Black Belt Living

Evolution

Neglect, that's certainly what this blog has been suffering from, that's for sure. I don't really know why I stopped updating it.  Well, yes I do and that's the good part.  

I stopped because I've thought for a long time that I need to change my focus and morph this forum into a better blog that's more photography oriented and better suited to what I'm doing right now. My photography business has really picked up, and thanks to the encouragement of a bunch of friends and some talented creative professionals, I'm ready to make that leap. 

So it's my pleasure to announce that in early June, I will be leaving this blog behind and moving to a new site that will serve as both my photography blog and online portfolio. I've been working on it behind the scenes for a few weeks now and I'm really liking how it's looking so far.  

In other big news, I started a new job at AI Software in March, as their project manager and social media specialist. We build websites for other businesses and provide social media management. I train clients on how to maintain their websites, do site changes and population, and do all the social media campaigns. It's such a fun job. I tell people that I get paid to play on Facebook all day. That's not entirely true, but it kind of is to a degree.

So since I'm now an official Social Media Maven, I figure that I should get my own act together in that respect and starting this week, I'm doing that. If you're not already following me on Twitter (and why would you since I rarely update it!), you can find me here and I promise to keep it updated and hopefully fun.  

Lots has been going on around these parts since I quit posting and when I roll out my new blog, I hope you'll follow me there and catch up on all the latest and greatest!

Finally, since no blog entry is complete without a photo, I think I'll post this one. I recently got an iPhone and have been trying to learn how to take creative pics with it using Instagram.  Here is one from Mirror Lake at Eden Park. 

Speaking of Instagram, if you'd like to follow my fumbling efforts and failures over there regarding my iPhone camera, you can find me on Instagram at bahogan.  

See you soon with exciting new updates! 

 

Other People's Parenting

I got sucked into a conversation several days ago with two other women. They were discussing their two older teens/young adults, ages 18 and 19.  

Both were complaining that their young adults were unmotivated, didn't care at about school or their future, got failing grades, refused to work, and basically didn't give a damn about anything but partying. They didn't know what to do. The one is probably not going to be graduating from high school this spring. 

Both of these young people live at home, completely supported by their parents, and have little to nothing expected of them. There are no consequences for their actions. The moms had a million lame excuses for the bad behavior too. The one woman needed some serious car repair, but because she's paying her daughter's college expenses, there was no money for her car, and now her daughter is flunking out and doesn't care one bit. They both seemed completely baffled and clueless as to how they got where they are.

They asked me for my advice.  That's a tough spot, for sure. Heck, I don't have an older teen/young adult, so who am I to tell them what to do? I ended up not saying anything, but I don't understand how they could be so befuddled about their kids' lack of motivation when they (the parents) demanded/expected so little and enabled so much. It seems SO clear to me. They have set the bar so low, and now they're surprised when their young people aren't interested in anything more than getting drunk and screwing around. It seemed to me that if the parents wanted to regain control, they had to make the decision to take it back. 

Parenting is tough, but sometimes tough love is absolutely essential. Isn't that our job?  

I bet I just pissed off a whole bunch of people with this post, but I had to put it out there. 

 

Spinning Plates

Well this weekend was a first. Shannon and I entered the Newtown 5K race. We just walked it, but tried to keep a challenging pace. We wanted to run part of it, but they made it clear that if we were signed up as walkers, we were not allowed to run.  

Originally Andy was going to run it and we were going to volunteer to work it (our church was providing the volunteers), but he had a conflicting golf tournament. At CCD camp, students were encouraged to participate, so Shannon asked if we could enter, so we did!

It was so much fun, and so competitive! I was so impressed by the number and quality of the runners. There were over 600 people who participated and the winning times were smokin' fast! The man who came in first out of all the walkers was 70 years old and had a time of around 29 minutes.  That's for three and a tenth miles. That's a blistering walking pace! 

I have pics, but after getting a new computer, I'm having a bit of trouble with exporting and plug-ins and all sorts of technical difficulties, so I'll post the pics later today. 

We saw a bunch of old friends, made a bunch of new friends, got a bunch of exercise, and had a wonderful time.  Next year the whole family is going to do it, and we're all going to run it instead of walk it. 

In other news.....

Things are kind of nuts around here. Well, it feels that way to me. School starts in a little over a week and in the meantime, I feel like I'm juggling plates, I've got so much to keep track of - doctor, ortho, dentist, orientations, parent nights, sports practices, etc. The big dog houseguest is taking a bit more work than I had planned, I'm back to working out nearly every day, and I'm putting together a family slideshow from our trip to the Outer Banks where I'm trying to sort through the vacation pics of a huge number of people.  I've got photo shoots coming up and assorted other things....

Anyhow, I feel like the plates are spinning and dropping on me. Something has got to give, so I've decided to take a blog vacation starting this Wednesday, until the Tuesday after Labor Day. That's September 8th. In the meantime, I'll still be posting recipes on Tuesday, and I may be putting up pics now and then, but I'm not sure.  

So it's a leap of faith to take a big break like this, but right now I need to trim some things down in addition to my expanding waistline. I hope you'll all come back when I come back, but keep checking in on Tuesdays so that you have something to cook for your family on Wednesday.  Tomorrow I'm posting a delish recipe that I created via a happy accident.  

I hope you'll miss me!  

Bragging Rights

Yesterday was our annual Chili Cook Off at ACME.  It was a blast. I'd say that it would be fun to do something like that every day, but I suppose that there is such thing as too much of a good thing. And there probably is such thing as too much chili as well, especially at a place where people are actually expected to get work done in the afternoon.

 

But Holy Firehouse, Batman...that chili was GOOD!  There were eight entries and they were all great, and really different.  Mine was the only chicken chili, but we had other chilis that included yummy ingredients like bacon (what isn't better with bacon and why haven't I ever thought about adding bacon to chili?), italian sausage, olives, and even beer. And of course, a pepper or two. All pots had some kick to them, but none of it was too hot, just right. 

But in the end, the year-long serious bragging right went to a fellow contest rookie, Rick, and his "Italian Stallion Chili". Hopefully I'll have the recipe up here next Tuesday. It was seriously good!

I am not kidding you, we ate at noon, and I wasn't even remotely hungry for the rest of the day. I did have a tiny bowl of my leftovers at about 8pm last night, but it wasn't because I was hungry. 

 

If you're interested, here is my chili recipe:  White Chicken Chipotle Chili

I also made the mistake of counting my points for Weight Watchers, ha!  Earlier in the day I gave it an estimate, but last evening (while watching The Biggest Loser of course), I decided to look everything up and crap!  That was a heavy lunch.  Literally.  Eight samples of chili, a piece of cornbread, and a piece of key lime cheesecake.  [burp] Good thing I went for a run last night. Unfortunately, I'm only on week one of my "teach the fattie to run" program and I didn't run to Chicago and back, which is probably what I would have had to do to burn off all of those calories. 

Have a great day and have some chili today! Me? I think I'll have some salad.

Paella, Por Favor?

This weekend I had the honor of helping some friends with some photography for their new website. My friends are Carrie and Maria, and they are starting a new business, Maria's Paella. 

 

It's an awesome concept. Maria and Carrie will prepare this insanely delicious paella and deliver it to your home, along with a great salad, bread, and sangria for a party. The paella can either be prepared and delivered to your home, or prepared on site (which I have to say is extra fun!). 

Maria is a native Spaniard and uses her mother's traditional paella recipe, and traditional tools. They buy all extra fresh and high quality ingredients. You have a choice of tradional paella with chicken, beef, and seafood, or all seafood.  Say it with me......YUMMMMMM!  

I can't even begin to tell you how fun it was to watch them prepare the paella, and the smell...well, I just wish that I could blog in "Smell-a-Vision" today. 

Andy and I will be hosting a paella party this spring for the two of us and eight lucky friends, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it. 

Their website will hopefully be up and running soon, but in the meantime, if you're in the Cincinnati area and you're interested, for now you can contact me directly and I can hook you up. I'll be sure to let you know when the website is live.  

Oh yeah, did I mention that they have an adorable mascot?  Meet Chiquita, the Chihuahua.  No quiero Taco Bell when your mama can cook like this!

Happy Monday everybody! I'm so ready for spring break. Too bad I don't get one.  Sigh.

ACME Enterprises

So yesterday was my first day on the job at ACME Enterprises.

We're not allowed to use the real name of my company on personal blogs, so I decided to make a name up. If you're old like me, you probably remember the ACME references from the Road Runner cartoons. For some reason, it always struck me as funny, but then again the ACME anvil never fell on my head. And for what it's worth, I do not anticipate an anvil falling on my head at my new office anytime soon either, but I did come home with a pounding headache from information overload yesterday.

But first, a little background. I think that you need to be living under a rock if you're not aware that money is a bit tighter for all of us these days than it was a while ago. We decided a few months ago that while I loved working at the chiro office, the lack of hours and benefits was making it necessary to look for something else.

For weeks, I'd been applying for all sorts of things....from a PR manager/photographer for a local non-profit, to admin jobs, to marketing jobs, and the only nibbles that were coming my way were for cold-call, all-commission insurance sales. I admire people who can do those jobs, because they are necessary, but I'm not one of them. I was even turned down for some bank teller jobs, where the only qualification was a GED. Nice. I was getting so discouraged. I'd like to think that I was turned down because I was overqualified, but they never tell you why (and just as well...who wants to go into the banking industry these days, right?). For a while I was thinking that prostitution was looking more favorable every day. After all, if I was going to ho it out there selling something, I might as well do it under the table (JUST KIDDING!).

So one Sunday morning I was out walking the dog and my friend pulled up. Keep in mind that I rarely walk Olive the Wonder Dog, and I would never do it on a Sunday morning, but this day was different. I had come from taking photos at the bottom of the hill for something that Andy was working on. So my friend pulls up and we get on to chatting. In the course of our conversation, she happens to ask me if I knew anybody who was looking for a marketing job, because a mutual friend had just mentioned that their marketing person had quit. Well HELLOOOOOO...how about MOI? I had the background to fit into the company, this could possibly work. So I hurried home and whipped off a resume to our mutual friend.

She replied later in the afternoon that they hadn't even started thinking about filling the position yet, but she'd get back to me in a few weeks. Little did I suspect that she'd call me two days later wanting to set up interviews. Apparently, they really liked my colorful and somewhat schizophrenic resume. And to make a long story a bit shorter, I was interviewed the next week and was given a great offer the very next day. Friends rock, what can I say?

So I started at ACME today. So far so good. I have my own office with a door for the first time in my life. That is so cool. The people seem great and I think the job will be challenging and fun. I'll be designing and maintaining the corporate web site, as well as managing the marketing materials used by the sales team, and assorted other interesting tasks. One of the first things I get to be involved in is working in conjunction with local marketing graduate students to work on our branding.

So that's the deal. I think my biggest personal challenge is going to be balancing the office with everything that I do outside of the office...you know, like cooking and cleaning and trying to take at least one interesting photo per day. Ah, who am I kidding? Forget the cleaning. If I can avoid an anvil falling on my head, it's all good!