A little about home

Tonight I stumbled upon a Facebook group called “Bitch, please…I’m from Ketchum”. The name initially put me off. But slowly but surely my local Idaho brethren have been joining the ranks of Facebook and even though this is a teeny tiny town, I don’t get out much. Cause, you know, I have two kids, a FT job and a house that always seems to need cleaning and/or fixing. Actually, I probably could have stopped at “two kids”.

Anyway, I went to the group anyway thinking I might find some of my friends from town. When I got there, the group description cracked me up. It was a sincerely honest one of those “you know you’re from Ketchum when…” lists. It offers such a peek into what this place is all about that I decided to paste it here (for you non-Facebookers).

For people who grew up in Ketchum. As much as things change they never really do. You know grew up in Ketchum/Sun Valley if…

-You see your high school teachers at the bar.
-You have a mug.
-You know where to get your bell rung on the first.
-If you play buck hunter and don’t get the high score, you know the initials of the person who did.
-You revolve your work and sleep schedule around both dollar nights.
-Your garage looks like Cabellas, REI, and Woodside RV all threw up in it.
-You can find a poachable hot tub anytime you wish.
-You know crocs are lame, but still wear them to the bar.
-You know that you don’t lose your girlfriend you just lose your turn.
-You think chili in a bun and air-heads is the best ski lunch ever.
-You rarely pay full price for anything, and when you do you feel ripped off.
-You never pay covers.
-You come home every Christmas.
-You can’t give directions based on street names because you don’t know them.
-You have a conversation with every other person you see in the grocery store.
-You have a cruiser bike.
-You know that beer is as good as cash.
-You never worry about where you will stay when the bars close because that shit will just work itself out.
-You thought the fire was cool because it made all tourists leave, and thinned out the backside.
-You have a Smith sticker on everything you own.
-You know that when you’re done working landscaping, food service, or retail, you’ll become a real-estate agent.
-You remember Dawg Gone Good Teriyaki, The Burger Haus, The Western, The Buffalo Café, Louie's, Buckwheats, and the Saltwater Grill.
-Although there are lots of new buildings in town you haven’t been inside any of them.
-You never said hella and never will.
-The bands you listen to have your friends in them.
-You know multiple people who met their spouse on the dance floor at Whiskey’s.
-You understand even half of these.

An HPD and proud of it

If you’ve been reading this site for a long time, or from front to end (but let’s be honest here – neither of those likely apply) you’ll know that I am a complete Harry Potter dork, or as my husband likes to refer to me – an HPD. Luckily, there are a few others that I spend a considerable amount of my time with that are also HPDs, like Laptop Television Mom for one.

Well, if you’re an HPD you’ll know that today is a VERY exciting day! The trailer for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie was released today. Now that I've been teased, the 115 day countdown to the theater release seems further away than it was this morning!

Also, if you’re a HPD and this post just isn’t enough for you, check out these other gems:
Veritaserum - Everything Harry Potter - Book 7, Movie 5 News
Harry Potter Books, Movies, and More - The Leaky Cauldron
HPANA - Harry Potter News and Rumors - Book 7, Movie 6 and More
HARRY POTTER STREET

And without further distraction...the trailer to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!

Shel Silverstein 2.0(08)

Last night my daughter and I just finished the last poem from Shel Silverstein’s Falling Up. I’ve been waiting for ~20 years to have (a legitimate) reason to read Silverstein again. I L-O-V-E-D Where the Sidewalk Ends growing up. Until I started reading Judy Blume (Tales of a Forth Grade Nothing was a fave) Sidewalk was my favorite book.

My daughter, who will be five this Fall, loved Falling Up and now wants to start right back at the beginning and read it again. My next eBay Hunt (a favorite pastime of mine) will be for a good looking edition of Where the Sidewalk Ends.

I would love suggestions for other books to engage our daughter too. Suggestions from the potato gallery?

It was only a few days!?

Last week I went away for a few days to spend some time in our SF office and also to attend the BlogHer08 conference. When I came back I could have sworn that my son grew two inches and my daughter was three years older.

Okay, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But for reals, they were doing things they weren’t doing before I left.

My daughter was chewing gum (YES, it was sugar free).

My son can fill his glass with water from the fridge now with absolutely no assistance at all.

My daughter was brushing her own hair after her showers.

My son now wants and asks to go fishing (a lot).

These may seem trivial, but over the course of their little lives I haven’t really missed any milestones by being away. I wouldn’t call chewing gum a milestone, per se, but it’s amazing to me just how quickly these beautiful little people change.

Things I learned at Blogher…a preliminary list from the hollow corner of my processing brain.

Real women don’t eat danish

Just when you think that you’ve already surrounded yourself with your closest friends, you can find more

It’s great to think and talk, but it’s also important to DO

It’s obvious, but I’ll still say it; all women have something very valuable to say and contribute

The # of Bloghims at Blogher is growing

If you’re going to schedule a politics talk with members of the McCain/Obama camps, you better book a BIG room

Women LOVE their swag, coffee and Sesame Street

There were some amazingly brave women at Blogher08

Oh, and real women don’t eat danish

Political bling for your rig

Today I received our free Obama ’08 bumper sticker from MoveOn.org. If you want the latest “it accessory” for your wheels (it can be a bike, scooter, etc.) you too can nab a free one by clicking here.

BlogHer: One of the most eco-friendly tech conferences I’ve been a part of

Next Wednesday I’ll be leaving scorching hot Idaho for foggy and cold San Francisco. As if I didn’t get enough winter already this year. (Winter pretty much lasts from Oct. – May in ID.) Ahhh, well it’s a good thing then that I never put away my massive collection of pashminas and scarves then. But, it’s all worth it because I’m heading West again for the BlogHer conference.

This will be my first time heading to BlogHer and while I am excited about the lineup of speakers and topics, so far I am most pleasantly surprised by how environmentally minded the show organizers are. In the pre-conference guide it communicates an effort toward going green. I’m not an environmentalist by any means, although I DID go see An Inconvenient Truth in the theater which “scared” our family into trying to do its part. But maybe my “ignorance” is why all these efforts jumped out at me.

Some of the “little things” BlogHer is doing on this front:
* They won’t be providing bottled water and are asking folks bring their own reusable containers for water while at the show.
* They asked the venue, the Westin St. Francis on Union Sqr, to increase the number of recycling receptacles provided so that attendees will find it even more convenient to recycle.
* In its pre-conference guide it urges attendees to “power down, don’t just 'sleep'” when it comes to charging laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc. because leaving those items plugged in – even fully charged – still burns energy. The guide includes the quote that in 2010, according to estimates made by the DoE, 20 percent of each American’s electricity bill will come from appliances on standby.
* Their conference totes are reusable organic totes, perfect for a city with a ban on plastic grocery bags.
* Michelin, a BlogHer sponsor, is committed to offsetting 200 tons of CO2 to help w environmental impact of the conference.

For me, I’ll probably learn as much about making changes to my every day life to be more eco-friendly as I will about blogging.

The case of the missing ___________ (insert any clothing item you want). SOLVED.

For as long as my kids have been going to preschool we’ve had casualties. You know, personal items that went to school with them and then never came back.

Last Summer it was a favorite bathing suit that went missing at the end of June. Cost? A sad camper for basically all of an Idaho Summer (July and August) and a tired-out mom as a result. (everyone knows listening and enduring whining is very tiring.) And this Winter is was numerous gloves, and it always seemed to be the left one so we couldn’t even mix and match. The tipping point was a missing sparkle shoe…

So, after some frustrating losses and expensive replacements I decided some sort of action was in order. I went on eBay and bought some iron on “transfers” with our last name on them and spent an hour or two applying them to all the items that we definitely didn’t want lost – snow suits, jackets, etc. It was okay for things that didn’t get washed much, like jackets, etc. but the labels fell right off everything else after the second wash (if not the first). So, I resigned myself to thinking that we would just lose some things… until I happened across one of my best finds ever.

The labels from Stuck on You are fun and they were specifically created and designed for kids’ clothing, shoes, and other belongings. They had identification labels and nametags for everything imaginable…backpack tags, vinyl stickers for shoes and/or lunchboxes, allergy labels and, of course, iron on name labels. They were cute, and I was desperate. So I ordered two sets of clothing dots, basically iron on labels ($18.95 per set of 50) and one set of sticky dots shoe dots ($18.95 for a set of 20).

It may seem a lot to pay for some “stickers”. Instead, the transfers are one of the best investments I’ve made “AK” (After Kids). The Summer Program at our preschool isn’t exactly staffed by the elite like it is in the Fall, and so lost items during this season are usually at a peak. And despite the fact that we used to lose about one item a week (some would find their way back and others lost in the abyss forever), so far this summer we haven’t had one lost one thing. Everything has found its way back into the appropriate cubby by day’s end and I have to think it’s because everything has been labeled and ownership is obvious.

I’ve never done an “official” product review before this, but these labels are something I can definitely put my seal of approval on. If you have a kid that goes to daycare/school somewhere outside of your home, I highly recommend the Stuck on You labels.