Best Coupon EVER

Just yesterday when I was watching Oprah eating Bon-bons (okay there were no bon-bons!), I watched a woman win $25,000.  I was totally phsyched for her because it had DEEP meaning watch it over on Oprah, that’s a whole other story.  I was more jealous of all the audience members who went home with $5o0!!  Each and every one.  Yes, I’ve tried to get Oprah tickets before and never could, so not only do I not get to see her in person, I’ve got ZERO chance of any goodies, until now.

I missed todays episode but luckily I follow several blogs (Momswhosave.com) and they passed along the good news that Oprah and Payless Shoe Source were teaming up for a HEFTY coupon. I printed it so fast your head may have spun, I know mine did.  It’s the kind where you get 50 percent off EVERYTHING you buy.  Not one item, not buy one full price get one half off this was full-fledged, BREAKING NEWS I’M BROKE, certified GOOD news.

We just got back from Payless, and we were not alone.  Thank you Oprah for giving ALL of us a break and Payless, I’ll never forget you giving us a break either.  Good Coupons lead to Good Customers. (insert your best Terminator Voice here) Rest Assured Payless,  I’LL BE BACK.  And might I add, the girls at the New Market Square Payless store in Wichita, KS were absolutely AWESOME.  As busy as they were they couldn’t have been nicer.  When I said, I’m gonna go home and facebook and blog about it, they answered, “Please do.   This is a great deal!!”    Wish I had gotten their names, but Mr. Manager or Ms. Manager please let them know, they done GOOD.

What The Hell-o Am I Doing?

It’s the question I most want to vomit over whenever I am asked these days, and that would be often.  Even without makeup, typically with three day old hair and glasses…. if I open my mouth to speak, someone will recognize the voice and then peg me as “Anita Cochran”……the NEWS LADY!   “So what ARE you doing now?”  is the question that inevitably follows.  The answer is easy yet complicated.  To-the-point yet evasive.  Honest yet not really truthful.    That answer is, “Whatever I want.”

My good friends have heard me speak about all the changes that would be coming into my life for more than a year now.  It happened in Paris in April 2008, when my entire life seemed to make sense, but not in its current form.  I’ll never forget the moment I heard the answer that really described the life I wanted.  I was at the Louvre with my first true friend, Pamela when low and behold the woman in line in front of us mentioned she used to live in Derby.  Yes, Derby, Kansas.  She had moved to Paris for her husband’s job and when I asked what she did, she answered, “Whatever I want.”

She had already raised her children and she said now it’s my turn.  She visited the Louve almost every day and was taking French, she was living a dream.  While my dream isn’t shaping up quite like hers it’s starting to form.  Remember, I am after all firmly planted in Wichita.  Yes, Wichita, Kansas. (Then again, NOTHING is forever.)

My two kids aren’t grown, so this is OUR time.  Much of what I do these days has to do with what they need/want me to do with them.   For the first time ever, I’m helping in Tanza’s classroom. I helped Lexy’s teachers back when she was in Kindergarten, yet never did the same for Tanza.  Truth-be-told I never had the “classroom” helper itch.  I remember why now.  I felt really out of place teaching kids about weights and grams and paper clips and Hershey kisses last week, but you know what?  I did it, and they all got the lesson they were supposed to receive!    The strange thing is now that I’m a “teacher” it makes me wonder what else I can do.

Some of you know I’m working on a tv project.  My New Life, could be a really entertaining locally produced show but there’s a lot still to be done to get it into production.  For now we’re doing webcasts/talk shows online and that takes up some time.  (Mostly in the drive time….. I now HATE driving downtown or across town.  Amazing when I was in TV, I made the trip at least four times a day, now I pout when I have to make one!)

I’m thinking about a part-time retail gig for the Holidays.  A good friend has asked me to work with her and since I toy with the idea of opening a shop someday I think I may see if I’m cut out for that.  That’s what’s really surprising about My Own New Life.  I sort of want to try everything.  I’m finding  however, I have the attention span of a three-year-old!  I have discovered I am very easily bored, so at this stage in my life I’m also cutting my losses.    The daily online radio spots were fun, but frankly, too demanding for the money.  I’m volunteering at Center Of  Hope.  I serve as a Board Member there, and while I LOVE trying to prevent homelessness, I’m not sure I’m meant to volunteer on the frontlines either.  (I’ll let you know after I get the okay to answer phones on my own later this month.)   While that is some of what I am doing, mostly what I do when I get up each morning, is whatever my family needs, whatever I HAVE to do for the commitments I’ve made, and then with whatever time is left, “WHATEVER I WANT.”    It is the BEST answer I’ve ever heard, and so far it’s the best way of life I have ever lived.

Facing the TV camera Again

   Well, it’s over.  My first moment to be in front of a LIVE TV camera since  my retirement, came and went yesterday.   While it may have been uneventful in that I didn’t really mess anything up, or  get lots of fan mail, I learned a lot.

   I didn’t realize Wichita had the first internet TV station.  KCTU broadcasts on channel 43 for those of you who don’t have cable….but since I had cable, the husband sat at home during the noon broadcast of “Your Hour” and instead of watching Sheryl Nutt interview his wife, he watched some lady have a baby!  Oops.  Oh well, now that we know what KCTU looks like  all we have to do is find it, and Sheryl tells me we can find it on the web, kctu.com.

    Sheryl did a great job interviewing me about my gig here on KKRD online, and it was obvious she did some homework.  She must have read every facebook and blog entry I’ve ever made cause she was whipping my words back out at me.  Get this, not only did I not mind…..but I kind of liked it.  I actually put words into another persons mouth……Lucky for you Sheryl they weren’t obscene.   Because I’m Anita Cochran and sometimes those words are the ones I really want to say!

 

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Orpheum “Food” Fundraiser

  Honored to serve as a date for Go Wichita’s Shakila Saifullah (she’s the new Marketing Director), I attended my first Celebrity & Chef Cook-off this week at Wichita’s Marriott Hotel.    

Wow!  Yes the food was nummy but can you say power crowd?  (Say it with real feeling and it will be ever more impressive.)  The best part of that, is a lot of those people, are some of my favorite people in Wichita.   We gave the chick from Splurge a run for her money, taking advantage of as many photo ops as we possibly could without attracting too much attention to ourselves!  (I did afterall at this point, have food stains on my Paris-bought suit! ) If you must know it was the Right one…and it was chocolate icing!

  I hate to be a name dropper, but really, there’s just no other way to do it.  In no particular order we must start with my very first “vacation” sweetheart.

  Devin Hansen and I met on a trip to Hawaii when we were like 10 years old (YES, our parents were with us).   He’s taken over the family business Sunflower Travel, is obviously a Wichita Wagon Master by his get-up here, and I learned on this night,  he’s also Chairman of the Go Wichita Board, Go Devin.  

Then I think this might be the first picture Spangle’s Spokeswoman Rene Steven and I have ever taken together, though we’ve been to about a bazillion events together.  We also go to the same church and have an idea to “hook” up in the future.  I’ll leave it at that, cause that sounds SEXY.  Might I add, I could eat a Strawberry Sundae from Spangles ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

   WSU’s Don and Shirley Beggs are perhaps the nicest people in our city, probably the state, and perhaps even the planet.  Shirley is battling breast cancer and finishes chemo this week.  Hers is the only story I wish I had been able to tell before my TV career was over.  Heck, Shirley can I just write your book?

I couldn’t NOT post this picture just because Shakila’s finger is the most prominent part of the scene!  I love KWCH’s Bruce Haertl, who was there as a judge.  Competitive son-of-a-gun that he is won the past three years.  He tells me though his chefs worked his butt off, which makes me glad I was never a big enough name to be asked to “cook” for the Orpheum.     

    I have no idea which Celebrity won this years contest, but I do know I didn’t get the bike I was bidding on in the Silent Auction.  I also know that we were all there to raise money for the Orpheum Theatre.  Oh how I love that building.  Funny how I love just about anything old, the older I get.  If you haven’t been to this event, put it on the list for next year.  Good eats, good people, good cause.  (Oh, and there’s going to be a lot more pictures over on Facebook! – Since this is getting long the rest will show up over there.)