Taking the Summer off

At the end of the spring, I made the decision to take off work for the summer to hang out with my children. For the past two and a half years, I have been working non-stop day and night. In fact, if I did not have my lap top on my lap, my children would ask about it.

This summer has really been amazing and has given me a chance to reconnect with my beautiful children. The best part about this summer so far has been having the ability to hang out and do absolutely nothing except for being with each other as well as the opportunity to be spontaneous.

I signed each child up for a week of summer day camp in staggered weeks so that I could spend some special alone time with each one. My daughter had her special week first while my son was in dinosaur camp. We really had a wonderful time ice skating, playing put put golf, eating ice cream, bungee jumping in the mall and working on art projects. The expression on her face was pure joy from the one on one attention and that was the best.

This week is my son's turn and today we ate ice cream, bungee jumped at the mall and watched a scary program about sharks. I am really looking forward to the rest of the week with him. I believe he will really benefit from this special week with mommy because he is such a touchy feely kind of guy.

While we only have a few weeks left of summer, I am definitely going to relish the time that we have left. I know that when we get back into the grind, I too will be very busy and our summer of bliss will come to a halt.

Building an Obstacle Course for my Son's 5th Birthday

Somewhere along the way, my son saw people trying to complete an obstacle course. I think it was on t.v. on one of those kids shows. People were falling down, getting knocked into the water and tripping into mud pitts and my son loved it. We noticed that he started trying to build his own obstacle courses around the house and constantly wanting to talk about them.

It only seemed fitting that we build him an obstacle course for his birthday party. We reserved the local park pavillion and started planning. In this case, it is kind of tricky because we don't want anyone to get hurt and these little guys are so accident prone. Here is what we have come up with so far:

- crawling through a 5 ft. long tunnel that rolls around on the grass
- hopping through inflatable tires
- crawling through a tunnel of balloons (made by attaching lots of balloons to a folding table)
- zig zagging through orange cones while getting shot by water guns
- driving a toddler little tikes car that is too small for these guys (the kind that you use your feet to go) from point A to B
- kicking a soccer ball into the net

We are still coming up with the course and hopefully will have a few more ideas. I will post an update with pictures as soon as the party happens. Wish us luck!

Austin Based Start Up MindBites.com is a Finalist SXSW Interactive

In a previous post, I wrote about the Austin based start up that I work for called MindBites.com that features people here in Austin teaching and sharing with the world how to do anything. We were extremely pleased and proud to find out that MindBites is a finalist in SXSW Interactive Educational category. We are up against some great companies and are happy to represent Austin in this category.

Now the fun begins. As the festival approaches, MindBites is working towards getting some votes and props for the SXSW Peoples Choice Award. This award is given out to only one of all the finalists chosen for Interactive Web Awards. We definitely need to make sure that an Austin based company wins this award. We have to keep the love inside of Austin.

Please click here to vote for MindBites that is in the Educational Category. You can vote once per day and believe me every single vote counts.

Turning Our Garage into an Old School Ice House at the Lake

We decided yesterday to turn our detached garage at the lake into an old school ice house. This is a very exciting development for us. We have a detached structure with a metal roof, two garage doors and the back wall completely louvered with screens. How perfect is that?

So.. now the fun part begins. We are thinking about an air hockey table, pool table, big picnic table, bar, neon signs- the whole shabang. How fun would that be?

Now my husband really does need to buy that souped up el camino that he found on ebay. Parking that outside our private "ice house" would be the cats meow. Maybe he could lower the tail gate and sit in the back with some nasty denim cutoffs and drink beer till his hearts content.

If anyone has any suggestions on how we could make this ice house the boss, please holler.

Surviving Valentines Week

Wow! I can not believe how crazy the week of Valentines is when you have young children in school. The entire week was filled with parties, making valentines, decorating boxes and even a Valentines day singing performance by my daughter's kindergarten class.

I used to think Valentines Day was just another opportunity for gold old fashioned money spending but I was wrong. It is actually a booming, all encompassing marketing enterprise. This is definitely one of those get them when their young scenarios.

My five year old daugther had to have the most beautiful decorated box in her class. We spent several days fine tuning it to perfection with beads, silk flowers, pom poms, doilies, crystal stickers, ribbon and fairy dust glitter.

Her box was probably the prettiest but there was a box in her class that was much more clever. This other clever Valentines box was actually a dinosaur where the shoe box was the body and it had an extending head and tail. I was totally caught off guard by this dino box. Now, a decorated shoe box has become old school and a three dimensional creature mailbox is now a neccesity. I want to point out that the child with the dino box was sick but his mother was sure to bring it up to school for the party.

Now the actual Valentine cards that go in the box was a separate issue. My little blooming artist insisted on hand making each Valentine for the twenty kids in her class. We spent over a week each evening coloring these little cards. When we got to school on the big day, all the other cards were store bought with loads of candy attached to them.

The other shocking development is that my five old year has been claiming that she has a "boyfriend" and it turns out to be true. She received a very special gift from him on Valentines day.

This gift was a heart shaped box of chocolates and a ceramic bear figurine. This is scary to me that this stuff starts so early. This little boy received not one but three Valentine cards from my daughter.

This gave me an immediate flashback to when I was in junior high. On Valentines day, you could buy carnations and either personally give them to the people that you liked or you could have them delivered by student council members. It was such a stressful day for a girl or at least for me. Never really knowing how many if any you would receive. God forbid you did not even receive one and had to take the walk of shame down the hall empty handed.

After all of this, I had to think about my husband and what I was going to do for him. Who has any time or creative energy after all of this?

MindBites.com, Instructional Marketplace for Sharing & Learning

I wanted to officially write about MindBites. MindBites.com is based in Austin and is a new online instructional marketplace for sharing and learning that just launched Oct. 07. Austin was the perfect place to launch this business because it has the perfect balance between artists, musicians, technology experts, entrepreneurs and film makers. Instructional "how to" videos on any subject go up for sale and download for $1.99 (exactly like itunes) and MindBites splits 50% with the author of the video or designated charity.

Most of the videos in all categories feature people from Austin teaching how to do things. For example, Greg Wolf from Knife Sharpest shows how to sharpen and throw knives, Phil Marburger, a Barton Creek Golf Pro, teaches golf instruction, Maudies Tex Mex has a lesson on how to make their famous salsa and pico, Cedar Door on how to make a Mexican Martini and other cocktails and lots of independent people in Austin not affiliated with any particular business.

MindBites.com is all about learning, enabling people to be able to make instructional content, sharing what they know and earning money for themselves or charity even if they have zero video/editing experience. MindBites wants to help and work with everyone who has something to share. This is truly a self-publishing platform for anyone from business owners, experts, life experts and ordinary people.

Cooking Sweet & Sour Red Cabbage- Candy to the Memory and the Senses

Red cabbage is one of those things that occurs in nature and is absolutely breathtaking when you slice it open. The sheer fact that nature can create such a color, pattern and contrast just blows my mind sometimes. I had a memory from when I was a child of red cabbage. Instantly, I was flooded with thoughts, times and occasions that it was served. I began to ask friends and family members if they remember eating red cabbage and everyone seems to agree that they had it when they were younger but do not have many occasions to eat it now. I could remember it's sweetness the most and decided that I was going to cook it for my children to pass on the memory and tradition.

As I began to chop the cabbage, I remembered the texture and more memories started coming back to me but I was still in awe of it's natural beauty. I really love it when food brings back strong, great memories from the past.

When the cabbage was all chopped up, it looked almost like a monochromatic, floral bouquet.

Instantly when I put the cabbage onto the stove and it started cooking, I experienced the smell and that completed the walk down memory lane for me. Red cabbage has such a distinct smell that you really are transformed back in time.

I would highly recommend giving it a try. I call this "food therapy" and it really works. The bonus is that it is much cheaper than retail therapy. Oh yes, I almost forgot, here is the recipe:

1 head of red cabbage, shredded or diced
2 sour apples, peeled and cut into cubes
4 slices bacon, ham or canadian bacon
4 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar
salt and pepper to taste.

Fry the bacon (ham or canadian bacon) in the skillet until brown and lave the fat and bacon in the skillet. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cover tightly and get the cabbage mixture very hot, then turn down the heat and let it cook slowly until tender (at least 1 hour). This dish may be fixed ahead of time and reheated. Some people call this sweet and sour, red cabbage. I don't think it is sour at all, just extra tasty.