A Busy Weekend

 

The husband turned 40 yesterday (BWAHAHAHAHA!) so we started off the holiday weekend on Friday with a "surprise" party thrown by his Mom at a nice restaurant.  I put surprise in quotes because it's pretty much dang near impossible to put anything over on this man.  So we knew he knew, but, it's the thought that counts, right?  :-)  Although we have had almost nothing but cold, rainy weather for the past few months, fortunately the weather was actually nice enough to eat outside, which was really lovely.   

The restaurant is right on the Hudson river, and there are always ducks and giant carp swimming around deckside, hoping for some crumbs of bread or whatnot.  In the background to the right is the recently opened "Walkway Over the Hudson" - the longest pedestrian bridge in the world.  (I posted about our visit to back in the fall of 2009 here if you want to know more about it.)

On Sunday we had our annual picnic at a local park.  We got there right when the park opened to get our "good spot". 

 "Good Spot"

There's a big, huge shady tree, and it's right at the edge of a large pond for fishing, which many in our family love to do.  Even the younger folk:

And it's a short walk to a very nice sandy beach for swimming.  I almost died sitting out on the hot beach while the kids swam, but I lived.  I had a hat. That may be what saved me.  :-P

Yesterday was the husband's ACTUAL birthday, so of course there was still a bit more celebrating to do.  And a lot of calling him, "Old Man", bwahahahahaha!!!

What were you up to all weekend? 

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The Fish Don't Like Memorial Day Weekend...

A fish the husband caught last year.  Don't worry - everyone lets all the fish go to be caught another day...

...cause we go up to the park and catch 'em all!!  Well maybe not ALL... LOL...

Every year over Memorial Day Weekend the husband's family has a picnic at a local park.  Obviously you can tell from the picture above, there's fishing, which a lot of the Dads and kids really enjoy.  In fact there's usually quite a pile of fishing poles and tackle boxes. (Did you know a tackle box is a great for jewelry-making and bead storage?  It also makes a great case for our daughter's rock collection.  Can you tell I'm not really into fishing? :-)

There's also a lot of eating.  We usually take up two picnic tables that end up loaded with food.  Yet, on the other hand, we usually only have one tiny grill going.  It's like Jesus and the feeding the 5,000 with the bread and fish - somehow off that one small grill, everyone gets fed!

We all generally bring our own drinks and meat for the grill, but we bring a side dish and a dessert to share.  To me there's nothing worse than making a dish to share and then bringing back home nearly the whole thing.  There are a lot of good cooks in my husband's family, so this is quite a challenge to make something that can compete well enough to get mostly (or all) eaten!  On top of that, you don't want to duplicate what anyone else is making, and we don't normally all tell each other what we're making, so you gotta try to predict what others will or won't bring... See, you think we homemakers sit home eating bon bons all day, but we have very difficult and challenging decisions like this to make!!

It could still change BUT I think we are bringing homemade guacamole and chips (the husband recently discovered a great guacamole recipe).  For many, many years we thought we didn't like guacamole until one time we had homemade/fresh made.  BIG DIFFERENCE.  Now we love it.  For dessert I am making rice krispy treats - one batch of "regular" and another batch with strawberry marshmallows. Swanky, eh?  :-)

Are you doing anything special for Memorial Day?  What do you like to bring to picnics?  Do you have a specialty?  Willing to share the recipe with me?

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Memorial Day Quotes - Let Us Not Forget Our Hereos

To the the brave men and women who have fought to keep our country free:  thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your service, and may God bless you, and may God bless America!

Though we may be relaxing or BBQing over the three day weekend, let us not forget the reason for this holiday.  Here are some Memorial Day quotes to reflect on, as we honor our servicemen and women:

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. 

- Joseph Campbell

Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.  

- Daniel Webster

As I approach the gates of heaven, St. Peter I will tell, One more solider reporting sir, I've served my time in hell.  

- Mark Anthony Gresswell

And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.

And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.  

- Lee Greenwood

It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle.  It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.  

- Norman Schwarzkopf

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.  

- John F. Kennedy 

If you have any great Memorial Day quotes to share, leave me a comment.  Have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.

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If I Could Be Any Animal, I Would Be a Cat

My big fat flufferbutt Q-ee

I would love my agenda for the day to be: find sunny spot for napping.  I would love to sit by the window and watch birds all day.  I'd love to snuggle on warm laps all winter long.  I'd love to not have to worry about what I'm making for dinner, what project the husband is going to rope me into next, who is running for President, the price of gas or if oxyelite pro results would enable me to fit into my summer clothes.  I could be as cranky as I want and people think it's cute.

Ah, it would be a cat's life for me.

What about you?  What animal would you be?

The end.

More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

There must have been something mighty interesting outside for the two of them to sit in the window together.

Dear Prince William and Princess Catherine:  Please do not lower yourselves to hob nobbing with the United States' Hollywood celebrities.  95% of them are idiots and do not remotely reflect the true nature of the American People.

My husband turns 40 in a few days.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I can see why cleaning people that you can hire don't want to do windows.  Cleaning windows sucks.  I think I'm going to do mine tomorrow.  Blah....

I ended up getting a Tracfone and so far so good.  I've been testing it out, and it worked just fine up at the cabin, and seems to work just fine here at home.  No mysterious calls or texts.  I think I'm ready to cancel Verizon Wireless and save me a boatload of money.

I like to shop at BJs Wholesale Club because you never know what cool stuff they might have.  Besides gigantor packages of food and toilet paper they have all kinds of other stuff - everything from toshiba computers to patio sets to pajamas.  I've even scored cheap Levis there.  I wish we had a Costco though, I hear that's a good store.

(This may be TMI, so I apologize in advance.)  Yesterday I tried a "nasal irrigation" thingy after hearing my daughter's pediatrician and others rave about it.  (Google it if you don't know what that is, I'm not gonna go into it.  You may have heard it referred to as a Neti Pot, except what I got is more of a squirt bottle device, which for some reason, seemed less intimidating.)  I don't know what prompted me to get the courage up to try it, but I went for it.  And it was not nearly as frightening as I'd imagined.  I lived and there is no discernible brain damage.

I don't often have complaints about God's handiwork, but I gotta say, God!  My dog sheds WAY TOO MUCH.  I mean, I get it that cats and dogs need to have self-removing coats, but sheesh!!!!!  TOO MUCH!!!!

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Tornado Damage Pictures

 Photo courtesy of MailOnline.com

I know photos of damage from the devastating tornado outbreak have been everywhere, but here is an article that has a ton of pictures that are just amazing and heartbreaking I thought I'd share.  A lot of amazing aerial shots and before and after pictures of the tornado damage:

Tornado Damage Pictures from Joplin, MO

I see the pictures, yet I can hardly believe it.  I hope each and every one of the people affected by this get the help they need.

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No Ice on the Lake This Time!

We were lucky enough to actually see the SUN Saturday afternoon!

I mentioned in my previous post that this past weekend was our 17th wedding anniversary, and one of my sister-in-laws was so thoughtful to offer to have our daughter spend the weekend at their house for the weekend so we could get away by ourselves!  Wasn't that so nice of her???  (Thank you so much again, L!!!)  As much as our daughter enjoys the cabin, the chance to spend the weekend with her cousins was an offer she couldn't refuse, so we were happy to have the chance to get away just the two of us, and our daughter was thrilled to pal around with her cousins all weekend. 

Despite the fact we had some work to do while we were there (planting grass seed, planting some plants, washing the windows, unpacking and putting away all the stuff we brought up this time, taking down 100ft pine trees, searching for sunken treasure in the lake, looking for san diego jobs... okay, just kidding on those last few...LOL) we did take some time to relax.  We brought up some bagels and some champagne and orange juice to make mimosas, and had a really nice breakfast out on the porch Saturday morning.

Do you like our fancy porch furniture?  (A card table and camp chairs!  :-)

Speaking of bagels, on my other blog there's this meme called "Meet Me On Monday" and there's a question about bagels.  One of my commentors who is from Australia said that bagels aren't popular there and she's never had one!  Did not know they don't eat bagels in Australia!  I left a comment on her blog asking what they usually eat for breakfast...Kangaroo toast, or Koala cakes or something?  Ha ha ha...  :-)

Do you have a special breakfast you like to have when you go away on vacation, or when you're home and taking a day off to relax?

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Challenge: Hooking Up the Water at the Cabin

We only have seasonal water at the cabin.  We knew that the water for the Association would be turned on some time in May, and we traveled to the cabin this weekend, wondering if the water would be on (with our fingers crossed that it would be).  After unloading the 1,500 things we hauled up there, we took a look at the water situation.  The water is pumped from a well along a "hose" that literally lays on top of the ground along the side of the road.  (Kinda weird, eh?)  There are spigots along the way that enable homes to hook up to the water.  The husband turned on "our" spigot, and lo and behold there was water!  Now we just had to hook up the end of the hose sticking out of the ground leading to our house, to the spigot connector.  Which was not the same size as the hose to our house.  Of course, ha ha....

How many times have you approached a project and thought, "This should be easy", and a task you thought would take you 20 minutes takes three days instead?

Well, this was one of those extremely rare times where everything went quickly and smoothly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I know - I can't believe it either! The rinky dink hardware store in town actually had the adaptor thingy we needed.  We also bought the world's smallest hacksaw to cut the rubber hose/pipe and some metal "cuff"' things to secure the hose.  We came back, the husband attached it all, we turned on the water inside, and aside from a small leak in the basement (which was easily corrected with a few turns of a screwdriver), IT ALL WORKED!!!!!!!!  We figured out how to turn on the gas hot water heater without mishap or blowing up the house and in no time we had HOT SHOWERS and RUNNING WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actual water coming out into our undermount stainless sinks - it was a beautiful thing.  We even drank the water.  I'm sure it was full of amoebas and fish parts and God only knows, but I'm still alive this morning, so it couldn't be THAT bad.  :-)  (I think this is just another way I build up my immunity to things and why I'm not allergic to anything, LOL...)

On top of it, it just so happened that it was our 17th wedding anniversary!  So maybe God was giving us some extra special blessings that helped it all go smoothly so we could enjoy the rest of the day, clean and showered, walking around town and enjoying the day instead of running to the hardware store 15 more times and mopping up leaked water, LOL.  :-D

Have you ever had a project you thought would be easy peasy and it turned into a days long comedy of errors?  I remember one time my Mom bought a closet organizer thing she wanted my Dad to assemble and install.  I remember my Dad looking at the box and reading those fateful words, "Installs in Minutes".  Well, hours and hours later my Dad good naturedly admitted that the box was truthful - it *did* install in minutes - they just didn't tell you it was going to be 360 minutes, ha ha....

The end.

More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

Can you see the teeny weeny scoop my husband is using to season the burgers?  (The scoop came with the seasoning - totally silly.)

Speaking of cooking have you heard of the The Pioneer Woman?  I'll even give you a link to her website if you're not familiar with her:  The Pioneer Woman.  She just published a cookbook.  At first glance she's interesting, but after reading her website for a while I've decided she's like the "Martha Stewart of the internet".  The Pioneer Woman cooks!  The Pioneer Woman homeschools!  The Pioneer Woman teaches photography!  The Pioneer Woman writes a children's book!  What the Pioneer Woman puts forth as her image is just as ridiculously unrealistic as what Martha Stewart portrays.  She seems to be wildly popular though, so I guess it sure sells!  (Incidentally, her recipes do look great, but my husband with his genetic predisposition to heart disease would be dead inside a week if I cooked like that.)  There are even some "anti Pioneer Woman" websites out there, but I'm not going to link to those.

I have been completely and totally fascinated with British royalty and British history since the royal wedding.  I have been checking books out from the library left and right on everything from Princess Diana to the pictorial history of the rise and fall of the British empire.  I even watched the Queen's arrival in Ireland live on CNN the other day.

I've been looking into Tracfone to save money on the cell phone bill and, holy moly!  If you're a light cell phone user you can save a ton of money by switching to one of the pay as you go cell phones.  As long as you make sure the pay as you go company/phone you choose uses the best network in your area (in my case, Verizon) you actually can get as good or better coverage for WAY THE HECK CHEAPER!  All the pay as you go phones are actually using one or more of the major carrier's cell towers (T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, etc.).  And I thought I didn't want to bother with remembering to keep adding minutes or whatever, but the case of Tracfone, they have a "year of service" card with 800 minutes (if you get a double minutes for life phone), so I would only have to add minutes as I need them, and only have to worry about running out of service once a year!  Sorry to go on about this, but after looking at the pay as you go phones I can't believe what a rip off contract phones are for light cell phone users!!  My sister-in-law has been happily using a Tracfone for 10 years!  Where have I been?  I have been paying TOO MUCH!

This is kinda long for "thoughts too short".

If you're a Facebook user and you like games, if you haven't already tried the Gardens of Time game, you should.  It's a hidden object type game and it's really fun!  And it's not one of those games where you need 85 neighbors or have to spam your friends constantly asking for stuff.  Very low pressure.

What do *you* think of the Pioneer Woman?  Do you use a pay as you go cell phone, and do you like it?  What Facebook games do you play?

The end.

A Scarecrow? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Scarecrow - We Have Mrs. Owl!

Do you notice anything unusual in this picture of my bedroom?

We built our big garden fortress with fences 8ft tall to keep out the deer, and we buried fencing into the ground to stop digging creatures.  However, our garden is perilously unprotected from threats from above.  We have tons of birds, especially crows.  So as our last line of defense against threats to our "Thousand Dollar Garden of Mistakes", instead of using a scarecrow, we decided on a big 'ol fake plastic owl.  (Although we haven't ruled out a scarecrow - we'll have to see what kind of job Mrs. Owl does.  Yes, we've decided it's a "she".  Don't ask me how we determined that, this is a family friendly blog.)

The husband has mounted Mrs. Owl on a piece of pvc pipe which he will then mount on a post in our garden.  However, in the meantime, he has been tormenting all of us by planting the owl on a stick in all sorts of creative places around the house.  Like, next to our bed, for example.  I actually slept with it there last night.  It wasn't nearly as disconcerting as I would have thought once I got over the initial surprise.  Apparently Angel kitty has gotten used to it as well, as evidenced by her unconcerned napping.  (You probably won't ever find me in naltrexone acamprosate campral treatment centers, but I may need treatment for anxiety or a heart attack!!!!)

The other day I found it waiting for me in the shower, and he has used it to sneak up on the cats numerous times.  He even had it "pop up" on our unsuspecting daughter who WAS relaxing in her loft bed.

Do you or your significant other (or kids) hide things or play jokes on each other?  Can you beat finding a fake owl on a stick in your shower?

The end.

What to Plant in a Garden?

The garden was rototilled and we have all our seeds in.  This year we had the brilliant idea (duh) of hooking up a sprinkler to water it, rather than stand out there forever watering it with the hose.

"What to Plant in a Garden" was thankfully my frineds, the only big question for this year's garden!

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may remember last year's saga of the "Thousand Dollar Garden of Mistakes".  Basically the husband decided we should plant a garden, and so the two of us gardening newbies embarked on a project of building and planting a large garden for the first time.  We made a lot of mistakes, and ran into some surprises (mostly bad), but we did manage to get some decent vegetables out of it.  (If you have nothing more worthwhile to do, you can read the posts about our garden last year HERE.)

Well, I must say, after all the work of building this fortress last year, it sure is nice that the only research I'm doing this year is, "what to plant in a garden", rather than, "where to rent an auger" and "how high do fences need to be to keep deer out" and "why did our peas die so fast".  And it was way more fun just planting a garden, rather than building a garden!!!

This year we had a little better idea of what we thought we should plant, although we did try some new things.  Some of the things we planted that I can remember off the top of my head are:  tomatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, zucchini, gourds, pumpkins, cilantro, spinach, lettuce, mesclun mix, radishes, carrots, peas, scallions, a few varieties of peppers, swiss chard and eggplant.  We aren't really sure about the swiss chard, but it looked really pretty on the package.  :-)

(Any Farmville players out there?  Have you seen the trees that grow gumballs, Mardi Gras necklaces, Christmas ornaments and macaroni and cheese and whatnot?  Wouldn't it be cool if you could really grow things like that, or jelly beans and pandora or chamilia beads in the garden?)

Do you have a garden?  What did you plant?  What's your FAVORITE thing that you grow?  (And what do you like to do with swiss chard?)

The end.

P.S.  Sorry I didn't post in a while.  After all the frustration detailed in my "Epic Fail" post, I just didn't feel like facing my blogs until later in the week, and then, ironically, I went to post, only to find that BLOGGER WAS EXPERIENCING IT'S WORST OUTAGE EVER.  Ha on me!  Apparently I am the kiss of death to Wordpress AND Blogger.  Anyway, I decided that I didn't need any more aggravation, so I just let it be.  But I'm back and ready to go, so no worries.  :-)

No Need to Replace the Broken Lawn Mower Pull Cord - I Fixed it!

April showers don't just bring flowers, they bring grass back to life.  And then it starts growing.  And then ya have to mow it.  If you are a long time reader of this blog, you may remember this is not the first time this lawn mower has been my nemesis.  (If you need your memory refreshed, or you'd like to know how a lawnmower can cause me such grief, you can read my post, "Me Vs. the Pushmower".)  I guess since the lawn mower hadn't been used all winter, it was more reluctant to start than usual.  The husband even started it the day before, for me, thinking that it would help make it easier for me to start the next day when I planned to mow.  Nope.  Not for nuthin' that dang blasted @*$%!! lawn mower did not want to start.  I wasn't getting putt-putts, or the promising scent of gasoline, or even a few puffs of smoke.

Well, I was not going to let that lawn mower beat me.

So I pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled.  Rested a bit.  And pulled and pulled and pulled.

And then, in a last ditch effort by the evil lawn mower to get me, the lawn mower pull cord broke.

Undeterred, I went in the house and got a couple of twist ties, tied the @#*$&@$ pull cord back together, and continued my relentless mission.

I may have strained every muscle in my arm, shoulders, neck and back, but by golly, I got the lawn mower started, broken pull cord and all.

In a surprising moment of mental acuity, I had the twist ties in my pocket at the ready, because now that I had to tie the broken lawn mower pull string back together, making it shorter, it would no longer reach the "holder", so I used twist ties to secure it to the lawn mower handle (otherwise it would just drag on the ground).

No need to replace the pull cord - just give me a knot and a couple of twist ties, and HA, I fixed it! Take THAT lawn mower!!!!!

Look how dirty my hands are.  For Pete's sake, I hadn't even DONE anything yet, other than try to start the stupid lawn mower!

Although I was totally exhausted by this point, the rush of adrenaline from beating the lawn mower gave me enough energy to forge ahead and mow the lawn as planned.  The sweet part comes after the push mowing is done, 'cause then I get to cruise around on the tractor and zone out.  Do you also go into a zen like state while mowing?

Although I have my moments of difficulty, and I do sometimes catch myself looking enviously at smaller city lots or mobile homes lots with smaller yards, I do actually strangely enjoy mowing the lawn. 

Do you hate mowing the lawn, or will you admit you kinda like it too?  :-)

The end.

My Epic FAIL

Cheerful spring flowers in my yard grown from bulbs taken from the husband's Grandfather's house

Well, some of you are aware that about 6 months ago I started a new blog called The Practical Homemaker.  I also started a few other blogs that I didn't publicize.  It was an effort to earn some extra money.  I took the big step of securing my own hosting and using Wordpress for those blogs.

Well, as of yesterday I have risen the white flag.

I always thought of myself as pretty tech savvy and fairly intelligent.  Well, not so much!  I spent SO MUCH TIME trying to find plug-ins that did what I wanted, fixing things that "broke" because of one of the constant Wordpress updates, and going through spam.  Oh, the spam!  WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE SPAM?  (I even had a spam blocker - though not akismet, which is NOT FREE contrary to popular belief.)  I spent more time going through spam, fixing things, and looking for plug-ins that would do what I wanted THAN ACTUALLY WRITING!  I think I have bald spots from tearing out my hair.

I also signed up with some blogging companies, all of which I was accepted for.  The one, which looked really good, started me off with three assignments, then not a thing since.  Another one gave me a few assignments, but they were for weird things that had nothing to do with my blog, for like, 2 cents pay.

And yes, I know I have wonderful blog friends who would have gladly tried to help me, but honestly, I don't want to rely on others.  I wanted to learn it myself, and do it myself.  Thought I could it myself!

After 6 months, I concede victory to you, Wordpress. 

In the two hours I spent just yesterday looking for a plug-in that I wanted, trying one after another, and still FAILING to find one to do what I wanted, I went to Blogger and in two hours re-created my whole Practical Homemaker blog.  Except it has a new name: Sensible Homemaker - but it looks similar and I even brought in all my old posts.  I truly hope you'll all come visit me / continue to visit me, even though I have stooped to going back to Blogger...  LOL...  (You know, I feel like everybody else (who wanted to) was able to learn to use Wordpress but me...I am embarrassed to admit all this.)

On the one hand I feel pretty stupid and angry for the time and money wasted, and the fact that I totally failed AND gave up!  On the other hand, I always had it in the back of my mind that I could/would start Wordpress blogs...well, now I know.  Ixnay on the Ordpressway.  A lesson learned and an ego taken down a bunch of notches.  :-P

In the immortal words of Hannah Montana, "Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days, everybody know, knows, what I'm talking about, everyone gets that way."

The end.

More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

We got to buy a cool new blow torch thingy.

It's too long a story to explain, and you wouldn't care anyway, but as I'd mentioned in a previous post, the husband and I played the roles of HVAC Techs a couple of weeks ago when we developed a leak in the new piping to our new water heater.  It has to do with air that gets in the pipes and blocks the hot water from getting to our upstairs zone.  It's the fault of the crappy plumbers who worked on our house - the same ones that put in the cheap a$$ water heater we had to replace. 

We used good 'ol PAAS to color our Easter eggs.  We don't have "Martha Stewart-y" colored eggs in our house - they are definitely homemade looking.  :-) 

I have a lot of gift-picking-out it seems to do lately.  I don't like to wait until the last minute, so I'm not just thinking Mother's Day, but Father's Day too.  And the husband's birthday is at the end of the month.  He is a tough one to buy for.  I've been browsing everywhere from Plow & Hearth (for cabin-y stuff) to Harbor Freight (tool heaven) to Personalcreations.com.  I think men are SO hard to buy for!  Gah.

Speaking of men, if God had only filled the Earth with women, I bet no one would have ever tried to burp the alphabet yet.

Good golly we finally had some good weather and we barbecued.  (Sorry I ate half my corn before I remembered to take a picture.)  The shrimp is "Cilantro Lime Shrimp" which was inspired by the E-Mealz menu this week.  I've been signed up for E-Mealz for almost three months and I have to say I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!  (I get the "Portion Control Any Store" but they have plans for Low Fat, Gluten Free, Low Carb, Family Meal Plans, Walmart Meal Plans, Meal Plans for 2, and more... -->  E-MEALZ Easy Meals for Busy and Frugal Families.)

Is anyone going to do anything about the PRICE OF GAS????  Hello??  Hello??

I recently read the bestseller "The Noticer" by Andy Andrews.  It was pretty good.  This is the gist of the principle that stood out the most to me:

* Life's opportunities and encouragement come from other people.
* If no one wants to be around you, you won't receive opportunities and encouragement that others have to share.
* Ask yourself, "What is is about me that others would change if they could?"
* "...you must become a person other people want to be around!  This is far and away the greatest success secret in existence.  A man or woman others want to be around holds the world by the tail.  He can get a meeting with any executive.  Why?  Because he is loved and appreciated by the executive's assistant.  He gets the listing, the sale or promotion.  He gets the extra help, the extra time and extra pay.  He gets the chance, the second chance, the benefit of the doubt.  And all because people like him."

Do you think that's true?

The end.