Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

Oh my word... I am in the midst of my 11th summer in this great state. For 11 years, I've stated that Minnesotans don't know what heat is. I hereby retract that statement. Depending on your source, it's somewhere between 95 and 98 degrees right now, and the heat index is somewhere between 111 and 120 degrees.

It is simply criminal that a place that endured the winter we just went through should have to deal with this. Ugh.

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Yeah Right...

A blog post every day... who am I kidding?

It's been a busy few days. Previously mentioned camping trip was canceled, initially due to chance of rain. I think the rain may have stayed away from our intended destination (Lake Lillian, MN), but heat indexes were over 100 degrees. Ish.

On Friday Elise and her pal Emma were scheduled for soccer camp. Emma's brother was going to hang with Jerod and me. Long story short (rain!), we ended up at The Works. Love, love, love the fact that this place is a five minute drive from my house. Elise and Emma got a kick out of the mirror. After Emma and Porter went on their merry way, the rain continued. It rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. We made the perfect lazy day of it. We went out to lunch, then headed to the $2 movie to see 'Rio.' Since it was STILL raining in the evening, we had some family Wii time. Jerod put on a little costume (see below). Makes a momma proud.

An Attempt

I'm going to try to commit to a nearly daily blogpost for one month. This should be good, hee hee! I can tell you the fam's going camping this weekend. So I will drop the ball on Saturday and Sunday, if not before.

Anyhoo...


This week has been all about soccer for Miss Elise. Soccer camp is taking place each morning, and she played her last game of the summer house league season last night. I wish I were more of a fan, because this girl LOVES her soccer. Depending on who you ask, she scored somewhere betweet four and seven goals last night. She's like buttah... she'll be in a cluster of girls trying to get to the ball, and all of a sudden she'll squeeze out, dribbling the ball like a pro, and frequently put it in the goal. Yeah... I'm bragging. It's damn impressive if you ask me. And, I also think she's pretty cute.

Watermelon Salad on the Food Network

Watermelon Salad on the Food Network

Whipped this up yesterday. I have a new favorite summer food. Uh-maze-ing.

Summer 2011, Day 1

There seems to be some debate about what constitutes the first day of summer. We bumped into one of Jerod and Elise's buddies from church while at the grocery store today. When I asked him how his first day of summer was going, he informed me that his first day of summer had been on Saturday. I suppose he's correct, but for me, this is the first week day where I haven't had to pack a backpack or get anyone to the bus. Thus, today is the first day of summer.

We have been busy little bees lately. Soccer started before school ended. Throw that in with all the end of the year stuff for school and you get a pretty busy few weeks from mid-May until June 10th.

Here is a random selection of photos from our oh, so thrilling lives lately.

Jerod on his 9th birthday. He had a great school year, and is looking forward to starting baseball tomorrow.

This is what you will frequently find Elise doing these days. Thank God I don't care about clean walls and door jambs.

This lovely young lady is my niece. She graduated from Larned High School in May. Circumstances were such that I was the only Holt of Bernard Place that was able to make it. It was a nice get-away. Chris got a good taste of my daily life while I was gone :)

My Name is Anne and I am....

suffering from PMS and a small amount of anxiety this week. My husband would likely use more colorful language if you asked him. I won't type all the things I think and feel on that topic, though.

We're co-hosting a little benefit for our local YMCA here on Saturday evening. Nothing fancy, just a little gathering of 30-ish folks who have been invited to our house to pay $15 for a fajita dinner. It's fair to say that I don't know a good number of these folks very well. As a result, I'm feeling a little edgy about getting the house and food ready. Above mentioned PMS is not helping matters any. Above mentioned husband isn't really helping matters either.

Husband is frequently telling me (and everyone else) I'm going overboard. Apparently, when you invite a group of people over (have I mentioned that a lot of them I don't know too well) to your house to pay for a meal, cleaning the house and the yard and making sure you put forth a decent meal are optional. I wish I'd known this earlier... I wouldn't have waited so long to host such an event. Hell, maybe I should open a restaurant. Silly, silly, stupid, dumb me. On the bright side, I guess there's no need to tackle this:

(yes, my son's room is a danger zone, once again)

Maybe husband is right on some level, but his delivery of news could be a little more, umm, shall we say, diplomatic. Perhaps he could find a way of saying as much so that I don't have a compelling urge to choke him with my bare hands??

In addition to this little fundraiser, we're celebrating Jerod's 9th birthday party (by playing a game of baseball with his buds) on Sunday afternoon, and running 18 miles on Saturday morning. I think I'll do a happy dance on Monday morning when all this is done.

Oh, and how's this for fun?? Check out the weekend forecast. Out-friggin-standing.

Minneapolis, MN 55436

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Friday

5/13/2011

Hi: 60°

Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of showers. Highs around 60. North winds 10 to 15 mph.

Lo: 47°

Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers. Lows around 45.

Saturday

5/14/2011

Hi: 58°

Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of showers. Highs 55 to 60.

Lo: 46°

Mostly cloudy in the evening then becoming partly cloudy. A 20 percent chance of showers. Lows around 45.

Sunday

5/15/2011

Hi: 62°

Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers. Highs around 60.

Lo: 44°

Partly cloudy. Lows 40 to 45.

A Little Story about my Kitchen

Last Friday afternoon, before the kids got off the bus and before Chris got home from work, I really cleaned my kitchen. The half million pieces of paper that had come home from school during the week had been sorted and filed, as had the quarter million pieces of mail. The counters and table had been thoroughly wiped down, and the floor was swept.

It is perhaps important to note that I don't do this thorough of a 'cleaning' all that often, mainly because our next meal (a.k.a. mess maker) is usually just a few short hours away. Generally speaking, the wipe down mentioned above happens once a day at most. Please don't call child protective services. I'm building immunity in my kids. It will serve them well, we live in a dirty world.

But, the weekend was on its way, and I knew I'd feel good if I got it done. And I did. Fast forward to Sunday. The kitchen was a complete wreck. Normally this wouldn't phase me. It is messy more often than it is clean. However, the Sunday mess got to me, and I'll tell you why. WE HADN'T HAD A SINGLE MEAL IN THE KITCHEN. Friday night was the school carnival, so we ate there. After said carnival, Jerod and Elise went to spend the night with my parents so Chris and I could go for a long training run early Saturday morning. Saturday we had lunch with my folks when we picked up the kids, and dinner at the house of some of our friends. And, on Sunday we had breakfast at church, as it was the annual youth fundraising breakfast. Said breakfast was HUGE, so we skipped lunch. Yet, the kitchen was filled with backpacks, drinking glasses, and more paper (Anyone who thinks we're moving to a paperless society should visit my kitchen).