Posted on

De-Clutter Your Life

At 41-years-old my husband and I decided to live our lives as we never had before…by putting ourselves first. In the past we would clutter our calendars with events that we thought we should attend, not that we actually wanted to attend. We would keep gifts from people that we did not like just because we didn’t want to disappoint anyone. And we would invite people into our home who did not necessarily appreciate our hospitality. Now that we have de-cluttered our lives we are definitely happier individually, with each other and as a family of six. Here are some of our recommendations for living a clutter-free life:

  1. Only attend events that you want to attend. If you feel that attending an event will lead to more stress than joy don’t go. There are many challenges involved in attending an event. Scheduling, getting dressed, socializing and arranging child-care. Only a few events are worth all of that effort.
  2. If somebody gives you a gift that you do not like either re-gift it within a few months or donate it. The giver must not know you well enough to be hurt anyway. Useless items can pile up in our homes and create unnecessary clutter. We deserve to have our homes look and feel the way we want.
  3. If you find that people are coming into your house with a jealous or ungrateful energy don’t invite them anymore. This is a big one as I used to think that in order for my children to be happy they needed to feel as if they had a large support system. Most of the people they were growing up around frequently saw their extended family members. But, if the energy isn’t right it can actually be a detriment to them.

With all of the extra time and space we can now enjoy each other. Our home is easier to clean without all the unnecessary items, we spend more time outdoors, we play more sports, and we have more time for friends and family whose company we actually enjoy.

Posted on

Possibly the Worst VRBO Ever

It’s possible that I booked the worst VRBO ever a couple of days ago for Thanksgiving break. We were in Lake Arrowhead with some extended family and decided we’d need our own space since we were traveling with a 5-month-old. I knew that we wouldn’t spend much time there, so I looked for something with beds and a bathroom…nothing fancy.

The problems began when we got to the house around 9:00pm and could not open the lock box for the key. My husband kept re-reading the directions and following them while in the cold and it wouldn’t open. We looked around for another lock box, we made sure we were at the correct location, we texted and messaged the manager repeatedly, but there was no answer. Then I noticed that the door next to the lockbox read, “manager.” So, I knocked on it worried that I would wake him since he hadn’t been answering our texts. An older man with a hump in his back opened the door and seemed to be expecting us.

I found it odd that he opened his door pretty quickly since he hadn’t been responding to our messages. He said that the code for the lockbox was something else, when he had just texted us the code earlier in the day. I asked for clarification and he said that I had the old code. Once we were able to get the key we realized that we were headed downstairs. He had rented out the bottom floor of his house to us.

After we opened the door we realized that there was a staircase leading to his part of the house right in the middle of our living room. It was simply covered with a curtain and had a sign above that read, “do not enter.” This didn’t seem secure to me.

Then we saw a door with a sign above that read, “refrigerator inside.” We opened this door to find a small refrigerator to the right and a wall of scary tools to the left. The tools mostly included saws, axes, and cutting shears. This was all getting pretty creepy.

We did not feel very safe :/

Refrigerator room of my nightmares :0



We decided to get some sleep then head back over to the big house where the rest of the family was staying. We put chairs with heavy suitcases in front of the staircase and my husband and son slept with a hammer and ax they found in the refrigerator room.

The last straw for me was that the creepy manager above us wouldn’t not sleep throughout the night. He kept walking back and forth across the creaky cabin floors above. Therefore, I was not able to sleep. I kept thinking he was about to walk down those stairs and enter our portion of the house. I thought of ways I would protect my 5-month-old if he entered and hoped that the rest of the family would be able to protect each other somehow.

I have rented from VRBO many times and am typically satisfied with the accommodations and management. This was a different kind experience…one that better suits airbnb.

Posted on

Health Care Management

A few years ago my husband and I had lunch with a prominent financial advisor based out of Santa Barbara, California. He was a well-dressed and accomplished person who seemed boisterous yet humble at the same time. We met in one of the area’s many upscale lunch spots. As we were getting to know him better he explained that his wife was the CEO of a local hospital. I was both impressed and surprised. It seemed like such a big title, yet I had never even known that hospitals had CEOs. That was when I began my research into the field of healthcare management.

Healthcare management can also be called healthcare administration. It describes any job having to do with the planning or organizing that goes into the operation of a medical function. Hospital CEOs, department managers and insurance policy developers are some of the people who may have a degree in healthcare management. Often, a person who is established within their medical career will become interested in moving up to a higher paying position with more administrative responsibilities. This person would consider obtaining a master's degree in healthcare management.

Many on-line and in-person schools offer this Master’s Degree including UCLA and Capella University. According to U.S. News and World Report rankings, UCLA is the number one public university in the United States. Their Fielding School of Public health promises to deliver proactive leaders who will shape the future of care with both on-line and in-person components. Capella University is on-line and offers a Doctor of Health Administration degree.

Good luck to everyone who has an interest in working in the health administration field. Let’s bring these insurance costs down and implement some efficiency into the system!!

Posted on

Corona 2020

What a dewsy! God decided to challenge us in 2020. He may have noticed that we had become too querulous (apparently that means full of complaints). However it happened…covid19 happened. The entire human population was forced to slow down and enjoy the simple things…or face possible extinction.

In the beginning we were anxious and scared. We didn't know much about this evil virus and took the recommended precautions. The scariest thing about those first two weeks was that schools closed their doors to students. Having lived in Los Angeles for most of my life, I had never seen an issue so big that schools and other important institutions stopped operating indefinitely. We stayed home for two weeks and drank wine for entertainment. Thankfully we had a healthy supply of two-buck chuck from Trader Joe's.

After two weeks I started noticing that the information coming from the news outlets wasn't completely making sense. I wasn't sure just how afraid of this thing I should actually be. The general sentiment was that we needed to stay indoors and not interact with anyone outside of our homes. I created social media accounts, deleted social media accounts, texted often with people I normally don't text with much, and became a tik tok fanatic. After a while I didn't understand why we couldn't go hiking or to local parks as long as we stayed away from people. If we were willing to take that risk we should have had that freedom. This confusion lead to more wine drinking and selfie-taking:

Growing more impatient and confused by the data we decided to venture to different counties for outdoor recreation. We discovered a couple of beautiful hikes in Santa Barbara and began to visit them almost weekly. Santa Barbara Hiking is a great source of information about these beautiful pockets of nature. My kids' ages ranged from five to ten-years-old at the time. So, we had a bit of complaining initially but they soon discovered the fun that could be had in nature. My youngest grew an affinity for rocks and sticks and my oldest built his tolerance for things not having to do with electronics.

We also discovered our appreciation for road-tripping. Pre-pandemic I argued with my husband that road-trips were a bad idea with three small children. We would all be nauseous and uncomfortable and irritate each other for hours in a small space. So, we hopped into our minivan and drove to states we had never been to before. While driving we savored all of the new sights. We compared local ordinances and the sanity levels of local people. I'm so grateful for these experiences.

Unfortunately, with the pandemic and resulting lock-down and social distancing hysteria we discovered that we only had each other to count on in times of need. So, we decided to multiply ourselves! That is how we became a family six! Therefore, the pandemic has actually helped us achieve our goal of having four children, with two boys and two girls. In our twenties this seemed like a dream, but here we are at the Hilton Beachfront Resort in Santa Barbara:

Thank you to a lock-down, drag-out, looney tunes year 2020!!!

Posted on

Is There An Appropriate Decibel of Sound For Enjoyment?

My kids had a half-day of school today and I made last-minute plans to take them to an indoor playground with some friends from school. A couple of other moms had chosen the place, a popular indoor playground in the mall, and I tagged along with my two oldest. I had been to this playground before, so I knew to expect good food, a relatively clean environment and a few other kids for them to play with. What I hadn't noticed in the past or perhaps forgotten was the uncomfortably loud music and microphone volume. As the children played the other two moms and I tried to carry on a conversation. I began to feel stressed out because I had to pay close attention to them just to hear and understand what they were saying. And I could tell that they were leaning forward and trying to read my lips as I spoke, which made me feel like I needed to speak louder. This may not sound like a big deal, but the longer we sat there trying to pretend we were enjoying ourselves the harder it became to do so. The music continued blaring and then every few minutes one of the employees began to speak into the microphone about various things including raffle tickets, cup cake crafts, simon says, etc. The noise did not seem to add to anyone's enjoyment. On the contrary, I could tell that the other mothers and I were feeling annoyed by the loud announcements every few minutes. I went ahead and said something to the moms I was with, hoping they wouldn't think that I was a grouch. Both of them agreed with me and one of them even asked the manager to turn the music down. I was relieved that I was not the only one bothered enough to say something about it. We felt some relief for a few minutes until the employee with the microphone continued to zealously make announcements. I was so confused as to how the manager did not notice how unnecessarily loud these announcements were. This got me wondering if there is a scientific volume at which ambient noise should be played. Also, how much louder should an announcement be than the ambient noise in a given room? Upon doing some research I found that the World Health Organization considers loud noise a health hazard. It can cause permanent damage at 85 decibels. I wish I had a decibel detector with me today. According to an article I found on lifehacker.com several studies have indicated that stress resulting from ongoing noise can induce the release of cortisol. Too much cortisol impairs function in the prefrontal cortex, which can disrupt a person’s capacity to think clearly and retain information.
Lastly, I was happy to learn that I am not the only one bothered by unnecessarily noisy rooms. According to Zagat voters in Portland, New York, Boston and San Francisco cite noise as their chief complaint after visiting a restaurant. Most importantly, I don't think that mothers of young children need to deal with any more stress than usual. Many of us choose to have playdates in places like this because it is supposed to be easier and less stressful than having people over. After my experience today I may offer to host the next playdate at my house.

Posted on

Why Are Concert Tickets So Expensive These Days?

I’m a thirty-five-year-old mother of three who has recently rediscovered her life. What I mean by that is…I’ve decided to do things that I personally enjoy. Not just things that my children or husband or others enjoy and expect me to do. One thing that I feel I didn’t do enough of in my twenties was attend concerts. I loved the band Linkin Park, but never went to one of their concerts in the early 2000s. At the time I was in college while working medial jobs to pay for food and car expenses. I didn’t have any extra cash to go to concerts. My boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, wasn’t interested in going to concerts. He was a studious fella. Now, I am thankful to have the opportunity to raise my three children as a stay-at-home mom in Los Angeles. But, after being so conservative most of my life I am ready to get out of the house and party!! When the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, passed away recently I felt like I’d experienced a personal loss. It took me about a month to get over my minor depression. I swore that I was going to make more of an effort to see my favorite bands live…before something tragic happened to make that impossible. I regularly search ticketmaster.com and stubhub.com for tickets to my favorite concerts and am often shocked by the prices. For example, the cheapest tickets to see a Bruno Mars concert at a venue that has a 17,505 person capacity costs $202 plus fees. And everyone knows that these fees can have a life of their own. There are also transportation and parking expenses to consider. Upon a bit of research I have learned that the client, or artist, sets the base price. Then the service charge/order processing fee is negotiated between the client and ticketmaster.com. Then of course the facility has to make money, so that’s where 100% of the facility fee goes. According to their website, taxes are normally included in the face value of each ticket at ticketmaster.com. As it requires quite a bit of commitment to arrange for a sitter, prepare everything that the kids will need at home and lose a couple of hours of precious sleep I want to be able to see the show that I am attending. It hardly seems worthwhile to sit towards the very back of a large venue in seats that cost over $100 each only to watch a projection of the concert. I’m wondering who these people are that buy tickets in more desirable parts of the venue. My husband makes enough to qualify for outrageous income taxes, yet we feel hesitant to spend $250 a ticket to see a show from a seat that is closer to the back of a large venue than the front. Are the artists just arrogant or are most people making and spending lots of money? Is this the new norm? I often find myself in the position of having to decide whether to skip the concert altogether because it is too expensive and feels like a rip-off or to throw tons of money at the situation and enjoy the night like it’s my last. Here is a related article: https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/7iesdx/pearl_jam_tickets_for_the_two_london_shows_went/