Your "private" information is everywhere online - Start removing it here.

At the end of this message you will find links to some of the larger data mining companies, and directions on how to remove your profile. 


I'd like to clue you in on an already giant establishment:  The information you deem private is often public.
And often you would prefer this information never be shown, much less be searchable in a dozen giant databases, and only costing $2 for any stalker to find. "Identity Management Companies" are considered the modern phone book, and they're offering any information you provide.

We know that the information we post on facebook is public.  But what about city and government records?  Any time you sign a document at the DMV, a marriage license, court records, county records, property documents with the city, loan documents, and a myriad of others, the information becomes public.  This used to be quite tedious to find someone by journeying to City Hall or the library's records, but online data giants have changed all the rules.

Stalk yourself for free here:  http://www.peekyou.com
Sites which give more information usually cost money.

It is easy, legal, and often free to find
Your full name
Address, former addresses
Age
Phone number
Email address
Online alias
...

Special invitation

How special and desired ought I feel if I receive a wedding invitation -via facebook- precisely 31 hours before the event?

"Not Attending."

Cute gesture, but something tells me I wasn't thought of four months ago when the paper invitations were sent via snail mail.  I'd rather not be a seat filler for the real guests who could not make an appearance.

A safe rule:  If you have a gift registry, your event is important enough to mail out paper invites.

Nonetheless, I cheerfully and genuinely congratulated the bride and groom.

Sephora service and employee Alyssa Magee: A RoseBark Review

To:  Sephora Client Services customerservice@sephora.com From: rose   Sent: Jul 17, 2011 3:41:09 PM  
Subject: compliment/complaint

Greetings!
I'd like to take a moment and tell you about a -beyond- stellar experience I had at your store in JCP in Salem Center, Salem, Oregon.

What made it great?   Two words: Alyssa Magee.  She was phenomenal.

I arrived to Sephora nervous; I'd not worn makeup in over a decade. She greeted me with cheerful warmth and I instantly relaxed. I needed assistance with makeup for an underwater photo shoot and was a fish out of water. She looked at prior uw photographs on my laptop, asked pertinent questions, and gave me solid advice on both product and method of application. THANK GOD I was gifted with her expertise! She patiently coached me through application, reapplication, and re-re-re-reapplication of the pink cheek blush (?).

I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized the sample container of makeup remover she gave me was nearly full.

I just finished a three day photo shoot. The pictures are stellar. The makeup worked nearly perfectly, the photographer is thrilled, and Alyssa is my hero.

Cambridge, day 2: Street Buskers, Babies, Bicycles, and Boredom

Goal for Sunday?  Dim-sum for lunch in Chinatown, of which the long walk/jog jaunt through the new student orientation at Harvard University and across Cambridge proved too long to arrive in time.  We enjoyed Korean kimchi and shabu shabu instead (!!!).

I happily watched an old, wrinkled, thin black man (missing all his front teeth) sing the blues and play harmonica in Harvard Square while I laid in the grass and enjoyed kids dancing.  It turns out he is Silas Hubbard Jr, a classic in the Memphis and Harvard communities.  Back-up?  David Johnston, acoustic guitar, a likewise loved artist from the former One Thin Dime.

Harvard Square (meaning more like a region in Harvard, not an actual plaza) is prime real estate for people-watching.  It is especially joyful because everyone here is truly enjoying themselves and content.  I have greatly enjoyed watching parents play with their children.  The people are homogenous in a new way; the races and nationalities are extremely diverse, but everyone seems to wear the same style of semi-casual, nice, clean-cut clothes.  I think I've seen two hippies and one redneck out of thousands.  It feels surreal.

On Sundays Memorial Drive is closed to cars, and throngs of families weave through each other as they enjoy the rich green landscape and the scenic Charles River.  I stopped for a lemonade, and for $2 two teens used Pellegrino water, freshly picked mint, strawberries, raspberries, and hand-squeezed lemon.  What a treat!  They'd just moved from Chicago because of their father's job, and were not selling lemonade to make money - they were simply bored.  What a show!

The late afternoon was spent racing around Fresh Pond Lake, a lush escape from the cute town and tourism.  I biked a little too fast in the mud puddles, and still need a shower before bed at 2 am...  :) Good thing the sheets are dark red!

(And dessert was the ever-delectable Finale chocolate (torte?... something amazing.))

I'm suffering deeply.

Cambridge, day 1

Crashed an elegant outdoor wedding
Enjoyed the prestigious Harvard Faculty Club (entered not knowing it was closed for the wedding)
Inaugurated into W.A.S.H. (Whisky Appreciation Society of Harvard)
Congratulated as a 2012 Nieman Fellow
Met amazing people, ate amazing food, smelled the flowers, walked the campus, and enjoyed my good friend and organic fresh local chocolate.

Photo bucket

OK, well, photo of flower bucket.
Today I brought home a bucket of flowers I cut for my roomie.  It was received with astonished eyes and awed delight.  I cut one of nearly every flower variety that grows at the home I grew up in.  The bucket of flowers created five unique bouquets. 

My dresser adornment.  I am a blessed woman indeed!

A new perspective

The Earth offers herself to me every day.  The damp paths in the forest, the peach sunset, the flitting butterflies, they all exist calmly and contentedly.  Earth quietly asks me to visit, and I usually choose not to.

Instead, I stay indoors, windows closed, shoes on, eating with objects like silverware instead of my fingers, and otherwise unconsciously avoid any contact with the natural substances which permitted my concrete reality to come to be.

If I should indulge in this encounter with Earth (which I believe we are created to commune with every day), then She would be giving me a free gift; she is merely opening her heart and sharing her song.  The sunset bathes my face, and my soul stills.  The mud squishes between my toes and I giggle with delight.  The smells of fresh rain on composting trees is intoxicating.  As I walk through the wild, the bird lands on my hand and eats my offering.  I could eat no greater meal than this.  This food satiates.

I was recently confronted with a question:  Rose, because the Earth has gifted to you, you owe it your energy, skills, and work.  What will you do to give back?

And I found my answer while meditating high up a ravine and gazing into a majestic waterfall:
I owe Earth nothing.  She is sharing Herself with me.  She is giving Herself freely, without pretext.  She did not intend for me to give back.  She simply loves.

And I realized that if I did nothing other than spend the rest of my life living in a tent in the woods collecting edibles and walking barefoot through Her corridors, and never start a "Save the Whales" club or teach sustainable living, she will be at peace, and she will be content knowing I am content.

I am growing at peace with this recent understanding.  It is acceptable to Be without giving.  It is, of course, desirable to give, but only out of free will and in openly sharing my heart.  I want to be connected to my joy, and radiate it freely to my environment.  Interestingly, when I freely give, I find purpose and fulfillment.   If you are in my environment, or Earth is, or a hurting child, or a giddy friend, I will choose to be me, choose to have joy, and choose to live life as fully as I am able in that moment.  I found peace.

I love you.
--

This post is both literal and metaphoric.
I look forward to your thoughts!

--

 

This birdie quickly found my humble bread offering

"Elated" doesn't quite describe...

Profound gratitude and joy, and a quiet desire for more

Bragging about money

My bedroom view.  It smelled of burned oil.

My budget in Ecuador:  $6/day.
And I usually enjoyed my lifestyle.

--
I'd lived there about 7 months already, and was quietly frustrated with this white guy who was constantly bragging about how many thousands of dollars he pulled in on his real estate deals.  He spent rolls of cash on beer and in bars and ate out at real restaurants all the time, unlike me.  My $1.50 rice-based lunch on street carts was good and filling, as were plantains for breakfast, but I sometimes wished I had more money to eat like a lower class American.
One day this guy asked me to hang out with him and his friends.  I told him I didn't have the money to get burgers and drinks.  He said he would buy.
He didn't buy, and I was stuck with the $4.50 bill.  I was shocked and offended and said nothing.  Pennies to him were almost a day's budget for me.  I couldn't afford it.  That was the last time I bothered to go out with him.
--
I lived with Maira, a local woman my age.  I am SO blessed to have found her!  We shared a bedroom in an apartment right off a main street.  My bedroom view was a auto shop which reeked of burned greese.  They started yelling at 7 am.  And boy was it dusty...



---
I vividly remember the words told to me as I was pulled aside.  We were standing in Manta, Ecuador.
My friend said I was a bit too noisy in telling people about the money I had.  The money I had???

Ventilation is holes in ceiling cement blocks

My income was about $50 a week, and I rarely spent money on anything.  I hadn't even purchased a fan to push air around my stagnant 100+ degree apartment.  I skipped the $25 paragliding session in Crucitas, the $20 whale watching boat tour leaving from Manta, ate the local ice cream only once a month ($2.25 a cone!), and God only knows how many other amazing, "cheap" activities in the name of budget.
--
Minimum wage in Ecuador is $200 / month.  Often construction laborers work 10-12 hour days and are paid $10.  They do not have money to put shoes on their children's feet.
--
I suppose I was shocked because, in my opinion, I was living a fairly humble lifestyle.  No souvenirs, super cheap apartment in an awful location ($40/ month, next to an auto garage), no shopping in the mall or even the Safeway-like grocery store.  I taught part time at Wall Street Institute, a local English school.  They were fair to me, in relation to local wages, and I am grateful to have had the employment. 

Beautiful Mayra

I never internally resolved this comment.  Perhaps my understanding of living meagerly on a tight and small budget will never measure up to that of the middle class in Ecuador.  Or perhaps, I promised my friend a burger and simply forgot to buy -

 The bathroom was so small my knees were touching the opposite wall while I was peeing.  I lived kiddy-corner to the police.  One block away, a couple was held at gunpoint during the daytime.  (Further motivation to leave for Colombia.)   In front of my aparrtment was a playground.  I loved it!  And I kept my belongings in garbage bags until I built shelving.

January flowers - Believe it!

I feel so blessed.  We had an extravagantly warm and long winter here in Salem, Oregon.  And January?  Well, aside from my hundreds of daffodil and crocus bulbs poking up, I have three plants in full bloom, one weed in bloom, and another shrub on the way!  The day is 45 degrees and cloudy, fog lies over the entire city, and the lawn is still blanketed in dew at 3:30 in the afternoon.  A lovely sight indeed.

It appears the slugs are also up and wanderin'

Daphne - I am SO excited to enjoy their fragrance!

From Danyelle

This bush is so fragrant I can smell it across the yard

I deeply enjoy the beauty of this delicate nuisance!

All photographs - Pura fotos -

 Santa Marianita, Ecuador.  A quiet beach town.  Un pueblito callado.

There are about 30 photos - please click "read the rest, plus pictures!" to see all.

Hay como 30 fotos - haga clic "read the rest, plus pictures!" para verlos en completo.

I am keenly aware that I've not published photographs from my trip to Ecuador.

Yo sé que no había publicado casi nada de mis fotos de Ecuador.

Here are a few - Mostly boats with names, a few showing "scaffolding" made of bamboo on a "high rise" in Manta, and the local beer retailer.

Aquí quedan algunos.  La mayoría son los barcos, algunos con la construcción 

de edificios de bloque en Manta, y donde puede comprar la cerveza en Manta.

Salud, y Feliz Navidad -

La Rosita