Valentines Day

I know its not even February yet but the stores are already displaying Valentines day stuff. And at my day job the Valentine day rush has begun. I work for a company that imports flowers from South America. We are near the top of the flower chain. We buy flowers from the farms then sell them to wholesalers who sells them to florists who then sell the general retail. So we are usually a few weeks ahead of the normal retail rush of things. As much as I enjoy this day to spend with my dear loved ones, the past few years I have dread the prior few weeks. Work is hell. Let me repeat, work is hell. Tons of paperwork and tons of stressful hours. Although many florists aren't expecting a too crazy year with the state of the economy and the fact that V-day falls on a Saturday. So I guess we'll see. One of the bosses has taken a leave of absence due to family issues and all the people under him are coming to me with their incompetencies. WTH? I guess I need to take down the sign on my door that reads "Need help? Enter here." I am the accounting department. I do not deal with customer orders or inventory. I do not talk to the farm sales rep to place orders. Just because your direct boss isn't here for a few months and you don't want to deal with the other boss don't come to me! I will just direct you to the other boss anyways.

Ok so now that I got that off my chest I also want to let you know that I may go MIA for the next few weeks. Valentines day is the busiest time of year for us so that means I have to actually dedicate all my work hours to work. It sucks that work is getting in the way of fun but I guess I get paid to work not have fun right?

I really hope Joe is planning something special for our Valentines day. I could use a good day of relaxation and adult fun after work's V-day rush. But knowing Joe he probably isn't. I will have to plan. And I don't want to do a special dinner or something all fancied up. It can even be a family thing to include Sara. So any ideas on a inexpensive, fun, relaxing, family-friendly V-day? Or even something inexpensive and relaxing for adults? Based upon the past it will just be another day with a few more kisses and I love yous. At least it's on a Saturday and I will have the whole day off.

XXX & OOO

Charlie the Unicorn

My daughter has been reciting scenes from this show and today she finally showed me a clipping of the show. HAHAHAHAHA! Check it out:


Has anyone heard of this show before?? It's so silly you want to watch it. And I'm not really sure what age it's targeted to but 13 year olds love it! The phrases can be catchy, the kind that get stuck in your head and you just want to repeat it all the time. And I say this because I have found myself doing it. LOL.

I Am Important!

Last night was our weekly visit to the humane society. Lookie what I got:
Yup that's right. A permanent name tag! Sara and I have been volunteering there almost 6 months. I even might be close to another upgrade to the gold volunteer shirt (we have purple shirts now)! Then I'll be able to work with the animals in holding and exam (the ones that aren't adoptable yet.) Another volunteer who's been there over a year says I'm ready for that. I just need to get permission then he'll train me. It's pretty cool! I'm siked that I have a real name tag. No more paper in a plastic holder that stays at the shelter. I get to bring mine home! Cool!!

Bark in the Park

The humane society I volunteer at is having their annual fundraiser: Bark in the Park. It's a great time for the whole family, including our furry kids! There is a 1-mile walk, pet costume contest, vendor booths and more activities. All money raised goes direct to The Humane Society of Tampa Bay to provide shelter, food, spay/neuter services and medical care for the thousands of animals that are relinquished to the shelter each year. Won't you consider helping? I know today's economy finances are extremely tight but every dollar helps. If each of my readers donated just $5 I would have....well, I guess that depends on how many readers I really have! But you should get my point. Please visit my Bark in the Park page for more information or to make a donation. If you are local to me and like to join in the festivities please do so!

Cookies Here, Cookies There

I am a Girl Scout leader. Right now it's pre-sale time of GS cookies. At the meeting last week I asked each girl to make a goal of how many boxes they are going to sell. A realistic goal. Each girl gave me their realistic goal except my daughter. Why is it always the leader's daughter who is the PITA in the troop? Sara pops out with a goal of 297 boxes. Now normally that would actually be ok with me. In the past we have sold 200+, even 250+ boxes (on our own not counting when we stand at the grocery store selling the boxes.) But this year Sara is embarressed to be a GS. I know its the age and it will pass (I hope!) so she is refusing to sell at school which I think could be a good jackpot of sales! Since I have the "in" with the office staff and all her teachers I told her I would even take care of it. She won't even allow me to sell GS cookies at school. So she is expecting me and Joe to do most the work. HA! Kids are funny aren't they? Of course I want her to reach her goal not only because she's my daughter but the troop wants to take a "big" trip in a few years and if the girls don't sell, sell, sell, they won't be taking as "big" of a trip as they hope. So we'll see how this goes. The only thing keeping me from stressing my behind off is that I have another GS mom keeping track of troop sales. Being leader is tough enough with six 13 year olds!

PS-if you are local to me and want to book your GS cookie order, comment me here.
PPS-Pictured above are the Tagalongs which are my fa-av-verite cookie! Yum! (Just in case you didn't know. hehe)

Kids & Exercise

Happy MLK Day! School is out, government offices are closed, some people have the day off but unfortunately I'm not one of them. So here I sit at my office blogging prior to begin my day.

I have learned my body isn't in the best of shape. Don't get me wrong; I eat good foods and try to stay away from those foods that aren't so good but I don't exercise enough. I lost 50 lbs in 2006 and proud to say I've kept them off. I don't care much for the traditional exercising so my main way of getting out to move is by walking. I walk my neighborhood with my dogs; I park in the back of the parking lot at the store to force myself to walk; I get up from my desk to walk to a co-worker's office to talk instead of using the phone system. Those sort of things because every step counts. They say that the ideal healthy number of steps per day is 10,000 steps. By using a pedometer you can count your steps. It's really tough for me to get 10,000 steps a day! And my office job doesn't help.

Saturday was my nephew's 2nd birthday party. It was at a park which was a lot of fun with kids running around everywhere! But only 5 of them belonged to our group. I swang with my nephew holding on to him in my lap and what fun it was. See:

Before I even got off the swing my muscles in the back of my legs near my behind were sore. Then yesterday my shoulder/arm area muscles were sore too! I guess it's time to throw in some sort of exercise to help strengthen my muscles. I want to be able to run around chasing my nephew without being sore. And my niece is to arrive April 3-ish so when she's mobile I will chase her too!

So this is where dancing will come in play. Santa brought us Dance Revolution so that will be put into action. The game provides me with the foot action and cardio so I will throw in some arm movements. I may look silly but if I'm moving to exercise it's all good!

For some health tips check out my other blog.

Little Red Corvette

This morning I'm driving to work going thru all the radio stations trying to find something to listen to. I mean ALL the radio stations: local and satelite! I tune to an easy listening station and this is what I hear:


YouTube Music Videos 80s 90s - Prince - Little Red Corvette via Noolmusic.com

Do I foresee a corvette in my future? Is this a sign or what? Ok, I think I'm over blogging about my desire for a corvette and other dream cars. So carry on with your day.

Happy Friday!

My Dream Car

If I can't have a corvette, can I pul-lease have this?


I saw this featured on MSN for an auto show in Detroit and this car was one of the top concept cars. Check out its features:
When the Karma goes on sale in November for $87,900, it will be the first mass-produced plug-in electric vehicle sold in the United States. It will accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and has a top speed of 125 mph. Two electric motors send 408 horsepower and 959 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels, and the Karma will go about 300 miles on fully charged batteries and a full gas tank.

Now tell me, would I look cool in that or what??

Superbowl

Superbowl is approaching and this year it is taking place in my hometown: Tampa. I pass the stadium every morning and every afternoon. The past few weeks people have been busy preparing the stadium and parking lots getting ready for this big event. Now, I follow football somewhat. I'm not going to lose sleep over missing a game or anything (unlike other boys in my house I shall remain nameless.) But I started thinking: who pays for all the stuff for Superbowl? NFL? The hosting city? The home team which would be our awesome *cough*cough* Buccaneers? (That was sarcasm if you didn't catch that but I do support my home team.) The side roads are blocked around the stadium. There are those cement block things blocking them; There are tons of workers putting up gigantic tents; There are banners everywhere advertising the Superbowl. So I sit and wonder: who really pays for this? Is this a dumb question? If this is an obvious question than please forgive me. I will blame my heritage: I'm Polish. But I am proud to be Polish just at times I can get a little dingy. So can anyone answer my question? I would ask Joe but Joey is always around lately and under no circumstances do I want Joey's input.

24 Corvettes

Ok my title may not make much sense but today's post is about the show 24 and a car: the corvette. I'll start with 24. WHAT AN AWESOME SHOW THAT IS! The past 2 nights I have watched the season premier. And I will say that the character Tony is hot! In a bad-ass kinda way. This is my second favorite show. #1 is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Sarah Connor is one bad-ass chick! She's my hero. I wanna be like her (with exception of fighting mechanical people.)

Ok, on to corvettes. When I was in jr. high school, my dad had a 1975 corvette. White with red interior and convertible. (The pic here is NOT my dad's car but it looks similar. Just so you can see how cool it looked.) I had my learner's permit so I was allowed to drive it sometimes with dad. What a feeling for a 15 year old! I felt like I was the coolest girl in town! Hell! I was! What other 15yo was driving around in a '75 convertible corvette in mint condition? Dad doesn't have the car anymore but looking back on those memories has made me decide that my retirement car will be a corvette. So this morning I'm driving to work and I was behind a newer corvette. I have no idea what year it was. (I think that is a guy's 7th sense: just to know what year any vehicle is just by looking at it.) This corvette wasn't a convertible but it was shiny and black. Nice. Very nice. Maybe when I hit it big in my finances I can get one prior to retirement? Because honestly retirement for me is a long, long, long way off. I'll probably work until I die. We can all dream right? And dreams can come true!

Feed the Animals

A friend of mine emailed me and I thought it was worth sharing. It's a win-win situation for us and for our furry friends. We get entertained and our furry friends get food. Check it out:


Play Meow Trivia and feed hungry cats: www.freekibblekat.com

Play Bow Wow Trivia and feed hungry dogs: www.freekibble.com



These are fun websites and each time you visit and click (once daily for each) Castor and Pollux natural pet foods company will donate food to shelter dogs and cats for FREE. The more days you visit and play, the more food that is donated!

January 9

I just want to give a shout out to my one and only sister: Jenn.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!!

Motivation

I've lacked in blogging this week because work is getting in the way. I don't want you to think I forgot about my loyal blogging buddies but this is going to be quick. I want to share my motivational discovery. Please see my other blog for it. I think it is fantastic!!

Accomplishments

Only 4 days into the new year and I've gotten so much accomplished around my house. Friday we took down all the Christmas decorations and put them away. Saturday Joe cleared the stuff in our shed to make room for all his a/c crap that had taken over my dining room. Seriously. His a/c crap was half my dining room. Instead of calling it a dining room I called it the a/c / girl scouts stuff/dining room because it was more of a storage room. We couldn't even dine in there because there was so much crap you couldn't pull out 3 chairs from the table. Well not any more! I have a real dinning room once again. I can actually pull out all 6 chairs from the table so I'm ready for dinner guests in this department. Since I was on such a cleaning kick with the dining room I continued it today in my bedroom. I cleared out so much stuff. My trash bin outside is way over flowing. I've learned when cleaning with Joe don't ask him if he wants to keep it, just throw it away. He's a worse pack rat than me. One of these days I will clear out our closet too. He probably wouldn't even notice that half his wardrobe that he doesn't wear would even be missing. He even has a whole shelf in our closet that holds a million golf balls. Well maybe not a million but close to it. I haven't played as much as I should the past year (I've played twice in the past 2 weeks!) but I've been taking those balls from his side of the closet and he hasn't even noticed. That's how many boxes of balls he has. Anyways, back to my accomplishments. I should have taken a 'before' shot of my dining room and an 'after' shot. Then you would so understand what an accomplishment that was. I spent 5 hours clearing it. 5 hours!! The last 2 with Joe at the golf course. Sometimes it's best to clean without him there saying "keep that." I was going to try to help Sara clear her room this afternoon but instead I went to the golf course. My second time playing in the past 2 weeks. I think I've done enough cleaning the past few days I will take a cleaning break. Maybe I should go as far as going on all cleaning strike including washing dishes? haha. That always puts a spark up my family's behind to help out. We'll see what kind of mood I am in tomorrow. =)

ASPCA

Happy New Year! Welcome 2009!

This week is the first week in a long time Sara and I didn't make it to the humane society. We dearly miss the animals. But we will see them next Wednesday and catch up on who's still there and who's new.

For Christmas my fur babies got me this shirt:
It's an ASPCA shirt (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). It says 'ASPCA we are their voice'. With the words 'bow wow' making the bubble shape. They support the humane society also. Now I can proudly show my support as well as voice my support.

Here's JayJay and Polly, my fur babies: Aren't they so sweet to get me an ASPCA shirt? They are finally realizing just how good they got it. lol. They also got Sara one that has an image of a dog and says 'Beloved by a dog'. Of course they had help from "Santa" getting these shirts. *wink, wink*

Support ASPCA and your local humane society. Visit their websites to see what you can do. Afterall, we are their voice.