I just want to let you guys know that the reason I turned off comments yesterday is because for some reason something I wrote brought my site to the attention of spammers and I got about 70 spam comments Wednesday night and Thursday morning. So that’s why. Thank you for the comments that were sent to me via e-mail. They were very much appreciated.

I seem to get more spam comments when I talk about work, which is unfortunate since I am going to talk about that a little today.

Highlights from yesterday:

My friend Shannon brought her kids up last night and we went out to dinner and afterwards we stopped at the office because her husband was working on our computers. Her daughter kept trying to play with my fish, Glitter.

Her: Let the fish out!
Me: I can’t let her out. She needs to stay in there to live.
Her: No he does not!! He needs to come out of there so that I can pet him.
Me: Fish need to stay in the water. If I take her out of the water she will die.
Her: Let the fish out! I just want to play with him a little. You can set him right there. (Point to the desk) He will not die. I promise!
Me: Honey, I can not take her out. Fish need to breathe in the water just like you need to breathe the air. That would be like me putting you under water.
Her: LET HIM COME OUT OF THERE!!

Prior to this I let her feed the fish, but I didn’t notice she had opened the container all the way and the food was covering the top of the tank and I needed to spoon it out.

Also:
While we were out to dinner my brother, AL was there and his girlfriend of four years dumped him earlier that day. We had the following conversation.

AL: Well at least now when I buy a set of pens I’ll get to keep them all.
Me: What do you mean?
AL: You know when you bring some pens home your girlfriend always picks the most appealing color and steals it and then you are missing one.
Me: I never steal The Mrs.’s pens.
AL: Would you like to go on a date?

Hilarious! The look on my mom and friend Shannon’s face after he said that was enough that last me a good long while.

I also realized that my brother confuses children even more than I do. I have a habit of talking to children as if they are adults and AL does the same thing only much more so. Such as, “Hey! What are you crying for? You need to communicate your feelings more clearly.” And “How old are you? Six, five, four? (She didn’t answer only stared at him.) I am going to assume your twelve and twelve year olds know how to sit down like adults.” He motions for her to sit. She does. Then he says “That’s good. We need to sit like grown-ups. Do you think I wouldn’t love to run around and stand on my chair and yell? I would love to do those things, but I can’t. If I have to sit here and behave then so do you. (She frowns) Suck it up!” I should also mention here that she is only 3 and a half.

I put two listings on Craig list yesterday. One is for people interested in joining my team and the other is for people interested in hosting a party. I hope something comes of them. That would be great. I have also been trying to make 5 phone calls a day to put parties, do host coaching, get people who are interested in joining me and get referrals. I have been getting some catalog parties due to this, but still no recruits or referrals. I even blogged about it on my business myspace. I’m nervous I won’t make my goal. I hate not achieving my goals. I took a class last night called Recruiting at the GNO and it was taught by my up-line Shelley. It had some really great information and I am excited to try it out. I want to be a leader by conference so badly.

I didn’t wash all of the conditioner out of my hair this morning. Don’t you hate that? I was in a rush and I guess I did not get it all. Oh well. At least it doesn’t look greasy. It just feels like it has a lot of product in it.

I think I am going to hang out at the Pen-Mart on Saturday. I can work on a lot of my business stuff there and I can also try to give out catalogs. My goal could be to hand out 5 catalogs to people I think might be interested in the business. I want them to be people I either don’t know or who haven’t been to a party yet. I think that would be great. I think I am going to try to make a career out of this. I look around at the leaders and I think, why not me? I can do what they are doing. Anyone can really.

Sorry to keep this kind of short. I have a bunch of calls to make. Until I start getting some recruits I am going to be busy busy busy and oh so nervous.

Today is Secretary’s Day and my father’s birthday. This means I got a lovely bouquet of flowers delivered to me today. The card that came with them says “For a beautiful daughter, secretary and all around good person. Dad” I thought that was really sweet considering all we have been thought. Plus I am easily made happy with flowers. I should mention that he picked out the flowers and they are pink, purple and yellow, my favorite colors. I also gave him a birthday card when I came into work and I made extra sure that he had his Diet Pepsi and Reese’s cups.

Tonight I am attending his surprise birthday party at Ruby Tuesdays. In attendance will be my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, my brother AL and his girlfriend, my sister and her boyfriend, my mom, my dad, and me and The Mrs. Oh boy! I’ll bring my camera. I plan on ordering a drink so perhaps I can get a picture of my mom’s disappointed expression of which I see often.

After the dinner with my family I am stopping by The Crossings to see the lovely, Ariana. I have some items she purchased from me to deliver and who doesn’t love an excuse to visit one of their best friends at the panty shop? I also need to stop by Gap to purchase my father’s birthday present. After much deliberation I decided to get him 2 shirts. I know it is the one present that I can get him that he will use. The man loves his shirts.

So besides a day when I actually interact with others I am busy thinking about getting a promotion. I want to promote to Coordinator by June so that I can attend leader seminars at the Conference. This means I have to get six recruits under me as well as have sales of $3,500 as a team. The sales part is pretty easy b/c my new team members would be working towards their sure start so they should all be getting $1,000 in sales at least a month. Getting the actual people is the hard part.

The next step up from where I am is Senior Consultant. To get there you just need two personal qualified recruits. To get to the first leadership level, which is right above Senior Consultant I need 3 personal qualified recruits and 3 personal or central team qualified recruits. Does that make sense? To be considered qualified you just need to sell $400 that month which is really easy because you are establishing your business.

So that is what I am working towards. It shouldn’t be hard to get people signed up because this job is so much fun and it is such an amazing ground-floor opportunity. I mean in a town where I know at least 30 Avon Representatives I am the only Consultant for The Body Shop so look at all the opportunity there is for business. I just need people to understand what the business is all about and that the price for the kit is nothing compared to how many products the kit includes and the speed with which you make back the money.

So my fingers are going to be crossed until June 30th that I will get those six recruits. I swear when I get my first person signed I am going to faint or something. I will be so thrilled.

It’s so interesting to be able to take your business and your life into your own hands. My up-line who lives a few towns over from me is a Coordinator and she got a $500 bonus check last month and it was her first month after her promotion! The next person up from me is a Director with the company and her bonus check for the month was $8,800! That is insane. I want to be up there making money that good. If I got a bonus check for $8,800 there is so much I would do with it. She has only been with the company for 3 years, she is a single mother and she had no sales experience before starting this. My up-line has been doing this for a little over a year and also had no sales experience. I am so excited about where this could bring me.

So that is what has been going on inside my mind, dreams of being a success. I really started thinking about it much more when I was thinking of the job that was going to pay my salary for a while to come. I was thinking of going to cosmetology school when I started to think: Why not this? I really love doing this and what could be better than having a job that you love and that you’re good at?

With that said if you are interested in learning more about this business let me know. My e-mail is SparklieSunShine@Hotmail.com. I really just want to pass on this opportunity if nothing else because this has made me feel so good about myself and I would love to make other people feel that way too. Also it doesn’t matter where you live you can still be on my team. Plus the woman who earns the most at The Body Shop at Home right now is at the head of my team. She made over $400,000 last year. I’m certainly not trying to make that much, but it is really interesting that she is part of my team.

I also want to point out that people aren’t updating like they used to. What is up?

There is something about getting a bonus check that really makes you want to get checks like that every month. I mean in February I sold $1,250. If I had sold just another $250 I would have gotten a $75 bonus check. I realize $75 is not that much, but when you take into account that it is on top of what I normally make, I only need to do about 4 parties to make that much and I love what I do, it’s pretty damn awesome. When I made the $1,500 in March and I achieved all four months and I got that check in the mail I felt like I had really succeeded at something. I felt really great about myself and what I had done.

I now have two parties on my schedule for May and I have two catalog parties going on until the end of the month. I am really hoping to get 3 more parties on my calendar before May begins. My sales goal for myself is $1,500 (I want that check again.) and I am hoping to get three more parties booked from each of the parties I have booked. Those goals are pretty high. I would be a little disappointed if I did not make my sales goal from my parties, but I will not be disappointed if I am not able to get all of those parties. As long as I try my best I will be happy with myself. I am supposed to make three success calls a day. Yesterday I made four. I left three messages (that haven’t been returned) and the fourth call got me the second catalog party. I think I am going to attempt to make three more calls today. What could it hurt? I’m just going to call to ask how they are doing with there products and also let them know about my promotion for May. Hopefully I’ll get some more bookings.

It has to be better than compulsively checking my e-mail every five minutes. Go ahead write me an e-mail. (SparklieSunShine@Hotmail.com) I bet I reply within ten minutes of you sending it to me. It’s sort of unhealthy I would say and kind of sad. In any case I am trying to take matters in to my own hands.

I am all set to go to Louisville, KY. Have you ever been to Louisville? Or Kentucky for that matter? They call Pennsylvania Pennsyltucky sometimes so perhaps it will feel familiar. It’s pretty great that I have a lap-top notebook now so I will be able to update while I am there. I may drive down with my up-line instead of flying to save us both the $345, it’s about a 10 hour drive which isn’t to awful. I can’t wait to come back and share about all of the new products they are going to be launching. I think I’ll even make sure I have the USB for my camera so I can post pictures.

Are you done hearing about my job?

Good. I guess. Actually, it isn’t that good because I don’t have anything else to talk to you about. Oh wait. I do! Did anyone hear about the whole Denise Richards / Charlie Sheen thing? Oh my god. Really. My mouth actually dropped when I heard the news story. I have heard it all! My mouth never drops. It did for this. If you don’t know what I am talking about look at this report from thesmokinggun.com. I heard about it on the news yesterday. It’s crazy! I read the whole report and it is pretty intense. If you read it you may also be interested in seeing that Chloe Snow did indeed die from an unknown cause. That Charlie Sheen has always given me the creeps. I would be curious to see where this goes.

I actually set a month to get pregnant the other day before reminding myself that I don’t have money saved or a house. Though the In-Laws are making putting on a huge addition the home where The Mrs. and I share with them. However it would be hard to raise a child to only call The Mrs. mom when we are alone and Aunt whatever when we are around her family. That would be a mess! I don’t know…the month was November in case you were curious or in the market to donate your sperm or knock this girl up. I’m open to either.

I really want to be home today. I want to eat strawberries and black cherries and get lots of calls from people who want to host a show with me.

Hey Diana! I’m willing to drive to Maryland!

My comic yesterday offended a few people so the one today is going to be a little less about people masturbating into shoes even though I find that sort of thing hilarious.

Whoops!

I meant to put up this one:

So perhaps you have noticed my absence from the internet low these pest few days. I would tell you I was off doing something amazing and exciting and that I have a lot to tell you about, but I really don’t want to lie to you. It’s just not right. We are so close you know.

Anyway…I have really not been up to much. My business started to go down hill last month. I was still able to make my March goal thanks in a large part to all of you, but with my cancelled parties and no way to book new ones it has been really hard on me this month. So I sort of took the first part of this month off and regrouped. I decided that I needed to get parties on my calendar no matter what. So I put out a promotion that anyone who books a party in May will automatically earn and Exclusive Product Collection worth about $50 just for having a party. That is HUGE! The gift is usually a mini Body Butter which is worth $7.50. I have one party set for May and two more that still need to be set. My goal would be to get three more parties going for May because I think that would really kick off the summer and ensure that my business gets back on track. [Edit 4.24.06 @ 4:17 - I got another party! It’s a catalog party, but I have high hopes for it. I am sending out the packet tomorrow.]

I am also going to be attending the 2006 National Conference for The Body Shop at Home. I can’t wait!! I hope I have some people signed up on my team by the time that I go. It would be so much fun to have a team to bring fun ideas and information about new products back to. I would really enjoy being a leader with this company. I really love this job and it would be fun having other people to work with. Perhaps I will get some recruiting leads at my upcoming parties.

I would say enough with all of this work talk and start telling you about all the exciting things going on in the world of Angela, but hey! That is about it. I spent this weekend cleaning, creating customer packets and getting copies made at Staples. Guess what I am doing today…I am working until 5 and then I am going home to do laundry and wait for The Mrs. to get home. If this isn’t the life of a housewife then I don’t know what is. Well, actually I guess I could be home all day with no job and a big mess of children.

I blame part of my moodiness today on the fact that I am experiencing the joys of womanhood today, as my fourth grade gym teacher would have said. In any case my breasts are about a full cup larger than normal and they are very sensitive to the touch. So when you are moving around near my breast area please proceed with caution.

Can we lie down together me and you? I would really like that. Just for a little while. We can take a little nap and I’m sure when I wake up I’ll feel better.

I am starting to really love Cat Power again largely in part to Pandora.com. I am really in love with the song Names. It’s so sad and I like songs that can make me feel something.

I am going to leave you with this comic that I think it hilarious. You may find it offensive. I have no idea and since it is my money that pays for this site I don’t care one way or another. I also promise that next entry I’ll have something more interesting to talk to you about.

So I was at my friend Kyle’s house this past weekend and his parents are selling the house so I had to help him go through all of his things to decide what to keep, sell or trash. So I was going through a plastic bin full of boy stuff when I saw a toy gun. So I picked it up to see what he wanted to do with it and then I noticed that it was really heavy and obviously made of some sort of metal. I’m not good with weapons so I just started linking words together and talking really fast.

Me: Oh-my-God!-Is-this-a-gun?-Am-I-holding-a-gun?-Is-this-a-gun?-What-I-do?-What-should-I-do?!

Him: (Looking at me like I’m insane) It’s a beebe gun.

Me: Oh-my-God! Take it!!

Him: (points it at me) It’s not loaded or anything.

Me: (making a loud gasping noise) Don’t point that at me!!

Him: (sighing) It’s not loaded! Look (he points it at the wall and shoots it. It makes a loud noise.) See it’s just air.

Me: That sounded real! Put it away. I don’t want to see it anymore.

Clearly I would not do so well if I was in some sort of situation where I needed to shoot a gun. I hate them. They give me the chills.

I thought today would be a good day to do a little self check-in to see how I am doing. I have a Burns Depression Checklist I got from my therapist and I use it every few years to see how I am doing. I figured I might as well put them on here because who doesn’t love to look at there test results on the computer screen?

06.14.00 (age 15) - Severe Depression & Extreme Anxiety or Panic
08.10.01 (age 16) - Borderline to Mild Depression & Anxiety results not given
12.07.03 (age 18) - Moderate Depression & Severe Anxiety
04.18.06 (age 21) - Moderate Depression & Severe Anxiety

Well at least my results are congruent with each other. I remember being really upset in 2003 when I took the test agian and saw those results. I thought I was doing so well and improving so much. I realise now that depression is just something I have to deal with. I’m glad I took the test when I am in a good mood because I don’t want to feel like my score are just because I was feeling a little sad one day. We’ll have to see what my results will be like in another 3 years.

I am back from my weekend away. It was fun seeing Kyle again and spending time laughing and joking with him. He also got my hair done for me because I was helping out over the weekend and it looked amazing! He got his done as well with blonde highlights and it also looked great. The surprising part was that no one noticed my hair was different. I think they are all used to me doing something crazy and drastic with it. It’s nearly all one color now except for my ends which are still a little black. The rest is a very nice reddish brown that I love. I’m happy I went with the color I chose. It will be easy to maintain. Yes, I took pictures, but I will have to actually upload them at some point. The rest of the weekend we spent hanging out, watching movies and catching up. I finally watched The Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought they were both really good. Narnia is quite the religous movie, but I don’t mind it. It was still a well done movie and I like it when good prevails over real evil.

Easter was nothing special. We went to my Aunt’s house for lunch, but we got there just as everyone was finishing up there food. There was still plenty left and we got to sit and chat with everyone. A while later we headed over to my In-Laws house to have dinner there. That was also pretty good, but for some reason Easter was designated the ham holiday and I really don’t enjoy ham very much. I think it is far to salty. Besides that It was pretty enjoyable.

After dinner we did a little Easter egg hunt with Hanna. She is 21 months old so it was really simple. I showed her a painted egg and then tried to encourage her to look for more. She ended up finding them all. Then after everyone telling her she did a good job she looked confused as to why she didn’t get anything. So I swung her around a whole bunch. Which we do all the time, but it did it a little more than I normally would. She is getting so big and adorable. I put her new Easter picture next to her one from last year and I was amazed that so much change had taken place in just a year. She looks like a totally different baby.

I remembered when I was little every year my parents would hide our Easter baskets and we could choose easy, medium and hard. I used to love that so much. My siblings being so much older than me would, of course, find their baskets first no matter what. Then my brother AL would dive into his candy while my brother Jayce and my sister Carrie helped me find mine. They would always give me little clues to lead me there and when I found it they would make such a big deal about what a great job I did. Then I would sit next to them and they would help me go through my stuff and show me what they got. I also knew that every year there would be a milk chocolate ballerina from Gertrude Hawk, that is where my mom got our Easter candy. My brother Jayce always got the dinosaur. I really don’t remember what AL and Carrie used to get. Wait! I was just looking through the site. AL got the spaceship and Carrie was the music note. It’s interesting that after all these years they still make the same shapes. Another funny thing is that Carrie really doesn’t eat candy so she would always have this stash in her room with years worth of Halloween and Easter candy in it and we would always catch AL going through it. I can’t wait to fill Easter baskets with Gertrude Hawk candy and hide them around the house for my kids. It’s to bad that I only got to enjoy it for a few years. My siblings all got to old for baskets and searching. I’m glad I have the memory of it though.

After the festivities The Mrs. and I retreated into our room. We watched Extreme Home Make-over, which always makes me cry. Then we talked for a while and it was just a really great night. That made the day for me. Just spending some time with my favorite person.

I am going to now add some comics from Toothpaste For Dinner. Drew clearly loves the idea of Easter being cancelled.

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I actually get a lot of crap for my new website being boring because I don’t post pictures anymore. I thought we went over this! I don’t post pictures because I need a url for said picture and I can’t edit the size so it can get rather messy and confusing. In any case I spent a little bit this morning figuring it out. (Sort of.) So I will try to put up pictures more often. Not my own pictures of course because that would involve uploading them and I lost my upb cable agian. I thought this picture was really funny and if you click on it you will be taken to Natalie Dee’s website.

One odd thing that happened today is that I woke up with a sprained finger. How the hell did I sprain my finger in my sleep last night? My boss is going to help me put it in a splint later on today. I’m not looking forward to that because it hurts when I straighten it and the splint will force my finger to be straightened out. I also had to take my band off because it’s my ring finger and it got a pretty swollen.

This comic has been making me smile today. I have it up on the wall in my office.

As long as they are small and not to wide it seems to be working out well. See people! I am trying.

I have been listening to a lot of music on pandora. I am so thrilled (yes thrilled) that Stephen introduced me to the site on his blog. It’s pretty great. I’m not easily enthused about music either, but I really love being able to find new artists that are suited to the style of music I enjoy. the stations I have so far are Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Etta James, Fix You Up, In this Life and Wild Horses. You schould check it out.

The Mrs. gets home a little early tonight and I hope we are able to go somewhere. I really want to go out somewhere. Anywhere. I want to do something fun and crazy and forget everything else. When I finally get the money for my car I am going to get my hair done and perhaps do something impulsive. Everything is going to be alright. It always is, even when it’s not.

I just remembered that this weekend is a holiday weekend…I think I have off tomorrow and Monday. I have to ask my boss about this. I just asked and it turns out I have off tomorrow. That is fantastic! I wonder what The Mrs. has planned for tomorrow. If someone was trying to do something to cheer me up a bit mission accomplished! Six more hours until a three day weekend and my friend Kyle is coming down from Boston so I am going to be spending some of the weekend at his house assuming he does not try to put me to work.

My goal for today is to focus on the things that make me happy and fill my day with them. I spent a large portion of my morning reading My One Night Stand With Cancer by Tania Katan. I thought the title was a bit strange considering the book goes through both times she has cancer (at 21 and 31), but overall I really enjoyed the book. I tend to be a picky reader and I often get annoyed with certain characters or the way things are written and that did happen a little with this one. However overall I loved the book and I am very glad I read it. Know I have to figure out what to read next.