Four days Away…

Pam’s Communication Manifesto

• If you EMAIL me please be aware that I check my email once a day, and I tend to prioritize things. If something is urgent I will email you right back as soon as I get it, although the response will be quick and to the point. For less urgent matters I will let the email sit for a day or two — but emailing me over and over asking if I got the first email (like theEx does) does NOT make me respond faster, it just annoys me.
• I do not respond to chain-letters, “pass this on”, email petitions and the like. You will not get a response out of my by sending me things of that nature (unless I feel like playing along with a “get to know me better meme, and even that is rare). I also really dislike having a lot of “cute” things forwarded to me. If you want to send me a link to something, that’s fine, but email forwards are equivilant to chain letters in the mail.
• I prefer to be contacted via instant messenger, I guess it feels more like a conversation than email. But if you are not one of my trusted contacts, you will need to identify yourself when you try to contact me. I put my informtion out for anyone to choose to contact me, but I do not just talk to anyone either.
• I reserve the right to block anyone from my instant messenger accounts. I will not converse with anyone who is abusive, verbally attacks me, or otherwise makes me feel uncomfortable. I will (and HAVE) block anyone I deem it necessary, but if you get blocked by me, trying to verbally attack me into unblocking you via email, text messages, comments on my blog/LJ/OD, or other IM accounts will NOT force me to engage you in dialog.
• Ways to get yourself blocked (if you want to do that):
• name calling — anything that is negative or derogatory towards me (or anyone I consider my family) including racial slurs, comments about my sexuality, gender, religion.
• sexual comments — I am not on the internet trolling for any sort of sexual conquests, and I am not online to help you indulge your sexual fantasies. If that is all you are after there are likely thousands of other women (or males pretending to be women, or computers pretending to be whatever it is that you’re looking for in exchange for some sort of monetary exchange) who will be thrilled to indulge you. I will not put up with comments on how horny you are, what you’d like to do with me, questions about my physical appearance or sexual preferences. And when I don’t respond to your requests or comments, you’re not going to win me over by calling me names. 
• insulting my intelligence — just because I’m a “girl” or because I am Canadian instead of American, or I am Pagan and not christian, does not necessarily mean that I am less intelligent than anyone else.
• try to convert me to your religion

• I do not follow everyone who follows me on Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter and notice that I haven’t followed you back, email me directly, and if I check out your profile and I think that I might be interested in following you I will. I tend to be selective of the people I follow on Twitter so if you fall into one of these categories I will likely follow you:

• I know you in my real life and consider you a friend

• I have chatted with you online and consider you a friend

• I subscribe to your RSS feed or regularily read your blog and like what I see there

• I follow you on Open Diary or Live Journal

• I regularly go through the people I follow on Twitter and unfollow people who I do not feel I am compatable with or if their tweets aren’t interesting to me. I generally unfollow people if they are ONLY trying to sell product, if they don’t tweet very often, if they are not someone I know or can maintain interest in.

• I automatically block twitter accounts where there is no profile information at all, if they follow a ton of people but do not have any comments, if there is sexually suggestive picture for their avatar, if they appear to only be on twitter to get followers to sell something to, if there is blank avatar, if they seem to be tweeting a lot about politics or religion, if they have made verbally abusive comments to others in past tweets…

Another week of declutter-ish-ness Stuff

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  I have stopped buying magazines
  
  
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   reusable shopping bags
  
  
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  I go through the kids’ clothes every season (we have 4 here) and donate things they no longer wear (and that I no longer wear)
  
  
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  I am trying to find a way to get more books in eBook format, rather than print. I would LOVE a kindle (which unfortunately is not available here)
  
  
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  I have put a moratorium on purchase of blank books (sorta) and pens for myself and craft supplies for my daughter and cards (Yu-gi-oh, Pokemon) for my son
  
  
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  I got a cable package that includes movies, so I watch movies on tv rather than buying them

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   I would have 2 couches, not 3 loveseats, and they would be either leather or pleather not because I’m into wholesale slaughter of animals, but for more practical reasons — when you have children, you need furniture where you can wipe off crayon, sticky stuff, unmentionable stuff — and having 2 fabric love seats that have been stained in EVERY concievable way, I have vowed “never again” with fabric covered furniture


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  Wooden kitchen table (dark stain) that seats 6 with solid wooden chairs – right now I have a small, cheap light wood table that seats 4, isn’t expandable, and the chairs are all falling apart. This was (shock-of-shocks) a cast off from my marriage, something that theEx felt was beneath him so he bequeathed (dumped so he didn’t have to pay dump fees or haul it to his father’s church for disposal/sale). It is passable, but not ideal, for me right now.


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   the kids would have simpler beds. Right now they each have pieces from theBoy’s bunkbed set. The problem is that this is falling apart, cheap and ugly. I would prefer simpler wooden frames, sturdy things that will last them through highschool, with well made dressers, bedside table, and book shelves for their stuff. I would like each of the kids to have a place to create their own personal altar space in their rooms.  


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  Book shelves. I currently do not have real book shelves in my home. I have borrowed some storage shelving (that I will have to replace now that its kinda locked into place in my bedroom) but I do not have any shelves that are fuctional AND beautiful. I would like shelving that could hold not only books, but DVDs and CDs and BASKETS with theGirl’s craft supplies.


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  Area rug for living room. I used to have one, but the fact that I have kids and cats (and no vacuum) meant that this already half-destroyed cast off became more of a trouble than it was worth and go unceremoniously DUMPED. I need something that fits my decore (which right now is divorcee trashbin chic) — greens, neutrals (maybe BLACK so a lesser percentage of cat hairs show??), easy to clean.

Testing… Testing… 123