Is 200 a milestone in the challenge? No, it’s just a nice, round, even number. I remember my mom pumping gas into the car when I was little and she always rounded it up to a full dollar amount, even if that meant topping it off to the point it overflowed. I asked why and she replied, “I don’t know, I just like to do it that way.” Can we say OCD? My OCD isn’t that bad or maybe focused somewhere else, so 200 is just that… 200.
I have a short follow up on the Oprah post. I don’t really follow her or much of anything on television, so I did not know that she is starting her own network. The Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN. How completely appropriate. After all, she does OWN a lot. If those who die with the most win, then she’ll be the number one winner in whatever afterlife she believes in this week, thus the other namesake, WINfrey. Well, Hoo(op)RAH for her.
The thing with Oprah is that it’s either love or hate. Everyone has an opinion about her, whether it’s good or bad. What makes me sad is that she is all about whatever will make her more money and give her more fame. She will believe in and promote anything that allows her to OWN more money and WIN more viewers. Some of the shows look interesting, and I’m not boycotting OWN, but this is just another example of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The smaller businesses struggle as the corporate giants take over everything with their deep pockets and profit driven pushing and shoving.
I’m blogging this because it’s a sign of the times. I don’t think Oprah is evil. I don’t agree with most of her views, but she has done some good things that should be recognized here. She has helped some unknown authors and small businesses become successful in their ventures through a simple mention on her TV show. She has a lot of power and influence, and she worked her way to that accomplishment. Nothing wrong with that either. What upsets me about it, is that she’s sold out to the money. She will support anything that has a dollar attached to it. It doesn’t mean she’s not doing some good things, but at what point will she OWN enough?
I OWN a lot of nice things, most of which are used or I got at some deep discount. There’s still a lot of things I would OWN if I could, but not many. I would like to OWN some welding equipment, maybe a hot tub, definitely a LeCreuset pan that will fit my steamer and a few small odds and ends. Nothing too big. I’m at the point where I want to OWN less. Less to pick up, less to keep clean, less clutter, less cost, less maintenance, less hassle, just less.
I could start my OWN network, JAW (Jody ‘annoyed’ Wissing), which probably nobody would watch, but I would have a lot of fun doing it. It would feature programs born out of my blog posts, like maybe Teaching Your Kids Counter-Culturally, Dumpster Diving for Wealthy People, The Real House-Women of Frisco, or Not!, Organized Hoarders, Bad Barbie’s on Video, Anti-OWN, Repurpose Your Life, HomeLESS, Robinhood is Good… okay, I could come up with over 100 titles if I sat here long enough.
Watch Oprah’s network if there’s a good show, take her advice and views with a grain of salt. Do that for everything and everyone you support. :)