Archive for the ‘2012’ Category

27 Dec

Embarrassment and Surrender

Posted by Jamie Brazil in 2012, 2013 Resolutions, dogs, publishing, shopping. Tagged: , , , .

Like many bloggers, in the closing days of 2012, I am reflecting back on the year that was.  Successes, disappointments, frustrations, and a lot of laughter, too.  It’s all there.  Summarizing the year into a single word, I’d call it a curve.  As in learning curve.  But I was also tried to recall a single moment in 2012 that really stood out from the rest.

There was that ONE moment.buddhist hound

My memory jogged back to the T-mobile store a couple months ago, and I shuddered.

As the sales guy wrestled my phone open to replace my fried SIM card, a shower of dog hair floated from the phone’s guts to the countertop.

How does dog hair get INSIDE my phone?  In that moment, I felt my face burning. Dog hair?  Inside my phone? Who has dog hair inside their phone? 

I do, apparently.

The embarrassment was quickly followed by surrender.  I own a Bloodhound. I’m with her almost all day, every day… so now there’s dog hair covering this man’s work station.  Apologize profusely.

Still, as I cast about for a MOMENT, why did this one come to mind first?   I don’t have an answer, but…

1. This moment wasn’t symbolic of 2012.  ( I hope not!)

2. This will never happen again (because I will slide the cover off myself and blow out the dog hair before I return to T-mobile).

3. If I worked there, fixing people’s cell phones all day long, I wonder where dog fur would rate on the scale of gross phone moments?

art-resolve2013Anyway, this is my final post of 2012.  I hope your year has been a good one, and that 2013 will bring you happiness, entertainment, and all that you seek.  And don’t forget to check back here on January 1st, when I begin a nine-day advice-a-thon with 8 superbly talented authors I’m anxious to introduce you to.  What will we be talking about? Resolutions, of course!

 

7 Dec

Here I go, OVERSHARING (again)….

Posted by Jamie Brazil in 2012, diet, food, women. Tagged: , , , , .

Here we are, closing in on another year.  The other day I reflected on this year’s resolutions and the closest I got to the martial arts studio was driving by it several times a week.   On the plus side of the resolution list, my circle of friends has increased and other relationships have found a deeper level.

The eternal resolution of losing weight?  CHECK.  May I say, finally!  But that reflection led me to a greater awareness of a cocmillklifestyle shift.  Over the years, there have been several.  In 2003 I weighed 167 pounds.  That’s when I began walking.  I was 150 by the time I got married and limited dairy in my diet.  Now, aiming for the 120 mark, and the size I wore when I met my husband, I realized the greatest shift I’ve made since 2011 was banishing the soy products from my diet and switching to coconut milk.

The change has been more than just weight loss.  Last December my periods were all over the board, sometimes as long as 60 days between cycles.  Was I pregnant?  Perimenopausal?  The painful breast cysts I’ve had on and off for years flared up with a vengeance.  Something was wrong.

Ever listen to your intuition?  Mine told me to give up the soy creamer in my morning coffee.  I did, and by April my cycle was back on schedule, “the girls” (boobs) felt fine, and, even now, I just feel better overall.

So it made me wonder if other women out there have had similar experiences.  My soy-to-coconut lifestyle shift made me think about 2013 resolutions.  While I drink very little soda pop overall, I’m wondering if I could give it up TOTALLY  for a year?  What would the result be come January 2014?

13 Nov

The Un-Conference and the Power of Free

Posted by Jamie Brazil in 2012, books, publishing, skill building, writing conferences. Tagged: , , , , .

Are free conferences part of the new publishing frontier?  Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of dollars going to traditional writing conferences.  Between registration, hotel, and food (okay, who am I kidding here, by food I actually mean drinks), the credit card charges quickly added up. But I had a dream of being a widely published print author.  Back then I figured writing conferences were a way for me to get one step closer to that dream.  As it turned out, that wasn’t necessarily a realistic dream.

This past weekend my husband attended his first unconference hosted by the Northwest Film Center.  Indie film types gathered and shared their knowledge.  Freely.  As in for free.  No cost to attendees.  And just like a regular conference, it was fertile ground for networking with producers, writers, animators, and other creative folks.  There was even free coffee, power bars, and, later on, FREE beer provided by sponsors.  How cool is that?

Last May I attended my first FREE writing conference.  Compose was a day-long event put on by Clackamas Community College.  While there were no consults with editors and agents, the stellar line up of classes, authors, and educators were exceptional.  As if it could get any better, there was even a free vegan lunch served to the 200+ attendees.

A quick search online came up with a handful of free conferences– including a virtual writing conference I’d heard about through my romance writers group.  And I had to wonder, are free conferences a sign of our financial times, or are they gaining ground because of technological advances?  There’s a digital evolution going on, and I can’t help but wonder if the days of large-scale (costly) writing conferences are numbered.

What do you think?

1 Oct

You Deserve WHAT!?!

Posted by Jamie Brazil in 2012, etiquette, skill building. Tagged: , , , , .

You’ve come a long way, baby since you deserved a break today. Remember those old advertising lines?  If you do, then you’re old enough to remember a time when entitlement disorder wasn’t a buzz phrase.

Today I’ve got a beef with two words in the English language.  So I need to warn you up front that this post is a rant.

Every time I hear “YOU DESERVE” I cringe.  My hackles rise, my belly tightens, and I grit my teeth.  It seems you deserve has become the catch phrase of 21st century.  Watching just a few minutes of a TV talent show the other day the judges crowed the phrase multiple times.  I should turn off my TV.  Between advertisers and politicians, you deserve has become a syntax staple.  Sales people at the malls love this phrase, too.  I tried on a jacket and the words shot out of the retail associate’s mouth.

You deserve it, she announced, confident she’d make the sale.

She didn’t.

My point is, what do we really deserve?  And why is this insidious phrase being heaped upon our consciousness night and day?

As a nation, we’ve earned free speech, the rights to vote and bear arms… and, if we get in trouble with the law, we have a right to fair and speedy trial.  But there’s a big gap between what our constitution says we deserve (the pursuit of happiness, not necessarily actual happiness) and the current opinions peddled by influencers.

I assume McDonald’s is still certain that I deserve a break today.  Decades later, I’m pretty sure Virginia Slims would like to sell me the glamorous cigarettes they hatched in my pre-teen brain.  Somehow, despite their best efforts, I have yet to buy a McLatte or light up a smoke.

I’ll continue to cringe every time I hear those dreaded words, you deserve, because frankly, I don’t know what the heck we deserve anymore.  But I know what I want.  A little peace and quiet, and a few moments I’m not being sold a bill of goods on what is deserved.

 

 

 

 

4 Sep

Wheat Grass Wannabes Need Not Apply

Posted by Jamie Brazil in 2012, food, garage sales. Tagged: , , , , , .

This summer I lost fifteen pounds using a meal replacement powder.  The diet part wasn’t effortless, but it wasn’t too hard either.  However, listening to my husband complain every time I hauled out the blender to mix up another shake was a test of our marriage.

There were moments, listening to his strangled howl of “not the choco-seaweed surprise”, that I wondered if the weight loss was worth it.   Every time I spooned out the mix he’d be throwing open the doors and windows.  Apparently, my special diet drink stinks up the house like a fish market, which is how “choco-seaweed surprise” became part of our daily vocabulary.

And I say surprise because, depending what was in the fridge or pantry, the fish smell ranged from mild to gag-o-rific.  The more stuff thrown into the shake, the better the odor control (like maybe only one door flung open).  Raspberries, coconut, and chocolate syrup were especially good cover ups.  Wait, chocolate syrup?  This doesn’t sound like a diet.

Well, something had to offset the health benefits of all the acai, goji berries, camu-camu, quinoa, wheatgrass, more wheatgrass, maca root, sacha inchi, blue-green algae, Kamut Grass, spinach powder, flax, pea fiber, and… drum roll please … Chlorella.

Chlorella, a.k.a. algae.

ALGAE (not seaweed, but seaweed-ish all the same).

It’s one of the main ingredients.

What’s more, the fine print on the back of the package reads: Athletes and anyone subject to banned substances testing should consult with their physician and athletic organization.

Where did I find such a product?  Mind you, I didn’t buy just one bag, I bought five!  At a moving sale, of course.

Now, before I go further I want to qualify this post with the fact that I don’t normally go around buying food at garage sales.  That’s gross, right?  But five sealed bags of a meal replacement program (expiry date July 2013) for five bucks?  I figured why not.  When I got home I immediately did a web search for any product warnings and was shocked to find out:

1. how much this stuff sells for online

2. product users unanimously swear by the chocolate mix over the other less-paletable flavors. (Really, there are WORSE flavors than fishmonger’s choco-seaweed surprise???)

Fast forward to July.  After swilling my way through the first bag, my husband was pleased with my slimmed-down figure.  Though he swears he can smell the chlorella in his sleep, despite my best efforts of airing out the house daily.   Is it my breath?  Is it oozing out of my pores?  Is the choco-seaweed surprise about to become a “banned substance” around the house?

Fast forward to September.  After another five pound weight loss, my husband has started, as he says, “choking down the choco-slime.”  He’s losing weight now, too.  At least we’ll both smell like chlorella.

Three bags to go!

 

 

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