New Year, New Lives

It's a new year, so I finally came back to start this thing over again. Deleted all the previous stuff as I have different interests now and little time. Yep, that's my real pic. Don't care if I'm linked to my pen name.

2009 was pretty bad. My husband has now been laid off for one year and one month, so I work pretty much 24/7. Sleep about 3-4 hours a night. Barely paying the bills. Health insurance up to $695 a month on COBRA and can't keep it up much longer. My uncle and my BIL died.

But my daughter has a new baby, another daughter is due in 5 weeks, and another one got married in November.

That's not to say I don't have fun, though! I enjoy writing to my authors and friends, hopefully will enjoy this blog again, I still play my instruments (have a new cello - rented of course), and I got a Nintento DS Lite for Christmas and have collected every used brain game I can find thus far (but only have about 30" a day to play it). I love to cook but not much time for it - I always cook a big meal on Sundays when my dad comes over to watch football. We have a contest every year - we all make our picks on which teams will win every week. Two weeks ago I was in 6th place and I made a bunch of crazy picks (NYJ over IND, BUF over IND, CAR over NO, etc) and now I'm in 2nd place lol. We don't win anything but bragging rights but it's fun. We play beer pong (with water) every Tuesday night because it's free. And I have new baby to play with here whenever I want to. Soon to be another. I almost never do any housework -- others here do it. Christmas was great. The wedding was great (his parents paid for it).

So this year I have a few goals:
1) Work LESS
2) Play MORE
3) Develop more business/make more money
4) Find more things that D can/will do
5) Get neck/back surgery before insurance runs out, but if I did then I couldn't work and I couldn't pay the bills and then 6 people living here would have to live in a two room camper somewhere, so that's probably not going to happen.
6) Ride bicycle more

I think that's about it!

Huggs to all my friends and hope to see you soon!
Reesa

Potpourri

I learned how to Quill. I had bought a beginner's kit about a year ago and had never opened it. This is where you take little strips of paper, roll them up, and spot-glue them together, LOL. Anyway, this is my first attempt. You can tell the paper's not straight in a bunch of places, but I think I'll embed it into polymer clay and see if it looks better:


Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Dawn LIE

Okay, this post has nothing to do with my blog, but I'm really disgusted with Proctor & Gamble. I've used Dawn dish liquid for nearly 30 years because I love the scent - no matter what's in your sink, this detergent always overrode the odor, making washing dishes somewhat pleasant. I also used this product in combination with laundry detergent (only a capful) on my whites - whiter and fresher odor...

So, they changed to Ultra Dawn and changed the scent - no problem, I continued to buy "original scent" non-ultra Dawn. Last time I bought two bottles. I opened one and it was NOT the original scent. It was a smelly awful perfume scent that made me feel ill. I don't do well with perfumes, and can only tolerate certain ones. So, I figured I got a bad batch? I emailed Proctor & Gamble and this is what they replied to me with:

Thanks for contacting us.
I'm sorry about your experience with Dawn. We have changed the scent to our Dawn Original Formula. Your satisfaction means a great deal to us so I'm also responding by postal mail. Look for my letter to arrive within the next 2-3 weeks.

Thanks again for getting in touch.
P&G Team

What? They changed the scent of "original scent?" How can you change something and still call it the same name? That's so completely misleading - I wrote them back to clarify, and they stated, "I know it's frustrating when you find the perfect product and then we change it. I'm sorry you're disappointed with the changes we've made to Dawn Original. Your feedback is important to us, and I'm sharing your comments with the rest of our team."

So it's official, anyone who ever liked this product. Original scent is NOT original scent, it's a new, disgusting scent. I went to the store and sniffed every dish detergent until I found a lemon one that I could live with. Unfortunately, it doesn't cut grease as well as Dawn did. So there's my gripe for the week, LOL. And maybe anyone who saw me sniffing all the detergents will now understand...