job | Uncategorized | work

I wish WebEx was my ex.

By on April 22, 2010

This week has been loooong…. We had 4 large meetings planned (2 software and 2 hardware reviews, which means something totally different in the theme park industry than it does in IT). And each one of those meetings required the use of WebEx. My boss wanted me to run the WebEx presentations for two of those meetings. This means that I had to sit at my desk for 2 hours each day, mindlessly switching the slides of a PowerPoint and changing tabs to show different presentations. I didn’t have anything to contribute to the meetings, the stuff presented wasn’t anything I really needed to know, and since I had to click a button on the command, “Next slide, Holly” it wasn’t like I could multi-task during the meetings. So yes, those 4 hours were very, VERY boring. Plus I’ve had a lot of other mindless work this week to complete (including over 40 credit card charges to reconcile from my boss’s 6 business trips-yuck!). I am SO ready for this weekend.

On a separate subject, I would like to celebrate the purchase of my first bikini since high school!!!
It looks…alright on me. I wish I could lose about 10 more pounds before Jamaica. Then I’d really be comfortable smokin in the suit!! But I have lost 10 pounds since last summer, and I think I can pull of a bikini. Plus I am running out of summers to wear a bikini. My husband and I have been discussing when we would like to start a family and I know I won’t be wearing any bikinis after being pregnant!
Lastly, I would like to ask for prayers for some girls I met last night. I decided to volunteer for my church’s Wednesday night teen ministry. The girls I met came from very rough backgrounds and very broken families. One girl spoke of how she cut herself. My heart goes out to them and I ask God to make himself present in their lives so they will know that they are loved. I am looking forward to going back next week. I will admit that I was super uncomfortable, I had no idea what to say to the teens, or how to interact with them. But I am sure if I keep going, I can help. Hopefully I’ll make a difference.
Thank goodness tomorrow is FRIDAY!

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job | Uncategorized | work

Google-Killer…Drinking the Kool-Aid…what the hell?

By on April 9, 2010

Oh business clichés. How those executives love to use you. Check some out:

http://www.smoothharold.com/20-business-cliches-that-make-you-sound-stupid/
http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/bizphrases.php
http://www.squidoo.com/businesscliches

I started thinking about these the other day when I happened to say out loud to someone, “I haven’t had a chance to connect with him since he left, but when I do, I’ll make sure to ask him for you.” …really Holly? “Connect with him?” I should have just said, “I haven’t talked to him since he left.” But since I have now been working in the corporate world for 2 full years (yes, this past Wednesday was my 2 year anniversary with the corporate office of the “unnamed attraction.” Happy anniversary to me!) I find myself using those terrible business phrase clichés way too much. I guess the phrase “Connect with him” isn’t THAT bad. But the feminist in me grits my teeth every time I hear some executive say, “He dropped the ball on this one!” or “Make sure you bring your A game” or “Give me a ballpark figure” or “Let’s touch base later.” Sports related business phrases really should be outlawed. There are also some really annoying words I hear quite often such as “synergy” and “blue-sky.” And then there are the phrases where I just want to stop the executive and say “Wait. What the HELL are you talking about?!”

But I do want to list some phrases that CRACK me up. I found all of these on the above websites. Unfortunately, I’ve never heard anyone I work with say any of these phrases. I wish they would though…you can be sure that I will laugh out loud and probably get funny looks from everyone in the conference room. 🙂

“Putting lipstick on a pig” – Do Miss Piggy and Kermit work here?
“Low hanging fruit” – Sounds like something a middle school aged boy would laugh at.
“Best of breed” – Woof Woof!
“Run it up the flag pole and see who salutes” – Run this up your flag pole!
“Polishing a turd” – really…really?!?!
“Rubber hits the road” – Wait, are we talking about work or prophylactics?
“Purple cow” – All of these business phrases sure are purple cows. 🙂

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Ikea | kitchen | kitchen renovation | Uncategorized

Dream a little dream…

By on April 5, 2010

I haven’t written in a while, no excuse other than I haven’t had much to talk about. I guess the words flow more freely when my life isn’t going the way I planned. 🙂 And my life is pretty peachy right now!

So for today, since I have nothing more interesting to talk about, I would like to share a dream. My DREAM kitchen. You see, I love to cook. (Except for during the work week. I hate coming home from a long, hard day and standing in the kitchen and cooking for an hour. But on the weekends, I LOVE to cook.) I used to watch the food network for hours on end (before we canceled our cable to save money when I got laid off) and I love getting in the kitchen and making something tasty. But ever since we bought our house back in December of 2008, THIS is what I have been cooking in:

(This picture is of the kitchen before we moved in. Since then, we have made a few updates, but the kitchen still looks pretty ugly.)

Not very inspiring. I’d rather cook in one of these:

Now, to be fair, there are a few parts of my kitchen I do love. Like my 1950’s pink oven. So cute!!! And it still works! AND it matches my pink kitchen aid mixer. I LOVE pink.

My pink oven!

I also love the little shelves next to my window. But for the most part, the kitchen is terrible. The cabinets are so old and they smell and I never feel like they are clean (even though my mom and I SCRUBBED the heck out of them when I first moved in). The hardware is UG-LY! The countertops are ok…but they are warped from water. The skink is gross. When we moved in, the stovetop got hot, but wouldn’t boil water. You could sit a pot on the stove, turn it on high, and wait an hour and it wouldn’t boil. (Not very useful when my husband and I both love pasta.) So we got a new stovetop with our home warranty, but apparently, they don’t make them anymore in the size that fits the whole in our countertop. So we have a hole next to the stove where food and dust falls down onto my pots. So sanitary.

You can kind of see the hole in this pic (above my tasty pies).

And the floor is ugly too!!!

So, we’ve lived with this kitchen for over a year. And I think it’s been long enough. Right now, Ikea (I love you Ikea!) is offering 20% off their kitchens until May 2nd. So we’re thinking about taking our tax refund and whatever money we can save until the end of April and re-doing our terrible kitchen.

Now all I need to do is to talk my father-in-law into installing those beautiful Ikea cabinets. 🙂

*I wrote this blog early last week. Since then, I have had to drop $600 on a new radiator for my car that broke down last Friday. Soooooooo, probably won’t be updating the kitchen anytime soon. 🙁

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diet | Uncategorized | vacation

Nothing of Substance

By on February 18, 2010

So last night, I met my parents (and their SUV) at Home Depot to buy some patio furniture I found that was CHEAP! I was so excited!! My husband and I have wanted patio furniture since last spring (but by the time it was fall, and all the sets went on sale, I had been laid off and we didn’t think it was smart to spend money on something frivolous like patio furniture). But now that we have a little bit of money and I found some with an awesome price, I HAD to buy. The table was only $69 – and it seats 6! The chairs were $19.99 each-awesome! We just bought 4 (we can use folding chairs if we have more ppl over) and the total price for the 5 piece set was…..$159!! Compared to the $299-$599 sets I’ve been seeing – this is a great deal! Hopefully it isn’t so cheep that it will break after a few uses. So now, I am super excited for spring. Al fresco dinner parties, grilling out, watching the sunset while eating dinner every night. Ahhhhh – it sounds lovely!

On a completely different subject, tomorrow night, my husband and I are having dinner with some friends at Taco Mac. If you have a Taco Mac near you, you MUST try the ranch dressing. Their ranch dressing is THE BEST ranch in the world. It is soooo tasty as a dip with fries. YUMMY! So I’ve already planned out my whole day tomorrow to allow myself enough calories for the Taco Mac fries and ranch dressing.

Speaking of calories, if you do not know of Sparkpeople.com, you really need to check it out. It is a great website to track your calories-I have been using it almost every day this year to prepare for my best friend’s Jamaica wedding in June. It’s at the amazing Sandals Whitehouse resort – I can’t WAIT until we go! But I need to lose around 15lbs to be brave enough to be in a bathing suit for a week.

I feel like I should get paid for today’s post. I’ve endorsed Home Depot, Taco Mac, Sparkpeople.com, and the Sandals resort in Jamaica. Where’s my money? 🙂

As you can tell, I have no deep thoughts for today, nothing of substance to blog about, but since it has been a while since I have posted anything, I figured I should write. So now you know what’s been going on in my life this past week – nothing. 🙂

While I’m on a roll, here’s a few other random endorsements:

I got the new Mary Kay Andrews‘ book from the library yesterday. I’ve already read almost half the book – I LOVE her books!

A few of the blogs I stalk were talking about Lilly Pulitzer. I had no idea who she was, so I googled. She has the cutest line of dresses and I bet I would look awesome in one of those dresses in Jamaica. Maybe this one:

or this one!
Gotta start saving. This would definitely be considered a frivolous purchase. 🙂

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Uncategorized

just me

By on February 5, 2010

So after a couple of months of blog-stalking, I caved. I’ve started a blog. Some blogs I read are really interesting and are written by clever, articulate, good writers. Some blogs…not so much. I don’t consider myself a good writer, clever and I am definitely not articulate! (Ask anyone-sometimes when I talk, I don’t even make sense.) I have also forgotten, all knowledge, of how to, correctly use, a comma. Hehe. But darn it, I want a blog. 🙂

One day, I’d like to look back at this time in my life and laugh. Laugh about how I worried so much over things that seemed so important, but never really mattered in the end. *Note to self-stop worrying so much!*

So, read if you’d like – I guarantee there will be typos, comma splices, and misspelled words. And I’m not promising it’ll be witty, clever, or even interesting. It will just be me-inarticulate, boring, little-ol’ me. 🙂

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