Our first take home school project!!!!!

I'm pretty sure that Lisa and I put Stellanne in school so that we'd get take home art that we didn't really have to "work" on. Don't get me wrong. I like to work with Stellanne, and making her first Christmas ornament was fun, but not fun all at the same time. She's rather unruly. And I can't quite explain to her, a 13 month old, why she needs to sit still to do this project for mommy. I coun't my blessings that she sits still long enough for me to put a pony in her hair. AND that I do it so often, that we actually have a baby sign for it. And if there wasn't hard evidence before that you can train your baby to do something like a dog, there is now. Because I have trained Stellanne to say "Pony, Please" like she likes it....I'm sure she hates getting one, but she likes to have it once it's there. (I'm off subject....I know)

Anyways, today my mom (who drops off and picks up Stellanne from school) brought home Stellanne's first piece of art work. And Stellanne being the total cheeser that she is, when you point to it and say, "Who did this? Who's feet are those?" Grins from ear to ear and scrunches up her little body, like she is so tickled that she did it. I'm not sure she remembers, but more likely associates it with the game that she plays with Grammie "Where did your socks go" where she takes her socks off in deliberate manner in front of Grammie so that Grammie will use her "stern" voice to say "Where did your socks go?" Makes Stellanne belly laugh!

We are so excited to have our first school treasure from Stellanne. As a side note, I got a great I idea from my sister, and rather than keeping all of Stellanne's school projects (although we will probably keep this one because it was her first) We are going to take pictures of all of them and do a year by year photo book. That way we get to keep all the memories, but not all the bulk.

It might have stopped snowing.....

As I sit here, it might have stopped snowing. Hard to tell but I don't see flakes glowing in the street light. So we will have a white christmas and I can't wait.

Lisa said tonight that near Christmas, she thinks I forget that I'm a jew. Which I don't. I read in great vigor the Hannukah story tonight. Stellanne thought I was histerical, and amused that it was story time at dinner time. BTW, Happy Hannukah to all my jewish peeps, and peeps that like to celebrate Hannukah (although I can't say I know anyone that's not jewish that celebrates Hannukah, but I know LOTS of people that aren't christian that celebrate Christmas). We had a VERY jewish meal, Split pea soup with ham and Latkes. YUM! We lit the candles and Stellanne opened her first official Hannukah present. She then proceeded over to the Christmas tree to continue to fun of opening gifts by opening one of her Christmas gifts. I suppose I'll re-wrap it tonight.

This year is grand. And not just because things are going so well for us, but I really feel the holiday spirt this year. It's not by any means our most expensive christmas, in fact, because we are buying a house this year, it is less than extravagent. But it seems that snuggling on the couch and just talking or watching Stellanne have occupied the most of our time. Family time has been amazing this year. And to top it all off -- we'll get a white christmas. YEAH!!!!

My most favorite Christmas was a white christmas. I think I was 9 or 10. Infact I'm pretty sure I was 10 - we got something like 10 inches of snow. There is this picture of my sister and I standing on our front door step all bundled up (think Christmas story) There was so much snow, that we actually made snowmen. I believe this was also the year we attempted an igloo, but I think we always attempted an igloo when it snowed. Who knows what the mystic was...but it was there. This year we actually got the igloo made about half the way. And then the whole dome thing eluded us. And there was no way in hell that my dad was going to freeze his ass off to help us build it. Funny how as a kid, your cold, but your having so much fun it doesn't seem cold. As an adult, I've barely taken 10 steps outside. Instead, I prefer to look out the window and the beautiful blanket of white. Plus, kids always have snow clothes. My jeans will soak very quickly....and I'm not into freezing. I'm pretty sure these were the same sentiments that my dad had.

And if you thinnk about it, a white christmas, almost always means more family time. It's exciting. Infact, I think I'll go make some hot cocoa and head off to bed to snuggle with my family :)

Happy Holidays!!!

Stellanne is an amazing little girl

So out of the blue Stellanne started catching the kisses I would blow to her. At first, I thought it might be a fluke...kids her age do so many things that unless they do it more than say 3 times...you really can't correlate it. But she really got that she was supposed to catch the kiss.

She amazes me nearly every day. She has the same sense of humor that Lisa and I have, which shouldn't surprise me, but it does. I'm sure all parents feel like this when they see their traits come out in their child. I think it makes more of impact on me because Stellanne isn't genetically related to me. ( It doesn't change our relationship, at least not now. I fear that some day she will hold our lack of genetics against me. But then I think that I held my genetics against my parents so its pretty much a wash. )

She is like me in so many ways that don't match Lisa. For example, she loves artichokes. Lisa hates them. In fact I think she detests the nights I make them because of the smell in the house. But Stellanne will happily share my artichoke. My oldest sister taught her kids (until they were smart enough to know better) that the hearts always went to mommy. Hopefully Stellanne will follow in their foot steps....at least for a little while.

Stellanne also has my mis-behavior. I guess it's not good. But it does make Lisa and I laugh. You can literally tell her no in a stern voice and she look at you and smile as she continues to do what you just reprimanded her for. My guess is that she'll be just like me and that spankings will have little impact upon whether or not she completes a forbidden task.

For now, I'm just amazed at my little girl. I guess I'll just let life come at us, rather than waiting for things that may or may not happen.

2008 and hopes for 2009

So this was a survey from MySpace - but I liked it a lot so I'm posting it here....enjoy.

What was the best part of 2008?
So many things happend this year that were great. Getting a new job, watching Stellanne grow, starting family traditions, having my mom move in with us, seeing Stellannes first steps...and catching them on video, buying a house, Lisa and I becoming a stronger couple. And who can forget that we elected Barak!

What was the worst part of 2008?
Prop 8 hurt....but I think personally it's been putting Stellanne in nursery school.

What was the biggest surprise of 2008?
That we've bought an amazing home, and that my mom is living with us (both good surprises)

What are you most looking forward to next year?
Spending more time with Family. Hawaii in April, Laguna in September, and hopefully trips in between that cross paths with friends and family.

Is there anything you are not looking forward to next year?
Stellanne growing up to fast.

Which new years resolutions did you keep last year?
I don't think I made any...

Which new years resolutions did you break in 2008?
none - yea me!

What will be your new years resolutions next year?
to get involved in a snyogague.

Which resolution are you most likely to break?
going to friday night services.

Which resolution are you most likely to keep?
hopefully since this is our only one, I won't break it.

What will you be doing on new years eve?
chilling at home...probably a get together with our best friends.

Who will you be with at new years eve?
my family

Who do you want to kiss to see the new year in?
Lisa and Stellanne (but Stellanne will probably be sleeping)

What was the best song of 2008?
I like Katie Perry's Hot and Cold. Or Metro Stations Shake it.

What was the best TV show of 2008?
I have a lot that I love. How I met your mother, the office, ugly betty

What was the best book you read in 2008?
Wednesdays with Stellanne

What was the best film of 2008?
gosh....Religiolous

What change would you like to make to your life next year?
be more involved with my family

What change would you like to see in the world next year?
more compassion, and really better movment for gay marriage to protect my family.

Do you ever wish you were better?

As a person I wish I was better. Not as an employee, because I'm a great employee, but as a person I wish I was better. I wish that I donated more, and not just for tax writes offs but for the better"ment" of another person. I wish that I was better at golf, well actually I wish I played golf, so that when other people talked golf around me I could hold my own.

I wish I knew more about investing and how the markets effect my bottom line..
I wish I knew more about education and how to offer Stellanne the best one on a budget...
I wish I knew how to........

honestly, a lot of things and at 29...all with in my grasp

Santa Pictures

As promised. Don't be jealous, I know you wished your kids looked this happy!

I love/hate this time of year!

I absolutely love the holiday season. I love the lights on houses, christmas/holiday trees, getting / making/ wrapping gifts, spending time with family, the hope of snow, the magical wonder of Santa (we've already visited him....and the pictures are funny), but at the same time that I love all of these things I hate them. I hate the impending doom of taking down my decorations - so I put them up as early as Lisa will let me so I can enjoy them. I hate the accomplishing of getting things done, but I like the feeling of getting them done (ie: baking and cooking goodies). I love to spend time with family, but wish that scheduling that time wasn't so tiresome. There's really nothing I hate about snow, so I'll skip that one. And while I love Santa and how fun he is, I get angry that it seems that the holiday season is more about one religion reminding another religion that they too have a holiday, or that they too don't celebrate anything other than the magic of the earths seasons. I mostly hate the people that can't seem to understand why you have to think about others feelings when it comes to holidays...but that is another subject.

I mostly hate how fast it goes. Today is the 2nd of December, and I feel like December is slipping away from me. Could be that by the end of this month we'll not be focused on the holidays, but be focused on moving. I'm pretty sure that we are nuts.

I hate that I don't feel like I can separate out Lisa or my Mom's birthday this month. That no matter how much I try to pull them apart, they all get lumped in to Birthday, Hannukah, Christmas party - when they deserve special days just like the rest of us. I am excited for Lisa's birthday, Stellanne and I have concocked great gifts that are sure to make Lisa happy - and the best part is that Lisa has NO clue as to what they are!!!!! And I'm not tell here, because I know she reads my blog.

I am excited that Hannukah has taken on a new form this year - definately a holiday for children. It will continue to get better year after year. But this is the first year I've been excited about Hannukah for someone else. I am excited to read the story to Stellanne, to feed her a Latke....she will love them! I am excited to have her watch as we light the candles, and to hopefully start to teach her about her jewish heritage. I am excited to see what her take on our traditions is, I know it won't happen this year, but the foundation for how she perceives the fact that we celebrate Hannukah and Christmas will be laid in these next years. If she's anything like me, she'll actually be surprised that not all kids celebrate both, and she'll also be confused as to how an old fat man in a red suit has anything to do with Jesus.

I also dread making my new years resolutions. Although this year Lisa and I have resolved to really make only one thing important. We'd like to start attending a synogague again. Both of us loved the sense of community we had when we were really involved in our last synogague. It just means we really have to commit to going to services on Friday, so that by the time next year rolls around, Stellanne will be ready to start Sunday school.

Like I said, I love this time of year, and wish that I could throw a party to invite all my loved ones near and far to spend even more time with friends, family and friends that are family. I guess the best I can hope for is the opportunity to see them all in 2009!

Oh, and we are moving

We bought a house. Mutal acceptance technically started today. We are officially crazy! But the house was an amazing deal. Bank Forclosed because of a divorce, the house is 3100 sq ft, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, office (with a door!!!), living room, dining, eat in, family room and a media room upstairs complete with projector, surround sound and all the goodies. The backyard is small...even smaller than our maple valley home if you can believe that, but it only "looks" small because it drops off into a forrest, which is protected land, so no one will ever build on it.

Google Maps has started something cool...I think it's only in Seattle, but I could be wrong. Anyways, Click here to see a street view of our new house.

They already took the listing down, so I can't link to pictures :( But I promise to post some when we get them. However, I did do a quick search on the builder of our house to find out that our house was the model home for this builder on the Master Builders Association Parade of Homes Tour in 2007. And they also have our floor plan, although our house is the flip of the floor plan. I.E: our front door is actually on the right side of the home, compared to the left side on the plan. So look for a change of address card in the mail soon :)

First day at "school"....

Heart wrenching....it absolutely broke my heart to drive away after we dropped Stellanne off at her first day of "school" Right now she is only going part time 9am - ish to about 3pmish. In January it will be a full day of 9am to 6pm, 4 days a week. And even though I mentally know that this is probably the best thing to do, it killed me all day to not know exactly what she was doing or how she was feeling.

When my mom and I arrived, we first took Stellanne into her classroom and "introduced" her to her teacher, whom she had met before. She wasn't too sure about the other kids in the room. This very cute little boy fell absolutely in love with Stellanne, and mildly invaded her space. But she was so intrigued with the other kids that she barely even noticed me giving her a kiss on her forehead, or me saying goodbye. We finished filling out paperwork, and then I took one last look at her through the glass before I left. I got choked up when I saw she was crying. I know that this transition is a lot for her to take. But she won't remember it, and even if we delayed the starting of "school" she would still have the hard transition, but there is the chance that she'd remember it.

One of our best friends worked in a daycare, and she said that without a doubt, the kids that started "school" when they were 2 or 3 had a harder time than the kids that started when they were one. I repeated this mantra in my head today...it didn't make me feel better.

I called to check in on her during the day. They said she was doing okay, she had a good lunch and was sitting with her friends....kinda made me laugh a little. Really at this age I don't think they get relationships other than your parents and grandparents have magical powers that make you feel better. But regardless, I was glad to hear that she was okay.

Tomorrow will be harder...I'm glad that I have to take the car into the shop to get a new muffler (left over from the accident repairs). I don't think I can take 2 days of seeing her cry. And surely the crying will start sooner since I'm sure she'll know what's coming....my poor mom.

Stellanne's First Steps!!!!!

BTW

I got an amazing bonus from my boss. AND we got a Wii! Totally second fiddle to Stellanne's birthday. But still exciting for us. Who knew that playing the Wii could work up a sweat. Lisa is still sore from boxing. AND if my mom asks you to bowl against her....deny her. She is secretly REALLY good at Wii bowling. She pretends well enough, but I know better. She kicked my ass and the first 4 frames were technically "dummy" frames since she was figuring the game out.

Before playing her I didn't know that 3 strkes in a row was called a Turkey. Now, I do. 2 times over.

Happy Birthday Stellanne!

What an amzing year this has been. As I look at the pictures of our little girl week by week its amazing to see her transformation. From a skinny little baby to a chubby baby, back to a skinny toddler. Although, I have to admit she isn't doing much toddling. I am amazed by her.

Today we played a game, "stick the binkie in mommies mouth", and it occured to me she is so smart. She at first thought it was funny that I'd put her binkie in my mouth, so she'd take it out, but then she'd want the humor of me putting it in my mouth, so she'd put it back.. Her laughter is wonderful. Who knew, that the absolutely best sound in the world was your childs laughter?

She also thought that us singing Happy Birthday to her was funny and weird. Funny that when they sing the happy birthday song to me I also feel funny and weird.

Happy Birthday my Baby Girl. I am SO glad you are in my life. You make everyday worth living and I aspire to be the person you think I am.

Stellanne's First birthday

So tomorrow is Stellanne's first birthday. But upon waking up this morning thoughts in my head actually had to do with today, and not tomorrow. 11/13/07 was a VERY pivial moment in our lives. You see, not only did Lisa go into labor at 3pm in the afternoon one year ago - I spent most of the morning, on the phone with my former boss crying. Seems so far away now, especially because I work for a great boss that appreciates me. Someone that trusts my judgement, and has no need to micro manage me. But in ways today one year agos feels like it was yesterday. Lisa and I were planning this huge move to Texas and I was fighting with my boss over a trival $5K. I thought my world was falling apart - and little did I know I was actually brushing off the dirt to find gemstones below. I left work "early" that day to pick up our dogs from the groomer. I had probably been in the office since 6am - but for some reason leaving the office at 3pm seemed early to me. I hadn't been home but 10 minutes when I got a call from Lisa.

Lisa: "Hi, I'm going to the hospital"
Janette (thinking: oh dear what's wrong now) "Why is everything okay?"
Lisa: "I've been in labor for the last hour and my contractions are 3 minutes apart"
Janette: "REALLY...oh gosh, okay, I'll meet you at the hospital........."
Lisa: "Emily is going to drive me in my car, and I'll meet you at the hospital"
Janette: "okay"

Immediately after I hung up the phone with Lisa, I left the house. And started driving towards the hospital. Neglecting to think of the dogs, our "hospital" bag, the car seat, or anything else. Luckily, I didn't get too far before these things came racing back into my mind. I turned around and knocked on the neighbors door to ask them to sign for our car seat (being delivered that day by UPS) and left a note on the front door that read "BABY COMING TODAY, please leave car seat with neighbor <---" I also tried to put together the hospital bag, clothes for Lisa, clothes for the baby, chex mix....I neglected to include anything for me. I hopefully will remember that next time. I put food and water out for the dogs and left. It felt like an eternity driving to the hospital. What's funny is I had never envisioned what it would be like if Lisa went into labor when I wasn't there. I just anticipated that one morning she would wake up and say "Janette, its time" I guess I watch too many movies. I arrived to the hospital about 30 minutes before Lisa did. And some how I called my mom to tell her that Lisa was in labor, and talked to my sister about leaving my previous job. Finally Lisa arrived! I was so excited and nervous all at the same time. By the time she arrived it was probably 4:30ish. We got checked by triage and were able to walk the hallways of the hospital that I was once a volunteer at. While walking for that hour we had deep conversations about me leaving my job. About staying in Seattle even though we had JUST sold our home. And it became pretty clear that I had to do what was right for our child. This little girl that I didn't know, I needed to protect. And that meant finding another job that would keep me at home more, a job where my family life was more important than my work life, and a boss that understood that. I talked to a close friend while Lisa was in labor, he gave me a lot of insight as to what should be important as a parent, and I am very thankful for his advise. I think that this year has been the best year of our lives because of it. I think the absolutely ironic point of this whole thing? I got a bonus this week that was equal to the amount that my previous boss and I were fighting over. This week, of all weeks. I guess it just kinda proves that I am where I am suppose to be.

And I can't imagine my life without Stellanne. She is truely an amazing little girl. As I look at her transformation over the last year, I get tears in my eyes and thoughts in my head how the next 17 years will go faster than this year. I look forward to them, and at the same time, I hope they go as slow as I want them too.

An accident and a new recipe

Today was quite eventful. Since getting back from Chicago it's almost as if I can think and function again and so my household chores are actually getting done. Not the weekly cleaning list, because I did that before Chicago, but the honey do list that I wrote for myself :) Anyways, so today Stellanne and I had to go pick up pictures and then go buy "school" clothes from a second hand store so I wouldn't get mad when they got dirty or torn at daycare. So after going to Once Upon a Child, where we scored getting numerous pants, overalls and holiday dresses (Stellanne even got to help choose which ones she liked) we headed back home for lunch and a nap. Then it happend while we were stopped at a light, Stellanne and I got in Stellanne's first fender bender. Not sure what quite happend, but I couldn't have been hit by anyone nicer. There was a lot more damage to his car than ours (I guess thats why we bought a SUV) and the guy was practically frantic as soon as he saw that Stellanne was in the car. He must have asked at least 10 times if she was okay.

And yes, Stellanne was fine. Infact, she got a cookie out of the whole ordeal - so she was better than fine. Car goes into the shop on Monday - his insurance has already called me, set the appointment and arranged for a rental car. I feel terrible for the guy; mostly because he was so nice and concerned for Stellanne. We didn't bother calling the cops because the guy was insured, and really there wasn't that much damage. My mom is freaked that the frame is bent...but seriously there is no way. We'll still have them check just in case.

So after Stellanne got up from her nap, Lisa had returned from her CME course that she took at the UW and we headed out to do the grocery shopping. We didn't have to much to buy, but tomorrow we are house shopping, so we really won't have enough time to do both types of shopping. PLUS, ghetto grocery (aka WinCo) is having this amazing deal on Chex that I couldn't pass up. So get this (and yes..I swear this has to do with the new recipe) for $1.66 you get a box of Chex, but on all the Chex boxes there is a coupon that if you buy 3 Chexes (is that the correct pluralization?) you get $3.00 off, meaning each box of Chex is only $.66. What a DEAL! For that price I thought I'd buy some for a food drive we are having at work. After all, usually a can of food only lasts one meal and cereal can last quite a few meals.

So I also picked some Chex up for me. You see I love Chex Mix. Although Lisa says I can't call it Chex MIX, because I only put Chex in my Chex Mix. I tell her the seasonings are what make it a mix. She usually rolls her eyes at me. So on the back of the box is the recipe for Chex Mix, but recently they have added new recipes -- muddy buddies are one of my favorites but yesterday I see that you can go online to Chex.com to find more recipes, specifically Apple Cinnamon Chex Mix. I think to myself..hey, I like apples, I like cinnamon, and more over, I like Chex. Tonight I looked up the recipe and ended up combining 2 of their cinnamon recipes to create our own Cinnamon Toffee Chex (recipe at the end of this blog). I have to say, it's pretty darn good. And Since it has more than just Chex in it, offically Lisa will call it Chex mix. Although the "coating" is so good, that you could make Janette style Chex Mix and just coat Chex. I bet it'd be pretty yummy.

Janette Style Cinnamon Toffee Chex Mix

1/4 c butter
1/3 c packed brown sugar
2 Tblsp light corn syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c Almonds (not salted)
5 c Chex (choose your favorite or combo of favorites)

1/2 c crasins
1/2 c yogurt rasins

In microwave safe bowl (I used a liquid measuring cup) combine butter, sugar, corn syrup and cinnamon. Microwave on high for 2 minutes, stirring every minute (until boiling). In large microwave safe bowl combine Chex and Almonds. When liquid mixture is done, pour over Chex mixture and mix to combine. Microwave new mixture for 3 minutes, stirring every minute.

Spread on wax or parchment paper to cool. After cooled mix in crasins and yogurt rasins. Enjoy!

So much has happend...

And I'm not quite sure where to start. It almost feels as if I've been in a fog the last few months. It litterally feels to me as if we were just in Laguna, and yet I have memories of September and most of October.

I asked Lisa last weekend if she was glad to have her Janette back, and a resounding yes escaped her mouth. I litterally could't process even simple things, while preparing for Scientific Assembly. I really only "broke-down" once. It was Saturday afternoon when DHL had lost one of my shipments and they told me they could probably get it to me Monday Afternoon. I lost it on the phone, sobbing I told the girl that wasn't going to work for me and that I HAD to have someone fix this for me. Poor customer service girl didn't even know what to make of me. I could hear the fear in her voice as she told me that she'd escalated as high as she could and that I should start calling back every hour till I got an answer. While waiting that first hour I called the conceirge and told them I was missing a box and that I needed to know the phone numbers of all the surrounding hotels so I could start calling them. At this point I'm pretty sure there was a big red sticky note at the front desk stating that I was high maintainance because I was in full swing of implementation. I had event books, and shirts and notes that had to be delivered upon check in and set on beds awaiting the guest. I had probably called down to conceirge about 20 times asking all sorts of questions, where's the closest office depot, if I needed to ship something how could I do that, could they find the 3 boxes...make that 4 that I had shipped to myself? It felt like every ten minutes I was calling them. so they waived their little conceirge wand and waala, my box appeared. I'm pretty sure that bell man was afraid to bring me the box for fear that I might kiss him. I was ever so thankful. So lesson one? Take the boxes on the plane with you, everything getting shipped is critical and you don't have time for the shipping company to lose it.

Somehow magically our booth came together. This booth that I designed materialized in 2 days to be just as incredible as I thought it would be. There's always room for improvement, but for what little knowledge I had going into this? I have to say I didn't do to bad. The real work started once installation was done. I had to set up demo stations, get invitations in order, make our booth look presentable and functional. To my staff I'm sure it seemed as if everything was just there, if only they knew the hours I spent pulling it all together.

Sunday night before the show I had this fantastic idea to get together for a "quick" dinner, get the "hows the weather" talk out of their systems and call it an early evening. Apparently I should have done my homework on the hotel resturant, which took 4 hours to eat at. And maybe I didn't know this because Lisa and I think that the spagetti factory is high end, but apparently at high end resturants, they all have "stories". The waiter starts out the night by saying "let me tell you a little about our philosopy" I personally hope their philosophy is one of cleanlness and cheapness....but oh no, its usually about how one bull sires all of the meat in the resturant (great...I'm eating someones babies) or how they buy all new food each morning and what ever is left over at night pretty much gets eaten by the staff (so what your telling me is that I should leave and come back to the party at midnight?) Don't get me wrong the food was great; but for someone that had to get up at 4 am the next morning (2am her time) 4 hours was a lot of time to spend at dinner.

Monday morning had the show open, I got everyone orientated in the new booth, introduced them to our new acquisition (which is a whole other story in and of its self) and left to complete my first press release. After what felt like forever, I finally got 100 copies of not only MedData's story; but also our investment corporations story. Got them laminated and headed back to the exhibit hall. Dropped some off at our acquisition (they had their own booth in the event that we didn't buy them). After the show I went over to the Sears tower to make final arrangements for our reception. Which lead to lesson #2. Check out your venue before you make arrangements. I guess I didn't realize that the Sears tower would have security. Like everyone has to check in at the front desk and their names have to be on a list to get in security.....hmmmm, not so cool since only 50 docs RSVP's and I was expecting somewhere around 150. The room was perfect, and the views were absolutely stunning; so really other than the glitch of security it was a perfect venue.

Tuesday was probably the most stressful day. All my bosses were in town (they got in the day before, but really didn't have time to visit the booth) plus all of our board members and people from our investment firm. Surprisingly they all really thought the booth was good. they liked the demo stations (that BTW, not one person used...ever) and they really liked that from the main entrance...one of the first things you saw was MedData's booth. Next year I plan to have more things to draw the people in. Food of some sort. There wasn't much food in the convention center; and the companies that did popcorn got A LOT of traffic. One of our new executives said that at one conference they had warm scones in their booth. The smell permiated the entire show floor and drew the people in like flies. In a booth our size, it's critical that people feel comfortable in our space. Plus, if we had food in our booth, it's likely I'd actually eat :)

Tuesday evening we had our reception, that started off INCREDIBLY slow. Lesson #3 - start the reception later. There are a lot of committee dinners, so people didn't start showing up until 8:30pm and technically our event was over at 9:30pm. Next year I'll start at 7:30pm and end at 11:30. That way we'll have more time to schmooze and it won't just be my people eating all the food. Which I ordered WAY too much of. So technically lesson 3 and 4 mixed into one. I finally fell into bed at 12:30am; after I told 2 of our board members and 2 of my staff that if I didn't go up to bed I was pretty sure my feet were going to fall off. Oh to be a man and to get to wear flats....that would be the life. Tuesday was a long hard day. But it was filled with wonderful compliments, and amazing conversation. I spent about an hour talking politics (one of my "favorite" subjects - with our newly acquired medical director and one of our board members who is from Austin, TX) While I'm good at sales support, I'm still not sure enough on my feet to have discussions with our clients. Most of the time I'm either quietly listening (I know...me...quite...) or talking about common ground - ie: kids. It was so nice to have an hour where I got lost in conversation.

Sadly Wednesday was our last day, and the day that I finally felt like I had figured it all out. I felt comfortable enough to talk to leads and figure out if they were a qualified lead. AND I got to break out the Wii and try it out. Which in retrospect was probably a bad idea because now I REALLY want a Wii. I'm a really good bowler on a Wii. And I say this with confidence; because the exhibitor next to us came over and said "I've never used a wii before, can I play?" He saw how many strikes I was getting and thought it was easy. HA! I'm just so good I make it look easy. Because he bowled something like 12 in 2 frames. It's sad for me to give them away :(

Thursday morning we finished getting our booth taken down, and can I just say, there is somethiing wrong with the fact that it took 2 8 hour days to put our booth up and only 3 hours to take it down. But it did give me some time to sight see. I didn't nearly get to see all I wanted, I hear that the Planetairum is amazing, and the field museum has the most complete T-Rex in exsistance, Navy pier is supposed to be absolutely amazing, and the Art Museum has the largest collection of van goughs (I think that was the artist) Sadly I really only had enough time to walk up the hancock tower and take a look around. It was amazing. Chicago is a beautiful city; and now I only wish that I could have been there on November 4th. What an absolutely amazing time to be there right now.

Coming home had to be the best. Even though we talked via Skype while I was in Chicago; nothing is like being near your child. And Stellanne has made my return even more special. She spent all of Friday afternoon attached to me at the hip. And she didn't prefer Lisa over me; which is a first. I truely think she missed me - which I was fearful she wouldn't. It seems that she changed so much while I was gone. She's really started to study faces. So you can ask her to show you her angry face and she scrunches up her face. Freakin cutest thing ever. She high-fives, and has started to climb the stairs.

We "shopped" daycare / nursery schools for Stellanne this week. Stellanne seems hopeful, all she really wanted was to get down from our chair and play with the other kids. Her mom's and Grammie may have a harder time letting her grow up. We settled on starting her at Kindercare December 1st. For right now it is a good fit. The Kindercare we are taking her to really has its act together. The "teachers" all have at least AA's and some of them have BA's. They have an substantal cirriculum (we went to one place that thought bubble chasing could be considered cirriculum) and selfishly, the kids get to do artwork, so that I'll have something to put on my fridge. When she's older we may consider a different place, such as montesorri, or a more developed pre-school. But for right now and for what we want for Stellanne (care, education and socialization) Kindercare is perfect. Plus I really liked the administrator. She was very straight forward and could answer my tough questions (Lisa even said I had reverted to my HR self) We did consider home daycare; but thought that we wanted something with more education - which really isn't he focus of a home daycare.

Saturday, Stellanne and I are going to go shopping for school clothes at Once Upon a Child....ie: clothes that can and will get trashed that I won't be angry over :) OH and we bought her her first pairs of shoes. A girl after my own heart she loved being in the shoe store. Although I have to say it was more because their were mirrors under stools so she could play peek-a-boo with herself.

So I'm back from my whril-wind

So I have never been so glad to be back home. Last night was the best nights sleep I've had in about 2 months. The good news? The events were all very sucessful. And we got about 10x the response this year than we did last year. The "bad" news is that I have a lot to change for next year. I have to say I learned THE most this year.

I kept a list of things to change because at this point without looking at the list the only 3 things I can come up with is that I need a coat rack in the conference room, storage in the conference room and that I need to visit the venue for our reception before making any descisions. However, my list of things to change has about 20 things on it. At least I knew enough to know that I wouldn't remember unless I wrote it down.

I got very little time to sight see; but I did have the opportunity to go visit the John Hancock tower SkyDeck that had the most beautiful views of Chicago. And the weather was absolutely perfect. VERY VERY cold and crystal clear. I couldn't have prayed for any better weather. I walked the Magnificint Mile a few times and fell in love with the food.

I do have to tell you that if you go to Chicago, be sure to go to Giordano's and get their deep dish stuffed pizza. It was amazing. The warning I give that no one gave me? It takes at least 45 minutes to make one. Well worth the wait; but if you are like me and planning to do take out...it kinda sucks to have to wait that long drinking iced tea to kill the time.

We also went to Fulton's on the River; which has the absolute best Calamari I've ever had. I'm sure it has ruined all calamari for me in the future. But I'm glad that I at least got the opportunity to try it.

We will probably visit Chicago again, it was an amazing city with a ton of things to do - most of which I only got to "see" and not do.

Right now, I'm off to go spend some quality time with my girls.

What does the H stand for in Jesus H. Christ

Holy? Because that truely doesn't make sense if one is swearing when they say it. Like leaving out oly in Holy is going to make Jesus Holy Christ less of a "swear" word?

And is Holy even a word? It doesn't really look like it should be. But I guess I'm not a republican and just don't know. Because I usually say Jesus Fucking Christ :)

To all my Jewish Peeps....and people that like to laugh!

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Not surprising...but my daughter looks like my family

Tonight I looked at pictures from the pumpkin farm and Stellanne looks like she belongs. It warms my heart to no avail....

I'm glad she belongs...

I'm going on a pumpkin hunt....

We're going on a pumpkin hunt! I'm gonna catch a BIG one! I'm not afraid! Got my boots, and I got my camera! Can't wait to find one cause it'll be be so great!

Oh wait,almost forgot my cash. Not only do we drive to BFE to go to this "great" pumpkin farm (through the short grass, over a hill, up a tree, down a tree, through a puddle), once we get there...we have to pay $2 to take a tractor out to a field and find a pumpkin to pay $15 for....a 51 lb pumpkin.

Oh yeah....I know you are jealous.

But wait, it gets better. This year, unlike other years, there are no wheel barrels for you to take your 51 freaking lb pumpkin in from the field. Instead I'd pick up the sucker, carry it 20 or so feet before I had to stop. I even had to push a little kid away from my pumpkin when I had made it 3/4 of the way in. It went something like this...

Janette..."pant, pant, pant....okay I gotta stop for a second" Puts the pumpkin down.
Little kid "HEY MOM...look at this one" (touches it even though i'm clearly standing right there) "It's perfect. Get Dad."
Janette "ummm, sorry, this one is taken" (get your f*ckin hands off my pumpkin) "Its so big we had to rest. But there are TONS over there....." (points to where there are no pumpkins)
Little kid (pretending like he didn't hear me) "This one will fit the cool face I want to make"
Janette (picking up the pumpkin) "guess you'll have to find another one KID"

Okay, I left out the part where his mom told him that it was taken. Didn't seem to make my story pop. But still. I seriously wanted to hit the kid.

So then we wait for the rest of the clan to bring their bounty back. Which takes a while, but whatever, we aren't on a time schedule. Just as everyone arrives to the tractor departure zone, 3 trackers all pull up and start unloading. We stop and take a few quick pictures. And are about to get on a tracker when the guy says...sorry, take the next one. That's okay. No big deal. The next one shows up and is litterally a flat bed with hay to sit on. So let me go back and tell you about the ride to the pumpkin patch....

We are in a tracker pulling a sided and railed with walls bed. And there are wooden benches. Half way to the patch...the idiot driving, drops his forks. I litterally fell into an old mans ass. Not a place I like to frequent. Luckily Stellanne was sitting on Lisa's lap and they kinda fell on me. But Lisa said that Stellanne pretty much fell. We made light of it so she wouldn't cry...but it was frighting.

So do you think there is any way in HELL that I am getting on a flat bed? NO. My sisters have more guts. And if Stellanne was older, I probably would too, but right now, I don't, so we waited. 2 tractors later we finally got a walled in tracker bed. And luckily...there were no encounters with old mens asses.

The best part of the trip was after we got the pumpkin and got it into our car. We put Stellanne in a barrel of pumpkins and she was thrilled. She couldn't hurt anything and thought it was funny that she was in there. I get so much enjoyment out of her laugh. We took tons a pictures and finally went over to my sisters house for dinner.

It was a nice trip...but next year Orting might beckon my name. I just can't see driving for almost 2 hours to get pumpkins when Orting is a farming community offering the same "experiences". BTW, the pumpkin patch has the highest cost for pumpkins around. at .29 cents a pound Walmart far beats them. While I agree to supporting local farms...they need to be more in line with mainstream costs, especially when they are charging for the tractor ride.

A movie you HAVE to see....

so I rarely have the need to see movies in the theater. The cost is terrible and usually the sound is WAY too loud. Infact, in the past say 3 years, I think I've only seen 3 or 4 movies in the theater. 1 of them was the Indiana Jones, and if I'm not mistaken, the others were all Harry Potter.

Today Lisa and I went to go see Religulous. A "mockumentary" film about religion.

Not right now, because Lisa and I don't "belong" to a synogague, but 2 years ago; one might have classified us as religious on paper. Which I mildly think is funny. I'm probably the least religious person I know. Well....I take that back I know more; but for classifying myself as a jew, I'm pretty non-religious. I am positive that I don't know it all. I'm also positive that neither does anyone else; and anyone that claims they know is full of shit. Sorry to use the strong language; but it is nessisary. I get angered at religion. Well okay, lets take that back. I don't get angered at religon, I get angered at religous followers. Mostly for the reason that they see fit to make sure I believe their beliefs. And I don't. I've never talked to god; but I'm pretty sure there is a greater power; and in my mind; there is no such thing as a vengfull god. There just can't be.

Having Stellanne has put a whole new perspective on it. I can't hate her. She prefers Lisa over me; and sometimes; she doesn't want me at all to "solve" her problems. It completely hurts my feelings. But do I hate her for that? Would I smite her for that? Hell NO. I love her; and all I can continue to do is love her; I would NEVER wish her harm.

But yet, many religions say that god would smite us. Aren't we gods "children"; how is that even possible. I just don't see how, without being crazy, one could wish harm upon their child. Small all the way through to terrible; the things that Stellanne does may frustrate me; but they could NEVER EVER in a million years make me wish her dead.

So I digress; Bill Mahers news film pretty much made me laugh out loud so much I could have pee'd my pants. People don't have answers to what they belive in. And I absolutely hate when they say that the word "FAITH" means to believe without proof. Give me a freaking break. I highly suggest you see it...unless of course you are a religous person and can't take critisim. Then I highly suggest not seeing in. Enjoy the preview.

And Addendum

So Lisa read my last blog and took it the wrong way. Living up to the words "I'll never be disappointed in you" is more complicated than one person not being disappointed in me. It's always working to not disappoint. Lisa and Stellanne love me, so I can't disappoint them. As my Mom once said "Even if you were a murder, I'd still love you".

And while it's great to have a family that loves me; personally I need to feel as if I'm accomplishing something. There's no gold metal waiting for me at the end of my life; there is only the ability to say, this is who I am, and how I became me.

One of the ways that I plan on being the best me, is to live up to making people not disappointed in me, regardless of mistakes and errors. My boss uses the term creating a culture of champion. For you see, not all champions are winners; but all winners are champions. It's working your hardest and best; even when that means you make a mistake. It's learning from your mistakes and errors to not repeat them. It's sometimes learning from others mistakes; and sometimes it's catching a mistake or error in the process.

I guess I conveyed that wrong in my last post; I'm not living up to one person; although that person gave me the inspiration to try to live up to those words. Had I met my boss before I met him; I'd probably use the phrase creating a culture of champion.

Now about work

So I have a new boss. He really hasn't been "assigned" to me, but I know it's coming. We bought a company. And the CEO (of the new company) is a marketing/sales genius. With only 2 sales people and less years experience than my company his company is 3/4 the size of mine. My boss (the CEO) hasn't said, hey Janette....you have a new boss, but within 6 months...I see it happening. So I am under intense pressure to make sure that first impressions are the best.

You see, I'm not sure why they hired me. I am pretty sure, it is because our COO enjoys bullshitting with me. And he knows I get dedicated to tasks. My boss (the CEO) will tell you it is because on many nights he saw me at my desk (for TelWest) before he arrived and after he left, but I didn't major in Marketing, and I'm surely not a sales person so how the hell am I the Marketing and Sales Operations Manager?!?!?!?

I will meet my new boss at this tradeshow at the end of October. And while there was a duty to impress our board before....I really have a duty now. I have to impress my new boss with my talents, my knowledge and more than just my boobs. (And I think my COO was kinda won over by my boobs...) I'm good at what I do. I don't take no for an answer and I apparently accomplish impossible tasks. But how do you convey that without just showing off your boobs?!?!? Sad I know. I rely on my boobs way too much. And considering they are small and need reconstructive surgery, its surprising. But honestly, since getting GBS they have worked for me.

This is sad, I miss the appreciation of one of my bestfriends. He reads my blog and will know who he is. But he once said to me "Janette, I'll never be disappointed in you" and I try to live up to that EVERY day. It's only sad, because I live up to that more than I try to live up to Lisa's love, or Stellanne's. But I know that will always be there. But this person could think less of me and doesn't. I hope someday soon we work together again. Since sadly, since him I haven't had a sounding board, or a true friend to share my feelings with (aside from Lisa) about work.

So this is my frustration (?) for October. I have until October 24th to make the BEST GOD DAMN impression of my life. After that...all it is, is an impression that I can't change.

Really Palin...are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!

So I know that those running for public office have to make themselves appear to be "common" but COME ON! Tina Fey did an AWESOME job portraiting Sarah Palin on SNL. So good that litterally, if you didn't know that SNL was a satire, you may not know that it wasn't Sarah Palin.



All I have to say is.....


NOOOOOOOO, MINE!!!! It was suposed to be MINE!!!!!!!

BTW, I think Sarah Palin is the lamest excuse as a woman. And I plan on donating at leat $5 to Planned Parenthood in her name. We all should. Donating to a polical campain isn't tax deductible...but Planned Parenthood is.

And what a slap in the face. BTW, I believe that planned parenthood is exactly what it's name claims, and that with the right education, a woman can choose when to be a parent. Mostly with education about prevention, and in the sad event of a terminated pregnancy, at least she had the option to safely (for the unborn and herself) make a choice that would affect a human being for the rest of her/its life.

(I step down from my soap box)

I can't wait for the debate between Palin and Biden. Mostly because I think it will prove what a F*ckin idiot she is!!!

Do we know....?

democrate vs. republican; will we know before the Nov. election? no I don't think we will. I hate to admit it, but this is a close one. I am terribly sad.

A little too early for Halloween....our Vampire

So Stellanne has been working on her teeth. And I do mean working. Her bottom teeth came in with a little redness around her who-who; some crankiness; but all in all not much ado.

Her upper teeth, on the other hand have had much ado, with what feels like nothing. There have been fevers, drooling, rashes, crankiness up the wazzu, a trip to the doctor to prove she wasn't dying of menigitus or strep, and sleepless nights. So last week her who-who developed blisters. And they even made my who-who hurt. We thought that it MUST be a food allergy, since they developed so fast and furious. After careful consideration; we determined blueberries to be the cause and removed them from her menu. But the blisters stayed. It was concerning. We couldn't figure out why she had these terrible blisters that weren't going away regardless of what paste, cream or oil we put on them. At one point, we had 4 layers on her who-who. A layer of antibiotic cream the doctor gave us (for another rash...but what ever) a layer of triple-paste (thank you Eric...it really does work, just not on this) a layer of A&D zinc and a layer of vaseline. And then she got a tooth. We were SO relived that she didn't have some terrible who-who disease. At first we could only "feel" it; because getting Stellanne to willingly open her mouth for a tooth inspection is like trying to get.....hmmm I'm not sure, but certainly it has to do with an animal and a rectal exam. So after about 3 days we noticed her tooth wasn't in the center. It was a lateral incisor not a central incisor....hmmm.

So last night was HELL! It's a sad night when your child wakes up; mostly because now we are accustomed to sleeping through the night. It wasn't so bad when we expected to get up at 2 and at 4; but now...if she wakes up...it sucks. We are TIRED! And last night, just as I fell asleep...Stellanne woke up (she has a knack for knowing the instant I fall asleep). So Lisa got up with her. She changed her diaper, she fed her tylenol, she gave her boobie juice (yes...thats what we call it), she rocked her...for a SOLID hour. Stellanne was unforgiving....unhappy, cranky, frustrated. Frustrating! So I took over. All she wanted was to snuggle. Every time she'd fall asleep, she'd wake herself up to make sure I was still snuggling with her. For 4 (yes FOUR) hours we rocked and snuggled. And oh, no...just snuggling was not good enough. We had to be rocking. UGH! Finally, at 3am she was SO tired, she couldn't even keep herself awake. At 6:30 when she got up I thought to myself, I wonder if we have another tooth? Because you see the blistering rash that she had the week before, that was going away, came back with a vengence last night. And sure enough.....she had another upper tooth. Unfortunately, it was also a lateral incisor........I was concerned. Maybe she doesn't have front teeth...what will we do?

I made Lisa email her nephew, who is a dentist to find out what we should do. He calmed us down and said, that sometimes...kids get the laterals before the central incisors. OH GOOD!

So now, we can makes jokes that it isn't a dire situation :) We are the proud parents to a vampire :) Oh how it makes me giggle....well that actually could be the lack of sleep...but still.

What's too bad? We already bought her, her first halloween costume, and it's not a vampire. Which would be so perfect....oh well. I guess we'll have to live with the CUTEST FREAKING monkey EVER!!!

So you haven't heard from me in a while....

I'd like to say its because we won the lotto (which we actually did) and have been so busy jet setting around the world for me to write. Unfortunately, the lotto prize that we won was only $2 so unfortunately I have to spend my days working my @ss off to make sure this tradeshow goes off without a hitch.

So last time you heard from me we had just gotten back from vacation. Which wasn't long enough. But it was INCREDIBLY relaxing. The next week we went to the Puyallup fair. I was so excited because the Fair is one of the things and Lisa and I LOVE. And I just knew that Stellanne would love it as well. To which she did. Nothing better than getting to spend all day staring at people. She's so much like Lisa and I that it's scary. We got to the fair "early" after Stellanne had a morning nap. The fair opened at 10am and we were there by 10:30ish. We always take the Kwainis shuttle, because it drops you off right at the gate, and I always feel like my money is going to a better cause (even if Alethea thinks that we are giving money to Jesus). Lisa was freaked that Stellanne wouldn't have a car seat for the whole 3 blocks that we took the shuttle, but they even had childseats in their shuttles this year. I was impressed.

Our first "stop" in the fair was to see the animals. I thought Stellanne would like it; but I couldn't quite tell if she liked them or not. She did a lot of screaming at them. Not high pitched "I'm scared of you" screaming, but more "hey...what the hell are you" screaming. She tends to scream at new things. Again never, really high pitched, just loud. We only looked at the bunnies, chickens (mostly baby chicks) and the ducks. I didn't care to much about the piegons or other ugly birds they had there. We never stop in to see the horses, since I'm allergic, and I have never quite understood the fasination with exhibiting dogs and cats......

After the animals we got our scones. I was a little depressed that they had raised prices...by 25% (pretty steep if you ask me). You now have to pay $1.25 for a scone....not just $1. It was a better deal at $1, and I think their plan backfired. We only bought 2 scones because the prices were raised. Normally we would have bought more. Stellanne like them; but she's at the stage where she pretty much likes anything that we are eating, as long as we are eating it.

So then we had a good time looking at all the exhibits. We bought a steam floor mop, I bought a cool purse that is 5 purses in one (www.miche.com) And we got an attachment for our vitamix. All in all it was a good time.

And then we dropped by the Hobbie hall to see how my scrapbooking pages did. I was highly disappointed. #1, they obviously thought that 2 of the picutres weren't "appropriate" because they litterally covered them up. They were the first 2 pictures of Stellanne right after she was born; and since she was covered in a warm blanket, you really couldn't see anything. But WHATEVER. And then my pages were on top of the display case so you couldn't really see them anyways. I can't figure out if they did that because they weren't "winners" or because they didn't like that if you were able to read the pages you'd figure out that Stellanne had 2 mommys. The 2nd part that was disappointing was that like 3 people won all of the awards, and I don't even think the people that won had the best pages. And I'm not just refering to my page, I think there was this REALLY cool page that was a mosaic of pictures (hard to describe and I didn't take a picture) and it didn't win anything. Their judges were obviously skewed. My sister commented that it's hard to judge scrapbooking because it's completely subjective...but come on. The rules for judging must have been non-exsistant for the pages that won to have won.

I still think that I'll be entering in pages next year. With a little bit more knowledge under my belt I might actually win. But who knows.

Sadly, because I've been so busy at work I won't have time to enter my jam in the Best Jams and Jellies contest. I thought I could take a few hours off of my day (today) and drop off my jam for the contest; but it's just not going to happen. I had to go into the office and I guess I'll just have to know that my banana strawberry jam is the best. And I guess there is always next year.

All in all, we had a great time at the fair. I can't wait until Stellanne is older and able to do some of the rides, I know she would love them :) She saw the merry go round and started to scream. Unfortunately you have to be 2 years old to ride it. Next year she'll be close enough to 2 that she'll be able to ride :)

Oh, and on a side note. Stellanne now has 3 teeth. She finally broke a top tooth through yesterday :)

Pictures are up....blog and descriptions coming soon

Back from Laguna. What an AMAZING trip. We had so much fun!!!! Didn't really do much other than relax; but we really enjoyed ourselves.



I promise to post my blog that I've been working on, but it probably won't be until tomorrow.



For now, I have pictures up www.flickr.com/photos/robertonfamily



They don't have descriptions up...yet; hopefully I'll get those up tonight.

Starting over with my computer

So I decided that my computer was running "slow". We bought this computer in 2004 when we bought our house. And lately it has been taking what seems like hours (okay 15 minutes) to start up. So I got this BRILLANT idea to start over and re-install Windows. To erase the spy-ware and such. Too bad that I didn't think that I needed to "save" the drivers on the computer. I, of course, saved every picture and important file..but neglected to save drivers. So I re-install windows to find that every piece of hardware on my computer no longer has an application. Apparently when you install a new OS applications are what you buy, not what you have. I nearly sh*t my pants when I realized I made a mistake.

The conversation in IT when something like this....."So, suppose that you thought your system was running slow...and suppose you thought the answer to this problem was reinstalling XP....but when you reinstalled xp you realized that there were no applications...what would you do?"

First...they laughed. Not so funny for me. 2nd they showed me how to reinstall. Thank god. How I miss Joshua. My IT guys aren't the "smartest" and usually judge me. So tonight, I am writing from my MUCH faster, but less'd abilitied computer :) Again, I reitterate...I MISS JOSHUA.

A thick envelope from the IRS

It's never a good sign. Since I doubt that the IRS likes to send cash, a thick envelope usually means audit. Oh how fortunate I am to have gotten a thick envelope tonight.

I'll tell you what drives me a little bit nuts about it; I'm being audited for 2006, for medical and dental expenses. I had my gastric bypass in 2006; a surgery which was not paid for by my insurance, so yes, IRS I spent well over 24,000 dollars that year on medical and dental expenses. Because not only did 2006 bring the wonderful blessing of paying for a surgery that should have been paid for by my insurance, but I also had 3, count them 3 root canals. Of which only 1 of them was even remotely covered by dental insurance. Since in 2006 I had to have a root canal that was originally done in 2003 redone since the first dentist missed part of the root. My dental insurance was eaten up in the firs 25 minutes of that root canal; and then lucky me, I had 2 other root canals that year. And I'm not at all convinced that the first root canal didn't lead to the others....well it lead to at least once; since the 2nd tooth was right next to the rogue 1st root canal.

My mom says to me, oh, it will be okay, just call your doctors & dentists and have them fax or email you over invoices. Which I mildly laughed at, because I knew I would get audited for 2006. When I only made something like 40K that year and 26K was declared non-taxible...I knew. I printed out every invoice, every receipt, and stapled it to my 2006 taxes when I did the taxes in 2007.

So for me, my audit will be easy. But still. It really pisses me off that if we had a national healthcare system, I probably wouldn't have spent 22K on a surgery to make me healthy. And therefore wouldn't have to claim that 22K on my taxes, and wouldn't, 2 years later, get a thick envelope from the IRS saying that something about my medical and dental expenses for that year didn't look right. JERKS.

On a completely different note, I learned something interesting today. A 61 year old Japanese woman gave birth to her grandchild. Which is an odd story, what makes it really odd? Surrogacy is illegal in Japan. The news article focused more on the fact that she committed a crime, than the fact that she was the oldest woman in Japan to carry a child to term. CRAZY! Although, Lisa explained to me that Japan has crazy strict laws about having children....I'm sure LDS is not a popular religion there. So as a side bar to this article about the Japanese surrogate, there was an article about surrogacy being on the rise for miltary family and I briefly skimmed the article to learn that surrogacy is only legal in 12 US states. WOW; I did not know that. VERY interesting. I can't imagine why it would be illegal., I mean surrogacy is as old as time. Weren't hand maidens really just surrogates for royalty? Kinda....since obviously there was no invitro available back then....I was shocked.

The Fair

Each year Lisa and I look forward to the Puyallup Fair. I'm pretty sure that all 9 years we've been together, we have made the trek to the Puyallup Fair. I love it all. The smells, the food, the people watching, the exhibits (mostly the exhibits), the hobby hall, the animals (minus the horses) the sounds, the food, the scones, the freedom, the fun, the food, the rides, the VitaMix demo, the health fair, and the food. We spend an entire day at the fair, we get there just as it opens and usually leave around 6 or 7pm. This year will probably be a little different, but hopefully not by much.

We always start off the day with a fresh and hot scone...my preference is from under the grandstand. They litterally melt in your mouth, and since they are just a buck....we get one to enjoy right then, and one to enjoy for a snack later. Then we slowly, but surely cover every square inch of the fair.

This year will be more exciting than others. I will be exhibiting.....no, not like for my work, but personally. Last year they introduced (actually it might have been earlier...but last year I decided I wanted to enter) Scrapbooking as a competition in the hobby hall. I like to look at the layouts to get ideas to incorporate into my scrapbooks. So this year I will enter, I am super excited. Because I did this amazing layout for Stellanne's baby book. It's titled "My Arrival" an is a layout centered around her delivery. It has the bracelets that we wore; pictures of Lisa and I, a cute picture of my mom sleeping on the couches in the waiting room, an account of what happend and when, Stellanne's stats (name, length, weight, eyes, hair, etc) as well as her first foot prints. AND the absolute best pictures that were taken that day of the moment that Stellanne entered our lives. Just looking at the pictures brings back the emotions that ran through my blood seeing her for the first time. When I finished the layout I just stared at it, because I loved it so much. This page layout will be entered in the competition. And really, I don't care if it wins. It will be cool enough to go to the hobby hall when we are at the fair and get my picture taken next to my entry.

Then, as I was reading about entering the Scrapbook contest, I saw there was a "Puyallup Fair's BEST Jams and Jellies" Contest. And I thought....hey, I should enter that TOO. I created a recipe for strawberry banana butter. Lisa and I LOVE it. Infact we don't have any left. So I'll have to make more, but how cool is that to enter in my orignal recipe...not many people can say they have an orignal recipe; and I do. They do the judging a little bit different for this contest, and I have to pretty much be at the fair all day on the 19th (anyone going to the fair on the 19th?...come visit me in the hobby hall) but who cares since I might get an award for my strawberry banana butter....

The allure of moving in the middle of the night?

So as previously covered I live in a "bad" neighborhood. My comparisons aren't all that good, so hense the quotes around bad. Lisa and I lived in Cheney for 5 years, moved to Spokane for like 9 months and then lived in Maple Valley which is rather sheltered. All the places we've lived have been sheltered. I didn't like our last neighbor for the pure fact that he didn't smile at me when he saw me outside. But then events happend that "forced" us to rent/lease this home in puyallup. #1 We sold our home in Maple Valley. Which was a blessing....we were ready to be out of there, it wasn't big enough and it took forever to get anywhere. Had we not sold the townhome, I'm not sure how I would work at home, and I'm positive that Stellanne would have to actually leave our house for me to actually get any work done. #2 the decision not to move to Texas left us with no place to live. And #3 Puyallup is one of the towns that Lisa and I had always talked about moving to (everything is close, they have good schools, and new homes). So I answer an ad about renting/leasing to own homes in puyallup. The unfortunate part was that the "realtor" showed us the house, and after we signed the papers we found out the address was ..... *GASP* Spanaway. Our back door neighbors are Puyallup; so since I have a bad taste for the town of Spanaway (don't ask me why...I'm not sure) I say we live in Puyallup. The house is nice enough. Large, 3300 sq ft. The lot isn't all that big...but Lisa and I don't really want an acre to take care of. A little backyard for the dogs is really all we need. And the layout works well. The kitchen is HUGE and even bigger is the pantry. The bedrooms are nicely sized, except the master; way too big. And there is a nice ratio of bathrooms. Downstairs I have a room that is my office; it's nice because I can hear what is going on in the rest of the house, but it is filtered. But house does have it's problems. #1, the builder was crap. He started out with good thoughts. a 5 piece master bath, nice gas fireplace in the main living room, upstairs laundry, an upstairs family room, and large hall ways. However, as the market started to drop...so did his budgets and it is quite clear. After living in this house for 9 months, I am very glad we didn't purchase. It was an upgrade to add a fan to the fireplace in the livingroom. Something the builder didn't want to pay for...so we have a fireplace....but it puts out no heat. The range and dishwasher are the absolute CHEAPEST appliances he could find. I'm not sure he paid more than $50 for each. The dishwasher has been broken at least 10 times....in 9 months. I know the repairman's life....and he knows mine. Sad. I've seen better carpeting in prisons. Carpet that has been used for 9 months looks like it is at least 5 years old.....and I swear we don't use it that much. I'm not sure he actually applied paint....and if he did, it was on the LIGHTEST layer that he could. Since purely wiping something off the wall with papertowel, wipes off the paint. Our 5 piece master? Was supposed to have a stand up shower and a separate tub, however, funding was lost and so was the stand up shower. Not that I mind having a shower tub, but the place were the stand up shower was supposed to be....just an empty niche. Luckily, we had an amorie that nicely fit the in the space...so it doesn't look so weird. About 1/3rd of our electrical outlets don't work. Not sure how that passed inspection...but whatever. His idea of landscaping? Grass. That's it. He must have cut down a ton of trees to build on these lots and didn't think (or didn't have funding) to replace even just one. I miss the trees.

But that isn't even what I hate about this house. Really...if that was it, I could probably stand this house. But the neighborhood sucks it out of me. All but maybe 2 or 3 neighbors are completely white trash. One of my neighbors has 5 kids and is all of 23 years old. She looks like she's been rode HARD and put away dirty and wet. Not one of children looks like the others...I'm positive they don't have the same father. In May while we were in Indiana, my mom was reading upstairs and heard panicked cries for a little boy. She went outside to hear that the neighbors 2 year old was missing. They searched for over an hour to find that the little boy was playing the dirt next to her house. How do you lose your 2 year old? 4th of July we go down to my sisters house; we return around 11pm that night. 11:30pm rolls around and the neighbors get home....to start lighting off fireworks.....really? come on! 3 weeks later, she starts to shoot them off again at 8:30pm. I walk over to her house (after calling the cops) and tell her it is completely illegal for her to be shooting them off...not to mention, my daughter is trying to sleep and she's not helping. She explains to me that she just wanted to get them all lit off.....but all they have left are sparklers. And she knows she should be quite because her 6 month old is inside (by himself) and doesn't like the fireworks. The next day, Lisa is in the yard, mowing etc and the babysitter for the neighbor asks if she can use our phone, because her cell phone just died and she HAS to make an important phone call. Lisa asks why she can't use the neighbors phone, to which the babysitter tells her, well it was just shut off. So you have the money to buy fireworks, but not to pay your phone bill? The all important phone call? To her boyfriend. And the babysitter...came over to our house by herself....wonder where the 6 month old was? We also have backdoor neighbors, who have the most popular house in the neighborhood. They have a pool, and a trampoline....and I'm sure tons of sugar. Since all of the children spend all of their time at this house, screaming...at the top of their lungs. I can't wait for school to start again.

But the topper? As if to prove how "shady" all of my neighbors are? Out of the 20 houses in our neighborhood 7 of them sit vacant. At at least 2 of our neighbors have fled in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how...or why one would do that. Yesterday I saw the management company showing the recently vacated home next to us to a prospective renter/leaser....more drug dealers....lovely. I look forward to moving. We will probably chill here for one more year, save more money...we aren't in any hurry to move (at least I'm not....the last one nearly killed me).

We still like Puyallup....just not the Puyallup thats near spanaway.

Wonderful Baby

Stellanne is a truely wonderful child. Last night I couldn't get enough of her and I just started kissing her. We were supposed to be snuggling to go to bed. But she wasn't really ready to just snuggle down and sleep so she was restless. So I gave up and just started to kiss her. She liked it....she just laid there and took every kiss that I gave her. I covered her face and head and neck and arms and she just sat there, sucking on her bink looking at me. It felt so wonderful to know that she loves me just as much as I love her. And to know that she enjoys getting kissed as much as I enjoy kissing her.



Today is her 9 month birthday. It's shocking to me that she has been here 9 months and also shocking at the same time that she's only been in my life for 9 months. I feel as if our life was drab before...What did I worry about before? My thoughts are consumed with thoughts of Stellanne. What is she doing right now? Is she giving my mom a run for her money? What will it be like in daycare for her? Should we feed her chicken tonight? What will we do if she decides that tonight she is big girl and doesn't want to eat baby food? Will we be able to feed her enough? Are the toys that we bought stimulating her mind enough? How do I keep her knees protected from rug burns?



Every thought is of her; and funny when people as me how I'm doing? The answer always contains a reference to Stellanne. I'm good, the baby is now sleeping through the night. I'm good...Stellanne gave me a kiss this morning. I'm jubilant, Stellanne learned how to wave goodbye. I'm confused, I'm not sure what to do about her bottom being so red. I'm excited, in 2 weeks we go on vacation and it will be Stellanne's first time at the ocean.



I also feel sorrow for people that either don't get the joy that I get from my child; or have no desire to have children. If only for one second I could show them how wonderful it is to be a parent. If only for one second I could show them that being a parent is not as burdensome as a nonparent might think.

I dread my show in October....not because it will be a week filled with grueling days; and nights that won't end at 5pm; but because for 1 week I won't be able to kiss Stellanne any time that I want. I won't be able to hear her laugh as I tickle her or coo as we snuggle. If only I could tuck her in my pocket and take her every where.

Like a baby in a toy store....

"Ooohhh" she says :)

The INSTANT we turned down the toy isle of the store. Lisa and I had mildly convinced ourselves that Stellanne was bored with her toys. And really she is. My mom got her a piano, that she likes to play with, but the blocks and rings aren't as exciting as they once were. The only problem with that being that when she isn't getting enjoyment out of her toys...she wants enjoyment out of you. Not such a good thing when you are trying to make her dinner.

So we went to wally world this weekend and walked over to the toys. We don't frequent the toy section of wally world and litterally as we turned the corner into the toy isle, Stellanne says "Ooohh" Some toys she was more interested in than others. One of the toys we got was a leapfrog catipillar, that my mom picked up for 1/2 of a second to see what it was and Stellanne started SCREAMING the instant she put it back on the shelf rather than handing it to her.

I'm not sure we are teaching her good manners; but it's hard when your kid reacts so happily when she gets to play with a new toy. 2 of the 3 toys we got her talk, or sing or play music. She seems to be more vocal since we got them. But that could be my awareness.

Lisa and I have made it our goal to get Stellanne to say mama. She hasn't even barely made strides towards saying mama. She can, however, sing. And frequently sings while you rock her to sleep; its rather precious. One of these nights we'll have to record it, and put it on our flickr account because I'm sure she won't do it for forever.

AND another big milestone that I didn't want to hex was that Stellanne is now mostly sleeping through the night. She does wake up for a few minutes in the middle of the night; but she can put herself back to sleep. I think it has to do with starting her on 3 meals a day of rice cereal. We mix it with apple sauce and at night she gets a little bit of veggie. She is still drinking breast milk; but she is definately an eating baby. We try to give her little bits of what we are eating. Last night we had breakfast for dinner and Stellanne LOVED the pancakes. We tear her up little pieces and spread them on her tray, she takes great enjoyment out of picking them up and making it into her mouth. When she's done....she throws the food to the dogs. And they LOVE it. Plus it makes having her at the table much easier. We try to eat dinner as a family every night (and mostly we do) so once she's done with her food we let her "play" with our food until we're done.

I think it also helps that we have her on a routine. After dinner we take her upstairs and she gets a bath. The only part she doesn't like about the bath is having to actually get clean. And since she "helps" us while she eats, she can tend to get VERY messy. I try to put her in the bath, wash her VERY quickly and then as a reward, she gets all of her toys dumped out. She takes great delight in picking out which bath toy to chew on. Our only problem in the bath is that Stellanne is a bouncing baby, which isn't safe for the bathtub, so we have to sternly warn her that she needs to stay on her bottom, and her response is to laugh at us. So after her bath we take her in her room and lotion her up and put on jammies. Recently we've been letting her choose the jammies, just because it amuses us. After she is all "ready" for bed, she goes and drinks some milk with Lisa, which while she doesn't eat that much, it does serve as a "slow" down routine. Plus I think Stellanne just really likes that bonding time (which is good because Lisa isn't ready to give it up). Afterwards, we read her a book, she is a big fan of Sandra Boyton. Which is nice because the other night I tried to read her "My First Shabbat book" And the reading went something like this.

On Friday nights we celebrate Shabbat. With Candles, Wine, Challah...and none of the other stuff pictured here. We celebrate Shabbat to be mindful that G-d made heaven and earth in 7 days and on the 7th day he rested. OH except we actually believe that the earth was made from the big bang theroy and we celebrate Shabbat to be reverent to G-d. (Lisa laughed at this one). On day one G-d made heaven and earth (but not really even though one could argue that because of their exsistance there is a G-d) On day 2 god make the earth and seas (which was more of a chemical reaction....) and so on until we got to And on day 6 G-d made man and man made woman (which lets be realistic....men are way to ego centric to make something that isn't exactly like them, so it was probably the other way around - except we believe in evolution anyways.....)On Saturday some Jews go to synogague (but not us) and after attending services they continue to rest (but not us, because we have chores to do) At sundown on Saturday we have a Havdalah cerimony (but not us, because really...we have a hard time even celebrating Shabbat in the first place) to say goodbye to Shabbat (sounds a little like a mental problem.....saying goodbye to a day) Lisa and I are terrible jews; but I guess as long as we teach Stellanne the reasons behind what we believe we'll be good reform Jews. My favorite Rabbi used to say that a lot. Reform Judiasim is an informed choice. We know what other people believe....we just don't belive it.

Okay so on to after the story, we get her bink and blanky and then turn out the light, then we rock (while she sings herself to sleep) and right before she's asleep we lay her in her bed (to teach self soothing). Sometimes (like tonight) she pretty much stays asleep, othernights she sits up and plays in her bed for 20 more minutes before falling forward and falling asleep. We usually have to go in and readjust. It's very cute. And oh so nice that she is sleeping through the night. Now we just have to work on sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday......

Copyright infringment

I'm going to have to do research; I'm not sure if copyrighting protects concepts. I know that it doesn't protech facts; ie for every 3 dollars you spend on your billing company you make 4 in revenue (not a real fact). I'm in the process of developing the demo stations that we'll use 2 fold. #1 and the reason that i'm getting so serious; we'll use them at ACEP. #2 Our advertising / solicitations of to / of new customers will use these presentations. So I checked out the competition. I printed out all of their presentations - and I feel pretty safe in saying that if my presentation looked a little like theirs no one would know since they all look the same.

We are the best billing & coding company, why? because we collect more money, with better service, compliance, and cheaper than our competition. OH and yes, we can't forget the all impressive words of: Industry Leader, Experienced, Specialized, and Passionate.

EVERYONE of my competitors says this; but honestly; I get it. That's what a doctor wants to hear. They don't actually want to hear that you collect the most; because that probably means that you aren't coding correctly and therefore opening them up for compliance issues. They don't really care that we can guarantee their receipts; all of our competitors do. And some things I can't mention in an ad because it would open us up to fraud.

The world of Advertising / Marketing / Sales is more work than I anticipated. But I worked at home today and got to miss all of the HORRIBLE traffic in Seattle today; so I'm not complaining about today.

Post 101

So fitting that my 100th post was about work. I'm sure that if I analyzed my blog about 75% (if not more) would be about work. Sadly, and as I reminded Lisa yesterday; unfortunately without work, we wouldn't get to lead the life we lead (and enjoy). So I guess that's why I think it's fitting.

The presentation went well. I got a THANKS from my boss; which probably meant that he felt like it went really well. I honestly think that they were most impressed by my advertising. I still think the booth is the most impressive; but they haven't seen it in action yet; they can't truely appreciate it. I think when October comes around they'll appreciate how it works for the company. And BTW, I've read his email at least 10 times to analyze it. All I get, is that LATE at night he wanted to make sure I knew he appreciated my work. I appreciate that.

And the board wasn't as scary as I thought they would be. I knew one of the members; previously to me working for MedData. He was the owner. Then I only had to impress 5 more members. And while they drilled me for a good 20 minutes; I really turely think that they thought this year would be good. Gosh I hope I live up to their expectations. All but 2 of them will be there. I'd like to have a few more resources for my "training" at the beginning of October; but I guess you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

One of the board members looked like he was all of 12. I was SHOCKED! He's one of those people that doesn't age; regardless of stress; because I'm sure his job has to be stressful. Upon further research I've found out he really is the youngest board "member" at at young 38. Which if you think about it; is really young to be on a board (ie: investor) of a company. I'm still very confused as to what a board does; but I know that they invest in the company and are very interested in how it performs. Hopefully, my job will be validated with this show being sucessful!

On to family news. Stellanne is crawling. It's exciting, sad and scary all at the same time. It feels like she is growing up SO fast; and both Lisa and I want a baby for just a little bit longer. She has also started sleeping through the night. Which is sureal. Every night we think she'll wake up and every morning we are surprised she hasn't. Starting solid foods has done well for her. She eats a TON of rice cereal and apple sauce. She actually went through an entire bottle of apple sauce in a week. Thats a lot for me....let alone her.

We tried giving her one of those "pacifier" bags that you can put fruit in. And she wasn't impressed. Well actually she was, she really like the nectarine I put in there, but after eating the nectarine her little bottom was BRIGHT red. So we put in a banana....she didn't think it was exciting at all. But she knows the graham cracker box. She starts clapping when she sees it.

We also started teaching her "If your Happy and you know it" clap your hands. She thinks we are either crazy or funny since she looks at us with a "are you crazy stare" but then claps her hands.

Sorry...I can't help you

So last week my boss invited me to "present" our plans for Scientific assembly to the board. At first I wasn't concerned however as the day has gotten closer, my nerves have multiplied.

I'm an over analyzer....for those of you who don't know me. I have pondered emails before for HOURS....Lisa might even tell you DAYS. So I tell my mom and Lisa that I'm doing the "presentation" (the term is VERY loose because its not formal at all) on Tuesday and I'll have to stay out at the hotel (if you could call it that...its more like a B&B thats not as, eww you are staying in someones bedroom) since the board meeting ends at 5 or 6 ish and my boss wants me to be "talking" until about 7 and the hotel is on Whidbey Island which you have to take a ferry to. So my mom gets all "WOW WOW" on me, which I take with a grain of salt because she's my mom and has to do that sort of thing. I'm not even quite sure what the board does (as you know from my previous posts) so I'm still not sure that this as big an honor as my mom is making out to be. She says that boards meet with executives and NEVER middle management; which is what I think my title technically is (apparently sales bitch isn't a business term).

So then last Friday, I'm preparing things and one of my bosses says...as he's leaving for the night - so are you going to present to the board on Tuesday. To which I respond, well yes, not really presenting, but yes presenting. He makes this happy days Fonzie grin and gives me the thumbs up. (Yes, I think you can tell his age there) and then he leaves. Which gets me analyzing.....I should have asked....is this a big deal? But I didn't. DAMN. ALL weekend long I over analyze. I worry that regardless of what I put together the board is going to hate it. I try to put together a presentation board that shows really the 4 areas of focus for us; making it look as professional as possible without looking 7th grade science fair. I bought a presentation board at Wally world that stands up on it's own, rubber cement everything to it (well during the weekend I got about 1/2 of it put together) I then schedule a meeting with my boss that gave me the thumbs up to get his take. My boss didn't fly in until late last night and wouldn't have time to see it. Another source of anxiety....what if he hates it?!?!?

But I digress. I bring my board in to my other boss and say "what do you think....is it too 7th grade science fair?" I expected him to say - OH no....looks great. You've out done yourself. Instead he says....well, I know if you had 2 more weeks to compile it would be a different presentation, wouldn't it.

WHAT THE HELL does that mean? Yes?! No?! I've put good effort into this board. Granted...I was verifying that it didn't look immature; but that's your comment. I freat and freak. I compile everything and set it up. He does later in the day state that maybe I could take it to Kinkos and get it put on poster board rather than the presentation board and that might make it look more professional. So I determine he is probably right and decide that I'll take it to Kinko's to finish off the look.

It's not a bad presentation; and honestly had I been given 2 weeks to prepare; he was right it would be different. I would have had time to contact an advertising agency and get our advertising more set in stone rather than just the design concept that I have. I might have more in depth pictures describing everything on our booth. I might have the mock up of our demo stations. Sadly my boss was right; even though I lost sleep over the comment, given 2 more weeks it would be a different presentation with more impressive information.

So today after preparing a handout for the board. I take out to Kinkos to professionalize my presentation board. I set the board I've prepared down on the counter and say to the girl. "I need your help to make this presentation a little less 7th grade science fair" to which she responds...

"Sorry...I can't help you"

Straight face and all. Completely histerically funny...like you'd see on a sitcom. Sadly, not in a sitcom (although I sometimes feel like my life could best be translated to a sitcot).

So after much coaxing...I get her to help. We determine that I need to put all of my visuals on a different piece of paper that will be laminated and then attached to poster board. End project turned out well. I hope. Who knows what the board will think. I did get good feedback from another executive, and manager that said the presentation board that I put together would be fine and the board would enjoy it.

So now I sit and wait for them to come out of their meeting. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

To go over her head or not....that is the question

I've already decided that the ACEP girl is full of shit. Not only does she change her mind like the weather changes in Seattle (every 5 minutes) BUT she can't give me any hard rulings / policies that prove her decisions.



So I email a local ACEP chapter exhibit manager.



Just went to her exhibit in MI. And I have to say, it really was nicely run. At first I was a little aprehensive; the first day for 2 hours I stood there looking all pretty and not only did I not see any doctors, but I didn't see any other exhibitors (okay a few, but VERY few). She really pushed visiting the exhibitors during the other 2 days, and obviously told the docs that the reason that the conference was affordable was because of the exhibitors. I don't think I've ever heard so much "thank you for exhibiting...we are glad you are here". They could have been talking about my boobs.....but I'm pretty sure they were talking about my sponsorship of their continuing education. I talked to a lot of people. Alot were residents, which are NOT my target group - but I still picked up what I consider a hot lead. And if we pick up just one lead that turns into a prospect....its a good show. This show strongly encouraged giveaways. Drawings. I gave away a "nice" bottle of wine. I'm not actually sure it was nice because I have no idea what makes a nice wine other than enjoying it's taste. But it was rated at 96 points and was a 2003 vintage. AND I have to say that since buying it, its price has gone from $95 to $108. Thats a large increase (13% to be exact) Which the ACEP Bitch (as I lovingly refer to her as) said giving away alcohol was strictly forbidden by ama regulations...regulations that I can't seem to find. Bitch.



So back to my story...I email the exhibits director of the MI ACEP and say...hey, I heard that we aren't allowed to giveaway alcohol or cash, is that true....no she says...I can't find anything wrong with that...



So I email back, are you sure, is there someone that I can get confirmation from NATIONALY? And she gives me a rep nationally.



I think this might be a bad idea. It might be stiring the pot. What if she wasn't lying and she truely is the "top dog". Then I've just pissed her off by trying to go over her head. But she is backing me into a corner......and the stress of that alone is killing me.