Posts filed under 'Carrie's Rants'
I’ve been thinking about what to do with this blog for some time now. Meanwhile, most of my blogging buddies have given up on ever seeing me post again. Can’t say I blame you. It’s not that I’ve had nothing to say, just that I’ve had nothing to say here.
My life has changed so much – and in such wonderful ways – that the original tone and usual content you found here just isn’t who I am right now. However, there’s still so much I’d like to share with those of you I’ve come to adore over the years. Expect an email from me in coming weeks with a link to the new site.
As for the Atomic Bombshell, she will not fade into oblivion just yet. In fact, I plan to relaunch this site to cover my passion for cycling. Eventually, I hope to help build a local cycling team and utilize this site as the communications hub for that group. Or who knows, maybe it can even serve to support female cyclists and related events throughout the region.
Here’s to new beginnings!
April 3rd, 2009
Ever wonder why I don’t post very often? Let me give you a couple little peeks into some of the reasons why that might be…
Let’s start with the dumbest one first:
When I posted about The Ninja’s travel trouble, it later showed up on my Facebook automatically imported as a note. The groom of the wedding involved somehow found it there and took it very personally. After a series of emails from the groom, The Ninja was unable to clear up misconceptions, and these comments appeared here:
Continue Reading September 4th, 2008
I’ve heard travel has become quite a nightmare lately, but now we have firsthand experience to substantiate that theory. You see, the Ninja had to fly from Southern California to Rhode Island where he was expected to appear as a groomsman in a childhood friend’s wedding. As charming as that sounds, I wish we had turned them down.
Even though we are desperately low on funds since their wedding so closely followed our own, and even though we were required to pay for tuxedo rental, airfare, accommodations, and more… It still wouldn’t have been so bad. What made it terrible was this series of events:
Continue Reading August 5th, 2008
My lovely web hosting provider (iPower) moved my site to a “new and improved” server, and in the process screwed up my blog beyond all recognition. Had you noticed my site was down for a month? In the end I had to fix it myself, but half due to principle and half because I was too busy, I tried making my host fix their own mess. Bad idea!
Many weeks went by with no solution, just a few rounds of help desk ticket volleyball where they tried to blame me, and I reminded them everything was working fine before they screwed around. Lucky for all of us, I made back-ups of everything. While I’m pissed enough to switch hosts, everyone seems to have horror stories about every halfway decent hosting company, so I don’t know if I’d come out ahead.
Oh well… What matters is the Bombshell is back!
July 24th, 2008
I’m the girl who never engaged a single brain cell dreaming about what her “big day” would be like, and who even chose to elope the first time around. But now that I’ve actually planned a whole to-do, I might be starting to see the point…
Honestly, I can’t imagine why anybody would put herself through the nerve-wracking insanity for anything less than her perfect mate. Once you’ve made it through the gauntlet that leads up to your wedding day, later on if things start to go awry in your marriage, I promise you’ll think back to the wedding preparations and realize that in comparison your present woes are quite manageable.
Of course, that’s if you’re not “cheating” by enlisting outside help from family or friends. Both of which I’m told generally end up being more trouble than help. Also in the category of doing more harm than good are those brick-like bridal magazines, which I am convinced serve only to fill your head full of stuff you don’t really need, to support yet another industry that preys on ignorance and insecurity.
I did as much of the work as possible on my own to keep costs down, then negotiated like crazy for everything else. Believe me, you’ll barely get the “W” in “wedding” out of your mouth before the price of everything quadruples! Our pastor claimed the average wedding runs $40 grand, but we kept it closer to one tenth that amount while trying to make it look like we forfeited the down payment on a house.
It wasn’t easy, but perhaps we pulled it off. All that hard work just to marry my best friend so we can spend more time together riding bikes and making each other laugh? Totally worth it!
June 30th, 2008
Six months. That’s how long I was told it should take for the divorce to be final. At first that made perfect sense to me. With no kids of our own, no house, and therefore nothing to fight over, it should be easy, right? Yet here I am after not two six month spans later, but a mind-boggling year and a half, and it’s still not over.
To make matters worse, even once the court clerk pounds his or her stamp onto our paperwork and it’s legally over, we’re still not completely done. They have to analyze our retirement assets, slice them down the middle, and then there’s still the matter of the ultimate disposal of my car, leased in my ex’s name.
It’s a frustrating situation, but it’s worth all the struggle to be free…
Free from an emotionally (and at times physically) abusive relationship. Free to be myself without fearing constant harassment. Free to enjoy friendships without abiding his disapproval and criticism. From being ignored by the one who should love me. From unreasonable demands. From being viewed like a utility. Water, trash, electricity, wife.
October 22nd, 2007
Over three years ago I proposed that we change our corporate name. After presenting my rationale, the board agreed. What came after was a needlessly long and painful process, because our management team severely lacks trigger-pullers. Over the course of that excruciating wait, all of our print collateral ran out or became outdated.
Though I tried hard to keep things moving where fiscal sense allowed, churning out promotions and miscellaneous stuff, it was an uphill battle to grow the business without the essentials in place. The “hurry up and wait” of the name change project wore not only on my nerves, but on my ability to take pride in my work.
After two and a half years poised on the starting block waiting for the gun to fire, they finally selected a name last August, and since then I’ve been off and running. To say I was busy over the last eight months would be an understatement. Logo, tagline, branding, website, mailers, booklets, brochures, signs, merchandise, posters, badges… Oh my!
I’m a one-person marketing department, so it was up to me to get everything ready for the April launch. Now that’s behind me, but my work life still doesn’t show any signs of slowing. In fact, with a more solid foundation in place, the frontier now seems wide open. After a long period of waiting, it feels good to make a positive impact again.
The labor of marketing is strikingly similar to bearing a child: conception, gestation, delivery. Each phase has a proper duration and things must happen in a certain order. The final output depends upon the quality of what was accomplished in those formative stages, however, if you drag any of it out too long you’ll endanger the mother.
If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, and this little momma is only happy when she’s being effective. Knowing it wasn’t right to print short collateral runs with the name change looming didn’t help me feel any better about being less productive. Certainly it wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t work at one-third capacity and call it a job well done.
Once I read that procrastination was a major cause of depression, but since I’ve learned that being forced to put things off is even worse. Creative people need to run with ideas instead of waiting to be cleared for launch. Though I now have tons to add to my resume, I’m slightly more impressed by the personal trial I endured to get there.
Wheew… Time to get back to work!
April 17th, 2007
Sending tons of love and best wishes for a speedy recovery to my precious Aunt Cathy in New Hampshire, who’s having surgery today. We take heart in knowing that although you seem like a cute little cupcake, anyone married to Uncle Phil all those years has got to be one tough cookie! Get well soon.
April 2nd, 2007
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