November Rain

Watching Slash on the Grammys just reminded me of something funny from college. I lived in a small college town that was about 1 square mile just on the edge of the campus and it was all apartments with students. Nobody else lived there since it was known as a "student ghetto" and usually smelled like stale beer. It wasn't bad at the time. Sure, I wouldn't live there now but it was great living with all my friends nearby and nobody ever complained about noise...except a couple times. Some annoying neighbor girls didn't like it when my roommate and I decided to have a little BBQ (smores) at 2am during finals week. Another wasn't aimed at me...a guy across the street decided to play November Rain on repeat ALL NIGHT LONG! I didn't mind as I was usually up really late back in those days, but somebody left a note on his door saying something like "although I really like November Rain, I didn't want to hear it ALL NIGHT". It was really loud. LOL. What's even funnier about this story is that the guy was total player...and years later ended up marrying one of my friends who was one of the straightest people I've ever known. She tamed him and now they are happily married with a baby girl.

One More Time Please?

Hubby and I did some brainstorming on domain names and came up with some more travel blog names. Will you vote one more time for me...pretty please?

Not My Turn...Yet

My brother turned 40 today and it makes me feel old! I am the "baby" in the family so I haven't hit it yet, but I can't help thinking it's just around the corner!!!

Kane

My dear friend's dog Kane has moved on to the Rainbow Bridge. He was a great friend and family member and was always by her side thru all the ups and down of life. You will be greatly missed Kane!

Please Vote!

Please vote on the poll to the left to name my new Caribbean travel blog.

Let me know if you have any other ideas!

I Know How You Feel Dilbert

Addicted to Blogging

I've been quite bloggy lately. I have been neglecting this blog a bit, but my Biggest Loser blog is doing quite well. My husband and another person mentioned to me that it looks like a lot of work to keep the Biggest Loser blog going since I've committed to posting 5 days a week on particular topics. It doesn't seem like "work" to me though. I truly enjoy it.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a passion for travel and always have. I took a class after school while in high school on "How to be a travel agent" and then worked in a travel agency as part of the class and for the following summer. My plan was never to be a full-time travel agent, but I wanted to do in on the side for my family and friends after college once I had my main career established. Well...then came the internet and the idea of having a career in the travel business didn't seem likely. Travel is my true passion and I have been trying to think of a way lately to make it into a career...as a side job though since I am not looking to take a pay cut by quitting my current job and start over completely in the travel business.

Now my thought is to try to combine these two things into a travel blog! Should it get successful I would put some advertising on it, but as long as I enjoy it, that doesn't really matter since the money would be so small. I would consider it a huge success if it brought in some extra money to allow me to travel more...then write more...so it would feed itself really. I know I need a niche to make it successful so I'm working on something about the Caribbean since I love tropical islands. I'm going to try using Wordpress to make a more professional looking site than Blogger can do. Blogger is great for this blog, but I want the travel blog to look better and have more features.

So now I need a name for this new blog...any ideas??? Most that I can think of already have the domain name taken. The only thing not taken that I can think of is "Caribbean Gal" with the theme being about a woman (me) exploring the Caribbean one island at a time. I'm thinking having her be a cartoon like Hungry Girl and giving her a persona. It would also have static information about the Caribbean to help people choose an island and plan a trip. The target audience would be people like me who love to travel and read about other people's travels. What do you think???

I'm not in love with that name though so please let me know if you have any other ideas!

Blind Item

A friend who is one of my most dedicated blog readers has had something horribly sad happen to her. It breaks my heart and I wish there was something I could do to make it better, but there isn't. My heart goes out to you and your husband.

Golden Globes Best & Worst Dressed!

Best Dressed goes to Jennifer Aniston! I always love how she dresses, simple and elegant.





















First runner up for Best Dressed is Fergie! I am not a Fergie fan at all, but I thought she looked great. And her husband handled Ryan Seacrest's question, "What was the impetus for you two renewing your wedding vows?" pretty well. Come on Ryan...we all know it's because he slept with a stripper.

Worst Dressed is Chloe Sevigny. I know she is known as a "fashionista", but I just don't get it.

















And finally for Worst Dressed...Julie Roberts. This isn't that bad, but I expect more from her.

Who was your on your best & worst dressed lists?

You Can Call Me Jillian

Ok, maybe I'm more like Allison, but My Biggest Loser contest at work is really taking off! The Corporate Communications team wrote a story about it and I got a personal trainer involved to help the contestants. Thanks to the story the blog had over 100 visitors on Friday! Neither of my blogs have ever come anywhere close to that. There are 23 people signed up for the contest from all over the company so there is close to $1,000 in prizes! I'm so happy this is a success since I was concerned it would fall apart when I took it over. A former co-worker had been doing this contest for years and it was just a small group made up of mostly people from the same department. She was laid off in November and asked me to finish doing the weigh-in's for the last round that ended before the holidays. I wasn't sure I wanted to keep it going, but people said they wanted it to continue, so over the holidays I worked up a flyer, some new rules and the blog. In the last round 2/3 of the contestants, including myself, ended up GAINING weight so I'm trying to do things, like the blog and the trainer, to help people lose this time around. Now I need to make sure I can keep things interesting and motivating for everyone.

Let me know if you have any ideas for things I could coordinate to help the contestants!