This Is Where The Magic Happens

M. loves his job.


Loves, loves, loves it!



Especially this week, when the "Big Taste Grill" pulled into town.

The Big Taste Grill is a 65 foot long, 54,000 pounds grill. It's basically a semi-truck that tours the country grilling brats and bringing joy to the masses.

M.'s employer had the Grill come down to our fair city as a reward for the employees who'd worked so hard this summer. Sort of a giant, corporate "thank you" on a bun.

M. spent the afternoon grilling brats for the employee party. (He's the tall, handsome one in the shades.) He loves grilling when at home, and had a great time working the Big Taste Grill.

Ask And You Shall Receive....Or Not.

Today we ran errands in town. The boys behaved very nicely until we got to WalMart. (Our final stop.) Something about WalMart brings out their inner rascals.

Near the end of our shopping, I saw Colson sitting in the cart with his head bowed, eyes closed, and hands folded. "How absolutely precious," I sighed to myself.

When Colson finished praying, he very seriously said, "I was praying that God would make you a nice mommy."

This One Goes Out To All The Cellists....

I had no idea the burden you've had to carry all these years.




Parental Note: I know some of you out there have tiny little cellists in your homes. There is a wee bit of language at the end. Preview this. :)

M. and I don't talk about men's bathrooms very often, but in the past the subject of urinal ettiquette has come up.

Apparently, there's a sort of a "guy's behavior code" in the men's room:

1. Keep your eyes up and forward. (That one's pretty obvious.)

2. Don't talk.

3. No sound effects. (again, obvious)

4. Choose the urinal farthest away from other occupied urinals.



That last one isn't quite right. Apparently there's a bit of strategy concerning urinal choice, depending upon the number of urinals in the room, the number of users, etc.




Entire websites and numerous blog entries have been written on this subject. I even ran across a message board forum discussing this issue. Go ahead. Google "Men's bathroom etiquette" and you'll see. I'll wait.

You're back? Good. Did you see that there are even a couple of instructional videos on YouTube and Google Video on this subject? Fascinating. (Not really, but I'm trying to be polite for the sake of my male readers.)

(Attention - segue alert!!!)

Anyway, there's a similar sort of ettiquette for use on the treadmills at the gym. When the line of treadmills is empty, as in the picture below, you're supposed to choose any of the treadmills except the ones directly next to the occupied one.

When I go to the gym to run, the treadmills usually look like this picture. There's a long line of empty treadmills with one or two people on them.

Recently, I was the only person on a treadmill. About 20 minutes into my run, a gentleman got on the machine directly to my left.

I inwardly panicked. I grew up in a large, but very safe city in the Pacific Northwest. I went to college in a small, but very safe city on the west coast. And ever since we've lived in very safe cities. This city is the first place we've lived where I've had to worry about serious crime. (I posted about our fair city here.) So as my treadmill comfort zone has been breached, I'm thinking of everything that could go wrong and my mind is racing: "What is he doing? Why the heck didn't he choose another machine? Doesn't he know? Doesn't he know about the rules?!"

Ten minutes later, a second man starts using the machine directly to my right. Now I'm feeling claustrophobic. There's a long line of machines, and the three of us bunched together in the middle.

I debated going to a different machine, and then decided I wouldn't because that would look rude. And I can't be rude to complete strangers, can I? I just toughed out the last minutes of my run and high-tailed it off the treadmills.

But c'mon people. There are certain rules in the gym, both written and unwritten. They exist so that we can function peaceably at the gym: If the gym's busy, limit yourself to 30 minutes on a machine. Use the free towel the gym gives you. Spitting into the drinking fountain = bad. Please don't put a poker game or WWF on the one big tv that the stationary bikes use. C'mon!

And please don't crowd the solitary female shuffling on the treadmills. It'll creep me out and I'll view you with suspicion for days.

Related Posts:

I Joined A Gym!

My Olympic Dreams Are Dashed (Or at least seriously dented)

With temperatures over 100 degrees, and the heat index around 108, we've spent many afternoons indoors.

As a result, I felt compelled to document one of those afternoons. Click and enjoy.

This Pretty Much Sums It Up....

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jack!

Because for me, it's all about the snacks!

Just kidding! (But not really.)

Baseball season is finished in our neck of the woods. We were super-busy, but I'll miss going to the games. I love, love, LOVE baseball and watching the boys play. A large part of me wishes I could get out there and join them!

Braden played baseball, sort of, when he was in 2nd grade. It was a very informal league, and the coach just sort of shouted the batting order before he turned and started talking with his buddies. So this was his first real year. We are so thankful for his coaches. They were a husband/wife team who spent a lot of time teaching the boys and encouraging them. They let every boy play his most desired position at least once during the season, and they really seemed to enjoy the boys' enthusiasm. Braden learned a lot, and realized that if he wants to improve he's going to have to work on his skills. But he had fun and he's already talking about next year.


Brogan played T-Ball this year on a Kindergarten/ First Grade boys' team. Their games were hilarious! None of the boys could throw, really, or catch. The metal bats were too heavy and unwieldy for most of them, and often they found the grass around them, the dirt, or the sky more interesting than the game. There were at least 5 adults in the field every inning to help the boys through the game.

They all improved so much over the summer. At the first of the season nearly every boy used the tee. By the end of the season they were hitting pitches thown by the coaches! Most of them had no real idea of the rules, but by the end of the season when a coach in the field told them, "Throw it to second!", they knew where second base was and made a reasonable throw.

Here's Brogan running to first base after hitting a ground ball toward third.



He'd get a high five from the first base coach and then lift his helmet up so he could see what was going on around him.



We saw this a lot during the game. When a player made an error, or needed encouragment, the coach would walk over and explain what he should be doing and refocus them. He spent a lot of time refocusing Brogan.


We were ready for the season to end, but I'm looking forward to watching them play next summer!

Because Caring fro Our Environment is Important....