Canvas Prints Giveaway

UPrinting has offered to my readers a giveaway for a 16 x 20 Rolled Canvas print. Turn your most precious moments into masterpieces! Get that artist’s feel and transform your favorite photos or work into canvas art. These thick and high-quality canvases are ultra durable and will a long time.

Who wouldn't love to have one of these to display? I know I would.

How Do I Win?

Check out the Canvas Prints page on UPrinting's website, and tell me now you would use this prize if you win.

Additional Entries
Become a Fan on UPrinting's facebook page

Follow UPrinting on Twitter

Subscribe to my blog

Blog about this giveaway (leave the link to the blog post)

Be sure you have an email address in your profile or you leave your email in your comment entry. First entry must be done for Additional Entries to count. Leave a separate comment for each entry. Entries must be in by Midnight PDT, 3/31/2010. Open to US Residents only. FREE UPS Ground shipping. Disclosure: I will be receiving this prize as well in appreciation for hosting this giveaway.

Uprinting: A great way to print online, check them out for business cards, postcards, brochures, stickers, and so much more!

Have a giveaway you'd like to add to my Blog World Giveaways List? Click the link on the top of my right sidebar to see the latest giveaways list, and add your own.

Until next time,

The Blogoholic

I'm Underpaid!

A day in my work life. Get up and grab my BlackBerry, which has been buzzing at me to get up for at least a half an hour before I listen. Check my emails to see how many "emergencies" there are already. Depending on the day, either hop right on the computer or drive over an hour to the office to work. Paniced calls and emails, "the program isn't working", "XYZ template has a problem", "I need a report", and other such urgent issues that everyone needs handled that very minute or it's the end of the world.

This is the job I've come to love. Many of these issues I can handle in my sleep (which is a good thing since I'm not a morning person and everything before noon is pretty much in my sleep). Now for the fun part. I recently got a new boss. He's a great guy, and a great boss, but I haven't worked with him long enough to anticipate his needs or understand his unclear instructions. Add that to him not using our sales software for reporting needs like my last boss did, and he adds a lot to my workload. I have now been tasked to provide twice monthly reporting on the sales team and there is a very short window for completion of this reporting. The problem is, this reporting isn't easy or fast. I still need to do the rest of my job on top of pulling together these reports. That and depending on what day of the month the first and third Fridays occur, affects how long I have to get the reports done. Luckily this month the 1st Friday isn't until the 5th, so I have 4 full days to go my reports, but the 3rd is on the 16th in April, so I'll have about 2 hours. Is it possible? Who knows, with all the formulas and the automates system reports I've got in place, there is a chance that I can throw it all together that fast now (after putting in hours and hours to prep the reporting files), but I guess I'll find out.

I shouldn't complain, I have a good job and work with great people, but if I can't complain here to blow off steam, then how else can I blow off steam?

Until next time,

The Blogoholic

Meditation

In order to deal with the stress in my life, I have started meditation. After much research, watching programs on meditation, reading books, talking to others, and searching the internet, I decided on what was right for me. My meditation consists of a quiet environment, and a burning candle. For 10 minutes I concentrate about seeing nothing but the flame of the burning candle, staring calmly at the yellow tip of the fire, allowing my eyes to relax and the images around that flame to fade to darkness. When it feels right, I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing, when I feel my mind start to wander, I open my eyes just enough to see that flame again and re-concentrate on that flame to quiet my thoughts.

The goal of my meditation is to relieve the everyday stresses I've been letting get to me, and calm my thoughts. My hope is that relieving these issues I will be able to sleep better, won't feel like I need to play games to relax, will be able to get a good night's sleep, and will have the centering of body that will allow me to naturally and safely drop some excess weight I've been carrying. I also hope to see an improvement in my immune system, my energy level, my drive to complete things I've started, my memory, and concentration. I think my family would be happy to see an improvement in my mood swings too.

Sounds like a lot for such a simple thing as meditating for 10 minutes a day, and who knows I may be hoping for too much here. But my research has shown me that stress can cause immune problems, moodiness, difficulty sleeping, and weight gain, so why wouldn't relief of that stress cause a reversal of those problems? We'll see how it goes.

Until next time,

The Blogoholic

Looking on the Bright Side

I'm trying to look on the bright side of life. Sometimes it's hard. Right now I'm facing the loss of my house, due to the economy. I'm talking to my mortgage servicing company (so annoying that I can't talk to the people who actually hold my mortgage, but have to go through some third party, whatever), about a possible loan modification. Honestly, I don't think I'm going to bother. I'll let that part of things run it's course, then talk to them about trying to do a short sale.

My neighbor has had his house on the market for several months now, and has had several people try and buy on his short sale, they've all gotten rejected. Guess no one can get a loan right now. I'm hoping we'll have a little more luck. Our place needs some TLC, we started some projects we ran out of money to finish, so it would be a good investment for someone who wanted to fix it up and re-sell it. The market is supposed to start picking up soon. It's just not worth it for us to stay in this place, we're so far upside down in the house that it will take forever to get back up to how much we owe and we'll never recover the lost equity. It's about time to wash my hands of it and just walk away. As much as that sucks.

But we've always talked about moving out of state, and heading somewhere that it snows. So I'm trying to look at this as a blessing in disguise. I just hope with the hit to our credit from the house that someone will still be willing to rent to us. We're good people, normally careful with our money, but with the nose dive the housing market took the year we were planning to sell, we got in over our heads with an adjustable rate. Never again will I fall for an adjustable rate mortgage, it's financial suicide! But, we'll soon be far away with a fresh start. Now I just need to tell my boss ad talk him into letting me telecommute...

Until next time,

The Blogoholic

Valentine's Memories

When I think Valentine's Day, one specific Valentine's Day always comes to mind. It's not the typical type of memory you may associate with a day all about romance. Let me start at the beginning. I had been dating my boyfriend for less than a year when we found ourselves expecting. It was May of 95, and as you can imagine, it was a bit of a surprise. I had always wanted children, and wanted to have them fairly young (as most of my family tended to do), so was not upset at the idea of being a new mom. Now, I'm sure you've heard people say they can tell the moment they get pregnant, and I never really believed them, until it happened to me. I knew, I just waited for my cycle to confirm it. Nervous about being a mom before I was 20, with a man I wasn't married to, I delayed telling my family until I was 7 month's along. So, the first 7 month's were stressful as I tried to keep it a secret. I had only put on 5 pounds at this point, and just looked a little pudgy around the middle. 


My boyfriend didn't think he was ready to be a dad, and tried to convince me to put the baby up for adoption. I told him I'd think about it, but knew in my heart that I could never do it. From that first moment of conception, that was my child, a piece of me, and I couldn't bear the thought of someone else raising him. After much thought, and many discussions, I told my boyfriend that I was keeping the baby, even if that meant losing him. Luckily for all three of us, that was what it took to change his mind. When he realized how important it was to me, he came around. 


So as you can imagine, the first 2 trimesters of my pregnancy were very hard on me emotionally, although physically I was feeling great. I had a little bit of morning sickness that summer, and got dehydrated easily, but other than that, things were great. Now at the 7 month mark, my family knew, we were keeping the baby, and things were falling into place. I was very happy, and so excited to hold that little bundle that had been kicking me. His due date according to the doctors was February 1st, but I knew better, it was more like the 12th from calculating to the day of conception (they didn't believe me that I knew the exact day). So, the 1st rolls around, no baby, the 10th and the doctor wanted to discuss inducing. I knew it wasn't time yet, so told him not yet. That afternoon I went into labor. After a long night, my son was born at 2:53 am. 


Now for the hard part, he came out grayish in color, and I was told he was having difficulty breathing and holding his temperature. I got to hold him for a few seconds before he was taken to the nursery to be put in a heated bed. They ran test after test. Being as young as I was, I was scared out of my mind. I got into the nursery as soon and as often as I could to hold and feed him. I watched infuriated as the nurse took blood from his little foot, I wanted to punch her for hurting my baby, but knew in the back of my mind she was doing her job, and he wasn't really hurt. Didn't make me like her anymore knowing that though. 


So the days drag on, I watched nurses care for my new baby. And my heart broke every day to see him in there. Finally, his temperature was normal, his breathing was perfect, and they found nothing wrong. They believed that he swallowed a little of the amniotic fluid. On Valentine's Day, we were able to bring our little bundle of joy home. Since that day, Valentine's has always been a family celebration for us, and not a day for my husband and I (yes, I did eventually marry my son's father). I like it much better this way, it's a day with a lot more meaning now. It's not about candy and flowers, it's about family, love and life. 

Until next time,

The Blogoholic