Category Archives: vacation

Climbing the Camel

No, no, no.  That is not a euphemism for some weird bedroom trick I don’t even know about.  Get your mind out of the gutter, people.

No, really, let’s talk seriously.

When you have a 2 year old and a newborn, I think a really fun thing to do is quit your jobs.

Okay, it wasn’t that fun, but that’s what we did.  My baby was two months old, and hey, it seemed like a good idea.  Sort of.

That was eleven years ago.

Fortunately, we were still able to eat and send our children to school as they grew.  Life has been good that way.  Also, the company my husband started after quitting his “real” job turned out to be a real company itself, with lots of employees, and photocopiers, and even conference calls.  It’s a nice ending to the story, I think.  Much nicer than, “It didn’t work out and we were hungry, so we went crawling back.”  That would’ve been tough.  And I’m sure this isn’t really the ending, but it’s been an interesting ride so far.

We sold the company a few years ago and everything was recently finalized.  To celebrate, we flew west to thank the investors who helped us get this thing off the ground.  The bonus:  they are fun, and funny, guys, not at all the stodgy-old Wall Street types you might expect investors to be.  Nope, these were some farm boys from Utah who worked hard and done good.  Real good.  They kept us laughing all night.

And when we weren’t eating swanky dinners with funny, smart, grown-up farm boys turned businessmen, we enjoyed our lovely hotel, and its fantastic spa.

We didn’t want to be those spa-like people, though, who forget where they came from, so we decided to keep things real with a little activity.  A walk, maybe?   Or how about a hike?  2700 ft up Camelback Mountain?

See that tall peak on the left?  That’s where we were headed.  We climbed over rock after rock after rock.

We passed 150 year old saguaros and cool-looking trees,

took a break in this little cave,

and loved the view from the top.

We especially enjoyed gawking at the incredible homes around the mountain.  How about this one?  Just a small summer place, I’m sure.
We came back to much colder temperatures, but, thankfully, we also have sunshine.  And in March, that is a very good thing.
Any other Camelback hikers out there?  Woot!

The Countdown is On

So I want to do a post about this new study I read on the effects on kids of media overload.  I am not surprised.  Here’s a hint:  the effects are NOT GOOD.  But I don’t have time to do that much thinking or writing today, so I’m on to other topics.

I want to tell you about my son’s birthday party, and how much I like his friends, and how happy I am that he’s growing up and making good choices.  But I don’t have time for that, either.

I keep thinking about all of the things I really need to do, but haven’t done.  I haven’t…

  • mailed my darn book proposal, which was requested ages ago, because I am still working through final edits on the very specific format this agent requires.  Soon.  I will mail it soon.
  • finished (okay, I haven’t started) the flyer for my son’s class’s get-together.  (Yep, Room Mom.)
  • memorized the talk I’m giving to a mom’s group next week. (Close, though, I’m close.)
  • packed for my kids to go stay with friends or packed for myself to fly somewhere warm.  The countdown is on.
  • written the PTO Board meeting agenda for two days after I return (one day after my mom’s group talk).
  • been to Pilates for two weeks because I have had SICK kids.  And now I have strep.  It’s awesome, this thing called winter.
  • answered e-mails that have angry people waiting for responses and wondering why I’m not answering their questions.  See above list.
  • figured out where to get the funds to pay for:  broken garage door, crappy dishwasher, rusty refrigerator, new carpet, new life, etc, etc, etc.

So that’s the general summary of things around here.  Did you catch the bright spot?  The countdown is on.