goshery

the one about.

This week there was a car accident very close to my house; I actually heard the impact as the cars hit each other from inside my house.  As I watched the firemen from our local volunteer Fire Department respond it reminded me of something that happened years ago.

When my family moved to this small town I was in second grade and we lived right in town.  Back then it was pretty normal for us "town kids" to ride our bikes all over town and hang out together, with the general understanding that we would be home for lunch and supper.  We didn't have cell phone so that our parents could call us 24/7, and we didn't worry about getting kidnapped.  It was a simpler time.

A friend of our family was a member of the volunteer Fire Department, and I didn't know it at the time but he had told his wife, who told my mom, that a group of us kids had started following the firetrucks on our bikes when they went out on calls.  My mom talked to us about it and told us in no uncertain terms that we were not allowed to follow the firetrucks or go anywhere near the firemen when they were busy putting out fires.

One summer day a group of us kids were hanging out at my house, playing outside in the yard, when we heard sirens and fire trucks.  The trucks went to a house that was on fire just a few blocks away from my house, which was more temptation than we could stand.  Off we went to watch the firemen do their thing.

I was standing with my friends, watching the fire and the fireman, when all of a sudden I felt a hard swat on the butt, and there was my mom, madder than hops!  She told us to get on our bikes and get right home, which we did very quickly.

I'm pretty sure that was the last time that I every followed a fire truck or watched the fireman putting out a fire.  I definitely learned from my mistake.

it's minnesota, folks.

Just days ago there were snowflakes in the air, and this week I went shopping with my summer purse + toes.  Minnesota has some weird weather, for sure.

Nature-wise everything's about three weeks behind.  The leaves on the trees are just starting to bud, the grass is starting to grow and the ice is finally off the lakes.

Most of us Minnesotans just spent 6+ months covered from head to toe, bundled up to stay warm.  Busting out the summer attire is almost scary; it's funny how used to jeans and sweaters a person can get.

I've bought some flowers but haven't planted them yet because nights have still been pretty cool.  I have them in my garage for now but pretty soon I'll get them in planters or my garden and it will be so nice to have some color after so many months of white.

birthday card.

Over the weekend I spent just a little bit of time making cards.  I made this birthday card for my great nephew's third birthday.  Sometimes simple is best, and this card was clean and simple.

I have a little patterned paper pack (6" x 6") and I used paper from that pack for the background of the card.  The pack also had a page of little pictures and sayings in coordinating colors so I cut a few of them out for the accents on the card.  I used some plain blue card stock as an accent paper.

I could have backed each of the pictures and sayings with another paper or I could have added some brads or stickers but I decided to stay simple and let the fun paper and accents speak for themselves.

the pet walk.

To celebrate my daughter's birthday last week we participated in the Minnesota Humane Society Pet Walk.

My daughter is such an animal lover and I'm not sure where that came from, but it's been consistent throughout her life.  When she was in middle school she heard about this annual fundraiser and convinced me to drive an hour with her, her dog and one of her friends so that we could participate.  We actually did that two years in a row; she loved it and I loved seeing her so happy.

Did I love the pet walk back then . . . well, not so much.  The walk was great, but the bus ride with all of the animals wasn't really my kind of thing.  At the end of the walk there were a number of activities for pets like paw painting.  As my daughter, her dog and her friend went to do some of the activities I sat down on the curb, looked around and wondered how someone that doesn't share the same passion for animals ended up at such a place.

This year I found the whole event to be more enjoyable.  We were the only people (and dog) on the bus that took us from the Park & Ride to the Humane Society aside from one guy that we were worried we may not be able to get away from for the rest of the day (luckily that didn't happen).  There was also a volunteer that read every word from a script including his name and his final statement "enjoy the walk today".  Dynamic he was not.

The pet walk is a big deal.  The Humane Society goes all out with balloons, banners, music, food for free & for sale, etc.  This photo was taken at the end of a five mile walk in cold, windy, damp weather.  We aren't looking our best.

These are some of the sights we saw on the day of the walk.  There's a great view of the Minneapolis skyline as you walk the course.  At one point I asked some people behind us to take our photo as we walked.  There are many booths at the end of the walk where you can learn about pet sitters, pet groomers, etc.  Some people even dress like animals for the walk.

After the walk we went out for dinner and had a great meal.  Neither of us had eaten lunch so by 5 p.m. we were starving.

We were all kind of tired on the ride back to our cars; Sidney (Emily's dog) could hardly keep her eyes open.

We had a great day together and it was so much fun to celebrate the anniversary of the best day of my life.

the one about.

In my post yesterday I mentioned that my daughter was born breach (feet first).  I knew that well in advance of her birth, and I can only contribute that to intuition - specifically mother's intuition.

About a month before she was born I had a sense that she was right-side-up, rather than the upside-down position babies are normally in.  The reason I thought that was because when she kicked I honestly thought that a foot was going to come out.  Sorry to be so graphic, but that's exactly how it felt.  I remember one night I was standing in the family room ironing when she kicked and I immediately "hit the deck", laying down on the floor right next to the ironing board.  I seriously thought that I was going to have her right then and there!

I went to my doctor appointment later that week and when I told my doctor about it she didn't physically pat me on the head, but she may as well have done so .  I don't remember exactly what she said but what I heard was, "you new mothers are so cute!".  So here we were, a medical professional with years of training on her side, and a young mother with exactly 8 months of experience being pregnant.  So who was right?

I was.  At my appointment the next month the doctor examined me and said, "I think your baby may be breach".  No kidding.  I'm sure I didn't say that out loud but that's exactly what I thought.  She said that when I came back the next week for my appointment she would examine me again and if the baby was still feet first she would have a doctor that was experienced at "turning babies" try to get her turned around.  Well, that sure didn't sound like any fun!'

My next appointment never happened, because the very next day, May 9th, I went into labor.  An ultrasound confirmed that she was feet first and since they won't deliver babies in that position I had an emergency c-section.

That experience was my first indication that I would need to trust my intuition as I raised my beautiful baby girl.  Advice from friends, family and even the medical profession is great, but there's nothing like a mother's intuition.

may 9th.

May 9th is, and always will be, a VERY SPECIAL DAY.  24 years ago my daughter, Emily, was born on this day and although it was a bit of a rough start it still goes on record as the best day of my life.  No joke.

Not only is she adorable, she is also smart, kind, funny, sweet, and so much more.

I say it was a rough start for a couple of reasons.  First, I wasn't due until May 29th so I wasn't at all prepared to have a baby on May 9th.  Second, because she came early and because she was breach (feet first) she had fluid in her lungs and spent the first few days at the Children's Hospital.  Luckily she recovered quickly and it's been "all good" since those first few days.

These four photos are some of my favorites, and really tell the story of Emily.

Playing in the sandbox.  She has always loved the outdoors and has never been worried about getting dirty.

Riding the rocking horse.  She has always loved animals; in fact her first word was PUPPY when she was not quite one year old.

Balancing on her dad's hand.  She has always been talented and pretty darn brave.

Hangin' with friends.  She has always had a great sense of humor and makes me laugh a lot.

It's hard to believe that my baby girl is 24 years old.  I'm so proud of her and thankful for the JOY she has brought to my life.

Happy Birthday Emily!

two miles a day.

When I set the goal of walking Two Miles A Day back in January I had a few people ask why I decided to walk two miles every day instead of walking four or five miles a few days a week or some other variation.

There wasn't any magic to the number TWO, but my thought was that two miles is totally doable both physically and time wise, and if I set a goal that was too hard or took too much time it would be easier to quit.  Another thing I thought about was if I set a few days a week it would be really easy to procrastinate and end up not walking for four or five days and then walking two or three days in a row just to meet the goal.  Saying I would do it every day meant that there wasn't any decision to make (should I walk today?) it was an every day requirement.

I was kind of worried that walking Two Miles a Day wouldn't be enough, but I was hopeful that the consistency of walking every day, especially compared to what I had been doing (NOTHING) would make a difference.  And it has.

Here you can see the difference it has made from January 1st to May 1st.  On the first of each month I have taken a picture of myself wearing the same outfit.  I sure wish I would have cleaned the mirror before I took the January photo.  I've rearranged the room a bit since January so the background looks different but I've been standing in the same place every month.

I got the idea to take a photo from Cathy Zielske, one of my favorites in the craft world.  Cathy documented a year long fitness and weight loss journey a few years ago and shared her progress each month on her blog.  Unlike Cathy, I wasn't willing to share a "before" photo until I had an "after" photo!  Actually it's more of a "later" photo because I have a ways to go.

I haven't lost much weight (about 15 pounds) but I definitely see progress, and that's very motivational to me.  I have a long way to go before I'll feel like this journey is complete - in fact it probably never will be.  Even though I haven't seen much progress on the scale I'm still committed to walking every day for the rest of the year and working on weight loss mostly by watching the size of my portions and paying attention to calories.

I'll continue to post about my progress and my goal to walk Two Miles a Day every day this year.  Feel free to share your story in the comments - I'd love to hear what others are doing to live a healthier lifestyle.

what I read: april.

I really exceeded my own expectations by reading not one but two books in April.  I planned to read one book - my book club book.  In case you're new here, I've been a member of a book club for many years - since 1998!  We've read 100+ books over the years and if you'd like to see a list of books along with our rating for each book you can click on the "books" link over on the right.

The second book I read in April came about because a co-worker had an idea to start a book club at work, and even though I wasn't sure I had time I agreed to join in order to show my support.  I love it when people have good ideas!  She posted an invitation in the lunchroom and sent an email to all mail users and about 10 employees come to the first meeting (we have a total of 60 employees).  The meeting was scheduled for 1/2 hour over lunch, so everyone brought their lunch and ate during the meeting.  The group decided to read one book every other month, and on the months we don't have an assigned book we will just talk about books in general.  I'll talk more about the second book I read later in this post.

 You can find this book on Amazon here.

 This was the book club selection for my "main" book club, or the one I've belonged to for years.  I guess there's a whole series of Jack Reacher books but you don't necessarily have to read them all in order; this is the first one that I have read and it wasn't confusing at all.  Here's what Amazon.com says about this book:

Six shots.  Five dead.  One heartland city thrown into a state of terror.   But within hours the cops have it solved:  a slam-dunk case.  Except for one thing.  The accused man says:  You got the wrong guy.  Then he says:  Get Reacher for me.

This is an action, murder-mystery type novel, which is not the type of book our book club reads often.  The action starts right away and I was hooked.  The book is a quick read and the characters are interesting.  The book was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise, which is why his picture appears on the book cover.  I'm not sure how I feel about that because in the book they make a big deal about how BIG Jack Reacher is, and Tom Cruise is at best average in height.

The one negative thing about this book is that it wasn't great for discussion.  Sometimes we can talk for hours about a book, but in this case we all agreed that we enjoyed it and we talked about the plot for a little while, but other than that there wasn't that much to talk about.  We rated the book a 4 out of 5, so clearly we enjoyed reading this book.

You can find this book on Amazon.com here.

First of all, how can you not judge this book by it's cover?  It is so adorable and I couldn't wait to get started after I picked it up from the library.

Here's what Amazon.com says about this book (paraphrased):

Harold Fry--retires sales rep, beleaguered husband, passive observer of his own life--decides one morning to talk 600 miles across England to save an old friend.  It might not work, mind you, but that's hardly the point.  But as he travels, Harold finally has time to reflect on his failings as a husband, father, and friend, and this helps him become someone we can respect.

This book was the opposite of the first book I read.  It wasn't action packed but there are so many different things to talk about - I'm excited to discuss it with my group.  We don't meet until May 23rd so I have a while to wait.

I enjoyed this book because there were so many levels on which I coud relate.  First of all, it's about walking which is something I've been doing a lot of this year.  The main character, Harold Fry, is an introvert and so am I.  It also focuses on a variety of relationships which I think everyone can relate to in one way or another.  I don't want to give anything away but I would definitely encourage you to read this book.  I don't know if this new book club will rate books, but if I had to rate it on a scale of 1-5 I would give it a 4.

So, I read two books in April and I really liked them both.  One of the goals I set for May is to read at least one book just for fun.  I'll do an update at the end of May or early June and let you know what book I chose to read.

Happy reading!

around here.

Around here . . . spring is trying really, really hard.  The lakes are slowly losing their ice, the snow has melted and I've seen a few buds on the trees.  Come on spring, you can do it!

Around here . . . I'm loving my new car!  I've driven almost 300 miles and I'm starting to get comfortable driving it.  It may seem pretty basic, but it's so nice to have an owner's manual.  I didn't have one with my last car, so for nine years I couldn't figure out how to do things like program radio stations.  The only thing I'm still worried about is the color of the car.  After much hemming and hawing I bought a black car which I think will be very hard to keep clean.  It's rained a few times since I bought it and it definitely shows dirt more than my silver car, but when it's clean it looks really nice.  I guess I'll just need to spend more time at the car wash. 

Around here . . . I received the coolest literature at work from SHRM (Society for Human Resources Management).  It's a brochure about an upcoming conference that I will not be attending, but it was so cool that I spent time looking at it anyways.  Well done SHRM marketing group.

I spent some time in Minneapolis over the weekend with my daughter.  I went for a specific event that I talk about later in the week, but we also did some shopping around town and we saw some great sites.

Around here . . . I saw this guy on a ledge mounted to the side of a building.  The building was a salvage shop full of interesting things like really cool light fixtures, old doors and entire bars.  It was so much fun to look around in every corner of the shop.

Around here . . . I loved seeing this old fashioned water tower perched atop a building.  We used to have a similar water tower in our small town and I really miss seeing it.

Around here . . . we finally visited this shop, which has our favorite booth at the MN State Fair.  I loved how they put their name on the side of their building and the window treatments were very cool too.  We were kind of disappointed with the selecton of items in the shop.  At the fair we loved everything in their booth and we expected to see more of the same in their store, but that wasn't the case.  My daughter and I both found a t-shirt we liked but they didn't have either one in our sizes, and many of the things in the store just didn't catch our eyes.  It was still fun to go there and I'd stop in again; I think it's the kind of shop that always has new items so it would be worth another visit.

I'm heading full speed into this week.  I hope your week is off to a great start.

the one about.

One of my most loyal blog readers is my Aunt Mary Ann.  Although she doesn't often comment here, she does send me emails with comments about some of my posts.  It's nice to know that way off in another state my Aunt is picking up her iPad and reading my blog.  Auntie, this one is for you!

My mom has two sisters (referred to as THE SISTERS by their kids) and for most of my life THE SISTERS have lived in three separate states.  They all grew up here in Minnesota and the two that live out of state made the trip back here quite often when I was a kid.

Having my aunts, uncles and cousins come to visit was always fun!  My brothers and I are some of the younger cousins, and having your cool older cousins hang out with you was something that we looked forward to.

One summer my Aunt Mary Ann and her family came to visit.  She has twin daughters that were of driving age, and one night all of us cousins hatched a plan to go to a movie.  The nearest theatre was just eleven miles away so we were pretty sure that our parents would approve.  Wrong.

We made our pitch about how fun it would be for all of us cousins to go to the movie and how nice it would be for the adults to have some "quiet" time.  My dad immediately vetoed our plan, saying that it wasn't necessary and that my brothers and I were too young.  He was sure that the older cousins would rather go without us and encouraged them to do so.

They immediately said NO!  They explained that they didn't want to go if we couldn't go, and that's when my Aunt Mary Ann said:

Don't cut off your nose to spite someone else's face.

Say what?  I was pretty ticked off that my dad had said we couldn't go, and I had no idea what my Aunt was trying to say.  Was she on our side or his?  I couldn't tell.  It didn't seem like she was arguing with my dad, so I got the feeling she was agreeing with him.

It wasn't until YEARS later that I remembered this conversation and asked Aunt Mary Ann to explain.  She said that she meant that if the older cousins wanted to go to a movie they shouldn't stay home just because my brothers and I couldn't go with.  Then I got mad all over again!

The older cousins didn't go to the movie; instead we all stayed home and my brother and one of the twins were goofing around and he accidently broke her thumb.  They ended up taking her to the emergency room in the town where the movie theatre was located.  I smiled to myself.

Love you Auntie!

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the one about is a weekly series where I share stories about things that I've done or things that have happened to me.  You can read all of the entries by going to the Archives page and selecting "the one about".