August 29, 2007
UNFAIR! Post #4
Beautiful Day! Spent most of it at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Another reason to be very proud to live in Minnesota. I could live there all fall if they'd let me...ahhhh
The UNFAIR! tie in of the day, said to Jesse and Andrew when then started bickering over the fairness of who got what rock toward the end of our entirely pleasant day:
"You two wouldn't know FAIR if it bit you in the butts!"
On to the pictures:
August 26, 2007
Pieces of Me Assignment Two: Hobbies
Not really finished with these yet, they still feel a little thin, but this is what I came up with so far:
UNFAIR! Post #3
So we spent the night before the fair opened in the emergency room, and then we spent the second day of the fair at the doctors office. Scott came home from work Friday morning WORSE than he had been before he went to the ER.
We called the ENT we had been referred to and got in late morning. Scott's problem (peritonsular abscess) was easily determined by the specialist and after a painful but quick in-office procedure, we went home and he slept blissfully for over 7 hours! He got up, ate, slept a couple more hours, then went to work.
I heard him come in Saturday morning and I wondered how he was doing. All I heard as I lay in bed was he and Andrew gibbering away. I came stumbling out to hear that he had been to the Farmer's Market in our neighborhood already and that he wanted to go out for breakfast at Perkins! Waa?!?!? This after working 8 hours overnight! He never is that chipper in the morning!
We gladly celebrated with breakfast and got the added bonus of seeing our niece Liana who works at this brand new Perkins.
What is UNFAIR! is that every medical problem can't be so easily remedied. I mean how rare is it that you call and get an appointment at a convenient time that same day, go to the doctor with a problem, he immediately understands what the problem is and says, "Let's fix it right now and you'll instantly be better"? I mean that just doesn't happen very often! I know because even the doctor was giddy when he found out what it was. He loves fixing things so fast for someone in pain!
So, all is well, and it was so nice to just hang out with Scott yesterday evening, listening to country music, he writing, me scrapbooking. So nice to have my man back!
August 23, 2007
UNFAIR! Post #2
Rain, chili cheese fries and local music. Waking up before I'm ready. Taking Andrew to his next place to be until my shift is over. Its turning out to be a pretty typical 1st day at the State Fair for me, except the part where I'm NOT at the State Fair.
The cafeteria at the hospital where my bro is doing his PT, OT and ST had a State Fair celebration today, complete with all the junk food you care to pay for and a live jazz band.
Sweet.
The only thing missing is the $100 an hour I would typically be pulling in right now. That and the fact that I don't need to get up tomorrow and do the whole thing over again.
August 22, 2007
UNFAIR! Post #1
So, in twenty minutes it will be the first day of the Minnesota State Fair, and the first time in three years that we will NOT be there at our Squngee booth.
So, I'm intending to post every day with some UNFAIR! posts...a walk down memory lane along with speculation about all things State Fairish.
Scott thought we'd start the UNFAIR! posts off with a bang, by dragging his family to the Emergency Room at Fairview Southdale Hospital for a night of fun and pacing. Several holes and a little nasal cocaine later, and we are all back home safe and sound. Turns out when Scott says he has a bad sore throat, he means he has a BAD SORE THROAT. Diagnosis: pharyngitis, which is a doctors way of saying, "Hey dude, you have a bad ass sore throat." Treatment? Lotsa drugs and see a doctor in two days. As if you could get an appointment with a doctor in two days time, like they were some sort of drive up McDoctors or something. Heh.
So yah, more fun at Fairview Southdale, will this summer ever end?!?!?
Imagine if we still did have a State Fair booth and we were starting out tomorrow with our head sales guy fresh out of the ER? May, wouldn't THAT have been a riot.
August 21, 2007
Traveling with the Palate
Sigh. The ONLY thing wrong with not being wealthy is the difficulty in traveling when one is "older".
I'm reading a great book by Donna Leon, Blood from a Stone. 
Ms. Leon's main character, Commissario Brunetti is a big fan of Grappa. So I decided since I can't travel to Venice just now, I'll read some Donna Leon and sip some Grappa. I also picked up some Moscato D'Asti, a light bubbly white wine from Northern Italy, which I'm sure the Commisario also enjoys. While they chill, I'll tell you a little bit about both.
Grappa is a uniquely Italian drink. Traditionally, made from pomace, the discarded grape seeds, stalks, and stems that are a by-product of the winemaking process, Grappa has been around since the Middle Ages. For generations, Italians have sipped this "firewater" after meals and even added a little to their morning espresso, to "correct" it.
Grappa was originally made in Bassano del Grappa, a town of around 40,000 residents in Italy's northern Veneto region. It is from this town that Grappa gets its name. Grappa started as a by-product of the Italian winemaking trade, a rough drink made with what was available, potent enough to get the farmers through the cold winter months. It was good at warming you up, but not particularly tasty, similar to the grain alcohols of the Midwestern United States. Grappa, largely, remained a drink of the poor workmen and farmers until the 1960s.
Similar to France's brandies and Cognac, and Portugal's Sherry, Grappa is a distilled beverage. That means the mixture of grape pieces and alcohol is heated gently, allowing much of the mixture to evaporate, and leaving a potent concentration. Today's Grappa is about 40 to 45 percent alcohol. That's 80 to 90 proof. After distillation, Grappa is usually stored in glass bottles for about six months before it is distributed. The flavor profile of Grappa depends on the grape varietal used, and, generally, Grappa is potent and dry. Occasionally, a producer will add a little syrup to sweeten the lot. This sweeter Grappa is particularly popular in the American market.
Today's Grappa
The character of Grappa changed in the 1960s, thanks, largely to the efforts of one woman - Giannola Nonino. Her Nonino distillery, in Percoto Italy, has been producing Grappa since 1897. In the early 1970s, she began making Grappa from a single grape, as opposed to the customary mélange of grape leftovers. She sought to make a quality drink, one to rival the great eaux-de-vie of France. It was an uphill battle. She sold very little of her first, 1973, production. Undaunted, she offered her Grappa free to journalists, restaurateurs, and asked that it be served at important commercial and government dinners. She poured the drink herself and told her story as she filled the glasses. Slowly, in this way, the charismatic Ms. Nonino created a following.
The Nonino Distillery's first single grape Grappa was crafted from the Picolit grape. Today, over a dozen different grapes are used for single grape Grappas, called "monovitigno" Grappas, a term Ms. Nonino coined herself. In 1984, the same Nonino distillery gained government approval and began producing a higher quality Grappa made from whole fruit. They began with grapes and in the following years, produced products using cherries, pear, apricot, peach, and raspberry, among other fruits. Seeking a way to show off their new products, Nonino is also responsible for the stylish glass bottles in which Grappa today is sold, a dramatic change from the old medicinal-style bottles.
Grappa is also added to espresso to make a "Café Corretto," a popular after-dinner concoction.
courtesy www.alifeinitaly.com
In Italy they say Moscato d'Asti is the ultimate breakfast wine. Certainly, I could drink it all day, and as it is so innocently low in alcohol (typically 5.5%) it is tempting to start early. It's best after dinner, though, or at lunch, slopped into large wine glasses.
It can taste of white peaches, more often apricots, sometimes of orange-fleshed melons, and it is good when drunk alongside those fruits. It's also something of a chameleon - drinking one bottle with a mango and passion fruit tart dripping with crème patisserie, we became convinced it also had a suggestion of mango. Actually, though, it was just meshing so well with the fruit that we couldn't tell one from another.
Victoria Moore for The Guardian
When most people think of Italian wine, they think of the lush, robust reds of Tuscany or the delicate white wines of Piedmont. They don't generally think of sparkling wine…but they should. Italy produces more different kinds of sparkling wine than any other country in the world. In fact, they have been crafting spumantes (literally, sparkling wines) since Roman times, long before Dom Perignon popped his first cork. From the light, off-dry Proseccos to the classic Franciacortas, Italian sparkling wines are varied, tasty, and often quite affordable.
Unlike Champagne, most Italian sparkling wines are made using the Charmat method. Using this method, the wine's second fermentation is done in a tank instead of in the bottles, and the resulting wine is bottled young. This technique is particularly suited to crisp, low alcohol wines, such as Asti and Moscato d'Asti. Generally, sparkling wines produced this way are best consumed when young and have little staying power.
Pieces of Me Assignment One: IMHO
August 20, 2007
I'm starting a new scrapbook project, all digital
Through a cool link featured on www.tallyscrapper.com I found this site and have decided to play along, but make the whole book in digital pages which I will post here on my blog.
So, at least two posts a week people, things are looking up.
Here is my cover!
In November, we write a book.
This year our family is participating in NANOWRIMO, or National Novel Writers Month, where during the month of November you seek to write an entire novel, start to finish.
As a way to launch this off with Andrew, we are hosting writing workshops for kids his age, where we will help them write their first story and get it published.
This is all inspired in part by my cousins, who are older homeschooled kids who have participated in this challenge in the past.
Now I just need to figure out what my novel will be about!
August 17, 2007
Redux, this is funny!
From the archives of my blog, last year at this time:
http://mindakms.typepad.com/mindathink/2006/09/conversation.html
Funny little man!
Its back to school time, the time where I get to hear nearly everyone with school aged children say, in front of their children, with pride, on the radio, in public, how happy they are that it is time to institutionalize their children again. Burns my buns. Why? I mean this is a free country right? If you choose to send your child to school I respect that decision. I truly do. I did the same for my oldest two. But why do you think it is healthy or good parenting or proper behavior, society, to tell the world and your children you can't wait to be rid of them? Why is that socially acceptable? Why am I a bad parent because I chose to keep my ex-husband in my kids life by agreeing to him having custody, which kept them out of daycare, and gave them a fulltime daytime parent, but you are a good parent who merely seems to endure the 12 weeks off your little ones get? Did it ever occur to the parents of this world that there is something wrong with a system that sets us up to be happy our kids are being taken away 6 hours a day 9 months a year? That maybe society has taught you to give them your children for less than good reasons? Or maybe it should be obvious that if those sweet little ones that you so loved before school, can be loved after they go to school too, if only you don't turn every vacation time with them into their holy kingdom. On summer breaks do you still remember to take ample time to do the things you love? Do you teach your children to be independent and respect mommy's personal time? Do you teach them to understand that everyone's needs are to be considered? Or do you just let them run roughshod over you, dictating where you will take them and when, demanding what they want to eat, going to bed when they choose? And why do you think you let them rule you? I've seen incredibly intelligent and put together adults say things like, "He just won't go to bed" or "All I do is run him from event to event." What is up with that? Sorry for the rant, but yesterday while working on the Squngee order I was listening to the radio, something I don't normally do. And the DJ was out at Lake Minnetonka for a back to school parents party and ALL the commentating what about how happy all the parents are that their little nippers will be out of their hair soon. Wha? This is a family friendly radio station, they said so in between comments about getting rid of their kids, and so apparently THIS is what is acceptable in society. I wonder how the kids feel hearing this? In the aftermath of the storm, Minnesotans get out their generators, their coolers and their chainsaws, and then pflegmatically begin to put things back together again. Here are some photos I took on Sunday at what appears to be the epicenter of the storm. All but three houses on this 3 block long run lost major trees Friday night. By Sunday morning most everything was all stacked up neatly by the curb. I love how matter of fact us Minnesotans are in the face of tragedy. It makes me proud to be apart of such a place. We had no tree loss of course, being as we rent, but we showed our tenacity by making more camping reservations on Sunday. Can't keep us down! ...I'll share their exciting news here, so many of you know and love them like we do. They bought a cabin! They have been playing the last two summers at a place up near Hinckley where several of their friends have camper trailers on land in this special place called Pathfind Village St. Croix. You can tell they really love it up there as they go back more and more often. On Sunday they surprised us with the announcement that they'd bought a place of their own, complete with a GREAT scrapbook retreat center (its actually called a guest house, but mom knows a scrappers dream retreat when she sees one!) They take possession in a couple of weeks and I think we get to go up and see it soon thereafter. Very exciting for them as they start to head into their retirement years! HERE is a link to Pathfinder Village's website, to illustrate what the community is like. Without really intending to, we have skipped out on camping for three years. Finally, our Eclectic homeschool group decided to set up a group camping outing and this past weekend was the weekend we reserved. We went to Baker Park Reserve, a great place to do "camping lite" as it is instead the Twin Cities Metro area, has shower houses and has tons of things to do. It isn't getting away from it all in the traditional sense, but it does provide a great intro to camping to get us going again. Three families ended up going, Park and Julie, Becky and Jeff and us, and the kids immediately found friends at a neighboring campsite and starting whooping it up while we set up camp. Then we sat around the fire and talked and laughed and just settled in. No surprise to us was Andrew's fascination with the fire. Sigh. I bet you didn't know that pyromania tendencies can be handed down genetically. Ask Scott some day about his grandmothers garage....anyway... . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew is covering up his eyebrows because Park has told him if he gets too close he'll burn them off...so much for trying to discourage his obsession with fear... So then Park gives him a bandana to help free up his hands for the fire play. . . . . . . . not EXACTLY how you are supposed to wear the bandana Ronan! . Jeff and Park joke around while Julie pours us a glass of wine. Becky is gone home to get the bike lock key, so she can get the bikes off the car. Oops! At 8:30 Scott headed back home to shower and get ready for his last night of work that week. His plan was to work, go home and sleep for 5 hours and then join us back at the campsite in the afternoon. Oh how foolish it is to make plans with Mother Nature! At 10pm it was quiet time in the campgrounds, so we three families ushered our kids to the bathhouse for teethbrushing and one final trip to the wc, then it was the three kids and I all off to bed. I think the other grown ups stayed up a little later, but I was tired so I took that chance to head to sleep. THANKFULLY I took some tylenol pm. Why thankfully? Well, TPM has a CALMING effect on me which was to prove very useful in the next few hours... ...so, about 1am I was awoken by two things, constant, unremittant bright lightning and ground shaking thunder. No rain yet...so I'm thinking, I bet this is gonna wake Andrew up and I must go pee! I ran in the dark to the bathroom, and ran back, hoping he didn't wake up scared while I was gone. Blissfully, as it got worse and worse, he was still sleeping. I crawled back into my tent (he was in his own tent) and tried to go back to sleep. Within half an hour the rain drops started. I zipped up one window, then another. I wondered if I had brought the library book in from the camp chairs...I zipped up the final two windows and wondered if Andrew's window was rolled up... Suddenly the rain began coming down in torrents, swirling around my tent that was quickly filling up with water. My air mattress (how did I get lucky enough to have the one with a hole?) was now flat, and I was laying in a puddle of water that was rapidly growing. Out of the darkness I hear a shaky little voice holler, "Mommy, I'm scared!" and I dashed out of my tent into the tight quarters of Andrew's. He was shaking like a leaf and I calmed him and drew his sleeping bag around him and scooted him over so I could share his nice full mattress. This is a little $5 walmart tent. I was so proud of how it held up in this storm, which went on and on and on. The sides were rolling and shaky and I could hear things crashing down around us, but it held firm. I can say more than a few prayers were being hastily whispered throughout the night. I wondered if my tent and all my belongings had rolled away since it was now empty. I kept thinking about the Casting Crowns song Praise You in The Storm, I kept telling Andrew that God would take care of us, in my falsely sedated voice. Then the screaming and yelling began. It seemed our three families were quiet and staying put, but around us you could hear cars driving away in the fury. Finally after an hour or two with no relief, I unzipped the door and peaked out. The screen house that was our kitchen was gone. The campsite was in shambles. But more importantly I saw a light on in Julie and Parks SUV. So I asked Andrew, who was by now calm and getting used to the storm and the occasional drips of rain sneaking in, if he wanted to make a break for it to Parks car. "No, I feel safe here mama" was his response. I was so proud of him at that moment. You see Andrew has been paralyzed by his fear of storms since he was three or four and lived through a tornado on the lake with his grandparents. He doesn't even like to hear weather reports of rain, and he might be the only 7 year old with the weather channel on his computer home page. And here he was in a storm to face all storms, trees snapping around us, and he felt safe in his little $5 tent. A huge moment in my parenting life. Finally I readdressed the idea of going to the truck, explaining I had towels and dry clothes and we could dry off once we got there. I sent him off across the campsite, a blanket wrapped around him, the tails flying out behind him as he ran and then I ran after him, pelted by rain as I tried to zip up the tent and preserve what was left of it. Julie, Park and their little 6 year old boy were steaming hot and wet in the car. Their tent had not held and they'd had to drive to where their boat was to secure it, as the cover wasn't in place for a storm. Then they'd come back, wondering if we were still asleep. Hehe! I guess they'd walked by our tents twice and because we were quiet they thought we were sleeping! I called Scott and updated him on what was transpiring...their power had gone out and they were just getting the computers back online with the generator. My 20 year old, having heard we were camping from his sister, called with fear in his voice, "Mom, are you guys okay?" So sweet. Seems trees were snapping out of the ground and basketball hoops were crashing and he knew both of his sets of parents were out in it camping! After about another half hour of waiting, its now 3:45 in the morning, we decided to drive the hour home and come back when the storm ended. The ride home was harrowing... ...The way home showed us just how lucky we were to be alive. Road signs and trees were laying in the road, showing us just how strong the winds had been. Our campsite had been ringed with trees, and we realized how lucky we were that they all stayed up. Huge sections of the city were black with no power, and we saw numerous sky to ground lightning, which would have been deadly if it had struck in our campsite. When we were a block from our home, we saw the power was out in our whole neighborhood. Luckily there were emergency lights on in the hall, as two bedraggled, soaking wet, shoeless waifs headed in to our building. Our apartment was pitch black as we entered. I thought, I need to remember where the flashlight is...oh yeah, its at the campsite. The lantern? Yeah, the campsite. Andrew's kitty flashlight? Campsite. I fumbled around and found some matches and a candle and we crawled gratefully into our warm and dry beds after stripping off our dirty wet clothes. The power outtage seemed so unimportant compared to the safety and warmth of our beds. After talking with staff at the National Cemetery last week, yesterday I stopped off at the Ft. Snelling Nat'l Cemetery again and this time found what I was looking for. Seems last time I was in section X instead of section 15. Reading signs is OH, so helpful! Uncle Rog (and his big brother the pilot) would get a big kick out of where he's "planted" at the top of the hill, in the very back row, overlooking the airport and a major runway. It made me smile. Last night was filled with mixed emotions. I received a call shortly after 6pm from Jen, a scrapper friend from www.Tallyscrapper.com who was coming to the Twin Cities to visit her sister and wanted to meet us TC girls. She was moments away from the store on 494. I called Lisa at the store to let her know and instead of souding excited, she sounded shell shocked. That was when I first heard about this: I have a long history with this bridge. I remember the icy cold day back in 1982 when I came to Minnesota with my parents to look at colleges. There were feet of snow on the ground and I will never forget as we crossed this bridge going north toward Arden Hills seeing the metrodome for the first time. It was awe inspiring to a girl from small towns who didn't know about things like indoor baseball or hockey leagues. A year later I had another run in on that same bridge, this time heading south. I was on a first date with a guy...I think his name was Tim Erickson, who was taking me to a concert (maybe Amy Grant?). His car was a B-E-A-T-E-R and I could see the frozen cold ground rushing by under my feet! We hit a patch of ice on that bridge and wheeeeee! we were sailing around and around and around, coming to a stop at the southern edge of the bridge up against the guardrail. No one was hurt and his car might have been dented but it was already in such rough shape it was hard to tell which was bruises were new. We were shaken and continued on to the concert. It was the last date we had. For years after we married that bridge took my first husband and I to his parents home in South Minneapolis. We traveled the route often because we didn't have much money for food and Janice is a fabulous cook. For several years after my divorce that bridge was the dividing line between my old life and my new. Without a car and living in the south metro I didn't use it at all for some time. In 1994 I began using this bridge to get to Zoe's house to care for her every day as she was dying of cancer. This was the bridge that took my roommate Julie to work every day at the University of Minnesota. She will be able to see the chasm its falling has left when she walks to her car after work each day. Nowadays this bridge takes us to church once a month and to visit Scott's mom and grandma. We have been complaining all spring and summer about the construction on the road and how slow it makes this trip. Yesterdays tragedy certainly put that whining into perspective. I have been praying since last night that I will have no new stories about this bridge this morning. I keep jumping up to call more friends as I remember people who use it often. So far all are accounted for. I wish I could wish away all deaths associated with it. ...fingernail! A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with some wonderful people. In these two photos, there are a host of people that you might recognize, if you circulate even peripherally in the scrapbook world. I went to the PreCHA Party event sponsored by Those Were the Days Scrapbook Kits which was held at the conference center at The Waterpark of America. Not knowing what to expect, I got my usual pre-event jitters. I was in for a wonderful surprise and I learned something which informed my soul more than it improved my scrapbooking. We in the scrapbook world are amazing people. We have created a world-wide bond which I suggest rivals any bond found in a church, denomination, political party, or school affliation. Its more like the bond one finds in a battlefield battalion. We are a diverse group, although primarily women, as the battalion is lacking in commonalities, although primarily men. We are in a battle so fierce that petty differences and heirarchy are meaningless. We all have our heads down and are hard at work, making sure our memories live on. We understand each other on a level so deep, that lifelong friendships are founded almost overnight, with just a love of a certain manufacturer to light the fire. Our connections are strange and wonderful things and I have never been as fulfilled in my friendships as I am with my scrappy friends. But we do make one mistake, being human as we are, that causes division. We have decided to call scrapbookers who publish their work "celebrities" and we have put them on a level above ourselves. We follow the model of the world which says if someone has name recognition they are a bit better than us and we pant after autographs, photographs and anecdotes to tell our friends for the sake of impressing them. Why is this a mistake you ask? Because our strength is in our cohesion, and celebrity seeks to divide. In setting someone "above" us because they have won a contest, have written a book, or have made a design team, we have pushed them a bit farther away. In snapping a photo or asking for a signature, we send a message to that person that we are not equals. How very awkward that place we send them must be! What I have come to love about Tallyscrapper.com is that it does not encourage this behavior. Of course we occasionally talk about whats what in the scrapping "news" Of course we all have that handful of "famous" names we follow through their careers. But all in all the atmosphere at TS is one which values everyone. One that daily sends the message from the owner of the site on through each and every member, that we all have value, we all have something to offer, we are all celebrities and we are none of us celebrities. This became very real to me during this weekend spent with seven "names" in the scrap world at large, and a dozen or so "non-names". I received real inspiration, encouragement and interesting conversation with all of the people involved, not just the "experts". It was a rewarding, warm, wonderful experience and because of the location and the size of the event, the "celebrity" was either downplayed or missing entirely. It was wonderful. I'm glad I went, glad I have photos. But tonight when I meet Jen from Wisconsin and in February when I crop with 11 ladies from TS? That will be just as rewarding, I'll have just as much fun if not more and time with them will be just as cherished as the time I spent the Pre-CHA weekend. August 17, 2007
Its that time of year again...
August 15, 2007
Proud to be a Minnesotan
Since My Parents Don't Have a Blog...
August 14, 2007
Trial By Fire (and lightning and wind and rain and...)
August 09, 2007
Found Uncle Rog's Gravesite
August 02, 2007
Remembering the Bridge
August 01, 2007
A Poke with a Sharp...
