note – this is very clearly categorized under Purely Personal – so don’t give me any grief

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/20/port.security/index.html

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Our NetFlix facility is 100 miles away in White River Junction Vermont. It takes one day for mail to get there. We can’t figure out why the website says that movies are “received” by them 6 days – 4 business days – after we mailed them back.

I don’t think we are uber-renters, destined for the list that we’ve been reading about lately. But it’s pretty annoying and of course not very easy to complain to anyone. The only types of problems they seem to let you report are if you are missing a sleeve or scratched DVD. Otherwise you get in a hopeless loop searching for a way to contact them.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

I couldn’t resist buying my honey a big ol’ bag of M&Ms for Valentines Day because I knew I had M&M wrapping paper at home. Heh heh.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

My mom is at Westminster this year again because Bumper was competing in this, the biggest dog show in the U.S. I think Bumper is the third one of my parent’s dogs that has gone to Westminster. Oddly, the man judging the Newfoundlands picked one of his own dogs (a dog he had bred) as Best in Breed. It’s astonishing that there isn’t a rule about something like that, but boy are there a LOT of politics in the dog world.

In 1999, Annie (who is now 9 years old) won an Award of Merit at Westminster, which was a big big deal.

Here’s a picture of Bumper and a link to the BlueHeavenNewfoundlands website.

As our HMO plan with MVP went up over $100 this year ( 17 %), Rich and I finally caved in and signed up for a Health Savings Account plan. It is high deductible and we spent a long time trying to weigh the worst case scenarios against the best case scenarios. Check back with me in a year and I’ll let you know how it pans out!

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

With no New Year’s resolutions, this was unplanned but a very significant event in our household. A visiting friend offered to help me do something that I have been unable to do for a long time, clean out my closets (and boxes) of long unworn clothes.

I have moved households five times in the past 15 years, but have been quite unable to do major purges of clothing in those moves. What this means is that I have so many clothes that are old, outdated and unworn for years. Every time I have attempted to get rid of them, I have found that I have too many emotional or other ties to them. I was a bit of a clothes horse when I lived in NYC and had pretty expensive taste. There are also clothes of my mothers, additional beautiful things, that she gave to me when she could no longer wear them. And then there are things like a sweater my grandmother knit for my dad when he was young and it is still in perfect shape. I I wore it for years as a funky winter dress.

When Rich and I made the last move 2 1/2 years ago, I searched high and low for the organization that took clothes for women returning to the workforce. Finally I contacted them and was told that they no longer do it and to just bring it to the Salvation Army.

So, after putting this off for many many years, Debbie and I spent hours going through closets, storage containers and boxes. My husband was thrilled beyond belief. We are now well on our way to taking back the “box room” and gaining a second guest room in our house. It was a very trying and emotional thing to do and probably hard for many to understand that. These clothes had a lot of memories associated with them of my many past lives. Debbie was astonished at the gamut that ran from Italian linen skirts from Paul Stuarts to the London designer clothese from Charivari. Who would have guessed I would end up in flannel lined jeans from Eddie Bauer and fleece socks? 🙂

In addition to this I actually unpacked a lot of other boxes that have been untouched for these 2 1/2 years, finding places for what Rich likes to call my knick-knacks.

Had we planned this – put it on a list of New Year’s resolutions, it would probably not have happened for many many months to come. It was an amazing thing to do. I got to visit my past and let go of a lot of it as well.

Here is the picture (from CNN.com this morning) of people in NYC walking to work due to the subway strike. It is about 25 degrees (at 8:30 am) so colder when the photo was taken.

Of course they are cold – don’t these people know about hats?

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Rich rented a great movie that we watched last night: Girl from Paris. 30 yr old parisian “how to use the internet” trainer picks up from Paris, learns to farm and buys an old farm out in the boonies – complete with old farmer. Very sweet. A little farm-life gore. Made me tear up/cry I think 4 times. LOL.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Some spam entertains me so. Really, I’m so excited about my new career options!

You have been chosen for enrolment in the Career Alteration Program (CAP)

You have the choice of three new professions which are currently hiring. You will have qualifications within 2 weeks for automatic acceptance.

1) Technical Power Engineer Management. Salary starts at $89,000 annually.

2) Trade Commercial Consultant. Salary starts at $74,000 annually.

3) Labor Manufacture Production Officer. Salary starts at $102,000 annually.

Please contact us immediatly in order to receive your certificates to start in one of these careers.

We are getting into the really awful winter days when it is pitch black by 5pm. Since I work out of my house and do not have patterns of 8-5 or whatever to follow, this always takes adjusting. I tend to work until it gets dark and then think about dinner. In the summer, this makes for some unhappy campers in my house – hungry dogs, cats and husbands start whining around 8pm if I’m heads down (or worse yet, they decide to do the cooking – burritos are okay, but Kraft Mac & Cheese does not float my boat.). In the winter, I start thinking about dinner at 5 and have a difficult time sitting still in front of my computer and continuing to work. (So there’s always the blog to procrastinate with.) I have never been a “winter blues” type of person, but I do need to think about shifting my schedule so that I spend some time outdoors during the day while it’s light out.

I know that Don Kiely, who lives in Alaska and has much more drastic daylight patterns, tells me that folks up there really make the most of daylight. Play by day and work by night. Now if only I can get my clients to shift to that schedule too and not expect me to be here from 9-5 (or more like 7am – 11pm).

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org