I am amazed at just how fast this diet has worked - hubby and I have been on it for a month - he’s lost 18 lbs, me 8. (Women always get the short end of the stick, eh? LOL) Anyway, the food isn’t bad, you eat 5 of their meals and 1 of your own. It’s been interesting trying to get all the meals in! That, plus my walking around the nice bouncy track every night, might get me back down to my pre-kiddie weight! Right now, it’s not that far away! 
Been a beautiful weekend here in NY - so nice to go out in this Indian Summer weather. The boys are due back any minute from their sojourn down south to look at some colleges - I am looking foward to hearing all about them over my chicken noodle soup tonight!
A great weekend is quickly coming to a close - where did it go?
So much going on around here - but in a nutshell, life is back at it’s frenetic pace, with both children taking entrance exams, since College and High School are around the corner. Thank God I got the internet problems fixed before this all hit, as we are constantly researching and seeing what each school needs. Sooo glad that I switched to Verizon, because if I’d be having a breakdown if I was still experiencing the headaches I did with Cablevision!
The Brand is hopping with activity as we spend the month celebrating Michael Landon. We have many ongoing events throughout the month, as well as some special things planned for later on. I have to say that we are so lucky to have members who are just so generous with their time and creativity…what would we do without them? We have some great things planned for the future, I can’t wait until we unveil them…. again, our originality will be on display!
On that note, let me end tonight’s entry with this thought….
I think Louie Armstrong said it best:
“A lotta cats copy the Mona
Lisa, but people still line
up to see the original.”
Ever have a moment when you just shake your head?
Ever just think, “Some hell of a nerve?”
We owners at BonanzaBrand work very hard to come up with new and innovative ideas for our members. And quite frankly, it riles me considerably when someone from another site just blatantly copies our ideas. I’m sorry if some of you think that I am whining, but if you put in the time and effort the 7 owners of our site do to make it unique, you’d be upset too.
The latest incident happened today on another Bonanza Website that shall not be named here. The owner of this site has copied an idea that was started months ago on our board- talking about it like she invented the idea herself! I’d be hysterical laughing if I wasn’t so damned ticked off at the obvious similarity of this ‘new’ feature.
I guess what this tells me is that we must be doing something right for others to feel compelled to rip off our ideas. I guess it’s the price we pay for being on the cutting edge.
Don’t worry, we have some other original and innovative things coming soon if you’re still looking……
Well, you know when you’re in Kindergarten when people wind up with little friends in their hair. These friends have to be treated extra special so that they will not return. And their homes must be fumigated properly as well or else they will come back again and again. And that’s not fun for anyone!
We had one little boy who was absent on Monday, and he came back Tuesday with a note saying that he had a ‘bug.’ Of course, we assumed a stomach bug. But when another child in the room went home with his new friends, the nurse came in to do a head check. She told the kids what she was going to do, and this boy jumped out of his desk and said - “That’s what I had yesterday!!” All the adults in the room looked at each other and were aghast and infuriated that a parent would not disclose that information. The nurse contacted his mom and she vehemently denied that he had it, saying that he did a long time ago and he must’ve been ‘confused.’ Well, not confused enough to mention it in the present tense again today…..and to have dead friends in his head when he was checked today as well!
Moral of this tale: Kids tell the truth, adults lie like a rug.
Another life lesson learned from this tale: Be careful when little friends invade your space….if you don’t take the right steps to eradicate them, they’ll just keep coming back again and again.
And people who work in Kindergarten don’t like that. 
Need to grow up, get a life and get original. ‘Nuff said.
Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children.”
- President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001
This New Yorker will never forget what my city endured those horrible days……we go on, but we have not and will not forget those we lost that day.
Every feel like he planets are lined up against you? Well, part of August made me feel that way!
We had a big storm up here mid-August, and at this point I’m convinced that lightening hit my house. I lost my phone, cable and internet, along with the streelight in front of the house being out and the spotlight in the back of my house, usually tripped by motion - perpetually on!
It has taken me until this past week to get things normal again….at the cost of new phones, new router, and best of all - new internet provider!
Gave up my old one after it took them three tries to get my internet back on track. In my book, three strikes and you’re out! So now I have a completely new provider since Thursday and I couldn’t be happier. They seem to be on the ball - so far!
In other things, school has started and we’re back to the grind. This weekend saw 7 seventeen year old boys crashing at our house, due to Tropical Storm Hanna. These guys came from all over the tri-state, as the school my son attends in Manhattan has boys from NY, NJ, and CT, so this was their last hurrah before school kicks in for them tomorrow. I never had brothers - boy could these guys eat! LOL They went through 60 pieces of KFC, mexican food, more Snapple and Coke than you could ever imagine! But they all had alot of fun and as a parent, I love to see when kids can just be kids…..being stupid and silly. They grow up too damn fast and it’s nice when things kind of stand still for a bit. I’ll take it.
So hopefully I’ll be back on the net with a bit more frequency now that things are back in place. We at TheBrand went through a difficult board move, still waiting for a few of the pieces to be taken care of, but at least we’re moved to our new host. Sneddy figured out the last piece of the puzzle that got us totally over at the new site - I think she should get a job with the Aussie CIA, she’ s so good at cracking codes! Things mostly back to normal, and our members, as always, have been so supportive of our efforts - and we thank them for their help and patience!
Back to school tomorrow for the first full day - and I have meetings three nights this week - definitely going to need the caffeine flowing to keep it going! My friend who I work with and I are 8th grade class moms this year - it’s my last year as a parent in the school so I thought it would be fun. I’ll let you know.
Has anyone caught A&E’s ‘Mad Men’ series? It’s about advertising in the 60’s. Having grown up in a house where my dad was in that business at that time, I find it quite interesting to watch. But what I can’t handle is just how women were treated a mere 40+ years ago….. the men were totally rude and condescending towards them. Put one of us in that job with the mentality we have now…..forget it boys, you wouldn’t be able to have children by the time we were done with you.
I saw this bumpersticker in town during the week and had a hell of a laugh:
“It’s as bad as you think and they are out to get you.”
Well, in about 20 minutes, my son will be back on American soil for the first time in 28 days. He has had an amazing time in China - so much so that he was sad to leave it 13 hours ago! He’s arriving in Atlanta, but will then board a connecting flight getting him back to NY at about 11 tonight. Welcome Home Jamie!
He got the opportunity to eat some ‘interesting’ delicacies - including codfish eyes, jellyfish, fish heads, duck lips….there’s more but I’ve blocked them out of my mind for now! But he did have one request for when he got home tonight - an ice cold Coke! Tomorrow we’ll head down to Arthur Avenue, which is a well known area for Italian specialties - so I’ll be buying provalone, proisutto, fresh made ravioli, pork bracciole….and I’ll be cooking it all up tomorrow night!
Our daughter is still out in the Hamptons, so hubby and I have had a great week together…except for the storm last Friday that has wreaked havoc on my phone, computer and cable! Right now I have this one computer operating, I think the lightning hit something of mine and shorted out the router. So tomorrow I will take everything apart and try to get it up and running again!
Other than that, the rest of the week has been alot of fun - it’s great to be just the ‘two of us’ for a bit - we’ve been having a blast eating out every night( I have alot of gift cards from local restaurants, given to me by my classes over the past year). So I’ve had a different cuisine every night! Tonight though, we’re going to pick up a chicken parm pizza, since someone who will be coming home will be very hungry!
Had a great time out in Montauk, being with my sisters, mom, dad and nieces and nephews was wonderful. A cousin of ours came to visit and brought pictures of our paternal grandfather, who had died way before any of us(my sisters and I) were born. There is a great candid shot of him with my nana, with my dad peeking over their shoulders(he looks about 10) which is wonderful. She and my youngest sister have been doing a geneology search on our family, and have come up with many interesting things we never knew before!
So that’s most of the story for now. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I sliced my fingers Monday? A glass doorknob broke in my hand and cut two of my fingers. It took me 20 minutes to stop the bleeding, I really thought I was headed to the ER. But I got it to stop, put the bandaids on real tight, and things worked out - thank goodness!
Getting ready to head out East tomorrow, a whole bunch of things left to do!
I’ll be back Thursday, but my daughter will be staying out with my parents and my sisters a while longer. We’ll go grab her back around the end of the month, as school here doesn’t start until September 3rd.
We’re still not heading back into the classroom, going to wait until the last possible moment for that. Once I step foot in there to do a piece of work, well, then as far as I’m concerned, vacation is done. 
But for now, I am reeeeeely looking forward to sitting on my parents’ deck with a glass of wine, reading a good book, as the breeze blows through the woods….it’s just bliss for a city girl like me. And being with my sisters is a blast, we wind up playing cards with the bigger children til the wee hours… UNO, Phase10, you name it.
Was going to bring the laptop out with me but have decided against it - the rest of the girls at the Brand have everything well under control, it’s the beauty of having multiple ownership as we do. “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno” as they say ~ and thanks for the vacation my dear friends!
So all my folks have out there is an ancient I-Book which I believe is still powered by a hamster and a wheel. So I’ll let my nieces and nephews fight over that. I’m going to stay out on that deck with my stack of books and have myself some R&R.
See ya when I get back!
Today’s thought:
“For travel to be delightful, one must have a good place to leave and return to.”
– Frederick B. Wilcox
And I’ve got both.
It’s been a busy week, taking care of those appointments that I should’ve taken care of months ago. So I do feel pretty accomplished knowing that 3/4 of that stuff is done for this year.
I made a stop at school yesterday to drop off some supplies - and boy, I really don’t feel like heading back in there - yet! Looks like we’ll have 30 this year, which is fine because we can keep the configuration of the room the way we like. Anything above 32 we have to do a wholesale change. But looking around, there are tons of supplies to put away - that will wait til I get back from vacation, maybe one night I’ll go in with my partner, we’ll order some Chinese food and get to work.
Did you know that many people will be getting married on 8-8-08? 8 is the number of prosperity in the Chinese culture, and many traditionalists have chosen that day to get married. The Beijing Olympics will start on the 8th, in fact, at 8:08 PM. So superstitions run deep!
We heard from our son today, he is in the town of Sudzhou for three days. He finally figured out how to use his cellphone, which is a relief. He was telling us about his classes, where he goes on field studies and meets with the Shanghaiese people to ask questions. They have done alot of walking and talking! I can’t believe that the program is half done tomorrow.
Dinner is in the oven, and hubby, daughter and I will have a nice meal in a bit. I picked up a very nice cabernet - love the full bodied red, no matter what the season. Looking forward to sitting with a glass and talking about the day with everyone.
Today’s thought:
“The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.” ~Baltasar Gracian
Next Page »
