Category Archives: Business

I shouldn’t write about business but honestly, I can’t control myself. It just comes out.

Problems with rising early and other habits

ElvisSo I finally got into rising at 6am. Turns out all I needed to do was visualize and practice getting up. I had gotten into the habit of turning off the alarm and going back to bed that I actually needed to break that habit and form a new one. With that said, I’ve been getting up at 6am and it’s great! The day is so long and I get a lot accomplished. The main issue I am finding is that my trajectory is shorter. Perhaps the trajectory is the same but because I am starting further, it ends shorter. What I mean is when I got going at 9am, I’d start slowing down at 5. Now that I begin at 6, I start winding down at 2. And winding down at 2 is not acceptable. Maybe I just need to step away and take a breather.

Another new habit I recently formed is using my DVR. I got the DVR almost a year ago but rarely used it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around recording programs for later watching which is crazy since I did it throughout the 80’s and 90’s. At any rate, I started recording movies on TCM and it’s great! I have a backlog of movies and so when I want to watch TV there is now always a movie waiting for me. The other day I watched The Sandpiper with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and a young CHARLES BRONSON! It’s a shame the whole movie didn’t revolve around Charles Bronson as a beatnik artist. But with the ability to fast forward, the movie did pretty much become solely about Charles Bronson.

Speaking of Bronson, has anyone else noticed the proliferation of mustaches? I think they are making a comeback! In fact, just recently, a young man asked me what he could do to be taken more seriously by potential clients. I told him to get a haircut and grow a mustache.

Weird Stuff Happens

I went to Rosemont yesterday. I was invited to be a guest speaker for one of their graduate classes. Craziness! It felt pretty awesome being on campus as an expert and not a shy student who has no idea what she wants to be when she grows up. Strolling through campus to get to my car, I reached for my phone with the thought, “I gotta call Daddy and tell him how this went.”

As soon as the thought took shape, I realized it wasn’t 1996. I can’t call Daddy.

That night I had a dream he somehow materialized and I was so happy because I had so many things to ask him. I asked him question after question but the only one I now remember was, “Should I hire a matchmaker?” His reply was, “Get out and circulate, meet people… you’ll be fine.”

Sometimes the Internet is a time machine. I’ve been trying to do more with Google+ and as I’ve putzed around it, I found they’ve integrated all the old Picasa Web albums into their photo section. Google+ is less than a year old but my albums date back 6 years. Holy cow have things changed. There were pictures of my dad and pictures of PB. Just thinking of those damn pictures makes me want to cry.

Am I there God?

Some amazing things have been happening to me. Ha! I love how I wrote that. Things have been happening to me. As if they were just delivered to me unannounced and unrequested. Truth is, I have kicked and scratched and punched to get these things to happen to me.

Last week I was interviewed on a television news program. And I just got word that I have been confirmed as a guest on a national radio show.

I have tweeted and blogged and FBed and hired a publicist and made calls and wished and hoped, thought and prayed.

It was just a evenings ago, Big E put a Charles Bronson movie in the DVD and brought me a bowl of ice cream, when I thought, “I am deliciously happy.”

It seems odd to be happy. And even with all the wonderful things going on, I still feel like I am waiting for my life to begin. I suppose in my mind, I figure my life will begin when I don’t have to kick and scratch and punch. Maybe it’s the kicking, scratching, and punching that is life.

Today would have been my father’s 74th birthday. It would also have been my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. I called Lisa this morning and I said, “If things had gone differently in April, can you imagine what we would be doing right now? Running around getting a party set up… or maybe flying somewhere?”

It was just a few days before Daddy died that Lisa and I started to talk about what we were going to do for their big 50. Party? Trip? Both?

It’s funny how things can change so very quickly.

Life and Exercise

I had gone through a shift after my dad died. I stopped the around the clock work schedule and I spent time with Mom and Lisa. I made time for my friends. I went on walks and I allowed the sun to shine on my face. Somehow, I have sunk back into my old ways. Working and working and yet not actually accomplishing anything. Procrastinating. Not making time for family and friends.

This has got to stop. I need to get back in control of my business and life. I need to start working to live and not living to work. I need to start exercising again.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Can’t Concentrate

What do you do when you can’t concentrate? There’s work to be done but all you can do is stare, mouth agape? Maybe I just need a nap. Maybe a walk? Maybe a cup of tea? Grrrr, I hate when this happens.

I think the sun is a flower, that blooms for just one hour

All it does is rain anymore. I am so tired of it. Today I had a speaking engagement. I prepared a prezi and was ready to deliver when I was thrown to the audience and told, “Oh, we can’t seem to get connected to the Internet, so just go on without it.” I looked out, smiled, and pulled a speech from out of my ass.

Last night I watched The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. This may sound odd but I never thought of Kurt Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck as contemporaries much less imagined them ever portraying man and wife. Turns out she is only 9 years older than him. I guess I just think of him from the 50’s and 60’s and her from the 30’s and 40’s. Of course to me she will always be Sugarpuss O’Shea from Ball of Fire with Gary Cooper. They don’t make movies like that anymore!

Last year this time I visited Quebec City. Gosh how things have changed since then. Never in a million years would I have thought my life would change so drastically. Craziness.

Better Schedule

I really need to get myself back to a disciplined state. I should have a list of things to do upon waking.

1. Clear out email & respond
2. Check FB & respond
3. Check LinkedIn & respond
4. Write LIM Blog entry
5. Write Donnaville Blog entry
6. blah blah blah

But I don’t… I sit here and sip my coffee, daydream, sometimes write a blog entry, sometimes pick my nose…

I can work on it. I can improve! First step is recognizing there is an area for improvement.

Whatta day

I volunteered at a job fair today… and am now exhausted. UTTERLY EXHAUSTED.

It’s funny but this morning I read my horoscope and it said there would be a person who would crap on my parade and it was up to me to rise above the negative vibes. Can you believe it but my horoscope was absolutely correct!

Out of all the people that I worked with, there was one giant idiot who acted so rudely toward me I could barely believe it. I gave him a FREE 5 minute consultation and when I suggested he buy my book to help him make the proper updates, he acted like I was trying to sell him some sort of medicine show elixir.

Unfortunately, unlike my horoscope, I did not make light of his comments. I confronted him, told him I didn’t appreciate his manner and asked him to leave. He then called me a bitch and left. Wanna know what? He was right. I am. PROUD OF IT! I will NOT allow anyone… ANYONE to treat me like crap. Especially after I sacrificed a day’s worth of work to go to a career fair and help job seekers.

There were probably over a hundred other people who were really awesome. So… I am beginning to think I am going to need to do a better job at letting go of this negative crap.

UPDATE… I just realized there was another jerk in attendance. A real passive aggressive type. In fact I just got an email from him that made me realize he was even worse that I thought.

Father’s Day 2011

Well that was just the weirdest Father’s Day, ever.

The morning was spent getting my house ready for the new floors. Lisa and Mom came over and helped me move the larger items. Once everything was moved, we sat in my now practically empty parlor and tried to come up with new company names:

  • Cosmic Marketing and Designs
  • Moonjava Marketing
  • Poupi Kakas
  • Magnolia Marketing
  • Starbright Marketing
  • Starlight Marketing
  • Sunstar Marketing & Designs
  • Blue Karma Marketing

Poupi Kakas was a joke, I think.

They went home and I followed a few hours later. We ordered dinner and ate it out on the deck. As we ate, we cried. Once dinner was finished we went into the dining room with dad’s ashes. We opened the box, untied the bag that contained his ashes and scooped some of his remains out and filled the cremation pendants we recently ordered online. Mom then decided she wanted to put a little of dad out with Cocoa and so we went into the backyard with about a tablespoon of dad and sprinkled him into a hole right above Cocoa’s stepping stone grave. I wiped the dust of my father that stuck to my hands onto the wet ground and cried. Back inside we filled a pill vial with more of my father’s remains. My mom said we can take a little bit of him to Slovakia and the remaining bit we can mix with her remains when she goes. Everything else will be unleashed into the ocean tomorrow.

As we poked through my father’s remains, I kept wondering if we’d find his gold tooth. I almost wanted to find it just so I could be sure this big bag, full of gray ash and tiny flakes of white bone and teeth, was really him… instead we found his dental implant. My mother said, “Do you want to keep the implant?”

I thought about it. There was this weird part of me that wanted to keep it regardless how macabre it seemed. My father wouldn’t have liked that idea one bit… of course, he wouldn’t have liked us donating his lower flesh and bones to science or us sprinkling a bit of him with Cocoa or taking him to Slovakia or wearing him around our necks. Where would I keep it? In my jewelry box? I put it back in the bag.

I walked to the kitchen sink and washed my hands. I visualized all the years my father stood at that sink, mixing up his weird vitamin concoctions. And now here I stood, washing his dust from my hands. He was literally going down the drain.

What did I do next? I poured myself a drink and tried to numb myself.

I hope everyone had a lovely Father’s Day!