Wordless Wednesday - A quacky statue

Great news!!!

No, I didn't discover a new acne treatment, I got hired!!!!

I applied for a concierge position at a high end retirement community center in a high end part of town and the manager called me just now to let me know I'm hired! I love the older generation, they rock!

The first thing I need to do is get trained and then I'll be all set to fill in as the other employees may need me to on the weekends. I'm excited, it pays better than I expected/hoped and if I pick up even 1 shift a week, I'm looking at almost $300 a month! Woot!

Now I just need everyone to pray I can pick up atleast 1 shift a week. If so, I'm gonna be able to quickly pay off my debt. Bye bye credit cards!!! Praise the Lord!

Give Me Five Monday Meme #42

Monday, November 24, 2008

The 'Give Me Five' Monday meme is designed to share fun information with each other in a simple short list! Here's how it works. Each week, I will put out a random topic from my list of topics and you share 5 answers of your choice on the given topic and link back here! You can add photos, links or stories or just a simple list of your own of 5 things that relate to the topic as it pertains to you and your life experiences. It doesn't have to be in any order of importance unless otherwise specified.
Sign up for weekly reminder emails @ beccagirl@charter.net


Give Me Five sub sandwich toppings &/or condiments.

When I visit my local Subway franchise I really love specific toppings for my sandwiches. It doesn't matter usually, what kind of sandwich is underneath, although my personal fave is the chicken bacon ranch, toasted with shredded cheese on any of the breads. But really my fave things to top the sandwich with remain the same, so here they are:

1. Mayo
2. Lettuce
3. Spicy brown mustard
4. Pickles
5. Black olives

Give Me Five Participants

1. Leanne 2. Forgetfulone 3. Tammy 4. Vivian

5. Kwizgiver 6. Anne A 7. Clara 8. Anna

9. Angelika\'s Blog 10. amber 11. Joy

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MySpace, Facebook, Twitter...what's the difference?

So I have this friend John, who started a blog a while back called Defending the Doctrines of Grace. It was a nice blog about books he'd read, local area information, stuff about Vermont, his faith and walk in the Lord, his running ministry, his family, you know, a nice personal blog! Well, after having discovered Facebook, he has all but abandoned his blog. What's up with that?? What's going on over there at Facebook that has caused him to lose interest in his writing? He now uses every opportunity he can to throw it in my face, that I'd know this or that 'if only I would join Facebook too.'

This got me thinking, what *is* the big deal with social networking websites? I mean, do you have to have a profile on each one? What are the differences between them? How much time do you devote to updating your page? Do I really have the time or the desire to let everyone know my minute by minute stats throughout the day? How in the world is there enough time to visit everyone else's pages that are in your 'friends' list? What is the point? Am I missing something? Isn't this just another temptation to distract us from what we ought to be doing? Isn't this just another temptation to seek out people better left unfound?
Someone please tell me, what social networking site/s do you use and why is it better than any of the other ones. Also, how much time do you devote hourly, daily or weekly to interacting on them? How is it better (or is it?) than blogging? What is 'the point' for you?

Happy birthday, me!

Today is my 35th birthday. For those of you who know me, it's like I aged 10 years overnight! ;-) I have a feeling I'll be 35 for a VERY long time so get used to it.

I've already received a few very nice cards from friends and family. I also received a gift in the mail on Monday from my friend A which I didn't open until today, of course! I opened it this morning and was very confused. The box was wrapped with beautiful purple yarn from Italy, a little memento from our trip last year. She's so thoughtful that way and I can use the yarn! Well, that wasn't the confusing part, it's what was in the box. There were all these parts and instructions but I couldn't tell just *what* it was supposed to be. After reading the assembly directions and looking over the diagrams...I discovered it's gonna rock! Her accompanying card said she uses hers every day, it gives her joy every morning. It's called the Shower Bow. (Bow like bow and arrow, not like take a bow for a good performance.)

So anyway, from their website, you can go from this:

To this!

Nice!!! This has been an issue in my shower too. Plus I shower after my mom and every bead of water left on the shower curtain turns in to tiny freezing pellets of agony just waiting to make contact with your warm naked flesh. One touch from a cold wet shower curtain sends chills throughout your entire body! This is gonna be....wait for it.....AWESOME!!!!!! Thanks A! I can't wait to get it installed and ready for use. I always wondered who could I get to come hold the curtain back off of me LOL I usually just push it with one hand while washing with the other.

When you begin to get older, the best thing to do for someone's birthday is feed them, I suppose. Today at lunch, the boss is covering lunch and will most likely bring in a cake to celebrate. That has been the tradition around here anyway. It's great but I'd rather have the cash over the calories LOL Then I'm going to visit some friends tonight, and she's making me a cake that the kids will help her decorate. Thursday mom and I were invited over to some other friends' house for dinner with them for the occasion. Saturday I'm going to lunch with my cousin for my birthday and on Sunday my dad is coming up from the country to take me to lunch for my bday. I'm gonna gain 10 lbs just celebrating my birthday! LOL No, it's fine. It's wonderful to be remembered and celebrated. Sometimes a girl just needs a little attention :) It's rare in my life and I appreciate it. Happy Birthday, me! The weather here in St. Louis is fantastic today!

Give Me Five Monday Meme #41

Monday, November 17, 2008

The 'Give Me Five' Monday meme is designed to share fun information with each other in a simple short list! Here's how it works. Each week, I will put out a random topic from my list of topics and you share 5 answers of your choice on the given topic and link back here! You can add photos, links or stories or just a simple list of your own of 5 things that relate to the topic as it pertains to you and your life experiences. It doesn't have to be in any order of importance unless otherwise specified.
Sign up for weekly reminder emails @ beccagirl@charter.net


Give Me Five staples on your grocery list besides milk, bread and eggs.

Now that I have a "new" fridge that is bigger and better, I have plenty of room to expand my grocery horizons! So of course I thought of all my GM5 friends and wondered what you and your family simply 'must have' regularly from the grocery store.

1. Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. Yes, I'm addicted alright! I really enjoy chocolate milk.

2. Four Cheese Risotto by Archer Farms. Found in the food section at Target, if you cook it just right, it's just as good as the cheese risotto I had at a French Bistro in London. Yum! And inexpensive.

3. Cheese. Sliced, shredded, melted, block. If I'm out, I'm not happy :)

4. Flour or multi grain tortilla shells. I love these things! You can make so many different things with them from snacks to meals!

5. Popsicles. I am still enjoying these frozen treats even though the summer is well over. They just hit the spot when you need a little *something* cold and sweet.

Give Me Five Participants

1. clarence 2. Leanne 3. Sherrie 4. Tammy 5. Beverly 6. Vivian 7. MomOf3 (4ToB)

8. amber 9. Misty Dawn 10. 4streegrrl 11. Debbie 12. Jen @ mommablogsalot 13. Bethany 14. Stephanie

15. Kwizgiver 16. Cat. 17. Ragtop Day 18. Pinaymama 19. Andrea 20. Joyce

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Awwwww, not again!!!

Clearly, I need to be more mindful of my speed! As many of my readers know, I have what doctors call a little bit of a 'lead foot' problem here at BeccA's Buzz. Hey, what can I say, I got places to go, things to do and ALOT on my mind! I mean, I don't sit around and think about my computer's system memory, I gotta get going, Vrrrrroom!

So last Friday night on my way to the bank after work, I was just singing and bopping along. I had no clue how fast or slow I was going, a mistake I have paid dearly for in the past. The first thing I know, I see this:

47 mph in a 35 mph zone. Great, how much is this going to cost me? $$$ Man, what a waste of money!

Then, this week in the mail I begin to get a few advertisements for local law offices. How helpful they seem...yesterday alone, I received 5 of them!

Leave me alone, people, I'll take care of this my way and it will cost me alot less! I can go to court and ask for 'traffic school', pay $50 and bring the completion certificate back to court and it will be dismissed with no points-I HOPE! I know you can only do this every so often and I just did this at the beginning of this year, so hopefully the court dates and such will work out so that it will be over 1 year.....Lord, I hope so! I'll keep you informed. In the meantime, I'll try to slow down :)

Under construction...

Popping, cracking, power saws....it's so loud in here, I feel sorry for my cats! Construction is well underway in the kitchen as they are ripping out the old flooring. I can't believe how many layers of linoleum and then more plywood and then more linoleum there was under there! I also can't believe they've gotten such a late start today. Normally they come before your prearranged time. Today it was well after 1:30 before they really started working. It's 4 pm now and they are still in the first stage, demo. I don't know if they were sleeping in, playing with toys or what!

They still have to fix and replace any of the sub-flooring and pour the concrete leveling stuff before they are finished for the evening...also, the concrete has to have time to dry before it's time for me to go to bed, there's only 1 way in to my bedroom, it's through the kitchen!

On a sillier note, It's very strange to have 2 refrigerators and a stove in my living room LOL

There's good news and there's bad news

The good news is: My kitchen is getting a much needed makeover/remodel at no expense to me!

The bad news is: I have to move everything out of my kitchen, including the refrigerator, TONIGHT, after work!

It all started with an inspection, due to the new owner taking possession. The kitchen door that goes down the back stairs to the basement drags on the floor (it's a long story) which makes it nearly impossible to fully open. So the landlord called last night to let me know they will be fixing the floor today.

There were other maintenance concerns so he agreed to meet with me this morning and after a 20 minute walk through and discussion, I'm now getting a ceramic tile floor (any color I like) in the kitchen, a new *bigger* refrigerator (well, new to me) since my old one as of last night, knocks steadily and loudly while it cycles for 15 minutes at a time on and then off, possibly a new stove and a hood/vent for it installed! Also, the radiator in my bedroom which does not work at all will be looked at to be fixed. Oh, also he's fixing the lighting in the basement so I can turn it on and off with a switch in the stairwell instead of leaving it on all the time unnecessarily. This is great, practically a brand new kitchen to use...for free!

The bad news is, there's an immense amount of things that must be done in just one evening. Especially since I will have to get up early again tomorrow (only had 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night). I will need to make many trips out to the trash and many trips down to and from the basement which is 2 floors away taking laundry back and forth. There is much to be accomplished tonight, almost an impossible task for just 2 people who aren't in the best of health/strength. Tonight there will be no time for church or to sit and contemplate which wine of the month club to give Aunt Marge for Christmas.

But won't it be worth it?! After talking with my mom, who is staying with me, I've decided to seize this opportunity to reorganize the kitchen and pantry making it much more accessible and utilize the spaces better. Right now the pantry items we use most often, live on the table because the pantry is in such a disarray. I'll need to be off work tomorrow 'just in case' I'm needed for anything, like picking out tile or cleaning the "new" refrigerator for use or anything like that. Yes, this will be alot of work but so worth it! I mean, hello, heat in my bedroom finally, after only 4 years!!!

Give Me Five Monday Meme #40

Monday, November 3 & 10, 2008

The 'Give Me Five' Monday meme is designed to share fun information with each other in a simple short list! Here's how it works. Each week, I will put out a random topic from my list of topics and you share 5 answers of your choice on the given topic and link back here! You can add photos, links or stories or just a simple list of your own of 5 things that relate to the topic as it pertains to you and your life experiences. It doesn't have to be in any order of importance unless otherwise specified.
Sign up for weekly reminder emails @ beccagirl@charter.net


Give Me Five techniques you use to aid in writing for your blog or for your journal...whatever helps cure that writer's block.
***There weren't many participants last week and I'm really interested in this topic. So if you already played along, we'll see you next week. If not, I can't wait to stop by and read yours!***

With writing on everyone's mind for the various National Writing month challenges taking place all around us (I'm not participating this year) I thought, why not share some inspiration? On Saturday, I took a writing/journaling workshop based on a book written by Kathleen Adams called Journaling to the Self and learned some very good techniques for getting the ideas flowing! I don't agree with some of her ideas about meditations and some other things, but the writing techniques were really pretty helpful. So naturally, my mind thought of all of you and what techniques you may use for "creating the magic"!

1. Springboards. Springboards are small prompts that get you started. You'd be surprised as to how often you come across springboards and don't realize it. The study suggested keeping a tiny note pad with you for those times when springboards come to your mind. They can be questions or the beginning of sentences that you finish. Here's a short list of suggested springboards:

• When the sun is brightly shining ___
• My body is telling me ___
• If money was no object ___
• If I knew I could not fail ___
• When I reflect on friendship ___

2. Clustering. Clusters are great, probably my favorite, actually! And when paired with a good springboard, the ideas just flow! A cluster is where you start off with an idea in the middle then branch off thoughts around the outside. Of course when you translate it into written form, each branch can be branched off with further detail and before you know it, wham! You've just written a blog post or journal entry and probably revealed some very good details about your topic. I really enjoyed learning about this technique and the study facilitator suggested doing your weekly 'to do' lists using clusters. It's a far more creative alternative than a simple list and when you are finished, you can appreciate all you've done with a nice piece of artwork if you use colored pencils and perhaps a bit of collaging materials. I found this technique to be the fastest as well.

3. Character Sketching. Descriptive vocabulary comes in handy here. You can choose a person of interest and go off in a number of directions. You can speak of the person's internal attributes, their physical appearance, their contribution to your life...you get the point. It's basically writing that paints a picture of a person so that anyone reading it would have a sense of knowing the person in the way you see them. This makes a great gift for someone too.

4. Unsent Letters. These can be very powerful and obviously not something for a public blog. I'd suggest using this technique privately. Read more about unsent letters and how they can benefit you and get down all the issues. Just be careful about writing things that you don't want read by others. I wrote one to my dad and realized I had more issues than I thought! Even down to things like how he never finished projects around the house and how that affects me even now! Writer beware...and have tissues close by!

5. Acrostics. This was big fun! Here, you take a word or short phrase, writing it down the page and then begin the writing with the first letter. As you are writing about the phrase, you move down the page finding words that start with each letter of the phrase. Any line may have a few words or just one word. They can be a bit more tricky but still a great source of writing inspiration. Here's one offered up by Wikipedia just to give you one example. They have it more as a list where the lines aren't flowing and telling a continual story but this is just one example:


You should try one with the name of your blog sometime, it could be fun!!! (Oh wait, there are 2 Z's in a row on mine.....yikes!)

Give Me Five Participants

1. Vivian 2. Kwizgiver

3. amber 4. Pinayinstates

5. Joyce T.

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Some food is worth eating alone for.

I have never enjoyed dining solo in restaurants. I don't mind ordering, picking up and taking restaurant food home to eat, but dining in? Hmmm, I always think to myself, everyone will make fun of me or stare at me and wonder "Why is that big girl alone? She needs some weight loss pills and a friend" and then feel sorry for me. No thanks!

I realize this is just my personal issue. I'm pretty sure people don't really think anything of it to be honest. I don't think those things when I see someone else eating alone in a restaurant, but I just can't help feeling self conscious in that situation.

Well, despite my self conscious feelings, I have done this about 4 times before. Generally, the food has to be really promising for me to consider breaking through those feelings. The first time was years ago, Tan Mi Chinese buffet. MMMm, good! All the other times, it has been Mexican food! Apparently I don't mind the self inflicted humiliation for a good enchilada!

What to do, What to do?

Fridays are paydays for me. Yesterday, after leaving the bank, I was so pleased to see this:

I thought the days of $1.xx gasoline were only a memory!! Something to tell the kids and grandkids about, like our grandmas told us stories of the days before telephones, tv's and automobiles.

Normally, I budget $40 per week for gas. Some weeks over the summer, I actually had to up that amount. I also have a favorite local BP gas station...more specifically, a favorite gas pump at that station that it seems when I fill up at this pump, I almost always have gas left over at the end of the week! Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe it's wishful thinking and a little OCD.

Anyway, yesterday I was able to fill up my tank for $16!!!! I was so excited, I thought, what to do with the left over money??? I decided to put that 'left over' cash back into the economy and bought myself some new CD's! I visited my local F.Y.E. and picked up some used CD's and a new one. I even bought one for my momma, too :)

As far as my big weekend project goes, I have yet to start on it. I could blame the tv which is usually my biggest distraction, but to be honest, I've been online more than just watching tv this time. Oh well, maybe next weekend!

Big weekend project

Well, it has been over a year since my mom moved in with me and I've always *intended* to make more room for her. Of course, when she first moved in, we didn't know how long or short her stay would be. Of course, I'm happy to have a loving mother who makes for quite a good companion and roommate. I, on the other hand, am grouchy. I'm surprised she WANTS to live with me LOL Right now, she sleeps on a twin bed in the corner of my craft room/2nd bedroom and all her stuff is piled up on top of itself.

So, I have a massive plan to move my craft room to the generous cubby part of my living room, moving my big desk that's now in the cubby, into the craft room and moving my desktop computer to her desk in the living room already set up on the other side of the room. So her desk would stay there but be used for my stuff, my big desk will be moved to her room for her stuff and my craft table and book case will be moved to the cubby area.

I will still need to keep some/most (to be determined) of my crafting supplies in the bedroom but I think this big plan will be great for many reasons. It will give her more room in the bedroom, it will give her a place in that room to do the crafty tasks and studying and writing she enjoys again, it will also bring out my craft stuff giving me more of a chance to actually do something with all of it! Plus, all the furniture will look good in the new positions. My craft table doesn't quite have the same style as the modern furniture in my living room, but it will work. Besides, who am I trying to impress? Wish me luck! Oh forget that, come over and help! LOL

Ok, changing the subject...

I created this video a while back to show how hard times and difficult situations can be dealt with. I really enjoy this song and encourage people to listen to the words. Whether you are up or down, there is a light at the end of this tunnel! I still feel this way today, right now, even if I'm not exactly thrilled with the state of the world I live in. I get this video out from time to time to share when things seem to be going awry. I do not have hate in my heart, actually quite the opposite! I have no bad or hateful intentions today or any other day. People who know me can vouch for that. I still have all my faith in God that He is working in mysterious and miraculous ways and boy am I glad to hear it! Even when I don't get it right, He can use it and use me to His glory.

Wordless Wednesday - Now look what you did, America

Well, since obviously no one can see past the end of their own noses to grasp the concept behind the first cartoon, I've decided to change the one I'm using. I've dumbed it down, for those of you *just waiting* to find someone who doesn't agree so you can play the race card. Now, if you say I'm racist for this last one, man oh man, this is going to be a much worse, much longer next 4-8 years than I thought! LOL

Paper or Plastic? How did you vote? Decision 2008

I went to my local polling place this morning to cast my votes and was in line for just a few minutes. This is mainly due to the fact that the poll volunteers are there for the day and move at a snail's pace.

Anyway, while I was in line, I noticed that there were only 3 electronic voting machines in the entire room! That seemed odd to me. Surely they expected a great number of voter turnout...perhaps everyone shared my thoughts about how important this election is and *what if* something happened to the electronic machines? Sure, it's nice to slide in that plastic card into the machine and tap away at a nice screen but I want there to be a physical piece of evidence with my vote on it. Something that can be laid out and handled later if a 'recount' is needed. It may be old fashioned but I can tell you that about 97% of the people voting at my polling place were choosing paper ballots!

With the way things are these days, modern technology doesn't impress me with something as important as my vote hanging in the balance. For now, I feel much more comfortable voting the old fashioned way. Frankly I was pleased to have the choice! I felt much more at ease submitting my physical vote this way, how about you? Which did you choose? Paper or Plastic?