Life Is A Highway… I’m Gonna Ride It All Night Long

Yeah, it is. I can’t believe we’re into March 2010. You know, “into” March… beyond the first week of any given month and you’re “into” the month.

Life has been a whirlwind for me lately and I’m lost in how much I’m in love with it right now. Seriously, folks. You’re reading the words from a girl who sincerely was feeling like there were lots of things that would never change, never get better, never get worse, just sit here spending the rest of my life in this stagnant chain of events from day to day. I’m here to tell you, brag, scream from the rooftops that my “day to day” has been nothing short of amazing and wonderful the past couple weeks.

First, I’m in love. Yes, for all of you who know me at all, it’s a miracle, but I’m here. The Facebook status has been changed an e’rything! I won’t get into details, but my inner Disney princess has finally experienced the singing birds and fireworks, and damn, it’s good.

Work stuff has been wonderful and abundant, and there’s more around every city block corner I reach. I couldn’t be more grateful and honored that after four and a half years of putting my heart and soul into what I’m doing, it’s paying off. (More to come on this front later…)

I’m just really happy. All of the stars have aligned, and I’m rockin’ my world. It’s honestly the best feeling ever, and honestly – I can’t put it into words that really get the message across other than that.

So, with all this bliss, I’ve been inspired. (Funny how that works, eh?) I’ve got all these things I’m thinking I want to do RIGHT NOW like get back into painting, (re)start up a couple of my old blogs, sort through old clothes and donate them to GoodWill, you name it. It’s like crack for motivation, this happiness thing.

One of the things I discovered this morning while making my rounds online, was that I missed the announcement about Dooce heading to HGTV. (Yeah, she posted it in freakin’ January. See what I mean about the whole not believing we’re “into” March already? Yep.) Can this woman fail? I’m so super proud of her, you know? She’s making a mint off of being herself, and getting all kinds of publicity and appearances and all that for the past couple years, and now she’s hooked up with one of my favorite networks! You can check out what she’s doing over there with the blog stuff, but I’m truly wondering what all else is to come for this kickass chick, you know?

I’ve always had this deep-seated desire to have a fabulous personal blog. I’ve been blogging since before they called it that, and have had all sorts of niches and topics that I’ve tried to focus on, but the bottom line is that as a complex (complicated?) individual, sometimes there are just things I want to write about, that I want people to come along and say “Hey! That’s what I was thinking!” to, and that will make me just this uber-cool “girly web geek” that I keep claiming to be.

At one point, I tried my hand at having at least 8 blogs going at once. Like, duh. Right? Stoopid.

At another time, I considered starting up a blog network of sorts. I’ve recently let all the domains go to “poop”. (Yep, canceled the auto-renew. When they’re free, they’re free – have at it kiddies. Just credit me for the idea if you take it, mmkaythanksbai.)

Given that things have become so busy with work stuff, and I’ve got a steady stream of “regulars” that I’m beyond happy with, I’ve recently been considering taking Ginkgo Consulting to a strictly consulting basis. At least for the time being. Essentially making me a sort of “coach” in many ways. Rather than doing the dirty work myself, I’ll help outline the list of tasks and develop a plan to help launch people’s online businesses and blogs. This should open me up for more speaking gigs (something that the inner-five-year-old-wannabe-actress in me just thrives on) and give me more time to be selfish with my to-do list.

So there’s lots of planning and timing and scheduling going on in my world, as there often is. But the best part about all of this is that I’m finally LOVING it. It doesn’t feel daunting, doesn’t feel like a “dirty job”, and every single thing I do or think about when it comes to my future is exciting and wonderful and amazing.

I think I’m finally on the right highway.

Fear Of The Dentist (Or, Ten Years Since I’ve Seen One)

I’m ashamed to admit this, I swear. I’m not the kind of girl who lets her fears take over but here and there in life there have been a few that have done a number on me. Now I’m paying for it.

Years ago (like, fifteen or so) I had a dentist I’d been going to regularly despite the fact that he was the Indian equivalent of Orin Scrivello. My wisdom teeth had been starting to poke through, and the one on the upper right had a cavity. A very small one. The dentist wanted to pull the tooth (along with the other three, despite the lower two being “impacted”) but I was too fearful and asked that he fill the cavity instead.

I saw the cavity on the x-ray. It was small. This man was so angry with me for not letting him pull it (and I’m not exaggerating, here) that he decided to hollow out the whole thing, leaving just a very thin, translucent shell of tooth and filled it with amalgam. Lots of amalgam.

Fast forward a year or so and I’m at the movies. You guessed it, the popcorn “popped” the filling and I swallowed it. Big hole left. Biiiiig hole.

No pain, though. Not an ounce. Not for a few years anyway. I was in Florida in college and it was 1999. I got an infection and went to see an oral surgeon, figuring that maybe he could sedate me for the extraction. He said I had to clear out the infection first, and he gave me antibiotics and pain meds and sent me on my way.

I never went back for the extraction.

Here I sit now, 10+ years later, fighting off my second infection. Bits of the “shell” have broken off over the years, but I’ve never had any pain. It’s bled during brushing before, but never hurt. Wednesday night it was bothering me a little, but woke me up twice in the night with really sharp waves of pain. Thursday wasn’t so bad that a little Orajel couldn’t help with.

Friday, nothing all day but creeping towards bedtime and I knew I was going to be in for it. I was so right. I tried to get to sleep around midnight-thirty and was awoken by the first sharp wave of pain at 1:30 am. Ten minutes later it’d passed and I was able to get back to sleep. Until 2:30 am when it happened again. Lather, rinse, and repeat twice more until I finally was in so much overtired pain that at 4:30 I was debating on going to the ER in hopes they’d give me antibiotics and pain killers so I could sleep. Problem is, I’ve got a $500 deductible on ER visits and I know I’d have been screwed in the pockets if I’d gone.

So I waited until 5 am and called my mom’s dentist’s emergency line. He specializes in “conscious sedation dentistry” and I thought that if I could at least leave a message or something so I could get an appointment as fast as possible (given that this was clearly an emergency), I’d feel better.

Got the dentist’s voicemail, and left a message I couldn’t get through without tears… the pain is worse than any other pain I’ve ever had. I then stayed up and played video games on my computer and drank coffee (believe it or not, the coffee helped ease the pain somehow).

A couple hours later and I couldn’t take it any longer, so I called my primary care doc’s answering service and begged for a call back right away. Their office opened in 15 mins, so naturally I didn’t get a call back. I had to call again and got the office, and sat on hold for 20 minutes. After I told her what was going on, she said someone would call me back.

I waited.

And waited.

I went to the Care Credit site to apply for it. It’s basically a medical/dental credit program where as long as you’re making your payments, you have 12 months interest free. Got approved for $1000, which is $999.99 more than I thought they’d give me, so that was a highlight of the morning.

Around 9am, the dentist called back and apologized profusely for not having had his phone nearby. I told him that I didn’t expect him to call back right away, but that I was grateful he did at all. He immediately prescribed antibiotics and told me to take a combo of Extra Strength Tylenol and ibuprofen, and then pulled his schedule out and told me to come in on Monday morning. I explained how much of a chicken shit I am, and he said that he was sure he could ease my fears. I told him he’d better have plans on sedation and he said that wouldn’t be a problem at all. He joked with me and I could barely laugh, but I promised I’d be in on Monday.

Since then, the painkiller cocktail has worked wonders. Worst I feel ever is a dull ache, and that’s when I know to take another dosage of the Tylenol and Motrin. I’ve also been rinsing with a 50/50 peroxide and water mix, and that too has helped a ton. (Don’t worry ladies, I’ve also been downing yogurt with these 875mg horse pill antibiotics. No itchies for me, thankyouverymuch!)

So that’s that. I’m finally facing my fear and heading in to the dentist this morning. I have no idea if he’s going to pull it or tell me I’ve got to wait, or what… but I’m going to add this all to my list of improvements for 2010, and finally get all my teeth taken care of. Just because I have a nice, straight, white smile, doesn’t mean there aren’t problems, and I need to make sure they get resolved.

Will report back this afternoon I’m sure!

If you don’t know who Orin Scrivello is, the video below may help you remember…

Phasing In A New Lifestyle – My 2010 Plan

So I’m not 100% ready to break out with this secret I’ve got about how I’m planning on changing my life in 2010, but I’m here to tell you now that it’s a big deal. Some may even call it extreme!
I’m going to be 33 years old this April, and I’m feeling like I’m missing things that I’d hoped would be a huge part of my life by now… a husband, a kid or two, a nice home among other things. While professionally I’m really finally feeling like the past 5 years of work is beginning to pay off in that I’m starting to feel successful and somewhat recognized for what I do, there are so many goals of my personal life that just aren’t there yet.

Every year you see people write these blog posts and facebook updates saying things like, “This year is MY year!” Hell, I’ve said it before. But for the first time I’ve actually got a definitive action plan for both my personal and professional life that makes my heart swell and tears fall for the sheer anticipation of it all.

One of the things in my action plan is to condense and consolidate my online “stuff”. I’ve had a blog over at LadyDeLaLuna since before they called it blogging, back in 1996. The domain itself pulls some kick ass Google attention, as do many of the old blog posts, but I really haven’t been “feeling it” for quite some time now. LadyDeLaLuna is a “name” I’ve been known as all over the internet since the days of AOL chat being just about the only thing you could do online, back in the early 90s. It came out of being a high school kid who was in the midst of 4 years of high school Spanish and happened to have a penchant for the moon. While it’s a part of me, it’s not me anymore. It’s something I’ve really broken free from over the past couple years.

LadyDeLaLuna used to be all about having been a plus size model who was on a quest to not only lose weight, but to find the best in beauty and fashion. I do still love those things, and they’re still part of me, but under the moniker they were under, they just don’t fit. This is ME. And LaraKulpa.com is ME. So I think I’m pretty much going to be pulling everything I’ve got here to this site and start free and clear from the niche blog plan I used to have.

That being said, this won’t be my only blog. I’m just going to spend some time keeping things condensed here. A year, maybe two? Maybe I’ll get a chick-lit book deal out of it (because my life can get pretty hysterical sometimes), but outside of that, I’m not looking to be some top niche blog anymore.

The other thing is that I needed a sort of “playground” where I could test out new ideas and new designs, as well as share my professional side with people. I do have a goal of doing more speaking engagements this year, and I think that sharing myself more publicly will help with that. Afterall, if I speak like I write (without fear, haha) then maybe enough people will be interested in that!?

So yes, I’ll have lots of major announcements this year, because it’s part of my action plan to have lots of major stuff going on this year! Please stay tuned and I promise, even if it’s not focused on the world of blogging or internet marketing or SEO, it’ll at least make you laugh!