Author Archives: simply three cents

Brrrrr

WHY?

I work in a building that is green, and environmentally friendly. In fact, when the temperature outside goes above a certain temp, the lights in the lobby are turned off to conserve energy.

Why then, is it that I freeze at work because the air conditioning is at Arctic temperatures?

I have had to go shopping for a sweater (in the middle of summer), I have had to wrap myself in company branded sweatshirts to warm up. I love walking outside on hot and humid days because the goosebumps go away. You know it’s bad that when washing your hands in the bathroom, you don’t want to leave because the hot water feels so good.

And it’s over 85 degrees outside.

Go figure.

WHY Wednesday.


Flying in this morning

Again, stay tuned. I am sure there will be some observation worth noting.


Fabulous, Fantastic and Fun Fourths!

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. Hands down, the Fourth is the best holiday all year.

The Fourth falls smack in the middle of summertime. There are fireworks, it’s a long weekend, there are picnics with burgers, hot dogs, beers and music, lots of patriotism and quality time with friends and family…I mean, what’s not to love?

It’s the best. I’ve had so many fun Fourths! It has always been my favorite holiday and as a kid, it always happened to fall during our own family summer vacation, and oh so close to my birthday. I have to give my parents so much credit for always making our family Fourths fabulously fun – sorry, I am loving the alliteration.

Fun Family Fourths include:

  • Seeing the first Fourth of July parade in the nation, in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Literally, the first since the parade starts at midnight!
  • Spending the holiday weekend exploring and enjoying our nation’s capital
  • Picnicking on various beaches along the Eastern Seaboard watching the sunset followed by watching fireworks overhead
  • Spending it with the Mouse and his friends in Disney World (which as an adult I could only say would be pure hell)
  • No list is complete without a nod to my dad and his grill skills and my mom’s macaroni salad. Our backyard barbeques were always, and are still, tons of fun – on the Fourth or not.

What were your memorable Fourths? If you are here in the States, have a safe and fabulous holiday weekend.


Stay tuned

I was scheduled to fly the other day. Am sure there is a story coming out of this…


She Works Hard for Her…

Sunflower seeds?

For a lot of work, there’s not that much to enjoy.

I could say the same about crab legs, or lobster…that there’s a lot of work. But, there’s more of a reward than with sunflower seeds.

Don’t you agree? What other foods are a lot of work and are either worth the reward, or aren’t?


Can You Believe It? Six Months In — An Assessment

First, thanks for reading.

And thank you for your encouragement. I love writing and I am very excited that the blog, that started as a New Year’s resolution, has encouraged me to think about writing nearly every day over the past six months.

Writing has become very much a priority for me, which is what I ultimately hoped for when I started writing this blog.

I am really happy with the progress I have made. In the past four months, I have made  leaps and bounds and more bounds and some that haven’t been made, quite yet. I’ve even been featured as a guest blogger!

I figured out how to navigate WordPress even at its most basic and I now know what a widget is. When I figured out what kind of bells and whistles you can add to your page, I made it my mission to try and figure out how to do it (or enlist a friend or two to help me). And we were successful, most of the time.

I also created a Simply Three Cents Facebook page. Go on, check it out. Like it.

After sifting through various discussion groups on which site best feeds WordPress content to Facebook, I found and linked my blogs to dlvr.it which delivers (get it, deliver it?) my blog directly to the Facebook feed. I haven’t been able to figure out how you can put a ‘like’ button on the blog that will allow you to ‘like’ the blog on Facebook but hey, it’s a work in progress. If you have the know-how to help with that, by all means, let me know!

As with every work in progress, it’s always good to take a step back every so often and take a look to see where you are, where you’ve been and where you are going, metaphorically and literally.

What I think is the good stuff, is not feasible because I am not on permanent vacation. But there’s plenty to write about where I am and where I’ve wound up (hopefully that was just a one-off event). Obviously not every post is about a fantastic, far-away land but it gets me writing and that’s my own personal goal.

I’ll still write letters when a company has done wrong and I’ll applaud them for when they’ve done good. I will always find myself in odd situations and uncomfortable ones too. I love to people watch so I will still report back on many of my observations.

I’ve found online writing groups that provide creative writing prompts, so I hope that fodder will inspire future posts. Things like ‘what’s the first thing that pops into your head in the morning’ (I have to pee) or ‘what comes to mind when you hear the phrase prolonged exposure (um, skin cancer). Not sure where these prompts will take the blog…but I am eager to find out and I hope you will continue on this journey with me.

Thanks again for the encouragement, support, and feedback. It is very much appreciated.

If you’ve just joined the party, jump right in. I have heard that the best way to catch up is to just start from the beginning. You can also search by tags (all travel) or categories (various subjects) along the right hand side of the blog for a genre that piques your interest.

Thanks again for sticking around.


Phone trees

How many times do you call a number only to have the recorded voice tell you what number to push for what you need?

And am I the only one that needs to listen to it multiple times because I get bored and stop listening and then realize I totally missed the boat and have to re-listen? I’m afraid to hit any number because what if I am pressing one that is for an emergency?

I wonder if a doctor’s office ever screwed up with the order and put ‘if this is an emergency, press 8’ after the caller had to listen to 7 other button  options.


WHY? Or HOW do I manage to injure myself?

Who gets hurt by a corkscrew? Oh, that’d be me.

Tried to open a bottle of wine, and instead, I opened my skin. Blood everywhere.

Other harmless kitchen objects that I’ve been able to injure myself with include a toaster oven which caused a burn on my arm and a broken glass resulted in a bloody toe.

What about falling in the street? Because I’ve done that several times.

In just one day last week, I went to get my eyebrows threaded, and instead of the lady putting aloe on my brows, as is normal, she sprayed alcohol on them. Later that day, I walked past a building where the window washers were spraying pretty much at eye level and I walked right through that and to end that day, when I was in the grocery store, getting one avocado, three avocados rolled off the display and landed on my left foot.

I wish I was kidding.


Horrors of Hoarding

I once lived in an apartment where the tenant passed away inside the apartment. But the Fire Department couldn’t get INTO the apartment to get her out.

Because she was a hoarder.

When this lady died, or whenever she was discovered, the Fire Department showed up in droves. There must have been two or three trucks, and twenty guys. I remember peeking out the peephole to see one fireman after another, heading up the stairs and turning the corner, holding axes and whatever else they have to use.

When they finally removed her, and her hoarding, the hoarded items were left in the garbage area on the first floor.

When I say I had never seen anything like this in my life, I have to think that most people haven’t either.

There were floor to ceiling stacks, each thing was stacked inside itself, of:

Quart size containers (that you’d get Egg Drop soup in)
Half gallon ice cream containers
Magazines (from who knows how far back)
Newspapers (stacks and stacks and stacks)

It was absolutely unbelievable.

Days later we had knocks at the door asking if we wanted to be exterminated.

Gross!!

The plus of moving so much – me – is that it gives me a chance to go through my stuff and eliminate. I like to say I move lightly! But this woman had lived in this apartment for nearly 50 years. She had plenty of time to collect a lot of stuff…and not throw anything out.


Extreme Couponing

Oh Em Gee.

I can’t even remember to pull out a ‘save 50 cents’ coupon if I go to the supermarket. These people on the show of the same name are serious shoppers. But, some of them may have another problem. Extreme hoarding. How many jars of pickles and bags of rice cakes does one family need?