Leah

My mom (Leah) is awesome. There is no denying that she is the best mom ever. My mom has been busy decorating the house for Christmas, trying to get it done before she left yesterday to go to my sister's house in Washington for a couple weeks. I told her that she definitely had to make sure the advent calendars were up before she left. I left before she and my dad were up yesterday and they were long gone for Washington before I got home from work, so I didn't see them. When I walked in the house, though, I saw the candy advent calendar and was glad my mom had remembered to put it up. It has three types of chocolate on it. Milk chocolate for me, white chocolate for my dad, and dark chocolate for my mom. It's very convenient that the candies match our preferences. Each year, my mom rotates them so that our preferred chocolate falls on our turn for the calendar. However, this year I noticed she set the calendar up a little differently.



If you look closely at this picture, you'll notice there is only one kind of candy for the first ten days on the advent calendar. That's because my parents will be gone until the 11th, so my mom only put my preferred candy on those first ten days. This is a small thing and probably wasn't any more work than putting all different candies on the calendar, but when I got home from work and saw that my mom had cared enough and even thought to just put my favorite candies on those days on the calendar, I was touched. And, of course, I was reminded that my mom is the best!



The funny thing about moms is that, yes, they're constantly doing the big stuff for us. You know, the stuff we notice and even, sadly, take for granted - cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. But, moms are also constantly doing the little stuff. They take care of the little details that we don't even notice or appreciate just because they know it will make us a little happier or our lives a little easier. My mom does it all the time. And while I don't always notice and I don't always appreciate everything, sometimes I do. And when I do, I know that my mom loves me and that she is the best mom ever. And even though I'm not aware of everything my mom does for me, I'm aware that she is doing things for me and I appreciate that.

Basically, my mom rocks! And I hope that, someday, my kids will say the same thing about me.

Travis

Last night I went to a great concert. It was Travis. If you aren't familiar with Travis, I highly recommend that you get to know them. They released a new album this year that is fantastic. Back to the concert. Travis came on last night with probably the greatest entrance I have ever seen a band make. When the lights went down, they started playing the theme from "Rocky". The lights were moving all around, but the stage was dark as everyone waited for the band to come on. All of a sudden, my friend Aaron pointed to the rear of the theater. I looked over and there was the band making it's way to the front of the room. They were all wearing boxer's robes and were escorted by a big security entourage. They shook people's hands as they moved through the crowd and finally made it to the stage. It was AWESOME!!!!!! Of course, they then proceeded to play a fantastic show. The lead singer even played a song completely unplugged - he unplugged his guitar and didn't use the mic. Amazingly, the crowd even quieted down enough so that we could even hear it. Great show, great band - good times!

Where is my camera when I need it?

Sometimes you see something or experience something and you totally wish you had a camera or video camera to document it. That happened to me twice today. This morning I decided to go running. It was a gorgeous day outside (somewhere around 70 degrees), so I set out in my usual shorts and a t-shirt. As I ran through my neighborhood, I contemplated how warm it was and how beautiful the weather has been this fall here in California. As I ran by one house, I looked over and saw a little girl playing in the front yard. She was probably about 4 or 5 and she was playing with some buckets of water and the garden hose. The best part of the scene and the reason I wanted my camera was that she was totally in her swim suit! No big deal - it's November 17th and this girl is playing with water outside in her swimsuit like it's July!!!! It would've been a fantastic picture.

Experience number two: Jared and I went to dinner with Aaron and Dana tonight. Aaron wanted to go to this great little Italian restaurant in Carmel (It's called Little Napoli and it's really good - the Meatball Lollipop appetizer is amazing!). I ordered the Gnocchi in a Gorgonzola Sage sauce. Our entrees came and I took a few bites and then decided to add a little bit of fresh Parmesan cheese which was in a little bowl on our table. So, I picked up the bowl and started scooping some Parmesan onto my pasta. I said, "I just need to add a little more cheesy goodness to my food." As the words left my mouth, the bowl started slipping out of my hand. I felt it slipping, but my other hand had the scooping spoon in it and I couldn't catch it in time. As I was holding the bowl directly over my plate when the bowl slipped out of my hand, it landed upside down directly on top of my pasta. "Whoa!!!!", I said. I picked up the bowl off my plate, leaving a huge mound of fresh, grated Parmesan cheese. Naturally, we all started laughing because it was a very comical situation. I had not intended to add that much cheesy goodness, but there it was. I started scooping what cheese I could off my pasta, then mixed the rest in. No harm done, really, since the pasta was still very good. But, had I caught it all on video (or at least a picture of the cheese mound on top of my pasta), it really would have added to this blog.

A picture is worth a thousand words. . .

Hello Maggie my old friend. . .

. . . I've come to drive with you again! Today I picked Maggie up from the hospital and I'm so happy to have her back. Yesterday I took her in for her regular maintenance service. She was having a slight malfunction with her hill assist feature, however, so they had to check her in and keep her for the night while they fixed it. In the meantime, they gave me a rental car (because MINIs are so in demand that they didn't have enough to give me a MINI loaner). It was a 2007 Ford Escape. That's really not a bad rental car. But, it's not a MINI. A MINI is no ordinary car. The Escape didn't treat me poorly. I have nothing bad to say about it. But, in the end, nothing compares to Maggie. I was so happy to pick her up tonight. And they bathed her, so she was nice and shiny. She's doing just fine now and is very happy to be home. The one problem I've discovered with MINIs is this: Once you have a MINI, everything else is a disappointment!

Welcome home, Maggie!

Jared is a great guinea pig!

Jared needed a haircut and was brave enough to have me do it. I've never cut anyone's hair before. I felt like his life was in my hands!


After about an hour and a couple inches later, he emerged a new man. I think I did pretty well for my first haircutting attempt. Not to toot my own horn, but toot, toot!