Minnesota Maple Syrup

Last night we got a surprise in the mail.

Best Friend Michelle sent us some home-made maple syrup from her backyard!

Betcha thought you could only get it in Vermont. They've got a number of maple trees in their backyard, and know someone who makes syrup, so he tapped there trees, and voila! A million gallons (approximately) of sap later, and you have a bottle of syrup!

Quite tasty on buttermilk pancakes.

It's officially tornado season!

We got a number of calls this weekend checking to see if we had survived the tornados that ripped through Nashville on Friday, so I thought I'd let everyone know we are all in one piece and our house is still standing. The hardest hit areas were Gallatin and Goodlettsville, which are just north and east of the city. Friday night we did have some pretty intense thunderstorms, but nothing that caused any damage. We had a real, live tornado drill here at the office - we all had to go down to the first floor to an inner room. They then decided to close the office a little early and sent us all home, so luckily I did not miss the hailstorm near my house. I will never again complain about the bad weather in Minnesota - 2 feet of snow has never scared me the way these tornaders do!

This is the second, severe (and deadly!) storm in the last 10 days, so needless to say, we have a weather radio on order.

What amazes me, in a state where they see regular tornadic activity every year, is that almost NO ONE (including us) has a basement. (And no one can tell me why this is, either).

Otherwise, we are settling in. Our yard is blooming with tulips and jonquils (oh yeah, and lots of grass because we haven't bought a lawn mower yet). A nice retired lady lives on one side of us, and we are still trying to figure out how many people are in the house on the other side. They have at least six cars parked out front at any given time (none up on blocks, thank goodness) and people are always going in and out. Oh, and the local sherriff keeps leaving us notices for the people we bought the house from - not sure what that's all about (worst case scenario is that we end up in some suburban meth lab feature in the Tennessean, but it's probably just parking tickets).

We have a trip planned next weekend for Tunica, MS - biggest casino gaming capital west of Memphis! Who knew? I'm hoping my luck continues from winning the TV!

Well, aren't I lucky!

This past week I won a TV.

Not just a TV but a 32" flat panel TV.

I went to a conference for my new job, and they gave you a little card for you to go and visit all the vendor booths and get a stamp. Once your card was full of stamps you could enter it in a drawing.

One of my fellow attendees was all gung-ho to do this, and urged me to participate with her. At my last job, we could never accept any kind of vendor gift, so I really didn't pay to much attention to it.

Imagine my surprise at seeing my name on the sign at the Information Desk later that day!

That evening, at the hospitality suites, I mentioned this to another attendee. He pointed out that I'll be getting all kinds of e-mails and phone calls from vendors now.

Oh well, I'll be too busy watching my FREE TV to answer the phone!