I have taken a bunch of pictures this weekend that I want to post and lost of news I could comment on but I am not feeling that well. Actually my family hasn't felt that good since Christmas - we have a cold that we can not shake. I baby-sat for the girls last night and proceeded to get sicker - i didn't even give them lots of hugs and kisses!
Saturday was game night.... we started off with a rousing game of Strawberry Shortcake Land with hailey... ok here is one picture. Game night pictures here:
What do you do to ensure you get a good night's sleep?
Submitted by Jacob's Ladder.
I go to bed 8 hours before I have to wake up, I have a comfortable bed and a comfortable bedroom and I have cozy jammies.
I have been working all
My friend Sarah hates when I take her picture - i have no idea why - but yesterday she let me take a couple - this is just one - they all came out gorgeous
I had a client meeting yesterday and it snowed here - so I was running
late. When I opened the door to their building I was 8 minutes late, by the
time I got to the meeting I was 25 minutes late - here is how that happened.
I ran into that ladies room quickly before I went into their office suite.
I set my enormous work bag, filled with all my presentation materials in it
on the counter next to the sink and entered a stall. No sooner do I begin
my business when I hear my bag fall over and into one of the sinks - this is
immediately followed by the sound or rushing water. This was one of those
fancier bathrooms where the faucets have a motion sensor on them. Since I
had just started my business I couldn't just run out - but I tried to hurry
up - as I hear the water running and running. As quick as I could I ran out
of the stall to see my bag sitting in the sink filling with water, and I am
not talking just a little bit wet on the outside. If you had opened up the
bag and looked down there was enough water to keep goldfish alive!
Unbelievable! By now I am 11 minutes late for this meeting. I look around
for the paper towel - none to be found! I start to curse as I wonder if
this is one of those bathrooms that have air dryers instead of paper
towels. I walk around the corner, by now laughing cause what else could you
do, and find the paper towels. I empty out the dispenser and begin the job
of cleaning up - of course first I had to empty my bag and dump the water
out into the sink, and then begin drying it out. In addition I had to dry
off everything that was in there (iPod, cell, planner, etc). Of course my
presentation materials were ruined but there was just about nothing I could
do. I thanked God that I had forgotten my laptop and kept cleaning. When I
was all done I was 20 minutes late for the meeting. I walked into the
clients office, apologized for my tardiness due to weather and let her know
that I did not have printed materials because "I thought it would be easier
if we looked on the extra net".
Seriously.
Turns out there is only one.
But there are 22,498 people in the U.S. with the first name Audra.
On November 7, 2000 Hilary Rodham Clinton was elected into office for the US
Senate. I was living in Danbury, CT and contemplating a move to NYC to
become a national manager for the company I worked for. I told my boss it
was the right move because in four years when Hilary Clinton runs for the
Presidency I want to work out of NYC on her campaign. Turns out I was four
years too early - and I am a long way from NYC. I never did move there,
much to the consternation of my best friend, and I have since ended up in
Maine. In 2004 I was living in Haverhill, MA and she didn't run, I am
assuming she knew it was too early and there was a mess going on with red
states and blue states and the Bush's in genera. She let Kerry fall flat on
his face and waited it out. Now its 2007 and we are gearing up, a bit early
if you ask me, for the 2008 race and she is jumping out of the gate. In
2000 I would have never thought that there was someone I would be more
interested in getting behind but then again in 2000 I didn't know about
Obama Barak and I wasn't quite as educated about the environmental concerns
that are going on today. So I can't say I am going to blindly get behind
her and work her campaign. Between now and the primaries I am going to have
to run with Obama and help push his environmental agenda - I just think he
is our best chance at getting the United States to make some big changes.
Should he lose I am hopeful that she will see the power of Obama's ways and
absorb all of his constituents including me.
Enough about her - onto Obama.
I love him, I think he is like a JFK and its not just because he is around
the same age. I love him for two reasons - his hugely environmental agenda
and his ability to inspire and motivate people.
I have concerns in two areas.
My first concern is that he can't take his agenda off of the motivational
soap box and turn it into a list of action items that the people can take
hold of, act on and watch as they come to completion so that Obama can have
some solid credible wins. If there is one thing I am about in all aspects
of my life it is people who do what they say and who can take care of things
that they are responsible for.
My second concern is that he can't motivate the people of the democratic
party beyond the speeches he gives - can he motivate them off the couch on
election day and get them to the voting booth. I have long held that the
dems have a problem on the election day itself. There isn't a unifying
passion in that party strong enough to turn them out NO MATTER WHAT> He is
going to have to get them couch on election day - but after that you can't
just inspire people to vote - you are going to have to articulate its
importance in a way that they can stay committed.
As a closing note on this post I will quote a blog I read today - I can't
remember which - either Slate or Salon - and here is what they said.
"Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Obama's decision to seek to become the
44th president is that virtually all of the initial reservations about his
candidacy are premised on this question of experience. Who ever imagined,
during the long terrible history of American race relations, that when the
first black candidate made a serious bid for the presidency, the color of
his skin would be regarded as close to an irrelevancy."
I think that is amazing indeed considering when I grew up I had an uncle who
used the "n" word at family functions and for the most part no one said
anything about it. At the time I knew it was wrong and now as an adult I am
ashamed of him and the fact that we let it go by. It wasn't that long ago
and I think its a testament to how far we have come in some areas that there
is not talk about his color and only talk about his seniority.
I feel like my friend is on some kind of weird spinster watch list. Sometimes I will come back from meetings and a link will be in my gTalk to an article about the state of marriage in America. Today it was this link
The following IM conversation ensued:
Me:Where do you find this stuff!
Her: sorry is it alarmist? i thought it had good information,
Me: are you on some kind of spinster watch list?
Her: i like the first line about cat futures, that sucked me in
BUT it turned out that this article wasn't pro-spinster at all! As a matter of fact it boded quite well for our state today. You can read the whole thing if you want but here is what it has to say about my demographic
- Statistics show that college educated women are more likely to marry than non-college educated women
- Women with more education also are becoming less likely to divorce, or inclined to divorce, than those with less education. They are even less likely to bewidowed all in all, less likely to end up alone. "Educated women used to have a difficult time," said David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. "Now they're the most desired."
- "The way we used to look at marriage was that if women were highly educated, they had higher earning power, they were more culturally liberal and people might havepredicted less marriage among them," Mr. Martin said. "What's becoming more powerful is the idea that economic resources are conducive to stable marriages. Women who have more money or the potential for more money are married to men who have more stable income."
What is the greatest compliment you've received?
Submitted by Maraschino.
Lisa once said to me: "In my next life I hope I come back as brave as you are"
