Time Flies/Not Happy

Jimminey Crickets. A month has gone by. What the heck happened? I reckon I got busy, as we all do. **sigh**

Today is not a happy day in North Carolina. Amendment One passed yesterday, and I think most of us knew it probably would. But, we were hoping. I am sad for our state, sad for the fact that we have enshrined discrimination into our constitution. But, I am also hopeful. I am hopeful that so many who came together in opposition to this amendment will continue to stand up for equality for everyone.

I have relatives and friends in the LGBT community. I will never look at them as second-class citizens who don't deserve the same rights as everyone else. What kind of friend would I be if I did?

Insurance Exam Passed? Check.

OK, so after lots of studying and banging my head against the wall, I finally bit the bullet and took my insurance exam last Thursday. It was no where near as difficult as the quizzes and exams the learning site put me through. They recommend that you make at least an 80 on their finals before you go take the license exam for your state. I could not get that 80, no matter what I did. I don't know how many times I took that exam, but the highest score I ever made was a 76. So of course I just totally ignored their advice and scheduled the state license test anyway. Glad I did.

So, now I get online and sign up for my license. Then I go down to the local police station and get fingerprinted (if they have the electronic scanning type of fingerprint machine that is). After all that is done and I have been officially checked out, I will be going to work for AFLAC. For now, I will have a license to sell health/medical insurance. I have to take the online courses for life insurance before I can schedule the test and get licensed to sell that. Sure is a lot of red tape involved in this stuff.

Maybe by this time next month, I will be making a bit of money. I'm not looking to get rich, just have an at least semi-steady income. I'm sure my bill collectors would appreciate that as well.   LOL

Around the Yard

Went for what is becoming my daily walk around the yard today. If I just went out there and walked, it wouldn't take long at all as it's not that big of a yard. But, I have gotten into the habit of grabbing my iPod and listening to a podcast or two while my ever present outside kitties walk around the yard with me. We meander through the tall grass (yeah, need to mow already) and sometimes I even pull up some wild onions which seem to grow abundantly in my yard. Today, I carried my camera with me and took a few photos, mostly of the cats of course.

 Here is my little swing, just waiting for me to start coming outside and while away some hours sitting there with a good book and my ever present cats. Hope even jumps up in the swing with me sometimes. Mostly though, they lay around or under it.

 Here is Google (Da Goog as we call him) trying to ignore me and get some shut-eye. Didn't work of course. 

 This is Muffin. Queen of all she surveys. She's a temperamental little girl sometimes, but I love her. 

This lonely little tire filled with topsoil is just waiting for me to plant some potatoes in it. I have a couple other tires waiting to stack up as the potatoes grow. I can't wait. 

Well, at least Goog is winding up to pounce on his Uncle Tango and not on Muffin. She doesn't put up with such shenanigans.

And here's Tango. Like most orange tabbies, he has such a laid-back disposition. Such a great guy. ("Does this flower make my butt look big?")

And this is Goog's sister, Hope. Hard to tell from this, but she is a really tiny thing. Tough girl though. She likes me to throw pieces of kibble to her so she can pounce on them before she eats them. She also hunts voles, moles, mice, chipmunks....pretty much everything.


I always said I'd never have outdoor cats, then they started showing up. What can ya' do? I've gotten some of them to the shelter and new homes, but for one reason or another, these guys are still here. And I love them all.

This year, I'm going to try some gardening again. Tomatoes in buckets, potatoes in those tires, lettuces and/or kale in wooden pallets (if I can get them), and just maybe I'll put some corn in the ground. We'll see. Seeds are pretty inexpensive, I can get the buckets for a bit over $1 each, a friend has some pallets he's willing to give me, and I already have the tires (which I got for free from a local tire center). Yeah, I have plans. They're not written in stone though, so if I don't get all of it done, that's OK. There's always next year.

New Experiment

OK, so today starts a new experiment. I got the idea from a blogger (forgot which one now) who got the idea from Jerry Seinfeld. Yes, THAT Jerry Seinfeld.

Seems Seinfeld uses a calendar to make sure he writes an hour every day. The idea is to mark off the day after he gets at least that hour of writing done on a calendar that hangs where he can see it. When you see it like that, the X's start connecting and making a chain. Instinctively, you don't want to break that chain, so you are more likely to keep going.

The blog I read was about doing the same thing, only the writer had four things he wanted to do every day, so set up four calendars with a goal of doing those things for at least 15 minutes each. His items were cleaning, writing, exercising and IT stuff (he was some sort of computer/internet/IT person).

Starting today, I'm taking his idea and running with it, although I only have three calendars: cleaning, exercising and writing. That's at least 45 minutes a day, 15 minutes devoted to each. I'm sure I'll think of a fourth thing at some point, but for now, three is fine. The exercising at least 15 minutes will hopefully not only help me get into some semblance of shape (besides round that is), but will also help to bring my BP down.

The cleaning....well...the past couple years have been tough around here, and I've been so down about so much, I've let this place go BIG TIME. It's way past time to get on top of that, which means cleaning out, throwing out and/or selling lots of stuff that has piled up.

As for the writing, you'd think that since I run the local writers' group, I'd be writing like crazy. Not the case. Maybe it's the aforementioned tough times we've been going through, but my writing has really slacked off. So now the idea is to write for at least 15 minutes every day, and it doesn't matter what I write. I can jot an entry in my journal, work on a poem, write a blog post (this counts), etc. As long as I write SOMETHING for at least 15 minute every day, I'm good.

So, it has started. Let's see how it goes.

And so the story goes....

Well, to be honest, I don't entirely know how the story goes.

I am working on my first novel. I've been saying that for years now. It's not that I haven't actually been doing it, it's just that I can't seem to get it together. The idea I thought I had for the novel appears to be more of a short story, maybe. I don't know. For now, I'm writing bits and pieces of that one down, disjointed little notes and whatever comes to mind, then I am putting it away. Why? Well, I have a new idea.

OK, I know. Maybe I should finish one before I start another. But I love this idea. I got it from a paranormal podcast I was listening to the other day. (Podcasts are my newest obsession. I have almost 2500 downloaded so far. I love them.) This idea is so creepy, so scary...I just hope I can make the creepy and scary come across enough to justify my even trying.

I have always loved scary stories. I love being scared, which I know is crazy. I was listening to the podcast I mentioned on the way to a pet sitting job that is pretty well off the beaten path. This house is in the woods, no real neighbors close by. I love that place. And as I was walking through the area with the cat I was taking care of (he gets to go outside for a bit while I'm there), the wind was blowing just right through the trees. And when I say "just right", I mean it was creepy as heck.

I've noticed this before up there. When the wind blows a certain way, and the trees sway and creak, it sounds just like someone yelling off in the distance. Sometimes, it sounds like a woman screaming just far enough away that you have to stop and ask yourself if you're actually hearing it. Kinda like in all the creepy movies you've ever seen.

So, as I was walking, I was thinking about the things I had heard in that podcast, and I kinda scared myself. Doesn't take much sometimes.

I've tried recording that sound up there, but it never comes out right. You hear the wind, but not the lady screaming sound. Then again, maybe only I can hear it. Maybe it's only meant for me. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

My Brain Hurts

I am studying insurance through an online learning site. Hopefully, I will have all the little quizzes done and can go for my state insurance license in the next few weeks, then go to work for AFLAC. Yep, I'm gonna work for the talking duck. (Or will he actually work for me since his commercials will hopefully bring me clients?)

Anyhoo, this online learning thing is not usually a big deal for me. I've taken many classes this way with no problem. Sometimes I actually prefer online learning to a regular classroom, depending on the course I'm taking. In this case it is most definitely preferable. I could not stand to sit in a classroom for this stuff.

Insurance stuff is about as dry as you can get. I wonder if studying law is a bit like this. I mean I read and reread and sometimes have to reread again to figure out what I just read in the first place. It's killing me. As a writer, I'm ready to bang my head against the keyboard. Can't these people hire someone to write these things in language that we can actually understand without having to stretch our brains to the limit? Textbooks are often the same way. And don't get me started on technical manuals.

But, I'm doing this so that I can get out there and sell some insurance and hopefully bring in some money to pay the bills that are continuing to pile up. I'm keeping my eye on the prize. And the prize? The cessation of calls from bill collectors. I'm really tired of hearing that phone ring all the time. (Here's a coincidence. Just as I typed that last line, the phone started ringing. Who's calling? Guess.)    

We Should Never Forget

“And it seems to me important for a country, for a nation to certainly know about its glorious achievements but also to know where its ideals failed, in order to keep that from happening again.”-George Takei

It was 70 years ago today when an executive order was issued authorizing the internment of over 120,000 American of Japanese descent. Even people who were born in the US would be rounded up and taken away if they were as little as 1/16 Japanese. Of those taken to the camps, it is estimated that approximately 62% were American citizens.

Many internees lost their homes, personal property, even their lives. This is not something we should ever forget. We should remember so as to never repeat mistakes made in the past. 

"We saw all these people behind the fence, looking out, hanging onto the wire, and looking out because they were anxious to know who was coming in. But I will never forget the shocking feeling that human beings were behind this fence like animals [crying]. And we were going to also lose our freedom and walk inside of that gate and find ourselves…cooped up there…when the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free."

-Mary Tsukamoto

"Down in our hearts we cried and cursed this government every time when we showered with sand. We slept in the dust; we breathed the dust; we ate the dust."

-Joseph Kurihara, an internee at the Manzanar internment camp in California

History cannot be altered. All we can do is make sure each generation learns from the mistakes of those that came before. 

Come On Get Happy

OK, my last two posts have had a kind of depressing tone what with all the talk about dead people and such. So, today let's get our happy on. Time to cheer up, stop and smell the roses, count our blessings, etc. You get the idea.

So, I am going to list some things that have made me happy recently. It's not been the best couple weeks or so, but little things (and not so little things) have happened here and there that have put a smile on my face.

*Figuring out how to play fetch with my new doggie pet sitting client, Montana. Now, this is no small feat. This dog does not really fetch. He runs for the ball, comes running back with it, and then either runs past you or stops several feet in front of you and waits for you to chase him (something my semi-arthritic knees will not usually let me do, at least not at a very fast pace). So, he and I came up with the two-ball fetch game. I throw one ball, he runs to get it. When he gets back to me with it, I show him the other ball and throw it. He drops the one in his mouth and goes running off after the second one, and we repeat the process. Pretty fun actually. (His sister Dixie just sits and watches us like we're crazy.)

*Opening my mailbox and finding a check from a client. I have a PO box I use for my pet sitting, so I make a few trips to the post office every week, trying to keep it from filling up with junk mail for the most part. But when I open up that box and find a payment from one of my clients, it always puts a smile on my face. I love what I do, and I do it so I can spend time with animals and help pet owners out when they want/need to go out of town and just do not want to put their pets in a kennel or some such. But let's face it, if I wasn't getting paid for it, I wouldn't be doing it. Heck, I COULDN'T do it.

*Winning something. Last year, I won a gift basket for my kitties from Hartz worth around $500. (Have to thank my Facebook friends for that one as they voted on a picture of my cat Eddie that I entered for the "Stinky Pee" contest. Yeah, she won a stinky pee contest. Weird I know.) I also won an Oreck air purifier worth about $300 on my friend Angie's blog. (If you haven't gone there yet, check out Catladyland. She's a hoot.) A few weeks ago, I won a Hepper Pod cat bed worth about $100 through the My Himalayan Cat Goma blog. And just this week I won a gift basket for my kitties worth close to $90 from the Pet News and Views blog. This basket includes a Drink Well pet fountain. I have wanted to get one of those for years. My guys will love it I'm sure. (Now, if only my luck would carry over to the lottery, I'd be especially happy.)

*New med for the hubs seems to be working. And most important of all, my hubs (who has been ill and suffering from constant pain for 2+ years now) has been put on a new med that seems like it might be helping a bit. He has constant joint and overall muscle pain, and nothing gets rid of it completely. We recently went to a pain specialist who prescribed a med that has been around for years and is not used very often any longer. He told us to stop the Celebrex the hubby has been taking and start this one. So, after contacting all his other doctors to make sure it wouldn't interfere with other meds he's on and such, we started it almost 2 weeks ago. After several days, it dawned on me that he hadn't complained about his hands hurting him. The joints in his hands seem to have had the worst of it for a while now. I asked him about it and he said he didn't even realize, but they weren't hurting. How cool is that? Add that to the fact that with his insurance, the Celebrex is a $64 med but the new med is only about $6, and it's a double WOOT!. (Keeping fingers crossed that this is a situation that continues to improve.) All I know is, he has been able to hug me and hold my hand more in the past several days than he has in the past year. That's the very absolute best part.   :-)

So, those are my happy things for the day. Whenever something happens that makes me feel bad, angry or sad, I try to look for happy things to hold on to. Big things or little, there's almost always something there to grab hold of and squeeze for dear life.

Have a great day and keep happy thoughts.

80s Music Memories - RIP: Part II (John Hughes Edition)

John Huges' movies defined my generation in the 80s. He was the 80s. Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful....way too many to name. Yeah, he had hits in the 90s, too. But I think he will always be best remembered for his 80s movies. And don't forget the soundtracks. He had a knack for getting the perfect music for his films.

"Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds

(From the movie The Breakfast Club)

"Turning Japanese" by The Vapors

(From the movie Sixteen Candles)

"Weird Science" by Oingo Boingo

(From the movie Weird Science)

"Twist and Shout" by The Beatles
(From the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. OK, so this isn't actually an 80s song, and it wasn't written for this movie specifically, but this scene is, to this day, TOTALLY AWESOME!!!)

And one of my favorite quotes from The Breakfast Club. It pretty much summed up how I felt back then.

"We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all."

John Hughes died of a heart attack in 2009. He was only 59. In the 80s, he was an adult who spoke to and for all us teenagers. No matter if you were a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, a criminal...or a bit of all five. 

80s Music Memories - RIP: Part I

I'm a child of the 80s. I was born in December of '69, and yeah I do remember some music from the 70s (still love disco), but the 80s make up my main soundtrack. The death of Whitney Houston this past Saturday made me think of so many others from that era who have passed on.

Since I have been a HUGE Def Leppard fan since 1983, guitarist Steve "Steamin" Clark comes to mind first when I think about those who have gone on. My very first concert was Def Leppard (a total dream come true). It was their Hysteria tour and this video was filmed during that time, so it's a pretty good indicator of what I saw. Clark died in 1991 and I remember it like it was yesterday. I cried so hard the day I heard the news. He was only 30 years old.

Ben Orr was the bassist for The Cars. He sang lead on their song 'Drive," which is my favorite of theirs. It's such a beautiful song and I never get tired of listening to it. Orr died in 2000 at the age of 53.

Oh man, The Ramones.....WOW! Love these guys almost as much as Def Leppard. They were around before the 80s, being the first big American punk band in the 70s, but when I heard "I Wanna Be Sedated" I was so hooked. These guys were fun (not to mention Stephen King was a HUGE fan, and I was a  pretty big fan of his). We have since lost Joey, Dee Dee and Johnny. So very sad.

Lastly, for today anyway, we have Falco. Yeah, the song "Rock Me Amadeus" is in German and I have no idea what the heck he's saying, but I love it. So did most everyone else back in the day. This is one of those songs that just makes me want to get up and dance. Falco was only 40 when he died in 1998.


I've always said that I don't feel my age. But then I look back at so many who are gone now, and I feel it sneaking up on me.