A View of Lisa's World

leaving it up to fate...

So a little while ago my dad and my brother told us that Fiona's mom might be getting pregnant. (her dog mom, not Moriah-snicker).

They thought that we should get Fiona a cousin...and while we didn't jump all over it, we didn't say no either.

We have kicked around the idea of a pup, but not really made any plans. Our beloved Huckleberry just turned 13. I haven't known if I want to put him through the drama of a puppy in his golden years...even though I think he'd be fine with it. So a puppy has remained kind of a "one of these days" kinds of things.

We've said that if we do add to our doggie family we want a yellow lab rather than black and that maybe a girl dog would be a fun change of pace...but that was as far as we got on the subject. 

Enter Fiona's now pregnant mother...do we want a puppy in a couple of months or not?

We've decided to leave it up to fate.

She's due to deliver in a couple of weeks, we have no idea what the make up of her litter will be...but if there is a yellow female in the mix, she's ours. If not, we'll take it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be this time.

I'll report after the birth!

ok...just forget it.

I'm totally frustrated with technology right now. I was going to post a nice post about Christmas carols and how nice it was to play them on my ipod today while Todd and Matt and I decorated the tree. I had big visions of sharing my playlist and even an audio clip of a new favorite tune. But technology is hating me (I thought we had made up there for a while but apparently not). Anyway, I've spent the last hour trying to figure it out and I'm no longer in the happy holiday mood. I'm just frustrated. So...thankfully it isn't even Dec 1st yet so maybe I'll figure it out and share soon!

Here comes Christmas...

For years we would get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, but the last few years I've waited a week here and there. This year, with a jaunt to Disneyland planned for next week, and a birthday party right after that, we decided to go ahead and get the tree today.

I am so excited about it, way more than usual. It is all lit up in the corner of our family room and by this time tomorrow it should be all dressed up.

For the first time in years we had to go to 2 tree lots. We ended up finding some really nice ones at the second lot. Todd was quite the tree shopper.

So much of a tree shopper that as I was paying for the big tree, he was shopping for a little tree for his room. I had a tree in my room when I was little, and I remember how excited I was to decorate it every year with my very own box of ornaments and treasures, so I couldn't say no.

It was a fun day, and a great kick off to the holiday season. Especially on the way home. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw this as Todd and Mom and I were singing along to Feliz Navidad.

Tomorrow the decorating begins!

sigh...

If I don't say so myself it was another great Thanksgiving. Everything went as smooth as could be. Our holidays are loud and crazy and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love having my home filled with family. The dishes and the cooking and all that goes along with it doesn't really feel like work when I hear everyone laughing and chatting throughout my house.

Tomorrow we trek for the tree...and the holiday season can begin!

I think it is going to be good...

We have hosted Thanksgiving dinner since we got married in 1999. It is crazy and a lot of work, but I really love every moment of it. I love knowing that tomorrow our house will be filled with love and laughter and family. It just makes me happy...and grateful. Which is clearly what it is all about.

Today was a big prep day but my 2 new items that I decided to try to add to the menu were less than successful. Every year we divy up the menu and I try to toss in something new and different. My plan this year for new concoctions were corn muffins and mini cheesecakes. The first round of corn muffins were...well too corny. Like way too corny. Like cream corn with a muffin top. Not good. Even Matt didn't like them and he'll eat anything. I went back to a traditional recipe and those came out much better. The mini cheesecakes are delicious...seriously good, but they didn't come out of the mini muffin cups in a very beautiful fashion. No amount of creativity can make them presentable. Note that I'm still speaking of them in the present tense because they were too yummy to get rid of just yet! Hee Hee Hee.

Overall though, today was a great day. Most everything that can be done ahead is done ahead, and the best part is that I had the very cutest helper ever. Todd was so into the cooking this year. For a long time he has liked controlling the mixer and chopper, but this year he also read recipes and measured and even got to chop celery with a knife. Look out.

At one point he disappeared into his room for a few minutes and I could hear him rummaging through his dress up drawer....he came out in this outfit.

I mean come on, you know it is going to be a good dinner when a chef this cute helped prepare it.

I hope that your day is wonderful. I'll report on our festivities tomorrow night.

testing a theory...

So I've been contemplating a point and shoot camera to have in my purse all of the time. I love my Nikon, but there are times when I'd like to have something in my pocket or purse. So today was the great Thanksgiving shop-a-thon and I took along Matt's point and shoot along to document the day.

I have to say it worked out pretty well...it was nice to literally have in my pocket when I started my day by dropping Todd at school.

after that the first stop of the day was a familiar place...

I needed to get these....

A few years ago I learned that the trick to leftovers and Thanksgiving refrigerator geometry (Moriah's term!) is these babies. Trust me on this.

While I was there I did get myself one little treat. I've been eyeballing it for a few weeks and I realized that if I'm that excited about something people are going to wipe their feet on, I could treat myself to $11.99

Next was Costco...which you can't tell from this photo, but it was hopping. I would not want to be anywhere near that place tomorrow. Holy Moly.

I forgot to bust out the camera at the Honeybaked Ham store....but I wish I had dangit. I guess no matter how small and convenient it might be, it only works if you remember to use it!

Next was the big grocery shopping stop...

I did use my binder. It is probably more than I really needed, but I'm liking having everything in one place. I have visions of adding pages for future years....we'll see next year. But for now it looked cute in my cart.

Speaking of the cart, I really filled it up. This photo didn't really focus right, but I had to include it in my photos of the day because hello...I don't think I could have fit anything else in the cart (and there is no bird in there!)

This translates into quite the load in the car....

and finally in the refrigerator...

So overall, I was pretty happy with the point and shoot experience for situations when the giant DSLR might be a bit of overkill. I didn't mess with any menu items or settings and clearly I could have (and should have)to have gotten better results. Next week I am going to test drive it again in Disneyland, but I think I'll be doing a little research and asking Santa to bring me one of my very own!

housekeeping....

I'm working on a little blog housekeeping. I added some photo galleries to the sidebar...added some layouts to the layout gallery since that hadn't been updated since like April. I've still got lots to add to both places, but feeling good to have some framework worked out.

I actually have plans to make a few more changes to the ole blogaroonie but I REFUSE to change from my Fall photo until after Thanksgiving!

Dangit. I love Thanksgiving and I'm getting tired of feeling like it is rushed by to get to Christmas. This morning I happened to catch the first few minutes of The View and Whoopie totally went off on the subject. It was hilarious and I have to say I totally agree. I'd like to enjoy Thanksgiving please, I'll get to the holidays soon enough.

Speaking of housekeeping...the housekeepers came today and I am oh so happy to have found "Mr. Right" after the whole spongegate incident. I forgot how much I loved coming home to a totally clean house. I'm going to have to find a way to keep them in the new year. They are cheaper than therapy and I feel much more sane with them in my life!

Tomorrow is the great Thanksgiving shop-a-thon, which will be followed by refrigerator geometry as I host Thanksgiving again this year. The good news is my binder is working out just great, and I have been writing in it even though Moriah wanted to place bets that I wouldn't!

I realized that I haven't picked up my camera much since my big photo shoot the other day. I'm thinking the shop-a-thon might need to be documented.

productive weekend...

I finally got my office/scrap space cleaned up. For months it has just been the door that gets closed in the house...and the place where everything gets stashed. In between I've created tons of stuff in the last few months and never really cleaned up in an organized fashion afterward. All of that is a recipe for disaster, quite literally.

It is still far from the way I want it to be, but I can walk on the floor without tripping over anything and not write my name in dust so I keep walking by the open door and smiling.

I also took everything out of all of the kitchen cabinets and drawers and dusted them out and restacked everything so that no one opens a cabinet to help find something on Thanksgiving and has the cookie sheets fall out on their toes.

But the big project was squaring away my digital photos. I've had my Mac since my birthday in May and I was down to less than 10% of my hard drive open. I'm all backed up and organized and only 50% full now. I'm thinking about shooting some in RAW and now that things are cleaned up.

Anyone have any tips??

is it too early to make a new year's resolution?

Back in my previous life I worked at a family owned flower grower that did business all across the country. It was a fairly decent sized company and I was there for 15 years.

At one point the company decided to study (and implement) many of the principles of Dr. W .Edwards Deming. (I even got to meet him, which was pretty cool because he died the next year) Even though what Deming stood for was pretty much basic common sense, the guy was a genius. A lot of the seminars and meetings that our company had on the subject were to were on the boring (bordering on ridiculous) side, but a few things have really stayed with me.

One of them leads me to the new year's resolution I'm thinking I need to make in November. It was called the "Deming Cycle" or "PDSA". P=Plan, D=Do, S=Study, A=Act. It is a model for constant improvement. Plan something out well before you just jump in and do. Then do it. Then study what you did to determine what worked and what didn't and then act to improve the things that didn't work, which leads you back to planning again etc. etc. into forever. Common sense right?

Well...lately I've been doing a lot of doing...which is nothing new. I've also done a lot of planning...and then doing...and some doing and then planning...but I haven't been making adjustments for the things that aren't working. I just keep plowing through...figuring that I'll adjust later.

Doctor Deming in his 90+ year old monotone statistician's voice that I can still hear as plain as day because we watched so many videos of the old guy, would say, "You cannot just do. You must plan. You cannot just do. No. There is no road to improvement with only do. You must complete the cycle. Without the cycle you do not grow. You must not only do."

Now that I think about it, he might have had a little bit of Yoda in him too.

But I think it is time for me to revisit the cycle. I don't want to do less, as a matter of fact I'm adding to my plate of work and responsibility. I just need to figure out how do a lot of the things I'm doing more efficiently.

May the force be with me.

speaking of asl

I think this is really cool, totally cheesy as only a Kay commercial can be, but still totally cool.

on a totally different note: crowdSPRING, please hire Kelly Purkey for your new community marketing manager!