for the love of golf

Lesson #1 with Ali at Hyland Golf course is complete! I had a wonderful time. Ali is hilarious and kept the lesson light and fun. He provided plenty of praise and kept me laughing through the entire lesson. I can't wait to go back next week, but first I need to get my 10 min of practice each day!

A loose conversation

A conversation with Ken this morning:

"Did you go clothes shopping again?"

"Not recently. It is just that you don't see me everyday."

"Oh, that's true."

"I did just buy this a few weeks ago."

"I thought so because I judge newness of your clothes by how baggy or fitting they are on you."

"Ahhh.. that is a good way to determine that."

"Well, the shirt looks nice, too."

"Good catch. I was wondering where you were going with this conversation!"

"Well, I had so much sexual harassment training in the 80's that I am afraid to give compliments!"

A Rainy Sunday Afternoon

What I "should" be doing:

• cleaning/sorting my craft space
• mopping the floors
• doing some work that I am behind on

What I AM doing:

• blogging
• e-mailing
• waiting for coffee to finish brewing
• lounging on my bed (my eyes have shut a few time)
• playing board games with a bored Alexander

I love rainy Sunday afternoons and the laziness that they induce! Why is it that you feel less guilty on rainy days? I also not feeling guilty because I know that from 2-3 I will be under a golf umbrella watching Alexander's soccer practice and game. I really prefer being INSIDE on days like this rather than sitting on a camp chair under an umbrella, so there is no guilty feelings here - I am savoring each moment before I need to leave!

My New Love

I bought these a couple of nights ago:

and I took them to the driving range for the first time today. I am absolutely in love!! I attempted golfing in college, but never got the ball off of the ground. Today was the first time since college that I attempted golfing and I can't say it enough - I'm in love! I can't wait to get back out there and I can't wait to go on an actual course!!

The House Painting Has Begun!

I came home tonight to the pleasant surprise of a house without shutters and with splatters of white paint everywhere. You might think that sounds horrid, but I am so pleased. It took 3+ years to reach this point, but we are FINALLY getting the house painted. We are keeping the color close to the current color which I thought was a light yellow, but I was wrong. It is actually in the cream colored family, but it must have just enough yellow in it to make it look warm. I love the combination of the light yellow and the colonial blue shutters and porch.

Here are some pictures that I snapped when I got home tonight.

The freshly primed porch (this area needed a LOT of work - I need to get the gutters fixed above this area. Does anyone have anyone they would recommend for gutter repairs?):

The freshly primed house minus shutters - what a different look without the shutters on it! Yes, I included the sign in the photo since I am forwarding these pictures to the College Pro team)


The College Pro Team - we are a "trainer" house, so this is their first group project:Donald scrapping paint off of the garage window:
A random angle of the side of the garage being painted:

Memorial Day Festivities

What an excellent Memorial Day!
We began with the Memorial Day parade

Played in the sprinkler
Ethan didn't last long because he got too chilly:


And finished the day at Paula's annual party. The kids loved playing in the pool even though the water was only 71 degrees!!

You know your getting older when...

you have difficulty sleeping past 6 am!

What happened to the old days when I could sleep until 10:30? These days, a REALLY late sleep-in is qualified by me staying in bed until 8:30 (note, I said "staying in bed", not "sleeping in"!)

Have a great Memorial Day weekend? E & A and I plan on going to see Shrek today. On Monday, we will go to the parade in the morning and then head over to Paula's for a picnic in the afternoon. The boys have also requested some swim time at the club and some biking this weekend.

Walks in the Springtime

I have gone for walks the last two nights. It has been simply beautiful outside while on these walks. Last night, it was a walk by myself. I took both my iPod and my cell phone along on the trip in order to combine a couple of my favorite activities. However, it was so peaceful out that I didn't feel like calling anyone or listening to any music. So, I listened to the sound of my feet on the gravel in the road and to the birds. Surprisingly, there weren't many people out. I also noticed that everything seemed quieter than usual. I wonder if there is a sound change along with a season change. The new grass and leaves on the trees probably all act as sound absorbs; thus, winter's echoiness is replaced by the subdued sounds of spring. As I write that, I find it odd that I refer to the sounds of spring as subdued because that is a completely inaccurate term when you consider that the birds are chirping loudly, but I still need to stick with the word "subdued".

Tonight was another fun walk. I had a box of Memory Works items for Minda, so after dinner I met up with her at Scrapbooks Too. We chatted with Lisa for a little bit and then headed towards Minda's place. We had a nice walk and chat up France Ave and as we arrived, Scott and Andrew returned from seeing Shrek 3. Andrew liked the movie and recommended it. Since he is 7, he is my most age appropriate critic of the movie! I plan on taking Ethan and Alexander to the movie this weekend if the weather is icky. I then said my good-byes and headed for home.

Minda, since I know that you are reading this...if you head up Beard, there is a sidewalk connecting to the other side of Beard and you can access the streets heading toward my house! It is a walkway between two houses and although we have several of these pedestrian by-ways like this, I feel as though I am violating peoples personal space when I walk through them. You can see everything in their backyards and often in their houses. I do my best to not look so as not to invade privacy. Okay, okay, I DID look in one backyard because I really admired the pool and wished that I had one of my own.

I should do some work for work now, but I am feeling too lazy. I think it is time for pj's and some relaxation! Happy weekend!

Happy Mother's Day and the Angry Hike

Mother's Day...Ahhhh...The day that Mom gets to choose the activities and be spoiled. Is that what happens at your house? Not at mine! Yes, I got to choose the activities, but each of them seemed to lead to grumpiness in my boys. I think that it is payback for all of the times that I was grumpy with my Mom! I do believe that I remember Mom saying, "You just wait - I hope that you have kids that behave the way you do!" Well, Mom, your wish came true (at least this afternoon!). I make it sound horrible, but it was actually quite a nice day.

I started out the day singing at church and wearing a new dress. Yes, you read that correctly - a dress. The last time I was in a dress might have been 2 years ago for Karis and Nick's wedding. The fun connection with that is that I bought the dress yesterday while shopping with Nancy and Karis!

Here is a picture of me in my new dress. The photo is also a double for my 5-month post surgery picture!

It was then time for me to pick where to go or what to have for lunch. I decided upon PF Chang's since we haven't been there for a couple of years. It was absolutely delicious! I thoroughly enjoyed the Kung Pao Chicken and the Mongolian Beef. We tried spare ribs and a type of quesidilla for the boys. Ethan was too frustrated by the chopsticks (he refused to use the "trainer" chopsticks since he felt that he should master the real ones) to really eat. Boy guy, he didn't really like anything. We really expected E to like the food because he loves Sawatdee. We did NOT expect Alexander to eat as much as he did! He devoured 3 crab wontons, a quesidilla, and liked the Mongolian beef. No one liked the spare ribs. I didn't have enough room to try them out, so maybe when we eat the leftovers tomorrow.

We then headed to Moir Park and the trail along 9 mile creek.

It was so nice to see the beautiful spring flowers of trilium, columbine, violets, wild strawberries, and much more. Here are some of my pictures of the flowers:




We had a grand time tossing sticks into the creek and watching them as far as we could or until they were blocked by other debris or rocks. We tossed from the walkway and watched them travel down the creek or we tossed from the different bridges along the trail:






The enthusiasm for watching the sticks and walking quickly dissipated when we reached approximately 2+miles into the hike. It was at that point the we started to hike out of the ravine and back up into the streets of Bloomington. The full revolt started half way up the hill when A cried out that this was an endless trail and that his legs were about to collapse. At that point, both of them cried mutiny and sat down in the wood chips:

I, too, was tired and thirsty (we didn't carry sufficient water with us), so I decided to head back to the car to "rescue" my poor boys. The walk back through the city streets were shorter than heading back through the walkway in the park. The 2 miles back to the car was long and hot. When I got to the car, I realized all of our crankiness - it was 91 degrees!!! No wonder everyone got tired and grumpy.

After we arrived home, I hopped into the shower and all of the grumpiness and resentful feelings towards the boys' grumpiness was washed away. It was a great day full of hiking, flowers, and time with my boys. All things that I love!

The Joy of White Noise

Are you dependent on white noise? I most definitely am. It became vividly apparent that both Ethan and I NEED white noise in order to sleep. Sunday morning we lost power in the house due to an old evergreen falling on the power lines two doors down from us. There was quite a bit of excitement because there was actually a fire and everything. I'm not sure how we missed that, but we did.

We spent the day wondering when the power would be back on, being thankful that it wasn't either 25 degrees below or 105 degrees, and planning where to eat dinner. The tree cutters finally arrived late in the day, but we were still hopeful that the energy crew would be right behind them. We were still hopeful that they would arrive as we watched the sun set.

Then, it was time for bed. It was time for bed without my fan and my humidifier! Ugh. How was I going to sleep?? I knew that it would be difficult because Ethan, who is also highly dependent upon white noise, was still not asleep and was popping up out of bed every hour. As I laid down, I had to scream out, "This silence is deafeningly loud!" I could hear every little creak in the house, every noise outside, the guinea pigs getting a drink of water. Each time I started to sleep, a new noise would arise. The most consistent one was Ethan. At midnight I finally asked him to try to stay in bed the next time he woke up. I tried to explain that he just wasn't used to the quiet, so the next time he woke up, he should try to relax himself and see if he could fall back to sleep. I'm not sure how or why that worked, but it did. He finally stayed in bed. Then, the excitement of the beeping things started. The boys had gotten new stop watches that day and had played around with the settings. We heard one of them go off in their room, so we stumbled to their bedroom with flashlights and grabbed both of them. I was certain that I had figured out how it worked and I was certain that I had turned it off. So, we left them on our nightstands and started to doze off. "BEEP! BEEP!" crap...I did not have it figured out. Kyle suggested that I throw it in his van in the garage and not worry about it. Great idea - so I grab the flashlight again and head to the garage to toss the one (notice, I did NOT take both of them!) to the van. Whew....I head back to bed ready for some sleep. Start to doze off and "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
What the ?#$????? It was the second timer! This time it was Kyle's turn to take it to the van.

I believe that was the end of the odd noises, but by that time all sleep schedules had been disrupted. Most of these noises/activities would have been missed if I had had my white noise. Since I shouldn't be using a humidifier this time of year and since the fan is not loud enough, I promptly placed an order for a white noise machine. It is one that I have wanted since I was in grad school. I cannot wait for it to arrive. Now, if only it ran on battery power...I had best start searching for one of those!

A Very Full Saturday!

Whew! I am exhausted. It is 9pm and I am ready for the day to be finished. The exhaustion stems from three points: staying up too late, getting up too early, and having a very busy day today.

The staying up too late happened when I went over to a friend's house last night and watched the movie Bobby. It wasn't a movie that I had ever planned on watching, but was pleasantly surprised by it. I enjoyed the different story lines of the different lives that were impacted by Bobby Kennedy's campaign and stop at the Ambassador Hotel.

The next point of getting up too early happened because I can no longer sleep in in the morning! Why? I don't know. I suspect it is because we don't have any light filtering elements in our bedroom. We have sheers with light yellow curtains over the top. So, when the sun comes up, I am up within the hour.

It was then time for the usual Saturday morning routine of the vain attempt to get some cleaning done. Of course, the drive to get some cleaning done was further induced by the fact that my in laws were arriving today in order to see Ethan's Angelica Cantanti concert tomorrow. So, it was a morning of cleaning the guinea pigs' cage, sweeping and mopping floors, vacuuming, doing laundry, and changing beds. Whew! When you sit at a desk all week, doing housework can be exhausting. It was then that it was time to head out to Sociale Gourmet to be there by 11 to prep 12 meals for the next month. I have been an avid bi-monthly participant in the meal preparation. It makes life manageable and reduces our trips for eating out, so it is well worth the 1.25 hours for me to prep 12 meals!

I got home, ate some lunch, helped Ethan wrap a birthday present, and then headed to Vertical Endeavors in St. Paul for Jakob's birthday party. This place is amazing (check out the link) - it is a building full of climbing walls. What I really liked was that there were areas that the boys could climb without having to have a spotter. The ropes were rigged up to some sort of spring system, so they were safe, but independent which means that they all climbed and climbed for 2 hours. After staying and chatting with the adults for a little while, I headed out in search of coffee. No one knew where to get coffee in the area, so I took a wild guess and started to look around. Now, you need to understand that I know NOTHING about St. Paul and I have a horrid sense of direction. So, I ventured only as far as I dared and I was unsuccessful at finding coffee. I then turned and headed back to Vertical Endeavors when it started to pour. Rather than brave the elements, I stayed in the car and chatted on the phone. It was really comforting and peaceful to watch the rain on my windshield and to hear the rain on the metal and glass of the car. It always brings to mind one of my favorite memories from my childhood - sitting in my bedroom on my pink canopy bed in our house on 5th street during a summer storm. My room faced the street and I would watch the rain splash on the blacktop and the sidewalks while it softly landed on the grass. Then, my room would fill with the smells of ozone, mud, and musty wood from the windowsill. It would always fill me with peace and happiness. Those same sensations fill me today when I sit in a rainstorm.

Well, I am getting sleepy and I am now reminiscing about my room on 5th St., so I will just say the rest of the day included a bike ride to DQ, a visit to Ethan's piano teacher, a fun game of "I Spy" using an I Spy book with Alexander, and now some computer time. I am going to need to go to bed soon!

Tomorrow is busy, too, but not nearly as full. Ethan's Angelica Cantanti concert is tomorrow afternoon and that is the focus of the day!

Have a lovely evening!

Tara is coming to MN

I am spending some time catching up on my favorite blogs and found that Tara Whitney is coming to MN to do some photography! I thought I would pass this info along to my scrapbooking friends who read my blog. If you don't know Tara by name, then please check out her new photography website. She does AMAZING portraits.

I would love to have portraits done by Tara, but I am feeling too shy to do it! Tara is one of my favorite photographers. Why am I letting this opportunity pass me by???

Signs that Summer is Around the Corner

1. Alexander's buzz cut:

2. shorts
3. bike rides every day
4. needing to eat out because we spend too much time playing and losing track of time
5. the smell of the flowering trees. My favorite moment of this was in the Target parking lot. It was extremely busy and it was a parking lot full of angry drivers. I quickly moved across the crosswalk towards the store and halfway across, I was stunned and needed to look around. My olfactory senses went into overload. I finally figured it out that the lovely scent was from the trees at the edge of the parking lot.
6. first lawn mowing of the season
7. tulips ready to burst
8. applying sunscreen before the bike rides
9. a sweaty, sticky Littlest
10. flip flops
11. fans running throughout the day
12. the boys wanting to run through the sprinkler

Reconnecting

This past week, I have been thinking about my high school friend Shawn, so I finally took the opportunity to call him yesterday. He was on a plane to Denver, so he didn't get my phone call and then it took him 18 hours to remember that I had called, but he finally returned my call last night. I love reconnecting with old friends - you always seem to pick up where you left off. Of course, our topics of conversation have shifted from "so and so likes you" to what our cholesterol levels are. It is sad when you think about it, but part of life. All in all, there was a ton of laughter, general silliness, and some good conversation. We need to talk more often because it was an ADD-Marcy driven conversation with topics and tangents flying all over the place. There were so many things to catchup on that I needed to try to cover all of them before it was time to hang up! :)

Since I know that Shawn is reading this - don't forget to grant me access to your web page that you told me about. Also, what is the best e-mail to use for you (the blogger comments don't come through with an e-mail address)?

Memory Works New Products!

The new Memory Works catalog has arrived! Check it out on my Scraps of Time website. If you would like to see the products before the 17th at 5pm, you will need to download the catalog from the main Memory Works website. Remember to return to the Scraps of Time website to order after 5pm on tomorrow.

Some of my favorite pages of the catalog are the Scrapbook Essentials, Project Essentials, Design Essentials, and Basic Essentials. Check it out:

• new Autumn Leaves acrylic stamps
• 7 Gypsies hardware
• gorgeous chipboard

You will not be able to order from my website for a couple of days, but make a list and stop back after 5pm on Tuesday, April 17th! Here are the important dates:

Monday April 16 - Shopping cart is shut down on company website and consultant websites for new inventory and website maintenance.

Monday, April 16 - New products are available for viewing!

Tuesday, April 17, 5:00 pm MST - Shopping cart will be open again. Orders can be submitted for all new in-stock and available products. New updated Product Availibility listing will be available. New Consultant Black Out special will end and online consultant registration will resume at the regular $35 fee.

The Countdown

Today is the next to the last day at my current position. I thought that I would be really excited to be leaving, but I am actually very sad. I work with an amazing group of people who are fantastic professionally and personally. I have enjoyed getting to know people from several departments within this company. As for the IT people, I know that I will eventually run into several of them again. The Oracle Apps IT world is very small; in fact, we were joking yesterday that it is less than six degrees of separation for Oracle apps people - it is probably closer to 1 or 2 degrees of separation! I am more sad about the people that I would like to stay in touch with, but know (through experience) that due to daily schedules and responsibilities that we probably won't stay in touch. It saddens me to admit that, but it is reality. I need to focus on the fact that at least I have been lucky enough to have these people touch my life. I also know that if I ever needed anything in the future or ran into them some place that we could pick up where we left off and everything would still be good.

The jokesters are already in action! I arrived with a plan to do some final clean-up. I was thinking about the things that I would need to remember to pack and one of the things I thought of was my pen/pencil cup. I planned on leaving the pens in my drawer and packing my pen cup since I brought that into the office. I arrived this morning and the first thing that I noticed was that my pen cup was missing! Isn't ironic that the one, small, silly thing that I was thinking about is the ONE thing that is missing from my desk!! I said to my co-workers, "My chair isn't even cold and things are already being nabbed from my desk". One of them smartly replied, "You might come in tomorrow and not have a chair!"

Portrait Lighting

Today, I received my almost daily e-mail from Creating Keepsakes. I RARELY actually read it any longer because I just have felt like it is overload of e-mails and advertisements. However, something caught my eye today and I ended up finding this great video clip on how to setup lighting for portraits. It contains information that I already know and have read about before, but I LOVED having a video about it!

Enjoy! There appears to be several videos of different techniques on that same page, so you might want to check them out!

A day alone

What would you do with a day alone - a day to yourself? I had one of those today and I loved it. It isn't that I don't like to be with my boys, but a day to yourself is a day to be cherished.

The boys headed up northwest to spend Easter with their grandparents and I opted to stay at home so that I could sing for the Easter services at church. I figured that is really only about 30 hours without the boys so that it would be doable. My Mom asked me what I was going to do about Easter dinner and I am hoping that the boys bring home some leftover ham. Granted, they don't always have ham at Easter, so it might end up being a surprise.

So, what have I done with my day today? It wasn't anything extraordinary at all, but I still enjoyed it.

Let's see - the day started with choir rehearsal for the Easter services. The best part about Easter services is that all of the instrumental groups participate: bells, choir, organ, piano, and brass. While we were rehearsing, the Bachman's were arranging all of the Easter flowers around the alter. It is such a beautiful sight with the white Easter lilies, the purple and pink hydrangeas, burgundy tulips, and some beautiful yellow flowers.

I then came home with the intention of cleaning the house, but my "easy read" book (aka trashy novel) called out to me. I guess at this point I should admit that I love Jude Deveraux books. I haven't read a ton of them, but I have enjoyed all of the ones that I have read. I think my favorite was The Summerhouse. The one that called to me and I needed to finish today was The Mulberry Tree.

Since I finished my book, I decided to make a library run to drop off the ones that the boys and I had finished and then to run some other errands - groceries, hardware store, and Home Depot for a universal garage door opener. It took me a while to figure it out, but I finally got it.

I then did some housework - let's just skip over that. I used it as a justification to start a new book. This one is called Grace Notes and so far I really like it. Right now I am watching Lost in Translation. I like it, but I don't. I haven't really figured out the plot except that it is a middle-aged man going through a mid-life crisis and a young woman trying to figure out where her place is in life. I checked the official website to see how they describe it, but the only thing I could find is "Everyone wants to be found".

Several of you have asked about my new job that is starting on April 16th. As I learned from Heather Armstrong's website Dooce, I tend to avoid discuss working topics on my blog. So, I will give you the minimum and say that I feel that it is a good move to advance my career and my skill set. I am going to be a Sr. Consultant for Traust Group. I will be doing the same sort of work that I am doing now - IT Project Managament, Business Analyst work, and a little development work. It will be interesting to see what clients I work with and what my projets are. I am really looking forward to it.

Movin' to Mac

I have officially moved (or should I say moved back) to the world of the Mac!! My new laptop arrived the other day and looks like the white one below:

I have copied most of my files, music, and pictures over to my new machine, but I still have LOTS to install and lots to learn. In college and grad school, my main exposure to computers was through the Mac. I was so much of a Mac user that when I got my first job as an IT consultant and was given a laptop, I didn't know how to turn it on because the big "ON" button didn't exist!

I did have fun playing with all of the features on my Mac. One of them is a built-in camera above the screen. Here is a pic of me after spending two hours uploading files. I like to think of that look as being a tired, but pleased look! Yes, I love my Mac!

New Devil Car!

Last week was quite a week:
1) bought a laptop
2) bought a car
3) resigned from my job

Whew! Could we add any more change to the week?
Today I want to focus on my new (used) car because the resignation from the job isn't a fun topic and the laptop hasn't been unpacked yet!

Here is a pic of my new baby:
and its interior (already full of my junk!):

We ended up getting a VW Passat 2.0T - yes, watch out world, I am driving a Turbo engine! I LOVE that feature!

So, the old Camry is going to be retired. Kyle didn't admit to me until AFTER we purchased the VW that the Camry has gained a new shimmy and shake while driving. GREAT......was it endangering the lives of my children and the children that carpool with us??? Yikes. I don't want to think about it. I have just come to accept the fact that it is being retired. At 215,000 miles, we won't get anything for it, so we are going to donate it to a group. Please e-mail me if you have any organizations that you would recommend!!

The vehicle plan is as follows - I get the new car (isn't that the way it should be??!!) because I am heading back into consulting and could be driving all over the Cities. So, Kyle will take the van. He does most of the kid pick-up and drop-off, so it is really best that he has the van. Of course, the boys love the new car and want to ride in it where ever they go!

The only issue with the car is that it came with a license plate from the dealer because it was a loaner car. Guess what the numbers are in the plate???? 666!!! Do you think that this makes it a devil car? It doesn't really bother me, but I have had a few friends tell me that I should get the plates changed!