Tag Archives: postaday2011

Collectiphobia

28 Mar

It’s stinkbug time.

ew ew ew ew ew ew.

I hate stinkbugs.  I love the spring and look forward to it all year long until I remember that it comes with bugs.  Specifically, bugs that tend to cluster.

I can’t even describe to you in words how absolutely disgusted I am by swarms of anything.  If both my cats are in the same room at the same time, I make one of them clear out so it doesn’t look like I’m getting an infestation.  Even just the words “swarm” and “infestation” give me the willies.  The thought of attempting to find a picture to attach to this blog post absolutely scared the bejeezus out of me.

I’m not “afraid” of stinkbugs or lady bugs.  I’m afraid of the omen they bring.

When I was in college, I lived in a crappy 5-room house with a bundle of roommates.    Rent was low and bugs were rampant.    I could walk around the house and easily count into the double digits how many stinkbugs I saw hanging out along the way.  Everywhere I went, I felt in constant anxiety of my next sighting.

Ladybugs pull ahead in the attractiveness factor, but when I remember what it looks like to see them all huddled on top of each other in the corners and cracks of houses, I go flailing about the house like a frightened little girl.

I think my problem is a fear of collections in general.  I am incredibly careful to not make any mention that I “collect” something.   I know far too many family members who are buried and unable to move under the mounds of snowmen, angels, Santas, roses, or cat figurines.  All it takes is one careless mention or gesture and suddenly everyone who knows you gets you a variation of a penguin for Christmas.

Once, a couple of friends and I decided to decorate the bathroom in our place with an assortment of ridiculous plastic ducks.  It wasn’t so much that we cared for the ducks as it was a result of a free giveaway at school.    Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that anyone visiting the house could look at the window ledge in the bathroom, see the variety, and insist upon us having a duck collection.

There are many things I would like to be thought of in this life, but a collector of ducks is not one of them.

I’m absolutely terrified of what this stinkbug means for the apartment.  Are there more? Are they lurking somewhere?  What if I see a ladybug too? Maybe I need to just make sure the cats are on their A-game so they can help with pest control.  Maybe I should get another cat.

…No… 2 cats is reasonable. 3 cats is a collection. ♣

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Jackie vs. iPad 2

27 Mar

I’ve lost my boyfriend.

I didn’t even lose him to a woman.  I feel like if I did, I could maybe still have shot with him.  Maybe he could have just lost his way and we could have worked it out.

But unfortunately I’ve lost him to an iPad 2.  And as we all know, losing anyone to an iAnything is the end of that person as we know them.

The really strange thing for me is that Dave is such a hippie.  The man walks around in his bare feet whenever possible, dresses like an upper-class hobo, and is never spotted without his guitar.  Lately he’s been going with the “less is more” attitude and slowly trying to weed out and donate unnecessary possessions.   And while he’s always been computer-savvy, he’s never really been all that plugged in.  At one point he had something like a thousand unread messages in his email and he only briefly visited Facebook.   So to have had him on his iPad every moment since his parents gave it to him for his birthday has thrown me for a bit of a loop.

Even as I sit here, he stares lovingly into its cold, calculating screen while I sit on the couch alone – a warm, unimpressive bag of flesh.

The really hard-hitting part is that I don’t think I can call him a hippie anymore.  An iPad2 is so cutting edge right now.  And with its use, he’s linked into to the cutting edge crowd.   He’s supposed to be a woodsman – a vagabond- a walker of the earth.  So unless he only uses his newfound piece of technological beauty to order organic groceries, organize protests, and check out sweet guitar tabs, I’m not so sure he fits the stereotype anymore.

And since he just downloaded Angry Birds, I think it’s a done deal.

You know what? It’s okay.  His parents are leaving this afternoon and headed back home, which means we will no longer be going out to restaurants to eat.  Eventually, Dave will get hungry.  And eventually, he’ll have to communicate with me so that I produce food for him.  Because even though the iPad has well over 60,000 and counting,

there isn’t an app for that. ♣

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Rebecca Black & Spiderman the Musical: Is a Train Wreck an Instant Ticket to Fame?

26 Mar

We need to talk about Rebecca Black.

If you haven’t heard the most mediocre song in the world yet, join the millions who have.

You might need some time with it.   With hard-hitting, witty lyrics like “Yesterday was Thursday, Today is it Friday, Tomorrow is it Saturday, and Sunday comes after that”, I feel like I should give you time to digest.

I don’t want to talk about how much Rebecca Black does or does not suck or about whether or not people are being too hard on her.  She’s a 13-year old girl who showed up to an audition and had to choose between two songs that were already written and just needed a tween to represent them.  Do you understand that? She had the choice between two songs and she chose this one.

Imagine what the other song must have been.

She didn’t write the lyrics.  She didn’t say she was any good.  There were just some guys who thought they could throw autotune on that, stick her in front of America, and watch what happened..   We seem to be pretty all right with singers that sound like robots.

Don’t get me wrong – I hate the song with the firey rage of a thousand hellfire flames.   The video is a pathetic excuse for entertainment, and though she can certainly be blamed for the lack of enthusiasm and energy she shows in it, none of that is really relevant.   Because the point isn’t that it’s awful.  The point is that people are listening to it.

People are listening to her just because they think it sucks so much.  I’ll admit that the only reason I viewed it is because 20% of my friends’ Facebook statuses linked that video and something hilariously awful they had to say about it.

Her suckiness is viral gold.

Think about that.  Really stop and think about that.  Her video went from 4,000 to 70,000 views in one night.  The next morning, it had exploded into 200,000.   Now, it sits at 48 mill and climbing.  In spite of the fact that it has ~90,000 likes and ~766,000 dislikes it’s growing like a big, bad, mind-numbing monster.

Have you heard about Spiderman the musical?  It isn’t quite as high-profile as Rebecca Black given the nature of the medium, but suffice it to say it’s kinda in a similar boat.  After being plagued by severely injured actors, hiring a new writer, a new director, slashing ticket prices, pushing back opening dates, coming to a dead hault on final dress, and facing about 13 grand in OSHA violations, the musical is the costliest show to ever be produced on Broadway.  It will have to run 5 years at full capacity in order to make up the production cost alone.

That’s pretty sucky.

And you know what? People are going nuts over it.  When people spread news on Spiderman, it’s because they’re checking in on the next disaster.  High profile problems with the show keep people coming back to check for more.  The show is now running previews and is selling out.

That’s right; It’s selling out.

Whether or not it ends up being any good is irrelevant.  What put butts in the seats is people’s anticipation of disaster.  When polled during invited rehearsals, audience members claimed to have shown up because they heard what a mess it was and couldn’t wait to see it for themselves.

This just blows my mind.  And, quite frankly, scares the hell out of me.  Is this the future of entertainment? Is it possible that if you suck hard enough you can grab yourself a golden ticket to fame?

Rebecca Black could be just the beginning.  Imagine – an entire crop of tweens could take opportunity by the reigns.  Rich parents everywhere could throw money at producers and crank out an Auto-Tuned pieces of horror that will haunt our computers and social media.  And I, for one, am truly frightened.

Hey – this could be William Hung‘s big comeback. ♣

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The Reclaiming of My Pizazz

25 Mar

You know what? I’m going to start dressing ridiculously.

I want to wear daring things.  I want to express myself through my clothes, even if it’s not very well.  I want to make people wonder what the hell is going on.

When I was in the 8th grade, my favorite outfit was a pair of leopard pants an electric blue t-shirt with a bright yellow picture of Buddha on it.  I kid you not, my friends.  I wore it about once a week.

You know what the real beauty of that is?    You can’t just go around wearing easily recognizable pieces like that.  When you’ve got an article that makes a statement, you have to sprinkle it.  But I didn’t care.  I just simply did not care.

When I was in the 3rd grade, Reebok came out with this shoe line that was all one color.  The bottom, the laces, the tongue – everything was the same.  It came in red, orange, and bright green.   I thought the bright green ones were the coolest things I’d ever seen in my life (you can check out the 2011 version here).  I couldn’t imagine my life without them, so I got them and wore them every day until my mother made me get rid of them because my toes were wearing through.

I was also a little choir geek when I was in school (one step in the grave of theater into which I later fell) and my mom used to take me shopping for a new outfit for the annual choir concert.   I remember we were in Kmart – like the fine, classy white folk we were – and I found this bright purple silk (read: polyester blend) skirt with a crazy paisley design on it.    I was so in love with it that I left the store cradling it in my arms, dreaming of the perfect key lime blouse to go with it.   Mom and I raked the sands of every store in town until we found one.  She gently suggested other options – reasonable ones.  But I forged ahead telling her I had an artist’s eye like dad and if she could just see in her head what I saw in mine, it would be glorious.

God bless my mother.

I showed up to my choir concert in the most out-of-this-world outfit, lined up next to my friends in their charming, well-accessorized dresses.   And I felt like a million bucks.

I don’t know what made me stop.  I don’t think it’s that I started caring what people thought because well into twelfth grade, I was still glamming up my gym outfit with matching knee socks.   Maybe it was college.  Maybe I moved out for college and lost some of my pizazz.

Yeah.  I want my pizazz back.

I can’t recall a single truly daring thing I’ve worn since high school.  I’m not talking plunging necklines – I definitely did plenty of those in college.  I’m talkin’ straight up ridiculous.  I believe that doing so will reinstate whatever amount of pizazz I once had that has been beaten down and lost somewhere in the unspoken rules of society.

And so I shall.  Let it be effective immediately that I shall save a portion of my earnings each month to contribute to the Wacky Jackie fund.  And shall use the contributions therein to go on a shopping spree of daring and pizazz.

It will be most glorious.  ♣

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The Decomposition of a Work Week

24 Mar

Yesterday I was so tired at work that I went to the bathroom just to lean up against the cold empty arms of the stall and sneak in 5 minutes of the sweet nectar of sleep.

That’s correct: Yesterday, I fell asleep on the toilet.

Night Jackie is starting to seriously foil the responsible attempts of hardworking, nose-to-the-grindstone Day Jackie.  Up until now it’s been a struggle I have easily balanced; bags under my eyes and unimpressive hair were showing up on Thursdays and it was an easy ride from there to the glorious embrace of Saturday morning sleep time.

But unfortunately, Night Jackie has been taking grip on Tuesday nights – which makes the ride to Saturday a very long and bumpy one.

Thus I found myself seeking slumber in a public restroom.

When I came to, it became obvious to me that this is a declaration of war by Night Jackie.   She is actively working againt my new requirements as a member of adulthood.    After a brief reflection, it is clear that I have slowly worked into a pattern of drowsiness and grumpery caused by her habits.

After some costly third-party analysis, I was able to pull together this breakdown:

The truly unfortunate part is that Night Jackie isn’t even doing anything cool. She’s not a super hero, a socialite or a stripper.  She’s just a regular gal, huddled in the comfort of her home and currently nursing a heavy addiction to Prison Break on Netflix.  What a lame-o.

…I have to go.  I think she heard me and I fear tomorrow’s consequences. ♣

 


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The Nude Hour

23 Mar

I’m alone in the office this week.

Part of the beauty of being an executive assistant is that executives tend to go on quite a few trips.   And after you’re done pulling your hair out trying to pad their itinerary with so much detail that someone could conk them out and easily steal their life for 3 days, you get to sit back and relish the silence of their absence.

And so there I was yesterday – relishing – when it occurred to me that I really am all alone.  With everyone attached to the conference in my boss’s office out of the picture, there’s just me and a few folks downstairs in the whole department.   And as soon as they decide to go to a meeting or run to lunch, I’m officially the only representing member of our department’s stake in the corporate jungle.

So what, exactly, is stopping me from being nude?

Seriously.

There was only one person outside our department who visited me yesterday and it was to drop off the mail. Since nothing posts to our mail stop until 1:30pm, it’s safe to say that I can expect to be alone until at least that time.   Which means that from 9:00am-1:30pm, I have 4 distinct opportunities to begin what I will dub “the nude hour”.

I thought about just dropping the drawers.  I sit behind a desk all day anyway – a pretty  massive one.  And quite frankly if I pull my office chair in close enough, there’s little chance that anyone would even know I’m sitting there airing out my private lady bits.

I got quite a few phone calls yesterday, but there’s nothing to fear there.  As long as I don’t sound too excitable, there will be no reason for the caller to wonder what’s going on.    And since I already make the majority of my phone calls while I’m on the toilet, I think I’ll ace that test.

So that’s that.  I’ve no reason to go one more day on this earth without being able to say that I’ve been nude in the office. It’s there for the taking.

My path has been made clear before me. ♣

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Please Hold My Butt

22 Mar

Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy Lollipop Tuesday.

Now I know some of ya’ll are new to this corner of the magical Interwebz, so feel free to access that link at the top right hand corner of this page explaining what all this silliness is about.

The last time I was Freshly Pressed, I felt a whole lot of pressure on the following Tuesday and braved an experience I’d thought about for years but never gotten the cojones to try: Ice Skating.  It was a glorious adventure in sucking at something.

This time was no exception, and at about 8:00 last night, I wandered over to try my hand at Rock Climbing/Bouldering- a reader suggestion that I really didn’t think I could pull off.  And hey – you know what I learned? Rock Climbing is freaking hard.

When I showed up, I immediately had to sign the ceremonial waiver of death, injury, and general responsibility for bodily harm.  In fact, the company was so intent on making sure their customers knew exactly how dangerous it was that they make them write out entire sentences instead of just signing.   Before being allowed to launch my pudding-filled bottom up a series of tiny wedges on an inclined wall, I had to first write out “Everything is my fault.  Even death.  Farewell cruel rock-climbing world”.

Well that was the  general idea anyway.

Death waiver signed, I eagerly entered the climbing gymnasium and into a world of secret rock climbing codes.  There were all sorts of arrows, colored tapes, and strange scribblings across an entire jungle gym of ridiculously small man-made wedges.

Apparently it isn’t enough to just  be willing to climb on these tiny amoeba-shaped pegs.   You have to be willing to commit yourself to only climbing only the ones that are in the same color code.  So if I’m at the bottom of a ginormous wall with no helmet (don’t worry – I wrote out “I know I’ll die if I don’t wear a helmet” ) and I’m looking up, I can’t just use any old hand hold to climb to God.  I have to only use the hand holds that correspond to the color I’m working through.

My color was red – the color of noob shame.

I don’t know about you, but when my lard butt is halfway up a steep precipice with no apparently safe escape, I don’t really care about whether the peg that I need to step on to not fall and crack my head open is the correct color. But I played along with the rules anyway because the Lollipop Tuesday gig doesn’t count unless I do things the way silly humans have decided they are to be done.

My high point was making it to the top of the red line on one section of the gymnasium.  My low point was directly after, when I backed down as far as I could without having a panic attack and asked Dave to hold my butt so that I could get down.

Oh yeah – Dave was there.  And make no mistake – he’s a beast.   I was piddling around with beginner level color codes and he was over on the advanced ones, doing full body extensions, leaping from rock to rock, hitting the top mark, and jumping down in style.

I swear I saw him hang from the ceiling once.

I, however, wilted quickly.  My Jell-O arms were no match for that gymnasium’s wrath.  There were incredibly adept people on every side – women with guns the size of my face and thighs that crack a man’s skull in two.  They were grunting and groaning and leaping to the tops of their color chains as I braced myself against the wall and prayed that my shaking (lack of) biceps didn’t give out and send me into head trauma and life long mental retardation.


It was a rough night.

But hey – I survived.  And there was actually one part I really liked.  Apparently rock climbing floors have super springy goodness in them so that when you actually do fall from the top wedge, you don’t automatically feel death – you get a little bounce first.  Walking around on the stuff was the highlight of my night.   You know what? I would pay the same amount of money I paid to rock climb just to be in a room full of it.  Hmm…

Next million dollar idea? ♣

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I Will Never Be Smarter Than I Was in Third Grade

21 Mar

I was the smartest I’ll ever be in 3rd grade.  I’m sure of it.

Well, you know… relatively. When I was just a wee lass back in elementary school, they had this thing called the CAT test, which was an aptitude test they gave kids every few years to see how things were cooking in their cerebrums.    And when I was in the third grade, I aced it.  I got every single question right and was rated in the top 1% of third graders in the nation.

That was the shining moment of my brain’s career.

It really didn’t have much to do with me.  It had a lot to do with bopping from school to school and being lucky enough to have the last be a step ahead of the next.  And it had even more to do with my older brother teaching me his homework after school, which was 3 grades ahead of mine.

I was a super nerd and it was glorious.

So that was my moment: there in third grade.   Suddenly there was all this pressure to perform – and by the time I made it to the 6th grade aptitude test and ended up in the top 2% instead of the top 1%, it was clear things were headed quickly downhill.

After all this time, I’m finally on to the culprit for my brainpower’s slow decline over the years: Awful 90’s Music.

The decline of my brainpower directly correlates with the decline in quality of 90’s music.   You see, it wasn’t just that the music was bad.  It was that the music was bad and I liked it. There’s only so many times you can sing “Boom Boom Boom, I want a double boom” and “She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck” before something very real and very stupid happens to your brain cells.  I’m not sure if I can sue the 90’s music scene for damages, but I’m looking into it.  In the meantime, allow me to share with you some of the terrible 90’s songs that I *shudder* actually liked.

This isn’t an “all time worst” list by any means.  These are simply awful songs that I am embarrassed to say I enjoyed at one time.  And their videos are all awkward, to boot.  Real awkward.

Enjoy.  ♣

Summer Girls by LFO

There were a lot of bad boy band songs in the 90’s, but I give a gold suck star to LFO’s Summer Girls for lack of effort.  They use all the same arm and hand movements, have a bad video with no cool dance moves, and managed to stick out for their bad lyrics in a time when all boy band songs had bad lyrics.

Dr. Jones by Aqua

A lot of people think “Barbie Girl” when they think Aqua, but at least that song was making fun of something.  I’m not so sure this song is making fun of anything.  In fact, it might actually have been them giving songwriting the good ol’ college try. I’m pretty embarrassed by this one.  Because I seriously liked it.  Watch the video; I dare you.

Boom Boom Boom Boom by Vengaboys

This is just a mess.  A big ol’ mess.  Terrible lyrics, some strange lesbian thing going on, and bad dancing.   But it has an infectious beat that digs into the deep recesses of your brain and doesn’t let go until you’re seriously stupid.

2 Become 1 – The Spice Girls

At the time, I didn’t realize how sexual this song was.  I find it amazing that the lyrics are “I wanna make love to you” and I didn’t catch on.  Even better is the part near the end where Baby Spice says “Be a little bit wiser baby, put it on, put it on”.  Condom reference? I think so.

The Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang

It may not even be fair to list this one because obviously a bunch of guys in monkey suits don’t take themselves seriously.  But it was still an awful song and an awful video.   Someone must pay.

Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song) by Tom Green

This one takes the cake.  Not only because it was massively idiotic, but because I thought it was funny.  And for a time, I thought Tom Green was funny.  And that pretty much gives you a good idea of what I was like in middle school.


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Puppy Amusement Parks: My Next Million Dollar Idea

20 Mar

You know - like this. Except instead of leaping over barbed wire, they'd be leaping over giant Snausages. Awesome.

I know my million dollar ideas don’t typically work out and that’s why I’m blabbering away on a corner of the Internet instead of on TV selling ideas to people.  But hey – one of these is going to hit a homer.  I just know it.

Today’s million dollar idea?  Puppy Amusement Parks.

There are tons of people that want to have a dog but can’t because of their life situation.  Me, for example.  I love the guys but I just can’t have one in my apartment.  I couldn’t give one enough space for it to be happy, I couldn’t be home often enough to spend time with it, and I can’t afford to feed one and buy it all the awesome things I will want to give it for being so darn adorable.

But I’ll tell ya – on a day as beautiful as yesterday was, I really wish I had one to strut around the neighborhood.

On a gorgeous day, the first thing I do when I wake up is thank God for the super awesome day.  And then I wish for a puppy.  Because what’s the sense in a gorgeous day if you don’t have a dog to take to the park during it?

That’s where Puppy Amusement Parks come in.

You know what would be so much cooler than an animal shelter?  An non-profit animal amusement park.  I’ll just create a super awesome dog utopia and house as many dogs as can comfortably and happily live in that space as possible.  And I’ll charge admission to humans.

Think about it.  The dogs get people to play with them, they get state-of-the-art dog equipment, and people get attached to a particular dog during their time there, perhaps they’ll even give it a good home.

Of course, I’d have to hire vets and animal folks of different shapes and sizes and whatnot.  And the money spent on a ticket price can go toward the cost of housing, treating, and showering the dogs in love and affection 24-7. But designing the place will be loads of fun.  I could just throw a bunch of little kids in a room and have them dream up the place.  Heck, I could run a contest at schools all over the nation to dream up the most awesome dog utopia they can think of and use it as a way to boost awareness of local shelters.    I’ll bet five-year-olds can dream up some pretty slammin’ dog superparks.

I’m thinking a Seuss-y look would be cool, but that will be my backup plan in case the 5-year-olds don’t work out.

But they will.  They’re brilliant.

And if you don’t like this idea, then you must hate puppies and little kids.  Those are the only reasons I will accept. ♣

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The Things I Could Be Doing Instead of Blogging

19 Mar

I can’t believe I’ve written a post every single day this year.  I mean, I know I made a big deal about it and everything, but I’m not so sure I ever believed I would accomplish it.  And I haven’t yet.  But I’m almost past the first quarter and I’m going to have to reflect on these small victories if I’m going to keep moving along.

I started this blog thanks to inspiration from a friend who took a picture every day for 365 days.  The whole 365 project is really catching on these days, but back when she was working through her 365 album, it was new to me.

Once I put up the blog, I told her I felt an incredible weight on me.  365 posts is a lot of posts.  How will I have that much material? What if I write something *gasp* boring?!

She said I couldn’t think like that.  She said that the 365 project is about dedicating yourself to that one thing just once a day.  Just once every single day.  Not 365 days in a row.

It’s a small, but significant distinction.

And so here I am halfway through March and still chugging along.  I’ve had good posts and not-so-good posts.  But I’ve done it every single day.

I’ll admit that I’ve thought from time to time that I’ve daydreamed about what it would have been like to try a post a week instead.   Just imagine! I’d have an entire week to whip out just one good piece.    A week! Do you realize how LONG THAT IS?

I’ve also fantasized about the other things I could be doing with the time I spend on blogging.  Of course, before I had a blog I didn’t do anything at all during this time.   But now that I’ve seriously committed myself to one thing a day, I’ve been spending a lot of time plugging hypothetical replacements in this time zone and fantasizing about the results.  They’ve included

Exercise: holy cow man.  If I worked out for an hour a day every SINGLE day without excuse, I’d be a lean, sexy beast.  Rawr.

Cooking: I’m not too shabby in the kitchen, but who can’t benefit from a lesson or two in proper cutting methods?  And I’ve yet to attempt a pie.  Ever.  They scare me.  But after a some focus and good old time investment, I reckon I could be quite the kitchen sensation.

Starting my own business: I have a few really excellent ideas for this but most consume both time and money.    At least, that’s what my excuse has been in the past.  So far I’ve proven I have at least 77 hours of time that could be mustered up if I really wanted them.  And my t-shirt raffle proves that I’ll happily invest in something I enjoy, even without promise of return.

Becoming a fierce fiddler. I’ve always wanted to have some crazy awesome hidden talent.  Though I’d be totally fine with ripping it up on guitar or being a classical pianist, there is something I find simultaneously amusing and super cool about the prospect of being a ground-stompin’, down-home country fiddler.

Bein’ a Hottie. My typical self-maintenance program involves a shower, clothes (thank goodness), and a little makeup.  But if I spent the hour I blog everyday blowdrying my hair and doing some serious construction, I could walk the streets a super hottie.  Imagine the power.

But alas, I’ve dedicated myself to being a blogger extraordinaire.   And that’s pretty darn cool too.  And so press on, I shall! Just 287 more to go.

I mean one.

Just one more.  Tomorrow and then the day after, and so on. ♣

Funny – I had this post in my queue because I was struggling and thought I could use a reflection post to motivate myself.  And then I got Freshly Pressed! Nothing like some increased traffic and a slew of new comments to keep me going.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

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