1. as i got ready this morning in my hotel, I wondered why there aren't any hotels that provide nice hair dryers, and normal size hair products (hairspray) for my use. Even the super nice hotels have the super crappy hair dryers. i mean seriously! there are enough of us "carry-on only" people who aren't carting our hair dryers and hairspray around. make us feel welcome and put some of it in our room. I won't steal it....and if you're that concerned, do a room check before people check out!! or make them get it from the front desk! seriously people.

2. now that gas is a bazillion dollars per gallon, there are more people bicycling to work. Which I think is great. however, these people feel like they can act like cars (which is legally what they're supposed to do) until they hit a red light/stop sign/inconvenient traffic signal, at which point they decide to act like a pedestrian. PEOPLE!! this is how accidents happen. AND tickets!! I'm going to call my city counsel and see if we can't mandate that all bikes must be licensed. this way i can call the cops on the bikes that run red lights. If jim had to register his canoe (!!)...then why the heck aren't bikes required to be registered. seriously.

3. 110 degrees is hot.

4. even if i eat a mini bag of chips, fruit, licorice, and drink a full bottle of water after a full lunch....tasting 12 different wines still is too much for me. yes, i am a lightweight.

5. i'm flying home tomorrow and so excited. except for the four hours on the plane. I do not have enough to do (or enough laptop battery, aurgh)

that is all for now. i'm going to bed, even though it's way early here.
love.
-R

100th POST!!

BOOYAH! Welcome to my 100th blog entry!!! No pressure for a fabulous entry, right? ha. :o)

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

Got my picks in for the last week of the season....c'MON teams. Currently we're tied for first place in the pool....this is the deciding week. GO BEARS! :-D

In other news....
The trip to madison was grand. I tried lutefisk and learned to make lefse. Very scandinavian...very fun! We also had the wonderful opportunity to weather an ice storm while we were in town. Holy crap holy crap that was a lot of ice. Made for poor driving, that's for sure!

I will have gone to work one day between December 19 and January 2....which is so nice. I've enjoyed the time to catch up on sleep....and learn that comcast has decided to give me access to Bravo with my basic cable package! Project Runway...Top Chef....Biggest Loser marathons....it's been a good time. :o)

That's it for the moment....I think it's time for my afternoon nap.
Love!
And Happy New Year! Time to start deciding what my 2008 New Year's Resolution will be!!

neighborhood news...

I homesteaded my house today...not really sure what that means except that my property taxes are supposed to be lower. Yay! I felt about 12 years old when I went into City Hall....felt weird.

Driving back I encountered another one of my neighborhood wanders...not the creepy "may be a molester" man....this was a guy who may have been deaf. I hope he was deaf, because otherwise he was just rude. There were cars parked on one side of the (two lane) street....and he was walking directly down the middle of the open area. Um. So I had to follow him at negative 2 miles per hour for a BLOCK. I didn't wan to honk because we were only about two blocks from my house and what if he followed me!? So yeah. Dumb.

In other news, I shared a different neighborhood story with my Mom this afternoon. She didn't appreciate it. Turns out that when I'm approached at 11:30pm in the Rainbow parking lot by a creepy man asking for a ride....she doesn't want to know. I shared with her the tips I shared with all my girls when I was a CA:
-Let the person know that you see him/her
-Avoid the person (I walked around the other side of my car...yes, he was that close)
-Be alert...don't be talking on your cell phone completely unaware of your surroundings...and don't be digging in your purse without watching around you
-Don't wear your hair in a pony tail (nice handle to grab during abductions)
-Expect the worse (I was prepared to throw my groceries/eggs/milk at him....or run him over with my car)

See how this works?! :o)

It's cold and starting to snow here....and since I haven't made my declaration yet this season...let me just say: I HATE WINTER!!

Thankyouthatisall. :o)
10th annual thanksgiving-eve party tonight....YEAH edina! :o)
love!
-r

good thoughts

I've had a lot of thoughts occur to me as I've been traveling this week. They all seemed profound as they came to me....and now of course they escape me. I'll keep thinking...

In the mean time, let me commend to you the book "I'm a Stranger Here Myself". My goodness it is funny. The writer is so witty and able to bring his thoughts full circle. He was apparently born in the US and then moved to England for 20 years. He was roped into writing newspaper articles about his experience upon moving back to the states and the changes he encountered. Really interesting to see our society from another perspective. And funny. Seriously. I was laughing so hard i had tears running down my face. Embarassing....when on a packed airplane to LA....but that in and of itself makes me laugh harder.

Anyway. I'm tired and don't feel like typing. Maybe more in a while.
love.
-R

hrmmm

Has it been awhile since I posted? It appears yes. Somewhere I have a list of topics about which I'd like to blog...but I haven't the faintest idea where they might be. Perhaps tomorrow.

News:
I mowed my lawn for the first time. On Saturday. It looked great, and then it rained. Poo.
I painted my bedroom ceiling. No longer may I call it "the womb". Ha.
VB courts are full of burrs. There is still one stuck in the bottom of my right foot.
Today I ordered A/C. It will be installed on Tuesday. Today it was 85 degrees....kind of wish it was already done.
They have compressed air at the work car place. And the mechanic guy fills your tires for you.
Forearms are burnt. This is due to a lunch meeting outside at Kips. Gotta love summer.
Oh, and the little sis is going to prom. twice. I'm going to be the dorky, older, picture-taking sister. yay!
I want three kids. And an SUV.
I finally put down my crab grass preventor. I think it maybe included fertilizer...based on how fast my grass is growing.
I would like to plant raspberries behind my shed.
Extreme Home Makeover - Habitat for Sanity started...we gutted Dave's bathroom. Cuz we're that hardcore. Next time - patio installation. yeah.
Menards sells groceries (at select locations) - we have pictures to prove it.
I will be visiting Ely this summer. Supposed to be a neat town, eh?
For my motorcycle rides...I think I get a helmet.
I don't hate the phone like I used to. I'm actually quite addicted. Quite. (hence the lack of blogging)


Enough for now, more for later.
"Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away...."
-R

hello time?!

Like I said before I left last week, when I travel I lose track of time. How is it already April 17th tomorrow?!

(which, ps, is free cone day at Ben and Jerry's....fyi. http://www.benjerry.com/ There's the site...and there's a store locator for your convenience too. WOOO!) :o)

Anyway. I forwarded an email today to pass along the info that someone was out of the office until April 17th and so we wouldn't get a reply at least until then. I thought that was two weeks away. Turns out, it's tomorrow. I keep missing huge chunks of the month!! But the traveling - wow I learned a lot! To tie in, today was i think my favorite day of work since I've moved back to MN. It was all strategy focused...how COOL eh?! Big smile here. :o)

Random thought today in relation to the huge shooting at West Virginia....when someone commented about the shooter, it somehow came up that it seems it's always been guys. I'm not making any comments/assumptions about that - I just find that interesting/frightening/odd. Shouldn't someone be looking into that? Anyway, my prayers are with that school and those families. How tough.

Car headlights seemed brighter tonight.
It smelled like summer as I was walking out of coffee.
With new timing belts, my gas mileage improved dramatically. I went 50 more miles on one less gallon of gas!
God is pretty amazing.

phew

I think I could like sales....!!! seriously! :-D

Okay. So the trip is going well. I've missed the Minneapolis snow, which in and of itself is amazing. It is, however, pouring buckets here. And it's freezing. And i'm already always cold...so when the two guys I'm traveling with blast the air conditioning the two hour drive to the facility tours....i'm pretty much a solid ice cube when we arrive. And I forgot my sweatpants for the hotel so i've been cold pretty much the entire time so far. But i've been eating like a king! (translation, GUY) Ribs and beer last night....steak and wine tonight...I'm going to need to go running for SURE after this! Anyway, I'm learning a ton. Seriously, a TON. Oh my goodness though I feel a bit outside of my league. I've never even known anything about sales and now I'm on a call. OY!

Anyway. I'm super into trying to predict company moves....as far as marketing stuff. And so when Applebees announced last week they were closing 10 stores, I immediately began guessing which ones they would be. The funny thing was I'd been wondering lately if they would be closing any stores because they had really saturated the market. I mean, there were at least three stores withing two miles of my house. That seemed a little excessive to me. I also don't live in the nicest part of the Minneapolis, so I was wondering if they were seeing a drop in same store sales growth because of the demographics of their locations. I'd seen a recent article covering their recent menu additions (the special chef ones - i highly recommend the bruchetta burger with parmesan fries) and how their current typical customer had kept them from introducing something like this earlier. Well, bottom line, I'd decided this one applebees by my house, right off the highway, was probably going to be the one to close due to it's extremely small size, awkward location, and general "city location".....and sure enough, not more than two days later, it was vacant. We're talking signs are down and you wouldn't even know that an Applebee's used to be there. Go me! :-D

In other news, what are thoughts on this recent Imus radio station issue. I read a comment in the USA today that said that everyone who heard Imus' comments was offended. Perhaps I spent too much time in the overly sensitive and highly charged politically correct environment of housing and residential life at the university of minnesota - but I thought tolerance means we're supposed to put up with stuff that we would typically take offense to.....isn't that the whole line that the left is pushing? Okay, I'll admit I've put a right-type slant on the view...but seriously. I thought we weren't supposed to censor anyone anymore. Or are we just not supposed to censor people who agree with the left's views? I'm not saying that racial comments are good or that we should support them....but personally I feel like I've been beaten down to the point where I'm only allowed to say "well, it's interesting you feel that way, i'm not sure that I entirely agree" and leave it at that. I thought we weren't allowed to say anymore that people are wrong.....right? Anyway. I just get pissed. If you want to get down to it....I get offended when you take Christ's name in vain....it's horribly terribly offensive - but you don't see me going on national tv every time some says that on the radio. And I'm also super offended when people begin to attack republicans ascrazy religious nazi's. Or when I get ridiculed as having little to zero intelligence because of my Christian faith. And even the fact that because I've now stated that i'm right-leaning and religious (and not just any religious thankyouverymuch but christian) that now I have to state that by no means am I advocating or supporting this radio guy's comments, okay? Basically, bottom line, if you're really truly supporting freedom of speech (in all the insane ways that are occurring) then you've gotta swallow the whole pill my friend. You don't have to support what the speech is - you've just gotta give them the right to speak.

And off my soapbox. (and again, just to state, i don't support his comments. thanks.)

Alright, is it wednesday? I'm beat people. I fly home tomorrow night, gotta bake something for this weekend, AC quote friday morning, work, and then straight out of town for church retreat. AH!
Love.
-R

flying time

What a week. I couldn't even remember when I last posted. Some super early mornings and I finally feel like a contributing member of the company. It's good.

I also don't understand how it's already April. I'm going on another trip for work next week and so when I get back, it'll be mid-april. That seems a bit crazy. I keep waking up and feeling like I've missed a month of my life. Where is the time going? Hopefully through what seems to be a busy travel schedule I'll somehow acheive silver elite status on Northwest....that'd be pretty sweet. Seems like everyone at work's already earned it....so I'm always by my lonesome back in coach. Oh well. Someday! :o)

Happy Good Friday today. Brainstorming about projects for the kids on sunday. It was always the big projects or traditions that stuck with me from my childhood....and that's what I'm trying to go for. I want this to stick. Maybe some posterboard....we haven't done anything with that yet....hmmm. Thoughts.

Volleyball season is over....it's time to start the search for summer fun. :o) I think a golf league may be joined!
Anyway.
Happy Easter. It's the holiday that gives us a reason to live. Eh?
-R