Dancing In The Sand

Stuff isn't always just stuff

Today my friend Kim and I signed up to run a half marathon in October.  Kim is the work-out queen who tries hard to keep me in semi-shape.  I don't cooperate at all.  Years ago I was a runner and even ran the Honolulu Marathon, and the way math works, I was a lot younger then.  I haven't trained in a long time, or even jogged from my television room to the chip stash.  The funny thing about running is that you have to train, especially if you are going on a 13 mile jaunt.  Last year in March Kim talked me into running a 5 mile race.  Someone didn't train and it wasn't Kim.  It hurt. 

I try to work out, Kim calls me a couple of times a week to suggest a class, but I ignore her and make totally dumb excuses.  Although almost every Saturday we meet at 8:30am for this great lift class where you torture yourself by working every muscle group in 60 minutes, twice.  But I'm not very consistent and frankly some might call me lazy.  My reasoning is that I'm busy, but so are a lot of other people who are very buff. 

So one question I have is--- am I just trading shopping for another addiction, like exercise?  If so, is that a bad thing?  Maybe I just adding more "stuff" into my life by thinking I can run that far or have the attention span to train long enough so the race doesn't require the involvement of an ambulance.

TypePad Commercial, and no, they aren't paying me

I'm not an idiot when it comes to technology, but I am someone who covers their ears and hums when people talk about something boring, and most technology bores me.  Which is hilarious because my job is being a marketing guru, hack, genius, and hired gun for start-up technology companies.  I've sold and marketed software, hardware and all other kinds of techno-ware, some of it without even knowing what it does. 

Don't get me wrong, I love it, and live, breathe and die marketing, but I'm just not that interested in learning every aspect of how a widget works.  Different strokes as they say...

When I decided to blog, I picked TypePad after a not-so-scientific comparison of blogging platforms. Their knowledge base is incredible, and their customer service has been amazing.  They have this thing called a  tune-up, you give them $199 bucks, (don't judge me, Software Tune-up Service was not on the no-no list), then the wizard does whatever they do behind the curtain and sends you a list of proposed changes.  You OK the ones you want and whammo, they apply their blog-master magic. 

The results rock, especially the cool banner they installed- designed by the most amazing zombie, Kip, who has a website here, there isn't anyone better than Kip.   So I was excited that someone knew how to drop the banner onto the site, create a favicon, optimize the blog and bunches of other things. Mom said, if you are going to do something, you should do it right, even if the only people reading your stupid blog are your sister and a couple of her friends. 

So I sent TypePad a glowing "thanks" for knowing what they are doing, and allowing me to avoid hours of learning stuff about RSS-reader-feeder-burner-things, and they asked if they could highlight my tune-up on their blog.  Well let me think... um, OK!  It has been a fun couple of days because I got a comment from someone who doesn't share my DNA and isn't Nick, my most loyal commenter- (thanks Nick, I miss you even if you are still at the evil place that laid me off). 

If you go here to see the TypePad post about my blog you'll see in the first comment was from a woman who thought it wasn't worth the money, which is why I wrote this long testimonial because it was worth it, and I defend it rigorously in a couple of my reply comments.  She also said, "The blog is very well-written, with fresh ideas, cool and very very nice."  A writer writes so people will read--- I'm in heaven.  

Like vs. Love, and a rant on math

One thing I've realized over the course of the past two 1/2 months is that I used to shop and buy things I merely liked instead love LOVED. If I saw something cool and wanted it, I'd buy it.  Since entering the no shopping zone for clothes, shoes, handbags and everything else on the rules list, I've developed a much more discriminating taste.  Or I'm in a kind of denial that runs really deep. 

My birthday is coming up and I'm anticipating at least one gift card from my mom.  She is taking pity on me and giving me something that will allow me to shop guilt free.  It won't be much, and already I'm staging a kind of assault on the mall that would make a Army General proud.  I've got coupons to DSW for $10.00 and am daydreaming about finding a shoe on sale there for $10.99 and running gleefully from the store with my package.  I may have cracked because I'm spending an inordinate amount of time doing simple math-

"If mom gives me $100.00, and DSW has a big sale buy one get one free, how many new shoes can I buy next Monday?"

"If mom gives me $125.00 gift card to Nordstrom, can I afford to replace the jeans I ruined last week painting at a girlfriends house, one of only 3 pairs of jeans left that I love?"

"If a woman stops shopping for 75 days, will her head explode into a million pieces?"

Those are the thoughts running through my head.  Since I was an English major and abhor math, there is something infinitely wrong.  I think I have a fever. 

Lame doesn't begin to describe my status

When you are unemployed, life seems to get busier, even though you should have all kinds of time on your hands.  Truth is though, I started the new consulting gig almost immediately and it didn't feel like I had any time off at all.  Since it is only 20/hrs a week, I do have more time, although this week I probably spent closer to 30 hours in the office trying to figure out where the hell to start with their marketing needs. 

I feel bad about not posting.  I miss it and have an extensive backlog of ideas that will emerge as posts.  There isn't enough time in the day, and the big project I've been working on is a room for my mom at my house- or I should say, ANOTHER room for my mom.  My dad died a couple of years ago, my parents had been married for almost 50 years, so she is lonely.  My dad was retired for 11 years before he died, and they had spent almost every minute of that time together.  They did missions for their religion, one stint lasted three years in the Philippines and another 18 months in New York City.  I won't digress on religious issues, I no longer practice their religion, but they loved doing the missions together. 

After my father died I wanted my mom to have a space of her own at my house.  I had a spare bedroom and decided to take all the junk out and spiff it up for mom.  It was quite a project because I'm not much of a Martha Steward type.  Decorating to me is in the same vein as getting several molars pulled without anethstesia.  Needless to say it really was a sacrifice of love.  New paint, new bed, new bookcase, (I'm an expert Ikea assembler), new sheets, blanket, television, bedside table and lamp.  She actually cried when I unveiled the room and then she proceeded to tell all her friends how wonderful her daughter is.  Which actually wasn't the point.  I just wanted her to feel like she could stay whenever she wanted.  She lives about an hour away, but she needed a space of her own.  Plus I slept on the couch when she would sleep over.  That was fine in college, but- Ouch, I'm older.

So my 20 year old moves back in- boomerang child and asks if she can camp in Grandma's room for a few weeks.  That was 8 months ago.  When I finally woke up and realized she wasn't moving out, and after another couple of couch stints, I decided it was time to convert yet another room.  Long story, but that's what I've been up to the past few weeks.  Luckily I've had help from super boyfriend and my youngest daughter. 

I've been perfect about not buying clothing, purses, shoes- the things I have the biggest weakness for, but I've spent a lot of money the past few weeks on household improvements.  If you remember The Beginning, I specifically said I get to make all this up.  So I decided that even though I'm downsizing, rightsizing, detoxing, defragging, and editing, preparing a nice place for my mom is a worthy cause.  Here are some pictures, mostly for my sister to enjoy her suggested room design. 

And yes, I built all those shelves and that desk from Ikea.  I rock.

Didn't I just write about "Enough"

When I wrote about my addiction to Haviannas here, I joked that my birthday was in May and hinted that someone should buy me a pair.  I was really kidding, but here is a picture of them on my feet.  Can you see Wonder Woman's eye just to the right of my toe?  They are such a cool pair of flip flops.  No, I didn't cave in and buy them, my sweet boyfriend showed up one day with a box and deemed them "an early birthday gift".  He's such a keeper.  So now instead of 12 pairs, I have 13 and am wondering- is it enough? Cuz these are really cute.

The Discipline of Enough

I have been very OUT OF TOUCH, but the sun is coming out, and not just in a weather kind of a way.  I'm doing part time marketing consulting for a software company and it should be enough to keep us from starving.  It is about 1/2 time, so we won't be making any progress and will be leaking money, but at least it is something.  So the sun is out in a personal way too.  It is good to know that I can make money and move on.  I'm still sad about losing my job but there is always something to make me look forward.  We've cut back further, still no shopping but also trying to do things like eat out less and review the cable bill.  That thing is ridiculous!  I wonder if one family really needs 250 channels. 

The title of this post sounds like a book.  I googled it and couldn't find a title.  What I did find was some religious article that is slanted toward enough in the workplace.  I'm focused on enough aquisition and while some might think of shoes, handbags and clothing as a religion, I don't think it technically qualifies. 

I can tell you that at one point I thought 100+ pairs of shoes weren't enough.  I thought that 65 and counting handbags weren't enough.  But now I think a lot about what is, and what isn't, enough.  I"m purging and cleaning and getting rid of things I didn't even remember I had.  So what do you think, what is enough?