What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? - LEAN IN

I don't know if you know who Sheryl Sandberg is but I discovered her on TED and we all know how much I love that site.  This is an awesome video and it makes me think.  What would I do if I weren't afraid?

I don't know.  I'm afraid of failure.  I'm afraid of the dark, no not the turn the lights back on fear, more like the tomorrow is dark and I have no idea what's there. Now what?  It's time to take on tomorrow with some f-ing powerful flashlights.  That's what.

What are you afraid of?  What are you going to do about it?

Weekend Update

Me enjoying a chicken shawarma.

I hope SNL doesn't own the phrase "weekend update".  Actually not much to update on, this weekend I have attempted to do as little as possible.  Usually I have all these grand plans and I feel the pressure to perform for myself (apparently I'm a pretty harsh critic).   This weekend my goal was to do the minimum, I mean the minimum.  On Sunday I sat around on my fat tush all day long, it hurts from how much I sat.  On Saturday, I had made plans with someone to exchange belated birthday gifts.  I'm not gonna lie, I was not too excited about that because my goal had been to spend as much time in my pj's as possible this weekend.  However, one should never look a gift horse in the mouth.  You'll be proud (although I shouldn't be proud either) that Sunday was definitely a pj day!  Woot!  Few of those have been had since childhood, although those days were also far and few.  We have parents that don't believe you should relax, there's always something to be done.  Though I've noticed they're more fond of naps these days :)

Monday?  Well I did do some gardening but only because my dog forced the issue; she knocked over some seedlings and I figured now was as good a time as any.  Lupine.  That's what was knocked over, I hope they take.  Especially as my dog recently decided to kill all of my sunflowers.  I had 1~2 of the sunflower seedlings that had taken but my dog felt otherwise.  She let me think that she would let them live for about 2 weeks and then she dug them out.  Other than that not much.  Yup.  Goal.  Met.  Win.  Maybe.  Maybe fail. As I did nothing.  Nah, going with Win.

Now why am I so blase about all of this?  Well, that's due to the air conditioning working.  Thankfully it was fixed last week and I have been able to sleep at night.  It also made lounging around in pj's much more comfortable and doable.  Well I hope that everyone has had a great weekend :)  Have a great week!  Here's a new pic also, as this is a weekend update!

Playing Catch-Up

Life is playing catch-up with me.  A few weeks ago one of the burners had gone out on my stove and had to replace that, which is done but still a pain in my tuckus.  On Tuesday I discovered that my AC was no longer operational.  You see most of May we had such crazy weather that I saw no need to use it because it was either cold or cool enough that I was OK without AC.  Therefore when I got back on Sunday night, it was OK so I didn't turn it on - then came Monday.  I go to turn it on and nothing.  I mean nothing.  No not nothing, hot air coming through the ducts was all I got.  I have no idea what is wrong with it and I just hope it's not too expensive to fix.

WHY?!  You know if it broke in August I would be OK because it starts cooling down here by mid- to late-August.  Honestly I'm good with temperatures up to 32C (90F), it sounds hot but the house stays pretty cool  and a ceiling fan is good at that temperature.  However, above that and you might as well just end it for me - please.

Honestly, this is not the worst thing that could happen, it's just not the best time for it to happen.  I know these things happen but it is truly frustrating.  Really makes me want to sell the house, although on a brighter note, I did get the property taxes down.  My property had been valued at $103K and most of the properties around were between $80K to $90K.  I sent in my protest form and the LBB CAD called me yesterday and offered $87K instead, so I agreed!  It was either agree or go to the
hearing and try and get something lower.  I probably could have gotten it lowered by $5K more but honestly I feel it's fair and I want it to reflect the neighborhood prices in case I do sell.  That way an agent won't check the property tax and try and lower the selling price.  Hopefully I get a little money back from my mortgage company due to lower property taxes.

Well have a good rest of the week peeps!

Sherpa Bikini

Hello!  Hi everyone, sorry for the absence but sometimes I'm busy - mostly I'm lazy.  Well not completely lazy.  These past few weeks have been busy, sometimes productive busy but mostly empty busy.  I have been having difficulty sleeping a bit and that tends to throw off my schedule (pronounce that with a British accent).  Although that's been going on for a while, partly because I have people coming and going and I seem to never have a set routine.  Work is a routine of fail and then surprising success, followed by epic failure but such is the life of a scientist.

Truthfully work has been pretty good, although I need to step it up and learn some new moves.  Currently I am procrastinating by writing this post because I am having difficulty understanding and processing the effect that the mutant I'm working with has on a potassium (K) channel.  Potassium currents - either you love them or you die.  A little nerd humor.  No?  OK, fine.

Haven't done much in my personal life but am currently trying to get back into the swing of gardening.  This year has been pretty weird for LBB, we actually had a frost during the first week of May and a few windstorms that would have given Dorothy flashbacks to her days in the tornado.  Seriously it was pretty bad.  I had already packed up all of my sweaters and all of a sudden I had to unpack sweaters again!  However, now we are truly entering summer and we will be a scorching 39C today.  Joy.  I all of a sudden miss my sweater weather.  No I will not complain about the scorching heat, instead I will remember that now I can hide from the heat inside and that I am no longer a Sherpa.  Although isn't that half the fun of having seasons, the complaining?

Have a happy weekend everyone!

P.S.  HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!  I didn't forget but I did go home to see my Mom :)

Rampant Global Warming

LBB Weather

I googled the weather for today and here's the image.  Today we are at a high of 13C and low of -2C.  Yeah.  Yesterday it was about 27C and today that's our weather in TX at the start of May!  Usually by this time we are in the high 20's.  Translation in Fahrenheit:

Translated.

Yeah. We be crazy down here/up here/over here - depending on your location.  Yes I know other parts of the country always have this type of weather for spring but Texas doesn't.  Ever.  I guess I can no longer say ever.  I guess this is why this city won the following contest:

Mindful Celebration

Hello everyone :)  Over the past few days I have noticed that for some reason there have been a lot of articles about mindfulness.  I like it.  Keep the trend going people.  I have to say that when I read stuff about gratitude, I always wonder how can you be so grateful all of the time.  It's due to mindfulness, you have to make the time and effort to be grateful.  I think I need to start penciling that into my agenda.  Although of late I haven't been to mindful of following said agenda, either way I will try to be more mindful of what I do and what I have.

On another note, as a Mexican-American and previous Mexican citizen I have something to say - Stop calling Cinco de Mayo independence day!  It is not!  That's to local restaurants and local Mexican-American/Chicano/Latinos in the LBB area.  Cinco de Mayo in Mexico celebrates the ass-whooping provided to the French courtesy of the Mexican citizens due to some loans (unpaid).  OK so Mexico didn't pay up but were willing to set up some payment plans.  The French didn't like it and decided to set up house in Mexico as payment.  May 5th was simply a day in which the French got a taste of military power in Mexico, though for Mexico the victory was short-lived and a year later the French took over for about 5 years.  They were kicked out eventually but still everyone likes to commiserate about that day, goes something like:

"Hey remember when we kicked France's butt?"

"Yeah that was cool."

"OK back to work."

Yeah Mexico doesn't make as big a deal as the US does about that specific battle, probably because the French came to stay for some time after that battle.  Besides it's really only Puebla that celebrates it big because that's where that battle happened.  Which leads me to the next point, it was people from Puebla in the USA who began those celebrations and for some reason it caught on here and now we all use it as an excuse to go drinking - tequila.

If you do want to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, it's September 16th but it starts at exactly midnight, so the celebrations start the day before or week before.  You know might as well make a week of it, now that's a party in which the whole country participates!  Actually not a bad time to go to Mexico, it's the best of the best for everything on those days.