the pollyanna chronicals: mojitos, dancing, and love make the world a better place

like many people who are still employed, i face the challenges of more work and less help in the office these days. on the one hand, it's great because the days go by faster; the flip side of that is my task list grows faster than i really can handle it. this all added up to a particularly grueling week this week. but friday was good. really good.

i enjoy checking off tasks at work and knowing they're done and done well. i got to close out a few tasks and make real progress on a few others on friday.

after work it was time to dress up and go out with a girlfriend for mojitos and dancing - as far as we can figure, it's been over six months since we last got to do this. we've always claimed it's good for us, but i forgot how good it is! after a mojitos and some of my favorite middle eastern food in cambridge (zuzu's! go. order mojitos and the vegetarian zuzu platter ... YUM!) we were ready for rueda.

a lot of new faces at rueda ... and no intermediate versus advanced group! we got thrown right into an advanced circle. thankfully rueda appears to be similar to bicycles - you never forget :) it came back pretty quickly and i think i finally mastered montana. maybe. we'll see if i remember next time i get there :)

then ... off to the harp to see split decision play. how has it been two years since they were last up here??? as much fun as always! we danced until our feet hurt then headed home.

on the way home, i called my sweetie who was still at work so i got dropped off there and got to ride home with my love. can't ask for a much better night than that! :)

-s

california freezing tax refunds???

i hope everyone is horrified by this idea. especially the folks that voted against eliminating the income tax in massachusetts:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28672798/

this is money hard working tax payers *overpaid* to the government. money that was not supposed to be included in the government's budget. money that is, in essence, an interest free loan from tax payers to the government.

this is absolutely wrong and an abuse of government power.

-s

the pollyanna chronicals: new family member

we adopted a pound puppy last weekend!

bones is a 12 week old lab mix. she weighs about 20lbs and is a sweet, sweet baby. a bit shy when she first came home with us, she's warming up quickly and becoming a little menance with typical puppy behavior - being silly, trying to chew on things, and looking for lots of love. she's doing well with her training - no accidents in the past 48 hours, peeing outside when we take her out, trying to copy her 'big sister' sage. with the crate training, she's even gone 6 hours overnight without a trip outside!

sage is adapting to her new role much better than we expected! she's been pretty good with the new baby except when bones gets too close to her food bowl, bed, toys, or just in her face too much.

rj's *very* excited! he's trying hard to be patient and not scare the puppy, give her time to adapt, and not interfere when we're trying to train her, but he's 7 and still forgets some times.

-s

too late to save the economy???

does anyone else find this headline ridiculous?

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/01/61036782/1

the economy is doing what economies do - growing and shrinking and self-correcting. we had crazy, wonderful growth for many, many years and some of that was based on poor decision making and excessive borrowing.

now the economy is trying to self-correct and it sucks for a lot of us right now, but the economy will eventually stabilize and start growing again.

that's just what economies do. with or without our 'help'.

you can't kill an economy. people will always find ways to barter goods and services. economies will always exist, it's more a matter of how we perceive the current state of things.

i can't say things are good right now, but i can't help feeling like we're merely postponing the inevitable - it's going to suck more before it gets better - and by postponing it, it's just going to be that much worse when we finally have to deal with it.

-s

the pollyanna chronicals

i'm tired of the negative headlines and general focus on negativity. i think there is something to be said for the theory that we get what we focus on and so many of us focus on the negativity. yes, negativity gets headlines and headlines get people paid.

fortunately, i'm not looking to get paid by headlines.

so i'm making a new year's resolution to get all pollyanna here and highlight the good in my life, my family and friends' lives, and the world in general. i'm working on improving my writing, too, so i figure a weekly (approximately) pollyanna post is a good start for this year. that's a mere 52 posts (51 after this one!). i think i can manage it ...

wish me luck :)

much happiness!
xoxo
-s