Barbara Ortagus »

My aunt and uncle are extremely busy this time of year.  For as long as I can remember they are have been making their own Christmas crafts and selling them at the various fairs they have around the city.

They have a special “family viewing” night that they turn into a bit of an event for all of us.  Last Monday I bundled up the kids and headed over to their place to look over their wares.  They have some old tried and true favorites that they bring out every year, but I most look forward to the brand new things they have created from ideas in magazines and what not.

I started a new tradition with the kids where we buy a new Christmas tree ornament for each of them every year.  That way they can reflect on how there tastes have changed over the years and have a little memento to hang onto of something that was unique to that specific year.

This year they each chose to buy an ornament from my aunt and uncle so that was a real treat.

Since I have started working again I offered to take a sampling to the office and see if I could drum up a little business for them.  My Uncle Stu says:  “That’s an interesting offer; what does that net u?”

I said my usual consignment rate is 35%, but for family I would settle for an extra batch of my aunt’s special shortbread.  We all laughed and agreed that it was a deal.

I was in the city all week training for a new job.  Hubby and the kids are at home and he is taking care of of all the household stuff like lunches and getting them off to school etc.  I was supposed to head back yesterday, but we had a terrible storm so traveling on the highway was a no go.  I can’t believe my good luck.

Good luck you ask?  Yes! It wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t keep my scheduled return so I had no other choice but to stay at the hotel for one my day and pamper myself silly.  Yep that’s right. All about me.  I have been on a big natural health kick lately.  I was fed up with feeling tired and bloated all the time.  I wanted to clean out my system and start over without any of the built up toxins.  I read an Evercleanse review and decided to give it a try.  Since then I have lost weight and I have more energy.

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All the great productivity coach guru guys are pretty consistent in saying that if you are serious about getting something done, then you need to write it down.  I am going one further by writing it down and sharing with with the world at large.  I am a horrible procrastinator.  Actually that isn’t true, I am a terrific procrastinator.  But it needs to stop, because the guilt I am feeling about my lack of productivity is eating me alive inside.  So with new further adieu here are my short term goals:

1. Clean up my PVR.  I have oodles of things that are being recorded that I doubt I will get around to watching.  I take my TV seriously and this backlog has got to be resolved.
2. Clean the rust off my violin skills.  I used to play quite a bit, but I have definitely let my enthusiasm wane as of late.  I don’t want to lost my ability completely so I need to resume where I left off.
3. Organize my photos folder.  I have been guilty of just uploading and dumping all into one directory.  That just won’t due and it is the type of thing that if you leave it for too long you will never get around to cleaning it up.  And the job certainly isn’t getting any smaller.
4. Clean up my "junk drawer" (nuff said).
5. Read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.  I think it is one of those books that you really have to familiarize yourself with.  Written by one of the most brilliant minds of our time I will fill immensely enriched by having exposed myself to it.
6. Get perm and coloring.  My last perm is almost completely gone now and it is well past time for another.
7. Commit to regular exercise activity.  Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah right.  I could hire a plane and sky write my intention to exercise and it still wouldn’t happen.  But a girl and dream right?

I just read on the Wall Street Journal that Dominos and Tivo have partnered up to let you order pizza through your television.

People who have broadband Tivo will be prompted with a pop up ad asking them if they would like to order pizza when they fast forward through a Domino’s commercial.  They will then be sent to an ordering screen.

I can certainly understand how this sort of thing gets thought up.  Technology frequently outpaces traditional business and obviously in our digital media age, we are given opportunities to skip past commercials my more easily.  It was bad enough when I used to visually fast forward with my old VCR, but at least I could still see the commercial sped up.  Now with my 30-sec skip button, I don’t see them at all.

So this companies need to be creative to reach technically savvy eyeballs and I applaud them for their ability to think outside the box.  Whether we like it or not, television needs advertisers to sustain itself.  If sponsors feel that their marketing dollars are not being effective then they will pull their support and that has a the trickle down on the creation of new network content.

But for the worst of couch potatoes I don’t know if this is exactly in the best interests of their long term health.  Who are we to deny them the little bit of exercise they got when reaching for the phone or digging  for  coupons.

When this extends to other  products and services I fear for the weak willed as their impulse shopping sensitivities are assaulted by click of the button opportunities to pick up the latest Sham-wow.

In the meantime I’ll just avert my eyes to the floor when the Dominos delivery guy drops off my pepperoni and olive pie knowing that I am addicted to the trash on the CW.

So in my last post, I confessed to being a terrible driver and shared how I recently broke my rearview mirror off as proof to those of you who were not convinced.  You are not going to believe what happened next.

I was on my way to get the mirror fixed when they car suddenly began to slow down.  Not a steady slow down, but  more of a lurching slow down.  Yep, I ran out of gas.  I was so distraught over my accident that I didn’t think to fill up which had been on my list of things to do after the oil change.

I was on kind of a busy boulevard so I really didn’t want to walk back over the bridge to look for a gas station in the retail district.  Besides it is getting colder and I wasn’t exactly dressed for a trek.  I called my poor husband and explained my predicament.  I tried to blame him for it, but that didn’t fly.  Luckily he had a break between appointments and was able to bail me out.

While I was waiting stranded on the side of the road, I was exceptionally impressed with the number of people who stopped to ask if I needed assistance.  Having my faith in the kindness of others renewed always makes me feel better.

Hubby showed up and filled my up with enough gas to make it to the next station.  I was quite late for my appointment to get the mirror fixed, but I guess they had some cancellations or something, because they were able to take me in anyway.

The job cost a little more than they had anticipated, but overall the price wasn’t too bad.  The Yukon is safe and sound in the garage now and I think it might just be best for everyone if I left it there for a while.

I don’t want to perpetuate an unfortunate stereotype, but I am a woman and I am a lousy driver.  I know, I know I am probably setting our movement back 100 years, but I can’t help my honesty.  I get lost and disoriented easily and I inspire fear and close encounters with death for my passengers.  And really, that is just the tip of the iceberg.  And no that picture above is not really me.  I am not that bad.

With winter approaching I took my Yukon in for an oil change.  While going through the drive-thru to pick up a coffee I clipped off my rear view mirror on one of those big yellow concrete posts they have to prevent people like me from knocking the whole building off its foundation.

Slightly depressed I continued on my way to one of those "while you wait" oil changing service stations.  They did things to my truck and while the tried to tell me what they were I just smiled and nodded.  The could have replaced the oil with kool-aid for all I know, but I figure these guys aren’t in business by doing things to far off from what is expected.

I asked for some advice on the mirror thing and they suggested the dealer down the street.  I proceeded to the dealer to get a quote on the repair.  Turns out this sort of thing is kind of pricey but what can I do?  The work needs to be done so I booked a time to bring it back.  Turns it into one expensive oil change though!

Today my 5-year old daughter asked me when we would be putting up our Christmas tree.  Oh my goodness!  I feel like we just finished carving pumpkins and already we are thinking about decorating for the next holiday.

There is little debate that the holidays have been significantly commercialized.  Whether this has gone to far depends on your perception I guess.  I don’t have anything against decorating in the spirit of the holidays, especially if it brings forth feelings of generosity, kindness and goodwill untoward others.

I am not a fan of retail stores simply trying to make a few extra bucks by pimping the next holiday in hopes of eking out a few more days of sales.  That is taking things too far in my opinion.  The best compromise is commercial activity that endeavors to promote the true meaning of the holiday.  Then everybody wins, but this is often a lofty goal.

When I was growing up we never put the tree up until just a couple of weeks before the big day.  We never put it up in the middle of November, but as I drive through the neighborhood I can see other families have already put up their trees and are displaying them in their windows.  Is this not ridiculously too soon?  When do you guys put up your trees?

Something I really enjoyed when I was in high school was acting, but you know how it is.  After graduation, marriage, kids, career kinda make that sort of thing take a back seat to more pressing reality.  Well my home life has stabilized a bit lately so a few weeks ago I auditioned for a community play and was cast in a small but significant part.  The performance is still a few weeks away and I a have been busy rehearsing.

I am exciting to be back into it, but acting is coming back to me a lot less naturally than it used to.  I wonder if it is the absence of my youthful exuberance that is causing the problem.  When the whole world was a dream of possibilities it was much easier to slip into a fanciful personality and portray it convincingly.  I fear the harsh realities of life have left me jaded.

As I stopped to reflect on this, I feel that this outlook colors most facets of my existence.  I am less the dreamer and risk taker that defined me in my teens.  Now I carefully weight the pros and cons of every decision I make and I am ALOT more deliberate in my actions and choices.  I am old.  Blech.

It is difficult for me to just let go.  Just let go and live.

I am still trying to decide if this really a problem though.  While some would argue unquestionably that it is a huge, terrible loss, I am not quite convinced.  We go through several stages of metamorphosis throughout our lifetimes.  We need to in order to endure the unique challenges that each period of our lives hurls at us.

We need to be dreamers in our young adult years so that we can propel ourselves in a direction of reaching to be more than we are at that time.   When we are getting married and building families we need to be more diligent in our efforts to protect what it is that we are responsible for nurturing.  When we have grown children of our own, we need to shift in to a role of sage advisor so that we may guide our children on a path that is clear of obstacles that we have identified and conquered.

While I am looking forward to my acting gig, I am happy that I do not live a life that I feel I need to escape from.

I am never sure when I should be getting this going.  You of course don’t want to do it too early, but you certainly don’t want to do a rush job at the last minute either.  I figured 6 days before was as good as any, so we rolled up our sleaves today and commenced in the annual pumpkin carving tradition.

I am incredibly picky when it comes to selecting a pumpkin.  Perhaps it is my OCD shining though, but the pumpkin has to be as "perfectly" shaped as possible.  No tall skinny pumpkins and no short squat ones either.  I like my Christmas trees artificial and full and I like my pumpkins to be pumpkin shaped.  As long as pumpkin shape equals normal.  That isn’t making sense, but hopefully you get my point.

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Welcome to my new blog.  If it is your first time here pull up a chair and stay a while.  It probably is your first time here if you are reading this post because it is my first post and the blog didn’t exists before this.

Anyway I have never done anything like this before and I hope I can live up to the expectations that a blog should be at least somewhat interesting to read on a frequent basis.

For friends and family I’ll be updating you and what is happening at Chez Ortagus.  How the kids are doing, how hubby is doing, what we ate for dinner etc.  (just kidding, I hate it when bloggers yak about what they ate for dinner.

For new visitors, and I do hope I attract some, I will share with you my ramblings about current events, politics or anything else that enters my mind or tickles my fancy.  Please leave a comment to let me know what your thoughts are on the topic of the day too!

I am a pretty down to earth individual and I don’t lean to far to the left or the right (but we do need a change next month).  Some of my posts might just be about what movie I saw or what was on TV last night, while others may get a little deeper and introspective.  But not too much to scare anyone off.  I am pretty set in my beliefs, but I always enjoy hearing a different opinion.