Leadership Gainesville Class 42

I am so thrilled to have been accepted into the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce's leadership program this year. Once a month for 9 months we meet and learn more about our community, our role in the community and how to be effective leaders in our community.

Class of 42 has 48 members of community members, business leaders, non-profit leaders and various other professionals. Its a great diverse group and I am enjoying meeting new peers and working with them.

The first meeting was a Saturday simulation society (aka Sim Soc) exercise. I won't get into details in case anyone reading this decides to do LG in the future. You really need to go into it not knowing anything about it. Luckily, those that I know who have done it felt the same way and kept me in the dark. All I can say is, I was "Red."

Yesterday was government and policy day and I learned a lot!! It also made me feel like a total slacker. Although I am on an advisory board for the Alachua/Gainesville Cultural Affairs board, I still felt like I really wasn't as involved as I should be. So I look forward to working on that.

So far it has been a great experience and I look forward to the next few months.

My smirky face because I DO NOT ever wear red. EVER!

Hold Tight

This past week has been horrible for my addiction to Facebook. For some reason there were man than enough sad baby stories posted. Babies that had cancer, that had terminal genetic diseases, stomped to death by a mother's boyfriend, a miscarriage. I could go on, but don't want to. One story in particular had me in tears reading about it. While Facebook can be good for sharing people's stories, maybe they build awareness for rare illnesses, but sometimes it becomes overwhelming as it did for me this week.

Hold your babies tight and cherish every moment!!

And now I'm ready for some happy stories!!

Things Elsa Says

I've been thinking a lot lately about the adorable phrases that Elsa says. As she grows and her vocabulary gets better her funny words are lost to the actual versions.

Some examples are: checkup for ketchup, waterlemon for watermelon, stool step for step stool and slipperly for slippery.
Each time she starts saying something correctly it makes me a little sad.

She also does some fun things like say "oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!" while doing a little dance.

I realize I need to start writing about these things more before I can't remember them.

Pet Peeve

This has to be one of my biggest pet peeves.  Incindiary tactics that make people stupid.

Take for instance this defense of guns against other methods of homicide. 

The beauty of this particular post was that they cited the source. By citing the source the reader can blindly accept that the information is factual and not misleading. They then can proceed to feel superior in their beliefs, as this poster did who thinks its funny that knives are more deadly than guns.

The rub is that the gun total is COMPLETELY MISLEADING! When you go to the actual source, the FBI, the data is as follows: All Guns, Handguns, Rifles, Shotguns. This graphic ONLY chose to report rifles at 322.  However, ALL GUNS totaled 8855! They used a photo of a rifle so as to not be out right lying, but the assumption to the average person is that they mean all guns, not just rifles.

The response I received was "I still think they are missing the point...it's not the gun that is the killer it's the person behind it...You can take away our guns, but people that want to kill are still going to do it."

Now I am not for or against guns. I personally would like to see bullets become so expensive that they are not purchased in such large quantities and the shooter has to carefully think about the use of each and every one. But that is not the point of this post. The point is that I hate this type of misleading justification about anything! 

Gator Basketball

We are totally brainwashing Elsa into being a gator. It's not hard. She has taken to it naturally.

Taking a photo required us to play "Freeze."

Chilling like Daddy

Playing with Uncle Jeff

Hugs for Mr. Feller

Chomping with Albert!

Baby In A Bar Part 2

When Elsa was around 4 or 5 months old I took her to Swamphead with me. She was in her K'Tan and we hung out. it was slightly weird, not too bad though. And come to find out we weren't the only ones who did this there.

Fast forward a couple of years.  Nick, Ashley and Adam were visiting and we took her with us to First Magnitude Brewing Co. They have staved to be a family friendly brewery. They have giant Jengas and corn hole boards. She had a blast.

Pure Love

Sometimes I take a photo, or a million photos, and I get a good idea that I am totally in ove with this munchkin!