DVR

I love our Digital Video Recorder (DVR). It's an evil contraption that I don't know how I lived without. The DVR allows me to record up to 2 shows at the same time?! Then, once recorded, I can fast forward, rewind, pause... whatever my heart desires. I can even pause live TV?! How crazy is that? Now I tape all the shows I like then watch them when I want - which is usually at 6:30 am during my 45 minutes of workout hell. However, my new best friend makes my morning workouts much more bearable.

I even tape shows that I think Erik will be interested in and sometimes we watch them together - or not, depending on the show.

I really love that I can just pause it whenever I want so I can ask Erik lots of questions. We did that last night during PBS's "Catherine the Great" which we watched "live." Since the hubby is such a history buff he tends to know lots about all sorts of stuff that usually I don't find very interesting. However, the History Channel, Discover, and PBS all seem to provide excellent and entertaining shows about historical events and figures that even I enjoy. Now thanks to DVR we can enjoy these programs together and rewind, fast forward through commercials, or pause at our leisure without having to record on the VCR or some other gizmo.

Of course now I'm probably watching more TV than I normally would... oh well, there are worse habits I could have.

Precious Stone

"A wise woman who was traveling in the 
mountains found a precious stone in a 
stream. The next day she met another 
traveler who was hungry, and the wise 
woman opened her bag to share her food.  
The hungry traveler saw the precious stone 
and asked the woman to give it to him. She  
did so without hesitation. The traveler left, 
rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the  
stone was worth enough to give him security
for a lifetime. But a few days later he came
back to return the stone to the wise woman.  
"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how
valuable the stone is, but I give it back in
the hope that you can give me something
even more precious. Give me what you have within
you that enabled you to give me
the stone."

-Author Unknown


A friend sent me the above and I thought it was too beautiful to not share.
"Precious Stone" is linked to this and other inspiring nuggets.

Surfin' Hippos

I like hippos. I think they're cute and who knew they liked to surf? O.k., me. But only because National Geographic had a special on surfing hippos. Surfing hippos! How crazy fun is that? Word to the hippo!

Wisconsin

This time next week the hubby and I will be in Wisconsin visiting the folks. I'm looking forward to it, it'll be a lot of fun. My parents are hosting a family reunion for my mom's side. I'll get to see my brother, who currently only lives about 1 - 2 hours away but it takes traveling out of state to actually "see" and visit with him. Oh well, if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

Unfortunately we won't be spending much time in WI, just the weekend and there's so much I'd love show Erik. For instance Madison can be a lot of fun! And of course I'd love to be able to get together with friends, but that just isn't an option. Maybe next year we can plan another trip for a couple weeks to see the people and places that I miss.

Order Up

I've been working on my business plan and researching my new venture: Order Up.

I'm getting closer to being an entrepreneur. I'm so excited.

A friend is helping me with the website and soon that'll be launched.

Such a great opportunity and I owe it all to my wonderful and supportive best friend. Thank you Erik! I love you more than all the stars in the universe...

Say what?

This Thursday will mark my 3rd week of Toastmasters. I'm looking forward to it. It's a great group of people and the meetings give me lots of wonderful opportunities to learn and grow.

Last week I gave my first "official" speech. It went well. I spoke a bit too fast... which didn't surprise me in the least! But I seemed to do most other things well.

Apparently I have good facial expression, body language and hand gestures. Now if I can only figure out how to s l o w i t o n d o w n. I'm sure it'll come with time.

Today I attended a different club's meeting, just to check it out. It was run very similar to the Thursday night group. And being summer it seems to be difficult to get everyone to show up.

I helped out which was nifty since the "job" I had today is the same one I'll be doing Thursday night. Good practice! I was the Timer. My responsibilities included timing each speaker and giving them a heads up when a certain amount of time had expired. The speakers like to know how much time they have left, hence the purpose of the "timer" position. Each speaker has a time limit and if they do not make it or continue speaking beyond the limit they are disqualified. For each speech the audience votes on their favorite and the winner is awarded a ribbon. Therefore each speaker tries hard to not be disqualified - it is a competition after all.