My love/hate relationship with flying

I've been a bad blogger...

Can't believe I haven't posted in almost a month. I won't use the lame excuse that I've been so busy because the truth is, I just haven't had the inspiration to write. Happens to everyone. Might happen again.

But a blogger friend of mine recently said on her blog that she needs to get away from the "I must post something" attitude and realized that she only has to post when she has something to say.  Honestly, why should I waste people's time just because I think that I'm witty and amusing? 

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Well, I'm back in the saddle and I've been flying more lately. I'm always excited to fly somewhere since I get to see friends or attend an event, but the reality is that flying can be exhausting when you have to worry about catching flights (not to mention catching germs) and getting up really, really early to catch morning flights.By the time I get home from a trip, I look like I was riding on the outside of the plane.

www.nataliedee.com

I had my first trip flying out of the Rochester International Airport and it was SO different from flying out of MSP.  Parking at the Rochester airport is $8.00 a day with the maximum of $48 weekly. My parking at MSP was $48 this past weekend.  Rochester has four gates and MSP has 117 gates. When I flew out of Rochester, my time from parking my car, walking into the building, checking in and then going through security and walking to my gate was almost ten minutes. It takes me ten minutes to find a place to park at MSP. I'm just sayin'...

On my flight in January, I learned a new term, "Lap Child." I guess Delta is trying to condense what they have to say. So instead of saying "if you are traveling with a child who sits on your lap.." they have taken to referring to a lap child. It just sounded strange. 

I also learned that when booking flights, be sure to give yourself enough time between flights if you're making a connection at someplace like, say, O'Hare! My return flight home from Detroit connected in Chicago and I had only 30 minutes between the flights. I got a bit panicked when I realized that there was a good chance that I would not make the connection and it was the last flight out of Chicago to Rochester. For my own mental health, I got an earlier flight.

This weekend on my United flight to Albany, NY via Chicago, I was thrilled to learn that United Airlines serves Coke products. When I asked for ice for my Diet Coke, I was informed, "we won't have any ice until we get to Chicago."  Really?  We just left Minneapolis with sub-zero temps and you couldn't get any ice there? 

I have one more flight this month to Cleveland. Hopefully, I won't have to worry about the lack of ice because I'm pretty sure it will be tough to get the ice through security.

A Look Back at 2010

Since I seemed to have started the year with a small pity party about how the year ended (yesterday's post), I don't want to negate the fact that 2010 rocked. 

If someone would have told me in January 2010 where I would be and what I would be doing in January 2011, I would have been very surprised.  Shocked.  Disbelieving. 

2010 was an awesome year!

I don't ignore the fact that 2010 was the year of my 50th birthday. I didn't just celebrate my birthday on one day. Oh no, March 2010 was the launch of Elizabeth 5.0!

This isn't my normal birthday apparrel, but the lovely birthday outfit that Hazelden Development requires of its staff to don on their birthday.  Although I wasn't working in Development at the time, I did have a meeting there that day.  My chin is up because the glasses won't stay on otherwise. 

I received so many bouquets of flowers on my birthday, that co-workers wondered if someone died. 

I celebrated the night of my birthday with my extended family (also known as the Burnsville-Minnesota Valley Figure Skating Club Board of Directors) at Axel's in Eagan.

The Saturday after my birthday was the surprise party that my friends (high school and the Circle of Friends gang) and my family threw for me in Albert Lea. My bestest friend Mary even flew up from Atlanta for the occasion.

That's high school friend Trish Stanley (a friend since junior high) and Circle of Friends buddy Paula Treiber (who, along with her hubby Carl, drove from Sioux Falls for the party) in the picture above. The party was held at Casa Dorman - the best party location in town! (Kudos to Mary Jo Dorman and Jill Peterson for keeping me occupied the day of the party - wine is always a good distraction!)

In May, I traveled with my sister and her family to Drake University for my niece's graduation from pharmacy school.  (People say she looks like me, but I think she's far prettier!)

Included on the trip to Drake was my great-nephew Drake (I kid you not!) 

And isn't he just the cutest little guy?  

On Father's Day, my inner jock, the one that has been fighting to get out for the last 49 years, ran a 5K race - my first! On some days I was training because I wanted to lose weight and on other days I was training because I wanted to prove that I could do it, even at age 50. 

The new home for the Minnesota Twins opened this spring and I was lucky enough to have a sister with the right connections and an extra ticket. And not just any ticket - a VIP ticket.  It was a fun experience to see the stadium perks that I'll never experience again.  Were the seats good? Fourth row behind home plate! 

No telephoto lens was used on the photo above.  After the game, since it was the Friday before July 4th, we got fireworks! 

We celebrated Drake's 1st birthday later that month. My niece Anne (Drake's mom) gave Drake his own cake to play around with. I took lots and lot of pictures of him that day - (Don't you love digital cameras?) 

I love making quilts and friends dare me to enter them in contests or county fairs. So in August, I did!  Strictly on a whim, I entered a quilt that I made for my bestest friend Mary. I told her that I didn't care what I got, just as long as it was on display for people to see.  I ended up getting a Champion ribbon (purple), but instead of hanging up, it was folded up in a display case.  On a bright note, all Champion level quiltmakers are entered into a drawing for a $100 gift certificate to the Calico Hutch in Hayward, Minnesota (if you haven't been there - it is one of the best quilt shops I've ever been in!) Guess what? I won!! 

Isn't this quilt too pretty to be folded up? 

2010 was also the year that I officially became a blogger.  And because of the blog, I have met some amazing people and learned so much from them! A group of bloggers, organized by Missy from "The Marketing Mama," got together in January and volunteered together at "Feed My Starving Children," an organization that puts together food packets for people around the world who are in need of nutrition. We learned alot from that.  

Then Molly from "The Snyder Five" blog involved many of the Minnesota Bloggers (yes, we've organized!) in a great rummage sale event to raise awareness and money for Hunger in America. It was a cold and rainy day, but we had customers and raised some money. 

Then my life totally changed in August when I accepted a position with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The fall was a blur of packing, painting, cleaning and moving. 

It was a pretty full year, wasn't it?

What's next?

Kids Will Be Kids

Last Friday, a blogger friend of mine (@MollyInMinn) wrote an awesome post about adults behaving like two-year olds. It made me laugh and smile. Click here if you want a smile and to see if you recognize any behaviors you've lived through. 

While Molly's post walks you through the day as a two-year old attending business meetings and causing general chaos, it's really about completely dumping filters - saying what you want, when you want and how you want. Dancing on chairs, eating the cupcake before dinner or making a fish face at someone who bores you. Societal norms may tell us we shouldn't live without filters, but it doesn't stop us from dreaming about it. "I wish I could have said..."

Oddly enough, on that same day, Seth Godin - a marketing guru and blogger, had a post called, "Childish vs. Childlike."  It was the perfect companion piece to Molly's blog because it points out that acting like a child isn't a bad thing.(Childlike makes a great scientist)

This past weekend, I judged a Basic Skills skating competition where, if I could give points for cute, every kid would win. The sheer joy on their faces was contagious and 99% of them have no fear.  They don't know they are supposed to be nervous skating in front of lots of people. They don't know they are supposed to be scared of the judges. They just know that it's fun, that they're with their friends and their family (mom, dad, siblings, aunts, uncles & cousins) are all up in the stands cheering for them.

As Seth says in his post, "Childlike is fearless and powerful and willing to fail." Oh, that is so what I want to be. Let me dance on the chair - just be nearby to catch me.

Passion or Obsession?

Melissa over at The Marketing Mama blog asked her blogger friends to write about what they are passionate about. (Of course, Melissa asked us to do this last week...oops!)

You'd be a pretty smart cookie if you assumed that someone with ADD would either have lots of things they are passionate about or have very fleeting passions - think "Passion of the Week."

It's the former and the latter for me. I have many areas in my life that I'm passionate about, but I would argue that my "Passion of the Week," is more like an "Obsession of the Moment." And Melissa asked us to write about our passions.

Individuals with ADD love anything new and out of the ordinary because it engages our senses and gives us something to learn. (I swear that I love to learn regardless of what my grade school teachers thought) My two big passions (quilting & social media), do both.

There are my shallow passions such as the importance of having Diet Coke for the judges at all skating competitions (wait, that's an obsession...), having a tan, or having cooler toys than the other kids, but I have two passions that keeps my ADD brain engaged for hours on end.

www.nataliedee.com

Quilting - Although I've been dabbling in quilting off and on for the last 20 or so years, it has really been in the last twelve months that I've added it to my list of borderline obsessions. My most relaxing times are spent working on quilts. I took vacation time last week and my prime focus of my staycation was quilting and getting this quilt finished before the end of July.

Ask any quilter about their stash and while they might deny having one, if you search their house, you will find fabric in places you would have never imagined. I got rid of the books in my home office and have now filled the shelves with fabric. Front hall closet? More fabric.

When you have ADD, there is a problem with starting projects and then losing interest in them and not finishing. That rarely happens with my quilts. I love the sense of accomplishment when it's finished. Not only do I have a Facebook photo album just for my quilts, but I also carry around photos of quilts to show off. 

You have your kids, I have my quilts.

Social Media - I love talking about social media and how it is changing our lives and our world. I was naturally attracted to social media because it was new and unknown (i.e. shiny object). In December 2008, I wrote a paper for a graduate class on the use of social media by nonprofits and that paper launched this passion. I've been fortunate enough to stealthily add social media responsibilities into my job description.

The other great thing about social media is that it is constantly changing and in order to keep up with the trends, you have to be constantly learning and searching out new information.

I love tweeting, blogging and friending. But I do get strange looks from friends and family members when I talk about social media. It is still a foreign concept for so many people. They may "get" Facebook, but that "whole Twitter thing" doesn't make sense to them. 

There are many awkward moments when in the course of conversation, you mention that you were just tweeting about that or that you just became Mayor of your neighborhood Starbucks. The unknowing will look at you as if you either have a third eye (not that there's anything wrong with that) or you're a stalker. And even though I know I'm not a stalker, I start to wonder...

ADD'ers get a bad rap for not staying with a project through to completion, but the fact that the two passions mentioned above have been a big part of my life for over 20 years and 2 years respectively, should help prove different. Give me a project that is creative and challenging and I'll see it through to the end.  

What are you passionate about? Is it a passion or an obsession?

I'm finally a Mommy Blogger!

There seems to be only two types of bloggers - Mommy bloggers and everyone else.  I'm in the "everyone else" group due to my severe lack of biological children. But with today's post, I get to move into the Mommy blogger category because today, my blog post is about my Mom. (Work with me, here....)

This Friday, my 83-year old mother will be joining the digital age when she gets internet access in her independent living apartment. OMG, my mom could potentially be on Facebook soon.

I doubt she'll be friending anyone in immediate future as this is the same women who required me to visit two weekends each year: the beginning of daylight savings time and the end of daylight savings time. It seems that I was the only one of her children who had the technical training for resetting all the digital clocks in her house. (oh, and don't lecture, I visit my mom more than twice a year.)

I know this will be an educational opportunity for me because I talk techie all the time and make assumptions that if I know it, everyone else must know it, too. I've already learned how much I take for granted in just trying to explain some Web 2.0 basics to my mom.

Recently, I was explaining how I left a note of sympathy on my home town newspaper's (Albert Lea Tribune) obituary page.  I explained, "I wrote a note to the family about my memories of their mom."

To anyone reading this blog, that would be simply enough. But how could someone who has never used the internet for communications, only to view things, understand writing on a website that doesn't belong to you? It took a bit of time to either explain it or get her flustered enough to stop asking questions - I'm not sure what the real outcome was.

Mom called me last night to discuss the selection of her email address. Could she really use whatever she wanted? More or less, yes. You tell them what you want for your user name (oops).

Explaining the "@" part and how she only chooses the part before the @, was a bit more tricky. "It's called an ampersand and it means 'at."

She wanted to know, "How did you get to have 'family' in your email address?"

"Mom, I didn't choose that part of my email address, I have 'usfamily' because that's the name of my ISP...um....service provider." (drats!) 

-silence-

So, ask yourself - ten or fifteen years ago, would you have understood this? 

This will definitely be a learning experience for me. And perhaps a very drawn-out learning experience. I'll just consider it fodder for having more Mommy blogger posts. (So I can be more like the other kids...) 

www.nataliedee.com

A bit distracted

I wish I could say that I've been distracted. I've been busy, but not so much that I couldn't have written something. I can't even say that I couldn't think of something to write about - again, not true.

I'm floored that it has been two weeks since I last posted. Here's a quick catch-up (glorified excuses for being lazy):

On Thursday, May 20th, I joined with a group of Minnesota Bloggers at Nye's Polonaise Room in Minneapolis to talk about blogging and support @MollyInMinn with her campaign to "End Child Hunger." (Molly's blog, The Snyder 5, was part of a campaign through ConAgra to raise awareness of child hunger here in the U.S.)  The event itself was great. There were about 40 or so bloggers in attendance. I love having conversations with other bloggers to learn about how they started blogging and what keeps them going. Additionally, I got a chance to get caught up with my friend Molly from seriously, who had only been blogging for three weeks.

In the spirit of Nye's, Molly Snyder hopped right up on the bar and thanked everyone for coming and thanked the many who had brought food for the local food shelf.

Two days later (May 22), the bloggers came together again to help raise money for "End Child Hunger" through a 20-family rummage sale. The sale was held at the Highland Park Picnic area, and although I may have been quietly skeptical that people would find us, we had a lot of people shopping at our sale. Everything was priced to move - from $0.25 to $2.00 for the high end stuff. It gave me the opportunity to sell some of the stuff that I was getting rid of in my decluttering challenge. (But since I only had done one day of decluttering, I didn't have much) 

The day started out sunny, but a bit chilly, but by 10ish, the dark clouds were rolling in and we had a downpour of rain. The picnic shelter was large, but the roof was in two parts (as you can see above) and there was a small opening between the two sections, so the rain came into the sale area. 

We had a couple of kids who helped see the fun in rain and reminded us that thunderstorms and rain can be awe inspiring, not awe-full.

The rummage sale raised about $900 for the charity and everyone had a great time! 

Last week (May 24-27) was long hours at the office to get as much work done as I could since I would be out of the office all of this week. (More later) I didn't get any of my running done - I was too tired - and my 5K is June 12th! 

Memorial Day was spent in my favorite place - my hometown of Albert Lea and doing something I really enjoy - running the show! Well, sort of... I helped out two friends who have graduating seniors with their open houses. Mary Jo's was on Saturday. Since I had done one for her two years ago, as well as several other parties at their house, I knew what to expect. She had a great group of friends helping out and, although I was officially "in charge," I really didn't have to tell people what to do, they had their assignments and knew what to do. It was a beautiful day outside and everything was easy!

That's Mary (not the host Mary, but another Mary), Darci and I with fresh fruit and chaffing dishes ready to go...

Sunday's open house had a few more challenges. We had a sudden rainstorm hit about 90 minutes prior to the party - and we had already set up the tables and chairs outside. The wind was nasty and at one point, the rain was going sideways. It only lasted for a short time and we were ready to roll again. Jill (the mom/host) is one of the most creative people I know (as are her daughters) and they had the most interesting theme to their party - CANDY! 

And the candy was color coordinated to the party colors, as were the dresses worn by Jill and her two daughters (Sam, the graduate, and Ashley, next year's graduate); they were pink (Jill), yellow (Sam) and green (Ashley). I like a person who doesn't miss any details! 

There were M&Ms, jelly beans, pixie sticks, suckers, chocolates and PEEPS! (I love Peeps!) The guests were instructed to make up goodie bags for themselves to take with them. They weren't just sugar loaded, Jill set up walking tacos (chips, meat, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, sour cream and salsa) to feed her guests. And continuing the color theme, most of the serving containers for the walking tacos were pink, yellow & green. 

The rain held off during the time of the open house, but within minutes after it was over, the rain started again.  But it left us with a gift - the most amazing rainbow that arched completely across the sky. Then it morphed into a double rainbow. Very cool!

During my free time this past weekend, I broke through a huge barrier - I ran OUTSIDE! Albert Lea has amazing running paths that hug the lake and I was determined to get out there and use them. So Saturday and Sunday morning, I got up and ran. They weren't impressive runs, but the point was to learn that I could run outside. Now, I just have to learn to pace myself...

It was a great couple of weeks and right now, I'm in beautiful Seattle for a conference. And my hope is to get some posts written while I'm here! That's if I don't get distracted...

Declutter de life, declutter de house

One of the worst parts of ADD is my complete lack of organizational skills when it come to my house, my desk and my car. When I've admitted to this problem, I often surprised friends as they've seen me organize huge events and such. I can't explain why I can do one and not the other.

At a time when I'm been struggling to manage the chaos over flowing from my job, I know that coming home to a place that is equally chaotic is not helpful. I've been reading a blog by Molly Snyder that talks about her 500 lb declutter challenge. While it seems to be an overwhelming feat, she's doing it one drawer, one shelf, one closet at a time. She's getting rid of at least 500 pounds of things that are cluttering up her life. Donate, recycle, put away or throw away.

And tonight I started. I started with the front hall closet. Decluttering is a great form of therapy as it forces you to look at all your material things and determine if you could really live without it.

In just one night, I've already figured out:

1. Out of sight means out of mind (and out of my memory)

Recently my niece asked if she could have my old set of dishes; "Sure, not a problem - they're in the front hall closet." As I dug through the tub, I have not one, not two, not three, but four sets of old dishes. As with most sets of dishes, they're incomplete. The largest set was the one my mom gave me when she moved into a senior living apartment. It is a set of 16 place settings. I live in a 950 square foot condo - When would I ever need 16 place settings?

2. My front hall closet was my toxic waste dump with four cans of paint

3. I'm not good about recycling phone books - I found four phone books in there.

4. I am a magazine junkie and throwing magazines into the recycling bin is painful (cuz what if there is something I need in there...)

I've been working on getting better on this one, but there are two magazines that cause super glue to appear on my fingers - quilting magazines and Cooking Light.

I have little post-it-note flags throughout the Cooking Light magazine - marking all the recipes I just have to try. One small thing - I Don't Cook! At least not with the regularity that I would ever actually try all the recipes I have marked up.

The quilting magazines contain patterns of quilts that I really like and would like to try some day. For instance, there's this great pattern for a "Storms At Sea" quilt from a 1993 issue. 17 years! I guess I'm just pacing myself with that plan.

One thing that didn't get tossed are my family home movies - dating back to Christmas 1960 -that I will one day get transferred to a DVD before the Super 8 film completely deteriorates.

I still have to weigh the trash to find how much I'm tossing...

Oh, just discovered that my most recent issue of Real Simple just arrived - cover story on "Organize Your Life."  Wonder how long it will take before I toss that magazine into the recycling.

Running Agoraphobia

It's a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, the spring time air is the perfect temperature and there is a light breeze that would keep your body cool as you go for a run.

And so I do. On my treadmill by the windows so I can see the beautiful day outside.

I have committed to doing a 5K run on June 5th in Burnsville and I'm using the Couch to 5K program iPhone app. While I'm not as far into the program as I should be by now (and that worries me), I haven't started trying to think of excuses to get me out of the run.  I do face one pretty significant challenge: I've never run outside...in public...where anyone could see me.

I'm pretty sure that I won't be allowed to put my treadmill on the back of a flatbed and have it driven along the route with me running on it.

I don't know why I have this fear. It could be that the fear is based in struggling with my weight my entire life and/or having body issues. I love going out on my bike for rides and I'm never self-conscious about that. So what's the deal with running?

I wasn't a jock in high school. I was on the track team, but threw shot-put. I didn't run. The only memory of running outside was in 5th Grade at Northside school trying to get the President's Physical Fitness Award. I didn't get the award. I don't think I was even close.


So that's my goal: to do at least one training session a week outside...where people can see me.

In addition to the June 5th 5K, I'm also taking the Lutheran Geek's Couch to 5K Challenge and the 5K she's planning on doing is in September. I'd love to do a 5K run every month (dang, that's another goal).

Sharing

I had the most amazing experience this past Tuesday night. I was able to meet a group of local Minnesota bloggers. Forty bloggers (38 women and 2 brave men) met up for a night of networking and volunteering.

(This blog is my personal blog, but I work as an editor for the Hazelden blog called "Recovery Resource Blog," so I attended as the Hazelden blogger because I'm still insecure about telling people I'm a blogger. The other bloggers at the event gave me great advice and I know that I have some great blogs that I can follow and learn from.) 

Missy, the event organizer, is a former Hazelden co-worker and an incredible example of a successful blogger. (The Marketing Mama) She's built up a strong following by being a consistent blogger, talking about something she loves and sharing what she knows.

Following the social time, we headed over to "Feed My Starving Children" in Eagan.  Missy set up this volunteer opportunity for our group weeks ago, so none of us knew that we would be working with a charity that is providing assistance to Haiti as they are coping with the aftermath of the earthquake.

The FMSC staff member introduced us to their work by showing us a picture of Omar, an 8-year-old boy who weighed 19 pounds when he came to the FMSC-supported mission in Haiti. Think about that 8 years old and weighing only 19 pounds! The staff showed us another picture of Omar after a few weeks receiving meals from the mission - healthier and looking more like an 8 year old. The biggest difference: There was a smile on his face! In the "before" picture, his eyes and expression were distant.

The volunteers put together food packets that consisted of rice, soy, dried vegetables and dried ground chicken. We put together 64 boxes of packets that will provide 13,824 meals. That will feed 38 people for one year. The cost of the materials for the packets was $2300.(I doubt I could feed just me for $2300 for a year)

FMSC relies on donors to help pay for this program and, I for one, will be someone who will keep this program high on my list of charities to support by sharing financially and with my time. (I'll be telling EVERYONE I see that the best volunteer project/service project or team building project they could do is volunteering at FMSC)

Below, I've linked to some of the other bloggers who write about this experience. (Most expressing the impact of the evening far better than me.) I'll work on getting my pictures off my iPhone and get them posted here, but there are some great photos on these blogs.

Gust Gab

Off Camera with Trish Van Pilsum

4 The Love of Family

Random Thoughts of a Lutheran Geek (Liz does a great job of sharing the numbers that made such an impact on us.

The Marketing Mama

Kate in the Kitchen (I could read her post over and over again!)

Amelia Sprout

Veritable Fount Blog

Pink Vanilla Cupcakes

Prior Fat Girl

Mallory's Mishmash World 

The Fritz Facts

The Recovering Procrastinator