Home

Posted by random olio

After traveling for a week, I am home. I have a big dopey grin on my face as I think about being home. We should all feel that way. Do you? I love thinking about crawling onto my clean sheets and into the bed that I love, right next to my hubby. As I look around my home to the things that are me, to the things that make it feel like home to us, and I sigh and take a moment to be grateful that my taste and Chris’ align. I know what you may be thinking. We should be taking our sense of home with us wherever we go. I do not disagree. Yes, as cheesy as I know it sounds, whenever or wherever I am with Chris, I feel home. But I am talking about that deep and wonderful feeling of appreciation for your physical home.

There are times when we might travel to a different city and love where we are and what we are exploring, but still end the day wishing we were sitting on our couch, or going to sleep in our bed. Eventually arriving home, it is like a breath of fresh air walking inside, opening up our bags, dropping our crusty clothes into the laundry, showering, and crawling into bed with joy and appreciation that we are home, and that all is good. Do you know the feeling?

We are all creatures of habit, and I am one that thoroughly enjoys being at home. The more I enjoy my house, and the more I cultivate the interior and exterior, the more it becomes my solace after a long day or week. The comfort of my home becomes the balance I need after an exhausting extroverted day, and allows me to nurture the introverted part of myself. A clutter free, clean, and purpose-filled place to rest my body and mind is how I recharge, which allows me to embark and take on the world.

What about you? Do you like things to be pristine and spotless? Does that ground and balance you when you come home from a long day, or is it about the items you have found from your travels that tell the story about your home? Is it the smell of your coffee maker filling the room, or the pitter patter of your dog’s paws across the hardwood floor? Is it the memories and events that happened in your home that make it feel special to you? Or, is it the people you share your home with that make your house a home to you?

I hope you feel you can come home from work, take off your bra, or strip to your boxers, let go of the challenges of the day, and unwind.

What does home mean and feel like to you?

Start with the basics

Posted by random olio

Some of you that follow my blog know that I have a passion for money management. My passion evolved because I wanted to make sure that I truly understood what we were doing with our money, and that I trusted the information we were using to make our money decisions. I cannot do that in a vacuum. It means I have to read, learn, and ask the right questions. This recent Daily Worth had an idea that resonated with me:

“Money management is like cooking, or fixing a car or anything else you can learn,” says Myers. “But if you tell yourself you’re simply not good at it, you’re less likely to take steps to learn the basics you need to be financially healthy.”

I have to agree. While I am not a cook, I would feel comfortable calling myself a baker. I learned over time how to work with dough and understand why a recipe called for baking soda rather than baking powder. I am still learning new things about baking, and enjoy trying out new recipes. The same goes for money management. As the world changes and evolves fast, we have to shift and adjust with it, and be aware of whether the decisions we have made in the past continue to serve us, or if we need to adjust our financial allocations based on changes in the market, and our lifestyle.

Some individuals work with a financial planner that they trust, others rely on friends and family, and some look to books, the news, and the Internet to help inform them on what decisions they make regarding their money. Whatever step you take, I encourage you to continue to learn. Maybe you are young and a beginner, or you might have a family and are looking now at how to save for your children’s future, wherever you are in life, there is always something to learn that can benefit you today and in the future.

Don’t give up.

Posted by random olio

Over the weekend, Chris and I were in LA. We rented a car, and after driving it for an hour or so, we realized it sounded horrible. It was a 2013 Prius, and was making the most annoying rattling noise. Knowing that we had an hour + drive ahead of us later that night, we both felt we needed to get a different car to ensure that we were not stranded with a broken down car late at night. (Not my idea of a good time).

First we called the closest Hertz location. No answer. We called the 800 number for Hertz Roadside Assistance. They said we would have to go back to the LAX location where we rented the car. Not an option, we would have sat in LA traffic both ways and never would have made it to our dinner plans. We drove to the Hertz location listed as closest (the one that did not answer the phone). It was not at the specified address. An hour has now passed.

We called Roadside Assistance again, and were transferred to another area within Hertz and got hung up on. We called another location in the vicinity, and they said they had no cars and that we should go back to LAX or call the Hertz 800 number. We called the 800 number, they said they would transfer us to the Venice Hertz. The man who answered that phone call said he would call a few different locations, took my number, and said he would call back. He never called back. We called Roadside Assistance again, and they said they would transfer us to Customer Care. We were disconnected.

By this time, I was livid, frustrated, and quite a bit nasty with Hertz. During my final call to Roadside Assistance, the agent tells me there is nothing they can do for me, the only people who can help me is the LAX location, but that I would need to go there to have them swap out cars. They let me know that Hertz Roadside Assistance can do nothing for all the frustration, hang-ups, my only resolution is at the LAX location (they supposedly have cars). By this time we are in Sherman Oaks, and a few hours have passed.

I call the LAX location at least 10 times, and each time I get a voicemail. I do not want to leave a voicemail, because who knows when anyone will return it. The agent tells me they cannot help me, after I get very irritated with her, and ask her what she would want done if she was in my situation, she agrees, but says she can no do anything to help me. I firmly ask to speak with her manager, (who I find out is Fred). Fred and I will spend the next few hours trading phone calls and voicemails. Hertz must not teach or empower their managers to think for themselves. He tells me there is nothing he can do for us, the only thing we can do is drive back to LAX and trade out for a new car. I knew that was not going to happen. So we had to decide to push further with Hertz, or give up all the hours we already wasted in our day and just drive north with the potential that our car will break down.

I am not one to give up. I press on. I tell him I am in Sherman Oaks, and will be for the next few hours. Could he find a location near me that can bring us a new car? He finds one at Burbank and tells me I have to drive there. I tell him that is not going to happen. We have plans and I have already wasted 5 hours of my afternoon being hung up on and trying to deal with his company. The least they could do is bring a car to us. He finds a Nissan Altima and says a tow truck will come to meet us, but it will be a few hours. I ask what he is going to do with my rental rate after giving us a car that was not 100%, having such horrible help and customer service issues, and that I lost half my day due to Hertz. He said there was nothing he could do. Eventually he says he will pay for our gas when we returned the Altima.

Ha. Our gas. Part of the reason for renting the Prius in California was the miles we were going to drive. I knew we would not have to pay much for gas, so his comping our gas was nothing. I asked him if he could comp a day, since we did not get to do all we wanted due to the car. He said he could not do that, but would comp me the gas. After I yell at him, and he yells at me, I hand the phone off to Chris. I am livid and sweating, and not going to give up. I used to be in customer service and I am appalled that someone who manages an entire Hertz location does not have the authority to fix these types of issues.

In the end, Chris told them if he did not fix this, and make it right, that I would end up taking it up the line at Hertz (and yes, I will be writing them a letter, and will be happy to share this blog post with them). He mentioned that I have a blog, and I will be sure to make my experience known so that others do not have a similar situation in the future. Fred said, “well we do not want that, let me call my manager.” He called us back and offered a day off our rental and to pay for our gas. In the end:

Hertz delivered the car to us in Sherman Oaks.
It was another Prius… new, with only 1,300 miles.
Our gas was only $10.17 to fill it back up… we paid for it.
We got one day comped on our rental.

Customer service representatives should always ask for phone numbers and call customers back if they get disconnected. My health insurance provider does that, and I appreciate it. Companies should also empower customer service agents and managers to be able to offer their customers some type of compensation when issues arise.

I wanted to share this in hopes that others will not give up if in a similar situation. What do you think?

Enjoy what is.

Posted by random olio

Have you ever thought about how things often have to change in one person’s life before they can change in another’s? Think of a romantic relationship. One individual might be ready to find that perfect someone, but the person they might end up with could be working through a past relationship and is not ready to open up. I think of who I was and where I was at in my life in college. I would not have been the person I was when Chris met me. We would not have worked. Yet, at a later time in our life it was the right time, and it did work out.

The same is true for a job. There might be a specific company that you have always wanted to work for, but never got that job, then one day you do. As you look back at the different managers and leadership, you see that you probably would not have fit in years earlier, yet you do now. Of course you can now see that all in hindsight. Yet that information can help to direct us today. We are each where we are meant to be when we listen to our inner voice, and take the steps that come to us. Our inner voice. We all have a voice that we make the choice to listen to, or not. Often when we do not listen to that voice, we later do things that we regret. Ring a bell?

There is a right time, and a right place for everything. Maybe we will never end up working for that one company, or end up with that individual that we have always been interested in, but if we can know that right now, in this very moment we are where we are meant to be, we can stop wasting time wondering what our life will be like. Enjoy the now. Enjoy what is.

Encaustic badass

Posted by random olio

Each year a few days away from our anniversary, we venture to the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. We try to go on Friday so that if we fall in love with a piece of artwork, there is still the possibility that it has not been sold. We have had this tradition for quite a few years, and sometimes we do not find or purchase anything and other years we come home with grins and excitement to go back on Sunday to pick up our new piece.

This year we came home with smiles across our face. Karl Kaiser’s talented encaustic work has come home to hang on our walls, and we also got to meet him at the Festival of the Arts. I am enamored with his work. If you are not familiar with encaustic, I encourage you to check out his blog as he will show you how he does some of his pieces. Encaustic is a form of painting using hot beeswax. Many encaustic artists mix their own colors, and you will find that each artist has a very different finished piece of work.

I have been wanting to start doing my own pieces, and had always been told that I would need a blow torch. Based on my multi-tasking and often dream world thinking Chris has not wanted me to have a blow torch in the house. To my excitement, Karl let us know that I could use butane to start out.

The piece you see is many, many layers of wax cut down and embedded into another piece. I love the rich color that he has brought into this piece. If you want to follow Karl’s work, you can like him on Facebook, check out his website, or his blog.