Book Recommendation: The Secret

A couple of weeks ago Oprah featured the author of a Book and DVD called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. It's about the secret to life and to getting EVERYTHING you've ever wanted in life. The premise is based on the Law of Attraction. That we attract everything into our lives through our thoughts. It's basically the power of positive thought and manifesting our thoughts. It talks about how most people think thoughts about what they don't want; however the universe doesn't understand the don't concept, so it actually brings about the things that we don't want. I feel that this is really true in my life. For example, whenever I walk into the hallway of my building I think about how I don't want to see BW and his little chiquita. But inevitably I see them. Prior to this never, did I run into him. I also when I meet a new guy, automatically think about how I hope he is not another guy who doesn't want a relationship and guess what. He doesn't!

So how I'm putting this into practice is to stop thinking about BW/chiquita... I'm gong to train myself to think about how successful I'm going to be at my freelance work life. I'm also going to train myself to start believing that the next great guy that I meet IS going to want a relationship WITH ME! I tell you though that last one is going to be hard. I've become Pavlov's dog in that respect.

Anyway, the book is good. It has some really great concepts in it. The DVD is even more powerful. I think you can go to The Secret website and watch the movie for $5 or so. I really suggest you watch. I think we can all use a little more positive framing in our life and focus on those self-fulfilling prophecies in a positive way.

Welcome International Visitors!

My good friend Jeff A. encouraged me to add Google Analytics to my blog. It provides some very interesting info. Last week I had more new visitors than existing. Wow! Anyway, the cool thing is that there is a map on Google Analytics that shows where all my visitors are coming from and I have recently had a visitor from Chadigarh, India! Wow! That is SO cool! So welcome to my little blog! I hope you didn't get the wrong impression from my blog title, if you're some purvy guy, you could expect it to be completely different. This blog is pretty simple, just my adventures in and around San Diego.

Do you know that Chadigarh means The City Beautiful? I did not. Learned that on Wikipedia. Check it out. It looks like a pretty amazing city. India is definitely on the list of places to visit.


And if you visiting from another state or even country, drop me a comment! Thanks for visiting.

Cheers!

One of San Diego's Best Kept Secrets

I've recently discovered one of San Diego's best kept secrets. Free adult education classes through the San Diego Community College District. They have classes on all sorts of stuff. I'm working on some professional education and am taking an Illustrator class. I'm planning on taking some other classes on Photoshop, InDesign, web design, HTML, search enginge marketing classes to help develop my on-going skills as I develop Brand Sassy Blonde Girl. But I also plan on taking some fun classes, Art, Writing and maybe even some Culinary Arts Classes! Woot! I want to perfect my cake decorating ability, as that's my thing now... when I go to a party I bring a home-made cake. Yumm!

Anyway, check it out for yourself!

Good vs. Evil

The problem with me, sometimes, is that I want to take revenge. 99.9% of the time I don't act on that impulse; I'm a pretty self-controlled individual. But today, I want to use this post to bash a man and trash his name all over the internet. However, I'm not going to stoop to that. It's bad karma. So, I'll just say, that recently met a guy, we went on a few dates, we've been exchanging emails, however, he never responds promptly to my emails. It's so RUDE! Anyway, I'm focusing on my positive energy and who I share that with. Not him. You can read about previous Man Rants here.

Wordless Wednesday

Hot Huts
Originally uploaded by alexandrecc.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Happy St. Patty's Day!
Originally uploaded by kelsana.

Wishing you the luck of the Irish today!

Thursday 13 - March 15, 2007

13 Reasons Why I'm Happy I'm Still Single

1) Don't have to check in with anyone to in order to go out with my friends
2) Don't owe anyone any explanations on how I spend my $$
3) Don't have to explain to anyone why I need another pair of black shoes or little black dress or new lipstick
4) Doing laundry for one is a ton faster
5) I can watch whatever I want on TV whenever I want to
6) I can leave all the lights on in the house
7) I can eat a bowl of cereal over the sink for dinner
8) I get great nights sleep; no snorer to keep me up
9) I can take as long as I want to get ready in the bathroom
10) I can decorate my place exactly the way I want it
11) The only mess I have to pick up is mine
12) No in-laws to suck up to
13) I can date multiple men if I want to!

Discipline

I'm really struggling with the discipline it takes to manage my time while freelancing. I've found a great tool to utilize to track my hourly billing; but I'm not that great at activating it or turning it off.

Today for example, I got up early and feel like I was pretty productive, yet, when I look at the hours I billed 2:29, I feel like I haven't been productive at all. My goal is to bill a minimum of 3 hours a day, and I know I spent 3 hours working for my clients. I did spend way too much time on my volunteer work with a marketing association today, so that doesn't help. Plus, I'm not that great with using the time. Hitting it when I start and when I finish a project.

I guess the more I use it the more effective I'll be at starting it and ending it timely.

Frustrating...

Associated Content

Hey, check out this video about Associated Content!

Still light out

It's 6:00 pm and with the time change, it's still light out. I'm so happy that the days are getting longer. Pretty soon it will be warm enough to spend the afternoon at the pool. I'm very ready to enjoy the summer. I had a great summer last year!

Today has been a really great day. Got up early and met my friend KZ for a visit to the San Diego Museum of Art to check out the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. The exhibit was wonderful; featuring her professional work alongside personal family photos from 1990 - 2005. The photo series was very touching; especially the personal photos of her partner Susan Sontag's struggle through many bouts of cancer. She shared some very sad photos of Susan and of her father's death. I got very teary looking at those photos. But weird fact, Annie, gave birth to her first child at 51! And then three years later to twins. I definitely am a supporter of women having children whenever they decide, into their 40's, but in your mid 50s seems extreme. Her children will be 10 when she is 65. I want to go back sometime during the week to go through the exhibit again as there was a movie I didn't get to watch completely, it was very crowded. I highly recommend checking out the exhibit if you get a chance.

From there we walked over to Spanish Village and checked out some of San Diego's local artisans. It was beautiful in Balboa Park today and we decided to have lunch at the Prado. It's definitely spring in San Diego. Lunch was delicious and I enjoyed a Mojito. I'm ready to mix up the first batch of 2007 Mango Mojitos for poolside enjoyment.

Tonight will be a nice night in, I've got plans to make some Brussels sprouts with panchetta. Yumm! I've been out every night this week since Tuesday night. And will be out most of next week.

Maybe a date...

So, I may be going on a date next week. Yep. Last Wednesday, went to a networking event and met two guys. Pretty big night for me. Anyway, met the first guy, "N", he seemed nice enough. The girls were adamant after he left the bar to have dinner in the restaurant, that I give him my card suggesting we get a drink sometime. As we were debating that, another guy "S" sits down and starts giving me the eye. KZ was convinced that S was 10 years younger then me. Anyway, long story short, I sent my card over to N via a waitress, and as we were flying out of the bar, S, mans up and asks me for my info. AND then he's even brave enough to email me and suggest we get together for a drink. So, right now we are trying to figure out when that will be. So looks like I'm going to possibly have a date. Pretty interesting.

Don't forget to Spring Forward. Huh... maybe it's the spring thing.

Something to think about

"Tough times don't last. Tough people do!" not sure of the author

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Today's post is a Thursday 13 list. I've kind of fallen off the bandwagon here, with the Thursday 13 stuff, so here goes.

13 Songs that I Love in no Particular Order!

1) Brand New Day - Sting
2) Lips Like Sugar - Echo & the Bunnymen
3) Holiday - Madonna
4) Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies
5) Dream Some - Shelby Lynne
6) Never Stop - Brand New Heavies
7) Mirror in the Bathroom - The English Beat
8) Luxurious - Gwen Stefani
9) Baby I'm a Star - Prince
10) Rock With You - Michael Jackson
11) Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz
12) Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
13) I Will Survive - Cake

Wordless Wednesday

In the middle of nowhere...
Originally uploaded by Claudia1967.

Suze Orman

One of my personal goals is to get out of debt and build my emergency fund back up. Personal finance has been a minor obsession with me for over a year now. Started when I read "Smart Women Finish Rich" by David Bach. I love that book. I believe it's a book that every woman should read, regardless of where she is in her life. The one point that I took from that book that I like to share, is that women should be saving 12% of their income, because the 10% rule was based on an average man's life expectancy. Women lives 20% longer then men, therefor should be saving 20% more. That book really frightened and inspired me. Cut to a year later and I'm much more worse off financially, just adding to my obsession.

Anyway, I don't expect that to last long (what's long...). When I began my search for knowledge I attended a seminar by the Learning Annex that featured Suze Orman as the keynote speaker. She was good. I've been meaning to pick up her book, but just haven't had the time. Anyway, surfing around last night I found her on my local PBS station giving a presentation on her latest book Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control your Financial Destiny. I was only able to catch about 30 minutes before they cut to the break where they ask for your contribution (I'm so guilty as I've not been able to renew my contribution) and then it Hero's came on. I'm going to program my Tivo to record the program for watching later on.

When I had cable, I would watch her program on CNBC, but at times found her manner abrasive. At times I felt really bad for the callers. Anyway, from what I was able to watch of her program on PBS, it seemed like a good inspirational, "women take control of your financial lives" talk. Once I watch the complete program I'll provide more info.

I'll post more about my personal finance obsession later. My question to you is, "Is your financial life in order?"

Out of it...

Just a quick post to let you know that I've not fallen off the face of the earth. Just, busy? Well, I'm a bit out of it. I've been taking a ton of stuff for my allergies... makes me a bit lazy and drowsy. Spent time this weekend with my friend Randy and her husband and little girl on Saturday. Her daughter is the cutest. So sweet and loving. I just adore her. We had a nice time... I was out of it though. Then Saturday night and Sunday I was busy working on a friends patio. So, all in all pretty uneventful weekend.

But it looks like I have some spending coming up. My mom's retiring this week and I need to think of something significant to do/give her to commemorate the occasion. Also, I must confess I went to Bloomingdale's yesterday to use a gift card and I spent more than the gift card amount. Only $12... well worth it!

Tomorrow, going to get going!