Month: August 2015

The Rare Fire Rainbow

I originally planned to do something that involved more writing on my part. The day just got away from me. So instead I present you a picture of a phenomenon called a “Fire Rainbow”.

I think it’s Rather lovely, don’t you?

I direct you to Discovery News for an article that includes the science.

Without clarity. So beautiful

A photo posted by Carole Rich Williams (@icrw70) on

A New Start

Also Called: Buying a Home By The Seat of Your Pants

KeysToday was the final day of a process that has taken my Husband and I a full month. It’s going to set into motion years of work, expense, and joy.

We officially own a home!

And we bought it by the seat of our pants. Unlike most people, the entire process for us took a month.

It began when Husband-man acquired a second job to see if he wanted to start working on a construction crew. It turns out he really enjoyed the work, and in accordance we decided that it would have to be a move to the home of the company he was working for. Which was really a win, as the city has some serious amenities that are much nicer than our current City.

My cousin was instrumental in the next bit of the story. I was dragging my feet about getting into the (overwhelming) process of looking. He found a link, and sent it to me. It was a cute little blue house that was foreclosed on a few months ago. The price was right, I agreed with him that it was worth a look.

And so I called a realtor, set up the appointment, and then called Paul at work to let me know what was going to happen before we went to the baseball game with his construction crew. The conversation from my end when something like this. “Hi hun. What do you think of looking at a house before the game today? . . . Good. I already made the appointment and we’re seeing it at 5.”

Looking at the house is another point in which we had help from Family and Friends. My Uncle and another of the guys from the Construction crew Paul works on took a look and gave opinions on the property. They approved and it was deemed a suitable replacement to the trailer home we’re currently living in.

Then came the trickier parts: I arranged the financing through the help of my father, and quickly put in a bid. It was a good thing we had hurried, as other bids had come in.

And we waited some.

And then we got the happy news. We got the house!

From there it was more waiting. We’d set the closing date for today, and the bank who owned the house (Fanny Mae) really came through. They turned it around, got the title taken care of and had the house to us in no time flat.

Today we signed our names a million times and were handed a beautiful set of keys. Sure, there is a lot of work to be done (and that’s part of my 3 Projects 6 Months train of thought, since organization is really key to this whole affair. Over the next months you’ll see a lot of this little blue house, as it’s going to stand at the center of most of the projects I take on and dominate a lot of my thoughts. This blog is probobly going to dip into renovation and redecorating pretty heavily…

Caught in a Web

Also Titled: “Don’t invite me to your pyramid scheme party”

Last night I got tagged in a Facebook post making miracle weight lose, toning and firming claims. It’s a friend who was being taken in by a charlatan shilling a miracle wrap and associated products under the brand name “ItWorks”. And this friend was being taken in and tricked into spending money to be a part of this pyramid sales scheme.

The so-called product’s primary pushes on the website are all about joining the club and signing on as a seller. There is zero evidence that proves the product works. There are no reports or endorsements from doctors, no FDA testing reports, no actual science behind the product. The website shilling the crap provides even less evidence than the poor saps who’ve been tricked into pushing this nonsense, because they at least provide (worthless) testimonials from other saps.

Sure, ItWorks and their Ilk have moved on from calling themselves “Multi-level Marketing” systems, and moved into the term “Network Marketing”, but anytime you’re selling the right to sell the product above selling the actual product, you’re embroiled in a pyramid scheme.

So… Let’s get to the point of this entire post, and and I’ll drop a few links.
Don’t invite me to your Pyramid Party. I don’t want to have a Mary Kay makeover. I’m not stupid enough to fall for Amway. And if you suggest that a 120 pound person who has trouble keeping weight on should come to your weight loss wrap party and try the garbage you’re shilling… Well… You just might make her angry enough to write this blog post in ways to just shilling garbage at people isn’t.

And the links…

There’s more information out there, but if you look for information on the product I spoke of in this article you have to wade through a lot of cruft that isn’t useful to the conversation. Most of it from sellers of the product insisting it works. Usually telling people who are trying to complain about the products not working that they must have used the product incorrectly for the product to have failed.

I sense an FDA class action case in the future of this product, in which thousands of women demand their money back for buying products that are making unproven (and once tested they’ll be verified as completely false) claims about the efficacy of the product.

The featured image from from www.avoidonlinemarketingscams.com

Totilas Retires

 

If you’ve read this blog for awhile you’ll know I have a thing for horses. And that I love Dressage. Hence you will understand where this particular post is coming from.

The lovely and talented Totilas has been retired due to an injury.  It means that we will not get to see Totilas and Valegro face off at least somewhat properly for the first time. I still wish we had gotten to see the two greatest Dressage pairs (Valegro and Dujardin; Totilas and Gal) ride, but Alexander-Rath is finally hitting a point where he and Totilas had made the much needed connection to truly be a team, unlike the last time they faced Valegro and Dujardin.

Milk Alternatives & You…

I’m one of the 65% of people who happens to be lactose intolerant, and found this video interesting.

 

Aside from that…

Today I had a pretty crazy day. The dog’s had the poos for a few days now, and Late last night he ended up vomitting. Long story short, after a lot of cleaning up, some scary blood, and a trip to the vet I’ve discovered that he’s got Colitis (and a bit of an ear infection, actually…). So we’re doing the special diet and serving him up some serious antibiotics. Teddy should be better soon. I’ll keep updating.

3 Projects, 6 Months

I’ve decided that now is a great time to use my blog to make myself accountable and document some serious life changes and things going on in my life. The first thing I’m going to do is commit to the following three projects being complete in the next 6 months. They are as follows:

 

Project #1: The Command Centers

I have decided that my how needs a command center, but in the end I realized that it needs to be comprised of three distinct pieces. Within this 6 months this three part command center system will happen. The three sections of the command centers are thus; The family command center, which will contain a meal calendar for the week, mail sorting, places for my purse and the things Husband-man dumps immediately after work and the like. The second section is K-9 Command, with treats for the dogs, leash storage, a note board for anything that needs to be jotted down and the like. The final element of the command center system will be my office, with marker boards for daily and weekly overview to-do lists, drawing space, a cork board for pinning various inspiring things, and that sort of thing.

 

Project #2: The Family Binder

I want to put together a complete binder that will compliment my family command center, provide record keeping so that my need to physically write things down doesn’t continue to be the disorderly mess it currently is. It will make organizing finances easier, figuring out who to call when a utility company needs calling involve less googling, and should just generally make organizing things like mail and bills that much simpler. I’ve got a start  on this in that I’ve begun using a binder to organize my personal schedule and new actually having a blogging schedule thing, so this project should just involve expanding what I’ve got going on here.

 

Project #3: The Library Project

The final of the three projects I want to make happen is a complete inventory of the “library” items in the house. This means books, video games, and DVDs/Blurays. It will use the website Libib, since this is the easiest and fastest way I have to make this happen and think it will result in the best possible and most usable system in the long run.