2009 In Review

As we sat down to write our annual holiday update, we realized this year we have no weddings, no new family members, no trips to Asia, Europe or Yellowstone, and no major home remodeling projects or purchases. It occurred to us, that we might have single handedly brought down the world economy. We apologize for that and will do our best to bring things back in 2010!

You might remember in November last year, Sheryl was laid off from the job she loved at Bluegreen Resorts, due to the unavailability of mortgages to finance timeshare sales and resulting staff cut of nearly 60%. She proceeded to become the busiest unemployed person ever, working as a marketing consultant for three or four companies at a time -almost 7 days a week. Thank goodness, in May she found a job with a company she likes, and a product she believes in – an online homeschooling curriculum – Time4Learning.com. Now she’s only working one job and managing a fun project as she is also developing and teaching email marketing courses for University of San Francisco through Bisk Education. She is much happier with a full-time job!

Toni feels very fortunate to still be with McClatchy Shared Services- this year was 20 years since she started at Miami Herald (now part of McClatchy). Despite tough times in the newspaper industry, Toni feels as strongly as ever about the importance of newspapers, and is glad to still be a part of this newspaper company! She just earned an Executive Certificate in Project Management at Florida Atlantic University and will sit for the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam within the next quarter! (CPAs are supposed to talk that way- marking time in fiscal quarters!

We did have a couple of small trips this year – we went to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival with treasured friends Becky and Melissa and CAMPED out – in a tent- in pouring down rain, thunder and lightning! Toni was a MWMF virgin, though Sheryl has been many times. So Toni believed Sheryl during this 12-hour torrential downpour that if she even thought about touching the inside of the tent that Niagara Falls would come gushing through the tiny breach. It was the last camping trip for Toni who was extremely uncomfortable curled up in a fetal position all night, trying not to touch the inside of the tent. She has since questioned the logic of Sheryl’s thunderstorm orders, and would also have positioned the tent much closer to the port-a-potties.

This year we celebrated Toni’s mom, Patty’s, 84th birthday with a family trip to Orlando with Patty, and Toni’s son Jerry & his wife Tiffany from Chicago. We got to all stay at a vacation rental condo Patty owns in Orlando – so it really felt like a luxury vacation for all of us! We celebrated at a highly acclaimed steakhouse in Old Towne Orlando with nephew Mike & his wife Illham who live in Orlando! We are so grateful that we can all get together to celebrate her each year!!

We had a Labor day trip to Ft Myers for a fun-filled birthday celebration with dear friends Laura, Ginger, Cindy and Blanche, an adventurous road trip to Key West with close friend Julia, and short trips to see Sheryl’s mother and stepdad Bruce in New Port Richey and to spend more time with Toni’s Mom and family members in Central Florida. The good thing about the FL trips is we usually get to bring the puppies! We are still head over heels in love with our 4 legged kids – puppies Maya, Gabriel, and kitties Cassidy and Sundance.

We’ve enjoyed our visitors this year – Toni’s son Tom & his wife Amanda & top dog Joe came to stay a couple of times, and we had visits from Jerry & Tiffany, and Sheryl’s Mom, Bruce and her nieces Lexi & Jessie. Tony & Ryan stopped off as they took a cruise out of Miami. Wing & Cassidy made a quick visit- and we had a great time! We LOVE visitors! Please put us on your calendar to come visit!

Well since we started this newsletter a few days ago, we decided not to live in “fear” in 2010! Yesterday Toni booked an Olivia cruise to the Greek Isles for Sheryl’s Christmas and birthday present- and we will do our best to jump start the world economy! Our best wishes and love to all of you. Know that we love you and that you always have a place to stay if you make it down to South Florida!!

Happy holidays and a wonderful New Year from Sheryl, Toni, Maya, Gabriel, Cassidy & Sundance

Friends Recommending Friends

I recently did something that I do all the time. A colleague of mine was looking to hire a freelancer that had skills another friend of mine possessed so I hooked them up and the colleague hired the friend and so the project began. Of course I highly recommended the friend to my colleague and my friend asked me if I could vouch for the company which I did. Both of these people know that I don't recommend anyone lightly so the marriage was made with my blessing.

Then life happened. The friend had childcare issues with a newborn baby that resulted in her only finishing 70% of the project within the project deadline. My colleague had to find someone at the last minute to complete the unfinished part of the project. And so ended a perfect match. My friend invoiced the colleague for the completed part of the job and my colleague turned around and hired a lawyer without paying a dime. Of course the colleague can't talk to me under advice of the lawyer and my friend is stressed emotionally and financially over a business arrangement I initiated.

I asked for advice from a few of my trusted friends and was amazed by the responses I received. I will share excerpts here:

"I would try to make good with the client somehow and earn their trust back. And a true friend would recognize you stuck your neck out for them. In the end, the job wasn't finished. Hopefully, on this copy job, they collected at least 25% up front. As I see it, the contractor owes you a make good in this case. If you need a copywriter, I'm happy to funnel a day's worth or work to my staffer on my tab for this should you need it. "

"...the important thing is you were trying to do a service to both for the introduction so you really can’t be responsible for the outcome. But you also need to make your own ethical decision on future recommendations of the two parties based on this! "

"I would warn people that they (the employer) have had a situation like this so they need to be cautious. I often find when companies don't pay people, it is a pattern and as a consultant, you wish you had known that ahead of time."

"If you feel so personally responsible, you should step in and offer to mediate a settlement acceptable to both parties.... A matter this small should never escalate to the point of litigation."

"As tempting as it may be to help your friends and salvage your reputation, the chances of you being able to improve the situation are slim unless they both ask you to do it. Butting in is likely to just remind both angry parties that you got them together, which is not good for you. It's kind of like cops with domestic disturbance calls - they hate taking those because the battling parties are likely to both turn on the cop. "

"...it seems straightforward, e.g. daycare. Since I have children, I know that "day care" issues can be resolved with planning. The person didn't have enough contingency plans. "

"Don't sweat this one. Give some of your time, in whatever capacity you can, to the original person. Ask the two of them to set a figure for financial reconcilliation. Talk to the person that hired the lawyer and say that never fixed anything and save the money. Then move forward. "

"I think we all rely on recommendations. Since you didn't make any referral fee or anything on the recommendation, it was made in good faith. As you put it, for years you have recommended people and all parties have been satisfied. "

"Did the company pay 100% of the bill to the agency? Did the company have any negative feedback about the copy/content provided? If they paid 100% and has zero complaints on the quality, then the agency is obligated to pay the contractor for the 70% delivered. "

"If this situation is resolved to your satisifaction and handled professionally by both parties, then you should not hesitate to recommend them both again. IF this situation is NOT resolved to your satisfaction and handlded professionaly by both parties, then you should not recommend either and you should disclose to both why you will not longer be referring business/work to them."

"If the situation has escalated to the point where lawyers are being called, then the options on the table have been diminished rather significantly. "

"I am assuming the owner of the company reviewed the person's work before the engagement of services and found the work to meet their needs and expectations. That said the company owner employed the person and therfore is obligated for services rendered. My opinion is that they should pay the 70 percent and be done the it. The agreement is based on time and that is what they are paying for. It's a little late to fault the writing quality since that should have been discovered along the way."

"Ask each party to consider they may be wrong. The answer is not for either party to stick to their guns, but simply to do this: GAIN RESOLUTION AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE AND MOVE ON. "

"As far as ANYONE's REPUTATION being tarnished--of the 3 parties involved, forget it. This is just life. Life happens. Move on and let all 3 parties move on...All three parties are good people. Good people have misunderstandings."
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Do you know what I have learned from this situation? That I have amazing friends that help me find my way when I can't see clearly through my emotions or perceptions. The last comment sums it up best, all three are good people and even good people have misunderstandings.

May we each find our way to an inner understanding, even if it cannot be found between those directly involved.

Namaste.

Don't be a gaycist

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

(A poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller, published in a 1955 book by Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free)

 

So now they are coming for the gays, stripping us of our rights, the moral majority deciding the fate of the minority. I wonder how our world would be different if slavery were left up to a state-by-state popular vote of a pre-Lincoln America? Well for one, I don't think we would have our current president in office. I know that the Bible was used to justify slavery just as it is being used to justify gaycism denying yet another minority their rights all in the name of religion.

But then again we as a society are known to pick and choose only the things that are convenient or agreeable to us to follow in the Bible and we willingly ignore others in the same section that says "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination." Bans against wearing gold, eating shellfish, getting divorced, having tatoos, cutting hair in a round shape or playing football co-exist with this proclamation but somehow we choose to ignore those edicts. I especially love the letter to Dr. Laura that made its rounds back in 2000 specifically addressing this hypocrisy asking her opinion on how we should enforce the penalties for these transgressions clearly laid out in that same Bible (death by stoning, selling daughters into slavery, removal of limbs).

How will the act of separating and denying 1,138 legal rights to same spouse partners protect the institution of marriage? It sounds to me like a group of elitists trying to exclude those that are different than they are from their position of privilege. In this country we have the right to bear arms and kill our neighbors, friends and family (in 2009 nearly 50% of homicides were by family, friends or acquaintances) and this is protected by our constitution.

But the right to love and marry who we choose is a privilege to be awarded to only those that meet the religious requirement of being a man and woman. What happened to separation of church and state? Where are the courts who are supposed to protect the rights of the minority from the majority vote? Where are the African Americans who remember how it feels to be told who they can and cannot marry? Oh, I think they forgot since 70% of African Americans in California backed Proposition 8, according to exit polls.

Well the reversal in California will impact loving couples, families, friends and co-workers for years to come, not to mention the future marriages (and revenues they create) that will never happen. Here's a stimulus package worth considering; let's agree to a law that will generate a projected $684 million in wedding services in California alone or the $111 million in Massachusetts over the next 3 years. What I don't understand is why in the world would we spend so much time and energy taking away rights when we have so many larger issues to contend with like wars in 2 countries, uninsured Americans, joblessness, financial fraud in epidemic proportions?

And then I remember, I don't have to solve these problems or answer these questions, only outgrow them. Join me in seeing each of those featured in this video outgrow this temporary obstacle, this opportunity for expansion, that we seem to be encountering as we search for the modern day Abraham Lincoln to save our country from gaycism.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.