Planny Plannerson

I know I recently made a post about how "booked" I am becoming, and it is only the second week in May, but seriously! Some days I wish I could rewind to the days of High School or college and have my three-ish months of glorious summer back. That is what made me reconsider going back to school (I know Kel, I WAS thinking of doing it - still haven't completely ruled it out...) to be an art teacher - teach - and poof, have my summers back. I envy the husband because he is a teacher and finds himself trying to occupy his days in the summer which usually comes down to a short list of: fishing, video games and maybe an odd-job here or there. Did I mention fishing?! Seriously. We call it his illness - compassionately, of course ;) Just like baking, designing, and fonts are on my diagnosis rap sheet.

This is even more pared-down than what I was a little while ago...but note the post-it-on post-it action! HA!

Here is is, in all it's multi-colored glory!

Well, I had my planner out in front of me again today and was jotting more things down. It is funny because the weekend slots are filling in and the week stays pretty empty. Probably just because I don't jot down every work event, meeting or happening in there at all, only the bigger events. I just scheduled a couple different events with friends next weekend - two on the same day. That is somewhat an oddity for me since married life. Before married life, I was a HUGE social butterfly. Flitting off to this party or this event, keeping random-odd hours and now, not so much. I am content to come home to my man and our dog who is out of his fur excited to see me at the end of each workday. Quite honestly, spending time at home with both of them, just being able to relax, describe my workplace frustrations and victories and just be home is great. Don't get be wrong, I am still a social butterfly at heart and love going out with friends and doing things, but a lot of my friends are all at different places in their lives right now and planning becomes mandatory. It is pretty rare that a friend calls me on say, a Saturday night, wanting to hang out that same night. *ahh the good ol' days!* My friends fall into one of the following categories:

Single

Married

Married with a kid or kids

Out of state

The Singles are still operating in the social scene, trying new restaurants, active late into the night/wee hours of the morning (much like my pre-marital self I described above).

The Marrieds are typically pretty newly married - under the 5 year mark - and are pretty much alright with just being at home hanging out with their spouse and pets (I fall into this one, as I mentioned before).

The Marrieds w/kidlets are usually so entwined with their spouse and kids that the outside world seems foreign to them. They are looking for mommy/daddy groups to become involved in, or mommy/daddy blogging their days away, where all social events quickly become "back-burner-ed" for a time until they realize that either a) they REALLY need to get out of the house and speak something other than baby-talk or b) they realize that some of their relationships have become non-existent and they need to try rebuilding if they want any adult friends again. ever. 

Then there's the Out of Staters. This one is pretty self-explanatory. These friends have moved quite a distance away and we either talk infrequently or not much at all anymore. 

Disclaimer: there is nothing wrong with any of these states in life, I am merely describing my current friend situations and how it can often be difficult to align the different sub-groupings of individuals. So, planning is a most necessary tool for alignment these days.

One thing about working for corporate retail, you are always planning and looking ahead. For instance, it is currently May. Already, we are firming up things for August, September and into Holiday. So, the frame of mind is constantly thinking forward, without too much regard to the here and now. The only time you really are focused on the here and now aspect is to see if we are losing or making money in the business.



So, naturally, from working like this, I am also looking ahead in my home and personal life. Sometime to extremes, like years down the road rather than months. Almost as a forecast to where I think things are headed. But, much like many of the Twin Cities' weather men, I am wrong and things take different twists and turns, and sometimes just tornado my "predictions." It is times like these when I am really glad I am not a complete and utter control freak. In the instance my predictions have not come full-circle and I am not living in them "when I should be," or "when something should have happened," I don't freak out, resent everyone and everything around me, get pissed or throw a tantrum. I have seen people or have heard of people my friends know do all of those things. What a way to live! No thank you. Sure, if I look forward to something and everything seems to be leading down that road and suddenly it dissolves beneath me, I get a little disappointed, but the planner in me wipes the board clean and starts planning and predicting again.





So, I have my planner almost always accessible, and the most common response to an invitation these days is, "let me check my schedule and I will get back to you," or, "give me a few dates when you are available and I will compare them with my schedule." The latter option is most used for the friends whom I deem "more busy" than myself, and there are always those that you just give that courtesy because you know if you don't, there could be issues.



Plan away



-LD

Inspired to Stop Diabetes

Tomorrow is the big night! It is time for the annual American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) black tie gala “Inspired to Stop Diabetes” at the Treasure Island Resort & Casino in Welch, MN.

This will be my first year volunteering/attending the Gala. I am pretty excited to be helping out at the event! I still need to pick out what I am going to wear! It is encouraged that all volunteers dress up for the event and then bring a change of clothes while we “break down” and clean up our areas. I will be assisting the Silent Auction part of the event. I am excited to see all of the things that are up for auction! There is also a live auction, sit down dinner and entertainment. All of the money raised goes to support diabetes research, information and advocacy for the American Diabetes Association.

I checked out the website for the event and was a little shocked at the price for the event: $200 per seat or $1,500 to sponsor an entire table of eight guests. A little crazy, it may seem at first, but I am sure that it is worth it for the guests and for a great cause. I look forward to posting a response post to this one after I volunteer at the event tomorrow night. It is going to be a late night of fun! I will be down there from 4:30 set-up to 11pm, probably a little later than that.

I am also involved in the ADA’s Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes annual walk event. I will post when I have my page up and running. I am waiting for the leader of my Walk team to get in gear and re-register the team so I can build my personal Walk page!

I love volunteering for these events! I might try to do a walk next year for animals because it would be fun to have Tucker walk too. We tried to bring Tucker a couple years ago, but there were “no animals allowed,” so Derick had to bring him home. Well, we tried! Maybe next year we can find a walk for animals! I know that the local Humane Society puts one on in early May, but we missed that one! Oops!


-L

And The Thunder Rolls...

Last night we had one of the "coolest" storms! I can totally see why my meterologist cousin wanted to be a storm chaser in his free time! I spent some of the night outside, poised with my camera phone, looking to the sky. After I got home from work, the sky looked kind of soupy and heavy, like a storm was making its way to us. Later in the evening, the clouds rolled in, thunder clapped, and the sky was a gray, pink, orange blend. It was very neat looking:

The view across the street from our front door

We were watching the weather on TV and watched as the tornado warnings and watches popped up. The sirens went off a couple of times, but we just stayed put, as we could see a lot of what was happening and the threats were not close to our area according to the weatherman.

At one point, I walked out the front door, looked up and saw these awesome clouds to the south of us:
They looked like cartoon clouds! I loved them!

So, since we are talking about spring storms and showers, here is an update on the daffodil and the tulip bulbs and the prim roses I bought this past weekend, they have opened up! They are so pretty! Now I just have to re-pot them so they can really grow and look nice!

One sure sign of summer is that at work this morning, the power went out three times already by 9am. This happened about three or four times last summer and the summer before, and some of those times, they actually shut down the office and let us all go home. The power was turned back on shortly after each outage, but still, it made us all still hold our breath. I sit in a small corner, and there are no windows, so thank goodness my laptop screen was still running and illuminated, otherwise I may have been trapped back here if not for trying to feel and bump around trying to find my way out!

So, the weather around here has played some crazy tricks this week! I am sure we are in for some more encounters of the stormy kind!

-LD

Water For Elephants Book Review

On my "Road Trip" in rural Iowa, I finished reading Water For Elephants. The book was pretty interesting. I thought it was vulgar in some parts for no real reason, but I understand the fact that I think the author wanted to get across that life in the circus is by no means prim and proper, but the way it was depicted at times, was a bit alarming. It was not a favorite book, but an alright read for something to take your brain on a vacation. I do not see myself reading this book again, but it does make me curious a little more now, to go and see the movie.

Here is a brief synopsis of the book:

An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932.

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.

That is all for today, just a quick book-review update!
-LD

There and GONE again

 I was reading through some of the blogs I subscribe to and one was commenting about the tragic and extremely horrifying occurrence of comment-block-clearing that sometimes randomly occurs. Here was the initial post from The Bloggess:

I read lots of blogs.  I laugh and/or cry at them.  I write long, thought-out, vaguely-witty comments.  I fill out my email address and blog url and name above the lengthy comment and hit “submit comment”.  I wait several impatient seconds while your blog thinks. Your blog shows me my comment and asks me if I really want to submit this or if I’d like to change up some shit first. I start to second-guess myself but then I soldier on, hitting the “No, I totally want to submit this comment because why else would I have hit ‘submit comment’ and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop questioning me because it’s making me paranoid thankyouverymuch” button. Your blog thinks again for a few seconds. My comment pops up underneath all of your other comments along with my picture (hi, me) and I feel very grown-up and technologically savvy.  Then I hit the “back” button to return to your homepage but one quarter of a millisecond before I let go of the back button your page flashes with a “Oh, and don’t forget to write these blurry words and/or do some math for us first to prove you’re not a robot or else your comment won’t actually be submitted. We apparently have a lot of problems with robots. I’m sure you understand” and I scream “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” and everything moves in slow motion as I try to find a way to stop time but it doesn’t work and the page flashes back to a now-totally-blank comment box.  I try to go forward.  Nothing.  I try to go back.  Nothing.
I bang my head against the keyboard and cry a little.  I have no idea what I’d written in my now-erased comment and  now I’ve also forgotten what the post was about and where I live.
I fill out my name, email and url again.
In the comment box I simply write “lol”, and vaguely hope that this wasn’t a post about how your grandparents just died.
I vow to never, ever do this again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

I thought to myself, OMG this happens to me and I just get...get...well, there is not a great adjective in which to summarize my feelings about this matter, but I can pretty much bet the farm that this has happened to all of you at one point or another. I have gotten in the habit sometimes, before hitting the forward or back button to "select all," and "copy" everything, you know, just in case.

I think it just struck a chord with me because it recently happened to me when I was writing an email, and in one unexplainable instant, everything was gone. Just gone...in one proverbial virtual *poof*


Oh, and as I was reading through my subscriptions, I have been cutting out more and more blogs that have just gotten rather stale. Nothing exciting happens, the author no longer blogs with regular consistency (not that I can really talk there) or frankly, I just don't care anymore. I had, at one point, subscribed to a TON of fashion-ish blogs. The number of these type of blogs alone almost consumed and made up my entire subscription list, minus a few people's blogs that I actually knew. I quickly skimmed the more recent postings from those fashion sites, and decided to delete them from my feed. Feed. Who ever thought to name the list of blog information you follow just that: feed. Wouldn't "reel" be more appropriate?

Sorry - A.D.D. moment there.

Where were we...oh yes - blog deletion.

Along with blog deletion that happened, I sat there, wondering why some of the people who I "follow" don't blog anymore. They were once witty, or just plain interesting, and the proverbial blogging well has dried up for them with nothing else to go on other than their stale site pages. *sigh* if only they knew: I AM INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY! SAY MORE!

But comments can only get you so far before harassment becomes your new label.

Another thing about comments - I am pretty sure that I know of and see only two people that have posted any comments to any of my blogs - you know who you are and I LOVE LOVE LOVE you for that. It gives me more than a writing outlet, but some validation that I am being heard, or in this case, I guess, read. I get satisfaction from it, I will admit it, no matter how vain it may appear.

So then, I suppose that is all for now!
-L

Mother's Day To-Do List

What a beautiful spring day today! 70 degrees in the start of May! Yay!

So, it got me thinking...

When I was little, my dad took me to buy flowers from a nursery and plant them outside our house for my mom on Mother's Day weekend. Usually Marigolds in this little patch of our back yard, different colored Pansies or Impatiens in the front, and some other little flowers in the flower boxes lining the steps to our front door. My dad has carried on this same tradition for many years. I thought it was about time that I take this tradition on for him. He doesn't get around too well anymore, and I thought it would be fun to go, pick out flowers and then take them to my parent's house and plant them. The best part - it is going to be a surprise! My mom and dad are going to church tomorrow morning, and then will be headed to Wisconsin to have a Mother's Day lunch with my Grandma. I plan on going shopping for the plants that morning and then head over and plant them right after they leave. Yay! I hope she likes the ones that I pick out for her!

One of the final boxes

The final planter on mom's front step

On my to-do list for tomorrow, besides the flowers is, dun dun dunnn...tackling the guest room/office closet! I took out a lot of things from said closet to retrieve my suitcase for my store opening trip.I left all of the stuff out of the closet with the intentions of re-organizing everything and putting it all back when I got home. Looks like tomorrow is the day!

I laid some new grass seed on the lawn where Tucker packed down the snow this winter when we let him outside and the snow packed down and the grass died. Hopefully it works and we see new growth soon! Otherwise we have to pay money for the association to replace the sod. Ugh. We have had to do that one time already and that was a hefty fee. I hope we do not have to encounter that again!

I also pulled out the grill for the first time this season! YAY! I grilled one burger for myself. It was kind of scary because when I was pulling off the grill cover, there were a TON of sunflower seed casings that fell out. I thought instantly of all of the times I saw my Grandpa do the same thing up at his cabin and all of the mice that we found in and around the grill. I am happy to report that I saw no mice, mice droppings or anything mouse-related! Whoo hoo!

I also took Tucker to the dog park in my car. It was too nice outside not to get both of us outside! Well, it may have been nice outside, but that was not enough to dry out the dog park!There was one part of the dog park that was seriously, one giant mud hole. There were actually some fallen trees laid down so that you could try to wander your way across them, trying not to fall in. I went that way once the first time, but with Tucker and another dog running around, I had mud flung on me regardless of my navigation of the tree trunks on the ground. I don't think I had been happier to have Tucker run through the pond at a later point in the dog park! He was pretty clean when it was time to go home. But, once we were about 1/3 of the way home, Tucker untucked the fitted sheet from the back seat that I used to try to prevent Tucker's mud, dirt and hair from sticking to the back seat of my car. At one stop sign, I looked in my rear-view mirror and say that Tucker was IN BETWEEN the sheet and the back seat! AHHH! Thankfully he didn't leave too much dirt or hair behind. He got a bath, and I took a shower - I had mud caked up to my ankles! It took some serious scrubbing to get it all off!

And speaking of flowers, my mini rose bloomed more while I was gone:

Also, I think the Morning Glories are becoming one of my favorites!

Closed, opening up in the mid-morning

I just placed an old Racquetball Racket in the planter for the Morning Glories to climb. It has already latched on and has begun climbing away!

My Snapdragons have not bloomed yet, but there are a few stems growing, and they should bud and bloom later this summer. I down-graded my herb garden. Basil, Oregano and Cilantro have their own individual small pots, and I planted a whole window box of leaf lettuce! THAT is one window box that is going to be staying INDOORS this year because of one nesting mama birdie last summer...

Alright, off to the to-do list!

-LD

Road Trippin': Day 3

Today was my last full day helping the store before their Grand Opening tomorrow!!

Wow, what a DAY! I am so tired and sore from trying to get everything accomplished today so they could have a smooth opening tomorrow! Yeowza!

It was a bittersweet feeling, leaving the store tonight, for the last time, before they open. Maybe ever, it is hard to know if life will ever lead me back to Williamsburg, Iowa ever again!

Here is the long-awaited picture of my hotel...

As you can see by the sign, the Best Western and the Super 8 are one...the far left part of the building (white) is my hotel - Super 8, and the light blue part on the right is the Best Western. You had to see it for yourself.

Also, I just noticed this today, but at the outlet mall we are in - Tanger Center, there is a McDonald's right before you enter the Outlet Mall grounds. On the back of the McDonald's sign that is high in the air, it says this on the back side, facing the center of the outlet mall parking lot:

Oh yeah, that DOES say McSTOP (I found out later that it is because it is also a truck stop in the back of the McDonald's! Too funny. I love this little town! So many funny things!!

Oh, and I did find a SUPER cute and SUPER cheap new handbag at the Wilson's Leather Outlet...so, that was a very nice find for me!! whoop whoop!

Alright, I am going to finally jump in the shower, cozy up with my book and then get some much needed rest!

Back to MN in the mornin' aww shucks, just when I was starting to feel "southern" too! HA!


-LD

*Update*
So, I had forgotten to mention that while I had been driving down to Iowa, I had been keeping track of the different license plate states that I encountered. I did not use semi truck's plates, because, I figured that was cheating. So, here is my list of "states I saw" while on the road:

Minnesota (duh)
Iowa (duh again)
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Colorado
Texas
Michigan
Illinois
Missouri
New Hampshire
California
Flordia

12 states...not too shabby!

-LD