min-myinnersoul

Sorry I haven't been around. Working on a Top Secret Project. Started on it Wednesday and just finished it. I CAN'T WAIT TO SHARE IT!!!! Of course you can't see it until Monday...sorry:oP. Anyway, as promised, here is the reveal of S.R.'s new (old) chair. Let's take a minute to remember the BEFORE: Oh yes. Sad, sad, sad. I told you that a friend from church found this on the side of the road. Well here is the AFTER: Now that's much better. I am still not completely finished with it. I missed a spot with the spray paint where I thought the fabric would reach...OOPS! Maybe I'll take care of it this weekend if it's not raining. I added some piping around the edges, and bows at the corners just to cutesy it up a bit. The reason why it went in S.R.'s room...The "S" at the top of the chair. So here's the before: YOWZA! And the after: Ahhhhh....much better:o) ***** Here is S.R.'s room in all of it's glory. I am done with it for now, un

There’s something very wrong when common sense is completely thrown out of the window. We all know that law can be an ass and lawyers an unbelievable pain in the aforesaid part of the anatomy, but this story takes the cake for the ultimate in nonsense. Only in the United States would something like this be even remotely comprehensible. Two Sprint employees who worked in their store in Denver were fired . Their crime ?? They were on their lunch break in the mall where their store was, when they saw a shoplifter from the neighbouring store being chased. They lent a hand and caught the shoplifter. This was their crime. Wait a minute. Would you not expect them to be publicly felicitated for being such being good samaritans ? You would expect a reward to be more appropriate than the sack. But sack is what they got. Why ? They violated company policy that prohibited store employees from chasing shoplifters outside the store. Wow !! My first and immediate conclusion was that Sprint was an ass

If you ever listed the most undesirable inventions in the world, Power Point should feature somewhere at the top of the list. This blogger’s visceral antagonism to Power Point may be well known to long time readers – there’s a series of posts on this here . It was therefore with unbelieving incredulity that I read of Power Point’s infiltration into the US army in the New York Times’ report here . I had to rub my eyes a couple of times to believe what I was reading. But then on logical reflection, I should not have been surprised. Is there any organisation that the cursed Power Point has not infiltrated. Why should the military be impervious to its seductive powers. Human idiocy has not escaped any particular body of men. Al Qaeda’s true magic bullet to winning the war in Afghanistan is not the suicide bomber. Its not the Taliban. Its not the weapons smuggled in through Pakistan. Its not the opium that’s grown to finance the war. Its not the Tora Bora caves. Its actually nothing that th

I finally finished it! I have been wanting to change this coffee table for a VERY long time! I haven't had it that long, but after I finished it the first time, I realized I didn't love it like I should have. It just seemed like a black hole in my rug. To see the "before the before" go here ...Here's the second before: Just black and boring. The paint was starting to chip off and I am all about some distressed looking furniture, but it just wasn't doing it for me. I bought some sample size paints from Lowes about a month ago, after I found this table over at Miss Mustard Seed . She is simply AMAZING! No other word for it. She can take any junk and turn it into something FAB! I wanna be her when I grow up:o) You should definitely check out her blog and her gallery when you get a chance. She's a STUD when it comes to painting furniture. Anywho, I pulled out the chalk board spray paint that I always have on hand, and sprayed a big square in the middle of the

I have missed you guys! So glad to be back on here. I feel like it has been ages since I talked to ya'll last. Any-who, I have been super busy on finishing up on some projects that have been filling up the "hub's garage." He has had enough of me bringing home all my treasures b/c he says it junks up his garage:o) I don't have pics ready for all the furniture projects that I have completed, but I do have these pics of some gifts I made for a baby shower I attended on Saturday. I found this little stool at Michael's in their unfinished wood section. It was very inexpensive. I already had the paint on hand, so all I really needed to do was invest some time into painting. I really didn't realize how many coats of acrylic paint I would have to apply, but I just found something else to work on in between coats. I had fun making it and I think it turned out ok for this being my first attempt at doing anything like this. Don't you just love the name Quinn? I c

An old stale subject, but since I happened to read an article in the Financial Times on this , why not add to the zillion words already written on this comparison. Both are financial centres; both are dynamic and vibrant city states. They are the usual two choices for any company’s Asian headquarters. As a financial centre, after London and New York, Hong Kong is ranked third; Singapore fourth. They are wonderfully connected to the rest of the world. HKIA and Changi frequently trade places as the best airport in the world. They are two of the biggest seaports. Both are ex British colonies and truly international. Great places to live in. At a superficial glance, they seem to be clones of each other. So what are the differences ? Hong Kong is obviously numero uno for China. Singapore is a much more comfortable location for India. The standard of English is much better in Singapore than in Hong Kong – there are parts of Hong Kong where you could be totally lost without Cantonese. Hong Ko

Every day morning, my one sure chore is this – open Blogger after dodging the net nanny and delete the couple of spam comments that my blog has attracted. Irritation has started to give a little way to intrigue - who are these guys and gals and what are they trying to do ?? These days common email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Google have pretty good spamguards; so the number of spam emails can be controlled. Of course the majority of emails in the world are spam – some 60-80% of all emails in the internet is spam ; says something about human nature doesn’t it. But Blogger, for some reason, doesn’t seem to have a spam guard. Presumably it views blogs like mine as virtually indistinguishable from the nonsense that is spam. One variety of spammers are the scamsters . Nigerians had a dominant market share in this market, but the business is now truly global. I would have thought anybody in this world will now delete messages titled- “Congratulations you have just won the lottery:”,

Too much cash. An envious position to be in, but there are a few companies in this predicament. What do you do with all that cash ? Apple is the best example of a company with a massive cash problem. Yesterday they announced results that blew the market away. But they also have a problem. Cash. Lots of it lying idle. Actually $42bn of it. Earning a princely return of 0.75% per annum. And they are likely to generate another $14bn of it this year. Microsoft is a long time hoarder of cash. At last count they had some $40bn. Google has $25bn, Intel $19bn. Its not all tech companies in this list. Exxon still has $11 bn after returning $26bn to shareholders last year. So what do you do if you have this problem ? You can put it in the bank, as most of these companies have done. And earn virtually nothing on it. A significant proportion of the value you generate for shareholders by running your business, is destroyed by the act of digging a hole in your backyard and burying the cash. Or you c

No projects to post today. I'm taking a break from all the hard work so I can enjoy my parents being here. I will get back to it tomorrow. I better get my spay painting finger ready since it's supposed to rain on Friday. I am planning another give away. I know I said I wouldn't do another one until I had 100 followers. I fibbed:o) I can't stand it! I feel the need to be gifty! So I am almost to 50 followers...sad I know. Only 47 of you will claim me:o) So when I hit 50 followers, I will announce the new give away. The picture above isn't anything significant. I took it last year when we were vacationing in Hilton Head. Just makes me miss some beach time. I LOVE THE BEACH!

“This house believes that GDP growth is a poor measure of improving living standards”. That’s the proposition in the live online debate being currently run by The Economist. You can access this debate here . At the time of writing this post 68% of the online voters agree with this proposition. It seems rather the in thing to agree with the proposition. You can plausibly argue that there’s more to life than GDP. Gross National Happiness, first conceived by Bhutan the world leader in this concept, sounds appealing. Climate Change, Civil society, reduction in inequality – all seem to be nice concepts equally important to “living standards”. You can almost visualize the wrinkling of the nose at GDP, a very base and mercenary measure. An opinionated blogger, such as this one, has a view, obviously ! And the view is largely based on the marvelous example of China. The answer in China would be very clear. There is only one measure. GDP. Or rather growth in GDP. Full stop. Nothing else matters

Remember this picture from the last post? Not a bad pic. Would go nice in a kitchen. I got it for the frame. I care nothing about a painting of fruit and wine. This picture was $3. I couldn't decide if I wanted to paint the frame or leave it as it was, but finally just decided to leave it alone. There isn't a thing wrong with it. So I popped the picture out and flipped it over made a pretty on it:o) My materials included: scrapbook paper (on hand), trims for a wedding gown(on hand), hot glue gun, regular glue stick, and free clip art  here at  The Graphics Fairy . Glued everything in place and popped it back in the frame. Here's the back...I moved the hanger over as well so that I could hang it horizontally: If I ever want the fruit pic again, I can just flip it back over. Easy peasy. Angle one.. Angle two Here are some other new homes for my recently found treasures: Here is the bakers rack that I told you about yesterday. It's a short one. I put it upstairs in the bo

That word says it all. This weekend wasn't anything that I would have planned:o) I told you guys that the kids had some allergy issues. Well that was just the beginning of all the unplanned events:o) My Saturday morning started at 5:45 a.m. I was pumped and ready for some treasure hunting. I was exhausted, but I wasn't about to miss out on some super neighborhood sales. I got my shower, got dressed and got out the door by 6:25. I got my cash b/c I didn't have a chance to get any Friday night, and hit the first sale of the morning. It was a dud. She was overpriced, so I made my way back to the van. I tried opening the door and it wouldn't open....the van was still running....not good. I always leave the keys in the van and keep it running for a quick get away...By this time it's 6:45 a.m. I called the hubs and ask him to call a neighbor to bring me the keys b/c I had BOTH car seats in the van with me:o/. Well, he couldn't get in touch with anyone, so he had to br

A very nice piece from Lucy Kellaway in today’s Financial Times touched me. It touched me because it could be me she was writing about. Lucy is a brilliant journalist and her pieces in the FT are something I always read – she brings a down to earth realism, without the spin, that is very refreshing. This is a topic most readers of this blog will not relate to, for you are young and probably at the start of your careers. Some of you have progressed a bit and a double digit in the experience line is close or already there. Pause and think – is loyalty really an anachronism in today’s world. I have posted before on this topic here . But Lucy’s column prodded me to muse again on this old fashioned concept. All relationships in life have a certain degree of long termism to them. The majority of people on earth are loyal to their parents all through their lives. Ditto to their spouse. Ditto to their children. Just because there’s a prettier girl down the street (new exciting opportunity in

Last Friday was the deadline for tax submissions in the US. In recent years this has become a media event, thanks to the “ Tea Party Movement ”. This blog is not a political blog, even on a Sunday, so I will try not to comment on the politics of it. I can’t but resist drawing your attention to the sound intellectual basis for the “Party”, especially considering the towering genius in Sarah Palin who has been adopted/appropriated/self appointed as its mascot. But we shall let that pass lightly. Instead this post is on the Tea, in the Tea Party movement. I know the political advantages of claiming the legacy of the Boston Tea Party , but I am intrigued as to what kind of tea, if any, is drunk in Tea Party meetings, especially the sort where the N word is frequently used, and the vocabulary is limited to hoarse renderings of baby killer, shoot the pig etc etc. Anybody who’s been anywhere near the country knows what sort of tea is served and consumed in the bastion of the free world. This

Long Night last night:( E. had a tough time with this allergy mess. Today is a Benadryl kinda day. I'm exhausted, but my mind is ready for another project:o) Gonna redo my coffee table this weekend, and it involves chalkboard paint:o) Hope to have a reveal up soon! Here's the before: ******** More neighborhood yard sales this weekend! Can't wait!! Hopefully I can catch a cat nap today while the babies are sleeping. That way I can be fully rested for tomorrow:o) Have a great weekend peeps!

Should a life insurance company invest in the shares of fast food companies ? They have been accused of “dining” on fast food profits while preaching the gospel of healthy eating to their customers in a paper that was published yesterday by Harvard researchers. Only somebody from Harvard can do research on such a crucial, life critical (pun intended) and urgent issue facing the business world. Insurance companies are exhorting their customers to have healthy eating habits and not gorge on Big Mac and fries. And then what do they do ?? They invest in shares in McDonald’s. Terrible isn’t it ? Wrong. Insurance companies invest the moneys they receive from you as premium in the most profitable investment possible. If, McDonald’s is a damned good investment, then surely they must invest in it. Maximising returns from investment should be a key business priority. Right ? Wrong. Even if you forget the morality of it all, financially it’s a stupid thing to do. For if McDonald’s do well, more

What another beautiful day! Here lately I have been waking up and thinking what a lucky girl I am. I have a great hubby whom I adore and am ever so grateful for his hard work. I have two sweet little precious babies who are my life. And I am surrounded by people that I love. Life is good. However, this morning has been a little different. The blessings were a little harder to see...because my day started just shortly after 5 a.m. S.R. has been having nightmares..poor lil one:( And E. is suffering from allergies, so he has been snortin', coughin', gaggin', and sneezin'. Not much sleep happnin; here. After getting S.R. settled next to daddy, I went and laid down with E. I opened his blinds to let in the morning light. It was the time of morning when there is that light mist and the sky is purple and pink. Beautiful! Then I thought, "Thank you dear Lord in heaven above for giving me this life with these precious souls". And then E. started singing...not sure what