My 29th Birthday... Sort of

Today is the tenth anniversary of my 29th birthday. How is that possible? I ask myself. How is it possible to just be going about your business, living life and then all of a sudden WHAM! You wake up one morning to find yourself on the brink of middle-age?

Well, before it goes any further, I am putting a stop to this. I will no longer be celebrating the anniversary of the day of my birth. I will instead celebrate the anniversary of the day of my 29th birthday. We will no longer reference my actual age, but instead I will remain 29 indefinitely. Trust me, it's easier this way. (Sometimes, I honestly can't remember my own age at it is, so this will help.)

Not long ago, I looked up How to Score Free Stuff on Your Birthday, Free Birthday Meals, and Free Birthday Stuff. I even took the liberty of signing up for some freebies via the Internet. I don't ask for much, but it is nice to know that there are businesses out there that want to help to soften the blow of getting older. Kinda makes the whole aging thing worth it. Almost.

It's interesting to know that I share a birthday with famous people such as C.S. Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, Garry Shandling, Howie Mandel and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Also on this day, people such as George Harrison, Natalie Wood and Cary Grant passed away.

Today would not be my birthday if I lived in Vietnam, as everyone celebrates their birthdays on New Year's Day. If I lived in Russia, I would be eating a birthday pie, instead of cake, every year. If I lived in Italy, Brazil or Hungary, birthdays as a child wouldn't be complete without others pulling on my ears - once for every year old I was turning. If I lived in Canada, my nose might have been greased with butter. If I lived in Germany, my birthday cake's candles would be lit at sunrise, and would not be blown out until after supper.

Apparently, we have Roman Soldiers to thank for the celebration of birthdays, Ancient Greeks to thank for conceiving the birthday cakes, along with cake candles, and thank the Germans for starting the traditional birthday parties, or KinderFest. And did you know that the Queen of England has TWO birthdays? One is her real birthday, and the other is her 'official' birthday. Does this mean that she gets twice as many presents?

As for me, there's only one thing that I am looking forward to on my birthday today, and that is spending time with my family. And of course, that birthday cake.




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Now playing: The Replacements - Birthday Girl
via FoxyTunes

Wordless Wednesday

20 of My Favorite Things About This Time of Year

It's official. My Christmas tree is up and decorated. I've already taken my little girl to see Santa. It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

Let's all take a break from watching the shrinking economy, and take a moment to ponder what is right around the corner.

20 of My Favorite Things About This Time of Year:
(I was going to stop at ten things, but decided to keep on going.)

1. Peppermint Stick ice cream

2. Decorating the Christmas tree

3. All the Christmas-lighted houses and various lawn decor

4. Christmas cookies

5. Turkey dinner with all the trimmings

6. Watching my little girl discover what Santa let for her on Christmas morning

7. Snow (about an hours drive)

8. Time spent with family

9. Mistletoe

10. Christmas music

11. Holiday parties

12. Holiday parades

13. A couple of paid days off from work :-)

14. Pumpkin pie

15. Egg nog

16. Goody baskets that arrive at work for the office to share

17. Christmas cards

18. Beautiful poinsettia plants

19. Charitable, giving attitudes

20. Sharing traditions with my daughter

Do you have any favorite things about this time of year?

Image via WikipediaAh, the job-search fiasco. It used to be so easy to score job interviews... why has it changed so drastically? A "friend" of mine who has been job hunting since September, mostly online, has not landed one single job interview.

She polished up her resume, sent scores of resumes out through online job search sites like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com, has had three other people refer and recommend her to their companies, but still no job offers, let alone interviews.

It's enough to make a person want to give up all together. Except that she really dislikes her current job. It's unfortunate for her that the national unemployment rate is now over 6%, and doesn't look like it's going to get better anytime soon. There is A LOT of competition out there. So, what's a person to do to stand out from the mob of other job-seekers?

First, one must create an attention-catching resume. The resume we used ten, or even five years ago is not going to be as effective. She even paid a professional resume-writer to write hers, but today it apparently lacks the necessary panache it needs to get noticed. We could all use some good tips for rebuilding a more effective resume to stand out from the rest.

What if just sending the resume doesn't get the job interview? Sometimes, extra effort is needed, like networking, sending a resume via FedEx and following up with phone calls. (I don't like to harass the hiring-party, but I don't like being ignored, either.)

So, I think my friend is going to step it up a notch or two after the holidays, and get much more aggressive with her job search. If you have any advice for her, by all means please comment!

Also read:

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• Weird tactics can get you the job

Fake Tans Aren't So Bad...

For a kid growing up in Southern California in the 80's, it was pretty tough to be a fair-skinned girl who only burned, NEVER tanned, surrounded by friends who's deep, dark tans turned them into bronzed-beach babes within 30 minutes of arriving at the beach. One of my friends even had an older step-sister, who was the gorgeous, beach-blonde model in the "Sea & Ski" tanning oil commercials and advertisements.

Other kids were blunt, to say the least. I heard just about everything from "You look like you stayed inside all summer" to "You'd be so pretty if you had a tan" to "Are you albino?" to "How, Pale-Face" - you name it, I've heard it.

I would bake myself out in the backyard for hours. Sometimes with no protection, sometimes with baby or cooking oil. And I quickly discovered "QT" and would apply layer upon layer of the self "tanning" lotion prior to hitting the beach, so that I (at least) would not be bone-white. Although self-tanners were far from perfect and far from what they are today, I didn't care. Anything was better than being pale.

All I know is that if it weren't for MysticTan, I'd be Snow White forever after.

Cheating Husband Blames Apple iPhone When Confronted By Wife

Image via CrunchBase

Rogue photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to e-mail addresses - Have you heard of this alleged glitch with the iPhone? No?

That's because there is no such glitch, although one philandering husband tried to convince his wife of this, as soon as his shady behavior was discovered. Here's her post to the Apple support discussion board, as she tried to make sense of it all. She wrote:

"Please help! I took my husband's i-phone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an e-mail to a woman in his sent e-mail file (a Yahoo account). When I approached him about this (I think that he is cheating on me) he admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening? The future of my marriage depends on this answer!"

Thank goodness she is not as gullible as he'd initially believed.

Our Founding Fathers and Christianity

Image via Wikipedia

Here is something of interest from my fellow blogger, and friend, regarding some of the negativity that is still surrounding President Elect, Barak Obama.

He writes:

"The origin of this post is the hundreds of emails I have received in the last week or so about the election of Barack Obama. Chain mails, forwards, email list ... all with one thing in common. Some of the most recent emails hail the the notion that we are not a "Christian Nation" any more because Obama is either a Muslim or doesn't believe the Bible or (supply the reason)."

See the entire blog entry here:

Our Christian Nation? Christianity & The Founding Fathers

Wordless Wednesday

Godzilla Tree Terrorizes City

"Oh no, they say he's got to go
Go go Godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes Tokyo
Go go Godzilla, yeah"

Godzilla tree terrorizes city

Forced Abortion?

Image by GGuillaume via Flickr

This woman is in her THIRD TRIMESTER!  (Could you imagine???)

ABC News: Chinese Mom Facing Forced Abortion Flees

UPDATED - The six-month pregnant mother of two who faced a forced abortion by Chinese authorities has been freed and allowed to continue her pregnancy, according to Radio Free Asia.

Free Viagra For All Men 70 and Older

Mexico City is giving out Free Viagra and other impotence drugs to men 70 and older.

Apparently, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard believes that this is a high priority. He is quoted as saying that sexuality "has a lot to do with quality of life and our happiness" (as opposed to improving the city's infrastructure and cleaning up crime).

The Retail DNA Test

Image via Wikipedia

The Retail DNA Test: "We are at the beginning of a personal-genomics revolution that will transform not only how we take care of ourselves but also what we mean by personal information." - Anita Hamilton, TIME

Dirty Dancing Case Grinds to a Halt

Image via Wikipedia

Woman is paid $275,000 to stay away from community hangout.

"They said they'd burn the place down before they let her come back..."

Grind ends for woman in dirty dancing case

No Water Pressure to Fight Fires in Yorba Linda, CA

Orange County, CA - I am watching live as people's homes are ablaze in a multi-million dollar neighborhood. To make matters worse, there is absolutely no water pressure to fight these fires.

Just unbelievable!

MyFOX Live: Los Angeles Live Video Feed #1

Being Thankful

Image by Markus Rödder via Flickr

I have been stressed lately. This year has just flown by, and here it is, almost Thanksgiving again.

Things at work have me concerned, to say the least. With the rounds of layoffs over the past two years, due to the ailing real estate market, and now with the recent chapter 11, I am worried. I know that it could take me six months to find another job, if I get laid off.

During times of adversity, I have a tendency of either putting the blinders on and pretending that everything is just peachy, or becoming a full-blown worry wart. I have chosen blinders in this situation. I could argue (with myself) that sticking my head in the sand won't solve anything. However, worrying doesn't help to solve anything, either. It just keeps me awake at night, and by golly, I NEED my beauty sleep. Worrying and fretting isn't healthy. Plus, me running about, constantly worrying wouldn't be good for my daughter to witness.

If I should lose my job, I will just have to deal with it at that time. In the meantime, I can make a choice to look around and see all the goodness in my life. In spite of the doom and gloom and the suffering economy, I have many blessings to count. I have my daughter, I have my home, my car, and to this day, I still have my job. We have food in the pantry, shoes on our feet, good people who care about us. There are many things to be thankful for.

These many not be the best of time, but they certainly are not the worst. Far from it.

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Now playing: Travis Tritt - It's a Great Day to Be Alive
via FoxyTunes

Have You Ever Been Bullied?

Image via Wikipedia

Bullying isn't necessarily physical. Verbal bullying can be brutal. Certainly, kids should never have to deal with any kind of bullying; it does NOT build character, or make them stronger. It can leave a permanent imprint on their self-esteem.

Take me back to the time when I was nine years old; I was the new kid at a new school. Sheltered and naive. And terribly shy, to boot. It wasn't long before I became the target of threats and intimidation.

Back in those days, teachers and the school principals rarely did anything about it, except to break up the occasional fight. Their advice to victims was often, "Just ignore them, and they will eventually get bored and stop." They always seemed to have the attitude that "things will just work themselves out."

Nowadays, school officials realize that bullying isn't a problem to turn a blind eye to. Some school are now attempting to get tough on bullying with different workshops and bullying prevention programs.

But prevention should begin at home. Parents need to be aware of how their children treat other kids, and let their kids know that bullying is NEVER acceptable, and will NOT be tolerated.

I'm NOT Paranoid. (They're just out to get me...)

Image by Frodrig via Flickr

"We are now starting to discover that madness is human and that we need to look at normal people to understand it," - Dr. Jim van Os

Are they out to get you? Paranoia on the rise - Health care- msnbc.com

Wordless Wednesday

Tips on Giving to Charity this Holiday Season

Image by theloneconspirator via Flickr

From Charity Navigator - Tips on Giving to Charity this Holiday Season

• Get the biggest bang for your buck: With less charitable dollars available this year, it is critical that donations go to charities that will maximize the use of every dollar. Charity Navigator’s research shows that the most efficient charities spend at least 75% of their budgets on programs and services with the remaining 25% spent on administrative and fundraising costs. Donors should focus on supporting charities that can meet this benchmark.
• Marry philanthropy and gift giving: In this slowed economy, many Americans will have less to spend on charity and consumer purchases this year. But they can do double duty with each dollar by engaging in philanthropic shopping. Consumers that buy directly from their favorite, well-run charities, rather than purchasing cause-related products from retailers, make the biggest philanthropic impact.
• Give to charities that help the less fortunate: As the economy continues to weaken, human services charities simultaneously report an increase in the demand for their programs, higher costs associated with providing their services and a decline in donations. If they are to meet the growing needs in their communities, charities like food banks, rescue missions and utility assistance charities need an influx of contributions this holiday season.
• Choose charities where the CEO is reasonably compensated: Just as Wall Street salaries have come under fire, nonprofit CEO compensation has become a lightning rod issue. Make sure your charity’s leader isn’t excessively compensated. Charity Navigator’s analysis puts CEO pay around $150,000 or 3% of expenses. Of course, in evaluating the appropriateness of a salary, donors should consider variables such as the charity’s location, size, mission and overall performance.
  
  
• Donate online: If you want to deduct your charitable contributions on your 2008 tax return, you have until December 31st to make your donations. Online giving at Charity Navigator offers the luxury of waiting until the last minute and the convenience of maintaining your giving records in one place, making your life easier at tax time. Charities also benefit since contributions via the Internet are one of the cheapest ways for nonprofits to receive donations; they are less expensive than both checks by mail and credit card contributions made over the phone.

New Beauty Machine Makes Everyone Gorgeous

"We've run the faces of people like Brigitte Bardot and Woody Allen through the machine and most people are very unhappy with the results," Cohen-Or said. "But in unfamiliar faces, most would agree the output is better."
(Would Woody Allen be unhappy with the results?)

New Beauty Machine Makes Everyone Gorgeous | LiveScience

Steamy Magazines Make Men Feel as Bad As Women

Image by jaimelondonboy via Flickr

"Guys who check out the sexy female models in so-called lad magazines such as Maxim have more body-image problems than their pals, a new study finds. "

Steamy Magazines Make Men Feel as Bad As Women | LiveScience

Wordless Wednesday

The "Rock of Gibraltar"

Image by stevec77 via Flickr

Sunday night, as I helped my five year-old daughter get ready for bed, she made a confession to me.

Princess - "Mommy, I have something to tell you."

Me - "What is it sweetie?"

Princess - "Don't get mad at me."

Me - "Uh oh. What happened?"

Princess - "Well, when I was in the Zippy Zebras (her preschool class from which she graduated in May), Tristan put a rock in his ear. "

Me - "OK...? And then what?"

Princess - "Well, I wanted to see what it felt like, so I put one in my ear, too."

(Say what?!)

Me - "Is it still in there?"

Princess - "Yes."

Me - "Are you sure?"

Princess - "Uh huh."

Me - "When did this happen again?"

Princess - "A long time ago."

Me - "Before we went camping (last June)?"

Princess - "Yes."

Me - "Before your graduation?"

Princess - "Yes."

Me - "Before Easter?"

Princess - "I think so."

So, this means that she had done this around March. I had hoped it had already fallen out by now. Although she assured me that it was still in there.

Since it wasn't causing her any pain, and she said that she could hear normally, I didn't think it warranted a trip to the emergency room. I figured since it had been in there for roughly eight months, one more day wouldn't hurt. Monday morning I called her pediatrician's office and made an appointment for the following morning.

Sure enough, there was a small pebble, about the size of a rosary bead, making it's home in her left ear. The doctor reached into her ear using a long instrument with a small loop on the end. Luckily, he was able to remove (although NOT without pain) it on the first try. He said that it could actually have fused to her ear canal, requiring a trip to a specialist. The specialist would have had to put her under general anesthesia, as the ear canal is very sensitive, and kids usually struggle during the procedure.

You can bet that I talked to her about following her friends and gave her the old, "If your friends jumped off of a cliff, would you jump too?" question. You can bet that I got her to promise that she will never stick anything in her ears, or NOSE for that matter, again.

Considering the anxiety that she must have endured for the past eight months, and the pain that she felt as the doctor reached in to scoop the pebble out of her ear, I'd be willing to bet that she never does that again.

(Read about the boy who lost his hearing in one ear, for FIVE YEARS, after doing this very thing.)

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Online Freebies and Deals

Here's a guide on how you can get free or cheap books, get MS Office at 91% off, keep a real web site with a custom domain for $10/year, choose free software and service alternatives over paid versions, ship online purchases for free, and more.

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Online Freebies and Deals