Thursday Highlights June 28, 2007

I woke up and went in to get little boy up and for the 3rd day in a row he was already awake. What cracks me up is that he will be sitting cross-legged in his crib reading a book. When I walk in, he just looks up as if to say, “what’s up mom…just sitting here getting a little reading in.” Oh my word. He is going to be such a nerd! I love it! I predict glasses by the first grade. When I took him to his new daycare this week they asked if there was a particular comfort item he liked to take to bed – like a blanket or a stuffed animal – I had to tell them that his bedtime comfort item is actually a book. So fun.

Then I had to race into the office. Important meeting? Deadline to meet? Big workload? No…I had to come in to the quarterly departmental birthday breakfast with our senior VP. Because nothing says happy birthday like coming into work 45 minutes early. In my bitterness I ate a bear claw. And drank 3 cups of coffee.

Then I started just madly hacking off items on my “to do” list. Just a crazy level of checking off tasks completed. Let me give you a sample. Item #4: Check and see if there are any Michigan wine tours for the fall. I thought that might be a fun way to celebrate our wedding anniversary in September, since we did some Sonoma Valley wine tasting on our honeymoon. Since our anniversary is in September it is critical that I start my research now. Critical, I tell you. I actually found out that on our anniversary there is some kind of “stomp the grapes” event in Leelanau county…might be worth checking out! See! I’m so productive!!

Next I signed up for an investor relations conference in September. Boy, I am really tackling those September to-do’s! It’s in Boston and should be a blast. Yay…number crunching in autumn…it doesn’t get any better than that.

Then I heard that our Bible Study reunion BBQ was cancelled. We had decided to take a hiatus from Bible studying in the summer. But, we thought it might be fun to get together once a month purely to eat. Because eating really knows no season. Our first one was to be Thursday night. And what a great night for a cook-out…gentle breeze, warm sunshine, low humidity. But, the host husband came down with a kidney stone and was busy puking all afternoon. Strangely he didn’t really feel up to hosting friends for a cook-out. He’s so selfish. We’ll have to tackle that issue when our Bible study reconvenes. I didn’t care for his self-centered attitude.

I picked up little boy at daycare – smiling and laughing and eating a toy (him, not me) – he makes me so proud. On the way home we stopped at the greenhouse for the super clearance sale. I got 2 big hanging plants for $1.50 each. I love it! For once I was a good mother and actually determined ahead of time that if I put these plants in the back seat Langston would eat them. Proactively I stuffed them into the front seat and hoped for the best.

I got home to utter bliss. Earlier this season I had an excuse…I had wrist surgery and couldn’t really use my hands very effectively. Then I was in rehab and really supposed to take it easy. Then everything was healed but I realized I was just a super lazy person. Um….I’m speaking of weeding the front flower beds. Which are quite big. And get very weedy. Especially when you don’t ever weed. So, back when I had the surgery excuse I hired Tina's employment training juvenile delinquents to come out every other week to weed. What a wonderful way to spend $25. Anyhow, I was feeling guilty now as I noticed how many weeds there were, how terrible it looked, how lazy I am…and determined that I actually had to take action and just get out there in the soil and work. I decided I would start this week-end. But, as I mentioned, utter bliss…I came home from work and noticed immediately that the kids had been out and the weeding completed! Oh, I’m so happy. It looks wonderful and I did nothing more than come home. No bending, no stretching, no back cramps…I love being lazy sometimes.

We later decided to cheer up our kidney-stone-friend’s wife by bringing over some of Jeff’s special recipe margaritas. Yum yum. I also brought her one of the hanging baskets. Turns out that Thursday was her actual 10 year wedding anniversary. Spending it helping her husband puke wasn’t a very festive way to celebrate. She very much appreciated the margaritas and hoped that their week-end plans wouldn’t be ruined by the kidney stone. She feared she was being selfish. Please. He’s the one with the problem! No, really, we all felt very sorry for him. He looked like death warmed over. I have heard that it’s about the worst pain you can experience. So, hopefully he is feeling much better now.

Home to watch the results show of So You Think You Can Dance (Jeff and I are both hopelessly addicted to this show….I don’t know what to say) and we enjoyed all over again the recaps of our favorite dances.

Is the day already over? When did I work out? When did I read something thought-provoking? When did I challenge myself to be a better person? Oh shoot. I guess there’s always this week-end. Now that I don’t have to weed I really have no excuse.