Are You A General or Are You a Common Laborer?

   "Mark Twain once described a man who died and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. Knowing that Saint Peter was very wise, the man asked a question that he had wondered about throughout his life.

      He said, ‘Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Who was the greatest general of all time.' Saint peter quickly responded, 'oh that's a simple questions. It's that man right over there.' 

     'You must be mistaken,' responded the man, now very perplexed. 'I knew that man on earth, and he was just a common laborer.' 

     'That’s right my friend,' assured Saint Peter. He would have been the greatest general of all time, if he had been a general.' 

Far too many people spend a lifetime headed in the wrong direction. They go not only from the cradle to the cubicle, but then to the casket, without uncovering their greatest talents and potential." (Tom Rath, Strengths Finder 2.0)

    

So, this year my boss gave our HR team “Strengths Finder 2.0” by: Tom Rath. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically a self-help book, which enable you to take a quiz and provides you with your top 5 strengths and all that self-help stuff that come with the territory. 

      Well, it’s not that I didn’t like the book or didn’t find it helpful but self helps books are what you make of them and I did find some of my results quite interesting, however what grasped my attention and stood with me more than anything else was the excerpt I quoted above.  

When I read this it stuck me like a 20-ton brick. It made me re-think a lot and helped me make a lot of decisions and I am sure that there are many more to come!

             2011 was a great year and absolutely insane at the same time.There was a promotion, graduation, a dog, more traveling than usual, new discoveries, of course some trial and tribulations with a splash of growth, when all is said and done what a year.

         I feel 2011 brought some great new beginnings and 2012 is only going to take them to the next level. There is much more to come.  I feel new adventures sneaking around the corner, big decisions and advancement all around! With that being said take in my hit you like a ton of bricks excerpt from Tom Rath’s Strengths Finder 2.0... 

2012 is going to be a big year, 

  I can feel it in my veins suckas!!!! 

Take this year by the horns and run with it like it’s a million dollars. 

Explore. Learn. Expand. Uncover your potential and your greatest talents.

What direction are you headed towards? What’s your potential? What’s your outcome? Are you a general or are you just a common laborer?  Just some food for thought as we all begin a New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Bring it 2012 I’m ready.

Sitting at the airport… The Adventures of Big Balls Peanut Butter and Jelly, my degree, and my dog!!!!

There I was in Raleigh, NC waiting for my 5:50 pm flight to Charlotte… where I had to wait again for my connection to NJ…

I don’t get it, why do I have to stop in the same state? How annoying is that? A trip that would normally be no more than 2-3 hours, if that, turns into an 8(Counting from time I arrive at the Raleigh airport to my home) hour VOUAGE!!! Arggggg!!!

So there I was, I figure “I am going to be waiting for a while so why not start working on a blog post!?” Yay!

Some time ago I was at work eating lunch and thought of how boring my lunch was and decided to spice things up but before I could even begin my lunch decided to take a stand and have a word with me…

        We exchanged some words and it tried to stand its ground, but it didn’t look very promising…

Then I won and my lunch learned its lesson…

But any who as I announced I finally graduated and this week I received my degree and was absolutely stoked as well as overly emotional.

This is a big step for me and is only a promise to myself of how much I really can get accomplished.

YAY!!

In addition to my degree and my crazy kick ass peanut butter and jelly lunch shortly after my return from Raleigh, NC David and I got a DOG!

We didn’t plan it …entirely. Since David has the worst allergies in the world (seriously, we recently went to the allergist and his tests resulted positive for almost everything) we had been looking at what kind of breeds we could get that would be ok with him. We came up with Chinese crested as #1 and possibly a poodle or a yorkie.  Well, one day we decided to go to the pet shop just to see what kind of dogs they had and prices, we didn’t plan on purchasing anything. In fact on our way to the store we said that if anyone asks how they can help us we could just say that we are looking for a Chinese crested, the chances of them having one are so we should be ok. Well we get there are of course didn’t see any Chinese crested’s. We are looking at other puppies and the woman comes over to offer her services and the conversation went a lil like this:

David: “Oh, no we are just looking, and it doesn’t look like you have the kind of dog we are looking for.”

Saleswoman: “oh well, we get new pup’s in all the time, what kind of dog are you looking for?”

David: “Well I have really bad allergies and we are looking for a Chinese crested, they are really rare.”

Saleswoman: “OH MY GOD! We have one in the back! He has been here about 4 weeks and no one wants him, they think he is ugly, let me get him hold on!”

(Saleswoman goes to get the puppy)

Mickey:  ::Groan:: oh no…

She brought the puppy out and he was so cute! We got a great deal and I am absolutely smitten with my puppy!

Introducing

Martini Acevedo

He loves warm corners

And sleeps long hours

And thinks he can get away with a lot….

Well, that’s all for now folks! Stay tuned, new review coming soon!
Until Next Time,
Happy Reading to All!!!
The Night Reader ;)

Saucy Saturday: Don’t call this a comeback! I’ve been here for years reading books and shaking my rear!

I know it has been a really, really long time and I want to say my bad people, my bad! But after the New Year started, things got kinda crazy between a new promotion and trying to finish school and frankly, focusing was the name of the game! (BTW’s Happy New Year all!  Hey, better late than never!!! )

But HEY! Guess what I did at the end of July!!???!!!??!?!?!?

I finished school!!! YAYAYAYAY!!!!

I did! I did! I di-id! As of the end of July (even though my official graduation date is 7/5/11) I am officially a college graduate!

WOOP WOOP!!!

I actually graduated earlier than planned and with more credits than required! I was supposed to be done in September and graduation would take place in October but I decided to take the Berlitz Spanish test in order to finish with some credits and finish as quickly as possible. I took the test, got 9 out of 10 and was granted a total of 15 credits when all I needed was 2 because I was going to take a last class and then the 2 would have been all that was left. Now that I ended up with more credits than needed I’m kinda kicking myself in the ass because I could have taken the test way earlier and I would have saved a lot more time and a lot more $$$!!! But oh well, you live and learn.

My last class was suppose to be a creative writing class which I was Super UBBER excited to take but I ended up not needing it and I was withdrawn : (

But it’s ok; I am really trying to plan for an entire creative writing MFA program. Until then I will keep learning and creating on my own. (If anyone has any good MFA program suggestions, do tell, please!!?!?!? I have been doing crazy amounts of research and have some in mind but would love any input and suggestions possible!!!)

As you can tell from the looks of things my blog has deff been under construction, and gosh dern it things will look awesome by the time I am done!

I am determined!

So now that school is done for a while, I am really trying to get back to blogging, and in order to get back into the swing of posting regularly  I will be starting off with what I would like to call “Saucy Saturday’s”!! In which every Saturday I will post something new, may it be a review, perhaps a hot-steamy-saucy induced adoration post or maybe a simple posting, but stay tuned to find out what it is each week!

So far this year I have gotten loads of awesome reads under my belt! I have so many reviews to do it is ridiculous and I can't wait to get started.

So, without further ado for our first Saucy Saturday my very short review of:

Dracula in Love

By: Karren Essex
Pgs: 384
Genre: Fiction
Publish Date: August 2010
Author Website: http://www.karenessex.com/draculasynop.html

Karren Essex tells the story of Dracula from Mina’s point of view

with some twists and turns that would many readers.
“Dracula in Love” is well written and successful in adding the depth of a personal touch to it. The reader can easily relate to Mina’s feelings and fall in love along with her.

However, it was anticlimactic for me, misleading, in some areas a disappointment. I got all wound up and excited while reading preparing myself for the big sex scene or the moment in which I feel elated that Dracula and Mina are together and I feel like the scenes where I guess that was supposed to happen just did not suffice… I felt like I was revving the engine but it never got the car started. The story was lacking that special …mph… for lack of better ways to describe it. Would I read it again, unfortunately I would not. I don’t really want to get into the story for those of you who are going to read it; in addition, you know what Mama say’s “if you’ve got nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all”.

For those out there who have read it what do you think? Good, bad, great story line?

Let’s Discuss!

Until Next Time,

Happy Reading to All!!!

The Night Reader ;)