I saw this video while I was in New Orleans, and a copy of it was in our goody bags from the conference. I had to hold in the waterworks the first time I saw it. There is about a one minute intro before the song starts, but if you wait that out then the song is very cool.
While we were out one night in New Orleans we walked into a bar where this guy was playing. I think his name is Ben Mcgehee, and it was his version of Lil Wayne’s “Mrs. Officer” that drew us in. He was pretty awesome.
Last night I got back from my leadership conference in New Orleans, and all I can say is that it was AMAZING! Everything was so well organized, and all of the workshops and events that we went to looked awesome. There were 10,000 of us from Starbucks in attendance, and we booked nearly ever hotel room in the city. Some of the highlights were, eating lunch on the field of the New Orleans Superdome, having streets shut down for a Starbucks partner only street fair, painting canvases to be hung in local schools, hanging out on Bourbon Street, getting to see the store of the future and things that are in the works to make my job easier, and having Bono speak at our last meeting about Starbucks partnering with RED. The whole experience was awesome! It would have been even more awesome, IF I HAD REMEMBERED TO BRING MY CAMERA!!! Luckily I have a bunch of picture happy fellow managers who will be making me discs of the pictures they took. Depending how long it takes for me to get the pictures I may or may not try to post some of the highlights. Now that I’m home it’s back to business as usual, which tonight means getting Ellie ready for Halloween. It’s good to be home.
In 8 hours I will be boarding a plane for New Orleans to go to the Starbucks Leadership Conference. I will be one of 10,000 store managers and support staff in attendance. This means that Keith is going to be both mom and dad for the next five days. I would post more about the details of the adventure I am about to go on, but I have to get up and get ready to go to the airport in about five hours, and I haven’t packed a single thing yet. Plus on top of that, I am already starting to get that sick feeling in my stomach that I get when I haven’t gotten enough sleep. One of my friends referred to it once as “slumber party tummy”, and I totally agree with her.
I got a call today from one of the “Over Your Head” producers to see how everything was going, and how we were enjoying our kitchen. He also asked if I knew anyone else who was in a situation like ours that could use their help completing a remodel? Anyone need some help?
I have no idea what reminded me of this, maybe the same thing that reminded me about “The Torkelson’s”. Wait, no I remember what reminded me of “The Torkelson’s”, and it is not the same thing. Anyway, I was driving home today and I remembered this song, which I don’t remember ever hearing outside my mom’s music collection, but from what I can recall it got a lot of play at our house. I played it for Keith and his reaction was something like, “What on earth is this?” I said, “It’s Slade.” And he said, “By who?” And I said, “No, that’s the name of the band.” Then he rolled his eyes at me and went back to watching videos of Elmo with Ellie-Bean on the other computer. I have a vivid memory of my mom and I playing this song and marching around the living room. It’s a good marching song. The video quality is pretty awful, but if you play it it just might make you want to march around your living room too.
Keith was leading worship at church today which meant that he had to leave the house at 7:00 am while I was still asleep. About 10-15 minutes after he left I heard him come back into the bedroom. It turns out that someone had stolen the catalytic converter off of his car which in turn made the car so incredibly loud that he would not be able to drive it without being pulled over. This meant that he had to take my car, which would have been no big deal because normally I would just then not go to church because I wouldn’t be able to get there. Today though I was on nursery duty which meant my attendance was a must. Thank God for the Hutton’s again, who came and picked me up and put Ellie’s car seat in their car so that I could be at church. I titled my post “This Is Where I Live” because most people would just be upset that something like this happened to them and think bad things happen to everyone every once in a while. But where we live, where this happened, we also had two cars stolen in less than a year. I know we should probably move, and if the housing market wasn’t so crappy right now we probably would, but for right know that’s not happening.
In reading my last post I was mortified by the ways in which I misuse punctuation. It’s not that I want to look unintelligent, I just don’t know how to fix it. I need an English teacher willing to tutor a 29 year old student on something I learned a long time ago but somehow forgot. Hi, my name is Liana, And I am not smarter than a fifth grader.
Some of you may know, while others of you may not, that Keith and I had some work done on our kitchen a few months back. When we moved in the kitchen was pretty awful as you can see by the pictures below. The worst part was the fuzzy wallpaper that covered every wall, and Bret still talks about today. Oh wait, no the worst part might have been the ceramic tile that everyone told us would “just pop right off the floor”. And it did, after Keith and different friends spent about a month working on it covered in dust. The dust that also made its way into the rest of our house and covered it as well. This kitchen was such a nightmare, that during my postpartum depression phase, just thinking about the kitchen would make me burst into tears. I didn’t even need to be in the house. But then again, almost everything made me burst into tears. Knowing of our kitchen nightmare my cousin told me that I should apply for a home makeover show. I applied for them all, and I even made a pity tape to send to Oprah which I never sent. I vividly remember, probably during the depression, Keith telling me that Oprah was probably not going to come and remodel our kitchen. To which I yelled at him something about needing hope that the kitchen wouldn’t stay like that forever, and Oprah was my only hope. What can I say, I was crazy. Anyway, one of the shows called me back and asked me some questions and then never called again. Then another show called and asked me some questions, then called for more questions, and more questions, then they had me send them a tape of a tour of our place. Then it happened…I got the call. I was at work when I found out that HGTV’s Over Your Head was going to make over our kitchen. I screamed so loud that one of my employees came back to make sure that I hadn’t hurt myself. Most of you HGTV, TLC, DIY people are probably familiar with the show Over Your Head, even I remember it from those good old cable days, but if you don’t here’s a brief synopsis. Person 1, usually a well meaning husband, begins a remodel project that they think will be no problem then for some reason, usually lack of skill, they are unable to finish the project. Person 2, usually a disgruntled wife, calls Over Your Head to come and save the day by helping Person 1 finish the job they had started. Our kitchen was remodeled in March, and we just got word that our episode will be airing on Thanksgiving weekend, Saturday, November 29 @ 11:00 am on HGTV. Check it out if you want to see the kitchen now.
Last weekend Keith’s cousin Craig and his fiance Bernie, her real name is Christin Bernadette, got married. Keith’s parents were in town with his grandmother for the wedding, and we all got to put on our fancy-dancy clothes. The wedding was outside, and the weather was freezing, but Keith, Ellie-Bean and myself still managed to pose for some pretty pictures.
