Hope your week's begun well; it's Springtime in Texas ... the azaleas are blooming and we're starting to get some really nice weather. I'd say the grass is growing, but it never really stopped growing (winter in South Texas!) Of course, we still have occasional wintery days -- but the good days are really close!
The siding on my house seriously needs repair or replacing; have been talking to siding guys the last few days.
I had the Sears guy over to talk about vinyl siding. He gave me a really high pressure sales pitch, refused to give me any references ("Why do you need references? We're Sears, you can trust us!"), and offered me a $1000 discount if I signed a contract on the spot. "There's no risk; you can cancel the contract at any time, you're just ensuring you'll get the discount!"
I asked to see the cancellation policy; he stalled for awhile, then finally showed it to me. It had an address with no phone or fax numbers and clearly stated that if they didn't receive notice of cancellation within three days of the signed contract, I could not cancel. When I pointed out that even if I mailed notice right away, they wouldn't receive it in three days -- plus this was certainly not "You can cancel at any time", the Sears guy said "Well, that's just a formality, we'd never hold you to it. Besides, we're Sears, you can trust us!"
I refused to sign. He then told me there was no reason for me to be afraid and that I was stupid not to sign.
That's when he got thrown out of the house. I've since reviewed customer complaints about Sears siding jobs and it's a total horror story.
The last guy was a Hardie-Plank guy -- his price was half of Sears (even though Hardie's supposed to cost about 30% to 50% more than vinyl) plus he had loads of local references (including many in my neighborhood) and a clean BBB report. No pressure at all, he invited me to take time to contact his references and evaluate his work.
This guy's probably going to get the job!
How about some quick words from my sponsors, then on to the reading.
------------------------
(Here're those good folks from Austin!)
Why pay for those expensive psychic phone calls that cost at least $20 per call? Get FREE daily horoscope and Unlimited LIVE Psychic Readings for 5 FULL DAYS. That's 120 hours of Unlimited LIVE Psychic Readings. It's only $1.99 for a 5-Day Trial for unlimited access to Psychic Web. That's less than $.40 a day!
Your 5-day trial or monthly membership includes:
-Unlimited Live Video Chat with Psychic
-Unlimited Live Psychic Readings
-Email Readings
-Daily/Weekly/Monthly Horoscopes
-Tarot, Rune, I-Ching, Numerology and Biorhythm Readings
-Astro-Match
-Passion Signs
-Lucky Numbers
-Astrology Charts
-Psychic Tests
-Discussion Boards
-Psychic Chat
Psychic Web is your key to unlocking your future. Prove us wrong and click on the link. The Universe Awaits your Arrival!
http://www.woodsongtarot.com/bestpsychics/c2473.html
------------------------
We'll again pull two cards -- the first suggests something we should focus on for the week. The second suggests things we might consider in order to fully benefit from the attributes of the first card.
The cards are:
Four of Swords (reversed)
Seven of Pentacles (reversed)
These two cards complement each other -- that kind of emphasizes this message.
The Four of Swords suggests taking a little breather before you move forward -- maybe take a break and try to recharge, especially if you've been feeling stretched or frazzled! Spend some quiet personal time to reorganize and prepare youself by clearing your mind of distrations. You might consider whether or not you need some physical recharging as well as mental relaxation. Once you've refreshed yourself, you'll be much more effective.
Our next card, the Seven of Pentacles, works well with the Four's message. The Seven suggests taking a moment to pause and evaluate your position and plans. When you evaluate things, you might be pleased with the evaluation ... or you might decide a change in tactics is appropriate. In any case, the Seven can help you prepare yourself to be more effective in your efforts.
Do you see how the two cards work together -- the Four suggests you mentally and physically recharge yourself before moving forward, the Seven suggests you evaluate your situation before moving forward. Combine them, and you increase your chances of being effective.
And, of course, they're both reversed ... which puts a twist on everything! Quite often we get so involved in reacting to situations that we're never quite in control -- we act reactively, not proactively. That could very well be the meaning of the reversal. By letting situations control us, we lose effectiveness. If we step back and take a little time to evaluate and plan, to recharge and refresh -- we place ourselves in control and can direct our efforts to ensure the results we most care about.
And that's about it this time! I hope things go well for you this week and look forward to talking to you again next week. As always, if you're interested in a private reading, please try my sponsors above or my list of readers at http://www.woodsongtarot.com/readers.html . I also welcome your comments at http://woodsongtarot.blogspot.com !
Woodsong --
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Focus Through the Clutter!
Hope your week's begun well; I'm hoping things pick up after the Super Bowl. The games are usually so mediocre that I started watching it only for the commercials a few years ago -- now the commercials aren't all that great anymore (although I liked the Fedex one and the Bud Light/Magic Fridge one).
Spent some time playing with a new toy -- a juicer! I've been drinking a lot of fresh-squeezed citrus juice lately; I have an electric juicer that's basically a manual one except the hemispherical ridged top "spins" when you push the fruit on it. I wondered if there were an easier way. Happened to see a Jack LaLanne juicer commercial where they tossed the entire fruit, peels and all, into the machine. That sounded a lot easier!
Ordered one and it came in the other day. Quickly learned three things:
1) The blade spins about 5,000,000,000,000,000 revolutions a minute. When you turn it off, it's going to take some time for the blade to stop. When remove the cover too soon, it splatters grated stuff ALL OVER THE KITCHEN at very high speeds!!!
2) Ever made "zest" -- you know, where you finely grate the colored part of the peel for oranges, lemons, etc. Remember how they say "Be careful not to get any of the bitter-tasting white part of the peel underneath the colored part." Guess what you get when you toss the entire unpeeled fruit in a juicer -- yep, the entire bitter tasting white part of the peel! Made beautiful-looking juice, but was the nastiest tasting stuff ever! Yuck! Tried peeling the fruits first, but that's too much trouble -- am back to the original electric/manual juicer I used at the beginning.
3) Target has the same machine for $60 less. Oh well, live and learn ...
The new juicer wasn't a total waste -- it's made great tomato juice (which I hate, but it helped make great spaghetti sauce and I didn't have to peel tomatoes). Am going to try fruits with better tasting or tasteless peels -- apples, perhaps -- and see what happens.
That, of course, brings up the trivia question of whether a tomatoe is a fruit or a vegatable. This is a trick question -- botanically, it's a fruit, but legally, it's a vegatable. Around the turn of the century, vegatables were taxed when imported, but fruits were not. The importer didn't want to pay taxes on his tomatoes; the state wanted him to (I believe it was New York). Went up to the Supreme Court who sided against botanical science and with politics -- so legally (since 1915 or so), tomatoes are a vegatable in the United States (but presumably a fruit elsewhere!)
How about some quick words from my sponsors, then on to the reading.
------------------------
(Here're those good folks from Austin!)
Why pay for those expensive psychic phone calls that cost at least $20 per call? Get FREE daily horoscope and Unlimited LIVE Psychic Readings for 5 FULL DAYS. That's 120 hours of Unlimited LIVE Psychic Readings. It's only $1.99 for a 5-Day Trial for unlimited access to Psychic Web. That's less than $.40 a day!
Your 5-day trial or monthly membership includes:
-Unlimited Live Video Chat with Psychic
-Unlimited Live Psychic Readings
-Email Readings
-Daily/Weekly/Monthly Horoscopes
-Tarot, Rune, I-Ching, Numerology and Biorhythm Readings
-Astro-Match
-Passion Signs
-Lucky Numbers
-Astrology Charts
-Psychic Tests
-Discussion Boards
-Psychic Chat
Psychic Web is your key to unlocking your future. Prove us wrong and click on the link. The Universe Awaits your Arrival!
http://www.woodsongtarot.com/bestpsychics/c2473.html
------------------------
We'll again pull two cards -- the first suggests something we should focus on for the week. The second suggests things we might consider in order to fully benefit from the attributes of the first card.
The cards are:
Two of Pentacles
Seven of Cups
I always think of the Two of Pentacles as being those situations where you're trying to do laundry, balance your checkbook, and put things away while the phone is ringing, someone's knocking at the door, the dogs are barking, and the kids are hollering. You're involved in a hectic situations and there's a lot of distraction going on -- it's really hard to stay focused.
(Totally off the subject -- read yesterday where they found office workers lost 10 IQ points when they were distracted by hearing other people talk on the phone and keeping up with emails. Hmmmm ... maybe it's not so off-the-subject, after all!)
Dealing with hectic situations is just part of life -- happens to all of us; to some of us, it seems to happen quite frequently! The trick is figuring out how to handle it without going batty.
Our second card can help us here -- the Seven of Cups suggests we spend some time thinking about the rewards we'll gain when we work through the distractions and complete our tasks. Maybe it's little rewards, maybe it's something much bigger and more long term. No matter -- if we spend a little time focussing on the reasons why we want to complete our task, the distractions seem to fade to sideline issues; this makes it much easier to stay on task without getting too frazzled!
And that's about it this time! I hope things go well for you this week and look forward to talking to you again next week. As always, if you're interested in a private reading, please try my sponsors above or my list of readers at http://www.woodsongtarot.com/readers.html . I also welcome your comments at http://woodsongtarot.blogspot.com !
Woodsong --
visit Tarot by Woodsong at http://www.woodsongtarot.com
Spent some time playing with a new toy -- a juicer! I've been drinking a lot of fresh-squeezed citrus juice lately; I have an electric juicer that's basically a manual one except the hemispherical ridged top "spins" when you push the fruit on it. I wondered if there were an easier way. Happened to see a Jack LaLanne juicer commercial where they tossed the entire fruit, peels and all, into the machine. That sounded a lot easier!
Ordered one and it came in the other day. Quickly learned three things:
1) The blade spins about 5,000,000,000,000,000 revolutions a minute. When you turn it off, it's going to take some time for the blade to stop. When remove the cover too soon, it splatters grated stuff ALL OVER THE KITCHEN at very high speeds!!!
2) Ever made "zest" -- you know, where you finely grate the colored part of the peel for oranges, lemons, etc. Remember how they say "Be careful not to get any of the bitter-tasting white part of the peel underneath the colored part." Guess what you get when you toss the entire unpeeled fruit in a juicer -- yep, the entire bitter tasting white part of the peel! Made beautiful-looking juice, but was the nastiest tasting stuff ever! Yuck! Tried peeling the fruits first, but that's too much trouble -- am back to the original electric/manual juicer I used at the beginning.
3) Target has the same machine for $60 less. Oh well, live and learn ...
The new juicer wasn't a total waste -- it's made great tomato juice (which I hate, but it helped make great spaghetti sauce and I didn't have to peel tomatoes). Am going to try fruits with better tasting or tasteless peels -- apples, perhaps -- and see what happens.
That, of course, brings up the trivia question of whether a tomatoe is a fruit or a vegatable. This is a trick question -- botanically, it's a fruit, but legally, it's a vegatable. Around the turn of the century, vegatables were taxed when imported, but fruits were not. The importer didn't want to pay taxes on his tomatoes; the state wanted him to (I believe it was New York). Went up to the Supreme Court who sided against botanical science and with politics -- so legally (since 1915 or so), tomatoes are a vegatable in the United States (but presumably a fruit elsewhere!)
How about some quick words from my sponsors, then on to the reading.
------------------------
(Here're those good folks from Austin!)
Why pay for those expensive psychic phone calls that cost at least $20 per call? Get FREE daily horoscope and Unlimited LIVE Psychic Readings for 5 FULL DAYS. That's 120 hours of Unlimited LIVE Psychic Readings. It's only $1.99 for a 5-Day Trial for unlimited access to Psychic Web. That's less than $.40 a day!
Your 5-day trial or monthly membership includes:
-Unlimited Live Video Chat with Psychic
-Unlimited Live Psychic Readings
-Email Readings
-Daily/Weekly/Monthly Horoscopes
-Tarot, Rune, I-Ching, Numerology and Biorhythm Readings
-Astro-Match
-Passion Signs
-Lucky Numbers
-Astrology Charts
-Psychic Tests
-Discussion Boards
-Psychic Chat
Psychic Web is your key to unlocking your future. Prove us wrong and click on the link. The Universe Awaits your Arrival!
http://www.woodsongtarot.com/bestpsychics/c2473.html
------------------------
We'll again pull two cards -- the first suggests something we should focus on for the week. The second suggests things we might consider in order to fully benefit from the attributes of the first card.
The cards are:
Two of Pentacles
Seven of Cups
I always think of the Two of Pentacles as being those situations where you're trying to do laundry, balance your checkbook, and put things away while the phone is ringing, someone's knocking at the door, the dogs are barking, and the kids are hollering. You're involved in a hectic situations and there's a lot of distraction going on -- it's really hard to stay focused.
(Totally off the subject -- read yesterday where they found office workers lost 10 IQ points when they were distracted by hearing other people talk on the phone and keeping up with emails. Hmmmm ... maybe it's not so off-the-subject, after all!)
Dealing with hectic situations is just part of life -- happens to all of us; to some of us, it seems to happen quite frequently! The trick is figuring out how to handle it without going batty.
Our second card can help us here -- the Seven of Cups suggests we spend some time thinking about the rewards we'll gain when we work through the distractions and complete our tasks. Maybe it's little rewards, maybe it's something much bigger and more long term. No matter -- if we spend a little time focussing on the reasons why we want to complete our task, the distractions seem to fade to sideline issues; this makes it much easier to stay on task without getting too frazzled!
And that's about it this time! I hope things go well for you this week and look forward to talking to you again next week. As always, if you're interested in a private reading, please try my sponsors above or my list of readers at http://www.woodsongtarot.com/readers.html . I also welcome your comments at http://woodsongtarot.blogspot.com !
Woodsong --
visit Tarot by Woodsong at http://www.woodsongtarot.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)