Friday, August 23, 2013

Our Latest Addition

Those that know me, or that have been following my blog for awhile now, know that I’m something of an animal fanatic. We have a few, or as my husband might tell you, a few too many. I can’t help it, I seem to have an irresistible urge to take in cute things. I might actually need professional help. But anyway, yesterday, as I was out back with the dogs, I noticed something in the pool. We’ve had frogs, lizards, birds, even snakes in there before (they all come in through the dog door – a delightful side effect of having the world’s largest dogs is that you need the world’s largest dog door) but this was different. This was a TURTLE!

I should note that I adore turtles. I think they are just the cutest things ever. We have two red eared sliders already, that we’ve had for about 10 years. They’re huge now, but when we got them, they were about the size of this little guy:

poolturtle

who was happily floating around on the hose of the pool vacuum. Isn’t he adorable? Anyway, I decided I *had* to leave him there, at least until the kids got home from school so they could see how cute he was. In the meantime, I googled him and found out he was a Florida Softshell Turtle. Native to Florida, not endangered, but that most little hatchlings like this don’t survive because they’re just so tiny and they have SO many predators that would love to have them for a tasty treat (aside from my dogs, who I am sure would have loved to snatch him up, too, if they weren’t too afraid of the pool to get in there and gobble him).

So, naturally, I decided we needed to keep him. At least for now. For his own safety. So off I went to the pet store to get him a tank and other assorted hatchling necessities. My daughter has claimed him, and he’ll live in her room. She also named him, Spot. I know, it’s odd, but the other turtles are Sock and Shoe (named by my son when he was like 18 months old) so she decided it was HER turn to name something. Better to let her name a turtle than a dog or cat next time we take one of them in, I guess.

So, an undisclosed amount of money later (undisclosed, of course, just in case my husband happens to read this later), we have yet another pet. If y’all see me on that Animal Hoarders show on Animal Planet some day, don’t be too surprised.

turtle_spot

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Adobe, Oh How I Love You

So I decided to bite the bullet and subscribe to the new Adobe Creative Cloud. This is basically the new replacement for shelling out $500+ all at one time to get Adobe Creative Suite. As I was still on CS3, it was BEYOND time for an upgrade. I haven’t downloaded every program yet (there are over 20 different apps built in) but so far I’m loving what I have downloaded. Photoshop, one of the ones I tend to use most often, for creating flyers and such for my Thirty-One team, flows really nicely. Though it will take some time to get used to the black background now. All in all, well worth the $29.95 monthly fee.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Empowerment

So I was at this conference over the weekend, Steve Wiltshire’s Life Line Coaches Million Dollar Protégé Leadership Retreat. It was an amazing experience. The conference is for leaders in direct sales, across many many companies, all brought together because they coach with Steve and his team. Being in direct sales, you get very used to hearing from “your” company, your home office. It’s interesting to get the perspective from leaders with other companies. In my case, it really did make me appreciate even more my company and all that our home office does for us.

What set this conference apart from many others is that it was us, the leaders who coach with Steve and the Life Line team, who were doing many of the presentations throughout the weekend. Of the roughly 200 people who attended, there were 21 of us speaking. My talk was on “Building Your Culture Through Empowering Leaders”.

Speaking in front of that many people, on a stage with an actual podium and microphone, would have been something that would have made me VERY nervous a few years ago. And I admit I was a little nervous before I stepped on stage. But once I was up there, all that melted away, and I was just IN the moment. It was a fabulous experience. And truly very empowering for me, because I DID it. And afterwards, to have so many women, both those I knew and those I had never met, coming up to me and telling me that I was a natural speaker, or how much my talk resonated with them, or that I was the best presenter they’d heard all weekend…well, that was absolutely an indescribable feeling. So ironically, my speech on empowering leaders actually empowered me. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Tampa Bay

Tampa is beautiful to fly into. All the water, and the bridges. The places that, living here, you can’t always really appreciate up close because up close they’re just the spots where you get stuck in traffic, or the places that are just far enough away to be an inconvenience to have to travel to. But from above, they’re nothing short of extraordinary. Long stretches of road laying literally in the miles of water. Concrete and metal and other man-made marvels, where once there was nothing but water. God’s beauty, enhanced by man’s beauty.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Travel

There is something so wonderfully delicious about travelling alone. Spending time in an airport, completely without any ties to anyone in the building. A certain anonymity. There is a whole complex world of restaurants, stores and other hidden gems just waiting for you to take the opportunity to explore them. Nobody else to answer to. Nobody to entertain, or be forced to compromise with on where to eat, what to buy, where to sit… As many times as I do it, I never tire of it.