Pack Rat

It's time to pack for my Thanksgiving trip. I try to pack all carry-on because I don't like to lose my stuff. Interestingly, I just read a friend's blog on packing light and it's not surprising that we're friends - we have similar priorities on what's important to pack, after all! Still, my stuff winds up taking about twice the space hers does, I think.

A few months ago, the family decided to plan a gettogether at thanksgiving. As of a couple weeks ago, this plan hit the skids, but I'd already decided on something else for Christmas, so we're going to make it work, sort of. The plan is a little crazy.

Step 1: Getting There
We all fly into STL sunday afternoon, get 2 rental cars and head to grandma's in southern IL. The 'rents fly standby, so this may or may not go smoothly. I couldn't get a direct flight at all, so mine may or may not go smoothly.

Step 2: Grandma's House
We spend a couple days with grandma and pop. Mom has some notion that we'll cook an early Thanksgiving dinner. I hope we do because my mom is great at that particular meal. I'd say you have no idea, but you probably do if you've met my parents. They like feeding people, and mom can whip up a turkey dinner for 12 on a moment's notice. It's her superpower.

Step 3: Traveling
Dad takes rental car one back to STL, the flies back home to go to work, the thing that lets my parents fly without planning in advance.
The following day, my mom and I head out for Kansas City. If all goes well, we'll stop to see friends of mine in STL, then we'll roadtrip across the state. I'm wondering if we'll be snacking on turkey drumsticks.

These plans aren't set in stone. The options for mom are

1. fly back early with dad
   
2. ride with me to STL and fly back
   
3. ride with me to Kansas City and fly back that night
   
4. ride with me to Kansas City and fly back the next morning
   
5. something unknown to science.

It took rather more planning skills than we usually muster because dad flies standby and cannot miss work on wednesday, I'm flying into STL and out of MCI, mom doesn't want to get stranded somewhere, and we don't want to spend a fortune on rental cars. We don't want my dad to miss out because it's his birthday as well as Thanksgiving. (Do I have a card yet? No.) Fortunately, we figured out that a 2nd rental car would be a trivial cost (1/10th my one-way cost...) so mom and I get more time with grandma. Who sounded more disappointed than I expected that I wouldn't be there on Thanksgiving. Step 4: Thanksgiving! My good friend from high school - she of the children named for Norse gods, as opposed to my good friend from high school whose child is named for a Norse god - invited me for thanksgiving. Her other friend that I stayed with when I went to her wedding will also be there, and we got on well, so I'm looking forward to this. The bonus will be seeing her youngest boy in an awake state, and meeting the 4th boy, who they adopted last year. Mostly I know her oldest boy, who visits grandparents in SoCal. And since I'm more mobile than a family of 6, it feels like the right thing to do. Apparently her husband is good at the Thanksgiving meal too, so that will be nice. Step 5: Return Hopefully this goes smoothly. I turn in the car and get another 2-segment flight back, but get back at a reasonable hour and have a day to decompress before headed back to work. Which brings me back to Step 0: Pack I'm mostly good with the toiletries from my CO trip last month, but am halfway through the laundry (quick pause to rescue delicates from dryer...). Thankfully I just read my friend's packing list for a reminder, and have a good handle on what to take. I even baked cookies using the last of my oats, so I have room for new oats at the cookie party.

The only real trick is that my brain somehow still thinks I have a week before I need to go, but really, I'm headed to LAX at 3am on sunday. In between now and then, the handyman is coming over for 8 hours of project finishing - I will finally put the range hood up! - I'm just not sure how my focus and energy will hold out. I try to remember that if all goes badly, I should keep my charged phone and credit card close to hand and they sell toothpaste where I'm going.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving*, all. Got any good plans?

*(A much belated Canadian Thx.)

This is why I'll never be an Adult

For the last 9 months or so, any piece of paper I couldn't deal with right away, for whatever reason, got stuffed into a cabinet, or a bin under the cabinet. The intention was to go through it every 3-4 weeks, get everything settled and move on. It has recently spilled elsewhere. One reason I needed a weekend to deal with taxes is digging the relevant stuff out of this stash. I think I've got most of it, and the rest I can print off the computer at work tomorrow.

Of course, now my living room looks like this:

(TBI= to be installed, aka in a box on the porch because I have enough projects to last a month of sundays.)

Fortunately, I only had a couple of late payments and they didn't lead to significant charges. One reason I could deal with the pile fairly quickly is thanks to the wisdom in "Taming the Paper Tiger" about not bringing crap into the house in the first place. I drive to my mailboxes, and strip out all the filler paper (unwanted ads, extra pages, unwanted checks, useless envelopes) and just keep the truly necessary stuff. Since most of my important stuff is set up on autopay or goes to my UPS mailbox, I open it at lunch and pay it right away if I can. Probably 90% of the delivered bulk goes straight in the trash. And 70% of it is unsolicited so "going paperless" wouldn't help much and only let me miss more deadlines at this point.

So. I pretty much have what I need to get my taxes done, submit my last $400 from my health care account to be reimbursed, and make the recipe I made up for the Trader Joe's lemon pepper pasta that I've looked for twice so far. (Boil LP pasta, toss over medium heat with 1T TJ's olive tepanade, glug of favorite cooking oil, diced 1/3 avocado, 1 Dorot frozen garlic cube, & salt until heated through.)

But it's not pretty. And this is why I'm not living up to my potential. Hopefully once I get my cabinets in place and have file drawers that aren't hidden behind a sofa, things will improve. Stay tuned but don't be holding your breath.

Wishes

I just took a long nap, now need to go to sleep for realzers as I have a guest coming tomorrow and should make some attempt to be civilized. But what did I do? Downloaded some books from Autobuy authors that recently came out. Will probably be reading for the next two hours. Although after all the anagrams and angry birds recently, it'll be nice to get back to my usual timesink.

One thing that is helping me be civilized is that I can afford to have someone clean my place every month or so. They came tuesday so all I *have* to do is wash the guest sheets and tidy up. But I have so many projects, and there's only so much tidy to go around. At least I don't have to worry about the shower being icky.

It's got me thinking of what else I'd like to hire done, though.
1) bookkeeper - I tell you what needs paying, you execute the payments. I *know* I should pay off the balance, I just plan to do it tomorrow but I'll forget about it tomorrow and then I'll have to pay a late fee. I had one for a while but she stopped doing that sort of thing and I haven't searched hard for another affordable one. They would make sure I turn in my reimbursements on time and remind me to donate before the end of the tax year and the like.

2) personal assistant - like the bookkeeper but not in charge of finances. Would set up and maintain my calendar, check through all the crap emails I get to find the ones I want to read, would set up my email folders so that less sorting is necessary. Would also copy all the files off my old computer onto a backup harddrive and get rid of ye olde eMac. Would compile all my pictures into one main storage space and one backup storage space and would re-back them up after I renamed them. Would also help me search dating websites for likely candidates, and "around town" periodicals for the concerts, museums, events, and restaurants I'd like to hit up and actually get me some tickets and whatnot.
(To be fair, my instigator friend in Orange County fulfills that last one nicely, but it's all stuff more local to her than me. Plus, I have a great organizer, but she's kind of expensive for doing the more rote things.)

3) handyman - or handywoman. Or a friend who just likes doing stuff. I have heapo plenty projects, lots of ideas. I like doing them. Sometimes I just like doing them better with others, sometimes I need more hands. I would like to have a regular buddy for this sort of thing, but would also be willing to hire some help.

4) Personal chef. This one is iffy because it would only be good if it helped me remove some decision making. "I guess I'll have stew because that's what's here". But my mental health requires me to not eat alone in my condo too often, so I eat out and if I'm just as happy with a Taco Bell chicken burrito, a chef seems like overkill when I can find them at restaurants. The bigger goal here would be to have a better food routine so I'm not always dreading deciding what to eat. maybe I should add that to my PA role - set me down once a week and figure out what the food plans are for the upcoming week. Have experimentation day on a day I can accommodate it.

The goal here would be to have someone help me impose order where it's hard for me to do it on my own (bookkeeper/PA) and make my fun projects less chore like. I'm making good on my goals from last year to finally get my place set up like I want it. I'd like to finish the already in-house projects within the next 3 months. This will allow me and my organizer to get me set up better to deal with incoming papers and scheduling, and I think at that point I'll be able to look into grad schools (and refinancing the mortgage or buying a cheaper place).

After attending the local Engineering Societies' Week dinner last night and being inspired all over again about the future of energy research, I need to make grad school a nearer term goal. (Or at least the regular watching of TED videos.) Particularly, our Keynote Speaker talked about how energy efficiency is progressing faster than engergy generation and storage technology. I've long thought I'd be psyched to do research and development batteries/fuel cells, but it might make more sense to work more on energy efficiency because I could get it to tie in better to my existing background and skillset. If one makes a more energy efficient cell phone, the same old battery doesn't have to improve as readily, for instance. And our CEO says we have something in the works, just like all other companies, so it makes me think it would be an easier career upgrade than trying something completely new. In the meantime, it might be cool to get involved with something like Unite to Light which donates solar rechargeable LEDs to schoolchildren in areas with poor local infrastructure so they can study after sunset when the day's chores are done.

Kindle vs. Nook Smackdown

Short version - I prefer the new WiFi-only Kindle. The nook's benefits of pretty cover art in the navigation panel, that it can be bought at a local store instead of being shipped, and that one can read books for free while actually in the Barnes & Noble aren't good enough to make up for the bad battery life, slow and imprecise interface, bad thru-device shopping, and it's general "also ran"-ness. I suspect I would have liked the nook more if I actually spent any time at my local B&N, but I really don't.

For long version

Butte View

I got to Phoenix, checked out the used-refurbished tool we're buying, it works right, and only needed minor tweaks before shipping. We had mexican food for lunch, but no margaritas.

After my work, a nearby book-club friend picked me up and we went to the Marriot pool bar at "The Buttes" overlooking Phoenix on one side and a spring training ballfield on the other. We did have margaritas, then met up with another book club friend for mexican food and margaritas. (Ok, so my driving friend watched me have margaritas, but still). Then we retired to my friend's house and her husband made us "German Chocolate Cake Martinis! yum. We chatted a bit and surfed the web to find entertaining things. We checked out their "throws", the necklaces and other detritus of their trip to Mardi Gras. Given my hoarding tendencies, I'm not sure if it would be good for me to go, ever...

The trip was good - productive and friendly. But I have been a zombie most of the time. I had to *leave the house* at 5:45AM to get to the airport. I didn't have enough sleep (I tried, but things came up) and with the new time change, it was like waking up a 4:15AM body time which is one of the only times of day I'm ever reliably asleep. I've been trying to recover since. I slept on the plane out, got a good 8-9 hours at my friend's house, but hit the sack the moment the shuttle dropped me off at home. I slept for a couple hours, talked on the phone with a friend, slept on the couch for 4 hours, then was awake enough to be irresponsible. I finally got to sleep really, really, really late, only to have my boss call at 8am and a tech call at 10:30.

10:30 was good, though because I had my alarm set for that time anyway because my organizer was due over. I was essentially useless for the first hour she was here, but we sorted through all my non-sorted books and it was good. I now have a giant, but organzied, TBR (to be read) pile, more full-on keeper books tucked into a re-purposed bookshelf, and some provisional keepers. Next book organizing will go into my deep storage paperbacks and probably get rid of half of them. In the meantime, I need to acquire closed storage. Media storage works best, but I like the double depth stuff and that can be tricky. I do have some leads though. There's definitely hope.

If I can sleep right and be awake ever again.

Inspiration

I found all kinds of great links yesterday. Let me know what you think of these, or if you have suggestions for your favorite new link of the moment -even if it's a fleeting moment. Although it occurs to me that I should just make a facebook page already and spend etime with people I already know and like...

One way to plan out blog ideas a year in advance. I need to do something like this with travel/socializing plans, and I have a lovely new calendar from New Zealand,and already carry around the little notebook, a holdover from vacations spent roaming around Europe before the internets were available for blogging.
Planning a Year
This could actually work for me because I am partial to the same tools and time-based oraganizing.

Here are some crafty things. I have a soft spot in my heart for stuffed felt things: animals, cartoony things. Here are techniques useful to making them.
Cool knot
Felt sewing, whip stitch
Felt sewing, blanket stitch
Felt sewing, choose between whip/blanket stitch

I was inspired by these to make something last night. More specifically, I was inspired by someone who used the felt sea creatures pattern to make valentines. I got so far as digging out some colored foam sheets (felt substitute I had on hand) and some silicone type caulk (figured it'll bond, be clear, dry easily, and not run and it's already open). I haven't made anything yet, but I think I'll get it done tonight.

The thought linkage: My mom's birthday is very near St. Patty's, and I have a gift but no card. The octopus valentine was cute, but maybe a shamrock would be better. I'm having a hard time getting excited about yet another shamrock, but green frogs, they're cute! Then looking up felt frogs, I found tree frogs. *I* like frogs, but my mom likes trees. So maybe I can make a tree instead. Or a frog. Frogs are cute. So, a tree, a frog, or a frog in a tree. I'm going to make one of those and mail off the present. Because what mom wants in her 60s is more handmade romper room cut outs from her kids! Well, I'm going to make it anyway.

Then for some reason, after finding the ikeahacker blog, I'm finding that everyone in the world has made adorable play kitchens for their kids from old cabinetry. It looks like a fun thing to do. Then that led, don't know how, back to trees when I found the suckatlife artist who draws and paints some of my favorite things:
cartoons and scraggly trees.>

I did also do my "homework" and search online for a desk and shelving. Why I can't find paperback book bookshelves is a mytery to me, but it looks like adjustable "media" shelves will work out the best. Although getting rid of some books probably wouldn't hurt either.

So it's not exactly a happiness post, but it's not exactly not because all of these things made me go "squee!" just a little on my first day of staying late at work after the plague. Which I apparently did pass on to my friend. Oops! So if you're sick and stuck at hope, but alert enough to be online, go see if any of those things get you some cuteoverload.

Storytelling

It was a good day for me when I realized that writing non-fiction was a substantially different thing from writing fiction because it meant that I could write. I have never, ever, in my whole life come up with a fictional story. It can take me a week to craft a decent lie, one that my brother could knock off without effort, and chances are about 50/50 that I'll be able to pull it off. My mom once enrolled me in a creative writing course because she likes my writing which I took because I was young enough to confuse "creative writing" with "calligraphy", which was the summer course I wanted to take. I was both disappointed and driven to deliberate plagiarization because I never did come up with a story to write for the final project so I took the most obscure but kind of generic story I could find on the hall shelf and copied that. To this day I don't feel guilty and it remains the only assignment I ever copied. And as an adult, I now know that if I can't create fictional stories I can do a reasonable job writing anything I believe to be the truth. Hence the blog.

Still, every time I hear educators say "we'd like to have a program where kids come in and write their own stories and put on plays and progress at their own rate and find their own interests" rather than doing standard classroom stuff, I cringe and hope like hell they screen kids for this skill before throwing them in the deep end. The reason I was a great student was because I was given structure and a program that was driven forward externally and exposed to things I never would have thought to look into. As for plays? Fuggeddaboudit. The only time my barbies did anything beyond getting dressed and a hairdo, it was because I was playing with someone else who could craft a story or a scenario that I could follow. I even had one friend who would record soap operas on cassette tapes. I could barely be trusted to do the commercial breaks and even then she'd have to invent the product. I could just never understand where these stories came from because they don't come from me.

So imagine my surprise when I find myself telling stories! I've done hired me an organizer to come over and help me get rid of stuff and sort/store what's left in a more workable manner, and do all the stuff that has to get done but that I don't do. Since she's started coming over, we've completely revamped my non-fiction shelf, gotten all the kitchen items into the kitchen by rearranging where I kept stuff and putting in drawer dividers and whatnot, cleared out a lot of stuff from my giant bathroom closet area, and cleaned off the patio of all the items that got put there because they didn't have anywhere else to go. There's still a lot of work to be done, but I've plain thrown away about 5 large hefty bags of trash and donated a roughly equal amount of stuff that I don't love or use anymore.

Aside from all the decision making involved, which wears me out, it can be really daunting to get rid of things that have a history because one reason people like me keep so many things is because these things remind us of something; they remind us of a story. I find that if I can tell the story of my thing to my organizer, I have an easier time letting go of it. So among all the other functions she performs, she's also my audience when I find myself telling story after story about all these things I used to love and feel a little bad about not loving so much anymore. And things I didn't think I could give up, I'm able to give up once their story is told.

Grumy McGrumpmeister

I've been a grumpy freak (way beyond cranky) all week. Don't know if it's the Blue Monday, the low light, a post holiday letdown, not enough sleep, or a combination of all of them or none of them. But I was NOT a happy camper this week. I survived, but there was collateral damage. Hopefully it's mendable.

Still, good things happened.

• I baselined my first week of sleep with my Zeo system. It looks like my sleep patterns appear mostly normalish in terms of % of REM and deep sleep. 
  


• I learned how to update my blog settings to get the new jump feature


• The organizing got started saturday and will continue.  (I don't know if I need a helper so much as I need an audience...)


• The cooking class ladies want to have a dinner party after classes are over. 


• I found a good anthology to read.  Normally I find anthologies to be very hit or miss with much more miss than hit!  Strange Brew editied by P.N. Elrod has hit on the first 4 stories, so I have my money's worth even if the last four miss, but all indications are good that they won't miss. Paranormal witch, wizard, warlock and weres featuring Charlaine Harris and Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs.  Good enough that I'll look up and check out or buy at least one book from each author (although CH was already on the TBR pile, she'll move up).


• Got my hair cut and colored and didn't waste the first day of the new do totally.  Didn't have a date date, but did meet up with a friend for dinner and a show.


• We were able to bypass the 1.5 hr wait for a table by sitting at the bar at Claim Jumper, and I didn't even have to call in favors from my fav bartenders to get in, served, and out quickly.
  


• The show was Avenue Q.  I've been wanting to see it and got tickets with a good view for a reasonable price at the venue next door.  The cast was quite competent (not original cast but one quite skilled) and the story elements are right up my alley (cussing muppets! What do I want to do; who do I want to be?!?)
  


• I finally joined the modern era and downloaded some ringtones.  Instead of the pukey but least bad Verizon tune, I now have Vampire Weekend's A-Punk. It fits my criteria of starting at a medium volume for a few notes before getting loud, which it does too.  It's so perky, I love that.  I bought a ringback thing too, which I think means that if you call me, you'll hear Lady Gaga singing Paparazzi instead of a ringing sound.  To top it off, I got Ain't No Rest for the Wicked as my calendar appointment reminder tone.  The happiness of these choices overcomes my resentment at having to pay more for them than the song itself on iTunes, and the lack of good provided options.

So while I was wallowing in my funk, resentment, and despair, what were you up to?  Anything good?

New Year's Resolutions

And since I'm already typing, here's an initial list of New Year's resolutions:

Get the condo organized and systemetized so I feel more relaxed at home rather than anxious about all the projects I need to do - even when I want to do the projects, they can stress me out. Plus, I would like for people to want to hang out at my place and it's hard to do when I need 6 hours to 3 weeks to pick the place up before company comes over. Organizing is less of a task for me when someone helps, so I've already made inquiries and plan on hiring someone within the next two weeks.

I want to take that organized frame of mind into work too and write monthly summaries of my work so I don't stress out at my next review., and better organize my weekly/daily to-do lists. I felt good this year that I both tried to work with our process engineering technicians more so I could be more productive, and kept a small log of examples of work they'd done for me that I could pass along for their reviews. I need to do that again, both for them, and for me.

I need to be more proactive about my medical spending account reimbursement. Sometimes, I turn that paperwork in during the year, but mostly I wait until the end of the year and turn it it. Since I'm planning to laser my eyeballs this year and it'll eat up most, if not all, of the maximum allowed withholding amount, I need to get that turned around fast.

Since I'm going to be all organized, I'm going to have people over. My plan is to have at least one dinner party per quarter. This will help me get some dependable "fit for guests" recipes practiced and performed. Send me a no-fail recipe if you have one as I am quite a confident baker, but I am not a confident cook.

Instead of just working on my weaknesses, I'm going to work on my strengths too. My plan is to bake something new and something old each month. This is both to push me and practice, well, practicing. I'm not super big on repetition, but there's a reason I like to bake some items. I'm sure my colleagues will enjoy the spoils too.

The other thing is getting back into glassblowing. My favorite studio closed in this economy so I haven't been in for the better part of a year. But the cleaner studio is still going strong and I've got time in January. If I can get in even once a month for half a day, it will be a joy. I still need to sculpt my alligator (the Seattle Museum of Glass's "kid's art" re-ignited my inspiration there).

So yeah, even with the indulgence baking, this year is all about getting organized and staying organized. Hopefully I'll also organize in some visits with friends (Boston in June, at least one sandwich in San Diego, a visit to Disney, Vegas in the spring or fall - anyone else want to put in a destination?), eat right, exercise, post pictures on the blog, find a date, join a choir, and learn my way around LA a little better. And right now that sounds like a lot, but I hope it winds up being a lot of fun.

Aside from "eat right, exercise and be a better person", what is your big resolution? Or what will be your big indulgence for the year?

Busy Beaver

This week is crazy, but good. Have I ever been this organized before? Perhaps not. The blitz like nature of the trip is forcing me to organize, which is a good thing.
The Schedule:

Day, Time	Activity
Monday	Work
Monday PM	Pack for Training class
Tuesday Noon	Drop Car off at dealer for warranty service and non-warranty clutch replacement
Tuesday PM	take shuttle to plane, fly to San Jose
Wednesday	take excellent AVS class on Reactive Sputter Deposition
Wednesday PM	take taxi to plane, fly to Burbank
Wednesday night	sleep like a log
Thursday	work & hammer out Boston schedule
Thursday PM	pack for Boston
Friday	work; print out paperwork for trip
Friday PM	drive to LAX, catch red-eye to Boston
Saturday AM	gracious friend picking me up from airport
Saturday noon	wake up from nap, meet friend for historical walk
Saturday dinner	Mmmm… Beer….Food…CBC
Saturday PM	Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Sunday noon	Brunch with friends. I love brunch.
Saturday afternoon	Harry Potter at the Science Museum
Saturday PM	Valet of the Dolls Drag Queen Theatre, and dinner
Monday noon	Lunch with friends
Monday afternoon	Tour east coast work facility
Monday evening	Ride T back to airport with friend
Monday midnight	Fly into LAX, drive home

Fortunate

Every once in a while I clean out and reorganize my purse. I've gotten heartily sick of digging out stuff from the pit of my current bag so it was time to organize or switch. This purse is a cheerful orange floral backpack thing the date brought me from Hawaii. I like the summery outside but the inside is just a sack with one small pocket. Usually a purse I choose has 3 main compartments plus a zipped pocket for feminine needs and meds, plus a pocket each for the cell and camera. This one is just chaos. I try to keep it cleared out but it only takes a week or two and it's back to where the people behind me at the grocery store are mentally stabbing me while I dig for the store card to activate my savings.

This time, I went to my not inconsiderable stash of smaller bags and decided to add a step to actually laying hands on an item by sorting most of the stuff into these smaller bags/wallety things. The current allocation is

1. money & ID & insurance wallet
2. coupon & gift card wallet
3. coin purse
4. Meds/first aid
5. tools
6. food
7. makeup

The camera has its own case, the pens float free as does the ibuprofen bottle that doesn't fit in the first aid sleeve. There's a notebook with games in it that closes with elastic. The phone has a cliphanger and clips to the drawstring, as do extra hair clips. The work badge, lipgloss, and wetwipes are in the outer pocket. I think this could work.

Every once in a great while, I clean out AND reorganize my wallet. Usually, it's just before a big trip when I want to make sure I have a clear list of all the items in case they need replacing. The wallet is normally a tri-fold, but it hasn't gone beyond bi-fold in maybe 6 months. This one has been a long time coming, motivated by an upcoming trip to Alaska. The key to this reorg working longer than a week is that I've decided to separate credit cards and necessary membership cards from gift cards and voluntary membership card and stick the latter with coupons in an overengineered flat leather case I couldn't resist at the J.Crew register a few years ago but never found a solid use for. The separation of gift cards and buy-12-get-one-free offers means I can now fold my wallet closed again, which makes me happy.

Other stuff I did in the reorg included re-writing the list of emergency and friend contacts. Now that I have a cell phone, I don't know anyone's phone numbers by heart, but cell phones can get lost or run out of juice. And were I incapacitated but possessed of the wallet, I'd want someone to know there were people to call who might care. Judging by the names, I'm pretty sure the last time I did that, I lived in MA, although I'd tacked my CA work number on there. I've got a more current mix now.

Lastly, I've decided to take out all the fortunes I've been accumulating. And share them with you. Personally, I group them into "positive fortunes", "funny descriptions", "descriptions that resonate with me", "Instructions", & "Engrish". Extra bonus points to those in more than one group. I'd be interested in hearing what you think this selection says about me. Or barring that, pick one and guess why I saved it.

• Past inspirations and experiences will be helpful in your job
• You are a happy man
• Your love life will be happy and harmonious
• Your sense of humor is a joy to all
• You have inexhaustible wisdom and power
• Versatility is one of your outstanding traits
• Maybe you can live on the moon in the next century (Was this was from 1999 or a hope for a very long life?)
• An interesting musical opportunity is in your near future (accompanied by a picture of a bumblebee)
• The best profit of the future is the past
• Keep your plans secret for now
• Sing and rejoice, fortune is smiling on you
• You are contemplating some action which will bring credit upon you
• You will be awarded some great honor
• You will be fortunate in the opportunities presented to you
• A pleasant surprise is in store for you
• A friend will be important to you and your forthcoming success
• Happiness always accompanies with you

May happiness always accompany with you.