The Schmidt House

The iPod finally went kaput - it became possessed, erased all music and made some really bad noises. I am now awaiting a "refurbished" replacement - translation: someone else's possessed iPod spiffed up for my use. I guess when you buy the service plan at Best Buy it has to implode three times before they give you a new one. Aaarrrggghhh. This being iPod-less has made work more difficult because I used my music as a little escape from my I/T Alice in Wonderland world since I moved again and am now sitting by the guys who do tech support for the elevators - whole 'nother blog in itself. So, I have had to go back to my pre-iPod world of CDs until the "new" old one arrives. It has given me a chance to dust off my vast, eclectic CD collection. It has actually been rather pleasant because I have been reacquainted with old friends that were lost in the 3,974 song abyss that was iPod #1. Most notably is Mindy Smith - I forgot how much I love her voice. The first su...

Got the Foo tickets via early internet sales - thank goodness I pre-ordered their recent album on iTunes!!!! We decided as a group that we did not want to go the general admission route and have to be stuck with screaming and potentially intoxicated college students all night. As we are getting older we are all about our personal space. Now we just have to wait 90 days to see Dave, Taylor, Nate & the other guy who I can't remember what his name is right now... Guess that little tidbit has escaped the steel trap. I am slipping.

I heard this song on the radio tonight on the way home and I thought of you. You are in all of our hearts and minds right now. As you,your mom, and your family are going through this journey you are sharing your deepest thoughts, fears, frustrations so eloquently and strong. Thank you for your honesty and your example - we are here when you need us. Not loving the video, but the song.

So excited!!!! Dave Grohl and gang are coming to Mpls in February - I can't wait. I have missed them the last two times they were here so I AM GOING THIS TIME. Shelly B. are going to be poised and ready to go at ticketmaster.com on December 1st 12:00 p.m. when Foo Fighters tickets go on sale. Until then, here is their "Learn to Fly", one of my favorite Foo videos - I can't find their latest that I can embed - A Long Road to Ruin - as usual it is hilarious. Rashida Jones (Karen from The Office, plays Dave's love interest) as soon as I find it I will add that too.

Got home from SD and the first thing I noticed when I went to pick up the mail on the table were letters, many letters all over the dining room table. I tried to wipe them off, but no dice. I asked the home office, "What happened here?" "Oh, that. That's a long story." Guess when Dan was fixing dinner, our son decided that everyone should have their respective spot at our kitchen table labeled with our names. Thank goodness for the magic eraser, wish I would of had that when AE went through the same stage. About 5 years ago I came home from a business trip and was welcomed to "A"s all over the house, it was like anarchy had taken over. We had "A"s up and down the stairs in lipgloss , "A"s on the floor and fridge in Sharpie marker. Managed to get all of them off by finally resorting to using fingernail polish remover - that stuff is toxic. I am so very glad to be home - I even left the laptop locked in my drawer at work for FOUR DAY...

Yesterday at lunch we were discussing JG's hockey practice, he got to be goalie yesterday with some marginal success. Our son said he liked having people shoot pucks at him, however said he needed some new elbow pads - that is why the pucks went by him - faulty elbow pads. Dan listed off the items JG has outgrown and said, "We need to get some new elbow pads, probably some new shoulder pads too." Not missing a beat, AE chimed in, "Maybe we can also see if we can pick him up some catlike reflexes too."

The kids did great as Kids Captains at the Wolves game vs. the Sacremento Kings. Dan said it was funny watching JG staring up at Ron Artest and Rashad McCants while they took care of pre-game business. AE was most excited about being on the jumbotron and hearing her name over the PA. I told her that it will be just like that when she goes to the state basketball tourney in 2016.

So here I sit in a hotel in Jacksonville, IL completely bummed. Dan called tonight about 5:00 to tell me the kids were selected to be honorary captains for the Timberwolves game tomorrow night. I have tried my darndest to get an earlier flight home, out of Peoria, Bloomington , Springfield, St.Louis, but to avail - it is just not going to work with the schedule tomorrow. My mom, Dan's folks and Dan will be there to document the event, so I will get to see it, but it isn't the same as being there. Dan tried to make me feel better by telling me I am there 99% of the time, so don't feel bad. Well, I am going to let myself have a bit of a pity party, I am sure they will have a great time and be great captains, but it would be better if I was there. BTW - I will be in South Dakota next week - Tuesday for sure. Don't know if I will be there Monday or Wednesday as well. I think the elevator is in Parker, so will be tooling around the plains talking bushels and hedging. Does ...

Just got home from Husker Land - had a good time and many good laughs. Went out today with Tyler the Farm Marketer and drove around many fields, learned about center pivot irrigation and got to hang out with some old curmudgeonly farmers. These two guys Kent and Kurt (twins) were the funniest - they own half the county and corn coming out of their ears. They were out clearing a field they just bought with a backhoe and a bulldozer. Kent and Kurt stopped long enough to talk some grain sales and didn't know about me at first, but after a few minutes of chatting guess I figured I was OK cause they started telling some old guy jokes mostly about old guys' wives kicking the bucket - wonder what their significant others think about that? They were nice and said I was could come out and help them clear a field anytime. Don't think I am going to take them up on that. Tyler walked away with a 25,000 bushel contract and said it was the best call he ever had with them. I took a little...

So today was interesting. I hung out all day at the grain elevator in Carleton, NE, it was a bit unnerving to have a huge Union Pacific train pass by about every hour. No one else seemed to notice but me, then there were all of the trucks coming in to drop off their bushels, it is a busy time of year. The room right next to where we met had the scale info and this really nice lady Renee would dump some of the corn through this machine that would determine the weight of the corn based upon how much moisture it had in it and then she would dump it in a bucket, over and over and over. Learned a lot and met many new people, the farmers love to come into the FSG (Farm Service Group) and shoot the breeze which we all know I am not too bad at either, so it was fun. I met this little old guy named Dale who asked me if I was a single lady and why in the world would I ever want to live in Minnesota when Nebraska is right here in front of me. He also told me a lllooonnnngggg story about a hunte...

So, I have been blogging quite a bit this weekend I think in anticipation for the fact I will be out of touch for a few days hanging in Carleton, NE. As you know me, I love little tidbits, so here are a few about Carleton. " Milo Capital of Nebraska " Carleton is a village in Thayer County. The community was named for Carleton Emory, son of a landowner. The latitude of Carleton is 40.300N. The longitude is -97.678W. It is in the Central Standard time zone. Elevation is 1,565 feet. The estimated population, in 2003, was 128. Here is a silly little tidbit, I have "almost" been to Carleton before, back in '05 when my sister lived in godforsaken Garden City, KS, my mom, the kids and I took a little roadtrip through Nebraska looking for long passed relatives. We found them close to Clatonia, NE in the middle of NOWHERE, but not so far from Carleton.

My fellow blogger, girlfriend, former roommate, working mom, freelancer extraordinaire Carey wrote a little blog about her cookie woes last week . She remembered chocolate chip cookies I used to bake in college, which I have not unfortunately made that often - I have been on more of a Peanut Butter cookie kick the past decade - I do make a wicked PB cookie. After looking through various places where I squirrel stuff away to no avail I have come to the conclusion that the only cookie recipe I ever used was the good ol' American standby: Original Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies So Carey - give it another go. It is all about taste, like I said maybe I will be there next week and we can try it out together.

MEMO TO: Grandmas, papas, aunties, uncles, friends, friends of our children, various others who may have a desire to purchase our children any toys whatsoever FROM: The Schmidt Parents CC: Santa DATE: November 4, 2007 RE: Schmidt children toy moratorium We truly do appreciate your past generosity to our offspring, AE and JG, however we - the parental units - simply cannot deal with any more Legos, game pieces, Littlest Pet Shops and movies at this time. While the Schmidt children were away today their parents decided to take it upon themselves to "organize" the mess under the stairs since we have fully acknowledged that our children do not understand that cleaning up their toys does not mean building a 2 x 3 foot pile of crap in the toy closet. After 3 hours we managed the separation of 985 both big and small Lego pieces, location of 349 Thomas the Tank Engine rails and engines and the location $5,498,387 in Life money (do I need to mention how bloody hard it is to find t...

I was talking to my mom today and we got to talking about the blog. When she is at my aunt's house she is computer-less and out of blog-touch. I told her about the Suzanne cake and we got to laughing. When I was about 8 we were home visiting my grandma and grandpa in Pine City. My grandparents had moved out to the country and my grandpa was loving every minute of it, he had quite a bit of land and spent a lot of time hauling stuff around in a little wagon he built for his riding lawnmower. He would move brush from his land to the dump across the county road. One afternoon, my sister and I were bored, so grandpa decided he would have us paint his little wagon. Amy and I painted it a light blue and decided to add some pictures with this brown paint. So Amy painted a picture of grandpa and his dog Buster and I decided to add a message to the back of the wagon. So in large letters I wrote: HI THERE! Upon inspection, grandpa started laughing and asked if I had something against him caus...

Yesterday morning we all awoke not feeling so hot. AE said she had a stomach ache, so did little man. So, I emailed work telling them I would be home with two sick kids. Well, the two sick kids ended up being fine - AE went to school by 10:30. By 11:00 it wasn't a sick kid I was worried about, but a sick mom. I ended up with the flu. I went to bed, JG missed the bus (my fault), so I had to drop him at school ala ride back from Girls Weekend in Madison '97 style (Shel - you know what I am talking about). Not good. I went into my infirmary at 12:45 yesterday and just left about an hour ago. No good. On the positive side - I lost 7 lbs, managed to watch a few hours of "The Tudors" and think I am completely caught up on my sleep.

I saw this and had to laugh... The person ordering told them to write Best Wishes, Suzanne and underneath that write We will miss you. This is the cake that was delivered.