Category Archives: life

Cold Front!

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It has been a long, hot summer here. Granted, it hasn’t been as hot as it can be but it just seems never ending now that we’re in the middle of September and I really don’t want a 96 degree birthday in October.

Yesterday, I believe the cold front arrived. It was cool when we headed out to walk.

sunrise

The clouds looked cool. Sort of like fire.

fire

And I took one of the coolest photos ever of The Price Tower.

Price Tower - Bartlesville

This morning, it’s 54 degrees. It was forecast to be 45 but I’ll take it. The cold front arrived and it’s a little bit cooler. Not quite fall but we’re getting there. 🙂

Lock Me Up!

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I just can’t thank my Realtor enough for leaving the lock box on my house and giving me the information on how to put the keys into it and therefore to get them out of it.

lock

 

I’m kind of bad at locking myself out of the house, especially when David is gone. I have keys I wear around my neck at all times to try and prevent my best friend, John the Locksmith from visiting.

keys

Except for today. I went out without keys, without a phone and the door was locked. If not for the lock box, I don’t know what I would have done.

Of course, there was also the time when I got locked INTO my house and I had to lower a rope out the window for my friend, J,  to tie a screwdriver to so I could try and get out. I still had to be freed by John the Locksmith but that was a whole different story.

I think I need to buy my own lock box in case Lindsey decides she needs hers back. 🙂

Rainbow!

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This morning, I was coming to the last mile or so of my walk. I was barreling up Cherokee, and I really was going fast. I ended up walking 14:39 per mile which is pretty quick. I got about a block south right by the First Baptist Church and I saw a rainbow.

rainbow2

I actually stopped to take the photo all the while thinking “God’s promise!” 🙂

The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Genesis 9:16      

As I walked a little further on, I noticed that it looked like the end of the rainbow was at our house! So I took another photo on the move.

rainbow1  When I got home, I noticed there was a second rainbow in the photo that I didn’t see when I was looking at it in the sky. I think this photo is illustrative of the following:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

I love being reminded of these two scriptures in the morning .Especially in such a beautiful way. 🙂

 

Krispie Brownies, Yum

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This weekend was a fun one. I went to visit my mini-me, Lyndzee. I was going to teach her how to cook some easy dinners and then she and her new husband were going to have a gender reveal party to tell everyone the sex of their baby that will be born in November.

Lauri & Lyndzee

I like to cook but sometimes I get really busy and run out of time. We try and eat a healthy paleo diet much of the time.

I asked Lyndzee if she had a George Foreman grill and she didn’t. We use the GF Grill at a minimum of five nights a week and often for lunch. Honestly, I can’t imagine how I would get along without my GF Grill. I brought one for Lyndzee so she will be able to see how fast and easy she can make dinner.

Most nights, I told her, I put the potatoes in the microwave when the GF Grill is heating up. Then, when the potatoes are done, put the meat on the grill and veggies in the microwave and, voila!, dinner in 15 minutes. There’s enough time to chop up an easy salad, too.

I taught her how to make spaghetti squash and meat sauce, a dish that both of us love. Mr. Lyndzee took a tiny portion to be sure he liked it.

Spaghetti Squash

And his review was two thumbs down. Oh well.

Although I was cooking healthy, Lyndzee is pregnant and she wanted treats so I brought a terrific dessert that I love but hadn’t made in years, Krispie Brownies. They are easy and so delicious.

They are so good, that Lyndzee wanted to eat a piece this big:

brownies

Here is the recipe so you can make your own awesome Krispie Brownies.

1 pkg fudge brownie mix, family size
1 (10 1/2 oz) pkg mini marshmallows
1 1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c creamy peanut butter
1 T butter
1 1/2 c Rice Krispies

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom of 13×9 in baking pan. Prepare and bake brownies according to pkg directions for original recipe. Remove from oven. Sprinkle marshmallows on hot brownies. Return to oven. Bake 3 more minutes. Place chocolate chips and peanut butter in medium saucepan, cook on low heat, stirring constantly, until chips are melted. Add cereal, mix well. Spread mixture over marshmallow layer. Refrigerate until chilled. Cut into bars. Makes about 24 bars or one uber large brownie. 😉

The next day was gender reveal day and

cupcake

It’s a GIRL!

We are so excited to welcome this little girl when she arrives in November. I hope she will be an extra-mini-me. 🙂

Raise the Goose Bumps!

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I’ve been reading a really terrific book by Stephen King called Under The Dome.

Under The Dome

Like most books by King it starts getting a little scary. I’ll never forget reading The Shining when I was about 18 and being scared out of my mind in broad daylight.

This one has been intriguing with shades of the scary to come but nothing outright scary up to this point – page 754.

In the story, one of the town politicians on a power trip is bringing in teenagers and young men to serve as a police force that will always support him. One of the older policemen, reflecting on the recent firing of another longer term member of the force, starts thinking that maybe he should have taken a job on the Orono police force when it was offered to him the previous year. Yes, he would have had to drive drunken UMO kids home but it would have beaten what he was currently experiencing waiting for his own, probably imminent, firing.

After I read this portion of the book. I decided to take a break. The book is heavy. Physically heavy, weighing 3.5 lbs.

I checked in on facebook and sitting right at the top of my newsfeed I see this:

umo

Wowza. Raise the goose bumps!

I had never before heard of this town or school in Maine before I read about it three pages before I took a break.

LOL! If I wasn’t reading Stephen King, I may not have thought twice about it. But I am, completely, creeped out 😉

Follow Friday: The Vesume’ Group

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My friend, Gini Dietrich, does Follow Friday on twitter in a cool way and I’ve been meaning to emulate her for a while now. She chooses one person that she follows and highlights them on her blog.

Back in the day, when I was a very new little twitter bird, my friend Patrick Allmond wrote a blog post about why he didn’t do Follow Friday. It made a whole bunch of sense to me and so I also adopted the practice of not doing strings and strings of #FF tweets. I wish I could share that post with you now.  Patrick doesn’t have it posted anymore but, trust me, it made sense. 🙂

My main thought, before reading Patrick’s post was, “What if I miss someone who is awesome?” And I have a lot of awesome followers. All of them in fact. But, I started seeing Gini’s method and thought that would be cool, too. Highlight one awesome person every week.

The Vesume' Group

So today, I feel compelled finally to do just that. And the follower I want to give a shout out to is The Vesume Group.

The Vesume Group is an innovative staffing and employment agency placing IT, Engineering, Accounting/Finance, Manufacturing, and Call Center professionals in  Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Now, my background is not in any of those fields and I don’t live in Massachusetts or New Hampshire (but I would) so why, you ask, am I making them the choice for my first Follow Friday blog post?

I visited a similar agency in Tulsa on Tuesday. And I did a video resume. I was excited about that because I like to do video and the premise that the video can open a door better than a paper resume really resonated with me. I often wonder how good my paper resume’ is but was told yesterday it contains good stuff.

Anyway…

I tweeted that I had gotten my video resume’ in four takes and I believe that’s when The Vesume’ Group followed me and responded:

We continued to chat and they told me that I now needed to put my video resume’ every where including right in my Linkedin profile. Well, I was so chicken. I was going to keep it unlisted and then send the link out to prospective employers when I sent my resume’.

Oooh controlling the first impression. I love it! And they are right, that’s exactly what a video resume’ does. But I was really nervous and said so. To which they responded:

Well, you all know I can’t be anyone but me so I took the plunge and put it everywhere. I don’t feel so weird about it now that I’ve slept on it. It’s not that different from any other video I’ve done except maybe my hair looks better and that’s a good thing. 😉

So, if you are an IT, Engineering, Accounting/Finance, Manufacturing, or Call Center professional looking for contract, contract-to-hire, and permanent positions throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire, I would tell you that you should contact The Vesume’ Group to help you in your job search.

If they are as helpful to someone who is not in one of those industries, sitting way out in Oklahoma, imagine what they can do for you.

If you aren’t one of the people described above, I still recommend you follow The Vesume’ Group on twitter because they are good people. And you can’t have too many good people in your twitter stream. 🙂

Thank you so much to The Vesume’ Group for being so awesome to me and encouraging me in a rare moment of “holy smokes I can’t do that”. You rock!

 

PSA – Brought to you by the letters D, P, and R

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I’ve started doing HIIT – high intensity interval training. I’ve read about it for a really long time and finally decided it was the next frontier and it was time to go there.

Pathfinder Parkway

I like to run on the Pathfinder Parkway. It’s pretty and quiet and even though there are usually a lot of cars in the parking lot, you encounter people only rarely. I love it.

Monday was the first time I’ve been to the Pathfinder since returning to Bartlesville and it struck me how much dog poop is littering the path.

poop pile1

Today, there was a pile RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the path.

poop pile2

Now, they don’t call me Lauri Grace for nothing. I have a hard enough time running and not face planting without slip sliding off of my feet via a pile of dog poop.

Seriously, folks. Would you want to step in a pile of someone else’s dog poop while you’re trying to exercise in the beauty of nature? Would you want to step in a pile of your own dog’s poop?

Clean up after your pet

Here’s what we know, you and I: dogs poop.

For that reason, when you take your dog outside, you should be prepared.  Bring a bag to clean up after them.

It’s been made super easy to do this. You can get these cute little bone shaped plastic bag dispensers that you attach to your dog’s leash so they are always there. You can buy these at a pet store or – beauty – you can get them at the Dollar Tree for a mere dollar.

poop bag holder

And, dig this, you can get a three pack of replacement bag rolls also at the Dollar Tree for a tiny dollar.

After you pick up after your dog, as a responsible dog owner would, the City has even graciously placed a trash bin at the entrance of the path so you can make a deposit. Easy peasy.

bin

So c’mon friends and fellow Pathfinderites, let’s consider our fellow exercisers and save them from a stinky, broken experience.

Thank you.

This PSA brought to you by the letters D, P, and R. (Dog Pooping Responsibly)

Okay, okay. I’m not Wonder Woman

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I like to believe I’m Wonder Woman. And being here by myself a lot of the time, I’ve actually been amazed at what I can do when I try hard enough.

wonderwoman

Yesterday, I had perfectly flat hair. This is an IMPORTANT detail since my hair is pretty curly and it’s kind of time consuming (and impressive!)  for me to achieve that level of flat all on my own. Usually this state is only achieved by professionals.

Anyway, it got hot yesterday. Around 9:00 p.m. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep with it being hot so I proceeded to try and put the window air conditioner unit into the bedroom window. I had told David to just leave it since it was cool when he left and I’d get to it when it got hot. How hard could it be?

Mistake.

I couldn’t get that thing into the window for anything. It was like wrestling an alligator. And it was hot.

I called David 10 times, sent photos, tried to get an understanding of why this particular unit would not get into place.

I finally got it there and turned it on. I was feeling all happy that, hey, I guess I’m Wonder Woman after all. I was sweaty and my hair was curling up but the air conditioner was in the window and I was going to be able to sleep in cool bliss.

Until…rrrrrrriiiiiipppppp. THUD.

Dang it.

I went into the bedroom and, you’ve got it, I found the cord still plugged into the wall but a gaping hole where the air conditioner had been.

ac

Sigh.

By this time, the country song was just writing itself.

The a/c fell out of the window
But it landed on nobody’s head
It’s just really hot in the bedroom
I don’t think I can go to bed.

I was absolutely, positively sure it was Miller Time and as I sat enjoying my beer, I thought that I really should have just opened the window, taken out the screen and dumped the air conditioner out the window.

At least my hair would have still be straight. 😉

Carpe-ing the java @CoffeeCON2013 style

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Yesterday, was CoffeeCON 2013 (@coffeecon2013) and it was amazing!

Before going to CoffeeCON, I was finally able to meet up with Ruthann (@RAWiesner) for breakfast. She took me to a place where they bring donuts to the table like they bring rolls or chips and salsa at other places.

donuts

How can you not love a place like that? I had an amazing frittata with spinach, bacon and tomatoes. Yum!

Then it was off to the event du jour: CoffeeCON!

Just opening the door you know was fabulous because you could smell all of the different coffee offerings.

coffeec

When we got to CoffeeCON, we found my twitter friend, Debra (@debramariem).

girls

Debra is terrific, too, and we had fun hanging out together, visiting the vendor booths, the classes and our other twitter friends,

Coffee NateCoffee Nate (@CoffeeNate) and Robert Caruso (@fondalo) who were bloggers at the conference.

Lauri Rottmayer, Robert Caruso, Ruthann Wiesner

One of the things I was most looking forward to was talking to the roasters. There were several different options there including a woman who was roasting beans with a heat gun (yes, like the one from Lowe’s) and a guy who had repurposed his hot air popcorn popper to roast coffee. He was very excited with his roaster and was cute to listen to.

There were two roasters, though, that had machines that seem like what I would use to roast coffee which I believe is the next frontier for me.

We watched coffee demos and attended a couple of classes.

demo

I was really taken with the siphon coffee maker and think I’m going to have to have one of those. I was sad that we didn’t get to see the Turkish Coffee demo. She had some kind of a water issue but I did get the instructions for making the coffee so will be trying that at home soon. 🙂

Right before I left, I thanked the show producer, Kevin Sinnot (@coffeekevin), for his fabulous event. He wanted to interview me because I had come from Oklahoma for the show. I did that and said my goodbyes.

interview

It was such a great time. Great coffee, great people. I can’t wait to return next year and bring/meet more friends. Will you join me? 🙂

My crazy mixed up day

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Yesterday morning, when I woke up in Oklahoma it was cold, but a sunny pretty day. I was excited because I was headed to CoffeeCON 2013!

I left the house at 7 a.m. It’s super dark to get from our house to the turnpike so I wanted to avoid that if I could be still get to Chicago in time to have dinner with one of my favorite friends I’ve never met, Ruthann Weisner.

By the time I got to Vinita, the day had turned cloudy and overcast. I wasn’t too unhappy with that since it’s pretty hard to drive East in to the rising sun. When I was almost to Joplin, I started seeing patches of snow on the sides of the road and roofs. Oh, isn’t that cute! It really did snow on May 3rd.

By the time I got to Springfield, it was full on snowing including snow plows, cars in the ditches, a flipped over semi truck and an accident on the other side of the road that had traffic backed up for miles.

 

I was happy not to be on that side of the road and I drove carefully (there are idiots out there!) for a little over four hours until I got to Rolla, MO where I usually fill up the first time when I drive to Chicago.

And this happened:

 

Please tell me, how on earth I managed to have clothes for six days and four seasons, twelve pairs of shoes, my computer, two coats (winter, spring), my coffee bag, and a pillow but NO PURSE!

LOL! I’ve never done that before. I called David, a.k.a. my hero, and told him of my plight. He got my purse and another pair of shoes (because you just can’t have too many shoes) and headed the over four hours to bring me my purse.

It was lunch time by then and I was hungry. I had brought toll money because I knew I had to travel on the tollway part of the way to get to my hotel but I had no idea how much it was so I asked on twitter if anyone knew.

tolls

 

Yes, that’s what I figured. A bajillion dollars. Illinois tolls are EXPENSIVE! So I looked around the car. I always have money in the center console and I wasn’t disappointed. I found a bag of dimes that must have been left in there from when we had to use the laundromat at some point.

dimes

Feeling like a panhandler, but a happy panhandler, I went into McDonald’s and paid 33 dimes for my lunch.

David arrived around 3:45 and I was gassed up and back on the road by 4 p.m.

I had put my winter coat on because it was 31 degrees and after sitting in the car for four hours I was chilled through even though I put the heat on periodically.

I stopped for gas the second time in a blinding thunder storm. When I got out of the car, I realized

warm

 

It was 68 degrees. I was pretty sick of driving by that point and the rain made it hard to see since it was getting dark. I drove about ten more miles and that was it. The roads weren’t even wet. I opened my sunroof. 🙂

I finally arrived just before eleven p.m. I had left 16 hours before that and I was never so happy to see a hotel room or bed in my life.

I didn’t get to have dinner with Ruthanne but I’ll be having breakfast with her and I’m super excited to go to CoffeeCON. I hope your Saturday is fabu and unmixed up! 🙂