Madison had to read in church this morning for mass. She did a great job:

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Here in Chicago, we have done a complete 360. We went from a super mild winter with no snow and warm weather (well, warm for here) to holy arctic air and SNOW!!! I think I want to move to the Republic of Texas Company Store where it is warm.

The snow came in hard and heavy on Friday night. Bill left work at 3:30 and got home close to 9 PM. Yes, you read that correctly. That was his commute home Friday night. Can you say crazy?

Even crazier is that I had to then learn how to use our snow blower. (Scary thought, I know!). I think planning a wedding reception Dallas would have been easier. We have learned that our snow blower needs a definite tune-up. All the problems I had on Friday night getting the stupid thing started, Bill also had on Saturday morning when he redid it. (He didn’t have to redo my plowing job. We had just gotten way more snow, and the plows had gone through and sprayed snow all over my newly plowed sidewalks!).

Seriously, I am ready for warm weather again. Bill wanted to take the kids sledding yesterday, and they wouldn’t go! Can you believe that? They didn’t even want to go out and play in it! Hopefully, I can just eat some Republic of Texas Foods and that will warm me up.

I think we are suppose to get 2 more days of snow this week. I am hoping Bill’s commute won’t be anywhere as bad (we were getting snow at 1 inch an hour which is a lot!).

(For those who are wondering, I think our end total of snow ended up being around 8 inches. However, we had drifts that were over a foot in the back of the house. And yes, that is a lot of snow!).

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Sometimes I love my job. Last night was one of those nights! I was invited to the grand opening of the brand new Walgreen’s store on the corner of State and Randolph. WOW! is all I can say. Why? Well, here’s a few pictures of my experience there:

I was impressed (and a little jealous that my Walgreens isn’t this cool). It is nice to see that the store was trying to deliver both healthy and fresh items to their customers. I really wish more stores would go that route. Granted, they still had some processed meals for those who wanted them. However, they saw what their customers wanted and took their lead. I can definitely see people popping in here for lunch (the workers) and grocery shopping (local residents). For every main product, they had several choices — milk, snacks, even spaghetti! Their prices were in line with what I’d expect to pay (well, except for the $1999 cognac. I’m pretty sure I’m not paying that much). The virtual bartender was beyond awesome. There was just so many new and crazy things in there. My pictures definitely show how awesome it was.

Walgreens really made itself a one stop shop no matter what your reason being in the store. I don’t even live in the city, and I want to go back there! I mean where else can you go and get a prescription filled, eat some sushi, enjoy a wine tasting, get your nails done, and get a flu shot?

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Okay, so this isn’t sooo Wordless. However, I think she did an awesome job at mass today with her part:

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Robert Scoble wrote a post about why your mom won’t be using Google+.  If you read my post from last week, you know I’ve had the ability to play with Google+ for a bit now, and I have to disagree.  Why?  Well, I’m a mom.  And I use Google+.

1.  I love Circles.  The argument seems to be that non-geeks won’t understand circles and won’t use them.  I can think of many reasons why they will.  Let’s say you want to vent about your inlaws or your job or pretty much anything you don’t want the whole world knowing.  You can easily just send a message to your friends complaining (make sure you disable the share option) and you don’t have to worry about the world knowing.  (Yes, I know they can still screenshot it, but if they are your friends, do you really think they will?)

2.  The mobile app is beyond easy to use.  I downloaded in the car on the way to a camping trip, and used it in the car (Need to add that I was not driving).  I was able to easily have the picture appear in my stream (it was a picture of how full my van was packed!).  It was a great test post and I have even been told how great the pictures looked on Google+ versus Facebook.  They just have a much more crisp look to them.

3.  Hangouts.  If you are like me (a mom) and your family lives far away, this is a great feature.  I can talk to my sister and my parents (who both live 4 hours away) and they don’t have to be at the same house!  We can be a family together even though we are in 2 states.  It just makes it easier to get online and talk.  As long as I can write directions on how to use it, my parents (who aren’t all that tech savvy) can figure it out.

4.  Simple interface.  Makes writing direction to use things much easier (see above).  Remember the saying, Keep in simple stupid?  That’s what Google did with this interface.  Simple makes it much more friendly to nongeeks.

5.  Adults are here.  This is exactly what the doctor ordered for us stay at home moms.  Facebook limits you to your friends.  On Google+, you can expand your horizons and follow those who you may not personally know however find interesting.  You can have adult conversations with people who may have opposing viewpoints and you don’t have to worry about whether or not somebody you knew in high school is going to read your insightful comment.

6.  One stop shopping.  Moms need our lives to be as simple as possible.  We are busy.  I like having my email, social networking, documents, etc all in one spot instead of having 20 bookmarked sites to do the same thing.

7.  Sparks.  This looks for videos and articles it thinks you’ll like, so “when you’re free, there’s always something to watch, read, and share.”  If your bored, have a go in there

8.  With a Google+ account, you get unlimited photo storage on Picasa.  I love being able to take a picture with my phone (which I have available to me most of the time.  I don’t normally carry my camera all too much), upload it, and not have to worry if I’m going to exceed my storage space.  And who doesn’t like free?

9.  You control your privacy unlike Facebook who doesn’t bother to tell you that they sold your information till after the media catches it.  Google Plus also makes it easy to control your privacy settings.  You don’t have to dig through 20 menus to get there.

10.  I’m here, and your mom loves me.  Why wouldn’t she want to hang out where all the cool people are?

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