The Blog: Spellbound by our own imperfect lives...

On Tuesday, Regis and I ventured out to Chankaska Creek Winery. We had a lovely experience...good wine, nice menu, friendly people, and a gorgeous setting. I could live there but it probably would not be good for my health. They have a beautiful room with a cozy fireplace but it was too warm for even my chilly bones. We sipped a sauvignon blanc and moved into the other room to peruse the merchandise of which there is plenty. Somehow a $55 polo shirt does not interest me. I was wearing, you might be able to tell, a $5 Reverend Raven tank top under my sweater. That's more my price range. Regis even enjoyed the wine and he is not usually one to partake of the grape. We were easy customers...we liked everything, we liked to chat, and we joined the wine club. Yeah, that was painful. This is Ingrid. She took care of us by serving us wine, convincing us of the benefits of the wine club, and making the day fun. Of course, I always get to gabbing about River R

There's something about a hot and windy day that makes me want to stay inside with the curtains closed and the lights off. I have been lounging in bed with the ceiling fan running while I read. Nice way to spend the morning. Our friend, Emily, came for dinner last night. She brought everything and I didn't cook one thing, lazy me! She made pulled pork and polenta, a very pretty jello salad, and a vegetable plate. Regis worked on her computer and Emily read A Gravestone Made of Wheat aloud to me before we watched the movie Sweet Land. Now, here it is Monday and I haven't made much progress...on anything. These are the young people I work with at River Rock. Me, Jessica, Josh, Helena, and Phoebe. Helena and Phoebe graduated from GAC yesterday and they had a joint family gathering in the back room. I got to be the hostess! Exactly the kind of work I love. By the time I got home, the ribs were almost done so we sat outside and relaxed. This is the sweet pepper salad

Saturday Ella came over Friday to spend the night. She orchestrated a photo shoot in the morning with all the major players and the major shoes, of which she is enamored. Ella has a great sense of theater. She loves my shoes and asked if she could have them when they don't fit me anymore. I explained that I rarely "grow out of" shoes at this point in my life, but when I don't want to wear them anymore, I would surely pass them on to her. Saturday Ella and I with Gus in a photo. Gus is a camera hog and if pictures are being taken, he wants to be in them. We all slept in the king-size bed...me in the middle, Ella on one side and Regis on the other, Gus on the end. We were like puzzle pieces. Thursday Regis at Pappageorge in Mankato where he assisted me with the social media marketing plan presentation and we enjoyed a nice meal and some wine.  Thursday I'm not a professional. I'm purely amateur but I've learned som

My job has been in a state of flux since I started at River Rock. First I was an office manager, a job I was very bad at because it involved a lot of details and a lot of math. And some art. None of these are my strengths. Over the year that I have been there, it has evolved to be more promotion and marketing although, marketing to me, sounds more like what McDonald's does. Over the past month, I have worked at getting River Rock connected with Minnesota Cooks , a project of the Minnesota Farmer's Bureau, an organization that promotes family farms. Today, we met with Bruce Miller, the director of the Minnesota Cooks calendar project, and accepted his proposal that River Rock be part of their calendar in the coming year. This is gigantic in my novice promotional world. Not only is it a print publication that is doled out at the State Fair where people love free stuff but it involves being on stage at the Carousel Park, being interviewed by Mary Lahammer of Almanac,

I've been thinking about this post for a long time. I've written a lot of things in my head that will not make it to the page because I've forgotten them. I saw on Facebook that someone liked this album cover. I thought, isn't that interesting that they still call them albums when clearly are something different. Then I looked. It's Crosby Stills Nash and Young. It is an album. Or it was one anyway. I suppose now it's a CD. We watched some old music videos last night...Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. I love that. My friend, Jill, sent me an email the other because she wanted to tweet me. She wanted my twitter address. I have a twitter account but rarely look at it. I don't get enough words to do twitter posts. It took us all day to get the tweet right. It took email alerts to say that we sent a tweet! This may not be our medium. One of the young women at work the other day was teasing Tamika about calling it The Twitter. The language about all of

My cousin Deb took these photos of a hummingbird nest with baby hummingbirds in Arizona. They're so tiny, you have to look quite hard to see them. See the ruler at the bottom of the top picture? Note: I think if you click on the picture, it will open in a new window and be bigger. In the bottom picture, they are bigger but still tiny. Miraculous little things. Our mama robin is still sitting on her nest. The babies must be growing because she looks uncomfortable. Kind of squatting over it rather than sitting on it. My friend Joanne sent me this poem the other day, from Your Daily Poem. She said it reminded her of my philosophy of life. I was touched. I love the poem and read it aloud to Regis last night. I have another one of Barbara Crooker's poems on the right side bar. I like the way she thinks. Gratitude Barbara Crooker This week, the news of the world is bleak, another war grinding on, and all these friends down with cancer, or worse, a little something long

Mom sent us some money for Easter this year, so we took Gus to daycare yesterday and went for an early dinner to Pappageorge. Flip was in the kitchen cutting steaks so Layla said we could order from the dinner menu even though it was only 3 o'clock. I had the filet mignon with a spinach salad, Regis had a rib-eye steak with grilled mushrooms and onions. I had this lovely glass of pinot noir. We had so much fun and we had such good food. With the tip, we spent the whole wad. Thanks, Mom!

In honor of Matriarch's Day, a slide show of our baby robin in the front yard. Regis scaled a ladder into the tree to get a good shot of them. From the ground, you can only see them when they stick their little heads up to eat. They are a hungry lot!   It's been a busy weekend. We had some friends over for wine and wings on Friday night. What a grand time! Amber, the youngest at about 22, Rene, older by a ways than me, Emily, two years younger than me...and Regis. We talked about books and movies and cooking, and politics, and religion. I left the room for the last two. Ha! We ate good food, we drank nice wine, we had a headache yesterday. Must have been the wings. The kids, the whole bunch, are coming over today for dinner. I rejected the idea of making a big meal but said I would make hot beef sandwiches and they could bring the rest. I went to the store and bought paper plates and cups and plastic forks, all things I loathe. I bought a package of cod, thinking I might

This post is going to be a jumble. I realized this morning, I haven't posted anything all week, I have random pictures piling up in the camera, and nothing is in order including my head. I was going to entitle this post like this: I better write this stuff down before it drifts out of my head. I thought that might be creepy so switched it to mix tape. Remember making those with audio tapes? Old school, eh? The first picture is one day this week when we had thunder showers, very brief ones, all day. It is actually pouring rain in this picture and there is a double rainbow in the sky behind our neighbor's trees where we can't see it. The rain was beautiful.   Gus got slicked up at Kind's this week. Isn't he cute? He is such a funny dog. He knows that when he comes home from the dog park in Mankato, he needs a bath. We don't even have to tell him anymore...he comes in the house and trots down the hall and jumps in the tub. My baths have become a litt

We had a wonderful day and it isn't even over yet. We went to Mankato late morning, dropped Gus at the PAW pet resort and I got a quick stop at my favorite thrift store, MVAC, in Mankato. I found a great long denim skirt for three dollars and a gorgeous crimson (never worn) raincoat for eight dollars. I won the lottery! I tried to find a picture of the red coat on the interwebs but the only one I found was ugly. Regis is sleeping or I would ask him to take a photo. Maybe later. A customer who comes into the coffee shop regularly says he has never seen me in the same clothes twice. He said this yesterday when I was dressed to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I said he often sees the same clothes, just combined in different ways. I told him my idea for a dumb waiter clothes closet but he thinks I have a Harry Potter virtual closet. I haven't read Harry Potter so I don't know. We stopped at the pet store to get Gus some treats. This is the place where strange people take their

I'm doing the social media marketing for the coffee shop so that means I have to learn more about social media than I ever thought possible for my old head to learn. I feel like my cranium is going to explode some days. I like to write and have always loved having a blog (well, since 2006) and I enjoy Facebook. I've used Twitter for work and recently learned about Foursquare. That was about it. Two weeks ago, I went to a social media seminar and now here is a list of things I've been exploring: Instagram will allow you to take pictures with your Android device and load them directly to Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. Like Twitter, if you have an Instagram account, you can follow people and see all the photos they post. Hootsuite is a way to integrate all of your social media: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Wordpress, if you happen to have a Wordpress blog. You can schedule your posts, pictures, and videos to go out months ahead of now. It's kind of creepy. Where

Regis took some spectacular pictures of the clouds the other night. Here's a slideshow of Gus and a patch of mushrooms in our back yard. Unlikely combination, I know. But Gus is a handsome dog and our back yard looks like the forest. The past three days have been full. My head is full. Here is the brief summary: Had a meeting at work where I presented my social media marketing plan. Went to the district retirement event on Wednesday afternoon. Left for Rochester to stay with Cousin Steve and Wife Sherry. At Mayo by 7 a.m. Got lost on the way. Went to Trader Joe's...grocery and wine. Back to Mayo to see dietitian. Good report. Out for lunch with Sherry. Walleye cakes at Chester's. Back to Mayo to see doctor. Good report. I'm a rock star. Back home to St. Peter at 6:30. One thing that struck me as I waited for these appointments is that it is incredible the personal and intimate details of their medical issues people will reveal in loud cell phone c