BlogHer '12: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

I finally arrived home from BlogHer on Monday afternoon.  Sadly, my luggage has still not arrived.  Apparently it had a little too much fun in New York and got lost on the way back to Chicago.  I am holding out hope that it will appear somewhere, but in the meantime, I'm making a list of everything I remember being in there - from the several outfits I'd worn first the first time in New York to my bloggy business cards.

BlogHer this year?  It wasn't what I was expecting from the time I arrived in the Big Apple to the time I set feet back in the Windy City.  

The Good

I enjoyed it... most of it.  I love BlogHer for the people, as I think most who attend do.  It's an awesome chance to catch up with the people we don't see very often - or ever - and meet some of the people we've been longing to connect with.  And that was awesome.

The parties?  Way fun.  Incredibly loud for my ever-aging ears, but fun fun fun until I headed up to my hotel room and my feet explained what they'd been trying to scream at me amidst the rockin' DJs: ouch.  I love dancing, and dancing with friends is always more fun than dancing at home.

The food in New York was a blast, too, from the Stand4 milkshakes recommended by Connie Burke - the toasted marshmallow is to die for, and the pumpkin spice is pretty awesome, too - to the halal truck we decided to try.  Street food in New York is awesome, and we so enjoyed the truck we chose based on the line halfway down the block.

"We are different."  Nope, not better, not awesome, just... different.  We ate elsewhere.

And oh did we have fun with Flat Sue.  Flat Sue was created by a friend who couldn't make it to BlogHer this year.  We were so sad not to have Sue with us, but this made it fun.  Sue went everywhere.  She danced with the Elvis Blue M&M in M&M World.  She ate too many cheeseburgers at CheeseBurgHer.  She visited Times Square, the 9/11 Memorial, and Rockefeller Center.  It was beyond hilarious when Flat Sue got left behind at Social Fiesta, and a tweet-a-thon was begun to find her.  We did find her, and she even made it to the traditional party in Room L where she blew the bubbles we bring every year.

The brands I was able to connect with were amazing.  I had the most awesome talk with the Wholly Guacamole folks (you've seen my addiction to guacamole before, right?) about what they're aiming to do and ideas of how to do it.  The connection I made with the school lists folks was worth the trip alone for the benefits I'll be able to share with the rest of my exec board at the wee ones' school's PTO.  I learned about new products that I simply must have from the Sifteo - which is a really cool set of six cubes you can use to play all sorts of games - to TRIA - an at home laser hair removal and blue light systems - to how an adjustable bed really works and what you need to do to purchase one from the Leggett & Platt folks to Neato Robotics - a laser sighting robotic vacuum that I must have.  I had some wonderful conversations with brands that I will be following up on over the next several weeks, and I hope that some of them turn into relationships that benefit us both going forward.

The Bad
I'll be honest.  I don't think all the brands who attended BlogHer were there for the right reason, nor did they all have the right people there.  There were so many brands I approached to learn more about the products because of what I was interested in learning - for myself selfishly and for potential work with my blog - who were checked out.  Either they weren't able to answer my questions ("How much does this product sell for at retail?") or they blatantly had no interest in talking to anyone.  At all.  And those experiences leave a bad taste in my mouth about the brand.  I get the pressure to be there.  And I understand the expense of setting up the booth.  I get how exhausting it must be to stand there chatting day after day.  But Thursday afternoon before everything really starts?  It's hard.  I'll name no names, but there are some products I don't like as much anymore.

I have no suitcase.  I could care less about the swag that didn't make it home - a bottle of alcohol and some books, among other things.  It's my special electric toothbrush that I miss.  And my makeup.  And the clothes that I had bought just before BlogHer that I'm afraid I'll never see again.  It's "still being traced" - which isn't a good sign more than 48 hours after my flight landed.

I raved about the food I ate in New York.  I ate not a bite of the official breakfasts or lunches at BlogHer.  I either skipped the meals or ate elsewhere.  Why?  Oh my holy cats.  There were 5,000 people trying to eat at once.  And that's just a nightmare.  The nightmare was compounded by other factors, but suffice it to say that it wasn't pretty.  I'm glad I had other options.

And speaking of 5,000 people, that was also part of the bad for me.  My first BlogHer was in 2009 when it was held in my hometown of Chicago.  There were about 2,400 people there, if I recall correctly.  It was big, but it was manageable.  It's gotten bigger every year.  I thought 3,000 in New York in 2010 was too big.  3,500 in San Diego last year?  Yeah, that was starting to get unmanageable.  I couldn't get through the entire expo and missed connecting with some brands I really wanted to see and meet.  This year, there were 5,000 people.  And 5,000 people trying to do something isn't pretty, especially when they aren't always polite.  I heard quite a bit of cattiness and saw a lot of line cutting and other disrespectful behavior.

The Ugly
The line cutting and cattiness isn't pretty.  The grabbing things from brand reps' hands?  The saying "Oh, there's nothing good in here, let's go" or "they aren't handing out anything; it isn't worth it" is just ugly.  I know there are a lot of bloggers who do their best to be professional and learn and grow when they attend conferences.  And it's just a minority of people who are in it to get as much stuff as they possibly can.  That saying about a few rotten apples?  It's true.  Seeing a hotel luggage cart literally filled from top to bottom with swag that one person - one person - is taking home makes me feel a little ill.  Yes, I brought some things home, but I visited only those sponsors who I felt would be a good fit.  And I took only a) that which was offered to me and b) that which I knew I would use once I arrived home.  I feel like it's one step forward, two steps backwards in getting bloggers taken seriously.

And I do take what I do seriously.  I went to BlogHer not just to have fun with friends and connect with brands that will help pay bills for the next 12 months, but I also wanted to learn.  I marked sessions on my calendar that I felt would be interesting to me.  I had five sessions I wanted to attend, aside from the keynotes and such.  Five.  I would have loved to attend one or two of the Geek Bar sessions, specifically on coding and on moving to WordPress.  Those were completely filled up almost instantaneously (back to the "5,000 is too big" mantra), only for me to see people saying "Oh, I didn't know what these were.  Does anyone want this session or that session?  I signed up for all of them not knowing what I was signing up for."

Want to know how many sessions I attended?  Zero.  I didn't attend a single session that allowed me to learn.  I tried.  The first session I wanted to attend I failed to get there because I couldn't figure out where the sessions were being held.  Signage could have been improved, although I know I should have taken it upon myself to figure out the session locations more specifically myself.  The others?  I was turned away at the door - even when I arrived early - because the sessions were full and they couldn't allow anyone else in.  I paid how much more for my conference pass to attend these sessions?

So yes, I had a blast.  Most of the time.  My flight getting canceled on Sunday and rebooked to Monday due to a) mechanical failure, b) a security breach at Newark "shutting down all airports from White Plains to New Jersey and New York" so I couldn't be rebooked on another airline, and c) horrible storms in New York canceling many other flights later in the day - well, that wasn't all bad.  It allowed me to catch up with a friend who lived three doors down from me growing up.  I spent the night at her apartment, and we had a hoot catching up.

But next year?  Next year BlogHer is in my hometown of Chicago.  I live here.  I don't have to pay for an airline ticket.  Potentially I could not even pay for a hotel.  But I don't know that I'm going to attend.  The conference I'm sure won't be any smaller than it was this year.  And it's being held at McCormick Place during the day (Expo and sessions), while the evening events and official hotel is the Sheraton on Michigan, miles away.  You can't walk from one to the other.  There's no easy public transportation from one to the other.  Instead, there will be shuttles running.  Yep, shuttles to get 5,000 people from one place to the other. Picture that during Chicago rush hour.

Right now, the picture of the bad and the ugly is looming large.  Perhaps this is why BlogHer tickets aren't going on sale until September 1 this year.  Maybe by then it will be like childbirth, and I will have forgotten that part just to remember the good - the fun with friends, the sights I saw, and the people and brands I connected with.  Your thoughts?

My Love-Hate Relationship With Legos

I love Legos. They are awesome for Mister Man, whose fine motor skills aren't nearly so developed as they should be. He's gotten to be really good at manipulating them, and I feel like it's really helped him improve his handwriting and other skills. While he's getting OT and ST specifically to address his deficits due to Asperger's, this is something he can do all on his own just because it's fun.

I hate Legos. The clear ones are the worst because I think the floor is clean until I step on them in my bare feet. I've yet to truly break skin, but I've felt the need to check more than once.

I love Legos. It's something that can keep Mister Man and Little Miss entertained for hours, playing nicely while I make dinner or clean or complete some other task that must be done.

I hate Legos. Neither of the wee ones are particularly adept at removing the super small pieces from any projects they've built. Rather than asking for my assistance, they frequently use their teeth to attempt to remove the pieces. I've yet to have to make an emergency trip to the dentist, but that is my fear. They have left dents in the pieces that has made them ... unhappy, however. I had to implement the "if I see a Lego in or near your mouth, it is now my Lego" policy.

I love Legos. The creativity they inspire is wonderful. Mister Man looked at the side of a Lego box once when he was relatively new to Legos and saw numerals built from Legos. He built the one, two, three and four he saw pictured. Then he made his own five through nine because he could. He's created whole worlds and stories and movies based on the Legos he's built.

I hate Legos. The Legos Mister Man wants now (Little Miss, too) are all Lego creations from Atlantis crab submarines to General Grievous's Tie-Fighter from Star Wars. Although there is tons of creativity going on with the way the wee ones play with them after they're built, I'm sad that their overall creativity with the Legos is somewhat stifled.

I love Legos. It isn't a "boy toy" that makes other children look at her oddly when she wants to play with them. It's all inclusive, and it's great for improving her visual spatial skills, something that interestingly isn't her best talent. I love that they are a toy both the wee ones can and do play with.

I hate Legos. Those things are expensive! And just like me who had 33 Barbies as a child because each one is different and there are different ways to play with each of them, there are always more and new and different Legos that the wee ones want.

I love Legos. They require no batteries. They don't make noise. They don't wear out suddenly where I need to immediately find a screwdriver to open a battery case and then pray that we have the dead battery size in stock.

I hate Legos. Those sets I mentioned above? The wee ones tend to misplace a single piece somehow all too often for my tastes. And then the world stops until one of us finds the mysterious piece that Mister Man can't quite describe to me but will know if he sees it.

I love Legos. They require patience. They require following directions. They require organization. Those are life skills that so many toys these days don't teach, and it's why I've bought varying sizes of Legos for the wee ones since Mister Man was old enough to push two blocks together.

Today, I really hate Legos.

Little Miss received the Pizza Planet Truck for Christmas (as did Mister Man, ironically). She put it together, with Mister Man's help, last week over a four or so day stretch. She's slower at doing the Legos, but she gets them done. This morning, she dumped out the Pizza Planet box with the Lego back into individual pieces. As I gawked at her in awe, she explained that she had made some mistakes and so needed to redo it.

She proceeded to work on putting it back together. As she had difficulties, I would help her put a piece into place. Or I'd dump out one of our massive boxes of Legos to help her discover one of the pieces to her Lego set that had somehow migrated into our general Lego population. A few hours later, she was nearly done, and I was called in to do the delicate work. I succeeded.

Once the truck was put together, Little Miss began putting the characters that came with the truck inside it to play - as described in the directions. We got Rex in with only minimal issues. She got Buzz in just fine by herself. I couldn't make Hamm stay they way he was shown in the picture. Trying to put the alien on, the Lego broke into a few pieces.

I hurriedly put Little Miss to the task of cleaning up all the Legos we had searched through while assembling her truck. I pressed the Lego back together. The more I put pieces together, the more they fell apart. Soon, I had to begin referring to the manual to figure out where pieces had dropped from. It was too fragile.

I continued working. Every time I got almost to the end, something else would break off. I did discover some major errors Little Miss had made early in the process and corrected them. That helped, but there were too many places that were too fragile to hold together as I needed to apply new sections to the truck.

Three plus hours later, the Lego sat on the floor in pieces. My back was so sore that I almost couldn't stand up. My composure was hanging by a thread. The Lego won, and I decided to wait until Mister Man was available to help us, trusting that his expertise would allow us to at least get the Pizza Planet Truck back into a single piece. And once it is, this is one that won't be played with. It goes on a special shelf where we can admire it from afar. With the Toy Story characters standing outside it.

Legos 1
Mommy 0

I Will Never Build A House

Honestly. I won't. Once upon a time, I thought it would be fun to build a house and get to choose everything myself. I would know the quality of what was going in, everything would be to my tastes, and things would work they way I'd want them to. I'd have a planning desk, a pantry, a mud room, a laundry sink, a third garage - all the things I don't have in my current house.

I'm in the process of my first true major remodel, and I realize my foolishness. As much as I someday want a new kitchen, I think I might be moving to a new house to get it. I've been without a master bathroom since October 12, and I am done having all my bathroom items in bins in my bedroom. I don't want to share a small sink and vanity with the wee ones and my husband. I just want my master bathroom back. Granted, it will be soon, but not soon enough.

Today my contractor called me to ask where my tub faucets were. Ummm in the garage with all the other new fixtures I'd bought? No, apparently somehow - although I went over it with the salesgirl ninety-bazillion times - I had neglected to order my tub faucets. They will take at least two weeks to come in. And I groaned at having to give my credit card another workout.

Yesterday? Since the cabinets are to be delivered, my contractor wanted to measure for the cuts in the counter tops. Since I'd picked out my counter tops long ago, I simply handed him the brochure with the circled color on it figuring that I had done well. I got a call from him later saying that a large big box store that happens to be orange was quoting him more than twice was he would pay for a counter top and he wanted me to go talk to a different place he works with as he wasn't comfortable placing the order with that large a discrepancy. Good contractor. Yes, he showed me the quote from that orange store. And it was large.

I went to visit the place he recommended where the near same (slightly different color, same material) counter top would cost me two-thirds what the orange store quoted. After working with him some more, we found another idea for a granite counter top that would be essentially what my contractor had originally quoted me. I then had to go to the distributorship to check out the actual piece of granite and sign off on the colors. I did so, but there went the majority of my day tracking down that issue. On the plus side, they are measuring the counter tops for the cuts on Tuesday.

Don't get me started on lighting. I haven't picked out the lighting yet for around my mirrors. I knew what I wanted, so I went to the big store that specializes in lights. As a guy started to help me, I explained what I wanted and we looked through some books. I need four single fixture lights. Someone walked in who was looking for a six foot chandelier. I pretty much didn't exist from that point. I managed to get the model numbers of six potential lights, but you can bet that I won't ever spend a dime in that store. And I still don't have lights.

That doesn't take into account the difficulties I had choosing tile. Or cabinets. Or a tub. Poor Melisa has a small idea of what I went through with that, trying to find a rectangular tub that has a side drain to avoid having to saw through a rafter. After weeks (literally) of searching, I finally decided on a tub that had a normal front drain and was ready to suck up the extra plumber cost of doing a side drain when another plumbing supply store sent an email with some tubs to look at and miraculously, a tub that was the right size and shape somehow had a side drain. That tub is currently sitting in my slowly taking shape bathroom with the mortar around it drying.

Cabinets? I knew I wanted a clean look. And tall cabinets. And something to somehow hold all my stuff and keep it out of the way. I came up with the idea of a tower in the center of it, but ... that's as far as I got. I was also appalled at how ridiculously expensive cabinets are, so trying to find something that I like that was not ridiculously expensive was time consuming. I finally succeeded. Mostly.

Tile was fun. My big problem - and this is the problem in general - is that I know sort of what I want but not completely. Or I know what I don't want, both of which makes choosing things difficult, especially when more and more options are presented to me and I get overwhelmed. I did choose tile back in April. I loved my floor tile and the shower tile. When I went to finalize the tile order before my contractor started work, I decided I didn't like the wall tile. And so the process began again.

My husband hasn't seen any of the choices yet. He trusts me, and I think this is for the best. If he were involved in some of the nuttiness, I think I'd have driven him insane by now. He's looking forward to the big reveal though, and my contractor has promised that next week I can take a shower come heck or high water. I'm hoping for no high water; I can't take it after this!

And yes, I will show before and after pictures. Assuming there is an after. Once you see some of the before, I think you'll understand why there has to be an after.



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***

You know how sometimes you get an idea for a project that seems nice and easy but yet oh so needed? And you think that it will be a fairly quick one, taking just an afternoon or so?

Yeah... me, too. That's why you still haven't seen any pictures of the wee ones' new homework room. It was on my goal list for this past summer - something I figured would be pretty easy to do. I'd take out all the old toys they never play with and find new homes for them. The rest could go into the basement to be played with there. Add a couple of desks, some photographs of the wee ones, organization units, and a painted on whiteboard. Voila - gorgeous homeowrk room for the wee ones where they can focus on working without any distractions.

Ahhhh. The serenity of it puts me at peace just thinking of it.

Sorting through the toys? Well, that got done easily. All the toys that the wee ones don't regularly use went into a couple boxes. Then the wee ones saw the box and took out most of the toys. I put them back in. They took them out. We negotiated and the majority finally stayed in the box. Sooo the box moved to the dining room until I found a new home for the toys. They've since moved into the basement. #Fail

I also went through the bookshelf and removed the baby books and some of the books I own that I don't plan to read again. That created much more space in the bookshelves to organize the wee ones' books. Step one? Mostly done.

After much searching, I finally found desks and chairs for the wee ones, which I assembled myself (only having to take the second desk apart twice because I put pieces together upsidedown because I "didn't need to read the directions the second time around"). Step two? Check!

I also mounted the photos of the wee ones. Mister Man's mounted over his desk and Little Miss's over hers. I found filing organizers that are also now attached to the walls so paperwork doesn't pile up on the desks. Organizers to keep their writing utensils under control - done. Step three?* Yep!

*Note: I've since figured out that this wasn't really step three. It goes back to this whole project not being quite as expected. Oops.

The whiteboard was next. I had a grand vision of using most of one wall as a painted on whiteboard (because, seriously - have you ever priced out a large whiteboard? Ouch!). To keep the markers from going everywhere and getting on the non-whiteboard portion of the wall, I saw a border made from quarter rounds.

I found the paint and bought the necessary supplies. I looked at the quarter rounds and discovered that they have prefinished ones, meaning I wouldn't need to paint them, too. Bonus points: dry erase markers would wipe off the material they were made from. Of course, I still had to figure out the exact size of the area I wanted to paint before I could have the nice people at the store cut them for me.

I figured out the size of the area, and my dad offered to help me make the border. He bought the quarter rounds (it turns out not the one-half inch ones I was looking at but instead the three-quarter inch ones - which plays into this shortly) and decided to cut them himself since he has that kind of saw. He came by a few days later to put up the border.

The quarter rounds have one side that is flat (a right angle from the side against the wall) and one side that is rounded. My idea was to have the rounded part on the outside and the flat part on the inside of the border, figuring it would be easier to wipe clean from the inevitable marker wipes. My dad cut the quarter rounds so that the rounded side would be on the inside of the border. Not a big deal.

He also brought a nail gun to use to attach the quarter rounds to the wall. It turns out that his nail gun only holds one inch nails. Remember the quarter round is now three quarters of an inch instead of a half inch? Let's just say that one quarter inch of a nail into the wall isn't sufficient to hold the border well. We nailed. And nailed some more. We used a giant regular nail in the middle of the quarter round to hold it in place. Using a level, we made sure the whole thing was square (go us!). And we nailed some more. That half-inch quarter round is looking better and better right about now. We finally got it attached using many, many screws and nails. It now needs to be painted to make it look "normal" again. Step four? Phew, done.

I had been planning to paint the whiteboard the same day the border went up, but the border took about two hours longer than I'd anticipated, so I wouldn't be able to get all my coats on the wall before taking Mister Man to Tae Kwon Do. No big deal, I simply did it the next day.

Shockingly, the whiteboard painting went pretty well. I had a tarp down to protect the carpet, but I hardly needed it. Except for the spot where I stepped in some with the heel of my foot that went unnoticed until the next morning by which point it was impossible to remove. The pedicure I received today finally removed the majority of the paint. I even had enough leftover paint to paint a whiteboard on the side of my fridge cabinet (you know that icky non-wood sticker paper they put on the sides of cabinets that turns pink over the years if it's exposed to the sun? Yeah... mine's now a whiteboard).

I sanded the side of the fridge cabinet and painted. Since it was a darker color, it required more coats, so it was a thicker application than the whiteboard in the homework room, but it wasn't a big deal. I still had paint leftover, so I left it in the drip pan thingie but put it outside on the deck. Smart me knew that leaving it in the house or garage would mean someone would somehow get into it and/or spill it.

The next morning, I removed the tape from around the whiteboard paintings. In the homework room, it all came off nicely, except for a tiny piece on the top that I pushed under the quarter round since I couldn't pull it off (shhh, don't tell1). In the kitchen, there were some places where the paint stuck better to the painter's tape on the edges than it did to the sticker paper on the cabinet. Boo. It left a little bit of a ragged edge if you looked carefully at it, and I didn't like that. I decided to just use White Out or something similar to fill in the edges.

When I went onto the deck to throw away the remaining paint, I discovered it was still liquid. Hmmmm.... So I found a watercolor paintbrush of Little Miss's and very carefully washed it and proceeded to use that to fill in the missing edges on the kitchen cabinet. It worked beautifully. Two coats later of that, and I was done with the whiteboards. Step five? Finally complete.

I put the remaining paint on the deck again, hoping that it would dry out that day since it was warmer. I then promptly forgot about it. The next afternoon, I was opening the curtains to let the sunlight in and saw the drip pan. Upsidedown. On the deck. I ran outside and yes, the paint had not dried before it flipped over. It did manage to dry while on the deck. I could get some chunks up and off but not all of them. Fortunately, my bench scraper (I love my kitchen tools) managed to get off the majority of the paint. Majority, not all. Apparently we're staining our deck again in the spring, although I'm hoping lots of rain will help the supposedly water soluble paint dissolve.

It wasn't until later that I thought to look down below the deck. I sort of wish I hadn't. Does anyone know a good way to get dry erase paint off concrete? My poor patio.

Of course, that doesn't mean the homework room is quite complete. Now that it's mostly together, it really needs a coat of paint to make it look finished. I've gone to the store three times to pick up different paint samples to try out. None of them is quite the right shade of green. In fact, the one I have hanging in there now I'm going to have to take down because it turns a particularly hideous shade of brown in the late afternoon lighting.

And then there's a friend who suggested I do complementary colors painted around the picture frames that are hanging there - and I absolutely love that idea.

And since there's no overhead lighting in the room, I need to get some lighting installed before winter comes and the wee ones are trying to do their homework in the dark.

Plus, the baseboards have gotten sort of beaten up the past couple years. When I paint the quarter round border, I really should touch up those, too.

Yep, there was my nice one day project. It's been a month and a half, and right now I'm stuck until I can finally find that right shade of paint. I'm still trying to figure out what jinxed me with this one - I'm guessing it's where I mentioned the word "easy" in conjunction with it.

All that said, I'm sure I haven't learned my lesson yet. After all, I have this little weather worn picnic bench outside. It would be so easy and quick just to sand it down and refinish it. Right?

Surely, There Must Be A Solution

I hate this time of year. I have to put away my fun summer shoes and - gah! - once again wear socks. My toes are very sad right about now. Although I'm in desperate need of a pedicure, so maybe this is a good thing.



I'm back to my responsible shoes now. Although looking at them in this picture, I can see that they at the very least need a good polish and at the most replacing. By something more fun.

This isn't the part I hate the most about this time of year. I hate having to wear socks. At least when I go to work they aren't the constantly running, itchy, icky, old lady nylons women used to have to wear. I can get away with socks that are far easier to put on.



But then this happens.



About forty times a day. I pull them up, they slide down. Then I get irritated and leave them there.

Granted, they're still better than nylons. MUCH better. And it isn't just these socks. This happens no matter what socks I wear.

I have to be doing something wrong. And since we in Chicago have another eight months before my toes will see the light of day and be freed from their confines, can any of you help me out here?

Open Your Ears And Listen!

Whenever we go to Chicago, I drive. I lived in the city for years, but sometimes I forget that my husband and the city just ... don't mix. And that's putting it nicely. More than once he's been forced to abandon his attempt to parallel park and let me do it instead.

But sometimes I forget this.

Like when I was at BlogHer's conference and planned to take the train back home on Sunday. This meant walking the mile and a half with my stuff to the train station, getting aboard, and then being picked up at the train station by my husband.

I had received the tip about bringing an extra suitcase, and I did. Sorta. I brought a gym duffel bag, figuring I could hang it around my neck so I'd still have one hand free. Annnnd after the first night, I decided I'd take a cab to the train instead of walking. Since my shoulder was still sore on Friday from my pulling the suitcase that mile and a half the first time two days prior.

On Day 2, I called my husband and begged him to pick me up. There was no way I was making it home on the train. Yikes! Nice husband agreed.

I told him where we were staying, and he promise to pick me up a little before noon. Since there was a Cubs game, he was planning to leave by a little after 10am just in case he hit traffic. I rolled my eyes but said nothing.

At ten, I called him to request that he bring down a couple freezer pops for Problem Solvin' Mom's poor sick daughter. And I knew he was on his way. Around 11:10, I called him to ask where he was, as I was now trying to coordinate with a second person.

He was on Ohio. Eek! That meant he was about five minutes away, and I hadn't finished packing, nor had I gotten my suitcases downstairs. I called the front desk to request help with my bags. Now, here's a major Sheraton Hotel & Towers fail. It was at least a half hour wait. Seriously, a conference of 1400 people is ending, and you don't have sufficient bell staff?

Not wanting to inconvenience my husband any further than I had by making him drive to the city, I somehow hauled all my stuff on me and tottered to the elevator, hoping I didn't run into anyone on my way.

By the time I got downstairs, I realized that I had taken more time than I should have, and my husband was likely to be waiting. Oops. I called him to see where he was.

I'm on South Water Street, but I don't see the hotel

Well, Honey, that's because the hotel is on NORTH Water street. Come back across the river.

Five more minutes go by. I call again. Ummmm, where are you?

I'm back where I started. I don't see a North Water Street anywhere.

Okie dokie. I explain again that it's one block east of Michigan on Columbus, at 400 north. Right on the corner. Across the street from the NBC Tower.

Five more minutes go by. I swear I think I see him turning right instead of turning left.

Well, I found the NBC Tower, but I didn't see the hotel. Now I'm in a big circle again. I can't find it. I'm just going to go home.

No no no no no. He can't go home. I can't take this stuff on the train. And he's right there. So close. If I had less stuff, I'd tell him to stay put, and I'd walk to him. I give him directions from where he's at again.

Five minutes go by. Poor Steph. She's just standing here with me and her daughter, waiting for the freezer pops, knowing her ride back home is wanting to leave. And listening to me try to give directions repeatedly to my husband who obviously isn't listening, considering that he's on Michigan and not on Columbus.

I can't find it. I'm driving on Michigan, but I don't see a North Water Street anywhere. I'm just going back and forth in a circle.

I groan. Really, what part about a block east of Michigan is so hard to understand. Oh, that's right. It's really hard to understand when you choose not to listen. I explain again that North Water is a two block street off Columbus. He has to get to Columbus first. I explain how to do that again.

He calls back two minutes later. This time I stay on the phone with him.

I can see where the hotel is, so do you want me to go into the tunnel then?

ARG! That isn't a tunnel, that's going under the city. That would be driving straight past the hotel. Again. I calmly explain that he has to turn left at North Water and then just go into the little half circle driveway place.

At this point, I'm trying to figure out why it's so difficult, as Mr. Weasel was able to pick up that crew with zero problems. And I figured I would have had good karma from helping out Steph! No dice.

Ok, I can see the hotel, but I don't see you. Where are you? Why can't I see you? I don't see a circle place. Are you sure I'm on the right side?

Since at this time I can see his car and in fact his silhouette on the phone -- and yes, my eyes are bad enough that I couldn't see him directly -- I figure I'm home free. Until he almost misses turning into the driveway. Almost.

It is now noon. He literally spent over forty minutes trying to find the hotel while being less than a mile away. I gave Steph her Freezer Pops, put my stuff in his car, and sat down. After all, we're going home. How hard can that be?

I closed my eyes to rest a bit. When I opened them, I asked where he was going. We were on Grand, west of the highway. He'd somehow managed to get lost trying to get back to the highway. Fortunately, with me in the car, it's a whole lot easier to navigate, and we were quickly on our way. Once on the highway, I was free to again relax and take a little nap between stories of the fun we had.

But next time? I'm drawing directions for him before I leave. Or maybe buying him a GPS for his birthday.

And with that, I promise to be done with any discussion of BlogHer until next year. Promise!

Black Friday, Indeed

I'm not a huge fan of Black Friday. I don't like shopping on the best of days, and combine an early morning with the great unwashed masses, and I'll take a pass.


Granted, this was an informed decision. I looked through all the ads and decided that no, really, there wasn't anything I needed or that called out to me that made me want to get up at 4am. Selling an iPod for $0.30 wouldn't make me want to wake up at 4am though, so I'll admit that's a pretty high bar.


Instead, I decided to have a nice, relaxing Friday. The plan was to sleep in as long as the wee ones would let us (which generally means 7:30am) and then get up and head to the gym. From there, I was going to stop at Costco to get my annual cookbook -- because, you know, I don't have nearly enough cookbooks -- and restock the milk that I used making the pumpkin trifle on Thanksgiving (more on that to come). From there, I was heading to the blood donation center for my 12:10 appointment before getting the oil changed in my car and then making cookies until friends arrived for dinner.


Yeah.


What's that saying again? The best laid plans?


I did get to sleep in a bit, and we had a lovely breakfast where everyone ate the granola that I made for myself yesterday. I don't mind sharing my granola because it's really good for you and I like seeing the wee ones make good eating choices, but it's a forty five minute process that requires my attention for the majority of it. And it only makes a couple weeks' worth of servings. Since I put it into the canister yesterday, about two-thirds of it has been eaten. Of course, with Daddy and Little Miss and Mister Man all eating their fill, breakfast took a bit longer than expected, so we didn't get out the door until 9:30, which was later than I'd anticipated and gave me just enough time to grab a slice of pizza from Costco before heading to the blood donation appointment.


Shhh. I haven't been to the gym in awhile to run. I've done my belly dancing and yoga, but on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays lately, I've been otherwise occupied. I decided to not try to do a 25 minute run but instead regress to the middle of week six and do two ten minute runs. Of course my gym has replaced all the treadmills I liked with new ones. And being the day after Thanksgiving when no one is working, it was busy and I didn't get a treadmill near where I like to be, but that's ok. The first ten minute run wasn't fun, but I survived. I made it six minutes into the second run before I had to stop because I was getting seriously sick to my stomach. Bummer. I walked for a few minutes then tried to do my last four minutes. I made two minutes of torture before the risk of becoming publicly ill was too great for my sensibilities and I decided to walk for a few more minutes.


When I finished walking, I realized that I'd taken longer than I normally do by about seven minutes. That didn't get me hurrying on my way though. Instead, I dawdled a bit to read about the new offerings by the fitness trainers. I finally got into the locker room, took out my stuff from the locker to go take a shower and ... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Seriously? A fire alarm?


All the women sort of looked at each other for a minute or so debating whether this was a drill or whether we really needed to get out. I finally decided that even if it was a drill, the wee ones might like to see a parent as the loud noise is forcing them outside, so I headed over to the kids' area.


As I walked in, they were trying to shepherd the last of the kids out. Mister Man was still sitting at a computer playing with another little boy. When I ordered him out (from across the wall), he finally looked up and started heading out. The child care employees let me come in to go through the exit with him. That's when I saw Little Miss -- the very last child -- coming out of the maze area, so I grabbed her, too.


Right about this time, it dawns on me how lucky I am that I dawdled and took extra time on the treadmill. The alternative was being covered in soap in the shower when the alarm went off. And you thought procrastination never helped!


I didn't, however, think to grab coats or shoes for any of us, so I stood outside in the late November cold in my workout gear, and the wee ones in stocking feet. Oops. The good news is that I was hot enough from running that it took a good fifteen minutes before I started to feel chilly.


We heard the fire engines wailing towards the gym, which you'd expect. Whether it's a false alarm or not, you have to have the fire department check it out.

When we heard the second set of fire engines approaching, I started berating myself for not grabbing my purse and coat. The rest of it, I was fine with losing, but I was getting cold now and who knew how serious this was. *sigh*


The good news is that it was just a kitchen fire. Something in the oven went bad, but it was minor, and they reopened the gym after twenty-five or so minutes. And once they knew the fire was under control, the childcare workers were allowed to go inside to get everyone's coats and hats.

Of course by the time we actually got our coats and hats, everyone was allowed back inside, so we went on our merry way. Of course, this put me even further behind schedule. I wasn't missing out on my cookbook though, so I still stopped by Costco. That and Daddy had to drink black coffee this morning because we had no milk left. Costco wasn't an option.


Fortunately, I made it to Costco with no mishaps, and the ten minute line at the food court was really only a minor inconvenience considering how late I was for my blood appointment. Lucky for me, they still let me donate. AND still gave me a $15 Starbucks gift card. I did realize on my way home that I didn't get my Four Seasons gift, but I can live without it.


When I got home, I started baking.

I started volunteering at the Evanston Animal Shelter back when I was in college. I continued volunteering there even after I graduated and moved into the city. I volunteered when I moved out of the city and west, when it was an hour and fifteen minutes for me to get there and back. When I had Mister Man, I finally gave up the weekly commitment, but I still help out at their annual C.A.R.E. Faire.

The C.A.R.E. Faire is an annual holiday bazaar they run on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They have pet pictures with Santa, a huge raffle, all sorts of pet goodies and vendors, and -- the biggest draw -- the cookie walk. We sell cookies by the pound where people start at one end with a box and a glove and choose what cookies they want. Seventy feet later, I stand with the scales and do the weighing and collecting of money. And hey, if anyone in Chicagoland needs something to do tomorrow, the Unitarian Church in Ev is hosting the C.A.R.E. Faire from 11am to 5pm.

Every year, I have to be the cashier. This used to be because the cookies were $6 per pound or $7 per pound and no one could do the math when it was 2 1/4 pound, and no one was comfortable giving change when the total was $14.25. I was drafted. I'm still drafted, and it's something I really enjoy doing -- with the one exception of the rude gentleman last year who wanted to know how I accounted for the weight of the box when weighing out his cookies.


In order to have seventy feet of cookies for six hours, that requires a lot of volunteer baking. I used to bring boxes of cookies. With the wee ones, I can't quite get that many made, but I do my fair share. These are the cookies we made this year:



Zebra Bars, Delectable Cream Cheese Cookies, Jelly Cookies, and Karen's Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies.

It's the last one that were the bane of my existence. I should really know better than to double a recipe I've never made before. In fact, I should have known it due to the issues I had when making the Zebra Bars. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, however.

The cookies themselves are really easy to make. It's a basic dough that you press into mini-muffin molds before adding a cherry and pouring a topping over it -- and therein lies the problem. I only have a single dozen mini-muffin pan. I doubled the recipe, which means somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 dozen cookies. That's a lot of waiting around for cookies to cool to remove from the pan before being able to start the process with the next batch.


As the first batch was cooking, I decided to get creative. I have little molds that I bought for Mister Man's fourth birthday party that we made chocolates in (yes, I'm insane for letting four year old children work with melted chocolate but that's a different post). They were about the right size and made of silicone. Perfect!

Umm, not so perfect. The silicone they were made out of wasn't exactly oven safe silicone. When the timer went off, I saw the molds melting all over the oven. And when I tried to use my oven mitt to pull them out, the silicone (which I've since decided isn't actually silicone) started pulling apart in my hands. Whee!



I finally got smart and stuck a jellyroll pan right near the edge of the oven rack and managed to push them onto the jellyroll pan. After that I did single batch by single batch in my metal nonstick solitary mini-muffin tin. I think I only just now took the last batch out of the oven.


Next year? I'm hitting the Black Friday sales. It has to be easier than this, right?

How Does This Thing Work Again?

When Daylight Savings time comes and goes, my husband is always the one in charge of resetting the clocks. Partly it's because he's up earlier than I am on Sundays -- it's my one day where I am allowed to sleep in peace until 7:45 -- and partly it's that I'd be fine for days looking at wrong clocks and calculating the correct time.

I'm not quite sure what that says about me, but hey it works for us. But better yet, we don't accidentally have two people change the time and really mess us up. Can you imagine the issues that would cause?

So Monday mornings are my day in the office. That means that I need to get up at 5:40am so I can be out the door by 6:15 or so. Since the alarm clock is on my husband's side of the bed (long story behind that one, but suffice it to say that it involved a time in our lives when he woke up earlier than I did and the dual alarm clock was a sorry present from me to him), I just have to crawl into bed each night and magically the alarm is set for the right time.

I also have a clock on my side of the bed so that I can see what time it is when a wee one has a nightmare at 3am. That way I can feel truly sorry for myself. And know exactly how many minutes I've been awake staring at the ceiling trying to fall back to sleep.

Back to yesterday.

I vaguely heard my husband stirring and rolled over to look at my clock. 5:58am. AHHH! I demanded of my husband why he hadn't set my alarm and did he understand that I was going to be late for work (ok by my definition since at 7am I'm usually the only one there) on my first day back to work after a two week vacation and what's wrong with him?

He calmly explained that it was 4:58. Oh.

I grumbled about my clock being the only one in the whole house that he hadn't reset and laid back down, trying to calm my racing heart and move some of that adrenaline out of my veins. I closed my eyes and tried really hard to go back to sleep.

It seemed as though only a few moment had passed when the alarm blared. I groaned and looked at the clock again. 5:14. I poked my husband and asked what this was. He said that he'd set my alarm for me.

FIVE. FOR. TY. I repeated slowly. The same time I get up every single Monday.

Oh, he responded and reset the alarm to the proper time. When questioned later, he explained that he'd reset it from 7:15 -- my usual time -- to 5:14. He couldn't give me a good reason as to why he didn't change the minutes part to the correct time though.

Shockingly, I didn't manage to fall back asleep for the last twenty minutes and then walked around in a daze the rest of the day. And when I went to bed last night? I was shocked to see that it was almost midnight. Oh. Yeah. Really just 11pm.

My husband swore that he was going to change my clock to the correct time today. I haven't checked yet, and I'm not saying anything to him until I go to bed tonight. Is that mean of me? No, mean of me would be if I were to reset his clock to the wrong time. Fortunately, my husband is a lucky man, and I wouldn't do that to him.

I've Got Issues

Hello. My name is Michelle, and I’m addicted to TIVO. Actually, I’m addicted to ReplayTV, but whatever. Who doesn’t call it Tivo? With the exception of football and hockey, I don’t watch live tv. In fact, I prefer to watch football games that I’ve Tivo’ed. If I don’t have something saved, then obviously there’s nothing I need to watch.

I don’t have the tv on when the wee ones are around, so I do get enough of a stockpile for the times I want the tv on. When I’m home alone working, for example, I like to have something on in the background to keep me company.

This all works out well until the day that I turn the tv and the Tivo on and realize that it isn’t recording a show it’s supposed to be recording. And then I realize that I. Can’t. Watch. TV. Through. My. Tivo. It isn’t recognizing the signal. Panic begins to set in.

Granted, I got the ReplayTV for Christmas before Mister Man was born, so it’s over five years old. And my husband has been complaining for years that it doesn’t record in high def – primarily because high def didn’t exist way back in the Stone Age when we bought it. Err, he bought it. But I refuse to pay my cable company an additional $14 (plus tax, mind you) a month for the recording service.

This can’t be happening. I need my Tivo. I can’t watch tv live. It absolutely drives me nuts. Ok, it drives me nuts unless I’m in bed trying to fall asleep to the Food Network. Details.

Being at least moderately handy, I checked all the connections. They were all good – pulling them out and replugging them in didn’t help, either. Having it reconnect to the ReplayTV service didn’t do anything. *sigh*

I put the remote down and settled into a very quiet day of work.

When my husband arrived home with the wee ones, I implored him to fix it as soon as I finished my conference calls. Nice guy that he is, he dubiously agreed to try.

He got as far as I did. See, I told you he was dubious. Apparently for good reason.

I trudged off to my yoga class, disappointed that I was going to have to do something that involved spending money I didn’t want to spend.

When I got home, I discovered that my husband had continued to investigate and determined that it still wasn’t working.

Him: Well, all that’s left is to take it upstairs and try it on a different tv to see if it’s the cable box.
Me: Ok, ummm. Why haven’t you done that yet?
Him: Oh. Well. Uhhh.

He then proceeded to unhook it and take it upstairs. Yay, it worked upstairs! Boo, that meant that the video output on the cable box was malfunctioning. Yay, that meant all my husband had to do was take the cable box up to McHenry tomorrow and exchange it for a new one – provided that they had another one in stock when he got there (don’t ask, really don’t ask). Boo, I can’t set it up upstairs in the meantime because that would involve completely unhooking the modem and resetting up our wireless network. I’m pathetic enough to ask the question though. Rest assured, he gave me the look and confirmed that I was insane for asking if that was an option.

For some unknown reason, he decided to hook it up again until he took the cable box in. Maybe he just wanted to torture me. But somehow, somehow the act of hooking it all back up made it *gasp* work again! Whoo hoo! My Tivo capabilities are back.

One small problem though. The channel guide is all gone, and unless the Replay unit recognizes what tv shows are on, it won’t record anything. Apparently, that’s an easy fix though, and my husband did the exact steps I’d done two minutes before asking him to help me get that last piece fixed and … of course it worked for him. I swear they were the exact same steps though!

So now, I once again will be able to watch tv without having to deal with commercials. And my addition is again sated. I’m beginning to think that maybe this isn’t a good thing, however!

You Know Your Day Isn't Starting Well When....

I really hate it when inanimate objects are smarter than I am. I hate it even more when the inanimate objects are those that I use on a daily basis.

Today, I brought a different bra into the rotation. It isn’t a new one, but it isn’t one that I’ve worn for awhile. It’s different from many in my collection – although collection isn’t quite the right word, as I’m not a connoisseur thankfully – as it is a front clasp.

I generally have a front clasp type bra in the rotation at any given time, so it isn’t like I have no experience with them. This morning, however… my day did not start off well.

To clasp them, you need to put one dowel attached to one cup through the opening on the other side then push it sideways so that it’s secure – a brief intro for those who have never experienced the joys of front clasping bras.

I pulled the dowel over to the hole and tried to put it in. No dice. I tried again. And again. And again. And then I looked closely at the hole. It almost seemed too small for the dowel to fit into, but obviously the dowel had to fit, right?

I tried again and got the edge of the dowel to go into the hole and realized I had a second problem. I couldn’t figure out how to slide it down, as it was a true hole versus a canyon type hole where the rest of the metal attached to the dowel could slide.

As you might imagine, I was getting mildly frustrated by this point. I continued trying, as I heard Little Miss stirring and realized that I had almost no time to finish getting ready. I wiggled that dowel and pushed it and pulled it but absolutely could not get it to go in the hole.

A rational person probably would have simply grabbed for another bra long before this point, but I’ve never claimed to be rational. In disgust, I figured I’d have to pretend I was a boy tying a tie and take it off, connect it and then try to put it back on.

As I took it off, I realized that the canyon for the dowel started at the bottom and not the top. The hole I was trying to put the dowel in was not really a functional hole at all. Ummm, duh! Fortunately, it was much easier to put on once I figured that part out.

The big question is: after I wash this and it goes back into the drawer o’ bras, will I remember how to hook it the next time it makes it into the rotation?