rap or techno please.

Baseball or football? Softball, and only if I’m playing. I can put a pretty good spiral on a football too.  I’m not into being a spectator of any sport.

Favorite brand of makeup? Beyond cleanser and moisturizer, I’m not interested.  I’m allergic to most, and never really felt the need to dress up my face. I have beautiful eyes, why mess with that?

Do you have an IPod? Yes. But I hate the ear buds and haven’t found a comfy pair yet, so it’s mostly unused

Bike or scooter? I want a Harley, when my ass is smaller.  Overweight people on motorcycles… it just isn’t sexy.

Ever go in a hot air balloon? No, but I’d like to give it a try.

What brand computer do you have? Personally 2 Gateway laptops and 1 Dell tower (and an NEC laptop, and 3 frankenputers are in the bone pile waiting to be disposed).  My work laptop is IBM, and the tower on my desk in the office is Dell.  I work in the industry, I try to stay current with technology.

How many times have you been to Disneyworld ? 3. The last time was 20 years ago. I’m not really interested in going back. I’d rather see the Rockies or some other wonder of the earth.

Favorite city? Anywhere my friends are.

Do you think you are fat? Yeah, I’m overweight. I try not to let it define me.  I know it’s because I eat too much, and don’t try to cop out and blame it on some other health reason.  I’m working on getting healthier, not thinner, that’s just a side effect of health.  It is happening, and will continue. If you’re too shallow and not interested in finding out who I am while I’m a fat person, I’m not interested in being friends with you once I’m thinner.  Accept me as I am, fat or thin. Being fat doesn’t make me a less worthwhile human. (Stepping off my soapbox now)

Ever throw up in a public place? I’ve thrown up twice in my life, once in the toilet at home  and once on the hall carpet on the way to the toilet.  I’m not a puker. Mom said I never spit up much as a baby either.

Do you have a pool? Nope. I miss that the most about Mom’s house.

How many times a month do you go to the movies? Um, do DVD’s count? I may watch one every month or two. It’s been more than a year since I’ve been in a theater.  I think the LOTR  Return of the King was the last movie I saw in the theater.

Last movie you saw? Peaceful Warrior (on DVD)

Do you chew ice? Try and stop me. I know, I’m killing my teeth, annoying my aunt, and there are tree frogs in Burma dying because I chew ice.  It’s low cal and crunchy. Go away.

Have you been to California? Not yet.  Utah/Idaho is as far west as I’ve been.

Last book you read? Peaceful Warrior. The book was way better than the movie, but the movie was good too.

Do you like to go fishing? I like boating, you can do the fishing for me. I’m terrified of them, and bait is icky too.

Favorite professional team? The US Olympic team? I love the olympics. Other than that though, I generally have no interest in watching sports.  

Do you like mohawks? See the answer about clowns.

How many pairs of shoes do you own? 4 pairs that I wear regularly, and probably another 10 for the rare dress up. I’m so NOT a girly girl. No shoes, no makeup…

Do you floss? Rarely

Do you have braces? I need them, but not desperately.

Do you bite your nails? No, I grind my teeth instead.

What is your last thought before falling asleep? I spend time trying not to think.  Shutting my brain off enough to sleep is the challenge most nights.

Do you fall in love easily? Yes, emotion comes easy, showing them is another thing.

Ever have a crush and they never knew? Who hasn’t?

Do you babysit? I was an Au Pair for 12 years, does that count? 

Ever been shot at? With a squirtgun, and a water balloon slingshot, never a gun.

Do you consider yourself nice? I do, I’m not sure everyone else does.

Do you go to camp for the summer? We camped as a family every summer when I was a kid.  I haven’t been camping since the early 80’s though.

Have you been on a boat? Sail, speed, pontoons, and cruisers. I love (other people’s) boats.  I have no desire to own one of my own.

Ever break a bone? Sprained my ankle once. Fractured my pinky finger skateboarding when I was a teenager, no breaks that I know of.

What is your ultimate job? Something helping people. I still want to be a professional counselor. That’s where my talents are.

Do you want to walk on the moon? I’d love to!!!

Can you name the seven dwarfs? Lol hmmm  Dopey, Sneezy, Doc, Grumpy, Bitchy, Sleezy, and Dork?  Ooooooh I think I got a little off track there. I probably could come up with the rest of the real ones given enough time. I can also sing every song from the Lion King and Little Mermaid.  Did i mention I was an Au Pair for more than a decade.  Barney still needs to die….

Favorite TV show? I like shows that are written intelligently.  House, Numb3rs, Grays, Men in Trees, good writers make it for me. West Wing was the best written show ever. ER used to be good, but now it’s like a badly written copy of House. It’s too bad, because Stanley Tucci’s a decent actor. They should have brought him in right after Dr Greene died.

Apples or oranges? Apples, I gag on oranges, it’s a texture thing.

Favorite model of car? Any that have 4 wheels, a motor, and gets better mileage than my 18 MPG mommobile are currently under consideration. I’m leaning toward a Rav5, but who knows. 

Favorite flower? Lily of the Valley.  Delicate and fragrant.   Roomie introduced me to Gardenias this year, the flowers are gorgeous and the fragrance…. Yummy.

Favorite color? Colors are like music. They only work in concert with other colors/notes.  I don’t have a favorite single color.  If a combination works, I like it.  There are colors that I prefer not be used in certain places.  There’s not much Orange in my house, or wardrobe. I’m just not an orangy kind of person I guess.

Ever climb out your bedroom window? No, my brothers had the room with the window that had climbing access.

Do you live in an apartment or house? A House in the 70’s version of Suburbia. It’s a box with a roof, surrounded by 5 different styles of the same box. I really really want to build a house and  move where my next door neighbors aren’t 20 feet away.  Soon.

How many times in the last month have you had the hiccups? None that I remember.

Ever laugh so hard milk came out your nose? No, but I’ve choked on it while laughing.

How many cousins do you have? I don’t know.  3 first cousins on my mom’s side, they all have families. I’m close to them.   My dad had a couple of brothers that died before I was born, and I know they had kids, but I don’t know how many.  My dad’s sister had 9 kids, and his brother that I knew had 5 kids so I have at least 17 first cousins, probably 20 or 21, but I really only know the 3 on mom’s side of the family.

Do you believe in ghosts? I have no doubt that they exist.

If you were a bird, what would you be? A falcon or an eagle. Soaring high, sun on my back… that would soothe my soul in a big way.

Ever get stitches? I had stitches when I cut my finger a few years ago.  Both surgeries that I’ve had were closed with staples, not stitches.

If you could, would you want to know what your future was going to be? No. It’s easier to be thankful for each day as it happens. I get high strung if i know what’s coming. It’s much easier for me to take it as it comes 

If you could change your name, what would it be? I like my name. It suits me. I’m glad I have my maiden name back. My married name was very common and plain.

Dogs or cats? I’ve never had a dog, and my 4 cats would probably protest if I got one now.  The plan is to move to the country in another year or two, and by then my 2 older cats will be gone and the younger ones (Maine Coons) will be ok with a puppy. They’re more like dogs than cats anyway.  That being said, I like big dogs that are trainable, the puppy will be a retriever or a shepherd, or a mix of the two. 

Do you believe in love at first sight? If there’s something striking about someone that attracts me, that has less to do with love than lust.   Not that lust is a bad thing, and two people that love each other can also have a healthy amount of lust for each other too.  I’ve acted on lust without love, and it always leaves me shallow and wanting something emotionally deeper. Lesson learned. Love is so much better. I’ll wait for it.  It will come. What you want, wants you too.

Do you go to church? It sounds trite, but the world is my church. We are all children of God, and if we respected and treated each other that way the world would have fewer problems than it does.  This planet is a beautiful place, and a gift from the Creator. I appreciate that, every moment I can.  Formal religion has lost sight of that and become political bodies that dictate how people should believe.   I’m not interested in that.

Would you marry outside your religion? I did, and it made for some good discussions.  It had no other affect on our marriage; our problems weren’t related to religion.

Volleyball or tennis? I used to play tennis. Never got the hang of Volleyball, I always hit the ball backwards.

Ever ride in a limo? Yeah, several, it’s kind of disappointing. Just a long car with slippery seats and free drinks. I don’t drink, so the attraction isn’t there. It’s actually cheaper to take a limo to the airport from my office than it is to Cab it, so we get limos when we travel.  I try to get a seat on the long sideways seat and have fun sliding when the driver stops and starts… I’m such a child sometimes

Ever drink champagne? Yep, blegh, I’m not a drinker.

The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and
asked the woman to give it to him. She did so
without hesitation.

  The traveler left rejoicing in his good fortune.  He
knew the stone was worth enough to give him
security for a lifetime.

But, a few days later, he came back to return the
stone to the wise woman.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.  ”I know how valuable
this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you
can give me something even more precious.  Teach
me what you have within you that enabled you to
give me this stone without a moment’s hesitation.”