Position available!

For several months now, the Martinez-Owen household has been trying to add to its ranks. We’re looking to add a permanent member of the team.

He or she must be able to (with training):
-Follow verbal and written instructions, as well as visual and oral cues
-Use power and hand tools
-Perform various task throughout the day (ranging from adorable to annoying)
-Drive company vehicles and machinery to and from various job sites (most likely bumping into company property along the way)
-Assist staff with various construction/demolition projects

Minimum Educational Requirements:
-High School Diploma GED (Bachelor degree preferred)
-Bilingual (Spanish/English)

Job Requirements:
-Ability to lift up to and maneuver 50 plus pounds (within 18 year timeline)
-Work out-of-doors for extended periods under unfavorable conditions (typical of Oregon for 9 months of the year)

Preferred skills and knowledge(training opportunities available):
-Use and operate indoor sewage-removal system
-Operate construction equipment in various media (paints, clay, sand, water, etc)

Pre-employment health screening is required
..........................................

Not asking too much, right? Well, despite our best efforts, we have yet to recruit such a candidate. Every few weeks we check our “inbox” (ahem) and receive notice from Aunt Flo that there are no new applicants.

Just last month, our recruitment efforts hit a bit of a snag. Team Martinez-Owen was separated by several time zones during the peak “recruiting season”. I found myself so aroused by the possibility of bringing on a new member, that I was tempted to do some outside recruitment consultation (head-hunting?) with various waiters, restaurant patrons, strangers on the street...among many others. So strong was my desire to fill the position! Thankfully, I was able to get home to coordinate with my partner and we were able to do some collaboration on hiring together! Self-recruitment just doesn’t cut it sometimes. For this type of project, it’s all about teamwork.

Despite our inability to fill the position thus far, we are prepared to wait for the “right” candidate, even if it takes time. Regardless of our expansion project, we remain optimistic about the outlook for team M.O. If necessary, we can continue with the staff we have on-hand and train for additional skills. Our capable Beso-of-all-trades has even taken it upon herself to approximate an entry-level candidate by relieving herself on the kitchen floor. With this kind of attention to detail in preparing us for hazardous waste removal, we feel we can continue without a new member of the team for some time! Thanks, Beso! A valued member of Team M.O.!

We hope to have another exciting recruitment effort soon, so we are very excited about the opportunities to work hard on our collaborative efforts!

Thank you for your continued support and interest in Team M.O. and in our growth-efforts! We couldn’t do it without you… hmm. actually, that’s a little weird. ;)

Ha!

another FB list!

So apparently The Big Read said that, at some point, on average, adults have only read six books on this list. So ... copy this list, remove my yes and no answers, and add your own in a note. Tag your friends, and me!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - no
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien -HAIL no
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - nope
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - yes
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - yes my FAVE
6 The Bible – bits
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - 1/2
8 1984 - George Orwell -no
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - no
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - no
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - 1/2
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy –– no
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller –– no
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - parts
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - no
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - no
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks - no
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - yes
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger -no
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot- No
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - no
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - no
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens- no
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - no
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - NO
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - no
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - NO
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - does the movie count!??
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - no, but you did, Steph!
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - no
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - yes
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - no
33 The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - some
34 Emma - Jane Austen - no (again, doesn't the movie count?!?!)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - no
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - yes
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - yes
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres- yes (sara this was your pick, right?)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - yes
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -no
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - yes
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - yes
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - yes
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - no
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - no
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - yes
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - no
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - no, but i've been close
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - yes
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - yes
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - yes
52 Dune - Frank Herbert-no
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - no
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - no
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - no
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - no
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - no
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - yes
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - yes
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - yes
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - yes
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - no
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt - yes (thanks to sara's recommendation)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - yes
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - no
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - no
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy -no
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - yes
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - no
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - part (i even tried with cliff notes to understand it...but got tired)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - no
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - no
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - no
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - yes
75 Ulysses - James Joyce - no
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - yes
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - no
78 Germinal - Emile Zola - no
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - no
80 Possession - AS Byatt- no
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - yes
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - no
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - yes
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - no
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - no
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - no
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White - yes
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - no
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - no
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - no
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - yes
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupe - no
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - no
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - no
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - yes
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - no
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - no
98 Hamlet –– Shakespeare –– i don't think so
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - yes
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - no

¡que linda!

So, I'm not the religious follower of Linda of All & Sundry like Sara, but when I do read it, i love it. That being said, she cryptically 'tweeted' that apparently she was tacky, was lucky to just have a man, her husband was annoyed and that she needed a new blog topic stat. well THAT got me curious.

I beg you to please read.

This is great because I've been feeling this way lately too. I know older women say what they hate most is becoming 'invisible' in the world. Nobody seems to care what ladies with grey hair have to say. For those of us in the middle (not quite the young chippy and not the old grey-hair), Linda's post makes a lot of sense. I never set the world on fire with my looks, but on OCCASION I'd notice a glance. Now?? Never...unless it's someone who's clearly crazy.

For example...there was the one time when I went to a skating rink up here in Portland (i hadn't skated in 20 years or so and thought it'd be fun). I was totally hit-on by a dude who skated past me, bumping my arm and shoving a smiley face keychain into my hand. HOT. He later asked me to skate with him during 'couples skate'. HOOOOOT. Poor dear looked to be in his early 30s and was clearly the king of the skating rink.

Anyhoo....with Linda's post in my head I went to the gym the other night. As I was doubled over the stretching contraption, i turned to my right and noticed a young hot dude checking me out. I thought, 'wow! this is great! i still got it goin ON! he must really be turned on by my stomach roll and visible granny-panty line.' then i turned to my left and saw 2 girls on the mats stretching each other out. they were doing that move where you sit with your legs out in a V, feet touching, grab hands and pull/lean to stretch out your inner thighs. i turned back to my right to look at the dude and sure enough it was the semi-lesbian-stretching he'd been looking at. OF COURSE! Oh well....