Signs of Spring

It's actually snowing today, but previously to today, spring was definitely in the air.

Some of the signs of spring that we've noticed around our house:

1. In the morning we hear a host of birds chattering away -- hello, birdies!! So good to hear that you guys are back!
2. As I look out my office window, I see a wide swath of trees that have a greenish tinge to them. Hope that soon buds will be growing on those trees.
3. I can see the landscaping that was buried under our snow all winter, since the snow is now melted away.
4. Oh yeah...the dog poop has now been uncovered and sufficiently rained on to make a mushy mess.

The best part of the dog poop is that during the winter our dog poops along the edge of the patio, since he's a wimp and won't walk over the snow to get out to the yard to do his business. Throughout the winter, when Wayne snowblows the patio, the snowblower will accidentally pick up the dog poop and fling it out into the middle of the yard. So last weekend as I was picking it up, I had to pick up a line of poop in the middle of the yard, even though Dax hadn't been in our yard since November. It was all in the same area too, so now I know the approximate trajectory of the snowblower.

Last note, last weekend I went for a walk around Lake Harriet -- took me about an hour from our house and back. It was rather windy that day, and I started out with the wind in my face, warm and strong. As I came around the other side of the lake, the wind was coming OFF the lake, which was still covered in ice. It's amazing the difference that made in the temperature of the air! Now the wind (which was now at my back) was probably 10 degrees colder than it had been on the other side of the lake. It was amusing coming across many of the same people I'd seen on the path on the warm side when I crossed paths again on the colder side, with their jackets zipped and hoods up the second time I saw them.

Equilibrium

I have a co-worker who is in the enviable position of purchasing her first home. I say enviable because she does not have a house she is currently looking to sell, and most sellers are taking a bath on the value of their homes and their debt load, and interest rates are at a historic low. (30 year mortage rate is currently 4.625%).

She's looking in South Minneapolis and has come across a couple of foreclosed homes, selling well below market value. Other non-foreclosed homes that they've looked at are thousands higher than the foreclosed ones, and on the high end of their price range.

This past week she put a bid in on a foreclosed home -- it's within their price range and they offered the asking price. Today she found out that there are six bids in on the home, so now begins the bidding war.

So perhaps, through all of this, equilibrium will be reached. Some of the foreclosed homes may sell for a more reasonable price, thus not de-valuing neighboring properties as much as homeowners fear. And in the meantime, other homes which are exorbitantly overpriced will have to lower their prices to compete.

Hang tight, it'll be an interesting ride!

A new talent for Marissa

Yesterday morning while dropping Marissa off at daycare she tried to show me how she had zipped up her fleece jacket. She wasn't able to complete it, but then the teacher told me how the day before she'd been getting the kids ready to go outside, and she didn't have to zip Marissa's jacket because she'd done it all by herself.

Marissa looks up at her as she tells this story, smiles and says, "I'm growing up."

All too fast, yes she is.

Just last week she began saying "Lindsey" instead of "Dinzee." Another milestone gone.

Lindsey's Reading Material

Lindsey is getting more proficient at reading, and now we're pulling out many of Marissa's old baby books for Lindsey to read through at night.

Recently we came across a book I had gotten from a neighbor of mine. It's a reading primer from the 1950's -- yes, the old Dick and Jane reading primer, back when Dick was actually a boy's name and not just a body part.

The book is made of several different stories and for those of you who aren't familiar with these, there is a family with three children: Dick (oldest brother) Jane (middle sister) and Sally (the baby). They have a dog named Spot and a cat named Puff. The primer is perfect for Lindsey right now, a small number of works repeated frequently throughout each little story, and the next story builds upon words learned in the last story. So as a reading primer it's perfect, as a story line, it leaves something to be desired.

Lindsey loves to lie on her bed with me and read me her little stories, so last night she is reading to me and we get to a story called "Big and Little." I kid you not, these are the words verbatim from the story, accompanied by pictures of the various family members standing back-to-back to each other, to measure how tall they are:

Oh, oh, oh.
Look Dick look.

Big, big Father.
Little, little Mother.

Look Sally, look.
Big, big Dick.
Little, little Jane.

This was immediately followed by Lindsey stopping and asking, "Mommy, why are you laughing?" To which I had no reply.

Sleep Reading

Once in college I freaked out a roommate of mine. I was lying in bed with a book propped up on my chest and my light still on. She came in from a study session, chattered at me for a little while, went and washed up in the bathroom, then came back and kept chattering away. When I didn't respond, she finally looked around the book to find my eyes closed; I was clearly in a deep sleep. She thought I looked creepy, looking like I was reading when I had actually fallen asleep and hadn't let go of the book.

Good to know Lindsey will some day be able to play the same trick on a college roommate of hers. Though she'll have to work on her book-propping skills.

How to Raise a Hearty Minnesotan

This morning our family was running absurdly late for school/work. About an hour late, the exact amount of minutes we set our clocks back yesterday. Imagine that, what a coincidence.

Because of this, I was dropping Marissa off at daycare a little before 9:00, well after the kids had eaten breakfast and as the class was starting their morning calendar routine. This is where they work on what day of the week it is, what day yesterday was, what day tomorrow is, the month, season, weather, etc.

They were getting to the weather spinner, where they set the arrow to whatever the weather is for the day. The teacher asked the class, "So everybody, was it cold this morning?"

The answer, without exception, was an emphatic, "No!"

The teacher's answer, "You're right, it was a little warmer today, wasn't it?"

Mind you, it was 23 degrees when I left my house. So clearly "cold" is a relative concept.

Industry Training

I don't usually talk about work on my blog, but this one made me laugh so I had to share.

I had the honor of being tapped to co-present a one-day workshop that nonprofits would attend called "45 Must-Have Techniques to Survive and Thrive in Today's Economy." The workshop was sponsored by the DMA (Direct Marketing Association), and was to be held in mid-town NYC next week Friday.

I found out yesterday that it was postponed by the DMA, as were all "non-essential" training and meetings, in respect for the challenges that nonprofits face and the fact that many of their travel and training budgets have been slashed.

Which is true -- as it was, we were on the fence about postponing it anyway because we only had two people sign up for it with two weeks to go. We needed at least 30 to make it worth having.

In the past few months that I have been prepping for this, I had become keenly aware of other training opportunities for our industry and for businesses in general. Kind of like how you become aware of every new car on the road after having purchased one, to make sure you made the right purchase decision.

I could not believe the number of seminars/webinars/audio workshops on "surviving and thriving" in the economy. I get at least one email blast a day promoting somebody's special training on surviving and thriving. Padgett Thompson, CareerTrack, National Seminars Group, as well as all the industry trades: Target Marketing, Fundraising Success, Nonprofit Times, National Catholic Development Council, etc. all having various sessions/trainings on surviving turbulent economic times.

The seminar that I was to be co-presenting was going to be priced at $249 for a full-day seminar -- 9 am to 5 pm. In person, with break out sessions, workbook, etc. If you asked for the "special guest" discount that I or one of the co-presenters could give to you, you could get the whole day for $149, a pretty good deal for a lot of knowledge.

I just got an email for a one-hour audio workshop (audio, mind you, meaning you're just on a conference call, you don't even have materials available via your PC to keep your mind from wandering) that was charging $199 on "surviving and thriving" in today's economy.

Really? $199 for an hour?? Of hearing someone TALK?

I am pretty sure that the first piece of advice that person should be giving is "Don't spend $199 for a one-hour audio seminar." Duh.

I imagine Dogbert standing in the background, tail wagging, with Evil HR Catbert standing beside him, purring wildly, as the speakers drones on for only one hour and collects his $199 per person listening.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Hey family, remember when I was a little kid and mom would serve us chili? And I hated the beans that were in chili and refused to eat them? (They were kidney beans, mind you, the biggest, ugliest, mealiest beans around.) And remember when I used to ring my bowl with the kidney beans that I would fish out of the chili, and then eat the beef and tomato mixture that was leftover? Kind of like this?

Yeah, heh, heh, like that.

Well....guess who this bowl belongs to?

Scroll down....

Scroll down...

Keeep scrolling...

Yep, that one! Some things never change, eh?

Marissa's Wish

Here's a little "wish" that Marissa learned at KinderCare. Guess calling it a wish is how they get around calling it a prayer. A boy named Colton added the ending part.

The Accidental Chiropractor

Every once in a while Marissa will finish out her night's sleep in our bed. Some time between 5 and 5:30 am we'll sense a presence and suddenly plop, there's a wiggly 3-year-old between us in the bed.

This morning she was settling in, trying to get snuggled down to go back to sleep. She stretched out and her feet pushed against my middle back. I felt a very satisfying "pop" of a couple of vertebrae that my chiropractor had worked on the last couple of times I was there but couldn't get to move. Here in the middle of the night the 3-year-old applies the right amount of pressure and aahhh! relief. (I think it had more to do with the fact that I was completely relaxed and not expecting it, to be honest.)

She also managed to crack my neck about 5 seconds later, which also felt pretty good.

Perhaps she's got her career cut out for her already.

People wonder if our kids talk sometimes

Hard to believe that that's a concern, isn't it?

New Hobby for Lindsey

Lindsey has picked up a new "hobby," inspired by her Aunt Kristi.

When Kristi was visiting in January the girls had lots of fun checking out her online game, World of Warcraft. Kristi was sure to keep it clean, no killing, no blood with the girls around, though she did show how her character danced (ahem).

A week or so ago Lindsey and I were roaming the Disney site, looking for princess or fairy games. We came across http://www.pixiehollow.com/, a child's version of fantasy online gaming. So Lindsey and I created a fairy for her and figured out how the game works.

We've now got one logon with three fairies, one of which is mine and two of which are hers. She hasn't taken on any quests, but she's an expert sunflower and rose petal picker and has earned more badges than I for friendship, adventure and exploration.

I think we have a future WoW player...in about 15 years.

So here's a picture of how Marissa spends her Saturday morning...the same way I did as a kid, in front of the tv with a bowl of cereal (she's even using the same desk I had when I was a child).

And here's Lindsey's same Saturday morning.
Never fear, screen time is screen time; she knows she has to give up cartoons to play computer games and we limit her time. If anything, it's more interactive than watching tv.

Fun with Pronunciation

Today our family went to an educational toy store, where Lindsey and Marissa could pick out a gift with some money they'd gotten as valentine's gifts. Marissa was looking at one toy which has to do with color identification. She pointed to each of the colors and named them correctly: I imagine you can guess what the colors are by the following: "Wed, boo, lellow, orange, purple, geen!"

Her pronuniciation is not the clearest, so I decided to help her with the last word she'd said. I said, "Marissa, can you say grrrrreen with an 'r'?" I asked, emphasizing the "r" in green.

She says to me, "Geen wif a r."

And she didn't even know she was being a smart-ass.

Traveling Woman

There is nothing more frustrating than getting up extra EXTRA early to catch a flight…only to have it get delayed so much that you could’ve gotten a full night’s sleep. That’s what happened to me and my traveling compadres this past week.

My alarm went off at 3:30 am this morning – that’s not morning, people, that’s the middle of the eff-ing night – to catch a 5:45 flight to Milwaukee with a connection to Washington DC.

Due to fog in Milwaukee our flight got delayed and delayed to the point that the airline we were supposed to take booked us a direct flight on a different airline to at least get us to our final destination sometime today, though we will be arriving 3 hours later than scheduled.

You can imagine the series of changes/announcements/communication that occurred throughout the day, and I won’t bore you with all the idiosyncrasies. But I have to share one particular part of the day that I found humorous.

When, for the second time, we de-planed to re-book a flight, the gate agent was attempting to service as many people as he could from the gate so that we didn’t have to exit the secure area to go to the ticketing area and re-enter security. The line was long and there was only one agent there working the computer. We decided to divide and conquer, so my co-worker went down to the ticket counter to see if he could get help faster; if so he would call us and we’d all traipse down to get re-booked.

While I’m waiting in the obnoxiously long line at the gate, I hear the gate agent get on the phone and practically beg a co-worker to come up to help him re-book all the passengers. He finally got a confirmation that help was on the way, at which point he says, “Oh thanks man, I really appreciate it. I owe you a cup of coffee or something.”

In the meantime, I get the call from my co-worker who is now at the ticket counter, getting help from an agent right now, so I leave the long line to go to the ticket counter to get re-booked right away. The person at this particular counter was in a foul mood (did he get up at 3:30 am too??) and being a bit of a jerk to work with. He stood with one arm bracing his whole body on the counter while tapping away with one finger at the keyboard. It took an interminably long time for him to get just our tickets re-booked.

While we’re waiting for him to re-book us, his phone rings and he picks it up. He listens for a bit and then says, “Naahh man, I can’t make it there now, I got a line down here too. Sorry, wish I could help you.” He listens for a bit more, then says, “Sorry, man,” and hangs up.

So now I’ve heard both sides of the conversation – I can only imagine that the call was from the poor gate agent stuck at gate 8 with a long line of frustrated passengers, growing even more impatient. I look at the “long line” of people behind us that this guy has to still process.

There are two more people behind us.

Wow, that is quite a long line. Then again, since he’s pecking away at the keyboard with one finger, I can imagine that it will take him just as long to process these passengers as it would the agent at the gate to process the 10 he had waiting in line.

Lindsey's Dance Class

Lindsey is taking dance classes now on Saturday mornings. She is loving them, but mostly because her good friend Emma is in them as well.

Here's a picture of her in the class:

Note how the teacher is up on her toes, with arms in first position. The girls next to her are on their toes, arms also in first position. Lindsey? Well, Lindsey was in the process of falling off of her toes, thus the awkward stance.

She's the only girl I know who falls down just standing up.

But the cool thing is that when they are on their tippy toes she is actually right on the point of her toe, thus the reason why she falls down when she does it. And even better, she's having a great time.

Cult of Personality?

I was in Washington DC last week for the twice-annual nonprofit conference, my first time there since the election heated up and since Obama took office.

It was interesting being in the city at this time. Obama had been in office for about a week and a half when I arrived. The airport had huge banners saying "Welcome President Obama." I found that ironic, because I can guarantee you that Obama did not walk through Reagan National Airport on his way to the Oval Office; so I'm pretty sure these banners were not meant for him to see.

Later on, we had dinner with our client at a restaurant that was in a mall. The center of the mall was open for three floors with a large banner that went all the way from the top of the third floor to the 1st floor that had an image of Barak Obama walking with the message "Congratulations President Obama" on it.

I am pretty sure that signs like these did not welcome President Bush when he took office. Actually I should know, I'm usually in DC this time of year, I don't remember seeing this at all in January of 2001 or 2005. And while I'm a big fan of Barack Obama, I have to say this was a bit unsettling to me.

It immediately reminded me of some of the photos we've seen of leaders of other countries...leaders like Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian president (I don't feel like googling his name right now) and others who led in a much less than democratic way. Granted, those outpourings of "love" came from fear from the constituency, but it made me wonder:

If Obama recommended as part of his economic recovery that all Americans turn over 100% of their earnings and belongings to the government for re-distribution to the general population, how many would follow unquestioningly? Even when he admitted he "screwed up" by endorsing Tom Daschle, it was a minor splash, no big deal. Can this man do no wrong? If that had been George W Bush the media would've jumped on him, chalking it up on a long list of mistakes and errors.

Some media actually ARE criticizing him and his proposed policies, which I'll be honest I find welcoming. He does not walk on water, people, he's just a man with a remarkable story and great charisma.

Mommy's Hats

I have to put a plug in here for a friend's sister, who will be publishing her first ever book shortly!

Check out her website by clicking here.

Rhonda is a truly amazing woman who has taken a difficult life experience with cancer and turned it into something positive. If we could all learn from her without having to experience what she did to get there, we would all be the better for it.

A Look Backwards

Yesterday I got a chance to give a pregnant co-worker a good belly rub. It was fun feeling where the baby was, feeling movement, wondering what parts are where. She joked that people who hadn't been pregnant would touch her belly very gently, while those of us who had been through the experience would have a firmer touch.

I told her the story of when I was pregnancy with Lindsey and went in for my 24-week appointment. The doctor told me that the baby was sunny side up about then (meaning head up/butt down) and that she'd check at my next appointment to make sure the baby had turned. If she hadn't turned by 30 weeks she could possibly be too big to turn, and I would be looking at a possible breach baby and/or C-section, which I wanted to avoid.

For the next four weeks I nervously rubbed my belly, feeling a large hard area at the top, which I took to be the baby's head. I worried that the baby wasn't turning, as that hard spot wasn't going away.

Four weeks later, I go in for my 28-week appointment, and am told that all is good, the baby's head is definitely down. So I had to ask.

"So what's this part up here on the top that's so hard? I thought for sure the baby hadn't turned yet."

She feels my belly and laughs. "I'm pretty sure that the baby's sit bones on her bottom."

"Whew!" I said, "Well, hopefully it'll be the only time in my child's life that I mistake her ass for her head."

Ba-dump bump.

True story.

Mall of America

With all the rides at the Mall of America, this one captured the girls' imagination the most. (Probably because Lindsey stuffy "Mousie" could ride, too.)

The 44th President

Today Lindsey came home from school and told me they got to watch TV today.

"We got to see the new prisoner," she said.

"You mean the new president?" I asked.

"Yes, the new president of the new knighted states," she replies.

I said, "That's great! Do you remember his name?"

She says, with perfect pronunciation, "Barak Obama."

That's my girl...