Friday, October 31, 2008

Home again, home again!

Greetings! I'm pretty much as happy as I can be right now...as I sit with my cup of coffee and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper reruns play in the background while my husband sleeps in. Being gone this week was not one of the more enjoyable experiences of my life; I'm thrilled to be back.

So, this week was my Starbucks conference in New Orleans...while I understand some of why we went there, I do question the wisdom behind that decision. It was the biggest conference to have taken place in New Orleans since Katrina, and it did put millions of dollars back into their economy. We also provided over 50,000 hours of community service while we were there, and it was very well received by the community. My beef, however, is with the idea behind taking ten thousand people to a city that is FAMOUS for getting drunk and partying. I heard so many people say "I NEVER drink at home, but if you come to New Orleans, you GOTTA party!!" Yeah. Thanks for that, Starbucks. Also, for anyone who has ever wanted to go to New Orleans, I found it a representation of society at its absolute lowest. It's almost like a different world--there's beer on the streets, so it's nice because I mean, you don't even have to sit down to get trashed. You can just get trashed while you walk, which makes it easier to be insanely stupid. Also, its easier to catch the beads that are thrown down off balconies by girls who are dressed in skimpy lingere. There are literally shops on the street with signs that say "Girl on Girl! Live Sex Acts Inside!!" and have pictures, GIANT pictures, of said acts. I was like, wow. I guess maybe in Katrina they all lost their computers, so now they just put porn on the streets. Nice. All in all I was very uncomfortable, and I'm not particularly close to anyone on my team, so I spent many hours missing my sweet husband.

But let's talk about the highlights: Biggest and best....Starbucks is going (RED)! We are partnering with the Red campaign to raise money for AIDS and HIV protection in Africa. I'm very excited about this, and it's a HUGE deal for us. The first promotion is going to raise a TON of money for the campaign and it's such an awesome organization. The big surprise came though when BONO came out to introduce it!!!! We had no idea he was coming, but it was just awesome. He is hilarious and wonderful. Most definitely the highlight of my week.

Last night was Halloween and our stupid street was lame...we were the only house with our light on, and thus got about three trick or treaters. It's ok though because we also had friends come over for a huge pan of dirt cake with gummy worms and I made some pumpkin gnocchi. I'm so...domestic. HAHA. (sike.)

Geoff loved his first week of school--its designed perfectly to cater not only to our lifestyle, but also to his learning style. Tons of reading (books that he's actually interested in!!) and responding; not a lot of busy work and stuff. He enjoyed going and said the 4 hours went by quickly, which will help him continue to be motivated. I continue to be more proud of him every day! Both of us are going into difficult seasons at work--him being at the mall and me working through a huge Christmas promo at 'Bux...it will be a very busy month at our house!! With the addition of his school, my training classes, and a small group, we are now out of our house 5 nights a week which will add some new dynamics to our life. But we are still thrilled with the way things are falling into place and continue to enjoy every second we have together.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

pumpkin gnocchi!? sounds good! could you share the recipe?