I went back to my hometown a few weeks ago where I attended a BBQ with people from the past. One of the guys there was a friend of my sister’s who I had only known for a brief time. When he saw me, he said, “wow, you’re hair has gotten so long!”

The exclamation struck me as funny because my hair is neither longer nor shorter than the length I’ve had it for almost all of my adult life. As a kid, I always had really long hair (down past my waist kind of hair). As an adult, I realized that mid-back-ish is the right length for me.

The reason that her friend thought this was because he had met me during one of my few brief flings with short hair. Three or four times in my life, I’ve decided to drastically alter my look by going chin length with my hair.

When I think back about it, I always say that I don’t like my hair short but that’s not really true. There are a lot of cute short layered hair styles that looked great on me. The problem is that I really prefer my hair long for both looks and just my comfort with my hair. I like to pull my hair back, I like to play with it. You just can’t do that with short hair.

I have a feeling that I’m always going to be a long-hair girl. I’m sure I’ll go through my phases of cutting it short once or twice in my lifetime but long hair is just right for me. It’s one of the things I don’t mind not changing over time!

Tags: beauty, hairstyles, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, long hair, short hair, short layered hair, style

I’m probably never going to be someone who goes to the gym regularly. I just don’t enjoy hanging out on exercise machines even if it might be good for me. I’m the kind of person who has to enjoy my exercise or I’m not going to be able to do it.

Luckily, over the years, I’ve found several types of exercise that I actually enjoy. Last fall I discovered yoga (and more recently pilates) which I go to a few times a week. The combination of spirituality and exercise seems to really work for me there. I also like getting out into nature and enjoy hiking. I’ve done indoor rock climbing in the past and would love to try outdoor rock climbing one day. I think if you find exercises that you like such as these then you’ll naturally just stay in shape because you’ll enjoy working out.

In addition to learning to enjoy exercise, I’ve learned to enjoy reading and writing about exercise. I read a few fitness blogs and yoga magazines. Three recent articles that I wrote about exercise were:

• 10 Trampoline Exercises. Working out on a trampoline is so much fun. I wish I could get one but it’s not feasible in my apartment at this time.
• Foot Gymnastics. There are lots of workouts for the feet and toes. These are particularly good for anyone who has a problem with flat feet.
• How to Burn Calories. Did you know that you don’t even have to exercise to burn calories? There are other things you can do as well.

Those were all fun articles to research and write about. Hopefully they’ll be fun for you to read as well.

Tags: burn calories, exercise, exercise articles, fitness, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, lose weight, working out

I don’t actually spend as much time in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park as I should. I really love this part of the city. I really love that a city which is so geographically small can support a park that is so big. ( It’s larger than Central Park, I believe.) I just don’t make it over there nearly as often as I ought to.

There’s so much to see in Golden Gate Park that it really requires multiple trips throughout the year to check everything out. I recently compiled a list of twenty things to see in this park and the list doesn’t even scratch the surface of what you could check out there if you wanted to.

My problem is that I don’t trek over to that side of the city very much. It’s really only a few miles away from me but it’s a couple of bus rides to get there and there’s always so much else to do in the city that somehow I manage to miss out on that part of San Francisco a lotl.

The other problem is that I always see the same things when I go to the park. I stick to the limited area around 9th Avenue where there’s a cluster of attractions – the Botanical Gardens, the Japanese Tea Garden, the deYoung museum, the California Academy of Sciences … If I have guests in town then I’ll see a few other major attractions like the windmill and tulip garden. Otherwise, I don’t venture around the park much.

I’ll have to make that a goal for this year – to see and do more in Golden Gate Park!

Tags: attractions, golden gate park, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, parks, San Francisco, things to do, Travel

I do a lot of writing about different issues in business. Some of these are things that I write about for clients who are interested in having research done that will assist them in their own businesses. But some of these articles are just things that I research and write about because I find them to be interesting. The majority of these articles are articles thatI post to HubPages.

Four business-related topics that I’ve covered on HubPages recently were:

• 10 Tips for Improving Marketable Job Skills. The job market is competitive right now. You really need to make yourself marketable if you’re going to get hired by anyone. I thought I’d learn some tips on how to do that. Most of it’s common sense but it’s good to freshen up on it.
• The Pros and Cons of Using an Online Backup System. I have been thinking seriously about using an online backup system to make sure that my work gets saved. I’ve been burned by lost writing one too many times. Right now I just back things up to another computer and store some things in Google Documents but I think I might look into using a formal system.
• Green Commutes. I don’t have to commute anywhere to work but if I did then I’d like to find a way to do it with public transportation or carpooling.
• 5 Great Female CEOs. I read a cool article in PINK magazine about fifteen leading women in business. Five of them were these interesting CEOs that I wanted to research further. I think they’re really inspiring as female leaders.

There are a lot of different aspects of business that you can research and write about. I like to try to cover a lot of them!

Tags: business, business articles, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, writing, writing about business

I believe that it’s important to get your dog spayed or neutered. I know all of the good reasons for this. The most important reason is that there is a huge problem with pet overpopulation in America which results in a lot of unwanted and uncared for animals. I support getting your dog spayed.

However, I have to confess that not all of my pets over the years were spayed or neutered. When I was growing up, we had one dog that my parents didn’t bother to get spayed. every year we’d have a litter of puppies to enjoy and to learn from. Watching those babies be born and grow up was educational and exciting.

Even as an adult, I had one dog that I didn’t get neutered. I had a female and a male dog. The female was already spayed. I put off neutering the male and then more and more time passed and I’d never done it. He was almost always kept in the yard but there were definitely some times that he got out. I admit that my failure to neuter him was irresponsible because of that.

So I’m thinking about the pros and cons of spaying your dog. When I weight them against one another, I come out of it believing that almost everyone should get their dog spayed or neutered. It’s the responsible thing to do. However, I can see some reasons that you might not get your dog spayed.

The main reason that you wouldn’t get your dog spayed is because you want to breed the dog. This could be because you’re breeding a dog for money or it could be a more general case like when I was a kid and we liked having puppies around. You have to consider the consequences of your actions if you want your pet to have puppies but for some people it’s going to be the right thing to do.

What do you think? Is it always wrong not to get your pet spayed? Or is it acceptable for some people to choose not to neuter their pets?

Tags: animals, dog, health, home, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, neuter, pet overpopulation, pets, spay, spay and neuter

I recently did some research into a really interesting topic. The topic was how to become a cell phone tester so that you can try out mobile phones before they get released to the public. I didn’t know much about this before I started doing my research and found it all really fascinating.

What I learned is that there are five ways to become a cell phone tester:

1. Get a job with a mobile phone company and volunteer to do their testing.
2. Look for announcements from cell phone companies on their blogs where they sometimes ask for testers.
3. Look for these jobs on technology job boards where they’re occasionally advertised.
4. Become a mobile phone review writer or blogger. If you work for a good site, you can sometimes get items to test.
5. Network with people in the industry. It’s mostly who you know in this case.

It seems like a fun job or hobby if you can get it doesn’t it?!

Tags: cell phone tester, cell phones, how to test cell phones, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, weird jobs

I recently took a trip back to Tucson. I drove there from San Francisco. That’s a long drive (fourteen or so hours depending on the route that you take) but I had a sibling with me for at least part of the drive each way so it wasn’t so bad.

To be honest, I was kind of excited about driving. I gave up my car when I moved to San Francisco. Since I don’t drive daily anymore, driving has now become fun. The rental car was brand new, it was equipped with satellite radio and I got really lucky with low traffic both ways.

What I didn’t like was the driving that I had to actually do while I was back home. It feels like it takes forever to get anywhere in Tucson. The truth is that it takes me just as long to get places here but that’s because I’m walking here. I’m active and surrounded by interesting sights so it doesn’t feel as time-consuming as just sitting in traffic does.

I still drive. I’m not opposed to cars. However, I’m really glad that I don’t own one anymore!

Check out my top ten reasons to give up your car.

Tags: car, car-free, driving, give up your car, green, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, no car, society, stop driving

I do a lot of different types of crafts. I do fabric crafts. I do scrapbooking. I do collage work.

Doing crafts means that I frequently have to figure out a way to adhered one thing to another (such as a photo to a scrapbook page). I have used all different types of glues and tapes in an effort to find the best adhesive for different crafts.

You know what I’ve learned? I really only like double-sided tape.

Believe me, I know that there are a lot of crafts for which other types of adhesive are recommended. There are dozens of different types of glues out there which are recommended for crafts (including scrapbooking). I’ve tried them. I don’t like them.

I keep trying to use something other than double-sided tape for my crafts. Whenever something else is recommended, I try it. But it never seems to work for me. I make a mess wtih glues. I don’t like other tapes. I seem to just be a double-sided tape kind of girl.

Why fight it right?

Tags: art, crafts, creativity, double sided tape, double tape, hubpages, kathryn vercillo

I tend to stay in pretty good shape. I walk everywhere. I go to yoga. I recently started pilates. I eat right more or less. But the one thing that I don’t do that I really need to start doing is moe cardio work. Although I get a decent bit of cardio in whenever I climb up one of SF’s hills, I mostly manage to avoid this important part of a regular exercise routine.

Many people make sure that they do cardio for weight loss. I’m not really looking to lose weight so that’s not my motivation. However, I have problems with asthma and I’d really like to build up my lung capacity which seems like a really good reason to start getting active about doing more cardio.

The problem is that I’ve really never done much cardio. Getting started with it isn’t easy, especially since the asthma kicks in right away and I have trouble getting past that first difficult hump. However, I realize that this is not something that’s going to get better with time – at least not until I start making the effort to get that cardio in.

If anyone has tips on how to get in your cardio when you’re just getting started with it – I’d love to hear them!

Tags: asthma, cardio, exercise, fitness, health, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, weight loss

Most people say that they want to be happy at their jobs. I feel the same way. But you know what I’ve been thinking about lately? I kind of like the fact that freelancing from home allows me to be grumpy when I feel like being grumpy. I don’t ever have to put on a happy face just because I’m at the office. Now, I’m naturally not a very grumpy person but it’s nice to be able to just feel however I really feel when I’m working. Not all people are so lucky.

In fact, there are a lot of people who not only have to be polite and professional at their jobs regardless of how they feel but who actually have to outright pretend to be happy even when they are not happy at all. For example, if you were going to work as a professional clown then you would need to make sure that you put on a happy face at work even if you were having a terrible day. What kind of party would it be if the clown was all pissed off? This goes for other types of entertainment as well; someone cast in a musical can’t be very grumpy on stage and still present a good show.

I’m trying to think of some other jobs out there where you truly need to pretend to be happy even when you’re not. There are many that come to mind in which people should act happy for the sake of others but often don’t. People who work in daycares and hospitals are good examples. It would be nice if they’d act happy and make it easier on kids and patients but they don’t actually have to in order to make a living so they don’t.

Are there other jobs out there where the employee really needs to act happy to make the job work?

Tags: career, employment, happiness, hubpages, jobs, kathryn vercillo