The walnut doesn't fall far from the family tree

My family was sitting around the kitchen table, basking in the sunlight that streamed through the large windows. Outside it was a gorgeous fall day in North Carolina, 75 degrees and beautiful. My grandparents were visiting and sharing stories. My grandmother told us how one of her siblings was engaged to be married to a man before he went on his mission. "We don't do that anymore". Mom told us when Dad first met her parents, he threw a snow ball down Grandma's neck. Then as they were driving out of the canyon, he got out of the car and picked some wild flowers. Grandma said her mother kept a meticulous diary, so whenever she would tell a story that Great-Grandpa didn't remember, she would say, I'll go get my diary. So Grandma inherited these diaries, and looked up the day she got engaged. Nothing. Apparently it wasn't memorable to her mother. Mom said she and Dad had gone to her parents house to tell them of their intention to get married, but that Grandpa kept getting up from the table. Finally they were able to share the news, and then Mom's brother came in, so Grandma said, Your sister has decided to increase our family, and Mom's brother said, "Oh, she's adopting from the Indian Welfare program?". Grandpa and Dad sat through the series of stories saying they didn't remember anything, and how could any of it possibly be true. Mom then told about Grandpa's sister driving to meet a return missionary, and passing out on the road, and when he got off the plane, he said, How you been kid, and punched her in the arm, she knew she would marry him. Grandpa didn't remember this story, and said anything from his sister was exaggerated, so then to have Mom tell it, means it was twice as exaggerated, so my sister said the only thing we could be certain of is this guy got off a plane.

I enjoyed hosting my grandparents and sisters one evening so they could see the new paint job and the big tv. The best part to me was my grandparents being very excited to watch baseball in HD, and my sisters sitting over in one of my big recliners, giggling and whispering because baseball does not interest them.

We also got to go to a Civil War site and see some rifles being fired, and tents, and ride in a buggy. We are all very glad that we have better accommodations today when doing things like Girls Camp.

And what family visit would be complete without food? Mom went all out because we had two birthdays to celebrate. First, there was salmon with a wonderful coating of seasonings, a fruit basket, mashed sweet potatoes. My sister made a beautiful and delicious cheesecake. Then we got to eat pasta with seasoned bread and more fruit, followed by cinnamon rolls.

Besty Day Ever!

One of these was delivered to me today at work. It smells even better than it looks. For several months, I helped a team in Toronto with our installer. This included twice daily meetings, making sure their defects got high priority, etc. Halfway through, the person I had been working with quit the company, and I got to work with a lovely lady who was much more enjoyable. Apparently she appreciated my work, because she sent me chocolate covered fruit. I am blown away by this gesture. At work we can receive 3 Thanks awards a year, and usually when you already have gotten your quota, people just send you a note: I would have given you a thanks award, but you are at your limit. Which is nice, but chocolate covered fruit is just amazing! And suddenly, a dreary, rainy work week is infinitely better.

5200 weekends....

When I was in college I had a roommate who counted life in weekends. She would say, only two weekends until fall break, or some other milestone. It sure made the school year fly by, but it also made us think about what we had going on for the weekend.
When I started at my job, a mentor told me that you get a maximum of 5200 weekends, if you live to be 100, so then if you throw away all the ones that you couldn't walk or talk for, and the fact that you really won't live to be 100, you might have 4000 weekends. So you should make them count.
This weekend was packed with activities.

Friday

IBM has a mentoring program at NCSU, and my boss asked me if I wanted to be one of the mentors. So Friday was the first meeting where we get introduced to our student. They started the meeting with a get to know you game. People kept asking me what my major was. I would say, I am a Chief Programmer at IBM, I am not a student, I am a mentor. They would look at me in disbelief and walk away. I finally found my student, and she looked at me in disbelief. Part of me wanted to be wearing a badge that said: "Yes, I am turning 30 this month, and I really am the Chief Programmer" :)
This reminds me of another story. I was working at Wal-Mart after I graduated high school. I was sitting in the break room eating lunch and a woman walks in. She says, you can't be back here. I say, excuse me? She says, where is your mother? I said... I work here. She says, no you don't, you can't be older than 12. I said, I am almost 18, and I do work here. She really didn't believe me.
People have always told me I will be grateful some day for looking young. I can tell you, at work functions, I am never grateful I look young. It makes it really hard to be taken seriously. I am sure in other parts of my life it is good. But not at work.

Friday night a group of friends went to the corn maze. This is the one I used to run by during my triathlon training. It was a lot of fun, and I was pleased with the turnout.  You had to find stations and get a stamp throughout the maze.  After the corn maze, we all headed down to Goodberry's because some people were new to North Carolina and had never had Concrete. Yum. I remember when we first moved here, we went to Goodberry's and they hand you the concrete upside down, spoon stuck in it, and it doesn't fall out of the bowl.  Amazing!  And then everyone was like, wow, only 10 PM, now what?! And I was thinking... uh.... bedtime. But we went to a movie, The Invention of Lying. It was entertaining. However, as Saturday morning rolled around a bit too early, I realized that I am getting too old to stay out until midnight every night of the weekend!

Saturday

Saturday morning was a bridal shower for a friend. It was fun to go and chat with people, and the food was good. Then the sessions of conference, which were wonderful. It was a typical North Carolina fall day, gorgeously sunny skies and 75 degrees. I got to eat lunch outside in between sessions. Immediately following the session, some friends and I went to the U2 concert. My friends are amazed at my knowledge of backroads, and my ability to avoid huge traffic jams. We arrived at the concert right before 7, which is when it was scheduled to start. Of course, it started a bit late, but that was perfect. Carter Finley was an outdoor venue, and the weather could not have been better. The stage was huge and was described by Bono as a space ship. It had a screen that moved and expanded, fog machines, lights, and a disco ball. It was a great show.

Sunday

Sunday started out with pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, which were very tasty. Then I enjoyed conference again, and my boyfriend met my parents and sister over dinner. Mom always makes a good Sunday dinner, and this time she made apple crisp, which was fantastic. Mom tasted all the apples in the farmers market to find the perfect ones, and they were great. Every time I go to Mom's house, and she shares food from the farmers market, I think... gosh, I should head out to the farmers market!!! It is too bad that my mom's house is not on my way to work this morning, otherwise I would have grabbed another piece for breakfast. I think I am too used to having daylight savings time on Conference Weekend, because by 7:30 I was ready for bed! Or it could be too much partying going on.

Biggest Loser

If you haven't seen the show, The Biggest Loser, then you will have no idea what I am talking about, so I have included a clip. I hope somewhere on the clip you see Jillian working someone out.......

I have been going to an ab core class at the gym. The first week, the instructor went really easy on me. As I struggled with an exercise, he would tell me to do only part of it until I was stronger. Obviously, this simply confirmed that I have no core! The woman next to me, who is rock solid, didn't get this kind of treatment. The instructor would come and add extra weight, or tell her to do an extra hard exercise, like rolling up on her tippy-toes on a ball into a pike position (yea.... that is what I thought).
This week, I finally quit being a newbie, because the instructor came over and was like, Get those hips up! You can do the full exercise! and I laughed as a I fell over from trying to balance on the ball and pull one leg into a crunch. Apparently I still don't have a core.

One Month

I have been thinking about the fact that I turn 30 in one month and have to say good-bye to my 20's. It has been an interesting decade. I am curious if any of my faithful readers have suggestions on what to do to finish out the decade in style? I was thinking anything I could get done in the next month before my birthday, or maybe some way to celebrate my birthday.

Best of.... Brownies

I am pleased to announce the winner of the Best of.... Brownies series!

Sugarland of Chapel Hill

Their award winning entry:



It was a close race with the Mad Hatter from Durham coming in second. But as everyone knows, Chapel Hill is the best :)

I wish they all could be California Girls

My two bff's and I went to California this weekend.  This whole thing started when a friend of my roommate's emailed and said there was a conference in California, did she want to meet up there.  Since I am always game to travel, and hadn't been to northern California, I said yes.  Then our other friend said she had grandparents in the area, and we could stay with them.  The hysterical part is the original person who did the invitation got married before the conference even happened!  

The trip out was smooth.  We went up to Oakland in the morning to do a temple session.  On the way we tried to find a breakfast place.... three different places in the GPS turned out to not exist.  Then we finally found something.  It was a gorgeous day, and the temple was beautiful.  Since my parents were married there, it was really neat to see this temple.  My friend ran into someone she knew, which just proves how small the church really is :)  Then we found a smoothie place in a little shopping district.  Yum.

Then we drove around San Jose.  Then we went to the opening social, which was a luau.  They actually had roasted a whole pig for the event, but it wasn't like a pig-pickin'.  I will admit, this was mostly a spectacle of awkwardness because it is people meeting new people.  The good news is we left to go get ice cream :)  It was alot of fun because my friend's cousin came, and they laugh the same, so you know they are family. 

Saturday was International Beach Cleanup day, so we cleaned up a beach.  It was nice to stroll along the beach, and the coolest thing we found was a shotgun shell.  I will say Pacific beaches are not the same as Atlantic beaches.  I kind of like Atlantic beaches :) but my friends say it is fun to have a bonfire on the beach.  

Then we went to Santa Cruz for lunch and to go to the boardwalk and the beach and just have fun.  I am seriously scared of roller coasters, but I did try a few.  We also saw a wedding, and kept running into random people from the conference.  We got to put our feet in the pacific ocean, but it was seriously cold, so that was all.  Also, I am not a fan of the sand flies and the kelp.  

Then we stopped for some really good Mexican on the way home and got ready for the "red carpet".  They had rented out a ballroom, and had a band, and then a dj.  It was a pretty dressy occasion, and I was excited to wear my red shoes.  The most random thing was meeting someone there who had lived in North Carolina and knew all the people we knew from our ward.  Then we walked down the pier, and went home to bed.  

Sunday we had breakfast with my friends grandparents, and the highlight was the bacon waffle.... yes, that would be bacon mixed into the waffle batter.  Then we tried to see the cliffs near Santa Cruz, but there was a bike race, so the roads were closed and the other roads were pretty busy, so then we went to church, and got on a plane to come home.  Before coming home, we did go to In n Out which is a West Coast only thing.  It was pretty good, the interesting part was the "animal" style fries.  Unfortunately, flying all night and having the airlines loose your luggage made coming home the worst part of the trip.  I did just have a carry on but the plane was so full, I had to check it with a hand written tag from the stewardess (are they still called that?).  I knew a hand written tag was a recipe for disaster.  Lucky for me they did find my luggage and were able to deliver it today.