The randomness of life or is it?

I woke up early this morning, turned on the tv to KCET and Rick Steve's was taking me through a tour of Holland. And I looked down at the laptop at the latest profile I was working with on wikitree.com and the surname was Hotaling - it's a Dutch name. I'm part Dutch.

The Dutch settled in New York..

The Look of Love

So I went to Costco after dropping my son off at work on Saturday afternoon and fueling up at Costco gas. My goal was to buy more of their Kirkland brand lean ham luncheon meat. After retrieving a cart, I entered the store and made my way to the aisle when it's sold in the refrigerator case aisle. I don't know if it was on sale or not, but they were giving out samples which was welcomed.

After retrieving the ham from the refrigerator, I turned my cart around and attempted to travel back past the corner I came from to get back to the main hall and when I did, briefly, (the next sequence of events happened in seconds, mere moments) I couldn't move my cart forward because some kids were in the way blocking me with a cart of their own. I then looked up and off to the left I saw a man - a tall man with light skin, long brown wavy hair with his back to me looking off to the right - could have been a doppelganger for thinner Bradley Cooper. I may have sighed seeing this attractive male specimen, but again barely could move forward. And then another man, a Persian man, off to my right must have seen the look of love in my eyes and introduced himself to me as Joe after saying to me, "You've got beautiful eyes." I didn't feel beautiful, rather a hot sweaty mess. It was almost 100 degrees outside, and I had my hair up in a ponytail, was dressed in a tie-died tank top and 3/4 black pants and black Skechers, no socks. I could only assume he thought I was Persian, too, his mistake. And then, the most unwelcomed event happened after I gave him a cursory look to acknowledge where the conversation came from... an unattractive man in his 50-60's, overweight with severe acne scars all over his face, he asked me to dinner. I couldn't barely hear him over the noise of the group of people I was standing next to listening to a blender demonstration and told him, "I don't understand what you're saying". His reply: I'm not a killer, I'm just a human being. A major creepy feeling swept over me like I was unsafe even in the mass of humanity shopping around me inside Costco on a saturday afternoon. I scurried away into the crowd and didn't look back.

1st Day

Today, August 10, 2015, I have started a new chapter in my career working back in Orange County again and closer to home. Today is my first day at American Advisors Group, the largest reverse mortgage originator in the U.S. and I'm the new Inventory Control Supervisor.

CU Investigation Article 7/24/15

http://www.cutimes.com/2015/07/24/bankers-press-for-ncua-investigation?ref=rss

Lest We Forget

A great New York Times Article about Germany's own financial crisis after WWII:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/business/economy/germanys-debt-history-echoed-in-greece.html?mabReward=A3&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&configSection=article&isLoggedIn=false&src=recg&pgtype=article

Greece is not the word

Did you see the news about Greece this morning? The banks were closed and they've placed limits on the money it's customers can take out per day.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33322754

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greece-defaults-imf-payment-despite-013243561.html

According to Jim

So I got a call from a former client to discuss some future business as he was told to call this week because of impending June vacations for the people he needed to speak to, including me.

As the conversation went, he asked me how was my vacation and I told him about how this year I worked on my floor instead of taking a trip. And he said that he, too, was in the middle of a flooring project. I am my father's daughter. We were comparing experiences with our fathers, tools, father's job... they were both machinists. 

Anyway, with all of the disparaging feelings I was having about things that are basically out of my control, that one conversation was the bright light I needed today. So according to Jim, I'm OK and knowing that was reassuring.  

Fwd: Rock Out at the SL12B Music Fest!

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It's June!

Last year, I was fully expecting that now I'd be recovering from my third major surgery battling Crohn's disease, but the medication the GI doctor prescribed has helped and gave me a tool to use when I'm feeling bad. After having a colonoscopy and finding out that the pain I was experiencing was from an ulcer instead of advanced Crohn's, I decided that it's probably a better idea for me to focus on doing things that make me feel well, eating well and de-stressing my life.

So part of that de-stressing regime has been looking for a job closer to home. I like driving, but having to drive in LA traffic to and from work four days a week (Monday's I work remotely from Brea) is a time waster and it's frustrating when it doesn't keep moving. I live 42 miles from work. In no traffic, it takes me 35 minutes to get to work. But in traffic, it can take anywhere from 1-2 hours to get to work. And, yes, I've tried rideshare commuting, but to be honest, it doesn't make that much difference in LA traffic. The solution is working closer to home. Immediately when I started to look for a new job, there were two different MERS positions that were posted and I got a telephone interview for the one I applied to, but found out that they couldn't meet my salary requirements. So I'm still looking.

Once the senior on my team came back to work after she had recovered from surgery, I scheduled my two week vacation. Last year, for vacation, I flew to DC and stayed with my aunt in VA and while my uncle was in a nursing home recovering from a heart attack. I drove up to Massachusetts and New York to meet up with family among other thing. I accumulated a lot of PTO between then and May planning on that LOA, but I didn't need it, so I had to take a vacation.

So instead of going back to the East coast this year, I'm having a stay-cation for the summer of 2015. The first week, I'm proud to say I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. And it felt good. The second week, I'm attacking the last of the floor project that was so rudely interrupted by December's broken wrist that I got from falling at work. Oh, and by the way, that infatuation for my therapist went absolutely no where. Which I'm kind of glad about because the new normal after menopause has not been any fun either. So I'm moving furniture and prepping the floor tomorrow.

Finance In the News 05/12/15

Deutsche Bank to Pay $2.5 Billion to End Libor Probe By Shane Strowmatt, Suzi Ring, Greg Farrell 
http://bloom.bg/1Jx7hw1 
Bloomberg

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/certain-deutsche-closed-end-funds-210000245.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nomura-rbs-face-805-million-damages-u-ruling-182443514--sector.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sf-fed-president-says-first-rate-hike-likely--later-this-year--143121592.html