Wrapping up last year...

Just a few things to review from last year...

1) My kitchen became the inspiration for many homeowners.












2) While I can admit it when I'm wrong, I wasn't! It was NOT what it was and saying it WAS what it was wasn't going to change that. In addition, what it WAS and still IS is so freaking ironic that I can't decide whether I should laugh or cry. Nonetheless, it appears to be quite good... whatever it is or becomes. And the scariest part? WiBlondie knows EXACTLY what I mean!

3) While I left one job and started another, my tolerance for ineptitude and my penchant for making fun of cats has remained unchanged (and for those of you who are a little slow on the uptake.... that was a Brazilian-waxed pussy).



4) Apparently this is the new standard ride for a group of 5 year olds headed to Chucke Cheese.


Oh dear.... my hubby is splashing around in the bathtub and calling for me. I guess I'll have to sign off now. (Trust me, that is one thing you don't want to see a picture of...)

Servatis a Periculum

I've gotten a number of visits lately from people searching for the meaning of "Servatis a Periculum, Servatis a Maleficum." So, here it is...

This phrase was made popular by the music group Evanescence. At the end of their song "Whisper", it is repeated several times as sort of a chant. According to the band's website, it is Latin for "Save us from danger, save us from evil." Whether or not it is correct Latin depends on who you ask and what the writer actually intended to say. For what its worth, I haven't found that exact phrase used in any other text. Here's what I have found, though:

One Latin student indicated that "servatis" is the plural "you" form and that perhaps the author meant "Serva nos e periculo" which he translates as "Deliver us from (literally: out of) danger".

Here are a few other definitions:

periculum (periclum) -i n. [a trial , proof, test, attempt; danger, peril, hazard]; at law, [a trial, action, suit]; hence, [a legal record or register].
periculosus -a -um [dangerous , perilous]; adv. periculose.
maleficium -i n. [wrongdoing; mischief].
maleficus -a -um [evil-doing , mischievous]; adv. malefice.
servator -oris m. [a preserver , savior; a watcher].

Happy Birthdays!

First, who is the lucky bum at the Wyndham in Orlando and shouldn't you be out partying with Mickey???

Second, and more importantly..... Happy Birthday-Week to CompletelyBrunette (Jan. 19) and WiBlondie (Jan. 23) !!!!! May you both have many, many more!

A Little Something For The Ladies

He said - Shall we try swapping positions tonight? She said - That's a good idea... you stand by the ironing board while I sit on the sofa and fart.

Why do little boys whine? They are practicing to be men.

What do you call a handcuffed man? Trustworthy.

What does it mean when a man is in your bed gasping for breath and calling your name? You did not hold the pillow down long enough.

Why do female black widow spiders kill their males after mating? To stop the snoring before it starts.

What is the difference between men and women? A woman wants one man to satisfy her every need. A man wants every woman to satisfy his one need.

How do you keep a man from reading your e-mail? Rename the mail folder "Instruction Manuals."

What do you call an intelligent, good looking, sensitive man? A rumor.

You Bet Your Life

The next time someone tells you something is a "known fact" or "scientifically proven," make sure you spend some time critically thinking about what they are telling you. Does it conflict with other "known facts" you've been told? Just because something was said by a scientist doesn't make it a scientific fact. Most professionals won't take any statement seriously until it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Especially when it comes to matters concerning your health, people have a lot of products they want to sell you based on a lot of theories backed by no credible research. As my doctor would say, try it if you want but you're playing a high stakes game called "You Bet Your Life."

Wisdom In The Workplace

In Corporate America, projects are becoming a staple of most employees' daily responsibilities. A problem that frequently results when 1) upper management doesn't drive a realistic strategy and prioritization of projects or 2) project managers are immature in their understanding of the business they work in, is that grand plans are made without consideration of the company's ability to achieve them. At my troubled formed employer, many people would say resources (human and budget) were the biggest constraint in achieving goals. I would say culture was. Teamwork wasn't just not encouraged, it was outright prevented.

In one conversation, someone captured the essence of the issue in one statement which I subsequently printed out and hung on my wall. Months later, a visitor from our corporate office read it and gave a one sentence response that summarized the rest of the problem. Here are both of those statements:

"You can't execute ideology."
"But you can execute dogma."

Bits of Wisdom

One thing I've always enjoyed about Max Oz's blog is that he captures a lot of thought and imagery in very few words. Since I know my posts can get rather lengthy at times, I'm going to try my hand at creating a few posts that make a simple point and share just a tidbit of wisdom or a little idea to ponder. Of course, I may start out posting several at a time, but I hope you enjoy the format.

Love ya, Dahling!

What happens when WIBlondie and DonnaVera spend the evening giving each other extreme makeovers?

Blogellaneous

Just a few random thoughts and tidbits about blogging for the non-bloggers out there.

1. We bloggers occasionally take creative liberties in making our points, don't take everything literally. I don't actually have a friend that I only visit when I'm bored and feel like listening to someone else ramble.
2. Most blogs have a site meter that logs exactly who visits and when. That information is just as freely available on the internet as this blog is. With very few exceptions, I know exactly who visits and when. I track this information mostly because it lets me know if I need to call someone to tell them my latest news or if they've already read it in my blog. My blog is here to be read. Don't be embarrassed that you read it and pretend you didn't the next time I see you. You aren't spying on me.... really.
3. When you visit, my site meter tells me your IP address, the domain name or ISP you are connecting through, the city, state, and country you are in, occasionally the name of the company you are connecting from, the time and date of your visit, how many pages you visited an how long you stayed. It also tells me if you visited from one of my friends' blogs and click on their link to my site, or what search terms you entered into a search engine that referred you to me. There are exceptions, of course. For example, if you are visiting from my troubled former employer, I only see the IP address of your gateway owned by your French ISP regardless of which site you are at.
4. The comments feature works differently than just visiting a blog. When you post a comment, your IP address or other information is not captured. Comment away anonymously, but if I know you well I'll probably recognize your writing style.
5. I typically blog late at night when I tend to get more worked up about things. As a result, my grammar and spelling isn't always the best. When I go back and read it at a later date, it bugs me. Feel free to leave me a comment to point out the error of my ways.
6. Anytime I post a new blog, I get several visits from complete strangers who clicked on the "Next Blog" link on someone else's blog. When you click that link, you'll be taken to a recently updated blog.

Any questions? Leave a comment!

PS - Totallybrunette... my stepfather and your dad played bridge together the other night. Small world, eh?

May I FINISH please?! Part Two

I hate to be interrupted. Ask anyone who knows me what is the one things that drives me crazy when I'm talking and if they don't say "being interrupted" then they're lying about how well they know me. Really... it's rude. It's inconsiderate. It's disrespectful. It's something I really need to figure out why it happens to me so often and what I need to change to prevent it. I've given a lot of thought about why people do this so much and why it bothers me. I've come to a few conclusions, let me give you a few.

First, see my previous post. "Experts" who may know more about a topic than you who fail to first discover what you really do and don't know. Solution: When you introduce yourself, tell them right off the bat that you are probably smarter than they are and there may be one or two things you could learn from them, but that's about it. I know that sounds terrible, but some of the most interesting people I've talked to don't claim to be experts in anything.

Second, there is the friend who really likes talking about herself. Anything you might have to say reminds her of something that she did or that has happened to her and no matter how exciting or dramatic your story might be, hers will always be more exciting or more dramatic. So much so, in fact, that she needs to interrupt you to tell you about it. Solution: Get together only when you're bored and need someone to tell you some good stories.

Third, the another friend who is always too busy to let you finish what you have to say and therefore provides you with an answer based upon the first half of your sentence. For example... Me: "Do you know what time the sun..." Her: "6:30 am" Me: "...goes down at night?" Solution: Eliminate unnecessary words and use fragmented sentences: "Sky dark when?"

Forth, the person who is so used to hearing the same question that they just can't fathom being asked a more intelligent question. These are the people who give you an answer before you even start the question. Solution: Again, when you first meet the person explain to them that you're probably smarter than they are.

Fifth, the life of the party. Oh, this happened to me yesterday, too! I made a toast and I had two points to make. We're not talking about a several minute speech, we're talking about two independent clauses joined by a conjunction to form a single sentence. I finished the first clause and someone liked it so much he decided to jump in and add to it before I was done. Solution: Yell out the rest of your sentence as loud as you can over the person who interrupted you so everyone can see what an ass he is.

Six, the friend who is completely incapable of focusing on a single thought for more than about 5 seconds. When you tell her a story, you will be interrupted about 5 times to be asked irrelevant details about the story you're telling then interrupted again before the punchline with something of a completely different topic. For example, Me: "You won't believe what I saw today! I was pulling up to a store when..." Her: "You went shopping? Where'd you go? Did you buy anything?" Me: "Yes, Kohls, shoes, anyway, when all of the sudden this man came storming out..." Her: "Was he cute? What was he wearing? Did he buy anything?" Me: "No, I don't know, I don't think so, anyway, right as he passed me he looked right at me and..." Her: "Hey, I'm thinking of painting my bedroom, what color should I use?" Solution: Stick to email conversations (and compassionately realize that gorgeous blondes with big boobs just aren't used to people wanting to talk to them).

May I FINISH please?! Part One

This was going to be one long post, but I realized the first topic alone could stand on it's own...

Yesterday I was having a conversation with a nutrition enthusiast who does public speaking on the topic. I brought up my pet-peeve about the health food industry and asked him his opinion. Now, from years of being interrupted, I do tend to be very brief in making my initial point just to lay the groundwork before I get interrupted. Then I like to go into more detail. I started by expressing my frustration in the lack of interest in the food industry in educating consumers on the sodium related health problems and not providing convenient choices for people with those problems. If you are diabetic or avoiding fat or cholesterol, there are foods made and marketed just for you, but there is very little out there if you need to avoid sodium.

The problem with talking to experts is that they immediately assume you know nothing about the field they are experts in. He cut me off there to tell me that people can't expect grocery stores to tell you what you should and should not be eating. He further went to say that if I have a health problem and expect food makers to cater to me rather than getting educated about how I should be eating and learning how to take care of myself, that is my own problem because there are plenty of natural low sodium foods I could purchase and prepare on my own.

STOP THERE! (He actually did stop there and left shortly thereafter, so I finished the conversation with his wife). While the facts of his statement are absolutely true, there are so many reasons why that was absolutely the most dumbass response someone could give. First, he failed to listen to my actual concern. He did not tell me anything I didn't know. However, his answer was only relevant if I intended to live the rest of my life alone, never get involved in anything that might take time away from my meal times, never travel or go out to dinner and never let friends or family cook for me. My point was this, I know damn well the problems related to sodium and how to avoid them. The majority of the rest of the population, however, doesn't. They know sugar and fat are bad because there is a huge market for those products. The lack of low sodium education and food choices, however, are causing millions of people to victims of silent killers diseases such as high blood pressure.

Furthermore, the people who know I need to avoid sodium aren't going to spend the time researching options as I have. They make guesses based on mis-information and typically try to serve me something I shouldn't eat. It would be much easier if they had a section of the store they could go to and pick out a few things.

And finally, I would like to see a selection of low sodium convenience products for just that reason... convenience! Just because I like to cook doesn't mean I enjoy spending time daily or weekly to plan and prepare meals in advance. It takes time away from my family and other activities. I'm not just too stupid to figure things out on my own, as this man suggested. In fact, I probably know more about the topic than him. But, as the expert, he took it upon himself to make assumptions about me and my lifestyle and wasted a ton of breath on words that left me fairly unimpressed.

While we're on the topic of nutrition, let me warn you all - do not believe anything you are told by someone selling you a product unless they have real scientific evidence to support what they're telling you. This same couple went on to talk about weight loss and supplementation and made several statements that were clearly learned from a script and outright contradicted themselves when asked specific knowledgeable questions. That scares me... I highly encourage anyone considering nutritional supplementation to first try getting their nutritional needs from natural food sources. My doctor firmly believes this and when he explained why, it made perfect sense. Supplements offer you the needed nutrition that we know about, nutritious food provides the same nutrition plus any vitamins or minerals that haven't been discovered yet. You'd hate to find out ten years from now that your health problems are a result of a deficit of something that we don't even know about today.

Sometimes I just crack myself up...

So...

What do you get when you cross WiBlondie with CrewsViews?








A kitty with a Brazilian Wax job!






OK, not entertained? Try this...

And Now For Something Completely Different

After a little chit-chat with WiBlondie about having no inspiration lately, her companion suggested that maybe I've realized the full therapeutic benefit of blogging and it's time to end it. I gave that some thought and decided that there are just too many things I need to teach the rest of the world so I'm going to get a few things off my chest first. Some might be controversial, some might be thought-provoking and some might be outright ridiculous, but since you keep coming back I might as well give you something good to read! So, lets start by talking about homosexuality, since it has been a topic in a few shows I've seen lately.

I'm heterosexual, but I don't like mushrooms. I just don't care for the way they taste. When I was growing up, everyone else in my family liked mushrooms and I was the one left to pick them off of pizzas and out of various dishes. My parents didn't send me to some camp to make me like mushrooms, they didn't threaten to disown me if I didn't eat mushrooms, and nobody spent time or money researching if my preference for fungus-free meals is because of nature or nurture. Everyone accepted my preference without question. Why can't we do the same for people's sexual preferences?

Oh, I remember, because it is unnatural. Not what God intended. Let's take a closer look at this. I can't speak for all religions, but I'm pretty familiar with Christianity and from what I recall, it's someone else's job to judge us, not ours. I don't have a Bible sitting next to me, but I seem to recall that when the Pharisees brought Jesus the adulteress, he said "Let him without sin cast the first stone." And did He react with disgust when approached by a prostitute? No, he let her wash his feet with her hair. We pass laws forbidding same sex couples to make a legal commitment to each other because their love, as real as it is, is "unnatural", but let codependents, child molesters, wife beaters, and cheaters get married every day.

Allow me to point something out to you - the Bible is full of list of things we are supposed to do and not do. Nowhere, however, does it categorize sins as first degree or misdemeanor. So if you refuse to sway from your religious rhetoric, consider this: Unless you react the same way to all sins and/or sinners, you are a religious hypocrite. What proof do you have that in God's eyes homosexuality or abortions are any more serious offenses than taking the Lord's name in vain, envying your neighbor, having a short temper, or telling little white lies on your taxes? Would you picket a hotdog eating competition because it promoted excessive indulgence? Bomb your local tavern because it served people to the point of drunkenness? Make politics illegal because of the dissension and discord they create?

Let's take that one step further. The Bible says marriage should be honored by all. Sex and sensuality outside of marriage is disobeying God's commands. Do homosexuals fall into this category? Of course, because we won't let them get married. But, so do people who have premarital sex, extramarital affairs, and while we're at it, why not throw in erotic images and the "everything but penetration" sex play that so many unmarried pseudo-religious couples have convinced themselves is OK. One can only assume that individuals who criticize other people's lifestyles are living up to this standard of purity. Who am I to make such suggestions? Well, I'm actually uniquely qualified because I've lived that standard. You see, my first husband and I upheld absolute standards to prevent event a hint of impurity. Holding hands and an occasional kiss on the cheek was about it until our wedding night. Don't be too impressed, we got divorced five years later when we realized we got married for the wrong reason and couldn't stand spending every day and night alone with each other. As for my current husband, well, we bought a house, moved in together and planned the conception of our first child before we got married. Oops, divorce is unnatural... Not what God intended. Hmmmm, but we haven't made it illegal.

The point of this discussion isn't to debate right or wrong, it is to question why people get so wrapped up in the debate in the first place while simultaneously ignoring related issues. The bottom line is, in this time of war and hatred around the world, shouldn't we be celebrating love regardless of the source?