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The Corporate Robot

On a Roll

Reunion Week

Experiment 2: Strengths Finder 2.0

Embarking on a Year-long Journey

O Tannenbaum

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

“Isn’t it a little late to be writing about your Christmas tree, Kat? I mean, it’s already January 12!”

Sure, it’s late, but this tree is special. This tree is more than an ordinary fake tree to me. No, it doesn’t have fiber optic colors or smell of real pine needles. It’s the fake tree that I grew up with. Yup. That means this tree has been through hell and high water. It survived through moves, children yanking on its faux branches, dogs try to piddle on its trunk, year after year of decorations ranging from the hideous to the sublime, and then being boxed up every year in a really big ‘ol TV box. 

Isn’t it beeaaauutiful?

Now as it rounds the corner on its 35th or 36th Christmas, I am stuck with a dilemma: What the heck do I DO with this thing? I have no room to store it. It has been at my parents’ place for the last couple years, but they have been on a seek and destroy mission to clean up their place. I’m afraid if I send it back there, it may never come back. On the other hand, I don’t have any storage space that will even let the box through the door!

Today my friend Clint gave me a brilliant idea. Why not make it, instead of keeping it as just a Christmas tree, why not keep it up all year long and make it a HOLIDAY TREE? I could have it dressed for Valentine’s Day in no time! Red and pink hearts, some confetti, throw some chocolates on it and it’s voila! It’s done! Then comes St. Patty’s day in March, Easter in April, and maybe Cinco de Mayo for May. I think there’s a stretch between July and October that could be a little awkward, but who’s planning anyway?

The plus is that it could be a conversation piece for anyone who comes by to visit. Never worry about having an awkward starter conversation about the weather when you’re at my place! Not only can it spawn conversation, it can spawn events! We could have decoration-making parties and monthly “seasonal” dinners with a built in center piece!

Maybe I can start a trend. “Holiday Tree fad sweeps the nation. Michael’s craft store basks in auspicious windfall.” I think it’s a great idea.

Sooooo...who wants to come over and help me decorate for Valentine’s day?

Preparation H: How we barely know thee

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Perhaps I’m a bit behind the times, but I only recently heard about how Preparation H can be used for things other than swollen hemorrhoidal tissue!

I found out when my co-worker told me (and I’m not sure *how* this came up in conversation), “Preparation H can be used to reduce the bags under your eyes!” I was amazed! I mean, it makes sense. It stands to reason that other places on ones body can have engorged and inflamed tissues (and yes, I am using the word “engorged” just to gross you out!). It therefore also stand to reason that a cream meant to reduce swelling in one area might also work in another area.

I got curious and looked this up. Preparation H has phenylephrine HCL in it, which constricts blood vessels and reduces swelling. In the US, apparently, the didn’t like the idea of people using it in non-hemorrhoidal ways, so the reportedly reformulated it so it only works on your bum. I’m not even sure how they would target just butt tissue, but oh well. I guess I’ll believe them. But the Canadians seem to be OK with the unsanctioned use of the cream and have left the formula untouched and unchanged (OH Canada! eh!).

SO if you’re able to get ahold of some of this magical stuff you can use it for some of the following purposes:

1. Reduce appearance of bags under eyes.

2. Reduce facial wrinkles and lines.

3. Increase definition of muscles by dehydrating the skin, thus making it pull taut over muscles and creating the appearance of more definition. Often used by dancers and body builders.

4. Decrease the appearance of loose skin and cellulite.

5. Reduce bleeding and promote healing for new tattoos.

DISCLAIMER: I have never tried any of these things! I don’t have a tube of the US produced stuff, much less the Canadian version! However, the official Canadian Prep H site seems to stand behind at least a couple of the things listed above. Check out the official site’s beauty tips here and you can come to your own conclusions!

By the way, has anyone ever tried this before?

Sorry, I ain't your Bubba

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Today I got an awkward mis-text.

Have you ever gotten one of those text messages where it was almost too embarrassing to tell the person texting that they had the wrong person? While this may not have really been all that embarrassing, it WAS very tempting to mess with the sender.

This is what it said:

“hey its chelsie i got my phone taken away from chiteroff so yay.....but ill send u the messge after skoo i do really lov u bubba i dont want to loose u ur my eevrythin”

Oh chelsie, bubba don’t want to “loose” u neither. And yes he is thin. eevry thin.

I’m probably a better person for having only sent a text back saying, “I think you have the wrong number!” but I am infinitely a less funny person than I could have been. Drat! Goodness wins the day again! lol

Watch Dennis' Doritos Commercial!

Friday, November 06, 2009

The more you watch, the more hits it gets, the more likely you’ll see it at the Superbowl 2010!

Tell all your friends to watch this!

Prayer Style for the Attention Deficient

Monday, October 26, 2009

I don’t know about you, but prayer has always been something that is very difficult for me.

I think it has to do with my inability to actually focus if there’s ANYTHING else around within a mile radius that might emit a sound, interesting visual or odd smell. Yup, pretty much anything disrupts my concentration on trying to communicate with the divine. I think mostly it has to do with a sort of aimless wandering approach that I’ve “developed” over time. I’ve tried various prayer formulas, like the ACTS formula.

For those of you not familiar with the ACTS formula, it’s an acronym that helps guide your prayers by topic. Here’s the breakdown:

A - Adoration
C - Confession
T - Thanksgiving
S - Supplications

This was great for awhile. And then it turned very generic. I’m not sure why, but all my prayers ended up sounding the same. It was very frustrating. I guess if you think about talking to a friend, you never use such a formula. You just talk about what’s on your heart. Needless to say, ACTS fell by the wayside.

Recently at my church we had a series called, “Praying the Psalms.” That was pretty great actually! We would read through a Psalm and then literally pray it by ourselves, as if we were the author, sometimes rewriting the sentiments in our own words. While it wasn’t something I could do on a regular basis, it gave me a clue into my own needs for successful prayer time. I apparently needed time set aside for a very focused task. I guess I pray like I work.

So I’ve come up with the formula that is working for me for now. I have made up a short series to pray over: in this case, the Fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22. Every day, I pray about one characteristic, whether it’s kindness, gentleness or faithfulness. Sometimes I have to repeat them if they didn’t sink in or if I had a particularly trying to applying it for that day. I have to admit, I think I took 3 days each on Patience and Faithfulness. Those ones were hard. But that also pushed to me look up those things in the Bible (another thing I’m not particularly prone to) in order to see where those things come from and what they actually mean.

Somehow the idea of keeping thing short and focused allow me to actually DO this. It’s been good so far and I’m looking forward to figuring out what my next series is going to be. I just wanted to share in case this helps any of you!

Those Zombies...they're so HOT right now!

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Zombies. Have you noticed them a lot in the media too?

Every undead has their day. The vampires have been frolicking insistently and annoyingly through media for the past season. But move over bacon! Here comes something better! That’s right...ZOMBIES.

Zombies have been steadily making their presence known in the media with movies like Shawn of the dead and books like The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.

Zombies often appear in video games. It’s the only guiltless violent game I can play. I mean, come on! They’re already dead! I’m just putting them out of their misery! My favorite is Typing of the Dead.

Then there’s Zombieland the movie, which comes out tomorrow. Looks hilarious.

And finally we’re back at the book where I left you oh so many months ago--Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I’m actually reading it now. It’s pretty entertaining. Who knew that going to a ball could be just as normal as slashing zombies in half? I have to say that the character development is the part that throws me off. I’m so used to the way the girls are normally portrayed. It’s hard to accept the idea that all five sisters are trained killers who have learned Western defense/weaponry and studied with a Shaolin master and now live by the warrior code. It evokes more of Batman Begins than Pride and Prejudice (the non-undead version). For example, Mary almost guts Mr. Collins for suggesting that the girls cooked a lovely dinner--something she took great offense to as she is a warrior and would never be caught doing such unwarrior-like activity.

I’m only part of the way through, but it should a fun read. It’s nice to be reading for enjoyment again! I’ve been through an intellectual drought and this seems to be a nice habit to reinstate. (Though it may be argued that the book above does nothing to help my intellectual drought situation!) It started by finishing off the Harry Potter series, moving on to Malcolm Gladwell’s books Blink, Tipping Point and Outliers, and then recently finishing Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

So what o fearless reader (if there are indeed any of you left) are YOU reading these days?