God Be With You

While heating up my second piece of corn I started having morbid thoughts. Oh maybe it is because of the non-profit in Canada that was refused non-profit status. They were called Farwell and wanted to be an assisted suicide place. Anyway, I was thinking about the juxtaposition of being in the hospital for my two grandparent’s deaths and hearing chimes ring that a new baby was just born. Then I started thinking about how I want, God Be With You Til’ We Meet Again, played as the last item of my funeral. It is our traditional farewell song at graduation at Augustana College. My college experience met so much to me and my friends from there mean so much that the song also rings true and with significance. My only living grandparent is now refusing to eat much. That is how it all began with two of my other grandparents. The beginning of the end, I don’t know the sound of this. I lost two this year, not another, please.

Right to Search and Seizure

Our trip to Nebraska this weekend was good, fast and well weird, like our trips usually are. Something always happens while we are making our 6-10 hour trip, time based on final destination.

3^rd World Memories

About 30 miles into Iowa everyone was suddenly slamming on their breaks. There were State Patrol officers standing around with signs saying be prepared to stop and to be pulled over. This all occurred near a weight station which was full of State P. Trucks and cars were lined up all over the place. We got through it without being stopped, but not without being eye molested as we drove by. Phillip googled it to see what was going on. They called it a “Safety Check.” The cops were randomly pulling over vehicles in groups of 10 and making sure their vehicles passed a safety expectation. Drivers licenses, registration documentation and insurance cards were also being checked.

I read the article about the event this morning and it sounds like it is an annual occurrence. I also read the comments people made about the issue. There were various opinions from people believing it was necessary to those who felt like they were witnessing Nazi Germany.

All I have to say is, first it scared the crap out of me. Suddenly out of no where there are state troopers with signs warning that you might be stopped, and people were scattered everywhere, for what? Second I understand the reason, but I also do not agree with it. If a vehicle looks like it would be in dangerous disrepair you have probable cause to pull them over, that is it.

United States citizens are slowly giving up their rights, without question. The response is always “if it makes my family and me safer.” The fact is I was not driving drunk, carrying drugs or in a vehicle that had the bumper tied up with rope. I am obeying the laws; I do not need to be subjected to a random search. Are we going to start allowing the police to randomly enter our homes to make sure that it’s up to code? I think not. If safety is the concern they should make more of an effort to do that daily instead of on one concentrated day, for anybody.

The whole thing reminded me of the constant threat of police pulling you over in third world countries at will, with machine guns. Often they aren’t police at all and they can rob you blind, kidnap you for ransom or just plain kill you. I’ve been in that situation before; I should not have to worry about that in the U.S. where I am free. I am free, right?

Stormy Weather

Then we hit, well drove between, some big storms. We saw a few large funnel clouds outside of Council Bluffs and we swear one of them had to have touched down. There were storms all around us and we were at the back ends of all of them. Just outside of Omaha we sat on I-80 stuck in a late night traffic jam and watched as nonstop lighting chased across the sky. We hoped we could get to Lincoln before the huge storm in Columbus blew through. Later, that storm ended up swiping Lincoln without hitting with full force. More lighting, some rain and marble sized hail came and went rather quickly.  

Rest Stop Mania

The trip back on Sunday was rather uneventful until we needed to stop for gas just over the Minnesota border. The place was packed. We’ve never seen so many cars lined up for expensive gas. Same went for Cabela’s were we stopped and purchased an old fashioned ice cream maker. It was also packed with cars and people everywhere. Needless to say it was nice to finally get home and well, not really relax, but we were at least home.

Step-Parenting

This weekend is the start to my first “official” two weeks as a step-mom. In all non-legally binding regards I have 2.5 years of step-moming already under my belt. Nothing is going to change. We were a family before we said “I do” and we are still a family now. The most significant advancement is now baby momma has to face the reality that really, there truly is no hope of getting my husband back, and that I now will be for sure part of the process of raising my husband’s child and our children.

It is a position in life that if you are not a step-parent it is hard to understand the process one goes through in adjusting and learning this new role. If you are one, then you know what I mean. Every family with step anything is different. No two scenarios are the same, but we all face similar challenges regarding legalities, family dynamics and that fun one, emotions. I am not bashing the difficulties of raising children birth parents face; I hope to become one myself. However, I am highlighting the fact that entering into a family or building a family involving children that are not your own is not an easy task and should not be brushed off.

One thing you should never do is disregard a step-parent’s role and position as a parent. That is a sure fire way to end up getting a ‘dislike button’ pushed on your forehead. We are raising children. When that child throws a tantrum we have to deal with it, when that child needs clean clothes or a bath, we are cleaning them. We are not babysitters, we do not get paid and we do not get to say I don’t want to watch them anymore. We are moms and dads, I am a mom.

I just read a magazine article that discusses the top ten reasons why becoming a step-mom is harder that becoming a birth mom. I’m sure some birth mothers would like to disagree. The article doesn’t dis-birth mothers, but it clearly outlines some very true realities to why being a step-mom is difficult. People don’t recognize you as a real parent, you don’t get nine months to mentally prepare for having a child, you don’t bond through hormones and you don’t have a huge circle of people who have been there before. A step parent goes from being childless to having children in an instant. I had my own house and a cat, which (some of it gradually) quickly changed to having a boyfriend (now husband), child, two dogs and two cats in our house.

There are countless situations, scenarios, dynamics and emotions I could discuss, but that will all come in time. Right now I am thinking in the terms of mom. For the next two weeks every decision made in our house will be based on being parents, not just being a couple. 

Virtual World

I am well aware that social media/technology is the wave of the future for business. It is also an increasingly popular way to network to personally find better employment opportunities. It is a great way to keep in touch with friends and family who are now more spread out than ever. It even helped my husband and I develop a strong long distance relationship that turned into a marriage.

However, some days I just can’t fathom why I am spending time on it. I feel like I am wasting my energy. Like this blog for instance…I haven’t updated it in months. And I’m writing a post that will probably never be read. Why? I have a Twitter account to keep in touch with friends, help me network and hopefully move on in my career, but I only really think about it when I’m at work and at that time I can’t do anything on it anyway.

If I didn’t work in an office I’m not so sure I’d stay connected on social media very much. I do it because I’m bored, but when I am in my element and my happiest I’m not thinking about it. I probably won’t think about it once we have kids, or maybe I will to keep family and friends updated on life at a distance.

The many avenues to publish who you are online are so wide spread and varied that it becomes a mess in my mind. For work I tirelessly post on Twitter hoping that someone will notice a post in the few minutes I turn up in the feed before I’m washed away by the numerous tweets of others. Is it worth it? The experts say it is, colleagues are all over it, and I get my spurts of insatiable enthusiasm. Then I have days like today where I think, why am I doing this?

I come to work and live in a virtual world and get annoyed when people snap me out of it. I sit in front of a computer and I’m not so sure that is experiencing life. I only have some 90 years on this planet (hopefully). I don’t want to spend more than half of it at a desk, in front of a computer, slowly getting fat and pale because I never leave and never see the sunlight. Especially the years where I can move around and do things, life is too short for office work, for making virtual connections.

Yet, I do it anyway and sometimes not as well as I’d like to. I have great visions of having an amazing blog or inspiring tweets or whatever, but does it really matter? Am I the only one I’m entertaining and inspiring? Probably. So I spend my day thinking what am I do here in general? There has to be more than this. 

A Workin' Weekend

So I am debating setting up a family blog using our wedding website once the wedding is over. We have so many family and friends all over the country that it would be a good way to keep in touch. I think a lot of changes will be coming within the next year and it’s the best way to keep everyone informed. I debate it. Do I want to write a blog, do I not? Do I want people to know what I’m up to, or not? That is why my blog goes in spurts. I can never decide what I want to do.

I can say this weekend we didn’t accomplish anything wedding related, but we did give the house a good cleaning. We made homemade chicken noodle soup and hosted a dinner party, donated a ton of items to Savers, shampooed the carpet, cleaned the fish tank and re-arranged Braden’s room. I couldn’t help but wonder, as we moved Braden’s room around, how we would organize it so a crib also fit in there. What a thought!

This morning I took Duke and Kato on a walk. I want to go for a walk every morning before work, but we have a Winter Storm Watch in the works. We’ll see if I we’ll be walking tomorrow. It is nice to bond with my puppy and to get him worn out so he’ll sleep all day while we’re gone. Such a little bundle of energy he is! He really loves to play with our kitten Dilli, which is good. Let them wear each other out.

Tonight’s goal: Finalize the 300+ mailing list. 

They Came!

The invitations came yesterday. They look as I expected. It is fun to see them in person and in their real format. Not just the copies I printed off on a normal printer. The box was a little smashed and bent the corners of some of the invitations. Phillip thinks I should call and complain. I don’t have the energy to do it. The mail is going to beat them up anyway and they aren’t that bad. They need to go out next week and I can’t afford to wait any longer for more to get printed and mailed. Now we need to buy envelopes and print labels and finish that dang address list….300+ addresses takes a long time to organize, when you don’t have them all.

I’d like to say I’ll get something done tonight, but I can tell you I won’t. I’m exhausted and with a new puppy in the house I’m also a little distracted. Tonight’s goal is simply getting the house clean; do some laundry done so we can work hard this weekend. Time is getting short.

The Countdown

At two months and six days before our wedding I have decided to write about the countdown. Is it bad timing to take on another project at this moment? Maybe, but it will be a great way to remember all that happens in these whirlwind months.

Our invitations are due to arrive tomorrow. The 7 ½ pound box is traveling across the country waiting to reveal whether they turned out or not. I’ve been a true DIY bride in order to save money and allow myself some creativity in this whole planning process. I created the invitations myself and unfortunately, found a few errors after I gave the ok to print. Darn it!! I looked at them so many times and others looked at them too. To most people it won’t matter. It bugs me, but I have to let it go. It’s not detrimental and who cares. Most people will hardly look at them and then toss them in the trash a few weeks down the road. Regardless, they are done, but I’m slightly annoyed. The goal is to get them out around Easter.

Today there won’t be any wedding work completed. We have a couple of tickets to see the Twins vs. the Royals tonight. We have never been to Target Field and it is supposed to be a beautiful night. I’m looking forward to it!

I'm Back...Maybe

I really should update this now and then. I get so busy with life and I just don’t think about it. I would like to proudly proclaim that I feel very much like a DIY Bride. I’m quite proud of that really. I’m trying to be as resourceful as possible. We are planning a very large wedding and every penny counts. My loving fiancé might be out of town for a couple of weeks. He’s going to see if he can help his parent’s finish their basement in preparation of my sister-in-law’s high school graduation. Perhaps I will write more about my DIYness then; since I’ll be alone with my thoughts and too broke to go out and do anything. Thus is the history of my blogging life…lots of posts and then long dry spells.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Verification

The Holiday Toy Store Parking Lot...
at an empty time...the upper right is
usually how it looks.

The months of November and December are the busiest at VEAP. We have a Holiday Food Program and a Holiday Toy Store in addition to all our other programs. It is also when the largest amount of our donations come in. One of the tasks that need to be completed is the verification of donated gift cards. The paper backing needs to be ripped off, the silver flaky stuff needs to be scratched off, and the amounts on the card need to be double checked. The last step is entering all the gift cards with their identification number, amount and who donated it entered into a spreadsheet. It is a long and messy project and my volunteers are very happy when it is over. Every year one volunteer is disappointed she didn't win something in her scratch off games and the others are joyful the process is over.

This year will bring extra celebration as one volunteer told me today, "So I was trying to verify these gift cards. You can't do these online so I called the number. There was a recording that said the number had changed. So I said, okay and wrote do the number they gave me, 11-11-8000. Then I proceeded to dial the new number. 9 (to get out) 1---1." Opps!! So in the end those gift cards will not be verified. Hopefully those donors are more honest than the one who donated a $25 gift card with only .50 cents on it. Yes, it because of those people we have to double check each one of the hundreds of gift cards that arrive at VEAP this time of year.

Everyday something crazy happens here. The parking lot is just scary to peer down at. Actually it is mesmerizing and it makes it very hard to want to work on anything productive. Clients are continually coming close to collision status. Watching them is like watching a train wreck; you can't help but stare and wince. Only one more day and I have a nice 5-day weekend. I am looking forward to that!

Spice it Up

I sense a little competition with Myriad Musings. Well maybe not a lot, but my friend updated her blog and made it all spiffy. Now I feel I need to spice mine up a little bit too! Hmmmm....I'm going to have to get working on that.

For now here is a beautiful picture of my toe while in urgent care last Saturday. I managed to be very stupid...ehh, I looked at it again and its too nasty to post. Let's just say lots of blood is oozing out of the two holes that were drilled in my nail (paiiiinful) and a couple other deep cuts.

BET

This morning I turned on the TV which for some reason was on BET. I had convinced Braden that he can watch his Choo Choo movie, but it had to be on the upstairs TV because Momma Kelly is going to watch her shows today downstairs. Momma Kelly is worn out from non-stop playing yesterday. We watched a whole 10 minutes of Madacascar and then played monsters, trains and took a super long bath. I let him take his metal non-battery trains in the tub and now all he wants to do is take a bath. "Momma Kelly, I'm yucky. I need bath." The plan today is a play date at The Blast in Eagan with some other kids. Hopefully, it pulls together. I'm waiting for Angie to call. Anyway, back to BET. The Bernie Mac Show just started and I'm finding it rather amusing. An aunt and uncle are fighting over who is stuck at home at the kids. Guess you'd have to see it, but its funny.

Topsy Turvy Christmas Cards -- Shutterfly!

The VEAP Holiday Benefit always puts me in the Christmas spirit. This year nationally renowned performer Jearlyn Steele sang the song Home from the Wiz. I was lucky enough to have a private performance of this song at work one day. My task was to put together a video to play while she sang that evening.

The house my dad and uncles grew up in.

The song really struck me this year. We used black and white photos of Christmas memories from board members. Pictures that showed them as children back in the 1930’s to the 1950’s. I did not grow up then, but it made me think about my childhood and my Christmas memories. It also made me think about my future with Phillip and the memories we will make with each other and our children. Someday we will look back on those old digital pictures (I’m sure they will evolve to something even better than digital in the future) and reminisce about the good old days.

With my future step-son is here for Thanksgiving we are thinking of ways to make this a memorable experience for him. That includes getting a family picture taken for our Christmas cards. Although we are not married yet, we are already a family and we want to start creating those positive memories now.

Christmas 2009. Making snowman on sticks.

Since I love creating my own things I am going to design a Christmas card via Shutterfly.com. I love how I have the freedom to spread holiday cheer in a way that best represents our family. It is also a chance for me to get good ideas for how to design our save the date cards that need to be sent out within the next month as well.

Another winter weather advisory is in effect which means tomorrow we can have some great winter shots. Dadda, Momma Kelly, Braden and the three fur babies, Duke, Skippy and Monet will gather around the tall pine tree on the side of the house and smile for the camera. It will most likely be a superbly chaotic picture, but from putting a video to the song Home I found those were the best ones.

I can see it now. Phillip will be smiling for the camera while holding Braden who won’t be looking at the camera. Duke will sit next to Phillip staring up at me while I hold my cat, Monet. I will be smiling at the camera while squeezing a hissing Monet who is staring down at Duke. Skippy will be on my side wagging his tail like crazy, but also hoping no one notices him. Welcome to the Larson-Mroczek household…


My family at Christmas before us kids arrived.

Our Christmas cards will be the start of our family collection of printed memories. I can’t wait to see how they turn out! We’ll send them to our closest family and friends to show how they are important to us and in the start of our new life together.

Design your own cards with me! Follow the links below for ideas.
Christmas Cards
Holiday Cards
Desk Calendars



Oohh, if we did something like this from Shutterlfy we could do a Christmas Card and our Save the Date all at once...so many options!



Hectic November

I guess I should write something again. I’ve been so busy lately with the VEAP Holiday Benefit. Today I am processing credit cards and need a little break from all those numbers. The event was great. Jearlyn Steele, Cate Fierro, Metro Retro and Charmin Michelle all did a wonderful job performing for our guests. Channel 5 sportscaster Joe Schmitt also did a wonderful job. We were happy to see the great turn out!

I’m still tired from it. It doesn’t help that after working some 16+ hours that day I got three hours of sleep before we headed off to Nebraska to pick up Braden. That meant 13+ hours of travel time all in one day, there and back. I still haven’t recovered. I’m getting old! Which means, I am once again “Momma Kelly” for the next two weeks. We are planning on buying a Christmas tree while Braden is here so he can help decorate it. That should be a fun family activity. We are also going to try to hit up the Holidazzle parade. I bet he’d love to see all those fantastic lights. The next two weeks should lead to some good post material.

On our drive we started talking about the wedding again. After completing the benefit it is time to work on planning the wedding, which is going to be almost as big. We need to get our final guest list from Phillip’s parents and we can start sending out save the date cards. I’ve decided to design all my own stuff. I figured I should put those InDesign skills to use! And it will save us money.

Anyway, I guess I should get back to the processing.

Waiting

Well, I'm sitting in bed watching the news early on Sunday morning. No matter what day it is I always seem to wake up at 7:30 if my alarm doesn't beat me to it. So I let the dogs out, turned on the news and crawled back into bed. Right now I am waiting to see if I won tickets. I hope so!!  Oooh, now I found a show I always love to watch, when I catch it, CBS News Sunday Morning. They have a great collection of short stories. I love it.

Welcome home!

I should get out of bed soon though. I'm getting hungry and might try my hand at making apple cinnamon pancakes. Mmmm. Phillip texted earlier. Good thing I was already awake. The woods have been cold and void of deer. I made him a welcome home hunter deer cake last night. He doesn't know that of course and it will be waiting for him when he comes home on Monday.

Today's goal is to shave Skippy. I'm also meeting a friend for coffee, but that isn't until later in the afternoon so hopefully I'll get most of Skippy cleaned up by then. It takes forever since his fur is so crazy. My next post will show before and after pictures. Uggg, I kinda dread it....

Okay off to figuring out how to make some pancakes with soft apples.

Resignation

While giving the house an intense clean today I have realized I need to resign from NaNoWriMo. It is a shame considering I think I have a bombshell of a novel. I love the premise of my story and I believe the bits I have written so far are great. I have 17% completed! I can still write it, it just won't be within 30 days. My life just gotten extra busy.

1. November is the start of my busiest two months of the year at work and I can't write the novel while working. We have our largest fundraiser of the year in two weeks. I am highly involved preparing for that and taking care of all the donations afterwards. Also the majority of our funding comes in the last two months of the year. Needless to say I will be doing nothing but counting and processing donations, all while preparing for the audit and the annual report the first of the year.

2. I have a wedding to plan. In order to save money I am going to use my designing skills to create all our print materials for the wedding. I LOVE doing that stuff so I'm excited to work on it. We get a lovely discount with FedexKinkos so printing through them will be a great money saver. Since we decided to stick with the orginal plan with our wedding in Kearney I have a lot more work to do. A guest list of 200+ vs. 10 makes a big difference. I have finished our website though. It looks great!

3. We are traveling back to Loup City next weekend to visit the family. No novel writing is going to happen then...and we are hosting Thanksgiving this year. If Phillip's family joins us we are going to have a big feast to make. Needless to say I need to get the house clean and organized. There are some organization pieces I think I will need to buy this weekend and probably a nice table cloth.

So sadly I withdraw my challenge of writing a novel in one month's time. However, I have plenty of other exciting things to work towards. Afterall, I am going to be a wife and step-mom! And hopefully a full-time mom not super long after that. That is a pretty big challenge in itself!

Self Delegated Tasks

I am super excited for this weekend. That energy may wear off, or not. After work on Friday it is time for happy hour with some co-workers and then back home to let the dogs out. Phillip left this morning to go hunting with my dad until Monday. That is unless they get their deer. Then they might be home early. I am torn on what tasks to do first. The house needs a good cleaning, I need to work on designing save the date cards for our wedding, and I need to work on my novel. I am also going to go see my grandma sometime this weekend and wear my dress for her because she won’t be able to make it to the wedding. I also want to try working with fondant. I thought I would try to make a camo fondant welcome home cake for my big manly hunter. I am also having coffee with a friend. I know it is all stuff I will mostly be doing alone, but I am okay with that. I just need some time to concentrate on tasks that I find pretty fun and no one else can really help me with anyway. I just have to get through 7 more hours of work until I can do fun things! Yippee!!

NaNoWirMo

A friend of my changed her FB status to, “NaNoWirMo participants become my buddy.” I had no idea what that stood for so I googled it and discovered it stood for National Novel Writing Month, interesting. After reading more about what it is I decided to sign up. The goal is to write a novel of 50,000 words from November 1st to November 30th. How great would it be to say I wrote my own novel?! Quality isn’t important, but knowing me I will nit pick every paragraph I write and never finish it the time allowed. Another scenario is that the beginning will be better than the end. Whichever is the case it certainly is a challenge. November is a busy month, but it is also hunting season, which means there will be weekends without my fiancé and time to write.

So what will my story be? I have decided on the adventure genre focusing on a plot that has been in the back of my mind for years. It was easy to come up with a synopsis of the book. A good title will have to come along later.

Synopsis
A mysterious formation in the Minnesota wilderness has caused people to question its nature for hundreds of years. What does it mean? Where does it go? Sparked by curiosity as a young girl, Nicole tells the story of the secrets she uncovered and the key to unsolved mysteries.

I can’t divulge more information that that. You will just have to wait until December.

Blogging for Pay

Well, I have been assigned the task to create a private blog for work. It will be an open forum so to speak for clergy. I’m just excited about the fact that I can play on Blogger officially and get paid for it. They think I am so well versed in the technology age. I just think it’s funny because so many people are already on the social media boat. However, if it makes my superiors think I’m amazing…I’ll take it.

Purple Day

Our copier is torn into a million pieces all over the copy room and I need it to be able to make the deposit today. I don’t think that is going to happen… No leaving early for Kelly . They have 2.5 hours to put it back together and I just don’t know if that is going to happen based on the sound it was making earlier and how the tech called in back-up…

Speaking of the tech…she is a lesbian and wearing purple. I wore purple today because last night on our date I wore this same sweater and it smelled so good and decided it would be nice to smell it all day at work. So I did. We got a late start this morning because it was too hard to get out of bed. So I did not put on make-up and felt kinda man-ish. Then I saw people writing about wearing purple today all over facebook and I was confused by it. Then I discovered you are supposed to wear purple today to support LGBT teens. I am not against them, but I don’t want people to think I am one of them and became very paranoid, more so because of our purple wearing lesbian tech. Then I thought, oh but I have a big fancy diamond ring on my finger. Then I thought, wait LGBT’s get engaged too. Needless to say I am now wearing a black sweatshirt and put on make up…

Possibilities

Excitement! It was a job offer, of sorts. I have been asked to join a group of consultants who come from a wide variety of professional backgrounds and experiences; including a women who owns her own consulting business and has been in the field for 20 plus years. Tim has been impressed by my work and has heard nothing but praise from the VEAP board president about my skills. He believes my expertise in fundraising, marketing, and organizational development is a great asset for his team. He is also looking for a range of ages. He likes the idea of having me as a new professional on the team to learn from (new ideas, technology skills) and being able to teach me the skills I don’t know like how to make a strategic plan.

Any job I put time into I would get paid for. So it is a part-time on the side job…for now. He made it very clear that when I am at a place that I feel comfortable moving into a larger role there is a place for me. He knows I have a lot of changes coming up in my life right now, he does not want to impede on my work at VEAP (even though he knows I am ready to move on), and doesn’t want to make things complicated seeing his wife is the board president.

So for now I see it kind of as a paid internship with no required hours to put in. It’s a time for me to learn from someone who has had a very successful career. He is willing to take what I do know and use it, but also teach me more so that I can become well versed in a wide range of things. I like that! Someone sees potential in me and this could really lead to something down the road.

It will take time for him to get his business up and running again. It will take time for me to feel out how consulting works and how I interact with the tasks, but there is potential out there. He even said, if I move to Nebraska there is still work that can be done. So even if I move I am still welcomed to be involved and even encouraged, with his team support, to start a branch down there. How cool!