Management Course Lesson 5

A turkey was chatting with a bull.

'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.'

'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. 'They're packed with nutrients.'

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:
Bull S**t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Management Course Lesson 4

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?'

The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit, and ate it.

Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Management Course Lesson 3

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and their manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.

They rub it and a Genie comes out.

The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'

'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'

Puff! She's gone.

'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas, and the love of my life.'

Puff! He's gone.

'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.

The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'

Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.

Management Course Lesson 2

A priest offered a Nun a lift.

She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.

The priest nearly had an accident.

After regaining control of the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest removed his hand, but after changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Management Course Lesson 1

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.

The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.

When she opens the door, there stands Ray, the next-door neighbor.

Before she says a word, Ray says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.'

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Ray, after a few seconds, Ray hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'

'It was Ray, the next door neighbor,' she replies.

'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

My friend is into creating a lot of different items but doesn't have an Etsy shop of her own. Not yet anyway. She really should open one up though.

One thing she makes various designs of are Christmas tree ornaments. Since she is so sweet to post my shop on her Facebook page because I don't have Facebook, I am using this blog post to show off just one of the ornaments she has made recently. Isn't it SO cute?

So now do you have the song stuck in your head?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

Post Office Dilemma

Today I'm blogging about a dilemma I had with the mailing of a package.

I went to the post office last night and used the machine in the lobby area to mail packages. I've used this machine many MANY times in the past and have never had a problem. Unfortunately last night I did. I had 6 packages to mail. 5 of the 6 labels printed properly. Grrrrr! Obviously that meant I couldn't mail one of the packages.

I went today to the post office during regular hours to deal with this. Unfortunately the man working today did not seem to really know how to handle this. Since I had already paid for the postage last night, he printed a new label and put it on the package and didn't recharge me. I am hoping the package will arrive to my buyer in a timely manner and not come back to me or encounter any other postage issues but I am going to be completely honest when I say I left with not much confidence the package would arrive with no additional problems. When the man working says things like, "It should be fine." You tend to worry.

Hopefully all will be fine and I'm worrying for nothing. Only time will tell!

Bring On Spring

So is anyone else ready for spring yet? I don't like the cold at all!

For one, because, well it's COLD!

Two, there always seems to be someone you know sick so obviously you want to steer clear of them so you don't catch it.

And three, my skin gets SO dry!

There's probably lots of other reasons to not like the cold but these are three that come to mind.

I'm ready for some warmer weather so bring on spring already! I'm ready to see all the beautiful flowers that bloom in the spring! Aren't you?

The Furniture Decided

This blog post is a follow-up to my previous blog post. If you didn't read the previous one, a brief recap is my hubby's parents gave us their couch and loveseat because they bought brand new furniture. Hubby and I were trying to decide whether to put our current furniture or the furniture from his parents downstairs in our basement. Hubby and I finally decided we would put the couch and loveseat his parents gave us downstairs.

Well, last night the furniture decided differently. When my dad came over to help hubby carry the couch and loveseat, they started with the loveseat. They got it from the living room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. When they went to take it through the door to go down to the basement, yep, you guessed it. It wouldn't fit! Just our luck!

Since the loveseat from hubby's parents wouldn't fit that meant our current furniture had to go down in the basement. Thankfully it was a bit smaller so it fit through the doorway! Otherwise we would have had a FULL living room upstairs!

Where To Put The Furniture?

We already purchased a new entertainment credenza for our living room so our HUGE entertainment center we were using went downstairs in our basement. When hubby's parents asked if we'd want their old couch and loveseat because they got new ones, we said yes. That worked out great because now we could have a little living room area in the basement too.

Hubby's parents furniture is actually still in really good condition so we're still trying to decide if we want to put our current couch and loveseat downstairs or if we want to put his parent's furniture down there.

I'm undecided because even though hubby's parent's furniture is still in good condition so is our current furniture. It makes it harder to decide because our couch and loveseat match the upstairs great and I have these wonderful quilts to lay on the back of them that match too that my grandparents made for us. Hubby's parents furniture would match the upstairs too but I'm not sure how the quilts would look on them.

Also, the fact that we paid for our current furniture and it still looks nice comes into consideration. Whichever set goes in the basement won't get used very often so this kind of makes me want to put the hand me down furniture downstairs so we can continue using the ones we paid for.

But.......then you have the cushions. Our current furniture has back cushions that come off that our son likes to take on and off which can be a tad annoying at times. Hubby's parents furniture doesn't have this so that would be nice.

Hmmm.......where to put which set? Decisions. Decisions.

Character Phrases

I was lying in bed last night and woke up a few different times. One of the times, out of no where I had a phrase from a tv show pop in my thoughts.

The phrase that popped into my head in the middle of the night was, "Hey. Hey. Hey." You know, from the television show Fat Albert. Yeah, don't ask me why this came to my mind. I have NO clue. Hmmm...maybe it was something I ate?

Well, this got me thinking about other tv, movie, and cartoon character phrases so I decided I am going to compile a list of some. Here goes:

Rut Roh! by Scooby Doo

Zoinks! by Shaggy from Scooby Doo

Willlllllllmaaaa! by Fred Flintstone

Kachow! by Lightning McQueen

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha! by Jan on The Brady Bunch

You got it dude! by Michelle on Full House

Did I do that? by Steve Urkell on Family Matters

Whatchoo talkin' bout' Willis? by Arnold on Different Strokes

To the bat cave! by Batman

Up, up, and away! by Superman

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. by Mr. Rogers

If you can think of any, leave a comment!

Proud Parents

Hmmmm.....I am at a total loss as to what to blog about tonight. With a New Year's resolution to blog daily I have to post SOMETHING though. Can't break my resolution in the FIRST month of the year.

I think I'm going to use this blog post to brag about my daughter and how well she is doing in school! We are SO proud of our little girl! Shhhh.....don't tell her I referred to her as "little". She might not like that!

Our daughter is in second grade and doing fabulous academically. She is above average in pretty much every subject in school and is reading on a 6th grade level. Yep, I said our second grader is reading on a 6th grade level! We call her our little rocket scientist!

At our last teacher conference, our daughter's teacher briefly discussed the gifted program available in our school district. I think she is going to recommend our daugther for the program. I believe the teachers will soon be making their recommendations so we should know before long if they will be testing our daughter for the program.

We are SO glad that all of our daughter's teachers from kindergarten to now have all recognized she is above average and taken steps to make sure she is continuing to learn beyond what they are teaching. They are taking steps to keep her from being bored at school. Can't have your child bored and not liking school ever, especially when they are this young. There are still many more years of school to come!

I think my son is going to be just as smart! He LOVES to have stories read to him just like my daughter did at his age and he is also FABULOUS at putting puzzles together just like my daughter was. As any parent hopes for their children, we hope that they will both grow up to be successful adults!

Unknown Phone Numbers

When ever the house phone or one of our cell phones ring and the phone number is not one either my hubby or I recognize, we generally will not answer the phone. We have voice mail on our house phone and our cell phones so we figure if it ends up being someone we know who really need/wants to talk with us they will leave a message and we'll call them back.

We've been rearranging furniture lately and my hubby plugged in an extra phone in the living room. Well, my son doesn't know the "if we don't know the phone number we don't answer it" screening process when the phone rings.

Yep, you can guess what happened, can't ya? When the phone rang, I looked at the caller ID, didn't recognize who it was, and wasn't going to answer. Next thing I hear is a little voice saying, "Hello." It was kind of cute but yet not so cute. I think he thought it was daddy on the other end. I just hung up the phone. Who ever it was must have either had the wrong number or didn't want to talk to us because they never called back.

Ummm....the extra phone hubby plugged in will not be staying plugged in!

Check Engine Light

Not sure if I want to tell my hubby the check engine light came on in my truck tonight? The last time I told him something wasn't quite right with my truck, he went round and round with it for two days before having to end up calling reinforcements to help him.

I suppose I really should mention it though seeing as to how I am not a mechanic and have NO clue as to what is wrong with it. Maybe this time it will actually be a simple, easy fix for hubby to take care of. Maybe. *fingers crossed*

I guess if it ends up being a pain in hubby's rear again, it'll give me something to blog about!

Wiggle It

Wiggle it. Just a little bit. That is all that was needed to be done to my truck to get it to run.

My hubby had been fighting with it for two days and having no luck getting it to start and run right so he called one of our friends who is a mechanic. He came over after work last night and was here less than an hour.

They worked under the hood doing this and that to it. Apparently all that was needed was to have one of the wires wiggled and ta da my truck will now start! Yay! Funny thing is my hubby said he had already wiggled that wire. Guess my truck really doesn't like my hubby but likes our friend!

Truck Don't Like Hubby

My truck doesn't like my hubby at the moment. Hubby has commented that the recent fix to my truck reminds him of Gilligan's Island. What started out as a simple 3 hour fix has now turned into two days so far. I think he is getting frustrated with my truck!

Yesterday he spent part of the day going to the junk yard to find the part needed only to spend money to get into the junk yard and all the trucks like mine were already missing the part he was looking for.

To buy it brand new or off eBay is a bit pricey for our checkbook right now so he decided to try to fix the broken piece. I think he thought he had it fixed so he put everything back together only to find a leak when the truck was started.

He took it apart to fix the leak, put it back together, and started it up. It started but was running rough so back apart it came. He figured out he forgot to connect two lines, fixed another leak he found, and put it all back together.

Poor guy! Now it won't start at all. I think he is ready to kick it! Trade it in is what my grandpa would tell us. If only we could!

Hairy Legs

Ever notice how us women get lazy when it comes to shaving our legs once the weather turns cold. Okay, maybe not ALL women but I'm sure some do. I know I am guilty of this at times.

I figure, "Eh, who's gonna see besides my hubby?" Well, hubby married me for better, for worse, in sickness and health, and all that other stuff. I figure hairy legs fall SOMEWHERE in that category, right?

Hotel Bill Chuckle

An elderly lady decided to give herself a big treat for her significant 70th birthday by staying overnight in an expensive hotel.

When she checked out the next morning, the desk clerk handed her a bill for $250.00. She exploded and demanded to know why the charge was so high. "It's a nice hotel but the rooms certainly aren't worth $250.00 for just an overnight stay! I didn't even have breakfast."

The clerk told her that $250.00 is the 'standard rate', so she insisted on speaking to the Manager.

The Manager appeared and, forewarned by the desk clerk, announced: "This hotel has an Olympic-sized pool and a huge conference center which are available for use."

"But I didn't use them," she said.

''Well, they are here, and you could have," explained the Manager.

He went on to explain that she could also have seen one of the in-hotel shows for which the hotel is famous. "We have the best entertainers from the world over performing here," the Manager said.

"But I didn't go to any of those shows," she said.

"Well, we have them, and you could have," the Manager replied.

No matter what amenity the Manager mentioned, she replied, "But I didn't use it!" and the Manager countered with his standard response.

After several minutes of discussion with the Manager unmoved, she decided to pay, wrote a check, and gave it to him.

The Manager was surprised when he looked at the check. "But madam, this check is for only $50.00."

"That's correct. I charged you $200.00 for sleeping with me," she replied.

"But I didn't!" exclaims the very surprised Manager.

"Well, too bad, I was here, and you could have."

Don't mess with Senior Citizens!

Friday The 13th

With it being Friday the 13th, it made me think of this question. Are you superstitious?

My daughter often makes me think of the old wive's tale/superstition "Don't step on a crack. You'll break your mother's back." When we're walking she'll try to avoid the cracks on the ground sometimes. If she is thinking about it that is. Sometimes she'll have it on her mind and other times she doesn't. Obviously we know this doesn't really happen anyway.

I'd have to say that I don't think I'm really superstitious but sometimes superstitions cross my mind like if a black cat crosses the street in front of me or if the salt shaker tips over spilling salt on the table.

I just think about the superstitions when things like this happen. I by no means get worried about having bad luck and I don't toss salt over my shoulder if salt spills on the table. That is what you are supposedly suppose to do right? I have no clue?

Isn't there one about a ladder? You're not suppose to walk under it? Oh, and don't open an umbrella in the house. I just remembered that one too. Right now I can't even really think of too many other superstitions? Can you? If so, leave a comment for the rest of us to read.

Cute Things My Son Said Today

Today my blog post is about a few cute things my son said today. He just came out of the kitchen after getting into one of the drawers and proudly holding something in his hand said, "I got my fork."

When I told him he didn't need a fork yet because it wasn't lunchtime he looked down and in a disappointed little voice said, "Awwww.....man."

I thought this was so cute so I was just sitting there looking at him with a smile on my face. This made him smile and he said, "I like lunch."

After all that I suppose we should have lunch now. :-)

Sing REALLY Loud

I help out with the 2-3 year old room for a MOPS meeting once a month. One of the fun things that I do with the kids is have them all sit on the blue rug that is in our room and we sing songs.

This age group just loves to sing already but to make it even more fun I usually tell them right before we start each song to sing REALLY loud if they know the words. This gets them even that much more involved.

One time after the meeting I heard one of the little boys telling his mom that they sang really loud. I think it is cute that even at such a young age they remember things they did and share it with their parents. Of course, this particular time the mom was kind of looking at her son with a strange face trying to figure out what he was talking about. Once I explained to her what he was telling her I think she thought it was cute.

Coming Up With Topics

I really enjoy blogging but sometimes struggle to come up with topics to blog about. With kids and a hubby you would think there would always be something I could write a blog post on but I just never know if my readers would enjoy reading some of the things my family does. My goal is to keep you all interested so you keep coming back to see what else I have blogged about!

Since one of my New Year's resolutions was to blog daily, that means I am going to need 366 topics since 2012 is leap year. Wow! That's a whole lotta topics!

In the past I have featured fellow Etsians on my blog so I have decided to start doing that again only more often. If you have an Etsy shop and would like to be featured on my blog please leave a comment so I'll know.

Stay tuned for some Etsy shop features in the future! Some you may have seen before, some may be new to you! Only time will tell!

Etsy Meet Up Team

I'm on the Etsy Meet Up Team that can be found here. Today I spent WAY too much time on the computer! I should have been crocheting but I was promoting.

Wondering what I was promoting? Let me tell ya and then show ya! I put together a treasury featuring blue items from 16 different shops on the Etsy Meet Up Team. You can see the treasury by clicking here.

I am THRILLED to say that with all my promoting and the promoting of others along with everyone who took the time to stop in, have a look, comment, click, and share the link, the Etsy Meet Up Team blue treasury made it all the way to page 5! Yay!

The Lost Barbie

Whenever we go to someones' house to open presents for Christmas I don't like for my kids to open any of their new gifts while we are there because I'm always afraid they will lose them or forget them especially when we are out of town because then it wouldn't be quite so easy to go back for them the next day. I would rather they wait until we were home to open them especially if there are lots of small parts.

Yesterday we were at my grandparents' house for our family Christmas and yep, you guessed it. Something was lost. Oh and yes, I said Christmas in January. Due to everyone having so many different places to be for the holiday including out of town places, our family has decided that meeting a week or two after Christmas works best for us all.

Back to the lost something. My grandparents gave my daughter and my cousins' daughter each a Barbie play set. Well, since my cousin let her daughter open her play set, of course my daughter wanted hers open as well. I didn't really want to because there were so many pieces but I caved and let her open it. We only took out the Barbie doll though, not all the accessory pieces that came with it. I didn't figure it would hurt to just have the Barbie doll. Yeah, I was proven wrong!

When it came time to go home, yep, you guessed it again! Barbie was NO WHERE to be found! We looked all over my grandparents' house. No Barbie! The last time I had seen my daughter with it was when we were outside and she was going inside to put it away since she was finished playing with it.

When we asked her where she put it she said she had put it on the bag with a quilt in it. Well, we all get a quilt made by my grandparents for Christmas so there were a lot of bags with quilts in them to choose from. At the time she said she put Barbie on a bag with a quilt I believe my hubby had already taken our bag out to the truck so it wasn't our quilt Barbie was lying on.

Grandma looked in the bag my daughter thought she put Barbie on but she wasn't there. I called two of my brothers and my mom so they could double check their bags but alas Barbie is still missing. I think we are going to go back to my grandparents house later today to have another look around.

She has a lot more Barbie dolls already so she doesn't necessarily NEED this one but of course she WANTS it. Hmmmm....wonder if from now on she'll want to wait to open her new items until she gets home so that this won't happen again? I'm thinking, probably not but hey, at least I know mommy knows best, right?

Items My Daughter Will Be Making

My daughter is always wanting to create items for me to sell on Etsy. We have been brainstorming on some new ideas for her to do this year.

She already makes magnets and cards. I do the crochet part for her. She then does the drawing and gluing involved.

This year the new fun ideas we came up with are bookmarks and framed pictures. She'll probably also do some other magnets and cards with different shapes. Right now she just has flowers but we hope to include hearts and stars as well.

Stay tuned to see the listings here on Etsy!

Goals For Etsy For 2012

Inspired by another blogger MoiraCoon I have decided that my blog post for today will be about what my goals/hopes are for my Etsy shop for 2012.

Organization- There are times when I know I have the supplies to make something but because I have so much stuff I sometimes find myself searching for what I need. This is time wasted that could be spent creating! I plan to get all of my supplies more organized making it easier to find what I need when I need it to make something. Once I am more organized, I can be more prepared which is my next goal.

Preparation- I always say I need to be more prepared for the craft shows I participate in and for the holiday online shopping season. For 2011, I thought I was. Well, yep, you guessed it, I wasn't. Not completely anyway. My first fall craft show I did was well stocked but went so well that I didn't have much left for the next show I did. This also made me not prepared as well as I would have liked to have been for my online buyers. This year I plan to crochet, crochet, and did I mention crochet so that I have multiples of most everything I make. I want to build up a good inventory but of course I still hope to sell out of everything! Once I am more prepared I can start promoting more which is my next goal for the year.

Promoting! Promoting! Promoting!- I plan to promote a lot more this year than I have in the past. I have been blogging daily and using twitter daily. My daughter and I take turns making a daily treasury. I now belong to two teams on Etsy. I just joined my second one yesterday and have some links bookmarked to check out a few other ones. If I don't get my shop out there then I can't be seen. What better way to be seen than to join some teams and make new friends! Right? It's always fun to meet new people too so it is a win/win situation! Hopefully all my promoting will lead to my next goal of more sales!

Sales! Sales! Sales!- Let's face it. Anyone who has a shop where they are selling things always hopes for more sales. No matter how many we get I think we all still want more. Call it greed, call it needing the money, call it extra spending cash, call it whatever you want, if you are an Etsy shop owner you LOVE sales! I hope that my sales will continue to increase each year I have my Etsy shop open. Increases in sales makes one feel GREAT about what they are selling! I love the idea of people around the world using what I have created!

What are your goals/hopes for 2012?

Still Night Night Time

Last night around 2am I hear a little voice crying out from the other room. I get up out of bed and go into my little guys' room to find him sitting up. As soon as I walk in the door he lies back down. I went over and covered him back up with his blanket, told him it was still night night time, and said I love you. He went back to sleep.

It was as though he had woken up and just needed mommy to tuck him back in so he could fall back asleep. How sweet! He just wanted mommy! Wish it hadn't been 2am though! :-)

Then the little guy turned around and did practically the same thing about an hour to an hour and a half later. I am tired and could really use a nap right now but I have too much I'd like to get done so up I stay. Maybe I'll sleep in this weekend. Maybe.....

Should I Stay Up?

Ever get woke up about 2 hours before you have to be up and think, "Man, I'm still so tired I just want to go back to sleep but if I got up now I could get so much more done." Well this very thing happened to me this morning.

It didn't take me too long to make my decision on whether I should stay up or go back to sleep. Yep, you guessed it. I chose sleep!

I did NOT want to get up when my alarm went off but out of bed I got. In my mind I had the idea of getting my daughter off to school, hubby off to work, and then taking myself over to the couch to sleep a little more while my son was still in bed.

Then reality stepped in and reminded me I don't have time for a morning nap. I have errands to run and things to do around the house. Darn reality! Grrr.....

Ewww....You Stink!

I had totally hoped to have a stay in my pj's day yesterday but alas that did not happen. While I was in the bathroom putting on my deodorant and perfume my 3 year old little boy came in and wanted some too. Of course I didn't put perfume on him but I did put a bit of daddy's cologne on his arm and then we rubbed it to the other arm too.

He went to find daddy so he could smell. I heard daddy say to him, "Ewwww.....you stink!" I think my son thought that was funny. I yelled out to my hubby from the other room, "Well, if he stinks then you do too because that is your cologne."

Both of my kids wanted to be like mommy and daddy when it came to wearing deodorant and perfume/cologne. I remember my daughter putting on deodorant when she was younger. She would rub it on her belly! What fun memories that just make ya smile!

Wanna Help?

My daughter is 5 years older than my son and was sitting at the table yesterday doing a "big girl" project. From the other room I hear her ask him, "You wanna help?" Of course he did! She then told him he couldn't.

I told her not to ask him if he wanted to help and then tell him he couldn't. That wasn't very nice. Next thing I know I hear her telling him, "You can help by being quiet." Hmmm.....last I checked that isn't very nice either!

Funny thing is, she thinks her brother talks a lot when she herself talks a lot! :-)

New Year's Resolutions

I generally don't make a New Year's resolution but this year I have decided to make not one but two. One benefits others and one is just for fun for me.

My resolution that benefits others is actually one my daughter is going to help me with. Between the two of us, we are going to try and make a new treasury on Etsy promoting others every day for the WHOLE year of 2012. You can see the first one, which I made here. From that page you'll be able to click on the link to see future treasuries we make because I don't know for sure if I'll be posting the link to my blog every day because..........

My resolution that is just for fun for me is to post a new blog every day for the WHOLE year of 2012. I hope to post something that you will enjoy reading. On occasion I may "cheat" and just post a link to a treasury my daughter or I have made but for the most part I hope to post my thoughts, ideas, and funny things that happen in life. Having a hubby, two kids, and a dog, there is bound to be something fun to post about at different times!

I may even begin featuring fellow Etsy shops from time to time. I just enjoy blogging whether it be featuring someone, sharing a forwarded e-mail I receive, or posting something about my own life. I use to blog frequently and just got so busy that blogging got put in the corner. Well, I've pulled it out of the corner and blown off the dust so get yourselves ready for some reading!

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope 2012 will be a FANTASTIC year for all of you!