I’ve spent my time online searching on how to uninstall/install a new dishwasher.  Yes, I did it myself.  How’s that for girl power?

My blood sugar levels are through the roof, I haven’t felt well in a while and I spend a lot of time sleeping. (36 out of 52 hours this last weekend alone.)

When I’m not sleeping, I am working.  Did you see the new getpaul web site launch? (It launched quietly at 4am one very early morning this last week.)  We are also working approximately 17 real estate transactions at the moment… plus all the property management and office staffing drama.  However, the staffing problem has been solved and I’m looking forward to announcing the Hoots we hired, once it’s official!

It’s stifling hot.  Yes, temperature-wise, but our A/C went out for 4 days and holding a hot computer on my lap wasn’t any fun.

It’s summer time. I am spending a lot of time with my adorable children. ‘Nuff said.

The idea came when I decided to take a chance and hired a graphic designer from eLance.com and boy oh boy was I was impressed.  I proposed a budget of $50 bucks and had approximately 10-12 proposals within 15 minutes of placing my request.  I chose a seemingly chic woman by the name of graphicdesignbytara or “T” out of San Diego, CA. This girl was fantastic and so easy to work with.  She made this job seem easy.

So, you’re one of the firsts to see it.  Not sure what I will use it for just yet. However, like I said, I’m open and welcome your opinions.

Foreigner concert 7-3-2010 Black Oak Mountain Amphitheater Lampe, MO

No doubt I have a flair for 70′s and 80′s music… okay all music… but Foreigner is probably one of my favorites which is so weird since a lot of their hits were before I was born in early 1978.  I guess this is what I get for having a cool mother (who was also very young) who hauled me around in the car listening to all of these seriously awesome bands.  Yes, these are the sounds of my childhood and I LOVED them!  It was also really nice to see The Black Oak Mountain Amphitheater re-open.

But back to the concert.  It rocked.  Kansas was good, Styx was better, but Foreigner was the best for sure.  With three bands that played, it was a long concert and we were there with our friends so needless to say, we had a good time and a good weekend worth documenting on the blog.

Before the concert with our good friends.

You see, my Flickr page is busting at the seams with photos.  Now that I think of it… maybe I should say that my 4 gig camera card in my digital camera is busting at the seams with photos to be uploaded to Flickr.  However, while perusing through my Flickr albums, I realized that there are people in almost every photograph.  Scenery may be beautiful, but it’s even prettier when there are smiling faces of your family and friends showing off the good times.  At least in my opinion, that’s true.

Now I guess I have reason enough to do some traveling so that I take scenery pics, I need a vacation anyway.  Like I said… too many irons in the fire.

As Smokey The Bear would say, “Only you can prevent forrest fires.”  Uhh, no I can’t because I have tried.  I am speaking of the figurative forrest fire, not the literal ones.  I’ve been known to have too many irons in the fire at one time, but my irons have caught fire and now I’m right in the middle of a huge forrest fire and trying to put it out.  But it’s what I love to do, so here’s the 911, I mean 411 of what’s up.

First, Springfield’s 2nd annual Walk To Cure Diabetes was this past Saturday, May 22, 2010 at Jordan Valley Park.  It was a fantastic day for it and you can see all of the pictures here.  We had just over 500 people there and raised $75,000 for type 1 research.  It was great to have close friends and family come in town for it.  There was even a post on it, written by Scott Strange (who drove down from KC) over at Strangely Diabetic.  Not to mention, Sarah Blacksher wrote about it too.  It was a huge event and I will post on it and my thoughts about it later.

Next on my radar is RE BarCamp St. Louis. June 14th at the Stegton Regency Banquet Center in St. Charles/St. Louis, MO. All my REALTOR® friends getting together to talk tech.  I’m so thankful for outstanding friends like Chris Drayer and Karen Goodman (just to name a few) for their help in getting this off the ground.  You guys surely rock!!

And of course, there are all of the continuing education courses.  It’s a renewal year for Missouri real estate agents and The Donald and I have been teaching classes like crazy. There’s one going on tomorrow.

My new company web site should launch this week (or next).  And who knows whatever happened to that getpaul iPhone app.

Following that is the Dexcom/Omnipod event in Springfield.  This is scheduled for June 24th and was technically supposed to happen this year, but it was put on hold.  Now it’s back and in full force.

And uh, there’s that personal blogging thing.  As usual, the ball gets dropped here too.  It’s dying of smoke inhalation.

I’m fighting with gravity and it’s winning.

Power 96.5 Jams radio station gets on my nerves.

I bent down to pick something up off the floor this morning. I got stuck and hurt myself getting back up.

Getting old sucks.

That is all.

Anyway, the backstory leading up to my last meetup was that the hubs and I took an extra-long weekend to go away to Kansas City.  I had one day of work stuff that I had to take of while we were there, but other than that, we had no plans.  We just wanted to hang loose, shop, maybe see a show, and just do something together.  I had tweeted out that we were in KC and I had a few responses from some of my type 1 friends that live in the area saying that we should get together for lunch.

So I met up with @Strangely_T1 and @kelsee for the first time.  There was no better place for us type 1s to meet up than The Cheesecake Factory, right? <insert irony here> Nonetheless, we indulged in carbolicious entrees and sugar-rich desserts.  It didn’t matter because no one was judging us, we all knew how it was.  We just tested, bolused and calibrated all of our devices and spent a couple of hours talking about life in general.  There was no awkwardness or nerve-wracking feelings of meeting up with strangers with these guys.  We are family, whether or not we meet in real life, all brought together by a bond we share calculating insulin to carb ratios.  It was a good time.  And yes, the cheesecake was worth the extra bolus.

T1D-Meetup at The Cheesecake Factory in Kansas City, MO 5-8-10. Jessica Hickok, Scott Strange & Kelsey Metcalf

I like to pride myself on having a sense of direction. I have a good idea on which way is North, East, South and West just like I know you should Never Eat Soggy Waffles.  Last week I traveled to Nashville, TN for a two day conference for Real Estate Barcamp Nashville (#REBCNASH) and Wordcamp Nashville. (#WCNASH).  Nashville is approximately an 8 hour drive almost directly east of Springfield, MO.  So if you travel on Highway 60 east of Springfield, you cross the great state of Missouri, go through a hodge-podge of small Kentucky towns, you’ll end up in the beautiful city dubbed the country music capitol of the world.  Not too hard, three states and just a couple of highway changes.

On a side note, the “camps” were amazing and worth the trip.  As expected out of an REBarcamp, I gained lots of knowledge and new ideas from my fellow colleagues in the real estate field.  And Wordcamp was a whole new thing for me where I could camp out (in a wi-fi enabled, air conditioned room) with fellow tech nerds who love the WordPress platform.  Holla!

I was lucky to have a friend come with me and we chose to the make the long trek back to Springfield after the closing sessions.  We left Nashville at approximately 5:00pm which put us crossing the Missouri State border and the dead simple, westward 4 lane highway back to Springfield around 9:00 pm.  It was dark and quiet highway and that is where I lost my beloved sense of direction (I can only guess).

Somewhere I decided to take an exit and drove 26 miles out of my way.  I didn’t realize it until I saw a sign that said “Welcome to Arkansas!” I yelped (not socially as in “Yelp!ed”, but as if I had been a kitty with my tail stepped on).  I looked at my friend and we both gasped “how the heck did we end up in Arkansas?!”  I guess I got sidetracked and lost my sense of direction.  The only way back to the right highway was to go back the 26 miles.  I think I made that 26 mile trek back in about 12 minutes because I was so mad at myself.

Go ahead and laugh.  But you can’t say that you’ve been in four states within 8 hours.  I’m now registering for Wordcamp Fayetteville.

Yeah...I'm not supposed to be here.

However, it is difficult to keep up with her and her fabulous teenage life. Thank goodness for Facebook, assuming she hasn’t blocked me from seeing the juicy stuff. I love seeing pictures of her at homecoming dances and snapshots of her and her friends.  I find myself being so proud of her, I only wished we lived closer.  (No doubt, the live-in babysitter thing would be nice.)

So in my walk down memory lane, I’ve compiled a short list of my favorite things about my favorite sister and I feel compelled to share it with you:

1. I was one of the first people who got to hold her when she was born in 1993.  It was the only thing that got my mind off of having a brand new drivers license and just wanting to be with my friends.
2. She saved my life when she was almost 4 years old.  My blood sugars had dropped extremely low and in my lethargic low of laying on the floor, she got the sugar bowl and a spoon and started spooning the sugar into my mouth until my Mom to come help.  She wasn’t quite 4 years old yet, but how she knew the seriousness of my type 1 diabetes and knew what to do.
3. To this day, she wants to be a nurse.  And after her heroic efforts listed above at such an early age, she’s bound to make an incredible nurse.
4. At age 5, she was the flower girl in my wedding and screamed her little head off when we left for our honeymoon.  Quite funny today, but pretty embarrassing back then.
   
5. When I see her today, we can pick up right where we have left off.  And it’s usually in the Sephora store in the mall.
6. I was the only freshman in college who knew all the words to Blue’s Clues “Whose Treasure Is This?!”
7. We have a secret across-the-room handshake that is based off of the noise made by Flubber in the famous movie.
8. I see her creating the same type of bonds with my oldest son that I had with her, when she was his age.

Thanks for letting me take a walk down memory lane.  I love my little sister, and since she now reads the blog, I feel this was the best place to tell her so.

Screen-free will mean anything with a screen is not allowed. No video games, no tv, no laptops or iPhones and (gasp!) no Twitter. Instead we will play a game together, go for a walk outside or just be together.  We’ve had to warn the boys however, that screen-free night doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be all about playing games.  We may have to pick up sticks in the yard so that it can be mowed, or we may have to fold and put away laundry among many other tedious chores.  But so far…it’s been all about the games… Connect 4, Sorry, Go Fish, you name it.

However, we need some suggestions from you.  What would you do if your night was screen-free?  Your comments on this post are highly encouraged (and needed), so please share your ideas whether or not they are kid-friendly.

We started screen-free night a couple of weeks ago, and it is not the first time we’ve tried it.  Hence the reason I am knocking out all of my work, blog posts and Tweeting on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  No worries…I’m still enjoying the Spring sunshine.  I am perched on a chair with my Mac in my lap on the deck in the backyard.  Life is good, with or without screens.