Thursday, July 31, 2008

THE pictue album !

i think i mentioned the picture album that Sandy (my sister-in-law) lovingly made and sent me. i picked it up from the post office on Monday, when i was out with Mari doing errands.

yesterday, when the girls came home from Tel Aviv i gave it to them to see their cousins. they were completely blown away by the album. first of all, they never really had wrapped their minds around the fact that they have cousins outside of Israel. they really only know their father's cousins here in Israel.

so they started to look at the pictures of my beautiful great-nieces and they couldn't believe what their eyes were showing them !! they kept asking me "okay, which one is this?", "why do they all have such blue eyes?", "how old are they?", etc. i tried to answer them to the best of my abilities. to tell you the truth this is the first time that i've seen pictures of them in one place.

and they really got a kick out of the way Sandy put the album together. with each picture there was a little comment about the picture. she also added special little stickers, like the ones used for scrapbooking. it's such a special album !!

i can't wait till Rico, Rachel and Sunny see it. well, actually, Racheli has seen the one that Sandy sent to my mother.

the album is truly a work of beauty, art, and love.

thank you Sandy !!! :-)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

i figured out a way to make it easier :-)

i had been translating bus schedule information straight from the bus company\s site, while online, going back and forth from the webpage to my HTML page.

i finally got smart and decided to first print out the pages of the bus lines and then do the translating. now, many of you might be saying "what an idiot she was in the first place", and you're right. but somehow, something clicked in my mind and i now have the formula right :-)

i worked about 7 hours today on just one bus line, but that has now created the template for all other bus lines and the rest will go quickly. thank God !!!

Tomi is making me crazy without the girls here. he keeps following me around the house and every time i take a step he's right under me. i think he's going to eventually kill me, by mistake of course. also, whenever i go lay down on the sofa he barks his little head off to get me to give him water from my bottle. i've stopped doing that because he has his water bowl and i don't want him to keep up this bad habit. if he's really thirsty, he can go to his bowl.

he's so cute though. he plays with the silliest things in the world. he makes messes with anything that he finds, especially anything made out of paper !! at least he's not strong enough yet to really chew up shoes or i'd be in huge trouble with my new shoes. he loves his little stuffed lion. i have to get him more stuffed toys so that he will leave other things alone. wishful thinking ?

the girls are still in Tel Aviv. i think this is the longest time they've ever stayed there. they are doing all kinds of fun things, with Aba bank-rolling them :-) i'm so glad that they are having this mini-vacation because we could not afford anything else for them right now.

speaking of affording... i have GOT to get my domain name registered and find a reasonable hosting plan QUICK !! i've got it on my list of things to do tomorrow. thank God i have the money for that...... it's a secret how i got the money ;-)

anyway, i took my meds early tonight and i hope to be asleep by midnight. i was up by 1pm today and on the computer by 1:30. i'm glad that i'm getting into a more *normal* sleep pattern because it gives me much more time to work on the site before all my tv shows in the evening.

here's to a good, successful day tomorrow !!

and here i thought the worst was behind me

in my very silly way, i thought the hardest part of the site was behind me. yeah, right !

i've started working on the Useful Information section of the site. it's going to be SO packed with information, all translated from Hebrew. i have to first find the information on various sites, then print it out in a Word document in a large font (so i can see the darn thing), and then the fun part comes..... translating things !!

i don't like doing translation work. i'm good at it, but it wears me out. i try my best to do it so that the English-only readers are able to understand it easily. i just want to get the bus schedule section done. it's been the toughest so far. who knew that we have so many bus routes in the city and going out of the city?

anyway, i'll be spending the next few days on this section, trying to just get it over with. kind of like removing a band-aid :-)

at least the weather is better and i'm not fighting with the area fans.

here's to a good day of translating !!!

Monday, July 28, 2008

what a day so far...

i managed to get up on time today (7:30 am !!!) and even made it to the first bank with 15 minutes to spare. Mari and i had to get to the clinic early for her 9:00 appointment with her nutritionist. i got my meds, my paperwork for my next chemo treatment, and a new doctor's note for the gym.

then we went to the post office, where i picked up THE MOST beautiful picture album i've ever seen. my wonderful sister-in-law, Sandy, prepared a very, very special album of all their granddaughters. i wish i could show it to the entire world. she emblished each page with comments, little beads, other little craft things, etc. each and every single page is just soooo wonderful !! once i got back home i sat and looked at the pictures over and over again for about an hour. i can't wait until the girls come home from Tel Aviv to show it to them !!

then we went to cash my check from my last job and had a nice surprise. i got a bit over 100 shekels more than i had expected. i guess the dollar has gone up since last month. yay for me !!

THEN........ the best part of our adventures started. we went to our new mall, to have breakfast. we sat there for a few hours, telling stories and laughing like teenagers. it's really amazing when you have a relationship with someone for 30 years. we know everything about each other and we have so much in common in our history here in Israel. all we have to do is mention someone, or something, and we both know exactly what's meant. we don't have to go through a whole history lesson with someone to make them understand what we're talking about.

anyway, we had each other in tears from laughter. most of the people around us at the cafe kept giving us strange looks, but who cares? we had the best time !! Mari's birthday is coming up in mid-August, so we treated the whole outing today as a joint-birthday celebration.

i'm going to rest a bit before i get back to work on the site. Mari is very excited about getting to the point where she can go out selling ad space. i'm SO glad that she agreed to come on-board with me. it's perfect for her because she's always out and about in the city, especially stores.

so that's it for me for now. i'll post later when i have something new to say ;-)

Saturday, July 26, 2008

the BEST bitthday ever !!!

except for the fact that Rico, Racheli and Sunny weren't here, this was by far the BEST birthday i've had.

i did get to talk to Rico yesterday, Sunny called today, and Racheli made a grand effort to call me via Skype !! that was fantastic :-)

Mami called, Alberto sent me lots of emails and comments, Michal called wanting to bake me a cake and celebrate over at her house, Liz called me when we were out to dinner and left a wonderful message, i spoke with Paz yesterday... i know i'm forgetting something though. oh well.

Oren came from Tel Aviv on the pretext of picking up the girls. in reality it was a surprise to take me out to dinner !! we went to the 443 Grill and saw a whole lot of people we know. they all asked about the MIA's, and we just had a fun time.

this was just such a fun day. Le Tour de France was also a big part of the day. the last time trials of the Tour, right before the finish in Paris tomorrow. we all know who's going home with the Yellow Jersey, but tomorrow should be fun anyway.

that's about it for me. all those phone calls in the morning broke up my sleep and i'm just wiped out now. i'm actually going to sleep before 1am, for the first time in years.

thank you everyone !! i love you all with all my heart :-)

happy birthday to me :-)

if i'm now 49-years-old, why is it that i *feel* only 15?

i know my body has some issues, but still....... 49 ?!?!?!? come on.... give me a break.

i just can't wait until my 50th birthday, when i'm going to throw myself a sweet-sixteen party :-)

the girls bought me the most beautiful present i've ever received. it's a Picture Tree, with exactly 5 little oval frames, one for each of their beautiful faces. i'm so incredibly out of it when i watch tv that they were able to prepare the whole thing right under my nose, not more than 6 feet from me !! ha ha ! (Pnina Rosenblum guys).

the two of them were in Kravitz (a stationary store) the other day. they were looking at memory chips for their cellular phones. Tamar turns to Nina and says "We should get a memory chip for Mami". anyone who know me and how my memory is now-a-days, knows how incredibly hysterical that comment is. that girl is so brilliant and funny.

now get this.... they also bought me some *Chocolate Cigars* from Max Brenner (an all-chocolate cafe in our new mall). anyone that is close to me knows that i'm dying to smoke a good cigar !!! they are so brilliant, those two.

anyway, happy birthday to me :-)

Friday, July 25, 2008

i just didn't realize !!

i just didn't realize HOW MUCH there is to do on the site !!!! the smallest details. the smallest things. YIKES !!

i've worked for about 5 hours today. thank God for copy/paste. without it i would have given up a few days ago.

it's really starting to take shape though. i got a very big section almost done today. tomorrow i'll finish it up.... mostly because it's the biggest section and i just want it done already.

after that, there is a large section which is just waiting for content. the pages are almost all laid out perfectly, and then the content will need to be poured into the pages and pages of that section.

needless to say, i have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks. but i'm happy with my progress in the past few days. i just wish i'd stop thinking of new things to do. i have to just keep a list of all the new things and add them after the site is up. if i concentrate on them now, i'll never finish.

i've come to the conclusion that this site is like a nice English flower garden. the foundation will be done soon (approx. 2 weeks) and then i will have the chance to just putter around in my *garden* as i see fit. i'll add more *plants* here and there. i'll do some *dead-heading* on my plants (pages), and i'll just keep watering the whole garden in the heat (when it's online and alive).

i'm happy :-)

one tag at a time

i'm finding the work on the site to be quite tedious. but then, why in the world would i have thought otherwise? i am quite literally working on each and every single page (about 100 already) one tag at a time. a *tag* is an element in HTML, and i have to keep the pages as precise as possible, or else they will start to act up on me.

i also discovered that the original design, made by Rico, works with about 10 different layers, and that took me for ever to figure out. his level of website design is very intense, but i'm glad i'm sticking with it.

and all of this is BEFORE i start to pour content into the pages !!! once that starts, there will be no way to turn back. content takes time to design and imput. it takes me having to decide what goes in, in which manner and why.

but i'm glad that this project is making me use my brain. it's my own way of doing cross-word puzzles, which are said to keep *Mad Cow* at bay ;-)

it's so hot now..... i'm wondering how my computer hasn't had a melt-down yet.

time to take a break until tomorrow.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

a peek into ourmodiin


here's a snap-shot of the home page
click on image to see an almost full-size version


Wednesday, July 23, 2008

progressing at a slow pace

YAY !! i've finally started sitting and working on ourmodiin just like it's my *job*.

progress is slow. slow because there is just so much work to do. i didn't realize how many pages i had already created and i have to go back to each and every single one of them and take care of the small design issues. i can't just *copy/paste* each page into another one, because there is already some content on each and every single page. too much content to lose altogether.

i have designed and printed out the first part of the sales flyer. it's basically the home page of the site. it looks so good in print. i'm going to use it next week when i meet with Mari and try to convince her to go into partnership with me. she already personally knows so many of the business owners in the area that it will be easy for her to get advertisers.

my right shoulder is hurting me from the graphic design. it's very strange how just a minor change in our body movement can make such a large difference in what muscles are used. i just hope that this isn't going to be an on-going problem, because it really hurts at time. we'll see about this.

anyway, i'm plowing through the design and site, trying to get one section done at one sitting. but some sections are very large and to keep from going crazy, i've jumped to another section in the meantime. maybe not a great idea, but at least i just don't get up and stop work altogether :-)

it's so hot and humid. i'm going to take a break now and just try to chill out for a few hours before coming back to the site.

:-)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Tamar

we have a very funny family story that we made up about my youngest daughter, Tamar (15 years old).

it goes like this:

Tamar is a VERY intelligent person (she actually scares us at times with her mental abilities). she has always had a special knack for fixing the impossible. cellular phones, tv's, computers, anything that is wire-based, she can fix it.

she also has a tendancy to be awake when everyone is asleep, especially when she was younger. she would get into the strangest of things in her waking hours. she would literally *hunt* through the house to find things to fiddle with.

another thing about Tamar is that she ALWAYS knows where everything is at home. if anyone asks for ANYTHING, Tamar produces it from thin air. missing sissors? Tamar produces 5 pairs of sissors. missing hair brush? again, Tamar produces 3 brushes. missing scotch tape? all of a sudden she has it in her hand. even things that she over-hears two people talking about, she produces it.

yet another thing about Tamar are her abilities to keep track of EVERYTHING that is going on in a room. she sits at the computer with headphones on, music blasting into her head, she hears the tv at the same time, she hears all the conversations that are going on at the same time, she hears everyones' conversations on the phone or cellphone. it's scary!

so, one day, when my son was in the army a few years ago, doing whatever high-level intelligence survellience that he was doing at the time, we came up with the story-line that goes like this.......

Tamar is in reality a Mossad, CIA, MI-5 and Interpol agent, all rolled into one. she goes out to solve world problems during the strange hours that she's awake and our part of the world is asleep. she takes a broken umbrella and a piece of chewing gum and is indeed a world-known agent for the good guys :-)

Saturday, July 19, 2008

now all i have to do is buckle down

i have to get my act together and stop watching tv, and get my butt in front of the computer, and get moving on ourmodiin.co.il !!

a new week starts tomorrow and i'm going to work on the business plan, start the business directory of the site and maybe get part of the flyer done. big plans :-)

my brother, Alberto, has been such a special help to me in this whole journey to get back to working on the site. i thank God that Alberto is my eldest brother, that he's in my life in such a special way, and that he's such a special person.

i'm taking the rest of this Shabbat "off", to just enjoy my last few hours of being a bum.

oh, Racheli is going to China tomorrow !! yes !! CHINA !! she'll be gone till the 31st of the month. i'm really super excited for her. i'm going to miss our daily talks, but that's okay. i'm just SO excited for her.

and Sunny has only one more week till she meets up with Rico in Barcelona !! these kids are having the time of their lives. i'm so happy for them, and SO proud of them !!

i live vicariously through them and i'm loving every minute of it.

i'm now off to watch Inspector Morse (i'm just hoping it's not a re-run).

week 2, day 1

food is as follows:

meal #1: 1 cup steel-cut oatmeal with 1/2 cup skim milk, 6oz skim cottage cheese, 5 dates, 15 almonds.

meal #2: smoothie

meal #3: stiry-fry with brown rice

meal #4: smoothie


fitness plan is as follows:

** 60-70 laps in the pool :-)

onward and upward !!!

week 1 didn't go so well

i got sick from another gallbladder attack sometime during the week and my plan for week 1 just went down the drain.

oh well, there's always another day, right?

onward and upward !!

Friday, July 18, 2008

the answer has been staring me in the face !!

the problems with the site !! yes, the answer has been there all along, but i was too dense to figure it out on my own.

all i had to do was ask Rico for the origial design of the site, and viola ! he's emailing it to me tonight. this time i won't mess up up the original design and i can finally get going on the content.

YAY !!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

good advise :-)

i have been talking with all kinds of people in the past few days about my conflicts with still working at AmReg and working on ourmodiin. these are the results of my crying sessions with various people:

** Racheli -- just do what i really want to do

** Annette -- just do what your heart wants you to do. she also said that it would be really easy to come back to AmReg in the future if i wanted to. i had no idea.

** Aviva -- just do what your heart is telling you to do. God speaks to us through our hearts

** Oren -- what's the problem? now that you are financialy stable, you can do whatever you want.

** Rico -- stop sitting on the fence and just do what you love to do !!

so... since these are people who know me pretty well, some going back 25+ years, i tend to listen to them.

that means that once i get my personal internet connection back, i'm just going to quit AmReg and start doing the site. i'm not even going to wait till the end of the month. it's too much of a strain on me to keep doing what i don't want to be doing.

and the fact that i can always come back to AmReg is a very comforting idea. i thought forsure that they'd never want to hear from an agent who leaves like that. but Annette knows of several agents who have done that in the past, and then they are welcomed back with open arms. i guess that'll depend on how well the company is doing, if i were to try coming back.

oh boy, do i feel a whole lot better now :-)

and my brother, Alberto, has given me some very good ideas on how to progress with the design of the website, maybe making it a bit easier to do in the end. i'm going to check out all the info that he emailed me later tonight.

life is good !!


Monday, July 14, 2008

week 1, day 2

food is as follows:

meal #1 -- 4 egg whites + 1 whole egg omlete, 1 cup cooked steel-cut oatmeal, 1/2 cup skim milk, 10 almonds, 5 dates

meal #2 -- smoothie; 1 pear, 1 banana, 1 apple, 1 cup skim milk, 2 scoops protein powder

meal #3 -- stir-fry with 3oz chicken breast, 1 cup brown rice, lots of veggies

meal #4 -- smoothie


fitness plan is as follows:

** 60 laps in the pool

onward and upward !!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

being true to one's self

i just realized that i must be true to myself in order to get rid of all this confusion and dismay.

what do i mean? i mean that i HAVE to do what my heart keeps telling me to do. to do the website. to go back to graphic and website design, full force. no more mucking around with this and that, and not really doing either this or that 100%.

so....... i'll stay with American Registry until the end of the month, and on July 31st i'll let them know that it's the last day of work for me. i'm not going to tell them beforehand because they are a bit too irrational and will most probably tell me to take a hike. besides, i can use the extra money that i'll make until the end of the month. and i have to get my own internet ISP connection back up again before i quit, because they will disconnect me in a flash !

decision made. i feel a whole LOT better :-)

now all i have to to is sit down and work out the business plan for the site and how the actual money aspect of it will work. i need to decide on advertising rates, turn-over time, if i should get a business partner or not. all these decisions have to be clearly made and written down as clearly as possible.

i feel a whole lot better now.

i almost had a stroke !!

OMG !! i started to work on my website. i opened the index page in the browser and saw a bunch of gloopy programming. at first i didn't think much about it. i thought that there was a problem with the browser.

then i went and opened up the page in the html editor !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to my horror i saw that the problem WAS the page itself !!!!!!!!!! somehow, somewhere the original coding had been over-ridden by this new code that produces nothing... just gloop on the page.

i almost had a stroke !

but then, God in His Merciful way, lead me to the original page that Rico had designed, *red*, and there it was, the whole index page, intact. of course, it doesn't have the small graphics changes that i made yesterday, but at least it's not all gone !!

oh thank you God !! :-)

now i can continue complaining about the general mess of the site. actually, what i'm going to do first is copy the entire ourmodiin.co.il folder that i now have on my desktop, into a deep folder, on another partition of my hard drive. that way, if i do something stupid again, at least the original design will still be intact.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

SO frustrating

okay, i've been doing websites for over 10 years now. you would think that i'm pretty good at figuring out the design/layout of a website, right?

well... that's what i thought until i got ahold of ourmodiin.co.i. Rico designed it beautifully and the very second that i got ahold of it i started messing with it, and now i have all kinds of crappy problems with it !!!

it's SO FRUSTRATING !!

everything that i try just doesn't solve the problems. they are small problems, but the design is a bit wacked off. small details that are making me crazy. i change something on one page, then another, just to find out that only the first page works properly and the second one doesn't. i don't have any idea what to do about this.

i don't want to spend the next month only clearing up these small design problems, but it looks like that's what's going to happen. uugghh !

and to make matters worse, i opened a free web-hosting account which also doesn't work. i guess i'm going to have to go ahead and bite the bullet and get a normal account. i hope it doesn't cost too much.

AND the FTP program that i downloaded is so incredibly complicated that i can't upload anything either. the ftp utility in the html editor is pretty good, but it's just not working correctly with the free hosting.

now what??? i guess i'll just have to keep racking my brain to figure this all out.

oy.

week 1, day 1

gotta start somewhere, no?

food is as follows:

meal #1 -- 4 egg whites + 1 whole egg omlete, 1 cup cooked steel-cut oatmeal, 1/2 cup skim milk, 10 almonds, 5 dates

meal #2 -- smoothie; 1 pear, 1 banana, 1 apple, 1 cup skim milk, 2 scoops protein powder

meal #3 -- stir-fry with 3oz chicken breast, 1 cup brown rice, lots of veggies

meal #4 -- smoothie


fitness plan is as follows:

** 60 laps in the pool

onward and upward !!

my son, the artist

for the most part, Jewish mother's are known to *want* to say *my son, the Doctor*. but for me it's *my son, the artist*.

Rico has such an eye for the sublime. some of his favorite pictures can be seen at:

http://www.photolight.co.il/author.php?author_id=7336 (this opens in the same window, so you'll have to click back to get back to this post. sorry.)

they are really amazing !!

i was trained as a photographer in University. i was good. still am. but Rico's work is just extra-ordinary. he could very easily be a world-known photographer, if he wants to one day. but he doesn't even know what he wants to be when he grows up.

when he was in London he bought himself a new Cannon something or other digital camera, which set him back a few hundred pounds. boy, was it worth the cost !! his passion for photography comes out in each shot. his eye for the details and the sublime are just incredible. reminds me of myself a bit, when i was still photographing. but he's much better than i was at his age :-) and he's never even taken any kind of formal photography training either.

in high-school he took three years of cinema classes and was very good. but it's very clear now that his forte is photography, not cinema.

my son, the artist !!!

a blessed life......

i have a very blessed life. good kids. a wonderful ex-husband. fairly good health, considering everything. a loving family. great friends.

i thank God for all this.

nothing else to say today because it's just overwhemingly wonderful :-)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

a new day !

i can't believe it's thursday, the 10th of july, already !! where does time go? and why does it just zoom by?

i've been doing pretty good at work so far this week. i've gotten 3 orders in as many days. yay for me. that means 5 orders in 6 days of work. not bad at all, especially when you take into consideration that i've only sent out 135 previews. that keeps my conversion rate up. if i keep at this pace i'll also get my extra $100 for preveiws sent this month. i just hope the pace of orders keeps up too.

as for ourmodiin.co.il.... i tried last night to sit and start with the content, but i was pulled away from the compute by the tv. i've got to get out of that incipid habit. the only thing that's really worth watching is either Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders or Miss Marple. they all make me think, which keeps the Mad Cow at bay.

i went and swam today, but i was really tired and hot, even in the pool. i'm going to sleep way too late and i have to re-program that too. there are too many things that i have to re-program all of a sudden.

i'm going to give it my best today at work. i have no idea how long i'll make it though. i'm tired already, and i've been sitting at the computer since 1:30pm, way too early. my butt should start hurting me at about 6pm.

i should go and take a bit of a butt break now. i'll be back later.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

feeling uplifted and happy today

yes... i'm Bi-Polar ;-) up and down is a symptom of my *mixed* condition. but enough of that.

but GOD IS GREAT !!! so here's the story for today:

i'm feeling so much better today because not only did i make it to the pool, but i was able to think through a lot of my situation late last night. way into the early hours of the morning.

it started out with a phone conversation with my Racheli, my angel ! i told her how confused i am and, of course, she was her reasonable and analytical self. she advised me to go ahead and continue with AmReg, working X hours per day. then after i finish with work each day, i should spend at least one hour relaxing with a good TV show. then after that i should come back to the computer and put in another hour with ourmodiin.co.il. and on the weekends i can dedicate myself a lot to the website. very good advise. she's SO smart :-)

so, today will be the first day of this plan. i will work until 10 or 11pm, then watch one of my murder mystery shows that i love so much. then, instead of just watching more tv, i'll come back to the computer and start with the content of the site. good plan. i'm sure that i'll be able to get it up and running in a month or two. no one is after me with the site (as they are with work), so it'll be fun working on the site at my own pace.

i haven't spoken with Rico in a few days. i keep forgetting to call him and by the time i remember it's way to late. i'll try in about an hour, once i get into things at work. hopefully he'll be available to talk for a bit. he's also very good at giving me advise :-)

the girls are making me a bit crazy. it's as if i live alone ! don't get me wrong, i love the fact that they have so many friends and are happy going out and having fun. but i'd like for them to at least go to the supermarket to make sure that i have all the food i need to get back on track. i did manage to find a container with honey-garlic chicken wings late last night that were SO good. yummy!! i have no idea where they came from, but who care when they're staring you right in the face, right?

i'm having the time of my life with the Tour de France in the background. each year i wait for this grand sports event with the glee of a small child. it's only stage 5 today, so we have a few weeks to go. i am always amazed at how the cyclists do that for weeks on end. some of them even do the Giro de Italia before the Tour de France, or the Vuelta de Espania right after the Tour de France !! amazing !!!

gotta start work now. here's to having a very good life :-)

Monday, July 7, 2008

so frustrated and depressed !!

i'm starting to lose it ! i'm having such a hard time at work today and i'm totally, completely confused about what i'm suppose to be doing with my life.

oh God help me !!!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

uugghhh, i'm bored.......

maybe not bored, just confused and i have no energy to think about what i really should be doing with myself these days.

from the beginning...... Annette has said to me in no uncertain terms that she KNOWS that the company will be out of business within the next 9 months. okay. no biggie for me as far as an income goes. she is really worried, of course, since it IS the main income for their family.

my stupid problem? i keep having a nagging, tugging feeling somewhere in my brain and gut that keeps telling me to start ourmodiin.co.il already !! "what are you waiting for?" the voice keeps telling me.

there is also a sense, with AmReg, that wasn't present before all these new managerial changes came along at the beginning of June. everyone is completely unhappy with turn of events, and that gets me down. it's not that i don't like the job itselt, i just don't like how they switched the rules on us half-way through the stream. when i joined it was different, and i just don't know if i like what's going on now.

the push to make a sale is tremendous now. Annette says that in the two years that she's been with the company it's NEVER been like this. she says it's because the company is doing so poorly. she's not a stupid person and she's very well connected in the network of sales agents. i completely trust her information.

so..... the little voice in me keeps saying "why are you spending time with something that you know has no future?" good question. i DO have the power to walk out at any time. i have no contract with them. but... what if?........ i don't know. what if *what*?

ourmodiin.co.il isn't going anywhere. it'll always be there. but will i end up waiting too long whilst someone else comes in and does another English community site and i'll be totally covered with egg on my face?? that's what has me worried. there's already another website up for Anglo-run businesses, but they are running it completely stupid. they have no idea how to *mine* for information and really make the site work. so maybe my worries are unfounded and a bit paranoid. who knows?

i think i should be doing a lot of praying about all of this.

in the meantime i'll keep killing the flying roaches that keep coming into the house !! they are really freaking me out, to say the least. i just don't want them here and they keep popping in, unannounced. at least i have my trusty can of bug-killer next to me now :-)

*sigh* (about the decisions i have to make, soon)

Friday, July 4, 2008

eventually, i took a valium.......

let's start with late last night. after *finishing* work at about 9pm because of the heat, i rested for about 2 hours. whatever made me come back to the computer, i will never know.

i saw an email from my team leader: "$30 discount on certain orders placed by certain clients if they are placed by 5pm EST". that gave me about 40 minutes to close an order with a contact that i had been chasing all day long.

i finally got through to him and told him that he had an ADDITIONAL $30 discount, if he ordered immediately. he took the bait. that made a $60 discount on the entire order. WRONG!! my team leader's email was not clear, nor were her AIMs that she was sending me when i was helping the client place the order.

long/short....... i gave him a discount that had not been approved. i made a huge mistake that needed cleaning up by the powers that be. by then it was so late that nothing could be decided and we all had to wait for today.

eventually, with about 60 emails flying back and forth between those vague people up high in the company, i got the okay for the wild discount. PHEW !

so okay, that was good news. God is Good !!

then my team leader, Miriam, tells me, right at the beginning of work, that she wants to work with me for 2-3 hours on the phone today making follow-up calls. i immediately freaked out !! i mean, shaking, sweating and in general, feeling really stressed out.

as time went on this afternoon i got more and more stressed out thinking that she was going to turn to me at any moment to start out mentorship. YIKES !! so, i did *A Dennise* to myself and was calm as a cucumber for the rest of the afternoon :-) yeah, that's right.... i took a valium and was able to make follow-up phone calls all by myself with all the confidence in the world. i was amazed. no orders came in, but there also weren't a lot of people in because of the holiday. but i left confident messages and shot out follow-up emails to them.

i also started writing down different responses that i got from different contacts, just as Miriam had told me that we would do together. the only thing that went wrong was that my softphone was acting up a bit and the connection of the calls was a bit dodgy at times. but in the end, I DID IT !! all by myself.

moral of the story: sometimes it's okay to go ahead an get some *help* from an outside source, especially when that *source* reminds you of a very unique person and event ;-)

boy am i looking forward to the pool on sunday !!!!!!!

GOD IS VERY GOOD !!!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

what a great day!

this day started out really good with the order that i got late last night and the double commission that i spinned on the Turbo thingy.

then Paz called this afternoon and told me that she wired me $500 for my birthday :-) that's from her and my mother. God bless their souls. they are just amazing. it'll really help to make up for the loss of income when i was sick. God never lets one down !!

now i'm working at a good pace. even the heat isn't getting to me... well, it helps that the fan is about 6 inches from me. but... still.

i'm so looking forward to sunday when i go back to the gym. that pool is just calling out my name. i'm afraid that i'll spend an entire day in it and not make it back home.

aaahhh, God's Goodness.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

finally healthy :-)

yeah. that's right ! i'm finally healthy :-) no more dizziness, no more brain pressure, no more nausea, no more anything stupid or strange.

i start up again with work tomorrow, July 1st. i'm excited. especially since i already have an order waiting for me. turns out that a client that placed an order last week wants to purchase another plaque and he will do it only through me. he's such a nice man. really funny and all that.

anyway, turns out that Helen already told me that i get to keep all my clients and that i'll be able to get this new order tomorrow... YAY !! what a good way to start out a new month.

i finally went to our new mall yesterday with Mari. WOW! i must say that we are luck to have such an elegant mall right down the street from us. it has all the great shops that i would never buy anything at, but at least they exist. there is a really nice, large and clean food court with my very favorite place in the world *Pinati*. it's a very long story with Pinati, dating back to my days in Ulpan (hebrew school) some 25+ years ago. how time fliew when you're not looking.

Kaufman (my family dr) gave me the okay to go back to the gym next sunday. boy am i looking forward to that. i'm dying to get in the pool. with this weather i am melting, but the fat isn't going away. strange how that works, no?

i haven't been on Shindler's List for days and i can only imagine that there is yet another incipid argument going on there once again. i'll tackle it tomorrow. i need to find a second-hand treadmill for Mari and a 17" computer screen for the girls' computer. at least the list is good for something most of the time. (note to self: sign up for the other Shindler's Lists tomorrow !!)

oh, we have a new puppy. as i type this he is chewing on my socks and toes. he's starting to make me crazy, but i'll put up with him since it's time we have a dog again. he's adorable. can't even begin to describe him since he's still a standard-issue puppy. i'll have the girls take some pictures and i'll post them here.

time to get back in front of the fan before i bring on another MS-something-bout. this heat is killing me and i can't afford an air conditioner !!!!!!!!!!!!!! we'll i can purchase one, but the electricity bills would kill me more than the heat.

take care everyone. remember... there's nothing more important than you're health !!