You maybe don't know this about me...but I'm kind of a big deal.

And that's probably why I just received my very first award for blogging.  That or because it's kind of like a chain letter for blogging, but it doesn't involve mailing someone a pair of panties or emailing someone a recipe or threats of bad luck for the next gajillion years if you don't forward it on to everyone you've ever met.  And that is why I must proudly accept this award.  (And I wish I could type the word "award" without immediately thinking of that scene in A Christmas Story where Mr. Parker wins his leg lamp and announces, "It's a Major Award!"  But I can't, so now you've all gone down that path right along with me.  You're welcome.)  A big thank you to Hillary for reading my blog and thinking it worthy of such a major award.  I would send it right back atcha had you not already received this prestigious award.


Now, in addition to publicly accepting this award, the small print indicates that I'm required to share with you all seven facts about myself.  I'm not particularly interesting, but I'll try not to put you to sleep with these facts.

1. I have lived in nine different states and seven of those were in a ten year time period.  (So no, I'm not planning to move again any time soon.  I'm done.  Please quit asking.  When I move you'll all receive another mass email with a bad movie reference in the subject line.  You should all know the drill by now.)
2. I once saved a suicidal beta fish.  I was fish-sitting for a friend one weekend in college when I discovered that her fish had catapulted himself out of his bowl and was lying on my desk.  I panicked grabbed a spoon, scooped him up, put him back in his bowl, and cursed him held my breath until he started swimming around.  I will never fish-sit again.
3. I fell in love twice when I lived in New York City.  First with the city and then with a pair of shoes.  (You may know them as The Prettiest Shoes Ever.)
4. I still sit down a couple of times a month and pay all of my bills by check.  (Except for my gym membership and my car insurance, but only because they both required auto-debit.)  I know, I'm practically a dinosaur.
5. I love clipping coupons.  I almost never remember to use them (or even to buy the Sunday paper so I can clip them in the first place), but there's something very therapeutic about the act of clipping coupons.
6. My toes haven't gone a single day without polish since I was in junior high.  Until just a couple of days ago.  I've got polishing them on the agenda for tomorrow.
7. GChat was my idea.  No really, it was.  One day I told a co-worker that I wished Google would come out with an instant messaging service because everything Google touches turns to gold.  Her cousin works for Google, so she emailed her and told her and a couple of months later I logged in to GMail and guess what they'd added?  GChat!*  I'm still waiting for my royalty check.  Cheapskates.**

Okay, so now that I've shared a bunch of random facts about myself (that you probably couldn't care less about), I'm supposed to share this award with other bloggers that I've recently discovered.  If you don't already follow them, I'd like to recommend that you do!

• The Sassy Curmudgeon is my newest discovery and she's just hilarious.  I'm convinced that if I still lived in NYC we'd be besties.  Especially since she apparently frequents some of my favorite NYC bars.  She's already received this award, which is no surprise, but if she hadn't I would absolutely be awarding it to her.
• Although her adventures are just beginning, I love how real Amanda is and can't wait to read about all her shenanigans in South America.
• The Bloggess...well...what can I say about The Bloggess?  I adore her.  She makes me laugh on days that I just want to cry, and I cannot even tell you how many times she's inspired an email to or from Missy or The Spain Girls insisting that the recipient read her latest blog immediately.  I guess what I'm saying, Jenny, is thanks for the good times, and I expect you to add this award to your resume, somewhere below your fabulous new title.

* Okay, so maybe it was already in the works.  But from my perspective that really was the whole sequence of events.  My friend's cousin certainly didn't email her back to say that something was already on the way.  I'm just sayin'...

**There is totally a roller skating rink in Coon Rapids, MN called Cheapskates.  Hilarious, right?  I hope whoever came up with that name got a raise.

Gator Watch 2010

If you hadn't already heard, I've had a crazy couple of weeks and I'm now spending a little time with Jan & Ron in Florida.  As an avid golfer and hater of cold weather (short sleeves come out at 68 degrees, shorts at 75), Ron has been wintering in Florida for several years now.  Last year Jan started heading south with him, and now they leave snowy Chicago behind right after New Year's and soak up the Florida sun until the first week of April.  The house they rented this year is in the same neighborhood as last year's, and it's really beautiful.

However, if you've read In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner (or seen the movie with Cameron Diaz) you should probably imagine me in the role of Maggie.

(These signs are all over the gated community and they entertain me to no end.)

The house looks over a cute little pond and I've discovered that apparently I sort of enjoy bird-watching.  Who knew?  I suppose if you have something other than robins to look at that makes it a bit more interesting.  Here's a view of the pond from the lenai:

Not bad, right?  Well apparently it attracts a lot of beautiful water birds like the Great Blue Heron:

(Thanks to Jan for the demonstration of how he walks.  I wish you all could have seen it.)

and the Great Egret:

and the Glossy Ibis and White Ibis (who are apparently camera-shy):

We also have a couple of Anhingas (which sit on the bank or in a tree with their wings outstretched to dry after fishing because they're too heavy to fly), some Limpkins, a Little Blue Heron, and a flock of Moorhens.

So every morning I wake up in this room:

which I obviously identified as my room as soon as I walked in, and then I pour a cup of coffee, grab the binoculars, and check the pond for activity.  Then throughout the day I'll wander out onto the lenai to see if anyone's out there, and if it's not raining I lobby for lunch in the sun so we can keep tabs on our feathered friends.

Now part of my fascination with the pond is the fact that before I got here there were reports of an alligator sighting.  The edge of the pond is about 10 feet from the lenai, so having lived most of my life in the Midwest, a  little alligator action is pretty exciting!  I've been obsessing over finding him, and you might be surprised to hear that a gator does not respond to calls of "Here gator, gator!  Come out come out wherever you are!"  At least not at first.  But if you do it often enough he just might show himself!  A couple of days ago we got all excited because we thought we saw him swimming across the pond, but something just didn't seem quite right.  Yesterday we discovered a turtle sitting on a concrete slab on the other side of the pond and realized that was what we had seen swimming.  (It's actually easier than you might think to confuse a turtle for an alligator.)  Hooray for a turtle sighting!  He would have been my favorite pond resident had I not gone out for a run a couple of days ago...

I decided to check out the other side of the pond, and guess who I found hanging out on the bank?  The gator!!  (It was probably my pretty smile and friendly personality that lured him out.  That or he thought maybe if he showed himself I would shut up.)  I was under strict instructions to call Jan if I saw him, so I did just that and she and Ron met me with the binoculars after I finished my run.  Whaddya think?  Pretty cool, eh?

So this is how I'm filling the gaps in my day.  It's only going to be 55 today (Not that I'm complaining.  It was -5 at home when I got up this morning!), but I think I'll head out for a run in a bit and see if my new gator friend is hanging out across the pond.  Even if he's not, at least I'll get to see more of this:

Wish you were here!

Happy World Nutella Day!

Happy World Nutella Day, y'all!  Okay, so I'm pretty sure that two girls just decided to declare it Nutella Day so that they wouldn't feel guilty about chucking their New Year's resolutions and digging into a big ol' jar of Nutella with a spoon, but who am I to judge?  I enjoy random holidays almost as much as I enjoy random roadside attractions, so I figured I might as well get on board with this one.  Now if you don't know what Nutella is, my condolences to you.  It's basically a gift from God in the form of a creamy chocolatey hazelnutty spread.  And if you live in Europe you might just be as lucky as my friend Nancy and have it served to you for breakfast.  (I think we're all still jealous, nine years later, that her Señora in Spain gave her Nutella on tiny toasts for breakfast every day while the rest of us were left with boring old jam.)  Now there are plenty of ways to eat Nutella.  Some people go to a lot of work searching for recipes that incorporate Nutella.  Some people eat it straight from the jar with a spoon.  Myself, I prefer the Animal Cracker Method which is exactly what you think it is.


I did a little Googling, and here are some fun facts that I found about Nutella:

• The amount of Nutella produced worldwide in one day is equivalent to nearly three times the weight of the Statue of Liberty.
• More than 70 million hazelnuts are used worldwide each day in the production of Nutella.
• The number of jars sold annually, if lined up, would wrap around the moon four times.
• The amount of Nutella produced in a day could provide every person in San Diego with one jar.
• Nutella's 40th anniversary celebration is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest breakfast, having hosted 27,854 people at the AufShalke Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on May 29, 2005.
• Nutella was first manufactured in loaves, which then could be sliced and spread on bread to make sandwiches.
• Nutella is marketed to over 75 countries and word on the street is that sales of Nutella outnumber the sales of all brands of peanut butter combined.

In my Nutella research today, I discovered that Nutella is made in Canada by the good people at Ferrero.  So, it seems appropriate that I leave you with a photo of my good friend Colleen and me enjoying Nutella crepes in Montreal last summer.  Enjoy!

Because it's snowing in Minneapolis...

I went to my friends Laura and Chris' baby's baptism this weekend in North St. Paul.  I'd never been to North St. Paul, and Laura has been telling me since we met about the giant snowman that her hometown is famous for. I think I'm a little bit famous in these parts for my love of roadside attractions, because in her email inviting me to the baptism Laura pointed out that her parents' house is just about three miles away from the giant snowman, and when I mentioned to Julia that I was thinking of going to the baptism she immediately told me how close we would be to the snowman and offered to take me to see it while we were in town.  So, with two good reasons to make the trek, I journeyed for the very first time to North St. Paul.  And found this:

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the fact that there's an American flag coming out of his hat (because it just seems out of place, not because I don't love this great country), but I do love his weird little stick arms and the fact that his little red scarf sticks straight out on the side.  And, to prove that I was there (and that it's ridiculously cold here), there's this photo:

And since it's snowing in Minneapolis today it seemed like a good day to share this wonderful attraction with you.  Hope you like it!