Mishmash Musings

There have been a rash of store closings in this area recently. It seems like the only shops that can survive around here anymore are the ones associated with a national chain. Today I noticed that a small car and truck accessories store is no longer at the little strip mall down the street, and I saw that a couple of second-hand bookstores from the same neighborhood are also out of business.

I can’t say that I’m surprised about these developments. After all, online stores and national chains can offer far lower prices than most independently-owned stores can, so as a consumer, I like what this does for my budget. I know some people would prefer the variety that comes with shopping at a bunch of independent stores, but I’m only interested in the bottom line. If I can save money by shopping online or at a “big box” retail location, then that’s what I’ll do!

I woke up feeling pretty sick this morning. I still had to help get my husband off to work, check emails, make a couple of phone calls, and then update all my blogs. Now I’ve got my son set up in front of the TV with strict instructions to turn it off after the timer goes off (1 hour), at which point he can play with his toys or read books. As for me, I’m headed back to bed for a while. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better after I get a couple more hours of sleep!

My mom used to live next door to a rich young guy who had the sweetest home entertainment setup I’ve ever seen. His entire basement was devoted to movies, music, television, and fun. He had a full-sized billiard table, full-sized pinball and arcade games, skeeball, and a wet bar down there. Plus, he had a huge 50″ plasma TV set mounted on the wall, as well as six smaller TV screens mounted around the big one.

It was fun going over there to kick back in the home theater seating and watch playoff games, Pay-Per-View events, and movies. I think I spent more time watching TV over at that house than I did at mine!

Anyway, if my husband and I ever get to move into our dream home, I’m definitely going to set up our basement like my old neighbor’s place!

I’m going to try something new here. Since this is a personal blog and I mostly write about stuff that’s going on in my life, I’m going to start posting a weekly plan here on Mondays to help me visualize what I need to get done over the next five days. I don’t know if this will actually make me more productive, but it can’t hurt to give it a shot!

For this week, I have:

• At least two office days. Tuesday for sure, and possibly Wednesday.
• A private tutoring gig on Friday night.
• Register for an online class that I want to take.
• Study one more chapter of my Technical Japanese book.
• Write recommendation letters for two former employees.
• Send personal emails to KT, GK, and JK.
• Send a handwritten letter to CT.

That doesn’t sound like too much, so hopefully I’ll be able to get it all done!

The hardest job I’ve ever had in my life was an entry-level sales position in the restaurant industry. My salary was based entirely on commission, so if I didn’t perform, I didn’t get paid.

This was obviously good incentive to keep me on my toes, but it also brought a great deal of added pressure to my job. I didn’t want to “waste” my time talking to prospects that really had no intention of buying from me and instead wanted to focus only on those prospects that I could close. Unfortunately, back then I didn’t have the experience to be able to quickly tell the difference, so I frequently chased down dead ends.

That’s why if I ever decide to get back into sales, I would take a much smarter approach. For instance, I would make sure to use specialized lists of qualified leads so that I could improve my conversion rates. I’d also pay attention to seasoned veterans on the sales force and try to pick up any tips or techniques that could help deliver results.

A sales job is definitely not something that you can just coast through, so proven resources like leads lists are a must in order to achieve success.

I had another ortho appointment on Tuesday and have been in extreme pain since then. I’ve got my expander appliance back in, and this time the focus is on moving the upper right molars back about a half-inch in order to correct my overbite. In addition, my orthodontist put a power chain across a couple of teeth on my upper left side to start closing the gap he made over there during the last six months.

So between the expander, power chain, new archwires, and regular rubberbands that I’m wearing, I’ve got all kinds of pressure points and movement going on. Needless to say, I’ve been popping Motrin all week long .

Well, at least this means we’re entering the home stretch of my treatment. I’ve got about six months left with the expander, and then probably a couple more months just to correct minor cosmetic issues, so I’m looking at nine months before my braces come off. The way time has been flying around here, I’m sure that day will come before I know it (yes, I’m purposely trying to sound optimistic!!).

My weight loss efforts haven’t exactly been going the way I had hoped when I embarked on this journey at the beginning of the year. In fact, I’ve all but abandoned my diet and exercise program in the past couple of weeks, and have actually been gaining back what little I’ve been able to lose. So I think it’s time for me to try something new before I let things get too far out of control here.

I have been wanting to try a non-prescription diet pill for a long time now, but am just too overwhelmed by all the choices out there. What with Hoodia, Tenuate, MetaboSpeed, and all the other weight loss products on the market, it can be very difficult to determine which one would be best for my lifestyle and dieting goals.

I guess I just have to commit to sitting down and researching these pills sometime soon so I can finally make a decision and get my program going again.

I’ve been meaning to post this ever since I saw all the articles start popping up online. Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States, had died at the age of 94.

I wasn’t even born when the Johnsons were in the White House, so I knew nothing of their time there other than what I subsequently read in history books. Nevertheless, it was easy to see that Lady Bird was the type of First Lady that the country could be proud of, and the type that we haven’t really seen in the White House since then.

I started reading a bit more about her life after the news of her death hit the wires. It sounds like she was a great woman!