Unbelievable!	Friday, September 26, 2003 11:56:52 AM
We got a paycheck today - on the actual payday!!! That hasn't happened since January or February. Wow. It's almost like working for a real company again. :)
7th Heaven	Monday, September 22, 2003 7:29:17 PM
I'm sitting here and continuing to work at home (much like the last 3 miserable weeks of work) and have the TV on in the background. Will and Grace went off and 7th Heaven came on on the WB. I left it on so I wouldn't miss Everwood, which have to admit that I really like. 7th Heaven is the silliest show I have ever seen. The dialogue is so terrible that it is funny. The blond cop guy has the most cardboard responses ever. Girl cop: "Minister guy just broke up with me. I am so upset and want to talk to him and have closure." Guy cop: "What did you expect? Leave him alone." Girl cop: "I'm still sad and want to talk to your wife." Guy cop: "No, I want my wife all to myself." *LOL* It is not much better than that. My 2 cents is that this TV show just adds to the reason that some girls think that all of life revolves around getting married. (Much like the fairy tales and romance novels that I read voraciously as a child and I'm still OK, so there is hope for the families of the world that watch this show.) My father is a minister and living in a minister's house is a crazy experience with people around 24x7 and oftentimes quite dramatic. However, my sisters and I had so much more to do than rehash the same things over and over again, jump to conclusions, and desperately try to find some guy to exclusively date and marry.
Another celebration	Monday, September 22, 2003 7:16:41 PM
Yeah - they finally paid all of the back pay. They still owe me about $3K in expenses, but it is a start. :)
One celebration	Thursday, September 04, 2003 8:18:41 PM
Gosh, I can't believe that it has been this long since I updated my musings. This summer has been interesting. I was able to take some time off and write and think deep thoughts (this went very well), had a lovely vacation with Mike in Bar Harbor (my favorite thinking place), and learned to live well within my means. This is code for the fact that my company is about to be 4 paychecks behind in paying me and has been about 40 days late with every paycheck since May. So, for some of the time off that I took, I've upgraded my resume and created my portfolio and am currently packing up stuff, just in case. Not to be laid off, since they would prefer to make everyone miserable enough to leave without being laid off. (I may succumb to this.) For those of you who are worried that I am being a doormat, I also researched legal actions to take and am weighing them now. However, I have one celebration to tell you about (besides the rest of my life, which is going just peachy). I just got my yearly letter from my landlord and she is only raising my rent $10 a month! Yeah!!! So, in the 3 years that I will have lived there, I will have a grand total increase of $25 since I started renting from them. Makes up for the lack of a dishwasher. ;)
Dunkin' Donuts sugar high	Wednesday, July 16, 2003 12:49:46 PM
I'm currently on my 2nd week of 'mini-leave'/book-writing. I've found that I tend to graze quite a bit when I'm left at home with a full kitchen in the next room, so I've decided that the best course of action is for me to keep very little food in my apartment. (Not a problem for me.) Twice this week, I have gone over to Dunkin' Donuts at brunch time for one of their breakfast sandwiches. (Can't do it too often since I'm allergic to eggs.) My order is pretty much the same - the value combo #2: a large coffee (cream, no sugar) and a egg and bacon sandwich on a bagel with no cheese. They are always great about the no cheese on the sandwich, but it is always hit or miss on the no sugar in the coffee. Today was a definite miss. I have no idea what is up with the Dunkin' Donuts folks and their sugar. Maybe because I was raised on virtually no sugar, I have no idea how some people are able to shovel tablespoons of sugar into their coffee or tea. Even when I ask for 'light sugar', they still have me on a sugar-high for hours. I am still twitching with today's sugar rush since I'm too lazy to brew a pot of coffee here to dilute what they've given me.
The age of supermodels is over	Tuesday, July 15, 2003 2:15:09 PM
I went to see Terminator 3 the other day and someone said that the woman who played the Terminatrix (Kristanna Loken) was a supermodel. Supermodel? I hadn't even heard of her before the movie. In her IMDB.com quotes, she says 'I know that my life will change after this movie, but I just can't prepare myself on no longer being anonymous.' Even she knows she isn't a household name. I've been pondering this for a while and have come to the conclusion that there are no more supermodels. When I think about supermodels, I still think of Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, etc. (Basically the ladies of George Michael's 'Freedom 90' video.) I don't think that there are models out there now that have the lasting power and household name recognition that the last generation of supermodels had. Even Tyra Banks and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos were 1990's models. The only 2000's models that I can think of are Molly Sims and Gisele Bundchen. And if it wasn't for staying home sick one day and seeing Gisele on Regis, I doubt I would even have heard of her, 4 Vogue covers or not. I even went through all of my recent Cosmopolitan and Elle magazines to see who was on the cover. (Yes, I get shallow magazines. But, I try to balance them out with Utne and The New Yorker so my post office representative will not think too badly of me.) It seems that there are more movie stars on the covers of magazines instead of actual models. I think that it is a fair assumption to say that the age of real supermodels is over. If you think otherwise, please feel free to contact me. :)
New graphics	Tuesday, July 01, 2003 9:49:53 PM
Beth just taught me about the matte feature in Photoshop. Thanks, Beth!!!
Photos updated	Tuesday, July 01, 2003 1:56:44 PM
I've updated my photos page. Check out the kids...
Francis de Sales (1567-1622)	Sunday, June 29, 2003 10:15:48 PM
My Sunday School class has been going through Devotional Classics and Spiritual Classics in a self-paced way. These are like Reader's Digest Condensed versions of the great Christian writers of the past and have been updated a little bit into more modern language. I highly recommend them both, especially the Devotional ones. When I first got that book 3 or 4 years ago, I bought one for each family member and many of my friends to check it out. I've really enjoyed getting to know writers that I would never have stumbled into on my own. Oftentimes, they are very different teachings than what I grew up with, so it is a chance to stretch and think deeply about another point of view. I think it refines me a bit more. Today's lesson was a super-cool one from the Devotional Classics book. It was excerpts from Francis de Sales' 'Introduction to the Devout Life' (please note web version is not in modern language). This guy is an amazing writer with a gift for using simple analogies to describe deep theological statements. The whole class enjoyed how he greadually would build up to a simple statement that would blow us away. He definitely deserved a bit of space in my musings since he has given me a lot to muse about. :)
Hypocritical?	Sunday, June 29, 2003 9:32:22 PM
I had the VH1 countdown on in the background this morning as I was getting ready for church. They were interviewing Jewel about her new video 'Intuition'. It almost sounded like Madonna's newest talk-show circuit. Needed to write songs about how success doesn't make you happy...pop culture is too shallow...etc. Then, they showed Jewel's video for the song that is supposed to denigrate pop culture/music and it is one of the most pop-like songs I have ever heard. In fact, I had no idea it was her when I heard the song on the radio last week. I really like Jewel and Madonna. I think that they are both intelligent women who are wonderful lyricists and shrewd business women. However, I have a little bit of a problem with their mix of message and medium. This is something that bothered me when I went to see 'Natural Born Killers'. (The final nail in Oliver Stone's coffin for me.) Oliver Stone said that he was unhappy with the amount of violence in TV/movies and the lack of morality in shows like 'Married With Children' that was having a desensitizing effect on Americans. However, he made the most violent movie and his use of filming techniques (loads of flashing/quick changing images - Pepsi/Coke techniques) made it difficult for you to look away and not have it make a bigger imprint on your brain. For 'JFK' (fiction posing as history), he had a leg to stand on as he was pointing at things like sealing the paper trail and critiquing it from a higher position. 'Natural Born Killers' was soiled by the delivery and ruined any credibility that he might have had with a critique on violent films. I kind of feel the same way with the Jewel and Madonna songs. I think that it is proper to use the medium to bring a message, but I'm not sure that is what they are doing. It is too mixed-up in trying to make a success and generate oodles of cash to be able to be a clear messanger.
Nannie	Friday, June 27, 2003 1:28:38 PM
For the last week on my drive to work, I have seen the same beautiful black Porsche Boxster ahead of me, zooming in and out of traffic. Today, I found myself behind the Porsche and staring at the vanity plate. Up until this point, I thought the driver was some guy on his way to a meeting. A few lights later, I found myself next to the Porsche and glanced at the driver. She is a little old lady. A grandma that drives Montgomery Road like she is on the way to a race. This is very cool. I like seeing real-life examples of elderly ladies doing crazy things. My best example of how I want to be when I grow up is Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax. If you haven't read any of her books, you should. They are lovely. A Mrs Pollifax List From Amazon
Mother Jones	Tuesday, June 24, 2003 9:05:03 PM
I actually took out my mail two days in a row (the postal worker will have a heart attack) and found a sample of Mother Jones magazine in my box. I had wanted to take a look at it since someone recommended it to me. (If you love Utne Magazine (formerly the Utne Reader), you'll love this one.) Side Note: I DO love Utne Magazine and highly recommend it to everyone. A subscription is only $14.97, so please give it a try. You can borrow a copy of mine if you live near me and solemnly promise to give it back. Mike thinks it is weird that a conservative loves a green party/progressive type of magazine, but I tell him that I am multifaceted. Besides, where else will I get the bi-monthly inspiration to toss it all away and live like Thoreau? Getting back to my story, I opened it up and realized that it was a teaser with a magazine cover and a 'sign here' brochure in the middle. I was about to toss this teaser until I saw a true/false quiz on the front of the magazine. The question that struck me as the most ludicrous was 'True or False: President George W. Bush has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize'. I opened to the answers and saw that this was 'True'. This horrified me. How can a man who has embroiled our country in 2 wars and seems to want to jump into a couple more be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? Especially after the last several months. I immediately went to Google to figure out how in the world this happened. It turns out that George W. Bush was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize with Tony Blair in 2002 and there is no mention that anyone tried to nominate them this year. Former President Jimmy Carter won in 2002. I feel a bit cheated that an award-winning alternative press magazine that prides itself on 'truth-telling' and 'straight-shooting' and 'real news' (from the cover) would twist the facts a little bit to sensationalize and sell magazines. This Nobel nomination is no longer news. It should be in an archive.
Milk 'Ingredients'	Tuesday, June 24, 2003 2:45:28 PM
I picked up a small bottle of Lehigh Valley Dairies milk on the way to work for my afternoon tea. As I was opening the milk, I noticed this blurb on the side of the bottle: "You can taste how absolutely fresh our milk is with just one, single sip! That's because we use only the freshest ingredients!" Freshest ingredients? You milk a cow and get milk. (At least that is how I've seen it done on movies.) There are no ingredients other than "Grade A Milk". Beth and I definitely got a laugh out of it. :)
job=light sickness :)	Thursday, June 19, 2003 5:47:08 PM
I have triumphed again with a compromise. We are getting 2 months at the "work 50%, get paid for 75%" deal. Thank God. I was getting an ulcer.
job=a deep sickness, but not death	Thursday, June 19, 2003 12:06:25 PM
Well, I broke my diet yesterday and twisted Mike's arm to do the same. :) After 1.5 slices of real pizza and a bag of popcorn and a box of Raisinettes while seeing X2 again, I felt much better. This feeling of being much better lasted until I got to work and read my email. Not quite as bad as yesterday, but the day is still young...