Up And Running.....

No more than 30 minutes ago, I joined the real world again. My power was finally restored and I'm grateful that we survived with barely a scratch. My town was very hard hit with wind, leaving in it's wake power outages and lots of downed trees all over the place, but now that the power is restored I feel anew. I can hardly complain. After three days of no power, I was finally able to put a TV back on and see what happened around me.

Look at New York City and New Jersey. Oh my.

NYU was clobbered and almost all of the dormitories were evacuated due to power outages and flooding. The school will remain closed until Saturday and classes will resume on Monday. Frick is fine, thank God. She and her roommates took the train on Sunday to New Jersey, hours before the rails were closed for the storm (inland not the Shore) to stay at one of the roommate's home. The family has 2 generators, and while they lost power and are still powerless, Frick reports to having generator power and having a ball. They are being treated like Queens and last night she text me, "Porkchops on the grill and macaroni and cheese! Can't get much better than this." I am eternally grateful to that family for watching over my baby girl during the Hurricane.

Frack is pumped...
Day three and no school and I'm thinking that he is liking this. The downside is that Frack's super excellent Golf team was scheduled to play in the State Championships on Monday, but that has been postponed until next Monday, which gives him a few more days to get prepared. GO WILDCATS!

My store never lost power, My Guy's office never lost power and all is well here in the aftermath. Driving to work, I see more and more fences, trees and power lines down, and I'm grateful that my home survived quite well. I'm thinking we are on the road to normal. That new normal I told you about.

Sandy's Not So Dandy

It seems I can remember a time when I thought living on the East Coast was truly a weather blessing. Sure, we get belted with snow in the long and hard winters on the East Coast, but if you live here, that's what you sign up for. We also get glorious, sweltering summers, like the one I am looking at in the rearview mirror right about now. I also remember, years ago listening to National news reports about frequent earthquakes on the West Coast and severe storms, twisters and flooding in the Midwestern parts of the country. I used to think that stuff only happened to other people. The ones out there. Not us here in the East.

But over the past couple of years our luck has run out. It's like payback for all that good weather karma, and we really are making up for lost time, fast. In the past two years alone, our region has been hit with devastating, severe storms, tornadoes (virtually unheard of in these parts) and ice storms more frequently than  previous history will tell. I, myself, have been affected by long lasting power outages at least three times to date. Last week we even had a "4.5  on the Richter Scale" earthquake.

So it should be of no surprise to me that yesterday, it seemed like there were millions of "Chicken Little's" running around the area, cleaning out the Home Depots of batteries and water in preparation for today's Tropical Storm Sandy. I was one of them. Gone is the warm and cozy feeling of hunkering down for a day off with family watching the storm. The fun has been replaced with worry and aggravation over the prospect of long lasting storm effects and the costly damage to homes. And I'd rather not even think about people's safety. It's not so fun anymore.

Preparing for severe weather has become a competitive sport around here and some become the envy of the neighborhood with their storm prowess. Personally, I'd rather be popular in the neighborhood for my grilling prowess, but who's complaining? This has become our "new normal" and I've got to ride it out and say my prayers. Sandy, please spare us all your wrath. These frequent Tropical Storms are messing with our lives and our livelihoods. Last year Halloween was CANCELLED, and if this continues as it's supposed to, this year is not looking promising either. Have you ever? Rescheduling Halloween?

This "new normal" just isn't normal at all. I pray that everyone rides out Sandy's wrath in safety. May the "force" of storm preparedness be with us and not the force of the storm. Please, not the force of the storm.

Crazy Cat Lady

I am SO not a cat person, but these keep going around the Internet and some of them are hilarious!

Happy weekend bloggers and try to stay out of the catnip....

Mars Vs. Venus

If it's true that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then we must really be living on two separate planets. I'm referring to business specifically, but it's also an age old question for the age old battle of the sexes. The answer, it seems is simple; men and women are different. Truth is, it's not really that simple.

Men and women approach business from different perspectives. Both genders can achieve great success, and both genders have unique strengths that can attribute to that success. Because we approach things differently, who's to say there is a template for what equates to success and what does not. Women tend to be more emotional because society encourages a more nurturing woman's role in all aspects of life. So in the workplace or in a position of power is there room for emotion?   Mental toughness is a strength, yet emotion is seen as a weakness? One could argue that it would depend upon the business and the individual, but for some, emotion is what drives their success.

In sales, emotion is paramount to hook your audience. The goal is get them excited about your brand and hopefully emotionally invested in it so that they will come back to you, time and time again. Without emotion, consumers couldn't be brand loyal and vendors couldn't motivate them to trust that brand and spend their money. Picking up on client's emotional cues or hints of unhappiness and responding to them help to keep them happy and build relationships based on trust and respect.

On the other hand, when making business decisions, emotion sometimes can cause frustration and removing the emotion from the situation is best advised for making sound decisions. A "never let them see you sweat", kind of thing, and both genders sweat emotionally in business from time to time. Barking back at a co-worker or spouting off a nasty group email, which seems satisfying in the moment, in retrospect is never a good idea.

We are different, men and women, and as such we handle all kinds of situations from different mindset.

Case in point: Take a look at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a room full of men watching the US take out Osama Bin Laden.

A picture is indeed, worth a thousand words.

These Chicken's Ain't So Little

 Check this out. It's hilarious and amazing.  I don't know what I would do.

The Story Of My Life

Whoo hoo, I'm whirling and wizzing right now like I'm on a circus ride.

Yes, I could use a cup of Johan.....

Why You Should Never Eat Chinese Food While Watching A Nail Biting, Down To The Wire, Patriots Vs. Jets Game Later In The Evening

So this is really weird.

I wake up last night at 4 am from a sound sleep, and the word, "esoteric" is in my brain. I'm thinking about the word esoteric, yet I can't define it. Now it's 4 am and I'm thinking, "Is that even a word?" Then I realize that, yes, it's a word but I have no clue what it means. All I can think about is that when I get up, I have to find out what the definition of "esoteric" means.

First thing this morning I define the word esoteric, "Intended for or understood by only a particular group."
Ok, so why this word? Why me? This is getting weirder by the minute.

I dig a bit deeper and come up with esoteric a lot when related to dreams, but I can't really put my finger on why I am dreaming about this particular word. Then I come up with this from The Dream Dictionary:

"If the dreamer in a dream hear a word more than once, then meaning of it can be critical. Word is generally indicated as letter or name. It usually contains a message from the unconscious, which can be clearly heard or read."

Ok, so what's the message here?

Another site says "To see random words like that is a sign of clutter or confusion in your mind - basically random "noise." 

Now this makes more sense.

Random noise.

Understood by only me. Intended for us.

So esoteric....

Hmmmmm.

I think it best to lay off the Chinese late at night.