>I looked up the definition for *** and your picture was there

>I often need to take a screen shot of something I am working on, so I can show someone a problem, or a solution to a problem. And when I do, I close any other internet sessions I may have open. Why would I want the recipient to think I am wasting time reading The New York Times or The Economist while I am working? (OK, let’s be realistic – Ann Taylor Loft Sales and Facebook.) I send a distraction-free screen print because I am a professional.

The screen shot I recently received, um, not so much.
(click to enlarge, if you must)

Yeah, this person was on dictionary.com looking at the definition of Asses. I can’t decide which is worse – that this screen shot (define:asses) was sent to my entire team, and our boss, or that maybe this person was looking for a definition of assess?

>Vacation Jackisms

>** I poured some sour milk into Jack’s glass when we were camping in Silverton. (I swear I tasted it first, but it must have turned after I poured it.) Jack said, “This milk makes my mouth go like this: Grrrrr! ROAR! GROWL!” And he proceeded to growl for about 5 minutes straight. For real, like a lion. A scary, angry lion that does not like sour milk.

** Grandad was trying to move the air mattress from the bedroom to the living room of the RV and Cleo the cat was safely hiding in the corner. Jack dove to her and threw his body over her’s yelling, “I will protect you Cleo!” Cleo didn’t like that and she let him know. I tried to explain by saying, “Jack, Cleo gets scared of you because she doesn’t know what you are going to do next. ” He shook his had wearily and said, “I don’t know either.”

This is our campsite in Silverton. It rained almost the whole time, so the picture doesn’t do it justice. Dave had a rest day from his ride the day before and that morning he was making Jack and I some delicious pancakes.

From vacation2010

>And, I Am Back

>As Dave says, you know you aren’t ready for your vacation to end when you are taking 30 mile side trips (to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison) on your way home. Sigh. I’ve been back at work for 2 days and I am still not ready for it to end.

But here is what you can look forward to reading as I force myself to get back into the swing of things:

1.) The Commenter Contest Winner
2.) Embarrassing things that I have said at work
3.) Something asinine about my job
4.) Vacation Jackisms
5.) Family photos gone wrong
6.) Vacation round up
7.) Dave’s bike ride
8.) Mouse’s chocolates
9.) Update on books read
10.) Peaches

Ok, ok, I’ll let you know that commenter Laura won the commenting contest. Yea! Laura! Thanks to all July commenters. Commenters appears to not be a word. Commentators? People who left comments?

Anyway! Thanks! I need to devote an entire post to Laura’s prize, and that is number 8 on the list.

One more thing – As you can see on my Books Read 2009, I have already read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Loved it. I also read 3 books on my vacation, which pretty much means my vacation was awesome.

>Dear Internet

>Dear Internet,

How’s it going? Have I mentioned lately how much I love you? You are pretty cool, and I like a lot of the stuff you can do. Do you know what would be cooler though? If you could create a little widget that made it really easy for me to post a list of books I am reading or would like to read to my little blog called MetaMegan. Yeah, I know you already have lots of easy ways to do that, but what would be cooler, is if it was really easy for me to link this list of books to an independent book seller such as The Boulder Bookstore. Or maybe IndieBound.org, which links to lots of independant bookstores. See, the thing is, Amazon does it. And right now, the method I have of doing this sort of thing for myself is sort of clunky and annoying. Amazon makes it easy, and tempting. I really like to support independant bookstores, but I am also very lazy.

Please help.

Thanks!

Love,
MetaMegan

>Hendricks

>I had the most delicious Gin and Tonic of my life last weekend when we were camping. I enjoyed it so much, I had to take this picture. Turns out, it was made with Hendrick’s gin. Slightly above my normal price point. I went to Liquor Mart and asked, “If I normally think gin is yucky, but I loved this, what can I get that is almost as good?” The answer was, “Just look for this on sale. You are going to be disappointed with everything else.”

But since it was mere hours before the season premiere of Mad Men, I didn’t have time to wait for a sale. And it was a special occasion…

I made my gin and tonic and then realize the upstairs TV no longer had AMC. So I tried to switch out the cable box from the basement with unfortunate results. Long story short, I poured my G&T into a jelly jar, screwed on the lid and biked to a friends house to watch Mad Men.

I felt like my Grandma, who always brought a pre-mixed martini to our house in a Lawry’s spice jar. Turning into my Grandma is a good thing. Totally worth the price of that bottle of gin.

>Buffalo Creek

>Last weekend we camped at Buffalo Creek, in the group site, with a ton of other people. You can’t tell from this view though, can you?


Close up of nap time:

And here is Jack with his twin from daycare. The school sends pictures of the kids each week, and sometimes it is hard to tell who is who.

>Girl’s Night(s)

>Everyone has been asking what I plan to do with my free time with the boys gone. I wasn’t really sure, but as soon as I was along in the house, I went to the bathroom without anyone coming in to talk to me, or asking if they could sit on my lap. After that all my dreams for my alone time were fulfilled and I wasn’t sure what to do next.

So I figured… pedis! I dropped Lucy off at Laund R Mutt for a bath and a nail trim and I went to Poshe for a pedicure of my own. Then Lucy and I unpacked all the camping gear and cleaned out the van. As a reward for my hard work, I went to get a massage. Ahhh. Girls’s weekend.

Today, the two of us are having a great time cleaning out a bunch of toys from the boys rooms. Won’t they be so excited to come home and have so much more space? I decided it was time to call it quits when I found myself putting more than 2 seconds of thought into, “How many bouncy balls should I keep and how many should I give to charity?” (But really, how many?)

Actually, the real reason I just flew up the stairs in a frenzy, and then needed to decompress by writing a blog post was this: Skunk. I was in the basement, and I started to smell a bad smell, that was sort of like cigarette smoke. Then it got a little stronger and it smelled faintly skunky. By the time I started to notice Lucy whining, and I wondered if I had closed the back door, the smell had grown to a presence. I could see it, and feel it and I was scared. I booked up the stairs and headed for the door, which was open. Lucy was just standing in the middle of the room looking worried. I shut the door and decided I needed to face that smell. I walked right up to her and stuck my nose in her freshly bathed fur and breathed in. Sweet, sweet dog shampoo smell. Sweet relief. I think the problem was that I had the fan sucking in air from the backyard, and a skunk definitely sprayed something nearby. But thank GOD it wasn’t Lucy. And I certainly don’t keep a score in my head about who is a better dog in certain categories, (because that would be crazy) but if I did, I would have to give the point to Lucy over Bean in Avoiding Being Sprayed By A Skunk.

Now that I have had my spa day, and my getting rid of massive amounts of toys day, what could possibly be next for tomorrow? Not even I know.

>Colorado Trail

>
We dropped Dave off at Waterton Canyon on Friday afternoon so he could start the Colorado trail. He met us at Buffalo Creek on Friday night and we camped Friday and Saturday. Dave took Saturday to rehydrate and rest because Friday was brutally hot. That was good news for me because it meant I had all day to mountain bike with the ladies. I had more fun biking than I can ever remember. I can’t really remember what it was like to mountain bike before I had kids, so maybe that was fun too – but since then I have always like the idea of biking, and I have done it, but I always felt like it was something I sort of had to do, and had to be back by a certain time, and I always sort of suffered through it. I don’t know if was the lack of a deadline for my return so Dave could have his turn, or the weather, or the awesomeness of the trail, or the good company, or the fact that maybe the Wii Active 30 day challenge got my legs in shape, or a combination of all of the above, but it was awesome.

Sunday, I met Grandmom and Grandad on I-70 and dropped the kids off with them and they headed to Breckenridge to meet Dave for Sunday night dinner.

Lucy and I headed home for some girl time. More on that tomorrow!

Follow Dave’s progress here.