It's Time We Start Educating Oursleves!

My dear friend Dana has had a very interesting last five years.  Not only did she fight and beat Stage 2 Breast Cancer, but she has become extremely passionate about stopping the gas fields from transforming our beautiful Pennsylvania landscape.  Just recently, I got to spend some quality time with my dear friend and I have to say that I was appalled by some of the stories she was telling me.  I was baffled that there are families being drastically affected by these gas fields right in my back yard.  Even more alarming to me was why I wasn’t hearing about it on our local news.  They tell us about everything else on the news why not mention something as serious as the cause and effects of gas fields being put on our soil right here!

My friend shared this story with me and I would like to share it with you....click here to read it.  I guarantee that you’ll want to start knowing more…it’s scary!   

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Rick Rick Ricky, Ricky Racoon

Last night I was woken from my sleep by this terrible scream/squeal followed by some hisses and growls. This sounded all too familiar as a couple nights ago I heard the same noises as well as last summer too. Damn raccoons. Although I knew what the noise was it still can be a bit frightening, especially when you know this is all going on just outside of your window (I live in my basement). I am not sure why the raccoons make this sort of noise, last year I thought it was a cat fight but by the looks of my garbage thrown around, I knew better. Anyway last night I prayed that my garbage would not be too destroyed. To see what all of the commotion was about I peeked out of my blinds and turned on the back light, me and the raccoon seemed to make eye contact – it was creepy. He knew very well what he was doing but did not seem to care even though I caught him in the act. I started banging on the window for him to stop and finally I guess it startled him a little and he scurried away. I got back in bed and tried my best to fall asleep. All of a sudden – “crash” my garbage can fell to the cement. Great. Damn raccoons.

Last summer the raccoons were pretty out of control to the point where my dad tried to get rid of them in the not most humane way possible. They must have been immune to whatever he tried to give them because a few nights later they were back for more of my garbage. They do a great job at invading your space, there doesn’t seem to be much I can do to get rid of them without harming them in any way. 

I plead to all of the WW&B readers, what can be done to get rid of these raccoons? Has anyone else had a similar problem? I want to do it in the most effective and natural way. It is sad, I used to think raccoons were cute but now they absolutely disgust me. They are like large rats, now that I have seen a few rummaging through my garbage, they have this mean look in their eye and it just freaks me out. PLEASE help me get rid of them. I never want to hear the screams/squeals ever again. 

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Doggie Mama Drama

As I have written about before, I am dog sitting for my mom. Well, we had an incident yesterday. While on our first morning walk, Libby started limping about 100 yards away from the front door. It seemed to come on all of the sudden because she had just been sniffing something. And these walks are definitely not full of exertion. But she was doing the whole head-bobbing, limping thing. She had really hurt herself.

While I got ready, she didn't do much, which is her usual. But when I went to take her out again, she was hesitant to start down the stairs. So I carried her and she walked about the front yard for a little bit. I told her that I would be home for lunch to check on her.At this point, I really wasn't too worried about her since she had just been limping, but seemed to be okay otherwise.

When I came home for lunch, she was still limping, which I expected. But she was also lethargic and didn't come over and beg while I ate my lunch. I gave her a treat before I left, but she dropped it on the floor and ignored it. Now I was concerned.

Back to work I went, worrying about her and wondering if she was going to be okay. I talked with the girls here at work since they are experienced dog owners. They suggested monitoring her for a couple of days before doing anything else because she could have tweaked something or even been stung by a bee. I had a great fear that I would come home and she would be dead. To be honest, I was a little surprised for myself about how worried I was.

When I got home, she was still limping, but acting like her normal crazy self. It was such a relief! This was my first time having to deal with a hurt puppy all by myself. Thankfully, it looks like she just needs to take it easy for a couple of days and she will be good as new.

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The Value of a College Degree: Is it Really of Value?

A recent article on Forbes.com http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/06/05/udacity-sebastian-thrun-disrupting-higher-education/ got me thinking. How valuable is a college degree today?

From my own personal experience, and I sincerely ask that you weigh in on this too, I don’t think what I learned during my undergrad will set me above the bar, or in front of other job candidates. What sucks is that we have to pay thousands of dollars for a 4-year degree that in the end, everyone else has. What makes a college graduate stand out from someone else? Don’t tell me its grades, internships, where you go…because I don’t believe any of that for a second. It is all who you know and what you know. But do you actually learn what you need to know to perform you job during your college career?

That is the point of the article. Everyone now has a bachelor’s degree. I knew that in order to differentiate myself from the others I had to take the next step get my master’s degree. Just another lump sum of money to get a piece of paper that says I spent XX amount of hours learning something. But again, what even makes that degree relevant to what I am doing today? (Disclaimer: I understand some jobs you may actually learn things in school that will reflect greatly upon your career, however read on).

A big part of all of our “big girl” jobs is marketing, public relations and communication. While the basis of these concepts still remains the same, things have changed since all of us have graduated. When have I ever used a theory in any of my positions? Any marketers out there that have? I can say with a 100% guarantee that no one in our core marketing group has a class on social media, YouTube, Pinterest ,etc. But yet we work with these sites every day to reach our prospects and clients. How do you teach something that is changing faster than the speed of light? You don’t. And that is what Prof. Thrun preaches with his new approach (reference article).

With his plan, individuals can take online classes that don’t cost the thousands of dollars that regular classes cost and can still teach you the most up-to-date, relevant information. If you want to be certified in something (basically to show it on your resume) then you can pay a small fee but it is nowhere close to what a degree costs. In the end, Thrun’s thinking is that the idea of a degree is that you spend a fixed time right after high school to educate yourself for the rest of your career (like 50+ years for some of us!) But careers change so much over a lifetime now that this model isn’t valid anymore.

So if Thrun’s plan was an acceptable means of learning in the world today, who would do it? I know I would! I loved the time I had in college, but thinking back to it, I really can’t relate any more than 5% of what I learned to my job today (and the number may be lower than that). Maybe in the future, sure, if I decide to jump back on the broadcasting train it might be more relevant, but right now, I view my undergrad as a good time, a time to make lifelong friends and a time to grow as a person. It was also a huge waste of a lot of money.

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Yum! Pour Me a Pitcher!

Are you starting to dream of the summer days where you get to sip your favorite cocktail and bask in the sun? If so, it’s time to fill up your pitcher and enjoy the beautiful weather and share with friends and family.

Us girls met the other day for dinner/happy hour and Colleen ordered a mojito. When it was brought to the table it looked absolutely delicious. My wheels started to turn as I thought about my upcoming beach vacation. I love a great summery cocktail and I quickly began thinking about what I will be making to accompany me at the beach.

In honor of the first day of summer (yesterday) I decided to make a list of the top summer cocktails. Enjoy!

1. The Ultimate Ketel One Lemonade

Ingredients

- 1 1/2 ounce(s) Ketel One Citroen Vodka

- 2 1/2 ounce(s) fresh lemonade

- 1 piece(s) lemon wheel

Directions

1. Shake vodka and lemonade with ice in a cocktail shaker.

2. Strain into ice-filled highball glass.

3. Garnish with a lemon wheel.

2. Watermelon Margarita

Ingredients

- 1 1/2 ounce(s) Don Julio Blanco Tequila

- 1/2 ounce(s) lime juice

- 1/4 ounce(s) agave syrup

- 1 slice(s) watermelon

Directions

1. Muddle watermelon and agave syrup, add rest of ingredients, and shake well.

2. Double strain into a frozen martini glass.

3. Garnish with a watermelon slice.

3. Mojito

Ingredients

- 12 whole(s) mint leaves, plus a few extra for garnish

- 1 1/4 ounce(s) Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum

- 1 teaspoon(s) sugar

- 1/2 ounce(s) lime juice

- 2 ounce(s) soda water

Directions

- Place mint leaves in bottom of glass.

- Add crushed ice, Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum, sugar, and lime juice, and muddle.

- Add soda water and garnish with mint leaves.

4. Planters Punch

Ingredients

- 3 ounce(s) Myers's Original Dark Rum

- 3 ounce(s) Captain Morgan Silver Spiced Rum

- 1 1/2 ounce(s) Grand Marnier

- 6 ounce(s) orange juice

- 6 ounce(s) pineapple juice

- 1 1/2 ounce(s) lime juice

- 1 1/2 ounce(s) simple syrup

- 4 dash(es) bitters

- 2 ounce(s) grenadine

- 1 orange wheel

Directions

1. Add in a pitcher Myers's Original Dark Rum, Captain Morgan Silver Spiced Rum, Grand Marnier, orange juice, pineapple juice, lime juice, simple syrup, bitters, and grenadine.

2. Pour into shaker and add ice.

3. Shake and strain into an ice-filled highball glass.

4. Garnish with orange wheel.

5. Barbados Punch

Ingredients

- 1 ounce(s) Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum

- 1/4 ounce(s) triple sec

- 1 ounce(s) lime juice

- 2 ounce(s) pineapple juice

- 1 slice(s) lime

- 1 slice(s) pineapple

Directions

1. Add Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum, triple sec, lime juice, and pineapple juice to a blender with crushed ice.

2. Blend until smooth and pour into glass.

3. Garnish with lime slice and pineapple slice.

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Let's Go Bucs!

So last night I went to the Pirate game with my hubby.  Although I’m not a huge baseball fan, I was really looking forward to going all day.  My husband absolutely LOVES the sport and watches every game on TV (not just the Pirates but literally every baseball game that might be on TV), has one of those “business man special” season ticket packages and a fantasy team that he watches and nurtures all hours of the day.  At times I find it to be terribly annoying and other times, I find it endearing.

So how did I end up going to the game?

My husband’s best friend and fellow season ticket holder, wasn’t able to go last night so I was asked and said yes.  I haven’t been to a game yet this season and lately my hubby and I have been having a blast together and I wanted to keep the momentum rolling.  Besides…the ballpark has cotton candy, hot dogs, peanuts, dip n dots and beer which, was especially delicious on last night’s muggy night in the ‘burgh.

We got to the seats and they were awesome.  They were close to the field on the third base line and it was one of those rows of seats that just had four seats.  We settled in to watch the game.  However, things didn’t go quite the way I thought they would.  Have you been to a game lately?  I feel like because the Pirates have been terrible for so long and people more-or-less stopped going to the games, that they forgot their baseball game manners.  Seriously!  Not a single person waited till the action stopped before getting up and moving around.  They just would stand up as the pitch was being thrown and we would miss what happened.  This one guy, he really didn’t get it…to the point where I got snappy at him.  After a few innings of dealing with it, we decided to leave our seats.  We headed over to the new Budweiser bar (at least that’s what I think it’s called) in the outfield along the first base line.  It was really nice and what a way to watch the game!  You have a beautiful view of the city and river, you can see the field, they have flat screens everywhere in case watching the game live is boring, they have a lovely liquor selection and the beer selection was MUCH better.  So we settled in here to watch game.

I ended up getting a little tipsy and I think the hubby did too.  We laughed our asses off.  In fact, at one point, we were discussing whether or not the Pirate Parrot considered himself a “furry.”  Of course we were at the game just off the heels of the furry convention ending so naturally our conversation went this way.  Overall, going to the game last night was super fun and they WON!  My point is, if you haven’t given the Bucs a chance yet this season, you should.  It was a great night out.

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Are You Woman Enough?

We have all seen, heard, read, droned on about last month's Time article, "Are you mom enough?" The image has been plastered all over the media. Spoofed on SNL and facebook. Truth be told...I haven't read it. The headline was a turnoff though the imagery was quite thought provoking. I will admit, I've read, digested and wholeheartedly loved the rebuttals!

The whole idea got me thinking. Who had the bright idea of questioning the validity of a woman? We do it all. Let me say that again, WE DO IT EFFING ALL! All while standing on our heads, walking backwards in heels holding a child, making a phone call and planning the next meal or meeting. You would never see a headline asking a man if he were dad or man enough. At least not in the same "are you second guessing yourself because if not you should be" sort of tone.

It infuriates me. Every day, I feel mediocre at best. At any point in time, I never feel as though I'm giving 100% to any aspect of my life. If I'm working my tail off on a project at work, my kids are being ignored and babysat by the 50" Samsung. If my kids require a bit more attention (read: summer break), I cannot possibly give my undivided attention to work. Never mind my husband. He's left to his own devices most of the time. And forget about all the other small, annoying time sucks-- the meals, the mail, the bills, the dishes, the laundry (I'm convinced there are several invisible people who live in my house and use our dishes and wear our clothes--four people cannot possibly create that many dirty dishes or soiled undies).

I know I will never be CEO or even vice president of a company. And I will never sit on the PTO or be homeroom mom.  I don't serve four-course meals each night at dinner. I don't do my hair everyday. Rarely wear make-up. Don't get to work out nearly as much as I want to or should. While I give 100% all day, everyday, there are too many factors that divide that percentage into smaller portions of my pie, so each section of my life some days only gets a sliver!

I will settle for keeping everything moderately functional. I wont' get awards at work. I won't be my sons' teachers most involved parent. I won't be the hottest woman on the beach (sorry, babe. You can always gawk at the younger, firmer women). But that is OK. As long as my work is satisfied, my children are happy and I'm not driving the man of my dreams completely insane, I would categorize myself as a success! I give myself permission to be less than perfect. Society won't allow me that. The expectations keep getting higher and the to-do list just keeps growing.

So cheers to you. The mediocre, the just-get-by, the good-enough, average, ordinary, not the most productive or patient or forgiving or involved, best damn you you can be!

We are doing it all. And, might I say, brilliantly!

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