We have viewers!

Woo hoo! We have stats collected on the viewers to the Grocery Station website! People are looking.

Just a few kinks to work out over the weekend and get this thing functional. Fingers crossed for next week GO TIME! I want to see CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS GETTING CREATED, PEOPLE!

Dance class canceled

Anna has decided she wants to go back to gymnastics rather than stick it out in dance class (no we are not doing BOTH for the sake of my own sanity. Call me selfish). That's fine because getting her into those Effing tights were my biggest life challenge of the week. Also it's fine because the shoes, leotard, and stockings I bought her for the class were still cheaper than one single gymnastics suit, which for her sake, I hope she can still fit in.

And I know she LOVES gymnastics. But I hate the fact that the Acrosports gymnastics place is a filthy disgusting sewer drain. Actually it's not really a sewer drain but it's pretty filthy all the time. Ick. Ick. Yay.

This is mine...

I thought this would be easy. It has not. Nothing worth doing has been easy.

EAR came to visit in June and told us that her grocery store offered online ordering and then you could come to the store and just PICK UP YOUR GROCERIES.

Really? Yes. And so, we've created this.

http://www.thegrocerystation.com/

Not "we" as in me and EAR. "We" as in me, Dad, Paul, and the team of 8 people I hired as shoppers plus the guys who actually built this site. Oh, and also the Kroger General Manager who is AWESOME and excited to get this thing going with us.

I have lost sleep, exercise, time with Anna, and money, and some sanity was also lost in the process. I fortunately didn't know what I was getting into when I started this.

Also, the irony is not at all lost on me that I created this service so I could spend less time in the grocery store, yet I have spent countless hours there since July. I have put myself out there: my ideas, my time, and money. I have taken risks I don't usually take, personally and monetarily.

I honestly can't say where this is all coming from. Have you been driven to just do something? Compelled? I can't say what's up with this exactly. Something directed me to do it. And I was fortunate enough to have the advice and business guidance of my husband and my dad. Lucky me!

This is my path to paying off my student loans in two years. Incidentally, when they're paid off, I'll tell you how much I owed to begin with.

The website is not entirely functional yet. There are some tweaks we need to fix. Hopefully we can begin taking orders as early as next Monday. I have shoppers standing by. We are advertising in Kroger with banners and fliers.

It's a risk. But it's not THAT great of a risk that I can't swallow it. It's good to push myself outside of my comfort zone.

I've been busy. Very. Stinking. Busy.
Now bring on the customers. Spread the word, y'all.

Well this is interesting fine red print

I stumbled upon this when looking for crew bios on some astronauts I'm going to have to brief in Nov. Looks like they're quietly planning to take new astronaut applications this fall:

http://astronauts.nasa.gov/

Well, how about that?

Landmark Education Forum

A coworker told me about the best Leadership courses she'd ever taken and since it worked so well for her I immediately signed myself up. Did not read the website, did not check reviews, went straight to the registration page.

I showed up to the Landmark Education Forum in Austin 2 hours late after dealing with an unexpected fever from Anna, who came with me to stay at my mom's while I attended this 3 day, 13 hrs per day, course.

I walked in and realized I was in the wrong room. But it turns out I wasn't. Here's a summary for my $495:

Day 1: I am a jerk and a liar. Also the cause of problems in life can be summed up with circles.

Day 2: I am dead inside. Resigned and cynical. No don't deny it. It's true. I should call my parents and tell them how sorry I am for being a jerk my whole life or else I will never truly have what I want in life.

Day 3: The punch line. I would tell you what this is but I'd have to charge you $495.

Oh look a break through! Perhaps I AM really cynical! Well, money well spent. :)

On top if this all, my mom and sister would totally benefit from the class. It's about perspective, people!

Now on to Denver tomorrow where I am giving 3 talks on ISS science. One will be at Colorado State University on my birthday! Paul happens to be in Denver for the same weekend and will finally get to see one of my presentations. Though Anna won't be with us, this will be a neat birthday!

36 here I come :)

How's it Going?

Lately, about like this

No more Arm floaties!

I should have posted this 2 weeks ago but she then finally decided to ditch her arm floaties and is swimming in the pool like a little fish! She's been trying to sit on the bottom, playing underwater games, and going down to pick up stuff off the bottom of the pool. She's so excited and proud! It's fun to watch her every day try something new in the pool!! Woo-Hoo!

Also the cats are starting to tolerate each other. The use of the squirt bottle has gone down significantly! Blackberry is doing well.

Status

A few quick updates.

Anna is asking about God:
-Can God see me?
-Why can't I see God?
-Why does he watch me?
-What about angels?

I'm sure these questions are a result about the God stuff they talk at her Lutheran school. I told her God is invisible. When she asked why I told her because he is energy and you can't see energy itself but you can see the result of energy. She asked when can she see God and I told her people can see God when they die. She giggled at that and seemed satisfied!

Then why is God watching me? I told her God and angels watch her to help keep her safe. She asked how do they do that and I told her that they tell her quietly when something looks not safe and they help her decide not to do things that aren't safe. I told her that's why she shouldn't be scared of monsters (her foremost fear) and also because they're just pretend anyway.

Right? Well there's obviously more to this that's best saved for later.

She asked if God likes her because she's cute! I told her God loves her because she is kind and loving and sweet. She says, "AND CUTE?!" I told her God doesn't care what she looks like. And she was bummed about that :)

These are super great questions! I love it! How powerful to know that she has a few angels/spirit guides/call-it-what-you-want helping her along in life if she learns to listen to them. Sometimes life is noisy. Wouldn't it have been great to grow up as a kid with that knowledge?

I have seen time and again and experienced time and again in my daily activities guidance and answers from something other than within. I have no doubt the great inventors and those who excel in their passion or fulfill their goals in life do so with lots of outside help in addition to their own inner drive.

What a powerful thing to know as a kid: if you have a life's goal and recognize it, the power is available from many different places for you to achieve it.

We're at the space shuttle tribute at JSC right now. Lots of sweat. And Five for Fighting will be in concert!








But earlier today:




Busy!

Colorado 2011: Year 3

With Anna getting older there's more cool stuff she can do on our yearly Colorado trip.

Year 1 was marked by repeat Yo Gabba Gabba episodes with Jack Black and her hatred of life jackets. Oh and also there were bears.

Year 2 was marked by constant recital of her favorite nursery rhyme book and the joy of peeing on the side of the road. And also she rode her first real trail rides on a horse (double) in Colorado.

This year it was about rocks and her excitement of peeing in the little porta-John bags. Oh and also she rode her own big horse on her first one hour trail ride in the mountains with us.





Getting her to wear a helmet only worked after the wrangler braided her hair so pretty! And I also wore the helmet to set a good example. Yes there's a picture. It resides on Paul's phone.














And also rocks. Did I mention that? Rock finding, rock games, rock ID. ROCKS, PEOPLE! And Colorado is fortunately loaded with them. Pretty ones. I now know what calcite and obsidian is. And also aventurite. Look what I learned!








Tent Prep at the M Lazy C ranch










We were *those parents* when we realized Anna was wearing those obnoxious light up shoes in the dim cave tours. OK the tour group actually thought they were handy and funny (good sports) but I did pick her up and hold her during the "look how dark it is in a cave" bit they did when they turned off all lights.








Cave of the Winds. She kept looking for bears :)


Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Houston Homestead) We were getting texts from TJ and the construction guys regarding the progress of our back patio while we were gone.






Back in Colorado...












We got to ride on the Cripple Creek Rail. This was a neat little ride through old mining towns. Check out the shot of the old mines versus the new here. The new is the huge tan wall structure going across the top of the mountain. I think the old are obvious.






We topped it off with a "family float" rafting ride on the Arkansas River which was awesome but too tame for Anna who kept asking when we were going over the waterfall. Again with the helmet. Again I play along. The only adult to look ridiculous enough to wear a helmet on the family float. Anna will have to be 5 before she gets to ride a rafting trip that really DOES warrant a helmet. By the way, the helmet was actually optional on both the horse AND the raft trip by the companies. But mandatory by me.

We have some cute rafting photos but they're on a CD and I'm blogging this from my phone so there's. 75% chance I may not ever get around to posting them. Ok I will.







Anna really liked everything Native American we came across, including the music and the dancing.










On the trip home we took the route to Austin where Anna is staying with my mom and sister etc for the week. While paul and i were still there she beat the table at UNO. She has been worthy competition for Paul although she hasn't developed the cruelness factor that comes in the UNO strategy.







Since Paul and I left, The text images have been rolling in:




Complete with chips in lap. This perplexes me since out of the 32 hours on the road total to and from CO, she didn't snooze once in the car seat.







Gaudy and bedazzled. My mom bought her this and apparently 3 more in the same gaudiness range.


Accessed my mom's jewelry box:








I understand She got a pedicure today, complete with chair massage.


And her lunch was fun from the looks of this:





Note to self and others:
M Lazy C Ranch = awesome
Historic Triple B Ranch (we did a cabin) = Avoid!
Grey Wolf Ranch in Victor = nice but pricey. That's luxury.

We were going to camp in a tee pee when we got to Grey Wolf but for $100/ night and fire restrictions we were afraid we'd freeze our butts off at 10,000 ft so we rented an uber expensive cabin instead. Maybe next year we'll do tee-pee but for $100 to sleep on dirt we should at least be able to build a fire!

Well there's that. It's Tuesday now and time is flying. Well that and literally I'm on an airplane right now headed for NASA Ames. Quick trip! I'm trying to ground myself until late September. And teaching starts next Monday.

Woot!

Just a few hours later...!

My home!

I'm in Denver. Paul texts me this





The patio build has begun!

We plan to fatten her up!

Blackberry:

And also...

It's freakish how Paul's clinic is exploding with success.

Freakish.

If you know what your soul's purpose is, you can be one truly happy being. Damn!

Hello again

Well good grief there's so much going on these days I'd have to blog daily to keep up.

1) I totally didn't even blog about our fun July 4th weekend we spent at my dad's in New Orleans. Or maybe I did? I don't think so. It's the yearly trip. In short, Anna was old enough to hold a sparkler this year, which kinda freaked her out and pleased her at the same time. She and her cousins spent 8-10 hours a day over 3 days in the swimming pool. Yes, this apparently is physically possible. I was exhausted for her. We ate really well, but Dad and his wife are on diets (and now look like rock stars) and so we didn't eat as halphazardly as we did in previous years. This means less guilt. We had a super fun time again this year crammed into just about 72 hours. Woo-hoo! Will post picture soon. Oh yes I will!

2). Fast forward to my return from Germany. I managed to stick around Houston for a week getting all the love I could from Anna, who has now become a daddy's girl thanks to my absence. Can you blame her? On day one of mommy's absence, I get a report that she got off camp early, went to her friend's house, and came back covered in glitter head to toe. Also she gets to stay up a little later thanks to Paul's schedule and she gets to sleep in my spot in our bed. She probably eats pizza for breakfast. Oh yes and then when mommy returns from travel, mommy brings her tons of cool stuff (special request from Germany this time was a pair of rainbow sunglasses with bows and rainbow hair bow. I actually got close). Who wouldn't love it when mommy's gone?

2). Then I went to Anchorage, Alaska with Dad. Paul is the most patient husband in the world for letting me go another week like this, and I managed to beat my own guilt by promising no more travel to myself anytime soon. But I pay the price in "I want DADDY to read me books at night, not mommy!" That's another post. Anyway, I talked dad into letting me tag along on a business trip and so I got to sit in on some of his business meetings AND do some cool Alaska things. Most notable of Alaska things: an earthquake! 5.4 happened 70 miles away at 6am, and my bed shook. I wasn't sure if it was an actual earthquake or if my neighbors were being inconsiderate at 6am so I googled the Alaska Earthquake Information Center who tracks these things. Apparently the list of daily earthquakes in Alaska is long! Pretty common are the small ones but a 5.4 at least makes the news :) We also went on a cruise for whale watching, sea lions, glaciers, puffins...we got a full taste of Alaska in our visit, including tasting salmon and local halibut. Fishing is a big deal there. In my mind when you can mix a business trip with pleasure, it's the best combo. I learned TONS just from listening to Dad's business meetings. To sum it up, my perspective is that the oil field is greatly about relationships. Relationships build trust so that people want to do business with each other. It's like everyone knows everyone and everyone goes back like 30 years or so in the business. Like astronauts, they even have nicknames. In fact, the oil field has plenty of parallels to my own career, and I definitely picked up on a thing or two while listening in. Second thing about relationships and the folks in the oil field: everyone I talked to seemed to be at least somewhat regretful about the time they'd spent away from the family while the kids were growing up. Being on the rigs equals big money but it comes with a price of being away from the family weeks at a time. The same theme runs throughout all I met: by the time they make the right amount of money to enjoy it, the kids are all grown up. I think it's a mandatory vicious cycle; however, I did pick up on the fact that times are changing. These kids coming into the business these days are protected by a different company culture: limits and rules and allowances on how much they can actually work at a time; safety improvements; things like this, which seems to be in line with the "mandatory seat belt, smoking is bad for you" generation. And so it goes. It seems at least from my perspective that while this can be a nuisance for the oil companies at times, the people I met at least respect that. They do lack a generation of engineers who know how to get their hands dirty though :) I'd be one of those.

3) We got a new cat. Well she's not new but she's new in the house. I have threatened KC that even though she's perfect in every way, if she didn't start exhibiting some cuddle time, I'd have to get another kitty for just that. I've been too busy to follow up on the threat. Plus part of me thinks it could be a bad thing to disturb the awesome harmony in our household. Alas, while I was in Alaska, I learned that a friend who is undergoing chemo found a sweet, cuddly cat that was left for abandoned outside her house. As she's already got a houseful to take care of and is extra fatigued these days, she was looking for a home for this kitty. So we took her in. She's around 2 years old, black with gorgeous eyes. We got her Saturday and she and KC still don't get along. It's the first time I've ever heard KC hiss. We're waiting for the epic battle to settle things but Blackberry still has claws and so I'm trying to push this off until we get back from our Colorado vacation next week. During which Blackberry will be boarded so KC can be at ease. So we're still on a trial period with this cat. Just as I was googling "Second Chance Pet Shelter" to look for an exit if I needed one, Blackberry hopped into my lap. What a booger. She did keep walking though. She does let Anna carry her everywhere. So we're in a trial period. No guarantees. But we certainly have disrupted the harmony in the house.

4) Anna starts dance class tonight as a trial class. As I was paying $70 for her latest gymnastics outfits a few weeks ago, she caught sight of the dance clothes and begged for dance class. She's been balleting all over the place and keeps begging so I told her she'd have to choose dance versus gymnastics. She's choosing dance. We'll see how this goes. We are NOT a dance family but maybe Anna will love it, and if so, we will too.

5). We are going on our annual vacation to Colorado. Let the driving begin! On Saturday, that is.

6) Contractors begin constructing our patio this week. Or so they say. Woo-hoo! Bring on the shade! Also we have really been enjoying the pool this summer. I spent this weekend in it with Anna for a bit and afterwards she said she'd let me read her books that night at bedtime. So apparently it's good for bonding time. Alas she changed her mind later again anyway.

7) I start teaching again August 22. Oh, also I am going to Denver tomorrow morning for a meeting and right back home tomorrow night. See how efficient I have become at travel?

8) Remember when I said I have a plan to pay off my student loans in the next two years? I haven't forgotten. I'm formulating it now. Hoping it works. It's a big leap for me. I'll only tell you about it if it's successful. Why would I blog about failure? HAHAHA.

9) I bet there's a #9. I just can't think of it right now.

10) I have tons of pictures to go with each of these little lines. One day I'll post them

Gotta run, Anna's dance class will start soon!