For a Special Boy

Picture of the Day for 3/31/2013. My niece Corinne brought her boyfriend Ian to Easter dinner where he was presented with a candy-filled Easter basket and a card compliments of my sister. Paula admitted she was under a severe time crunch when she was purchasing a card for Ian which is the reason why he ended up with one for a Special Boy!

New Age Fair

Picture of the Day for 3/30/2013. I attended a New Age fair today that some friends were participating in. VERY interesting experience. One of the exhibitors told me I have a lovely aura- purple around my head and all sparkly. Cool! This contrasts with what a self-proclaimed shaman told a friend of mine. He observed me talking on the phone outside the exhibit hall and said that I was stuck in 2012 and have not moved into 2013 due to my "baggage." I guess I'm not enlightened since I wanted to kick his shins for being presumptuous enough to do a "reading" on me without my permission. Turns out this guy was freaking out attendees to the point one of the organizers of the event had to be notified.

I Still Look Young!

Picture of the Day for 3/29/2013. I was showing a picture of myself from high school to my great-niece Sadie and my great-nephew Ethan yesterday. Don't be alarmed- this was not a random act of self-indulgence; it was germane to the conversation we were having. Sadie kept on looking down at the picture and then up at me. She was obviously making comparisons in her head and I was wondering, "Oh Lord, what is she thinking?" I was soooooo relieved when she said, "You still look young." Phew!

Rabbit Ears?!

Picture of the Day for 3/28/2013. My great-niece Sadie joined us for family lunch today. She placed her Disney Princess cap on my head and snuck behind me to do rabbit ears. I'm outraged! Blatantly disrespectful! Does she not understand she should treat her beloved great-aunt with veneration and deference?!?!

Cute girl.

Plastic Pink Flamingos

Picture of the Day for 3/27/2013. These plastic pink flamingos littered my next door neighbor's house today. Few things make me happier than seeing a flock of plastic pink flamingos. As you can tell, I'm easily amused.

Two Ingredient Cookies

Picture of the Day for 3/26/2013. An acquaintance had been telling me about 2-ingredient cookies made from oatmeal and ripe bananas so I decided to give them a try. The verdict? Meh.

Yippy Dogs

Picture of the Day for 3/25/2013. I met with my tax accountant today. When I returned to my car there were two little yippy dogs in the car next to me. I have no pithy observations about the dogs nor any cute stories to share. This just happens to be the most interesting visual image of the day. I spent most of the day getting ready for the meeting and didn't think a picture of my financial records would be that compelling of a topic for my picture of the day blog.

Let's Get Drunk and Be Somebody

Picture of the Day for 3/24/2013. I'm on an email distribution list for a 90-year-old retired test pilot/Air Force colonel. (That's a long story how that happened!) He's a sharp one and his emails are always entertaining. He often recounts stories from his days in combat and test flight. I'm thinking he used to live hard and drink hard as he frequently sends out this particular message on Saturday evenings. Sounds just like something an old test pilot would say. It delights me every time I get this email.

Good-Bye Kitty

Picture of the Day for 3/23/2013. I adore my voice teacher Bonnie's cat. She always comes to greet me since she knows I'm her buddy who will scratch her back by her tail. She LOVES this. This cat's health has been declining over the past year or two and I found out today that Bonnie will be putting her to sleep sometime next week. Dammit. I got down on the floor so I could pet her and give her one last back scratch. She licked my hand and purred loudly. I'm glad I got to say good-bye.

Spring in Utah

Picture of the Day for 3/22/2013. This is what spring in Utah looks like. Sigh.

Nerd Alert

Picture of the Day for 3/21/2013. It's been awhile since I've blogged about extreme nerdy behavior on my part. I watched the trailer for the new Star Trek movie repeatedly today. And by repeatedly, I mean A LOT.

Vegetables

Picture of the Day for 3/20/2013. I met with my personal trainer today who reviewed the food log I've been maintaining on an online bootcamp. She about fell over when I mentioned that I love vegetables since based on my food log, you would never know that. Going forward, I promised to get at least three servings of vegetable a day. This promise necessitated actually purchasing some vegetables.

Answers to Life's Big Questions

Picture of the Day for 3/19/2013. Do you ever wish you could just do a Google search to find what you're looking for in life? I'm feeling rather at loose ends today.

Hooters Has Great Wings

Picture of the Day for 3/18/2013. I love "firsts" in my life and I experienced one today. For the "first" time ever in my whole life I ate at a Hooters restaurant. Say what you will, they have GREAT wings. Yum. 

Sunday Drive

Picture of the Day for 3/17/2013. Took a Sunday drive up to the Snowbird resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon. It's the first time I've driven in the canyons since my dad passed away in 2011. I used to take him on a drive through the mountains every Saturday afternoon after lunch. I soooooooooooooooo miss those excursions with him. Even at 90 years of age and being a lifelong resident of Utah, he never got over being amazed at the beauty of the landscape. It was so endearing. 

Family Party

Picture of the Day for 3/16/2013. I hosted a party at my home this evening. My entire family along with some friends showed up. At one point I think there were 20 people in my house. I actually wasn't stressed out about having that many people at my place which I think means that hosting the Merrill family Christmas party might be in my future this year.

The Living Planet Aquarium

3/15/2013. Visited the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake City today. Saw the following:

Penguins


Jelly Fish


Blue Frogs


Piranhas

Wendover Airfield

Picture of the Day for 3/15/2013. Visited the historic Wendover Airfield (located on the Utah/Nevada border). This military base played a large role in World War ll training operations due to its remote location and uninhabited terrain. At that time, it was the largest bombing and gunnery range in the world. It also served as the location where Paul Tibbets oversaw the preparations for dropping the first atomic bombs. It was cool seeing the hangar where the Enola Gay and Bockscar B-29 planes were housed.

Temple Square

Picture of the Day for 3/14/2013. Took a friend to Temple Square which I believe is Utah's #1 tourist attraction. I think it's a law that you have to visit if you're an out-of-state visitor to Salt Lake City.

Gaining Some Traction

Picture of the Day for 3/13/2013. Every Monday we post a new free speech therapy download on our website, www.teachspeechnow.com. I also announce that the new download is available on our Facebook page which has a whopping 42 followers- most of whom are friends and family. As the administrator of the page, I get to see the stats for each post- number of total views, number of organic views (post appeared in our followers' news feeds), and number of viral views (post that has been shared by our followers). It's been fun to see how our posts have been gaining traction. We've gone from less than 20 views per post to over 40.

Where is Evadeane Gray?

Picture of the Day for 3/12/2013. A woman in my neighborhood, Evadeane Gray, recently had a birthday that was noted in a church bulletin. Mrs. Gray is a true woman of mystery as in all my 50 years of "off and on" living in this neighborhood, I've NEVER seen her- even though she lives next door to my voice teacher and she's the mother of a church youth leader of mine from when I was a teenager. Just once I would love to get even a tiny glimpse.

I Miss Richard Larsen

Picture of the Day for 3/11/2013. I really miss my buddy Richard Larsen from work. He's now working in California and I'm working from home. Now I'm forced to go trolling for chocolate after hours by myself in my own home. Not quite as fun. 

I'm waxing nostalgic because I saw these Fernwood Candy Almondettes at the supermarket today. Here's the product description from the Fernwood Candy website: 

An Easter tradition since the 1950s, Almondettes are a combination of creamy Fernwood divinity that has been coated in the perfect combination of milk chocolate and crushed almonds.

Yum.

Richard introduced this candy to me so I always think of him when I see Almondnettes. 

Of course I texted a picture of them to Richard to torment him since they aren't available in California. Hey- I may miss him, but I'm not above tormenting him. C'mon. 

Christmas Swap Meet

Picture of the Day for 3/10/2013. Why put away Christmas decorations immediately when you can wait three months to do so? That's been my philosophy. That doesn't mean I didn't move the Christmas decorations. After Christmas, I stacked them all along a ledge in preparation for the moment when I FINALLY felt like packing them up. With all the decorations jam-packed together, it kind of looked like I was holding a Christmas swap meet. 

I FINALLY decided to tackle the project today. Phew. 

Cleaning the Church

Picture of the Day for 3/9/2013. It was my assigned week to help clean the chapel before Sunday services. I've managed to finagle my way out of fulfilling my cleaning duties for years now so I figured it was about time I provide some service to my church- meager as it may be. I volunteered to vacuum the chapel which took about an hour. That's quite a wide expanse of carpet! As I was finishing up people came in to set up for a funeral. It was gratifying to know I had made the chapel look nice for the event. 

That's What You Get for Being Considerate

Picture of the Day for 3/8/2013. As my sister Robynne and I were walking into the Yarrow hotel for the 2nd day of the USHA conference, she suddenly burst out laughing. I couldn't figure out what was so funny until she pointed out her shoes- one brown and one black. She had gotten dressed in the dark to avoid waking up her husband Will who was still in bed. That's what you get when you're a considerate spouse. Aside from our fellow vendors who we pointed this out to, I'm sure no one noticed.

2013 USHA Conference

Picture of the Day for 3/7/2013. It's the first day of the Utah Speech and Hearing Association (USHA) annual conference up in Park City, UT where my sister Robynne and I are exhibiting our You Can Teach Speech Now products. These conferences are so much fun. We enjoy speaking with all the attendees and getting to know our fellow vendors. What we really like is seeing how our products are so well-received. We were the only vendor there selling speech therapy workbooks so that was nice not having any competition.

I'm Too Distracted to Read

Picture of the Day for 3/6/2013. Here's the latest book I'm reading. I think it's going to take me a year to finish this novel. It's not that it isn't engaging and well-written. It is. I just seem to have developed a case of adult attention deficit order. Oh wait- I've got to check Facebook. I'll only spend a minute. Uh huh. Oh wait- I'm going to play Plague, Inc. on my iPhone. I'll only spend a minute. Yeah right. Oh wait- I'll sit down and watch TV. Just for a minute. That's a dirty lie.

I miss reading.

Conference Brochure

Picture of the Day for 3/5/2013. My sister Robynne and I are exhibiting at the 2013 Utah Speech and Hearing Association conference up in Park City, Utah later this week. I've been working on a 2-page brochure to hand out to the attendees. I'm finding it's going to be pretty pricey to get 100 color copies printed. I finally found a place that will print them for $45- and that was the really low bid.

Henchman Reading Material

Picture of the Day for 3/4/2013. My great-nephew Ethan was showing me the latest series of books he's been checking out at his school library- Return to the Library of Doom. Very appropriate reading material for a young henchman in training I'd say.

Free Speech Therapy Download Mondays

Picture of the Day for 3/3/2013. Robynne and I have instituted Free Download Mondays* on our You Can Teach Speech Now website. In order to make sure each new free speech therapy exercise is available to the public first thing Monday morning, I post the document late Sunday evening. This takes about an hour as I have to format the document (i.e., add the copyright footer, do a final proofread, etc.), post it to the website (which requires jumping through about 40 different hoops), publish the website, and then announce on our Facebook page that the new freebie is available for download. I'm under a certain bit of pressure to be creative now that Robynne has informed me she looks forward to my snappy intros on Facebook.

*Shameless Plug- hey, if you're a speech therapist who has stumbled on this blog (or you know any speech therapists who could use some really cool speech therapy materials), check out www.teachspeechnow.com for our fun weekly free downloads.

Process Flow

Picture of the Day for 3/2/2013. This is kind of a boring picture, but it accurately reflects what I was doing today. My sister Robynne and I are about to embark on a You Can Teach Speech Now marketing campaign directed to school district speech therapy coordinators. Since the goal is to get school districts from around the country to purchase multiple licenses of our books for their speech therapists, I've had to figure out how tiered pricing and purchase orders and tax exempt status will work with our online store and the fact we offer downloadable products only. It's not rocket science, but it's not uncomplicated either so I decided I better document the process flow for this. I had a ton of experience writing this type of document in my previous job as a consultant and project manager. It kind of made me nostalgic writing this process flow.

Deny Everything

Picture of the Day for 3/1/2013. It's Easter candy time! Yay! Easter candy is my favorite- better than Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Christmas candy combined.

I love the Cadbury creme eggs. So does my great-nephew Ethan. Last year he got caught sneaking into the Easter Bunny's stash and making a grab for the creme eggs. Well, he wasn't actually caught in the act, but the empty candy wrappers under his bed and his chocolate-covered face were a strong indication of his guilt. Despite being presented with this compelling evidence, Ethan followed henchman protocol and vehemently denied everything. Good man.