American Recession

What has happened to my favorite airline? For some reason, I have not flown American Airlines in a while. For this trip to Miami I decided to fly with AA since the rates were one of the cheapest.

After I arrived at SFO, I found out why. Because they are not charging you upfront for your bags. I forgot they charge $25 per carry-on. So that adds an extra $50 to the price of the ticket. That's what I get for falling into their cheap price scam. Remember, you always pay in the end people.

I am not sure what is happening with their bottom line, but they are obviously squeezing every penny. Now I am on a budget but when I am on vacation I like amenities and convenience. Vacation is all about arriving and getting away from it all. When I am home I pinch pennies and and save resources. When I am on vacation, I want the little luxuries. I was so pissed when I checked my bags and the little flashing $25 due- insert credit card message came up. I never had this issue with South West.

So of course I paid the fee and entered the plane after I got my wonderful dose of radiation from the new body scanners. (That's a entire blog right there...) As I entered the plane, I felt like I had gone back in time to when I took my first flight... The plane was just that old. My seat smelled like someones toddler had peed all over it, however I was lucky that there was no one assigned to the middle seat and I moved.

My flight was 5 hours and not one snack to be found, unless you paid. They did provide plenty of drinks but not even a peanut or a pretzel... Again SW and JetBlue wins.

I hope AA is treating their employees good because I am not seeing a bright future for my former favorite airline... Employees might want to get resumes out to the other airlines asap.

I am sure I am late on this observation, but I was too busy trying to survive myself. But what happened? Is it the gas prices? Is it globalization? I don't know. But it does not take Stevie Wonder see that they are in trouble. Hopefully, they can turn things around.

I'm in Miami, Glitch

Up at a wonderful 4:30 am to make a 6:30 flight. Heading to Weston FL.

Goal - increase travel

Thanking the Tooth Fairy

Thank you tooth fairy! Without you, I would not have lost 5lbs!!! From 142 to 137. I have not seen the 130's in some time. No matter what I did the scale would report back 140.

Now I can fit into some of my old pants and I no longer have to add the special A cinch or stretch the pants to wear them. Yeah!!! Now that my face is fully healed, I need to get myself to the gym and keep the momentum going. The muffin top is on the decline!

Goal: loose 5lbs - completed! And it feels good!

I just returned from Texas. I attended my brother's 8 week basic training ceremony. It was so good to see him. I really miss him so much at times. Having more time for friends and family was another area I needed to work on. I don't think that I'd seen my family for over a year. Man, where did the time go? We are all so busy.

My brother has the sweetest temperament. He makes me smile. Man I miss him so much. I just cry sometimes when I think about him. I remember when we were younger, I refused to make pancakes for him, mostly because I thought my mom babied him too much. I regret it. But guess what, he now makes the best pancakes in town.

I wish I could turn back time and hug him and kiss him more when he was very little. He was a chubby baby and very cute. He looked like a tiny Barry White. But I can not turn back time. I have to move forward and promise myself that I will connect with him more. Until I slowed down, I never knew how much I really loved and missed my baby brother.

I wish him the best.

Slow Recovery

Well looks like my recovery has been as slow as California's economic recovery. I have not been able to really go out since I still have swelling. So I have been keeping myself busy with administrative work.

With a nice cup of LOVE tea (my personal blend of violet, chrysanthemum, and jasmine pearl). I have been getting down to work.

* Shredding 1 year of paperwork - why do I always get paper cuts?

* Planning and booking tickets/hotel etc for my brother's graduation from boot camp

* Setting up COBRA

* Completing ballot for California general election

* Finally, researching, installing, and enabling new anti-virus. I was never happy with the old one.

* Balancing check book

* Cleaned guest closet

* Recycled old medicine from cabinet. Walgreens has this cool envelope you can purchase and they will recycle for you.

* Practice and learn new selling techniques. One of the techniques actually helped me to sell a 6 pack of facials to a client the other day. Can't wait to use more of my arsenal.

Yawn, pretty boring stuff (sans the election) but it needed to be done.

OOOps I did it again

I don't know who the guy is in the picture, but that was me a few hours ago in the endodontic's chair. I had worked my self into a root canal. My face was so swollen, I look like the elephant man plus his chia pet. Right when you think you have taken a few steps forward, something comes and takes you a step back.

This week I was suppose to start working out for the first time. The only thing I worked was sucking soup through a straw. Friday I was to attend a Pink Berry grand opening. But instead I will attending to my poor tooth. Dr. Jepersen did and excellent quick job on my root canal. I just hope the swelling goes down fast.

However, I did do one of my tech goals, I install Sykpe on my computer for the first time!!!


Well I guess if was going to happen, it was best to get it over this week, because I got a call from casting. I will get a Skype interview later next week. How sweet is that. Just proves you have to take sweet times with the sour and make sweet and sour soup.

Improve Tech - Installed and used Sykpe to talk to my husband who was in Vancouver. - completed

Dreaming of Being On the Red Carpet

I did something totally outside of my comfort zone. I actually applied to be on a makeover show! I received an email from InStyle Magazine that one of their marketing partners was casting for a brand new makeover show. I applied. As I hit the send button, I instantly wanted to retrieve it from the nebulous Internet cloud. I figured nothing would come of it, but I found out today I made it to the next round. Now I have to fill out more paper work. Wish me well. I would love to participate in this show. I think it would help me grow and open up, as I am usually a very private person.

I got this from the wikipedia:

The comfort zone is a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk (White 2009).

[1] A person's personality can be described by his or her comfort zones. Highly successful persons may routinely step outside their comfort zones, to accomplish what they wish. A comfort zone is a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries. Such boundaries create an unfounded sense of security. Like inertia, a person who has established a comfort zone in a particular axis of his or her life, will tend to stay within that zone without stepping outside of it. To step outside a person's comfort zone, they must experiment with new and different behaviours, and then experience the new and different responses that then occur within their environment.

Get out of your comfort zone - applied to be on a TV show