Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

I am grateful for my friends who choose to know me and secretly see my snarky side and still let me be part of their lives.
...............Jamie Lee Curtis


To all of you who understand this as it relates to me, Thank You.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Monday, November 19, 2007

10 Favorite Quotes...on being true to yourself

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
...............Janis Joplin


I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.
...............Ingrid Bergman


I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.
...............Madonna


I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.
...............Dolly Parton


Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
...............Lucille Ball


I was thought to be "stuck-up". I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.
...............Bette Davis


Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball.
...............Billie Jean King


What a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be.
...............Ellen Burstyn


It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.
...............Sally Field


It's me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence.
...............Paula Cole

Saturday, November 17, 2007

5 Favorite Links


SwapaCD
How it works:

  • You have original, playable CDs that you do not want to keep.
  • You post those CDs to your "CD Tower" to offer to other members
  • You add funds to your SwapaCD Money account (this pays the 49-cent transaction fee for each CD you request)
  • After you have posted the first 10 CDs to your CD Tower, you get a "gift" credit from SwapaCD to get you started swapping. After that, you earn credits by sending out CDs to others.
  • You may order any available CD for 1 credit each (even multidisc or boxed sets)
  • If you want a CD that is not currently available, you can place it on your Wish List and we will notify you by email when it is available for you to order. You can even have it sent to you automatically when it becomes available, with no email necessary.
  • When a CD is requested from you, we notify you by email, provide the address for you to send it out, and even provide a wrapper!
  • Wrap and mail your CD.
  • When the requestor receives it, you earn 1 credit. Yes, you pay the postage to send out your CDs, but when you request a CD, the sender ships it to you and you pay only the 49-cent transaction fee (plus 1 CD credit)!
  • The CDs you receive from SwapaCD are yours. We hope that you will repost them to share with other members when you have read them, but you can certainly keep them, or give them away. Similarly, the CDs you send out to others belong to their new owners.
If you decide to give SwapaCD a try, I hope you will use the link above. Once you post your 10 CD's I get a free credit!


The Huffington Post
We don't have broadcast TV anymore. We get a really fuzzy channel 10 that none of us bother with, but nothing else. So we watch DVD's only. And my kids sometimes watch videos they borrow from the library.

I also don't get any newspapers or news magazines. So where do I get my news? The Huffington Post.


BBC News The Week in Pictures
I also get my news from the BBC. The page I love most is the week in pictures. And actually I try to look at each day in pictures. It makes the rest of the world more than just an idea.


The National Weather Service
Yeah, there are other places to get your weather. But they all get it from here.


TravelZoo
This is one mailing list you really do want to be on: "The Travelzoo Top 20 is the definitive list of the week’s best travel deals. Every week, our team researches, evaluates and recommends hundreds of airfare, hotel, vacation package, cruise and rental car deals. Only the most competitive make the Top 20. Our Test Booking Center confirms the accuracy and availability of every deal before the list goes out."

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Why Homeschool?

Big Brother is watching...

Surveillance cameras rolling inside our local schools is nothing new, but what's taking place inside Demarest's public schools is truly cutting edge: a live feed from more than two dozen cameras with a direct connection to the police.

Read the whole thing here.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

I quit my job

I've been freelancing for a woman for a several months now. She actually sent me home with a mac so I could work when she needs me to. It's been really wonderful to make some extra money for us, and I really do like what I do.

Recently though, my client discovered she has breast cancer. So she started farming out her work, so that she can have the next few weeks unencumbered. She gave me two jobs to work on. One for a local Chamber of Commerce, and another for a car dealership which does a weekly newspaper ad. I knew the next couple of weeks would be very full and somewhat stressful, but I felt I owed it to my client to be there for her. Plus, to be honest, all those billable hours would be really nice.

Well after several days of working on the Chamber of Commerce thing, my client added up the hours and decided it would be best to give the job back to them. Apparently even paying me at less than what she was billing, she would lose money. It was a combination of reasons, really. The customer made many changes which had not been included in the original quote, and passing the thing on further down the line meant communication was being lost; kind of like the telephone game. So I spent four hours on something before I was told that it needed to be completely redesigned, at which time I spent another four hours redesigning it. If my client had not been ill and distracted, I'm sure the information would have been passed on correctly the first time around, but that was not the case, and I spent a lot of time doing work which was wrong. So in the end she (rightly) decided it was best to give the job back to the agency and let them deal with it.

Then we have the car thing. These folks are completely unprofessional. I'm not going into the details of the whole thing, but the bottom line is they were supposed to have had the ad all approved so I could upload it to the newspaper by noon on Thursday, and Friday at 5:30 is when I was finally able to upload it.

So I told my client that I would not be able cover the car ad for her until she returned to working full time. It would make me a slave to the house on Thursdays and Fridays and wasn't fair to the boys. So Saturday morning she came and took her computer back so she could give it to someone who could cover for her.

My feelings are so mixed. Bottom line is that I made a choice to stay home and raise my children, and homeschool them, and to expect them to entertain themselves two days a week for the next several was not fair. Not to mention that we would have to cancel plans already made for those days.

I also feel frustrated that my client left feeling that I took way longer to do the work than she would have. I know this would not be the case had she been her normal self - instructions would not have been missed, and I certainly would not have had to spend the enormous amount of time I had to gathering all the files together from all the different places she had it stored. I only hope that when she is herself again that she is able to see that I am still valuable to her, and that the time I spent on all her work is justified. "If you always do your best, there is no way you can judge yourself." Man, this book rocks. It is my life preserver.

There is also a piece of me which feels proud on a couple of levels. First, I have my priorities straight. Second, I feel that car dealership and the agency who represented them really were unprofessional. I refuse to work with people who don't respect me, especially after I explained my circumstances to make sure they were okay with my time limitations.

Finally though, I am dealing with the whole money thing. It doesn't seem fair that society judges people on their worth according to their monetary worth. And that that viewpoint is so prevalent that it has rubbed off on me, even though consciously I know I what I contribute to my family is worth more than some extra money. If I could just get my husband on board with that...