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.