Chewy Gumdrops of Bliss

This week (and last) have been really stressful at work. I am embarrassed to admit that I have a tendency to reach for food — namely sugary food — when the stress hits a certain level. That would be why last week, Kim, the creative person working closest with me on all my client's User Conference projects, walked into my office to find a large economy size box of DOTS at my desk and me happily but mindlessly chowing down on them. Judge me if you will but I would put money on the fact that every one you reading this blog has some type of vice to deal with stress and my guess is the large percentage of you reach for food just like me. Don't worry, I won't take a poll, your secret is safe with me. :-)

So you can imagine my delight and surprise when I arrived at work this morning to find another big box of DOTS sitting proudly atop my computer just waiting for me. I finally got Kim to admit she was the secret giver. What a great co-worker - to think of me when she is equally as stressed. I am saving her a little pile of red ones — her favorite.

Random Thoughts

Oh my goodness I am delinquent in blogging. But I have a good excuse . . . lots of good excuses. :-) A large portion of my time has been occupied since the 18th with work. You see my largest client has their annual Customer User Conference starting next Monday (August 4th) and my work days have been nothing short of crazy helping them to get ready. This year's conference will be held at the Naples Grande Beach Resort in sunny Naples, Florida. I will travel to Naples on Sunday and will return home next Thursday. While there I will be writing and laying out their "Daily Show Update" that is printed in the evening and distributed to all attendees during the night. The resort is nothing short of gorgeous but I am a bit wary of the Florida coast in August - heart of hurricane season. So far I have seen no alerts.

Many "interesting" things have been happening at the Lambert house. Here is a handful of the "random thoughts" I have.

Freezers: These are a wonderful invention but it is important to make sure yours is always working if full of food. If by chance it ever does stop working beware of the strange fish odor it will take on EVEN if you didn't have any fish in it when it stopped working. If you Google "fish odor in freezer" you will find an endless list of ideas to eliminate the stench. In my "free time" I am working my way through this list in the hopes that some day I will once again be able to use my freezer.

Cats and Hairballs: It is inevitable that your cat will have a hairball at some point in its life. It is even more likely that said event will occur in the middle of the night waking you from a deep slumber. You will think to yourself, "oh it will just be a tiny mess to clean up in the morning." Don't kid yourself. You may wake (as I did) to find that your lovely little feline ball of fur projectile hair balled all over your white bedroom carpet. Which leads me to . . .

Little Green Machine by Bissel: Works wonders on cleaning spots on white carpet and what the heck while it's out why not clean up that pesky three-year old spot on the dining room carpet caused when my salmon took a nose dive off my dinner plate (why do I remember these things?) as well as the spots on the stairs. Oh don't stop there, fill up the tank a second time and catch the spots on the family room carpet in the basement.

Apples Don't Fall Far From Trees: I loved school. I remember as summer started to wind down that I would start to plan what I would wear the first day, second day, third day. Oh my goodness I even wrote a weekly list of my outfits and checked them off as each day went by. I am seeing another example of how Anna is a mini me. Last night we were going through her clothes and she picked out all her clothes for the first week of school. She would put on each outfit and run out the living room for her daddy's approval. Of course he always told her what she wanted to hear and each time she ran back to her room beaming. Then she would tell me just how she wanted her hair each day, etc. It is almost eerie — how can she be so much like me? This little event leads me to my final thought . . .

Kids grow up way too fast: We've been waiting for the day Anna headed off to school eager with anticipation for how much "easier" our lives would be. Well now we are just a little over a month out and I find myself feeling a bit bittersweet about this big milestone. I had tears in my eyes last night while I watched her. This past weekend Ryan had his good friend over and watching them play reminds me of how old he is getting too. Gone are the days of overseeing his play dates. I get in trouble now if I make too many appearances.

One final note — CONGRATULATIONS to my dear friend Katie and her husband Nathan as well as Big Sister Sarah and Big Brother Ben. On July 18th they welcomed twins Ryan and Kevin to their family. They are adorable little boys and everyone is doing great. What I can't figure out is how the heck they tell the boys apart because they look identical in the photos Katie has sent.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

I suppose the title I chose for this post isn't exactly descriptive of what I am about to write about but rather is symbolic of the strange events occurring at our house this week. Full moon, gremlins or coincidence I am not sure but I do know my co-worker and friend Carol says something odd is going on with me this week. I have to agree.

Monday night I was on the Apple web site in anticipation of purchasing the MAC laptop that Bill gave me for my birthday/wedding anniversary last week. He didn't know what to order so had told me to pick it out and order it. I can't say that I typically do a lot of late night shopping on the Internet nor do I think I have ever made such a large purchase on the Internet which is why I imagine it created a "Red Flag" to my credit card company who promptly (but unknown to me) put a "suspected fraud" hold on my card. I placed the order and anxiously awaited a confirmation email that never came. I gave up and went to bed. The next morning I checked my order and discovered there was a "problem with payment." At the same time a message was left on our home phone from Visa alerting us to suspected fraudulent use of our card. Fortunately I was able to clear up the confusion and get my purchase with Apple through. And in all honesty I really wasn't upset with the credit card company because it was a minor inconvenience meant to protect me and my credit rating.

Tuesday as I was leaving for work I opened up our large chest freezer in the garage to grab a frozen meal for lunch. As I opened the lid I heard the strangest noise of running water. Puzzled I peered into the freezer only to discover that somewhere between Sunday night and Tuesday morning our freezer had become more of an oven. This was not good. The freezer was PLUM full of food - frozen pizzas, meat, french fries, vegetables, egg rolls, pizza rolls and because it is summer lots of frozen treats for the kids. EVERYTHING was thawed. What a mess. I rolled in our large garbage can and started the task of removing everything only to get to the bottom and discover a rainbow of colored sticky water. Yep you guessed it — those frozen treats for the kids (push pops namely) had thawed AND leaked to the bottom of my freezer. There I am — it is hot and humid and I am wearing a dress hanging over into the freezer trying to clean the mess. Glad no one happened by with a camera because what a sight I am sure I was!

On Tuesday afternoon Bill and the kids swam. Afterwards Bill cleaned the pool thoroughly and then put the chemicals in to shock it (treats the water and you should not swim in the water while it is being shocked because it will cause great irritation to ones skin and eyes) and put on the solar cover. Now this is our 4th summer with the pool and not once in all this time have we had the solar cover blow off or even blow so that it folds over itself. It sort of sucks itself to the water and just stays put until we pull it off. Bill headed to bed around 12:30 that night and looked out the patio door at the pool as he does every night and all was good. Per insurance requirements our pool is completely fenced and has locked self closing gates. When Bill let the dog out on Wednesday morning he noticed that our solar cover was neatly rolled up and pushed to one end of our pool. The pool was also noticeably dirty. It appears there was a pool party at our house sometime during the night Tuesday night but unfortunately while it appears we hosted the party, we were not invited to attend. Then Bill tells me that last week one morning he found a similar thing only the cover was folded over rather than rolled. This bugs me on several levels - the nerve of a stranger swimming and doing lord knows what in our pool; someone trespassed on our property by coming up our deck stairs and hopping over a fence to get to the pool; liability issues in that if this person(s) were injured or worse we could get sued despite us doing everything in our power to protect ourselves from this. The assumption is that this was some kids playing a prank or something but the fact that it appears to have happened twice is disturbing. Last night we left the deck light on and the back door light and we had no uninvited guests.

Don't they say things happen in threes? Well with three under our belt hopefully the quiet uneventful days and nights will now continue.

16 Years and Counting

July 11, 1992

July 11, 2008

Yesterday Bill and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary - 7.11.1992. Wow! Hmm let's see after 7 different homes together, 8 autos (if I counted correctly), 6 cats and dogs + assorted fish, 2 kids, 15 employers between us (that really sounds bad but there were many times we both held down 2 jobs at once at places like Baker's Square before Bill got hired on the Eau Claire Fire Department in 1996) and definitely our share of ups, downs and challenges, we are still going strong looking forward to the next 16 years.

We both occupy a bit more space than we did on that hot July day when we said our "I Do's"— read we both weigh a little more! :-) And there are grey hairs and a few lines on our face (only smile lines—ha ha ha!) but at heart Bill and I are still young. We have a broad range of music we both enjoy, we like to exercise and we love to laugh at one another, at ourselves and with the kids. So yes, after 16 years life is pretty darn good.

I am blessed to have a partner who accepts me for who I am—the good and the bad—and who believes in me more than I believe in myself most of the time. Bill is my biggest cheerleader and I think often gives me more credit than I am due. He also isn't afraid of a vacuum cleaner, cooking a meal or cleaning a bathroom. Yep I would say I have a pretty darn good package.

39 Years + 366 Days = ???

Yesterday was a milestone for moi. It was a BIG birthday.

四十
Veertig
Quarante
Vierzig
Quaranta
Quarenta
Cuarenta

It really doesn't matter the language you use. The number is still the same. Yep, the big 4-0. I think today, one day officially into my 40's, I am still in a bit of denial. You see when my mom turned 40 I was 19 and in college. I was the baby of the family and practically all grown up. Anna, my baby, while not a baby anymore, just turned 5.

I stood and looked in the mirror yesterday morning and thought to myself, "Nope this just can't be - I can't really be 40 can I?" But alas the calendar does not lie and the alternative (never getting to turn 40) is far worse to ponder.

At my work they had a birthday lunch and we joked about how I was now a "mature woman." It made for good humor because I try to be young at heart and am about as far away from prim and proper as you can get. So basically I am trying to convince myself that age is only a number on my driver's license. In talking to one friend he told me "isn't 40 the new 20?" Now to go back to 20 knowing what I know now . . . no let's not go there! :-) The best day-brightener? A client sent me an email wishing me happy birthday and when I mentioned it was a "milestone" birthday she wrote back and said, "oh the big 3-0 huh?"

Bill and the kids ended my day on a very nice note. Cards, flowers and dinner. The best part? Tucked in the back of my card from Bill, a picture of the MAC laptop I want with a little note that read "Happy Birthday! Go ahead and order it!" I am ecstatic!! Seems in the end turning 40 wasn't so bad after all.

Great Holiday Weekend!

We enjoyed a positively perfect weekend over the 4th of July holiday. We truly were the "4 Lamberts" and I completely enjoyed every minute surrounded by Bill, Ryan and Anna. With Bill's work schedule as a Fire Fighter/Paramedic on 24-hour shifts, full weekends as family only come about once every 4-5 weeks so having a long weekend with Bill home was a true treat.

We started out Thursday night by having dinner at a neat bar/restaurant called "The Lookout" here in Maple Grove. It sits high atop a hill and looks out towards the East of the city. Great menu of burgers, steaks, ribs etc. and all reasonably priced. We opted for outside seating as they have a play area for the kids that allowed us to still have dinner as a family but also lots of time for Bill and I to talk and catch up - BONUS! :-)

On Friday Anna and I did a bit of shopping (she is so much like her mom - always up for a little "retail therapy") and then bought grilling food - burgers and dogs - for dinner. While the kids and Bill swam (for the first time this year!) in our pool I attempted to inflate all of our swim devices - all the while enduring smart remarks from Bill. I am sad to report that it appears my lung capacity has decreased from last year because I sure had better luck blowing those darn things up last summer. Think that is possible - to lose lung capacity? After a yummy dinner Bill and Ryan headed to the basement for some WII competition and Anna and I headed to my bedroom for a nap. Boy was that nice - I NEVER get naps. After our fun and relaxation we packed up the cooler with snacks and headed to Edina to watch the fireworks. We were well-doused in bug repellent but the mosquitoes were relentless. None the less we had a fabulous time and the fireworks display did not disappoint. Ryan and Anna literally beamed through the 30-minute display and giggled through the finale'. A perfect ending to a perfect day.

Saturday was spent running a few errands in relation to home improvement projects. The kids were clamoring to swim with temps soaring to near 90. Bill and I had other plans - a surprise outing to the Twins vs Cleveland baseball game at our beloved Metrodome. We concocted a story about that we had to go down to the Metrodome to catch a tour bus to go and view the 35W bridge progress. The kids weren't thrilled. Upon arrival at the Dome we told them the bus trip got canceled and then we whipped out the Twins tickets. Ear to ear grins replaced the grumbling. This was Anna's first official game. We had pretty decent seats in the second level just to the left of home plate so had a fine view. Unfortunately Anna's attention span for baseball was short lived and she was already asking to go home in the third inning. We held out until the 7th inning stretch with the Twins in the lead. We tuned in the game on the radio for the ride home and celebrated their win in our car.

Sunday was to be a lazy day but my Target trip took longer than planned. Still we were able to swim as a family late in the afternoon and that was a great ending to the weekend.

I am having fun with iPhoto these days so put together another little video for you on the fun of the weekend. Hope you enjoy!