Guest post from: Constance Rodgers

It’s hard being the youngest in a room and at my job, that’s always the case. I work for a restaurant marketer and there’s always some kind of fire to put out but I feel like being in such a professional, fast paced environment makes sure I learn something new each and every day. If only I hadn’t waited so long to graduate and had been doing this for two extra years! My bosses seem to really see something in me and they’re always giving me some kind of cool assignment like looking up card services or talking to a vendor about price and it’s only a matter of time before I think I get promoted. I already make more than a lot of my friends who have jobs right out of school so I’m doing pretty well for myself and don’t think I’ve got too far to go! I love this place and I feel like I’m lucky to have fallen into a job I really see myself staying at for the long term.

I know I’ve told you that I have an aunt that lives in London. She sent me an email yesterday with a link to a local newspaper (to her) that was running a story with pictures about a leopard that attacked a large crocodile. It was quite a battle; the leopard won the battle and hauled the crocodile off to eat. All I can say is that the leopard must have been pretty hungry to take on a crock! The article was on the Earth news section of the website of the London Telegraph paper at Telegraph.co.uk if you want to check it out.
Absolutely amazing!

Well the clogging shoes that I bought off of EBay arrived. They are a little bit snug on my feet, but I think that they are made of leather and that they will stretch. Besides, I only wear them for an hour a week, so it really won’t be a big hardship for me to wear them for that period of time. What is really weird about them, though, is that there seems to be some kind of lining that bunched up in the toe box, and that is a little bit uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know if I’ll get used to it, or if frequent wear will soften it up. What do you think I should do to make them more comfortable?

My best friend wants to buy a van.  She wants to use it to take crafts she makes to local craft fairs, hoping to make some money off of her favorite hobby.  She wants me to join her in her “weekend” business by helping her load the van at her house and going to the fairs with her, unloading the van at the fair and setting up her display and then help her man her table at the fair.  She’s offered to pay me a percentage of the money that she takes in.  I’m not sure that she will really make any money doing this, but I told her I’d help her for one season.

I’m really concerned that the cost of gas is going so high that she’s not going to be able to drive it out of her driveway!  But, she is pretty insistent, and she is telling me that right now the prices of vans are getting lower because of the gas crisis.  I’ve told her that if she is so insistent on buying a van I will help her try to find the best insurance by doing some Internet research on the coverage and prices that are available from the many different insurance providers.

My family lives in a fairly rural area, which I really like.  We are close enough to the city to go into the city for special occasion shopping trips and special occasion meals, but I would not want to live in such a congested area.

Living in such a rural area, however, can get kind of lonely, and we’ve found ourselves thinking about how to meet new people beyond our neighbors and work on finding friends on our local area. We’ve heard that there is a community center supper next weekend, trying to raise money for the Community Center. I think we should go to it!