rabbit poop

I've discovered, as part of raking my yard in the spring, that there is a lot of rabbit poop all over the yard that you just never know about. Or, I have an extremely large number of rabbits pooping in my yard. One of the two.

I'm finding I'm a big picture person....or someone who likes to dream and then isn't super keen on doing all of the detail work. Some of the huge ideas that I want to do are knocking out the wall between my kitchen and three season porch in order to make it a four season room. I'd need to insulate, put in new windows, and install some baseboard heat. Doesn't sound too bad in theory...but all the work? Oofda. And how about my new idea today? To lay a patio off of my soon-to-be four season room....but then I thought about digging out all of that grass and I started to get tired. Oh yes. There is a lot I could do...not much I am actually capable of doing. Oy.

I'm making a turkey and pepperoni grilled cheese sandwich with garlic. I'm super excited. This is the second day in a row I've made dinner without following a recipe. I'm getting there!! :o)

My blisters are growing. Gross.

or not

Everything in the backyard is too wet, so raking is postponed.

So, first. Has anyone seen the commercial for the "to go" pop-tarts? It's all about this girl who's getting asked to the prom by someone with whom she doesn't really want to go....and she's holding a pop-tart, about to eat it, and so can't run away. Ummmm. I've always thought of pop-tarts as a to go food. But apparently, if the cracker hard outside isn't portable enough, there are now pop-tart sticks for more convenience. Whatever.

Next topic....If you recall, I commented on the (red) campaign that's been going on for the past few months. It seems that the CEO of the (red) campaign wasn't too happy with the article (more so, the numbers) that adage published. He claims that the campaign has been a fantastic success and that adage didn't take into account all of the "awareness" that's been generated by the campaign. He also thought it absurd to suggest that the companies should have just donated the money they spent on advertising for the campaign. His argument was that in the month's since the campaign has started, they've donated more money than the benefiting fun had collected during all of its existence. Well, I'm sorry. But I would like to argue that isn't the best way to measure the success of a fundraising campaign. (red) set a goal, and has come nowhere near that number. That should be the measure of the success.

I don't really actually care about the fight that's going on....I am more interested in this new way of fundraising. The (red) CEO commented that all of the participating companies have most likely generated many additional sales from the (red) traffic. And I think that's more of what rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's just me, I don't get the feeling anyone involved in this project is really that concerned about the fund or the AIDS. It seems to me that they're all just very interested in generating a whole lot of media attention so that their store/music/etc makes more money. An understandable goal - just not when they're coming off as very philanthropic. I don't know what we'll call this....but it seems similar to greenwashing. A whole bunch of hogwash. Bottom line - they don't really care how much money they raise through (red) as long as they get a significant bump in profit.

Does anyone know where you can buy palm branches? Next week is palm sunday and one of my favorite sunday school memories is going home with palm branches on palm sunday. It brought the story to life so much. Any hints would be great.

Don't really have any other amazing topics of blogging tonight. A few random thoughts:
-It always surprises me how forthright people are when drunk.
-I am more naive than I thought.
-I keep thinking I want to go back to the way things were.
-Sometimes I think I was crazy to buy a house.

How is it Monday, tomorrow.

please hold

As this is the "year of the yard"....I am not allowed to blog until I finish raking my yard. Front is done, and now on to the back. Blisters are fun.

tuna melts

Welcome home. Phew. I slept from 4:30pm yesterday to 7:00am this morning. Let's talk about that trip/conference kicking my butt. I also somehow picked up some type of illness. Getting drugs today.

You know how tuna melts always seemed kinda gross....except then somewhere along in the line in Iowa I discovered how amazing they are? Well, today was a tuna melt day. Do you ever get on those kicks where something like a tuna melt is all you want to eat for weeks on end? What does that say about your personality....something about bordering on OCD? Whatever. At least it's not jellybeans like last month.

In other news, my parents are fabulous. They did so much around my house while I was gone. AND left me daffodils! So cute!! :o)

That is all for the moment. News flash - March 30 is National Cleavage Day. :o)

nervous, what?

People don't believe me, but I'm shy. And so I was super nervous for the conference. And while I have been asked several times if I'm 17, I've also realized there are people twice my age who need to be put at ease. It always suprises me....I just don't typically remember these types of things. And for some reason people assume I'm totally comfortable meeting new people and being out going. But geez....walking into a room full of people you don't know and being expected to mingle and make conversation....that's one of the most intimidating things ever. Welcome to my night.

In other news, it's been fun, but I am so excited to go home and to my bed. The beds here are nice, like I said...but I must be allergic to something. I feel like crap.

VB tomorrow and then some solid sleep. Thursday/Friday is going to be crazy.
I miss home.

four years!

Yesterday was my four year anniversary with my company. One more year and I'm fully vested! I know it's not that long, but it's now the longest time I've ever worked for one company. In second place is Northwestern bookstore, for three and a half years.

Anyway. I have a tan! :o) LA was wonderful, and now I'm on to Orlando. First conference ever (well, besides the convenience store convention we crashed in college....which, ps, was a ton of fun). My hotel is crazy amazing. There are complementary q-tips!! I was hoping they'd have those! (yes, i'm a dork) And some super good smelling shampoo and conditioner. As well as two queen (maybe king?) beds....i guess i'm supposed to swap between them each night? Apparently there is also a pool somewhere...i have yet to find it as the hotel is undergoing a huge renovation. I'm aiming to make it on the treadmill tomorrow morning. We shall see.

Um. The flights have been interesting....I'm not a fan of Frontier. They make you stand in line to check in....where are the e-check-in kiosks?? Seriously. No snacks and no food on these flights either. Good thing my mom gave me skittles before I left. :o)

Okay, I have a food drive to organize and then some hay to hit. I'm wiped. It does feel like a week of vacation though with this wonderful weather. Rumor has it minneapolis is supposed to be back in the 50s when I get back.

Missed Hope today. Doesn't seem like sunday without it. Makes it feel like I've moved away. Looking forward to a week from now. Mmm.

out.
-R

up, up, and away...

Quick post tonight. I'm so totally and completely tired. I swear these ulcers are going to get the best of me. Almost four months of this crap now. What the heck.

Anyway. I'm headed to warmer weather. Meeting up with rotational kids from Iowa for some St. Patty's Day fun....and then to Orlando for some work conference fun.

I just got a laptop at work (with a cd burner!!!), so maybe there will be some blogging fun too.

Otherwise, peace out bean sprouts. I already miss my bed.

*sigh*

Today was beautiful, wasn't it? This is the perfect weather where you walk out of a building you've been in all day long, and the feeling of the sun on your face and the wind in your hair makes everything better. It's like breathing in freedom. Or simplicity. Or a life without cares. A promise that if spring isn't here, it's certainly on the way....which can only mean that summer is not far in the distance.

So here's a picture. It's Iowa. And it's what I miss:

I miss the country. I know, I know. There are a lot of country-folk who would take issue with me calling where I lived in Iowa the country, but that's as country as I've ever been. A corn field across the street from my house? Deer running across my driveway being a common occurrence? Parties in barns? That's country to me. And I miss it. I was driving home from work today with all the windows down...just to enjoy the weather a little bit more...and all of a sudden: cigarette smoke. In my wide open, bring in the spring air, windows. Ok, there are a fair share of cigarettes in Iowa, but the smell of clean air every time i walked outside? Amazing. Open fields? So great. A slower pace of life where I could "go out" in jeans, a tshirt, and tennis shoes....no pointy-toes...no heels.....and not feel out of place? Green grass everywhere you looked. Learning more about farming and horses and machines than you ever thought you could. Feeling like you were dropped in the middle of real, FOR REAL, nature. I miss that. I feel like I'm in the middle of a smoggy, dirty, car-filled realm of craziness. Not that Minneapolis is bad, not at all...this is home. But sometimes, I want to breathe in and just smell the air.

Sorry, end of rant. Except that I also want a dog.

In other news, I hope at age 75 I look as good as Regis does. Did you know he's 75?! SEVENTY-FIVE. That's crazy. He's going in for by-pass surgery this week. Don't worry, this is the only celebrity news I know. In related news, my grandma (the only grandparent left) is turning 90 this year. We share a birthday. Yup. Ninety. Apparently a surprise birthday is being planned for 89.5 years since it's looking like 90 might be a long shot. I thought it was the coolest thing to have great-grandparents...so unless I marry someone with living grandparents, I guess that's out. My sister and I got these super fun dolls named grape jelly and peanut butter from our great-grandma. Now that i think about it, those may have been a little odd, huh?

Tonight, after pilates, Karissa and I walked ALL the way to coffee. It was so beautiful out. Mmm. Spring. :o) What a great walk. We felt very eco-conscious as well. :o) And now, good night. I'll be listening to the trains outside my window (isn't that a song?)

Love.

day in the neighborhood

Well - the melting snow is wonderful - it means spring is on the way....I just don't like all the melted snow ending up in my basement. Why can't my mop pick up more water than it does? And why do I not know how to use the wet function of my shop vac. Argh.

I'm a bit of an advertising/commercial snob and tonight I realized why I hate Old Navy's commercials so much. There's only ONE and they play it over and over and OVER again. While it may be achieving the goal of making everyone aware they sell spring/summer dresses, it's probably also making people never want to hear about Old Navy dresses again. Driving me NUTS.

In related news, here's a fun game to play: Watch commercials and try and guess what show is on! Denture paste? Maybe it's the price is right! Birth control? Maybe it's america's next top model (or essentially anything on the new CW...). It's super fun. It's also eye opening to see that perhaps you're not the target audience for the show you're watching....why do I always end up seeing commercials for centrum silver?

Do you ever wake up and realize that, for no apparent reason, you were crying in your sleep?

there was more...

Another working weekend coming up. This should be the final coat of paint in the kitchen and attachment of the baseboards. I think I finally found the look for my bedroom. Finally. It will involve a closet organization system. Going to spend some time at the Depot tomorrow after work browsing. Should be a good time. :o) Maybe I should sketch it out....ooh....sketching....

I was half a cup of flour short to bake my amish friendship bread tonight. Good thing I didn't promise it to anyone at work for tomorrow...i am SO not going to go buy flour tonight/tomorrow morning and then bake it before work. I did that whole wake up early to bake bread thing last time. So over-rated.

I have this vase that I decoupaged in college and in which I now store pens/pencils/scissors. I used a bunch of magazine cut-outs....and i love it. It sits to the left of my computer and sometimes I just find myself staring at it. It feels like life does sometimes....I feel all these things when i'm looking at it, but I can't put it into words. There are faint memories of what the full pages were, but it's melding into one piece of art. My favorite part is the quote "what to drive during your uncynical pre-burnout phase"....how did I miss that without even knowing it?

there was more....but it's just beyond my grasp. such is life...right?

Misc...

First, public service announcement!!
Granite City is THE BEST RESTAURANT EVER! AND, apparently, they have a "mug club" thing....$10 on Mondays to join the club ($20 every other day of the week) - lasts your lifetime - gets you $3 beers (24oz, first one free when you join) and 10% off food (and their food is SUPER good). Who's in?! :o)

In other news....question:
As we age/grow/get older, do we gradually begin to trust the decisions we've made? I second guess myself all the time. I've gotten to the point at work where I force myself to trust the work I've done, the decisions I've made, the results I've found...but in life? Life has a tendency of being more fluid than work does....and as things change....I wonder if maybe my decisions aren't valid/relevant/right anymore. I mean, as we age/grow/get older, we gain a better understanding of ourselves - doesn't this give us new insight that might change the decisions we've made? Might make past decisions essentially wrong? Or does time just give us a different memory of the past and that's why it seems like there needs to be a change? Either way....do we ever get to the point where we trust ourselves? Because so far, I don't.

To finish the random collection of thoughts today, let's focus on the current, new, popular, trend: Sustainability. I subscribe to a fair number of magazines. This month, March, brought several magazines "going green". Note, their magazine wasn't produced on recyclable paper, but all of the products they covered were sustainable/environmentally friendly/green. So what, Al Gore's a trend-setter now? I think it's great to focus on the enviroment/sustainability/how to make our world a better place....I'm just fundamentally against jumping on a bandwagon because it's a bandwagon. Especially when people jump on it just in show....a "green" magazine should be on all post-consumer paper!

And can we just delve for a moment into the question of why so many people are against Gore's movie? I haven't seen it, but does it matter if his information is accurate or not if it's an impetus for change? Shouldn't we support anything that makes people more environmentally focused/conscious? I'm not advocating a methodology of the ends justifying the means, but to some extent....is anything being hurt if some of the fact are inaccurate? Can someone please explain to me the reason the religious right is so against Gore's movie?

Okay, time for volleyball. I'm out folks....let's hope for a win, eh??

hey you!

Yeah, you! :o)

If you're reading my blog, you should leave me a message/comment!
It'll be great! And maybe I'll even add you to my list of "blogs I browse".....

yeah...you know you want to be cool....

thoughts

Have I already titled a post "thoughts"? Oh well.

Coffee tonight was rather subdued. Not in a bad way, it felt like more of a decompressing sigh as we all eased into a new week. I think the snow took a lot out of us all. We did have a pretty spirited discussion about elementary education, our experiences, and home schooling. Sometimes, like tonight, it hits me that I'm more conservative than I typically give myself credit. I was home schooled - I think it was a great idea. My parents chose to home school not because they didn't trust the education of the public school system, but because they were/are conservative, evangelical, christians who wanted to protect their kids from the evils of society. I like that. And I think it's a huge part of why I am the person I am today. My family could even be a social experiment of sorts - we stopped home schooling when I was in third grade....so each of my siblings has less home schooling in levels. Just interesting, I think.

Other topic - today's "youth" (which most would say includes my generation). There's this pervasive feeling of entitlement in today's youth. It's the problem of parents not telling their kids that they are good at some things and bad at other things. It's the enabled generation - students who do "B" work but get "A"s because their parents complained until the grade was changed. It's the generation that never heard the word "NO" because their parents didn't want to do any damage to their self-esteem. The sad, disillusioned, result is best portrayed by Time's magazine's selection of their "Person of the Year." Instead of selecting an individual whose contributions to society/America/the world were phenominal, the magazine selected "YOU"...and slapped a mirror on the front of their magazine. (read my friend Tim's comments on this craziness)

While one might think this is a problem for the adolescents of the world and that most people most likely grow out of this disturbing trend - Fast Company would beg to differ. I'm still trying to track down an electronic copy of the article I read, but the magazine claims this trend continues into the working/career world. There are stories of twenty-somethings not getting their "deserved" promotion, crying to Mom/Dad, and Mom/Dad confronting their adult child's boss about this "over-sight".

I'd just like to put this out there - no one is good at everything. And to perpetuate for your child that he/she IS good at everything is not preserving his/her self-esteem, but instead setting him/her up for the worst/rudest/most life shaking wake up call EVER. Maybe entitlement is something that needs to be recognized more often. Is it a secular thing? I still see it in Christian circles. One might think christians would make the connection: "i'm full of sin, deserve death" = "I don't deserve anything in this life". But sometimes, we still miss it, eh?

I appreciated learning at an early age that I am not good at basketball. I can be your Rodman (in the rebounding, defense, elbow-throwing kind of way), but I'm not your Kobe (making all the shots kind of way). And the reason Rodman didn't make it big was for sure because of his inability to contribute offensively. I also realized that I could be good at some other things, if I made choices to focus time and effort on those few things.

I begin to wonder if the current generations aren't just creating problems for themselves through thoughts of entitlement and perfection, but also creating problems for America as a whole. If we are breeding a country of people who are mediocre at everything, and not good at any one thing in particular (because no one's forced them to choose), are we setting ourselves up for an eventual downfall?

I'll admit, it's a thin argument as people eventually settle into one line of work (but again, note all the multiple career changes now-a-days...so is that really a true statement?). Basically, bottom line, I think we need to commit to telling our kids they suck! :o)

snow, snow, and more snow

Whew. This is a lot of snow. I just finished shoveling my driveway....which was a lot of snow. About halfway through I realized the size of my driveway that I have in my head is about half of its real size. I was all gung-ho about completing it all by myself, until Rick, my neighbor up the street stopped by and asked I'd like help. Well, I sure as heck wasn't going to turn him away as I'd already been out there for a super long time.

Never met him before. Attorney. Lived in his house 35 years. Nice guy. Coolest shovel ever. Kind of like a sled with a handle....no lifting. WOW i want one of those. He called Menards, Maynerds. I was confused for a moment...wondering why the bar on Lake Minnetonka was selling shovels...and why it would ever occur to someone to go there to purchase a shovel....when I realized he meant the hardware store. Ah yes. I'm brilliant.

Just as we finished, he slipped and fell. My first, cynical, thought was, there goes my savings! :o)

Here's the finished product (I know, you can't see very well...sorry):

We're supposed to get another seven inches or something during the night. I'm so pumped to go do that all over again. Grrr.

In other news, did you know Fritos have no preservatives in them? Corn, corn oil, and salt. YUMMM!!! I knew there was a reason I liked them so much!!!! :o)