Trip of a Lifetime

I have to finally try to share the wonderful trip I had this last weekend. I know I have hinted a lil and such. Well we all know that pictures speak louder than words do any day. I will try my best to show you the amazing time I had.

First I want to let you know that this would have never happened without the amazing invite from Shaklee Corporation. They were adoring host to 10 bloggers for a beautiful spa weekend. And of everything that happened the very best part was the way I was treated. Not the have to be nice to you. But the genuine respect given to me that I have only received from my closest family and friends.

So, I flew out of Dallas, Texas to San Francisco, California.  The first neat part was since another blogger and myself had early flights we were treated to a sight seeing tour of San Francisco.  

Granny M said I had to see China Town, so of course, I did.  You know we never tell her NO!  The color explosion was perfect for my out going personality.  I loved it!

Being the massive bread eater that I am, it was very dangerous when our driver dropped us off at Boudin Bakery for a quick bite to eat.  I resisted and resisted and finally had a cookie.  Yes, just a cookie.  Yeah me!

Thankfully I had not eaten.  That helped me not get queasy when we went down the crookedest street in the world.  Turn after turn after turn after.....whew!  Well after that it was on to Shaklee headquarters and lunch.  I have to tell you so much there....that I think it will be a story unto it self.  Will say three things though.

• 9 Strong Amazing Women Bloggers.
• A company that believes and follows through on commitment to the earth and all of it's creatures.
• Support staff that truly believe in helping each other.

We arrived at Solage Calistoga Spa that evening for dinner and to check in.  Oh my, we all need to move to a spa to live.  Beautiful is not the beginning of the description.  This was just the view from my private room.   Rooms that made you breath in relaxation.  Spa treatments (I had the mud bath!), wonderful meals and the most lush grounds ever.  Also I have to say there were good looking men everywhere.  Oh so easy on the eyes.  And if you paused at mud bath, dear heart, this was not a wallow around in the slop....it was a velvety smooth mud made from volcanic ash, natural spring waters and essential oils.  Better than the best lotions for your skin.  Top it off with a long soak in the tub and a musical massage.  Your body is humming contentment afterwards.

There were tons of amazing people we met.  Learned more in two days about blogging than I thought I could ever take in.  And was wined and dined til I felt like royalty.  A trip to Hall Winery was more than I ever bargained for.  Artwork all over the place.  I took tons of photos there.  Especially loved the sculpture of the two enjoying a glass of wine together.

This hall here with barrels of wine in the making leads to the tasting room deep into the wine cave.  Lined with nooks to show off some their art collection and built with ancient Austrian bricks.  I just expected a monk to come down the hall in his brown robes.

And then we tasted nectar of the gods.  Drops of love, poured into crystal and then touching our lips.  A religious experience to say the least.

Finally the grand finale.  Dinner at the Bottega restaurant ran by Chef Michael Chiarello.  You may have watched him on Top Chef Masters, the Food Network’s Easy Entertaining, Fine Living, and PBS.  Our meal consisted of some of the following.

• Insalata del Bosco Organic greens, balsamic vinaigrette, sliced pear, candied hazelnuts, Pecorino
• Organic Prosciutto "house cured," pasta fritta
• Crispy Potato Gnocchi, baby vegetables, English pea-meyer lemon fonduta, & 11 month Valley Ford Montasio
• Pan roasted halibut alla Barcaiola with creamy soft polenta & heirloom tomatoes
• Olive oil carrot torta, carrot golden raisin salad, mascarpone crema

To die for food. And you may think this is silly but the creamy soft polenta will beat the best Southern Mashed Tators anyone has ever made.  I am still smacking my lips.

An amazing once in a life time trip in my opinion.  Opportunity to have experiences that leave my head reeling once I figured out how unattainable the products were that went into the making of this experience.  Thankful beyond words.

Oh, and not to leave out, my very favorite token from the whole weekend, my Cloudscape tumbler.  Thank you Roger.  I treasure the thought behind this gift.  It is greatly appreciated.

Code Switching Skills

"Does it ever seem that men are speaking in code and you're on the outside?

Do they shut you down or ignore you when you speak?

Perhaps you are speaking in code, too - a different code."

This is the basis behind Code Switching-how to talk so men will listen by Claire Damken Brown and Audrey Nelson. Here is a book also based on how to get ahead in a male dominated workplace but again I think we can use these same principles in our home life. I am well aware that the communication skills I have with my Dear Hubby is not just by chance. Both of us come from previous marriages and we have taken what we learned from our mistakes to make this marriage stronger.

The number one skill is communication. And I had to learn that we did not speak the same language even though it sounded the same. We did learn about Code Switching. Brown and Nelson remind us that "men and women DO have unique communication styles that don’t always mesh well. Code Switching offers a way of “reaching across the aisle” to open the lines of communication. It helps both women and men crack the gender code and speak in common terms, so work gets done, conflict gets resolved, and mutual understanding and respect prevail … in the workplace and beyond." This book focuses on working women and how they can best communicate to get their message across to the men they work with. For men are pretty straight forward in business and women often look at how a business interacts. Both of these factors are great for a companies growth, but only if all can communicate to each other.

I know I have used the skills that I employed in the work world in my home life. I am sure you have too. This just may be a book that can be a cross over for both work, home and social help. I would recommend it to those who would like to be able to have good communication skills where ever they are.

Can You Repair Your Credit?

Do you have any issues with your credit? I know I do. As a matter of fact, I do not know anyone who does not.
So what can you do to repair credit? And do you need a company to do it or can you do things on your own?

Well I do know there are many things I can do myself to fix my credit problems. Some of them are simple as checking to see if what is on my credit reports are really my issues. If not you can dispute them to have them removed. Another is to find out if you have paid off an item or credit card and it is not reported. This happens all the time. You can make sure your good payoffs are reported to help fix your credit.

Now some people, myself included, can get confused on what your able to do and not do. So many of them use other companies to help them understand their options. And of course there is so much you can research online in order to help you understand. I know that I have used a company before when College Girl was young to help us out. They were able to educated us in things we needed to do.

Of course the biggest thing all of probably need the most is to learn to live within our means. Not an easy thing to do in this "give me the best of everything" world. But not impossible either. If we lower some of our expectations and look at life in more of what do we need not want attitudes. Then you find it is not really the hardest thing to do.

I would like to thank blogvertise for the information in this post.

Investing Our Income Tax

Well we received out income tax check today. Yeah, really!
You see this is not normal for us.
Our income taxes always go to Dear Hubby's ex's for child support.
But last year I found out I could apply for 1/2 of the refund as an injured spouse.
So now we actually can get a lil back.
This year we received the complete refund!
So exciting....I am not sure what to do with all of it.

My mom suggest saving it for the future. Maybe I should use an online brokerage firm and do a lil Online Trading. What do you think? With an Online Broker I could maybe make a lil more money. You never know. I could use it to invest into a lil Stock Trading. Of course it would have to be a very inexpensive stock. I am not sure the check would purchase much.

Of course I am tempted to do the right thing. Make a copy of the check so the ex's will know it is the full amount. And then follow the letter of the law and keep half for me and send each of them half of the remainder. I mean that is what we are supposed to do with the refund. Heck, I am sure that they will not mind each getting a quarter in the mail and me keeping the remaining fifty cents. As the refund check this year was all of one dollar.

Laughing my head off!

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Can I Exchange My IRA for Gold?

Remember me telling you about my Dear Hubby and his IRA? Yeah, he had come home with

Image via Wikipedia

some information and silly me did not understand what it was. Well, we have more information now in the mail. I am glad he is keeping up with this as I do not have a head for numbers. Being dyslexic does not help at all.
Well, like I was saying before I had found out that there was a gold 401k. But I did not know how to put gold in an IRA. Of course I do not have the gold. Wouldn't that be nice to have though? Well, I agree it would be heavy to carry around. Guess that is why we came up with the currency exchange anyway. Better minds than mine a long time ago.
But how would you do a gold IRA transfer? And what are the benefits of 401k gold? Of course I always have to go and look things up. So off to google how to put gold in my IRA . I found out that Investors are placing physical gold in IRA's. Do you think it would be helpful to have a IRA that is backed up by gold?

Letting My Fingers Save Me Money

Well it is time to pay my auto insurance. And I am really happy with who I have. But I received a letter in the mail telling me it was time for me to renew. I was baffled as I felt it was not that long ago that I changed companies. Well, it is not time to renew at all. Just another company trying to get me to change over is all.

How did I find my current company? Well I was looking for cheap auto insurance quotes. So I went online and was looking for places to get quotes at. I was able to find many quotes online and able to compare the different companies. This way I was able to find the lowest quote for the features I needed to have. It sure did save me a good chunk of money.

I found this quite helpful. And I felt so much better doing the research myself. It was not hard to do, just took a little bit of time to do the searches. So instead of waiting for your company to "drop" rates, start looking around yourself. And don't fall into the traps that can come through the mail. I almost did!

best summer photo

Online Printing Company

UPrinting.com is one of my blog sponsors. And they are having a Summer Photo contest for their bloggy friends. They are offering $250 in prize money and a free 16x20" Gallery Wrapped Canvas Print!

So I shared with my College Girl and her lil sister some fun swinging time. Lil Sis is a fanatic when it comes to swinging. And her big sis, aka College Girl, is always happy to oblige and push her. So here is an afternoon on the horse swing.

"See Me Tuzy?"

"Ready...Set..."

"Sunny Disposition"

"Ain't I Cute"

"3 yr old Acrobatics"

I love having UPrinting as a sponsor. And love the 16 x 20 print I won from a bloggy give away. I have it hanging on my bedroom wall already.
I think it would make a great postcard for our town.
What do you think?
This was taken on Easter in 2007, the only day we had snow here that year.

UPrinting.com is a leading online provider of business cards, color brochures and mailing postcards.

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