The first day of spring

It's a gorgeous day, temps in the 50s and very sunshiney -- fitting for the first day of spring. It's one of those days that demands that you work (or play) outside, because you know that spring weather is fickle and can turn ugly at a moment's notice. So here I am, sitting in my office, staring at my statistics book, while Jim (and the dogs) are outside, digging in the dirt.

--sigh

Giveaways

Over the years, I’ve attended lots of trade shows and bar association meetings. You find all kinds of interesting vendor giveaways in the exhibition sections. They range from the useful, like canvas tote bags/briefcases (a staple at the ABA annual meetings), pads of sticky notes, and pens, all the way to the “what the heck is this?” variety of trinket. And people get in line to snap up the stuff.

Every once in a while one item takes the lead in most-used (or over-used) giveaway. In fact, right after 3M™ came out with their Post-It® notes, sticky-note pads became the giveaway of choice. Then someone invented those squishy “anti-stress” thingies and soon every law firm in the country stamped their name on some variation and handed them out. This year’s winner: reusable grocery bags.

It’s a great idea; having shopped at Aldi for a long time, I heartily embrace the concept. Before we moved to Ohio we picked up two bags from Trader Joe’s. And I bought a couple from my local grocery chain over a year ago when they first offered them. This year, the trade show people seem to have bought into the idea big time. At the last two garden shows we attended, the major sponsors provided a bag to each attendee as they presented their ticket. It’s a good fit – gardening and ecological responsibility – and we eagerly snapped up our bags. But when I got home, one question surfaced: just how many does one household need? I figure I have at least a dozen now, and that doesn’t count the last couple of plastic Aldi bags that haven’t worn out yet. We simply don’t buy enough groceries to fill all those bags! So this begs the question:

Can they be recycled?

Garden Show Finds

You can tell that spring is just around the corner when the garden shows start popping up. This year, we were lucky enough to get to four. In February, we hit two in Cleveland and one in Akron, and this past Saturday we took a trip down to Columbus for the Central Ohio Home and Garden Show. We made a day of it, starting off at the North Market, which is an emporium of eateries, food purveyors, and a few clothing and household goods vendors. I spotted some Fiestaware, but at the prices they were asking, we decided a trip to the outlet store in Newell W.V. would actually be more economical. But we found a great place to eat breakfast, and Jim took lots of pictures, as usual. Check out his blog in the next couple of days for several in-depth posts about the market, the garden show and the cute restaurant we ate lunch at.

The show was held at the state fairgrounds, in two buildings connected by a tented walkway. The garden “part” was in one and the home-related in the other. We almost missed the “home” section, until someone we were chatting with told us about it. The garden part of the show was different than what we had seen before. The show had an overall theme, art in the garden or something like that, which the display gardens reflected. That made it a little more interesting as we walked through the displays. There weren't as many garden vendors as at other shows we've been to, but I still managed to find a couple of cute items. Oh, and Jim made a new friend.

This will look cute in the sunroom.

More yard art.

Jim and friend.

Well, I've survived three weeks of graduate school. So far, so good.Even the Statistics class is pretty interesting. However, I AM glad I let my graduate advisor talk me out of taking a third class. So much work, so little time. Some observations, in no particular order:

• Mandatory preparations for the first day of class include locating the nearest coffee vendor. This is especially important when your classes are held from 6 - 10 pm.
• I can still do the cross-campus dash in under 5 minutes. Thank you Leslie Sansone!
• The downtown walk/don't walk signs make no sense to me, so I've reverted to the Chicago school of crossing: wait til there's a break in traffic and make a run for it. I haven't lost my touch.
• It seems that the Transit Police can drive on the sidewalk. What's that all about?
• Some things haven't changed: academic types still prefer turtlenecks and blazers.
• Interesting, even after just three weeks, my brain feels like it's running on all its cylinders again, after just chugging along for so many years.

Coincidence?

We went to dim sum Saturday after the Garden Show. This was my fortune:

An optimistic attitude is half of success.

Believe these things or not, but the timing was interesting . . . .

Making lemonade

It’s time for a change. Actually, it’s been time for a change for several years. For a long time I’ve been restless, thinking that there must be something interesting out there that doesn’t involve actually practicing law, but a nice salary, 5 weeks vacation and a job without much heavy lifting kept me nice and comfortable.

Sometimes life has to give you a little push. This one came in the form of an announcement that my office is closing at the end of this year. I had two options: move to Rochester NY or move on. I chose to move on. So I’m embarking on a new adventure.

I’m now a graduate student at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Studies at Cleveland State University, working toward my Masters degree in Nonprofit Administration and Leadership (it’s kind of like an MBA only for nonprofit entities). Classes started this week. All I can say is . . . this is going to be fun!

When life hands you lemons . . .

The great cranberry sauce escapade

Christmas Day started out pretty low-key. We just hung out, trying to stay out of the way while dinner preparations were begun. It was the first time in years that I wasn’t doing Christmas dinner, so it almost didn’t feel like Christmas. So when Katie asked us to run out for some cranberry sauce, we just jumped into the car and headed for the grocery store. Which was closed, of course. Down the road was an open store, which turned out to be an Asian market. It was a neat place, but not only did they not have cranberry sauce, I’m not sure they knew what we were asking for. We then came across a Walgreens. They have a small food section, so we tried our luck there. They had one can of the jellied version left, which we bought. We regarded this as only a partial victory, since we weren’t sure (a) one would be enough and (b) whether we were supposed to get this kind or the whole berry kind. So on we went. We found a Subway restaurant where two police cars were parked, so Jim did his “I’m from Cleveland, my daughter sent me out for some cranberry sauce, do you know where there’s an open grocery store?” routine. They sent us to an Albertson’s, which was closed. In the meantime, we found a Mexican grocery store which only had the jellied sauce in stock, so we bought one can, just in case the can we bought at Walgreen's wasn't enough. But we were still in search of the whole berry sauce. A few consultations with the rental car company map, and we wound our way to a retail district that I recognized, having already been there with Katie, where there was another grocery store. Not only was it open, but it had lots of both kinds of sauce. We grabbed two cans of the whole berry stuff and headed to the checkout. Then it got kind of weird. The clerk asked us if we had a preferred card. We said no, we’re from out-of-town. Do we have a Safeway Card (it was owned by Safeway)? No, we said, but we have an old Dominick’s card from when we lived in Chicago. She practically squealed when she told us that’ll work! So using our old phone number we got the sale price on our two cans of sauce. Off we went, feeling we had saved Christmas and relishing (ooh – sorry!) our little Christmas adventure.

The fruits of our labor! (pun definitely intended!).