Business Cards

I ordered my first set of me-as-a-coach business cards yesterday!  I've been wanting to order them for a while, but I was waiting for a friend of mine to create a logo for me.  Yesterday I decided that instead of waiting for the logo, I would use VistaPrint's wide variety of pre-designed cards and order a small amount (they're cheap!).  Then when I do get my logo (and my certification), I'll order new ones!  VistaPrint actually has a decent interface for customizing even their pre-designed cards, so after some major maneuvering, I came up with this:

I'm happy with the way they turned out, and can't wait to see them in person!  I really haven't been doing much (read...anything) to pursue new clients over the last several weeks, and probably won't for a while longer.  I'm heading into my last weekend for my coach training this coming weekend, and we have our written exam which I've been studying for with a friend of mine from the course.  I also had a paper that I was working on that I finished today (yay!).  I'm really focusing on completing all the coursework and learning what there is to learn, and not focusing on business building just yet.  Soon it will definitely become a priority!

If any of you out there are interested in doing a complimentary coaching session with me, I'm required to do ten of them for my certification, and would love to do one with you!  You don't have to sign up for any coaching, though you may want to!  :)  It's done over the phone, and takes about 30-45 minutes.  Let me know if you're interested!

And Then There Was One...

Ah, cats.  Two years ago when Donovan and I moved in together, we each had two cats, and so together we had four.  My girl cat, Monkey (who was 13 at the time), decided that she needed to rule the roost, and started torturing and bullying Donovan's youngest boy cat, Goo (who happens to be about twice her size).  He, in turn, decided that he needed to start peeing all over the house.  Which we think sparked my boy cat, Dexter (who was also 13 at the time), to also start peeing all over the house.  Joy!  So we ended up with a house that reeked of cat pee, which is always so much fun.

Because of the peeing, we chose to adopt Goo out to a good home.  And then there were three.

Dexter was not only peeing all over the house, he was also 13 and sick and needed to be pilled every other day.  This did not make him a good candidate for adoption.  So after much debate and self-torture, I decided to have him put down.  And then there were two.

For the past year and a half, our two remaining cats (Monkey, now 15 and Donovan's boy cat, Franz, 13) have lived together in relative peace.  They weren't fans of each other, and occasionally would get into full on yelling and screaming fights, but for the most part they tolerated each other.  One of mine, one of his, one girl, one boy.

Monkey (who was already on sensitive stomach food) has been puking a lot lately.  Like almost every night.  And it's not just in one spot.  It's like machine gun vomit.  Five or six different spots each time.  On our brand new carpet.  Not cool.  Rather than spending hundreds of dollars on diagnostic tests that probably wouldn't tell us anything, and after much debate and many tears, we chose to take Monkey to the Humane Society yesterday.  Hopefully they'll be able to adopt her out, and if not they'll put her down.  And then there was one.

Stopped to say goodbye to Donovan on the way to the Humane Society

I cried a lot yesterday; on the way down to the Humane Society, when I was saying goodbye to her in the room, and then when I got to the car.  I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.  Mostly, I feel guilty for not being the kind of pet owner who would put up with anything and everything just to keep their pet around.  And at the same time, I just wasn't willing to put up with vomit all over the house anymore.  Monkey is a sweet girl, and I loved having her for the past 15 years.  I truly hope that she finds a good home, and that she's not too scared in the meantime by being in a new place without me.  Our house is definitely quieter today without her here.  We'll miss you, Monkey!

The Great Cupcake Experiment Continues...

Tonight was part two of the Great Cupcake Experiment...maple bacon cupcakes with a maple frosting and bacon crumbles:

Photo courtesy of Donovan's awesome iPhone camera

I got the inspiration for these from watching another episode of Cupcake Wars on Food Network.  They had to work with all sorts of odd ingredients, and bacon was one of them.  I've never baked with bacon before.  In fact, in order to make these cupcakes, I needed Donovan to teach me how to cook bacon.  See?  I'm such a good Jew that I didn't know how to cook bacon!  :)

My original idea was to make a maple bacon cupcake with chocolate frosting and bacon crumbles, but when I went looking for recipes, the one I found over and over had a maple frosting with it.  Donovan added his two cents that maple would be better, so that's the direction I went.  And I'm glad I did! 

I really want to learn how each of the ingredients in baking affects the others.  I have no idea what the difference is between baking soda and baking powder, or what effect they each have on the things I bake.  I have no idea what buttermilk does when added to a recipe.  I don't know how to substitute applesauce for other sweeteners.  Without a base recipe to start from, I'm lost!  I don't know if I need to go to culinary school to learn about all this stuff, or if I just need to surf the Interweb to find out.  This is something I want to learn!!!

I'm having fun with my experiments so far, and I'm sure the people at Donovan's work don't mind eating the results.  Wonder what I'll come up with for experiment #3??

New Car!

We got a new car today!  :)  Yay!!!

We've been talking about getting a crossover for a while now, but we were thinking about waiting until my lease was up next February.  I've enjoyed having the convertible for the last couple of years, and I also miss being higher up and having a bigger car.  For those of you who don't know my history with cars, my last three cars were a 2000 Expedition, a 2004 Expedition, and a 2007 Edge.  Big, big, big!!  And the convertible, while very fun and pretty, was neither high up, nor big.

A few months ago, I hit a big pothole somewhere in town (what? giant potholes in San Diego?  No...) and caused $1,500 worth of damage to my car.  I paid for it out of pocket because going through my insurance would get reported as an accident, and raise my insurance premiums for the next three years.  Last week, before we went up to the Bay Area for Passover, I hit yet another giant pothole on Mira Mesa Blvd. with the front right corner of my car.  It seemed okay, and then when we were driving home from the airport on Sunday, the entire car was vibrating.  So Monday I took it into Lexus to have them take a look, just in case something similar happened.  While I was there, I figured I might as well look at their crossovers and see if I liked them.  And I did!  The sales guy was going to look into it and see if it made sense for me to trade in my convertible for the crossover on a new lease.

Tuesday morning I got a message from my service guy at Lexus.  Somehow, I managed to bend all four rims, and the repair was going to cost close to $4,000.  Oh my good Lord.  Are you kidding me???  I called my insurance guy (different insurance than last time) and asked him what my options were.  Sadly, same story.  It gets reported as an accident and my premiums go up for three years.  I'll spare you the wrath and venom that I feel for the city of San Diego and their stupid potholes...let's just say that in that moment I was pretty pissed off.  And more than that, I was really really done with my convertible car and it's low-profile high performance tires.  I called the sales guy I had talked to the day before and told him I was all done with my convertible, and wanted to get into a crossover ASAP.

It would be great if I could tell you that I somehow got off scott-free from the damage, but that would be unrealistic.  In the end it got folded into my new lease.

They didn't have the exact car that I wanted at the dealership, so it would take a few days to find it.  I got a call yesterday that they would have it for me today, and today we went in and picked it up!  We cleared everything out of the pretty blue car and said goodbye to her, and drove off in our brand new sparkly red car!!  Donovan has already named her Miranda.  :)

Cupcakes

I'm not one of those people who just comes up with recipes for stuff out of thin air.  I go hunting for recipes, find ones with lots of reviews, make the changes that sound right to me, and go from there.  I would love to be one of those people who just knows how much of every ingredient to put into a recipe, or make it up as I go along.  Maybe someday that will be me...

I love to bake, and I think I'm pretty good at it.  Mostly I do cookies and cookie bars, with the occasional brownie or cake thrown in.  I really haven't been baking at all lately...in fact I think the last time I baked was in December for the cookie exchange.  The funny thing about me and baking is that I bake in order to give the treats away.  I rarely, if ever, bake something and just keep it and eat it. 

While I was in New Jersey last weekend I watched a lot of Food Network.  Sweets Genius was fun to watch, and then I saw an episode of Cupcake Wars.  Now I've decided that I want to be able to bake cool fun unique cupcakes like those people do!  And they do it on the fly!!

I don't actually remember ever making cupcakes from scratch.  I've probably done the Duncan Hines from-a-box ones with the frosting from-a-can, and if I did it was a LONG time ago!  I am determined to become an expert cupcake maker!  I'm not really sure why this is important to me, but right now it is!  Inspired by one of the contestants on Cupcake Wars, I've decided that my first attempt at cupcakes is going to be a banana chocolate chip cupcake with marshmallow filling and peanut butter frosting.  I'm easing into it.  :)

I found a recipe for banana cupcakes (to which I'm going to add the chocolate chips), I'm going to use marshmallow fluff for the filling, and then I'm going to use the Sprinkles peanut butter frosting recipe for the frosting.  It could turn out great, or it could be a giant disaster!  The main thing is for me to have fun while I'm doing it, remember that it's an experiment, and not be attached to the outcome!  I'm excited to give it a try!  :)

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Passover

Tonight we had a one-day late Passover seder with my extended family up here in the Bay Area.  This was Donovan's second seder, and we had a great time!  I love seeing my extended family whenever possible.  They're such great people and we all have so much fun together!  Last year was quite full of opportunities for all of us to be together, from Passover to my cousin's wedding to our wedding to my dad's 70th birthday to my nephew's bar mitzvah to my uncle's 70th birthday...we got quite spoiled as far as seeing everyone!  This year doesn't have quite as many special occasions, so we'll make the most of the times where we do get to see my extended family.

To me Passover isn't Passover without Manischewitz wine.  I know to most people it's not even really a wine...more like alcoholic grape juice, but I love it!  And I grew up getting drunk at Passover on Manischewitz, so I have a very strong association with it.  There was almost a major Manischewitz crisis tonight at the seder, as my cousin didn't have any on hand.  Thankfully my other cousin brought a bottle that was about 2/3 full, and the day was saved!  I walked around like a wino, clutching my bottle of Manischewitz, telling everyone how they couldn't have any.  I did let Donovan have a few sips after he made the sad puppy-dog face at me.  From now on, I'm bringing my Manischewitz with me!  :)

We ate yummy gefilte fish, matzo ball soup and all the other traditional Passover foods, including the Donovan-coined TiramiJew.  It was awesome!  We didn't quite get back to the Hagadah after dinner, so we didn't get to sing all the fun songs.  Oh well...there's always next year!  :)

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A Weekend in New Jersey

On Thursday I flew to Newark, NJ for my iPEC Energy Leadership module.  I was on my own, since Donovan decided he didn't want to come with just to sit in a hotel all weekend (can't blame him!).  We had originally thought he might fly out at the end of the weekend and we would hang out in New York for a while, but in the end we decided we'd do New York another time.  I arrived to my hotel around 11:00pm and got some food from the hotel restaurant and took it up to my room and watched TV till way later than I should have!

Unfortunately, I woke up on Friday morning with a very unhappy digestive system.  Missing any part of the module was not an option, so I went and suffered and prayed not to throw up.  At our lunch break I took a nap, and felt a little better in the afternoon, thankfully!  I must say, I really wished that Donovan was here to take care of me!

Felt better on Saturday...yay!  It was nice to go outside during our breaks and walk around the parking lot.  It sure was cold, though!  Donovan looked it up for me and said it was in the low 40s...

Got to sleep later than I should have last night, and was definitely dragging this morning for the first few hours of the course.  Just before lunch some adrenaline kicked in, and I woke up.  Finished out the afternoon in a very fun way, and now am watching TV in the hotel room after having my room-service dinner.  I fly home first thing in the morning!

The module was really cool and I learned a TON of stuff.  There's a lot for me to read and go over, but for sure the material that we covered here will be invaluable to me and my coaching clients.  I'm looking forward to really becoming an expert at it soon!!

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