The Something Good Parts

Let's just gloss over the week, mini-recap includes interesting flux with clients, income, blah, blah, blah. Nothing overwhelmingly terrible by any means. Whatever.

And for some reason I've gotten all sorts of scraps from social media in the last 24 hours from folks I know who CAN'T WAIT for this week to end. Really. Ya know...don't rush it. I'm going to guess that something good happened this week. You wouldn't have wanted to miss it, right?

My week ended on a wonderful note, actually, if I focus on my morning - a really awesome "something good". For the second time this school year, I went in to read to O's kindergarten class. Our selections: The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, and Clam-I-Am - a Seussian approach to learning about the beach and all its associated creatures. Clam-I-Am was all fun and good, but I was pretty pumped in my newly reinvigorated green-ness to read The Lorax.

I love some of the connections the kids make, what goes through their heads, what they raise their hands to share.

"I have trees that fell down in my yard from the snow." Well, yes, but maybe some of those trees were old and that happens sometimes. But you didn't cut them down yourself, right?

"I like Paris." Really, have you been to Paris? It's very nice there. "No, but I am going when I am 12.". Good planning. Send pictures!

"I saw a dead bird once." (Mmmm....okay. Can't say I was prepared with a reaction for someone else's child to discuss death.)

Amidst all the sidebars, they all seemed to engage, to get the lesson that "UNLESS someone like you...cares a whole awful lot....nothing is going to get better...it's not." Tonight it occurred to me it would have been stellar to bring some seeds for everyone. So...maybe that's an idea for another time, it's not like they could have gotten planted today anyhow.

Enjoy your truffula trees today, everyone.

The G2 Summit

G has turned 2! I know, she was barely walking the last time I told you about what was up with her. She is a bit of a mini-me, which is reinforced by at least one or two people weekly, and she has personality to spare. Demanding, silly, lovable little tiny girl. "Tiny" is one of her favorite words...she always raises her voice when she says it: "TI-nee!"

We had a family birthday party this past weekend. A Dora extravaganza. Please, por favor.

She was the star of her own show, looking lovely in purple and brown and a very, very special crown that was handmade by her older brother and held in place by a rhinestone headband (thank you, Crewcuts).

And now...introducing new technological leaps to LMWL...flip video! (Drumroll)

A fantabulous cake, with Dora and Boots on top. She is still at that age where all the hullabaloo over candles on a cake looks a little nutty from her perspective, I believe. Did not want to blow them out. Our big girl.



See, at least I have evolved in the last 9 months. Multimedia!

It's been way too long, friend.

No, not you. I think I'm speaking to myself, here.

I told myself that come 2010, I would be back on the blog. Things have been up and down around here but honestly, it's all good. The short news is we are all healthy and we have the two best kids on the planet (well, they are mine, I am allowed to say that). So what's new in the last (gulp!) 9+ months?

• We have a C of O for the house! This is recent news. Oh yes, you'll hear more about the house.
• O is in kindergarten! Officially 67+ months old, as he puts it. Still my little old man, my baby boy. Much more of a boy, with boy things and boy sounds.
  
• G is turning TWO this weekend. Seriously. She is a mini-me, cubed (poor thing). Such a trip - demanding, hilarious, goofy, dramatic. Beautiful.
  
• C is still a great husband. :-)
• I lost some weight. (I did have a 20th yr reunion last July, people.) And hell, it was time to ditch the baby-weight anyhow. Not a lot, but it doesn't take much on my frame.
  
• I like to cook even more than before. Trying lots of new recipes, techniques, ingredients.
  
• I'm trying to be greener, inspired by a client of mine. Buying in bulk when I can, reusable items, watching waste.
  
• I have an updated client roster...yes, still consulting (woohoo! I AM NOT GOING BACK!). This is mostly what's been keeping me distracted. They are inspiring, wonderful and unique in different ways...I'm very lucky. And good people, most importantly.
  

So, stay tuned, if you still have any interest. I still don't shut up all that easily.
xoxo
N

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder? And Other Happenings...

Well hel-lo strangers. I've been kind of remiss on the blog lately. 3 weeks w/o a post. Shameful. Especially with all the great photos and whatnot we've been taking.

Yesterday was my birthday. Still clinging to the 30s, almost barely. A regular day during the day but then my lovely husband treated me to a dinner at X20 in Yonkers - an outpost of the famous Xaviar's up northern way in Piermont. Yum. Definitely will need to make a return visit.

We've had a lot of developments at our house. We have a driveway! And as I type, there is a team of guys out in front of my house laying a new walk, fixing some steps. Next week...the whole lawn will get tilled and seeded and graded. Oh my. It will look like...a house. That's not in construction. Pictures to come.

G is Walking. Walking with a capital W, yes. As in, on her own, talking and carrying things, turning around, doing laps...walking. She's that "little person" now. It's too much.

Okay - consider this the clif notes update. More fun this weekend. I'll catch us all up a bit.

Don't Get Lost, Now

Or....now.

I had a meeting on Wednesday morning at the Harvard Club in NYC, with Susan W. Bird. I've been a number of times before, for other meetings - but I always get confused on whether it is on 44th or 45th. So, I googled it on my bb.

And I thought...huh. I really can't get lost anymore. I have a TomTom in my car, I can search for anything via mobile, anywhere I go, and pull up a map if needed. I can't get lost. Actually, that means most people I know can't get lost.



Okay, who can get lost? Well, my mom. She doesn't do the tech thing so much. We take care of a cell for her, but let's be honest...she calls me on it, and she certainly isn't going to be doing any typing on a mobile device - she doesn't have a regular email address. (Please note I'm not poking fun here; she'd be the first to tell you the same thing.)

Susan and I had an interesting conversation about it - what that means, and how it will be so strange to my children when I recount some "old" anecdote about how their dad and I got lost somewhere and they'll say "well, how did you do that? Was there no wifi or cell service in that area?" Actually...they probably wouldn't even have that issue. Le sigh.

(On a side note, Susan is fascinating, and has a fascinating company, wf360...check it out.)

So then I came home at the end of that day, and thought about it a little more, and I recall my daughter's Christening last fall. A relative got lost on his way. There was some ensuing impatience with the fact that he's "old school" (sans mobile) from certain members of my family. And how there is no understanding....how it almost seems ridiculous.

Did we lose our patience that fast? Did we all just lose the opportunity to get lost and actually find something new in the process? Good, or bad? Or....both.

Personal Business

I have a friend, a mentor of sorts, introduced to me by another mentor of sorts (who, come to think of it...was introduced to me by another mentor of sorts....but I digress...), who articulated the point that business and personal interactions aren't necessarily neatly separated, and that's a good thing.

I completely agree with this. Now that I've been at this work-for-myself thing for 6 months (yee-ha, btw), I have the ability to work on what I want to work on. With who I want to work with, more importantly.

And you know what...I only reach out to the people I really enjoyed working with. Sure, I'm networking my head off, but I have the luxury of pursuing engagement with folks I liked before, and that I know I'll enjoy working with again. I've got that handful of folks in my past that I could reach out to...big positions at big places...movers and shakers, if you will...but if I didn't like working with them then, why would I now?

I can't detach people from business. People DO business. I like people. Most, anyway.

Astronomy Lesson

Apologies for being such an absent blogger. Sheesh, what good am I?

O gave me some great fodder today. We went to IKEA this weekend, picked up a new roll of paper for his easel. Hooked it up today and he started drawing late this afternoon. Of course, I am not allowed to look at it until he is finished.

Here is his masterpiece. It is a picture of "space."


"See the rocketship? That's me, me in the rocketship...and that up there, that's the alien spaceship. That alien spaceship is trying to destroy my rocket but I'm not going to let it." (note shooting in picture)

"Wow, bud - that's pretty cool. I like the spaceship, but those are bad guys, right? What's down at the bottom?"

"That's an alien."

"He's a good alien?"

"Yeah, he's a good alien. And then that (points to top of picture)...that's...uh....that's the thing in space - the thing - the thing in space that pours milk. Yeah, what is that called Mom, that thing in space that pours milk?"

"Umm...(significant pause)...the big dipper?"

"Yeah, that's the big dipper. Yeah...that's what it is."