The Schmidt House

i know that we did - it went so fast that i can hardly remember what happened. i am wiped out - truly wiped. we had a great time with family and friends, had a lot of laughs and made a lot of memories. jg and his cousin he were kids captains @ the t-wolves game saturday night - they actually won which was an added bonus! dan and i were chatting are realized that jg has played between periods at both the gophers, and the wild, been kids captain twice at the t-wolves met his IDOL adrian peterson...and he isn't even 8 years old yet. gosh, hope we haven't set him up for disappointment for the next ten years, don't know what we can do to top those...

but really could have. We have to start every meeting at work with a safety story - since our business is a mostly production environment - large grain elevators and soybean crush plants - this would make sense. Last week one of the guys on my team shared the following story about his buddy - which I can totally imagine would happen at our home. The story: My co-worker's buddy's family had a squirrel problem - two took up residence in the family's chimney and with the cold weather the husband decided that something needed to be done about the squatters. So the wife suggested that they call an exterminator to relocate the squirrels. The husband decided that he would be able to handle the situation himself. So, he decided to smoke out the squirrels. He started a fire in the fireplace, and waited. One of the squirrels panicked and rather than going up and out it went down and out - through the fire - and started its tail ablaze (poor squirrel). Husband panicked and started cha

We went to the Jost Xmas get together last night at Dan's aunt Diane's house. As usual it was good fun, the family just keeps getting bigger and bigger, we added three little ones over the last year (all adorable). AE and JG are actually becoming the "big" kids because the former "big" kids are now in college - how did that happen??? I seriously think that there 50 people there. We had a lot of laughs with Dan's aunts Diane, Kathy, and Sharon. Never a dull moment...

Probably not. I am finding that the older I get the more set I am in my ways, the way that I am wired I can't explain. Does anyone else have those traits that are so embedded that no matter what you do you can't change them? They are non-negotiable. Really, truly. Can't change. They define you. One of these items in my make-up is rules, I am all about rules. If the rule says that it is A and not B then B does not exist to me. People who break the rules and aren't truthful - I can't deal. There is right and wrong - deal with it - please teach your kids. If you don't have your integrity - there really is little else.

This December has been especially crazy and I am looking forward to a few days off to relax with the kids. I have a few items on the to-do list: 1) See "The Blind Side" 2) Start scanning photos with new printer we bought back in September. Finally got it hooked up (already checked that off the list) 3) Read at least three books - entire library book bin is full 4) Clean out the DVR - think it is full - don't want to look actually 5) Finally hang the pictures back up after Dan painted the basement this summer 6) Goodwill run - or maybe pull stuff together for garage sale in May for Nationals fund raiser :) 7) See friends that I am sure wonder if I am still kicking 8) oh yeah...what was the other thing??? 9) RELAX

Alright really hoping that this will be the last installment of the "basketball diaries" until next year. Didn't want to blog again but had to tell the latest sordid tale. Warning this post is not warm and fuzzy like last post, instead let me start by telling everyone that warm and fuzzy is gone - how can you be warm and fuzzy after being called a ho? I will explain. Last night was finishing up my senior high registration and needed to follow up with one last kid, he called on Wednesday and left a message and wanted to get him registered. So I called the number he left on the voicemail. Woman answers phone... Woman: Hello Me: Hi, is Bob (changed his name to protect the innocent) there? Woman: Oh, no you just didn't. Me: Didn't what? Woman: I can believe that you ***beeping*** called here for Bob, you need to text him you ho. I'm not taking this. Me: What? I am calling about basketba... Woman hangs up... I sat stunned. What just happened? Had a moment to colle

So, was feeling a little guilty about my rant about the basketball thing. It is a tremendous amount of time and frustrating at times sending out, "Thank you for your email, I am sorry to hear that you are incapable of navigating a website...." I don't really say it that way, am much nicer than that. However, tonight I received a note from a kid, or should say young man, I have been working with this past week. He is a senior and emailed himself to say that he really wanted to play basketball and didn't have any money to pay for it. I spoke with him and inquired if he would be able to come up with half (about $75) and the association would cover the rest. He said that he is working at Burger King and that money goes to help out his family since his mom lost her job. Dad isn't around. I told him I would follow up and I forwarded his info to one of my fellow volunteers with a note and asking what we could do for him. I hadn't heard back from him until tonight. I

About a year ago I made the decision to visit and ultimately join our basketball association board, I know yet another thing that I sign up for thinking that I have enough time when in the end time is the one thing I am very short of... Long story short - I ended up on the executive board and was asked to be in charge of registration - we have about 1,500 kids overall in the program and most make it through the process with no intervention from the registration coordinator = me. Well, that was until today when I received since last night @ 12:48 a.m. - 117 emails thanks to the Senior High kids who evidently do NOT know what a registration end date is. I am done now and don't want to be on the computer ANYMORE. The only redeeming factor that is keeping me going right now is that Cargill has this Care Points program where you are able to submit your volunteer hours for donations. I think that with the amount of time I have put in it will be something like $500. So that is my little h