Open Book

I found it very fitting today that my all-day training session would be held at the Open Book in Minneapolis. Seems like I can't get away from books or literature. My training session today had nothing to do with my job, in fact, I was there for a totally different reason. Sorry, I can't reveal my secret until March!

I will tell you however, the Open Book is amazing. This is a place for someone to come who wants to self publish there literary work or literary artwork. The upstairs area is a great place for conference rooms, and this spiral staircase is worth seeing with it's unique illuminated art panels.

It's hard to believe someone could be so creative with an old book. I believe this was for sale, but didn't see the price tag. There's a lot of work in this piece of art.

So, the only thing I will say about today.......we played with legos to help us understand how accounting works. The yellow column represents assets, the red represents liabilities (debt) and the green represents equity (income). I guess we're never to old to play with legos!

No Wind Chill

Manny's a sleeper!

Spent the day in the city attending a meeting and another eBook training session. I'm finally at the point where I feel comfortable teaching my customers how to use eReader devices and how to download eBooks from our library catalog. All I can say is, it's been a long year of learning!

So while I was off learning today, Bike man was busy at home make a scrumptious hearty lasagna. A new recipe he told me, well, actually two new recipes combined into one. Trust me, it was delicious.....he put cheese curds in the lasagna!!!!!

Despite the two inches of snow today, I still managed to get out for a run as the sun was setting. Can you believe the 7 degree temperature felt good to me? No windchill makes a big difference.

I'm Sorry

I'm so sorry. It happened so fast that I didn't have time to react. I never saw you until it was too late!

That's what I kept telling myself all the way home from my late day appointment in another nearby town. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Driving along a major state highway this afternoon, a very nice looking dog just decided it would be fun to jump out in front of my car! I never saw him until I was approaching a driveway.....he just appeared out of nowhere.

I heard the impact and my body just flinched. I knew I had hit him, or should I say, he hit me! All I could think of was oh know.

I quickly turned around and jump out of the car to check on him. I knew he wasn't going to make it, so I bent down, touched him and told him I was sorry. I know he heard me and it was at that moment his body stopped twitching and he died right there in front of me.

I felt pretty shook up, but I knew there wasn't anything I could have done. The young bulldog just happen to be left outside by his owner who decided to drive to town to pick up his kids. After I found out the owner had left the dog outdoors all alone, my sadness turned to anger. Now I realized the young dog was outside along this major highway just waiting for his owner to return, and he just wanted to play. Unfortunately he wanted to play with a moving vehicle.

How sad.....very, very sad.

A Day of Sunshine

2011 Farmer's Market

It doesn't get much better than this. A beautiful mild day with lots of sunshine and very little breeze. Made my run tonight very enjoyable. It's short-lived however, snow and wind moving in later tonight, followed by much colder temperatures. Should be a coffee or hot chocolate kind of week!

Looking Back

It was July 1, 2011 and we were enjoying a nice grilled dinner on our deck, when all of a sudden a storm blow in.

As the winds blew in fast and furious, it was all we could do to hold our plates down when the storm nearly picked up our table. It was at that moment we heard this big crack. One of our 70-year old pine trees along the lake bank just snapped! Today, I finally got adventurous and took photos of the unfortunate tree that went down.

We still have one large pine tree along the lake bank that survived the storm last July. The absent tree has left a new view of Tainter Lake. I took this photo late today after exploring our lake frontage. It's hard to believe that was six months ago! How time flies......