Tag Archives: business

We Will Go on a Cruise

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“We will go on a cruise, when we have the time!”  This pronouncement from my mother made me frustrated and even more impatient than my 18-year-old self could actually handle, which is to say, I began to whine.  i must say that the whining did pay off, as within six months we were on a massive ship in the Caribbean visiting 3 or 4 ports of call, including Jamaica.

At eighteen, this is not only a vacation, but on the best adventures.  I was “officially” graduated from Disney rides, and allowed to sip Bloody Mary’s and have a bottle of Corona.  I almost had a room to myself–I shared a cabin with my sister.

Every day was get up late day…  And because the late I preferred was noon–lunchtime, I missed being in the main dining room, which was only open to any public for breakfast.  For lunch, I often wandered into the buffet, as well as one of the cafes on a few of the other decks.  I welcomed getting up late as the feeling that the sun is always shining is absolutely the one feeling I wan, especially if I am on vacation.  This made it possible to run out to the pool deck for the afternoon, if there wasn’t some show or movie on.  My sister and I would share a cocktail, just before meeting our parents and a couple of other friends who had come with our parents.  Sometimes, it was easier to pay for a bottle of Corona and avoid the late afternoon nagging that would come from Mom and Dad…  especially in one of the several bars and lounges that were open.  This happened a few times in our two week cruise, sine the traffic continually changed, sometimes making the outdoor sundecks too crowded.  My sister and I didn’t have the money to go  to the ones with the dress code, but we made an effort to get together with the grown-ups at one of the karaoke bars anyway.

This was one of the best vacations I had ever been on, and I am young, so, you know that if I had the perspective of a more experienced cruiser, that probably this business is a good one.  To always have a water bed to sleep on is one of the luxuries I always thought belonged to the ultra-rich.  To have an experience that is related to having a lot of money and a lot of taste is like an adventure at Disney Land, for adults who love this feeling.

The fun thing about a cruise is that the fun of Disney Land and Disney World doesn’t end.  If you get bored of gambling onboard ship, you can always disembark and on land at one of the ports and go for something fun and interesting.  There are bars and restaurants and sites to see as well.  And you get to see all those buildings that could only be seen in unreal ways.

After that first trip, I have fallen in love with cruising.  It has a cult following that attracts people who like to travel, which in the past, was not as easy as getting aboard ship.  I’ve also been on the road trip…., which requires nerves of steel, if you have them.  You go and you stop and stay at absolutely any time you wish, going as far as you want, but just get back home within three weeks!

As this summer ends, we are getting ready again fro the regular business of school, and the changing of season, again.  After a break like the two months in the summer, it almost seems fun to get out big coats and sets of boots, and start to think about the fun of Halloween and Christmas.  I feel lucky to have “things” despite those people who are minimalists, who want to have very few interior decoration or things to carry  around with them.  I am not so attuned to having luck or no luck decide my life. I am very focused on having “my things” with me, when I get them.  So, in this pack rat style, I now have to clean my room.  I still have university text books, and my favorite doll from childhood.  Things that I own, and with a growing family, I must now decide, “text books” versus “daughter and son.”

I almost feel as if I am letting people cruise through my life…  Experiencing it through these objects that i have collected.  But where else, what else, can I do with these things?  Sometimes some of the things are still very useful.  My sister, in one of her “cleaning moods,” got together with her friends and made a three week yard sale, and made over  a thousand dollars. “On junk.”  At this point, even if people were to cruise through my life, like this, I am more willing to get rid of the junk than to care about being nakedly exposed.

So, welcome, please, and join the cruise.  It is an adventure of things and experiences.  Welcome!  Come All, Come One!  WE will have fun!

Those Special Days

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I love the days that are special days.  I look forward to the coming day, planning events and getting all the perfect bits and pieces that make the day, the time, and the people, important.  This method of living through the calendar days requires accumulating “things.”  It is not these “things” that are important in and of themselves, but the people, the event, and the time that they are associated with.  Specifically, this year, as by coincidence, Mother’s Day and my brother-in-law’s birthday fall on the same day.  At this point, I am already half-way through thinking, planning, and purchasing “the things” that will fill this “double-day.”

More and more, I am attracted to those things that are more artistic.  I will buy a book full of words that are pretty and that tell a decorative story, rather than any story that is full of thrill and complex mathematical  problems that require suspending belief in the real world.  I prefer a few well-placed words, to a book that I can’t put down.  So, now, when I start the “accumulation of things” for “the special days” in the calendar, some, “tasteless, bland, white” card, figurine, book, and ecetera  is what I will look for, and usually it is what I get.

Part of my plan, which is a new criteria that developed only during the past year, is to try to fit the purchases of “the things” inside of a budget.  I wan to get to the day, with something that says, more “special, loved, and cherished” than any other day.  So, what I spend on the other deadline days in the calendar, should, not be able to compete with the “special days” and the amount I spend.  There is no way the money I spend can indeed reciprocate and represent the “specialness.”

How do I do this?  I have recently discovered “niche marketing” and the “niche market.”  I am finding more “hand-made” things, and “one-of-a-kind” things, in little shops that do not compete in anyway with giant marketplaces like William Sonoma and Crate and Barrel.  There, I can endlessly spend money, but rarely am I satisfied with the “thing” I have bought.

Being without a car, has led me to here, in my journey.  Because I have to walk, I try to fit everything I need to do, within a small radius of space.  And, I have discovered, the stores along those trendy streets, where the designers go, where the artists live and sell, and where things close to home are on sale, for a reasonable price, I can fulfill my wishes and desires… all in a small radius of a walk.

Also, I am a fan of those reality shows that average joe professionals host, and sometimes, compete with each other in.  It is a community that shows up on television at least once a week, and I am usually there, watching.

My hurrays for all the up-and-coming niche markets!  I feel I live a rich life and that I live it in reality.  I am comfortable and I am surrounded by all the comfortable things, which, for some reason, have to be earned through graduating from school and finding a way to make a living.  If this, is in fact, the real world, then, I give my hurrays again.  There are more and more…  One day, I too, will join with the “cottage industry” and end up on the trendy street.  I won’t only be giving on those special days, but I will also receive as much as I give.