Everyone's Happy at the Farmers Market

Saturday morning, we all got up early and headed to the St. Paul Farmer's Market.

This was the first time all five of us had gone.  Frankly, in years past, it seemed like a lot of work.  Diaper bags and toys and pacifiers and such.  But with Caleb and Noah being older now (and Eli, who loves riding in the wagon) we thought we'd give it a shot.

As soon as I got there, something struck me.

Everyone's happy at the Farmer's Market.

There are no timelines.  No lists.  No agendas.  No worries over lines.

Everyone is there because they want to be.

They are there in their grubby t-shirts sporting messy hair or hats (to cover the messy hair or protect the bald heads).  And no one cares.

We pulled our wagon around.

Noah got the boot once we started buying stuff.

We did some people watching while we drank hot coffee.

We ran into my old high school friends, Kelly and Chris and their boys (and no that isn't them above).  That's one of those great things about Minnesota.  Big enough that there are things to do, but small enough that you almost always run into someone you know.

We learned that next time we need to bring sunglasses.

We shopped for flowers, fresh veggies and vegetable plants.

We stopped to admire the colors and smell the smells.

We ate donuts.  At least the kids did.

And we left, happy and relaxed with a wagon full of great summer finds.

 I can see why everyone is happy there.  It's a pretty great place.

The Day I Propositioned David Letterman

Yesterday I promised to tell you the story behind this hat (and why I am making that face).

My first job out of college, I worked in public relations for Marshall Field's in Chicago.  There is nothing quite like doing retail PR to give you a taste of everything that is out there.  Fashion, finance, food and wine, events, drama, business and celebrities.  Working at a flagship store in a major city, lots and lots of celebrities.

Shortly after I began working there, I got a call at the end of a day.  It was a producer from the "Late Show with David Letterman."  He was going to be filming a week's worth of shows in Chicago and they were doing a bit with Dennis Rodman who, at that point, was with the Chicago Bulls and constantly in the news.  In particular, he was getting quite a bit of press for his dressing in drag gimmick.

NYTimes

The Letterman show had a sketch planned for one of the Chicago shows where Rodman was going to give Letterman a tour of Chicago.

The wondered if we wanted to be a part of it.  The next day.

Um, yeah!

The idea was for them to film the two guys walking into the Marshall Field's State Street store, cut the shot and show them leaving with Rodman in drag.

I made arrangements to close off a corner of the store towards the end of the day and met the crew.

Shortly thereafter, Rodman and Letterman showed up.  Rodman wasn't really so keen on their idea anymore.  He was claiming not to really be in a drag kind of mood.  Pretty much pitching a giant diva fit.

Talking with the producers, I threw out the idea that maybe he'd be willing to do it if he weren't the only one in drag.  Could we get Dave in a dress, too?

They jumped on it and, in no time, we had Letterman on board to put on a dress.

I ran up to the plus size department and found a dumpy, shapeless shift to put on him (the guy is tall).

We were now running out of time and Rodman was starting to get antsy.

Within minutes, Letterman had changed into his dumpy dress in the security office and Rodman was in his over-the-top drag dress.

I opened the office door and they got ready for the shot.

It was them I realized that Letterman's dress had the security tag still hanging near the neck of his dress.  He stood there as I tried to get the clamp close enough to him to remove the tag.  It wasn't working.

And then I did it.

I turned to him and said:

Mr. Letterman, I either need you to bend over or take off your dress.

His eyebrows went up into his hairline.

No!  No!  No!  I didn't mean that.  Take it back!  Take it back!

I am pretty sure I just propositioned David Letterman while he was dressed in drag!

He opted to take off his dress.

I quietly removed his tag and he got dressed.

Neither of us spoke.

I sheepishly left the room.

They filmed the bit.  He gave me back my dress.

And I did the walk of shame back to my office.  Used dress in hand.

A week later this hat arrived in the mail without a note or anything.

Yup, pretty sure I propositioned David Letterman and all I got was this hat.


I searched long and hard for the video of the entire segment, but I couldn't find it.  The best I could do was this clip which, unfortunately, ends just before the bit:

Day 26 of the Great Declutter - (Not) Wearing Too Many Hats

Okay, so in full disclosure, I once was a sorority girl.  Well not really like a sorority girl.  And yes, I said "like" there intentionally.  I was once in a sorority and I did used to wear a lot of sorority baseball hats with a ponytail pulled through the back (we're talking 15-18 years ago, people).

Something like this.

But I no longer have any sorority baseball hats.  (Ratty sorority sweatshirts are another topic.)

However, while we are known to wear a lot of hats around here, figuratively, we are also known to throw on a hat on a Saturday morning.

But not this many.

Between us, we had more 25 hats. 

Why?  Well as I looked at them, most of them represented something to us.  A memory.  An accomplishment.  A team.  A story (and a really good story follows the last hat, I'll share it with you Friday).  But in reality we only wear a handful of them.

I decided to take my own advice and write about the hats that had a story and then let go of them.

Starting here.

See?  Amazing stories.  Okay, so there is no story here.  It's a completely blank, beige hat.  And we had three of them. Hmmm.  Moving on.

Oh yeah, this was back when I was a killer runner and ran in this race in Chicago.  Okay, so I never ran the race.  And I have never run if I wasn't being chased.  And really, I have never been chased.  I got this when I worked on this account in Chicago.  I will admit I think I kept it and sometimes wore it because maybe people just might think I was athletic.  I mean look at those guns!  Who wouldn't call me an athlete?

Thrifty Molly coming out here.  Pretty sure this was 97 cents at Old Navy several weeks after the Fourth of July one year.  So I bought it thinking I would wear it on future Fourths of Julys.  But really, I try to actually do my hair on the Fourth of July because, you know, we take photos.  And I am vain like that.

Now we're getting somewhere.  Lutsen is the area of the north shore where we go several times a year.  I am pretty sure I bought this hat there once when I had, well, bad hair.  So I'll take it back up there for future bad hair occassions.

This is my hiding from the paparazzi who stalk the rich and famous.  Cause, you know, I am neither.  But I did go to Aspen once.  And I bought a hat to prove it.  Alas, it didn't make me rich nor famous.  And while it was a great week with great friends, it was more than six years ago.

I dug into Brian's hats.  And promised I wouldn't make him mug for the camera.  But I did find these gems.

Yes, that is dust.  And yes, that is me protecting the name of the company.  But I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a gross generalization.  If you have dusty hats, you need to get rid of them.

Next up, while this is Brian's hat, I take credit (or fault) for it.

Again, thrifty Molly here.  This was on clearance at some point.  And it seemed perfectly brilliant at the time to think it would be great for Guinness-loving Brian to wear on a future St. Patrick's Day.  Never mind the fact that we have three young kids and haven't "celebrated" St. Patty's anywhere but our couch in, oh, nine years.

That got us down to this.  Which Brian then whittled down significantly.

And in the process, we got rid of 3 pounds of hats, bringing the total to:

 445 pounds

But today I leave you with this image.  Promising a great story to go along with it Friday...

Wordless Wednesday - When Clever Goes Unintentionally Crass

Driving home Tuesday I was feeling like I wasn't going to have anything good for a Wordless Wednesday.

And then I saw this.

Be sure to read it as two distinct lines (and not the way they intended it to be read):

Driving by at 30 miles an hour I read it as:

JESUS STRAIGHTEN YOUR CAN OUT

Didn't even catch the word "life."

Hmmm...

Learning to Hula Hoop

There were a lot of moments that struck me over the weekend.

But there was one in particular.

This one.

We all spotted her as she shopped.  She tried on clothes and shoes and looked at knick knacks.

But all the while she kept the hula hoop on her arm.  It was hers and she wasn't going to let it go.

As she came up front to pay for her finds, she ran into a friend.  Her friend was thrilled to see that she had found a hula hoop, evidently knowing she had wanted one for some time.

After she paid up, she asked how one did the hula hoop, anyway.  After a few tips from the crowd, she gave it a shot.

As she swung her hips, the hula hoop quickly fell down her body.  She laughed.  We laughed.  She tried.  She failed.

And quite frankly, she looked kind of silly trying.  Really, who doesn't look silly doing the hula hoop after age 8?

But I found myself admiring the heck out of her.  Here she stood in front of a group of women half her age, complete strangers, strangers with cameras and smart phones, and she was tackling something new.  No it was neither pretty nor graceful.  It didn't come easily.  But she was trying it.  She didn't care.  And she was laughing at herself along the way.

She didn't care if she couldn't hula hoop to save her life.

She didn't let fear or embarrassment get in the way.

She was there, trying something new and loving every second of it.

In that simple moment I stopped and was in awe of how willing she was to try.  To fail.  To laugh.

I hope the next time some new challenge catches my eye that I remember the hula hoop lady.  And that I am willing to pick up whatever proverbial hula hoop may be in front of me and give it a twirl.


The wonderful photos in this post were taken, with permission by the hula-hooper, by my friends Trish and Darcie.

We Fought Child Hunger

And I think we did a darn good job of it, if I do say so myself.

Thursday, we kicked off the weekend of events by having a blogger social event and food drive at Nye's Polonaise in Minneapolis.  More than 45 bloggers from all over the Twin Cities gathered.

By the end of the night, our voices were hoarse, our feet were tired and we had collected 170 pounds of food.

 Here is a quick video from the night:

Saturday began bright and early with a huge rummage sale.  We had donations from more than 30 families and literally thousands of items.  The majority of things were priced between 25 cents and $1.

I can't thank all of our donors, volunteers, bloggers and friends enough.  Their support was amazing.

And let me tell you, if you don't like doing garage sales because of the haggling over prices, host one for charity.  In all of the hundreds of people I checked out, I only had one try to negotiate the price.  And most people would pay for their items and turn around and put their change in the ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Ends Here donation box.

After three amazing hours, the rain started. Followed by the thunder, lightening and incredible winds.

Thank goodness I had booked us in a shelter house.

I'd try to sum it all up, but it would get to be a long post, so here is a visual recap of the day.


Yes, we raised more than $900 which will provide more than 6,300 meals right here in Minnesota!

Thank you to my blogging friends for your great support and generosity, to our community for coming out to support a great cause, and to mother nature for not striking anyone with lightening.

To read more of the posts from the women who joined in this weekend, check out these links (or add yours if you are one of them!)

There is always a silver lining

Last night at dinner, I was commenting on how tired I was, having had an hour and a half of sleep, gotten up at 5:00 a.m. and been up and on my feet all day.  Noah turned to me and said, quite earnestly:

At least you didn't get up at 4:18 and barf in your bed!!

I replied:

Noah, you didn't get up at 4:18 and barf in your bed.

He nodded, saying:

Yeah, but I did it once and it was really not fun.

Good point, little man, good point indeed.

I am a Renegade. A Rebel.

I am a wanted woman.

Today, in an effort to promote our Child Hunger Ends Here rummage sale, my friend, Angie and I, took our lunch hour to head out and put up some signs.

Two hours later, I drove down the street where the sale is and all of the signs were down.  And not like down on the ground.

Gone.

To say I was livid would be an understatement.

Turns out that, despite having the blessing of the city, permit office and parks and rec office to do the charity sale, I didn't have the blessing of the sign gods.  Also know as the maintenance crew.

And so down the signs came.

So in the absence of clear directional signs, I'll remind Minnesota readers once more:

25+ Families Rummage Sale

100% Proceeds to Feeding America through ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Ends Here

Saturday, May 22, 2010

8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Highland Park Shelter

Most things priced 25 cents to $2

(that will be the one at 1227 Montreal, but don't look for the address, there isn't one.  Instead, it is on the north side of the street from the domed building that is Circus Juventas.  Head to the back of the park right next to the playground with the giant slide.  You'll know you are in the right spot by the noticeable absence of signs.)

However, whether or not you spot me there seems questionable.

Afterall, I may be imprisoned for grand sign taper-y.

A Hundred Year Problem

Noah went with his class to the Minnesota Arboretum a few days ago.  He was ecstatic to get to bring home one sunflower plant and one tree seedling.

He told me he had it all planned out.  He knew just where we would put the Kentucky Coffeetree seedling.  And that it would grow and be big and beautiful and give our very sunny, but very small, city lot some shade.

Hearing that, I figured I should probably at least give the information a quick once-over.

Um, what?  You sent my kid home with a tree seedling that is going to be wider than the size of my small city lot?

And outlive us?

I got thinking this might be one time we might have to do the opposite of the directions.  We might just have to plant this somewhere we just might accidentally mow over it.

Then again, I have one little boy that is uber-excited to grow a tree.  And how can I resist that missing tooth smile?

And so planting a Kentucky Coffeetree is in my future.

Minnesota Bloggers Get Together

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to go to our local FOX station this morning to talk about my involvement in the ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Ends Here campaign and particularly to share the scoop on the giant rummage sale we're having this weekend to benefit the cause. 

You can watch the clip here.

If you're here looking for details on the sale you read my post about it by clicking here.

In the meantime, tonight we are kicking off the Minnesota efforts to fight child hunger with a Minnesota Blogger Get-Together and food drive.

Can I even tell you how excited I am to spend the evening with this group of women?  If you aren't joining us, be sure to follow the #MinnBloggersEvent tweets tonight to follow along virtually.


Allison, O My Family

Amelia, Amelia Sprout

Amy, One Sassy Family

Andrea, Blah Blah Babycakes

Andrea B., Living Changerously

Andrea M, Thomberg Times

Angie, Fumbling Toward Family

Anna, Motherly Law

Beth, The Vacation Gals

Carrie, 4 The Love of Family

Carrie R., Pocket Your Dollars

Cindy, Healthy Heart Journey

Crystal, Cafe Cyan and WCCO Food Blog

Darcie, Gust Gab

Debbie, Travel Dither

Elizabeth, Random Thoughts from My ADD Brain

Jen, Prior Fat Girl

Jen W., Grow with Graces

Jennifer, Between Girl

Jennifer P., Unplanned Cooking

Jenny, Mama Nash

Kara, KaBlog

Kate E., Edenborg Edition

Kate S., Kate in the Kitchen

Kate-Madonna, Girl Meets Geek

Laura A., Mallory's Mishmash World

Laura, Pocket Your Dollars

Liz H., Kitchen Pantry Scientist

Liz P., Random Thoughts of a Lutheran Geek

Mary, Fit This Girl

Missy, The Marketing Mama

Molly H., Tastebud Tart

Molly K., Seriously

Molly S., The Snyder 5

Robin M., WOMN Focus

Robin R., Just After Bedtime

Samantha, Birdseed in My Bread

Samara, Simplicity in the Suburbs

Sarah Jane, SaraJaneML

Stephanie, Mama 23 Bears

Stephanie M., Fresh Tart

Suzi, Pink Vanilla Cupcakes

Tracy, Sellabit Mum

Make it a great Thursday!

Breaking a Bad Habit

I have a silly confession.  It's not even really a confession.  It's more of an admission of laziness, or over-the-top multitasking, or an inflated sense of self importance (okay I am just kidding about that one).


I have a fancy toothbrush.  But it's a toothbrush for idiots, too.  It is electric and it runs for exactly two minutes.  So, in theory, I should know when I've hit that official "I've brushed for two minutes and my dentist is proud of me" moment.


But I never make it there.  I probably stop at about a minute and a half.  All. The. Time.


I know, dumb, right?


Cause me leaving the house 30-seconds earlier is so not going to make a difference in anything (and thus the inflated sense of self-importance ;)


But that's what I do.  Just a bad habit.


My kids are even worse.  To them, two minutes is evidently more like 15 seconds.  


But after my mad skills throwing out the first pitch last week, I was again approached by Metro Dentalcare.  They were kicking off a campaign to encourage people to brush their teeth for two minutes a day, twice a day for two weeks.


Dude.  What is up?  Have they been spying on us?  Kind of like that look the hygienist gives you when you tell her that you floss "a few times a week."  (Side note, I had no idea that "hygienist" was spelled that way.  Don't think I have ever written that word before.)

So with two sand timers on their way to us in the mail (and my aforementioned idiot-proof toothbrush), we'll give it a shot.  We're committing to do it.  We will brush our teeth for 2 minutes a day, twice a day, for 2 weeks.


But I want you to join in, too.

Here's the skinny.  They are going to be keeping track of anyone who blogs about joining the challenge, anyone who tweets about it (use #twiceaday as your hashtag, and yes, you can tweet that as much as you want), or tags them on Facebook.  You can do all those things as much as you like.  

Why?  Because at the end of the two weeks, they are going to give away four pairs of Minnesota Twins tickets.  

Alright, gotta go.  Time to help brush the kids' teeth.

Disclosure Statement: The giveaway is hosted by Metro Dentalcare and the winner will be selected by and notified by them.  There is a small group of Minnesota bloggers participating in this challenge, and none of us are eligible to win the tickets, but the winners will be selected from the larger group, not from any one blog's readers.  However, Metro Dentalcare has invited me to attend a St. Paul Saints game as their guest with the other bloggers.  We'll be the loud ones over there, thankyouverymuch..

Wordless Wednesday - Eight Years Ago

Amazing how time flies.

Eight years ago this week, we were packing up our one bedroom condo loft in Chicago and preparing for a move to Minnesota.

We had one kid.  One (two-door) car.  One condo we couldn't seem to sell.  One fellowship.  One spouse with no job (namely, me).  No house.  And one room in my parents' house to live in.

And we were rich.  We had each other.  We had our sense of humor.  We had family and friends.

Today?

Still rich, really.  And still, in all the right ways.

What Else Does a Girl Need?

Caleb finally remembered to bring home my Mother's Day gift from school.  Yes, eight days after Mother's Day.

It was a coupon book where he came up with things he could do for me.

I love how he wrote "I Heart Mom" in black on black.  Kind of like a code.

So it started with offering up a joke.

From there, he offered a 5 minute massage, followed by a coupon for a 4 minute massage.  I am assuming he thought that his hands would be getting tired.

Next he offered to read me a book.

Artwork was next on the list.

Followed by a family bike ride.

And then, the thing all moms want. 

A free pet worm (or wrom).  Which is great because, frankly, I have been getting tired of paying for for worms up until now.

And the grand finale?  The saving the best for last?

A pet slug.  You'll note this one is not mentioned as being free.  So I may have to pay for it.

I shared with Brian the contents of the book this morning and his comment summed it up best:

At least the kid knows what he has to offer.

Doing Good, Together, Minnesota-Style

As you may recall, this is a big week here in Minnesota as I am rallying together with dozens of other local bloggers to help fight child hunger through ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Ends Here campaign.

I'll be sharing details throughout the week, but the long and short of it is that Thursday I'm hosting a social Bloggers Get Together (with a food drive for those who have food to donate).  If you are interested in joining us, you can read more about it here.

And Saturday we are having a giant, huge, ginormous rummage sale.  Can I tell you how impressed I am with the generousity of my fellow bloggers here in Minnesota?

At this point, there are more than 30 women (and their families) who are donating their items and their time to join us.  Some of these women I know well.  Some I have met once.  And some I have never met.  But here they all are, joining with me for 5 hours (to say nothing of the time we have all spent cleaning out our houses) to see how much we can raise.

Did you know that just $1 provides 7 meals?  So if we can raise even $500 this weekend that will be 3,500 meals for children right here in our community. 

In preparation for the sale, I offered to host anyone who wanted to give up their Sunday night to help me do some old school marketing for the sale (read: we made signs).

Jen, Jennifer and Trish joined me.

We talked.  We laughed.  We had wine.  We had snacks.  We had cookies (and even dipped them in milk).

The best part?  Before last night, I had only met Jen and Trish once in person and Jennifer and I had never met offline.  Yet here they were.  Giving up their Sunday night to smell permanent markers, look at far too many sheets of neon pink paper and eat cookies.

To help me, to help the whole group, do something good.

It's going to be a great week.

*Disclosure: I am honored to be a blogging correspondent for ConAgra Foods during this campaign.  As such, ConAgra Foods has provided me with background, information and a stipend to cover some of the costs I will incur.  The words and beliefs are mine.