Two years since my dad died. The anniversary was the 9th. It amazes me how much has changed since that fateful day. And even more major, monumental changes are on the way.

Change is good. I need change.

I’ve been lucky to have had an extended childhood. I lived at home with my parents until I was 29. I spent the last 10 years living in a pretty carefree manner. My thirties have been very much like my twenties except I lived on my own.

Am I ready to put away childish things?

Jawbone Up- It tracks your movement and sleep patterns.

Yes, I can get even more self-involved than I already am.

Dang it– there was another really cool gadget I found that looked very tasty. Forgotten. Maybe I’ll remember it…

it was then that the fox appeared.
“good morning” said the fox.

“good morning”
the little prince responded politely
altho when he turned around he saw nothing.

“I am right here” the voice said, “under the apple tree.”

“who are you?” asked the little prince, and added,

“You are very pretty to look at.”

“I am a fox”, the fox said.

“Come and play with me,”
proposed the little prince, “I am so unhappy.”

“I cannot play with you,” the fox said,
“I am not tamed.”

“AH please excuse me,”said the little prince.
But after some thought, he added:
“what does that mean—’tame’?”

“you do not live here,” said the fox,
“what is it you are looking for?”

“I am looking for men,” said the little prince.
“What does that mean—tame?”

“Men,”said the fox,
“they have guns, and they hunt.
It is very disturbing.
They also raise chickens.
These are their only interests.
Are you looking for chickens?”

“No,” said the little prince.
“I am looking for friends.
What does that mean—tame?”

“It is an act too often neglected,”
said the fox.
“It means to establish ties.”

“To establish ties?”

“Just that,” said the fox.
“to me, you are still nothing more than
a little boy who is just like
a hundred thousand other little boys.
And I have no need of you.
And you, on your part, have no need of me.
To you I am nothing more
than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.
To me, you will be unique in all the world.
To you, I shall be unique in all the world. . .”

“I am beginning to understand,”
said the little prince.

“There is a flower. . .I think she has tamed me. . .”

“It is possible,” said the fox.

“On earth one sees all sorts of things.”

“Oh but this is not on the earth!”
said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.
“On another planet?”

“Yes”

“Are there hunters on that planet?”

“No”

“Ah that’s interesting! Are there chickens?”

“No”

“Nothing is perfect,” sighed the fox.
But he came back to his idea.
“My life is very monotonous,” he said.
“I hunt chickens; men hunt me.
All chickens are just alike,
and all the men are just alike.
And in consequence, I am a little bored.
But if you tame me,
it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.
I shall know the sound of a step that will be
different from all the others.
Other steps send me hurrying back
underneath the ground.
Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow.
And then look:
you see the grain-fields down yonder?
I do not eat bread.
Wheat is of no use to me.
The wheat fields have nothing to say to me.
And that is sad.
But you have hair that is the color of gold.
Think how wonderful that will be
when you have tamed me!
The grain, which is also golden,
will bring me back the thought of you.
And I shall love to listen
to the wind in the wheat. . .”

The fox gazed at the little prince,
for a long time.
“Please—tame me!” he said.

“I want to, very much,” the little prince replied.
“But I have not much time.
I have friends to discover,
and a great many things to understand.”

“One only understands the things that one tames,”
said the fox.
” Men have no more time to understand anything.
They buy things all ready made at the shops.
But there is no shop anywhere
where one can buy friendship,
and so men have no friends any more.
If you want a friend, tame me. . .”

“What must I do, to tame you?
asked the little prince.

“You must be very patient,” replied the fox.
First you will sit down
at a little distance from me
-like that-in the grass.
I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye,
and you will say nothing.
Words are the source of misunderstandings.
But you will sit a little closer to me,
every day…”

The next day the little prince came back.

“It would have been better to come back
at the same hour,” said the fox.
“If for example, you came at four o’clock
in the afternoon,
then at three o’clock I shall begin to be happy.
I shall feel happier and happier
as the hour advances.
At four o’clock,
I shall be worrying and jumping about.
I shall show you how happy I am!
But if you come at just any time,
I shall never know at what hour
my heart is ready to greet you. . .
One must observe the proper rites. . .”

“What is a rite?” asked the little prince.

“Those also are actions too often neglected,”
said the fox.
“they are what make one day
different from other days,
one hour different from other hours.
There is a rite, for example, among my hunters.
Every Thursday they danse with the village girls.
So Thursday is a wonderful day for me!
I can take a walk as far as the vineyards.
But if the hunters danced at just any time,
every day would be like
every other day,
and I should never have any vacation at all.”

So the little prince tamed the fox.
And when the hour of his departure drew near—

“Ah,” said the fox, “I shall cry.”

“It is your own fault,” said the little prince.
“I never wished you any sort of harm;
but you wanted me to tame you. . .”

“Yes that is so”, said the fox.

“But now you are going to cry!”
said the little prince.

“Yes that is so” said the fox.

“Then it has done you no good at all!”

“It has done me good,” said the fox,
“because of the color of the wheat fields.”
And then he added:
“go and look again at the roses.
You will understand now
that yours is unique in all the world.
Then come back to say goodbye to me,
and I will make you a present of a secret.”

The little prince went away,
to look again at the roses.
“You are not at all like my rose,” he said.
“As yet you are nothing.
No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one.
You are like my fox when I first knew him.
He was only a fox
like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But I have made a friend,
and now he is unique in all the world.”
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on.
“One could not die for you.
To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think
that my rose looked just like you
–the rose that belongs to me.
But in herself alone she is more important
than all the hundreds of you
other roses: because it is she that I have watered;
because it is she
that I have put under the glass globe;
because it is for her
that I have killed the caterpillars
(except the two or three we saved
to become butterflies);
because it is she that I have listened to,
when she grumbled,
or boasted,
or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is MY rose.”

And he went back to meet the fox.
“Goodbye” he said.

“Goodbye,” said the fox.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye,”
the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose
that makes your rose so important.

“It is the time I have wasted for my rose–
“said the little prince
so he would be sure to remember.

“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox.
“But you must not forget it.
You become responsible, forever,
for what you have tamed.
You are responsible for your rose. . .”

“I am responsible for my rose,”
the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

From the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

So I got on eHarmony in November. Sometime in late December I was matched with a rather unattractive but very tall fellow. On January 8th, I called him and we talked. On January 11th, I met him at Unos Pizzeria and within moments found myself swooning.

Yes, I am aware I am nothing but a human Labrador. Anyone who scratches behind my ear gets my love. I am hoping this is different and it’s not just because he likes me. I think it is different. It feels different.

We have talked to each other almost every day since and seen each other whenever we can. Yesterday I introduced him to my mom and sister. They apparently approve. Of course, they are still not over Big E’s dismissal but I figure if they are able to accept a 6 foot 5, long-haired mechanic with insanely bushy mutton chops, they should be able to accept a 6 foot 5 divorced man with two daughters who works at Bank of America.

BTW, Eddie’s not that unattractive at all! He’s just unphotogenic.

In other news…

Something occurred today. I felt a whiff of spring. I know this is insane since it’s not warm at all but maybe it was the accumulation of daylight… it was 5:00 and not pitch black. I felt a sense of hope… renewal. Warmth is coming. Spring is coming.

Lisa and I went to Florida last week. Just in time for a cold spell. We froze our asses off. Here’s a picture of me in my bikini by the pool:

Despite the coldness, I enjoyed my time in Florida. It was nice just to get the heck out of Dodge.

It’s funny how life just keeps on keepin’ on. I look ahead only to find myself looking behind.

This scares me.

I was talking to a friend the other day when I noticed a growth.

“Is that a wart or a skin tag?” I asked.

“Huh, I never noticed it… looks like a skin tag.”

“Yeah, I think it is a skin tag.”

That was it, we moved on to other subjects.

A couple hours later, I went on Youtube and right across the screen was a banner for SKIN TAG videos. Every suggested video was for SKIN TAGS.

Is this just the strangest coincidence ever or is Google now listening to our real world conversations? I am pretty sure my Android phone was in my pocket when I noticed the growth.

Each year I make a number of resolutions and then at the end of the year I see how I did. Normally I don’t do so well. Last year, I kicked ass. In anticipation of the new year, I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about new resolutions… this is what I came up with for 2013…

New Year’s Resolutions for 2013

• Although I don’t need to go to networking events for my business like I once did… I am going to get back into going. Mingling with business owners is a good thing.
• I am going to spend more time alone at Starbucks. Perhaps on Friday afternoons, I’ll take my new Lenovo Twist and write as I sip a Latte.
• I recognize that the chance of me finding a nice man on eHarmony is not great but it’s better than not being on it. I am going to stay on at least one dating site and take a wait and see approach. If someone awesome reaches out… that’s great.
• I am also going to go to the gym regularly
• I will continue to clear space in my home so there’s room for a man.
• I will forgive Pookie Bear/Rob and move past the hurt feelings. I admit that I have spent an awful lot of time reliving the “too little, too late” proposal and his abandonment and lies right after my dad died. How can I move on to the next chapter of my life when I keep re-reading the old one? Marianne Williamson recently posted on Facebook, “Think of one person who you are tempted for any reason to withhold love from, and pray for their happiness. In that moment your pain will stop.” She also posted, “Today’s the day to forgive whomever we haven’t forgiven… It’s the only way to truly start over.” The answer is clear. I know what I need to do.
• Lastly, I need to work on being a woman that men want to date. I realize that I am quite protective on that first date… protective and hesitant and I think that turns men off. I need to open up, loosen up, smile, laugh, ask questions, and seem genuinely interested in him.

2. Exercise and eat healthy
Go to the gym at least twice a week. Get out of the house and take walks. Swing that kettle bell. Eat good, healthy food. Perhaps even trade some of that red wine for green tea.

3. Travel
Every freaking year I list travel as a resolution. I’d like to get to the point where it’s just a natural part of who I am and not something that I have to force myself to accomplish. Regardless, I’d like to visit Sedona, Winnipeg, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Greece, Italy, and other places.

4. Make House Comfortable
I have made HUGE strides in making my house livable and comfortable. For years I did nothing to my home. I pretty much let if fall down around me. My thought was that Pookie Bear and I would get married and move to a different place so why bother keeping this one up? Plus, I am not one of those decorator types. It seems silly spending time picking out pillows and lamps when we’re just plummeting through space on a huge rock. With that said, I do recognize that my mood is much more pleasant when I am in a nicely decorated, clean space. And so with that in mind, I plan on keeping Alba coming in every other week to clean. I will also get the seams and cracks in the living room fixed and the walls painted. I will make my bedroom an area for relaxation and calm. It’s time to make it into an adult bedroom. Also, I’d really like to work on my kitchen: new floors, fix cabinets, improve lighting, new counter, etc…

5. Keep my business forging ahead
My business is what provides me with independence and the ability to live on my own terms. I have a number of goals for this upcoming year. I want to organize my own seminars. I want to do a monthly Google Hangout, interview/training series. I want to have a real email marketing strategy. I want to produce at least one new vlog a week. I must take my pdf eBooks and convert them to Kindle and start selling them on Amazon. I will amplify my reach… more twitter followers, more LinkedIn connections, better presence on G+, blah blah I also need to create more products. I want more PAID speaking engagements. Ultimately, 2o13 is the year where I will cement myself as an expert in my field and I will help as many people as I can and truly make a difference in their lives.

There’s a lot of resolutions within resolutions here. I feel good though. These are all items that I’ve been moving toward and I have put quite a bit of work into them already. One of the reasons why I did so good on last year’s resolutions is because I kept revisiting them. I printed them up on a piece of paper and I kept it right by my desk. It’s easier to accomplish things when you are often reminded of what you need to accomplish. And so I will print these resolutions out and keep them by my desk.

Considering all the crap that occurred in 2010, 2011 was an awesome year. Prior to my dad dying, I would every now and then think of what it would be like to lose my mom or dad or both of them. The thought of life without them struck fear in my heart. I truly thought I wouldn’t be able to live without them. With my dad gone, I realize now that you have no choice but to go on. It’s not the same without him. I miss him so much but each day gets a little easier. And so I will keep on keepin’ on. What else can you do?

Do you have any resolutions?

Spent Christmas in Chicago. We ate lots of food. We drank tons of wine and martinis. We watched a bunch of movies. And then we went home. It was pretty awesome.

Right now I am snowed in. I keep thinking of shoveling myself out and going to the grocery store. Or doing work. Or working on the 2nd edition of my book. Except instead I pour another glass of wine, peruse gray paint samples, watch more Elvis, and wonder what would make me happy.

It’s a good thing I don’t have any peppermint ice cream in the house because it would be consumed quickly.

I’ve been thinking of my New Year’s Resolutions… last year’s and the ones for this new year coming up.

A Review of My Resolutions for 2012: How I Did

2. Write More, Create More, Productize Knowledge
SUCCESS! I hired 3 people to help me with my business. This gave me the ability to work ON the business rather than IN the business. Suddenly I had time to blog and create. In fact, I created a bunch of products that I am selling on my other Website.

3. Join Toastmasters OR find other ways to improve public speaking
SEMI SUCCESS! I didn’t join Toastmasters but I was admitted into the National Speaker’s Association. I speak an awful lot and I video record myself and watch the recording critically. Each time I go in front of an audience I try to improve. I feel like I am getting better… I realize I need to do more but I feel good about what I’ve accomplished.

4. Stop eating shit sandwiches
SUCCESS! I may come across as a bitch but I am definitely not allowing anyone to feed me shit sandwiches.

5. Keep house clean & simplify possessions
SUCCESS! I realized that I am absolutely incapable of keeping my house clean and so rather than forcing the issue, I hired Alba, a very nice woman, to clean my house every two weeks. My house is now clean and I am a lot more happy.

In terms of simplifying possessions, I cleaned out my closets of clothes that I was clinging to because of memories and cheapness. I am still simplifying but I have come a long way since last January. Check this out!

Yep! All 5 bags were donated to the Salvation Army! In addition to getting rid of clothes, I’ve been purging things that remind me of Pookie Bear. It took me a very long time to realize that items in my house were reminding me of him and thus causing me pain. It’s getting easier to exorcize him from my thoughts as I remove him from my daily life… even if it’s just silly objects.

6. Travel More
SUCCESS! I traveled to Europe and toured Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria. I also spent time in Baltimore and Chicago.

7. Live more, work less: Get better understanding of finances.
SUCCESS! Hiring people has been such a blessing for me. I have time to breathe and do things other than work. I also hired a bookkeeper and he’s been such an enormous help. I still need to do more but again, it’s a huge improvement over where I was last year.

8. Become an early riser
FAILURE with some spots of SUCCESS! Yeah, this comes and goes. Sometimes I awake at 6. Other times I awake at 7. And there are times I will get up at 8. I did come to a realization about why I am prone to sleeping past 6. My father always woke up at 6am. I thought it was because he was disciplined but the more I think about it, the more I think he awoke early because it was his alone time. My entire day is my alone time. I don’t need to get up early for quiet solitude… I have that all the time. Still, I want to be more productive so I will continue to strive to wake up at 6 and maybe eventually I’ll start doing it. Perhaps if I bring someone into my life, I will want to wake up at 6am so I have some alone time.

9. Amplify my business message online
Some SUCCESS! My LinkedIn Group is almost at 2,000 members. I have almost 10,000 LinkedIn connections. Hooray! My Twitter followers are over 1,000 but I wanted to get it over 5,000. I use G+ but I don’t seem to be making much headway with it. On the other hand, my email list is almost at 3,000 which is freaking awesome in my book. I am getting there.

10. I want to better understand how I want the story of my life to turn out
SUCCESS: I know that I want to create. I want to help people. I want the freedom to live on my own terms. I want to love and be loved.

So all in all, I’d say my 2012 Resolutions were a resounding success.

I look back to where I was last year… I was devastated and lost. In twelve months, I have regrouped and got back on track. I feel good about next year. Now I need to come up with new resolutions. That’ll come soon.

It’s terrible. I’ve been so silent, you might have thought I abandoned all of you. I actually have been pretty busy moving all donnaville (and all my many other sites) from Dreamhost to a much better hosting provider. Yes, Sayonara Surfer Dudes!

Okay, I didn’t actually move anything. I had a professional do it for me.

The site is still in a bad way. Tons of dead links and broken images. Thank goodness this site is just a money pit otherwise I’d be royally screwed.

I was just talking to a long time donnaville reader (yes, there are about 5) and I said something that took me by surprise. I hadn’t vocalized it until that very second… heck, I don’t think I ever even realized it until that moment.

“It’s not easy keeping donnaville updated. My mind is on my business and work. Heck, it was cute when it was about a 20-something girl, blogging about finding love and the stumbling blocks along that path… now that I am nearing 40 AND I AM STILL ON EHARMONY, it’s just getting pathetic and sad.”

True conversation from just the other day
“Hi, Donna? It’s Tom… from eHarmony”
“Oh hi, Tom. Thanks for calling. How are you?”
“I am good, real good. Excited to talk to you.”
“Awesome!”
“Look, I just want to get something out of the way first.”
“Shoot”
“My girls are off limits. I don’t want you asking about them and I don’t want to get into introducing them to you… not until we are much further along.”
“Oh…. okay.”
“I just wanted to clear the air now, it’s tough. The divorce will be final in 3-4 months”
“You are still married?”
“No, I am almost divorced.”
“Do your girls live with you or their mother?”
“We all live together. I’ll be getting my own place in about 6 months or so.”
“Why are you on eHarmony?”
“Why not?”
“Because you are married and living with your wife and kids.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a real marriage, we are just friends.”
“Look, I gotta go. There’s two many lines here that I just can’t cross.”
“Fine. Suit yourself”

Yeah, I swore off online dating. It was just that it was late and I was drunk and eHarmony had this insane deal… 3 months for $30.

At that moment I couldn’t say no. So I clicked and signed up. And now I am wondering what the heck was I thinking?

It’s fine. I’ll chalk it up to a moment of weakness. I don’t have to log in. I can deactivate my account. I have drunk $30 of micro beer in one sitting and pissed it out an hour later.

Let’s talk about a better investment of my money. As the new year draws closer, I have been looking back and reviewing my resolutions. I’m actually doing pretty good except for one. It’s the one that I make every year and fail at miserably: Keep house clean, clean up after yourself.

I realized that this is something that I simply cannot do on my own… so I hired a cleaning person. She came just the other day and scrubbed my house from top to bottom and it looks marvelous! When I was younger, I used to think people who had cleaners were lazy, rich, snobs with no connection to reality. Now that I am older, I realize how very wrong I was. In fact, I now love this exchange. I love that I get a clean house but I love even more that another person is getting money from an honest day’s labor and she’s not lining anyone else’s pocket but her own. It’s awesome.

I keep thinking of Dolly Levi, “Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around, encouraging young things to grow.”

Just to finish out this saga of the emoticon-challenged Hulk, it’s over. We went out and had a nice time. He planned a second outing with me and then cancelled the next day. Two cancellations and we’ve only been out once. I texted him, “I don’t work that way.” He replied, “I understand.”

Honestly, I am beginning to blame women in their 60′s for raising such a bad lot of men. Really they should be ashamed of themselves.

We survived Hurricane Sandy. There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain. Neighbors had issues with trees down and stuff but my mom and I were spared with very little damage. I have a stain on my ceiling from a leak that I have to tell my HOA about and the trunk of my car is acting funny but that’s it.

I spent the storm with my mom and Lisa. There’s was a part of me that wanted to stay at home and get stuff done… stuff like cleaning out my closets. When the power went off at my place and I realized I had no food at all, driving to mom’s seemed like an awesome idea.

Lisa and I walked around the house and secured the property. When the winds picked up, we went inside, and hunkered down. Food and wine and food and wine. It felt quite a bit like a slumber party until the power went off at around 6pm. No more frozen margaritas!

I slept in the guest room and woke up alive. The storm was gone along with power and cable and cell phone reception. It felt odd being so disconnected. Eventually I drove around trying to pick up a stray wifi signal. The roads looked post-apocalyptic. Signs gone, traffic lights askew, branches everywhere.

At around dinner time I decided it was time to check on my place. Not only was it fine but the power was back on. Everything was back to normal. It took my mom until last night to get her power back. I think they are still waiting on cable.