How do you clean up after the holidays?  For us, it is a tad more interesting.  Madison’s birthday was yesterday (she turned 5!), so we always have the quick cleanup that needs to be done from the time we get back from visiting Wisconsin and her birthday party.  I usually get about a week if we are lucky.  Since we have the basement now, Bill let me keep up the Christmasy decorations, but we did pull down the Christmas tree.  I need as much room as we can get, and this is pretty much the only way I was going to get it.  I figure everybody will hang out downstairs for her party just like they did for Christmas Eve.  The sad thing is that we are the only one on the block who still has their outdoor lights up.  Now, we don’t leave them up till June or anything, but it seems that it is kinda odd that on 8th of January that everyone has packed up everything already.  Now, I’ve slacked this week, and I have to get all my cleaning done tomorrow with the kids underfoot.  This should be interesting.  My sister is arriving tomorrow, so its not quite the end of the world if she’s the only one who sees my non-clean house.

How do you clean up?  Do you have a set plan?  Do you just do a little bit each day?

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Which is why I haven’t been posting here too often.  This last week has been a long and trying week for us.  Nothing major has went wrong — just a ton of little things.  I took last weekend off, and I just never got back into the swing of things. The highlights of my week — Will getting diagnosed again with impetigo and we got new cable, satellite, and phone service.  I’ve got a ton of catching up to do, so I’ll be posting a tad later with the other events.

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For me, this is an easy question.  I am a Jeopardy fan especially when it is teen week (which is about the only time I know a good number of answers).  For me, I choose Jeopardy for several reason.  First, it makes you use your brain.  On that show, being smart is a good thing.  You don’t see people having to do stupid stunts to be able to make money.  I also have a family connection to it.  As a kid, we actually played this as a family.  My mom would keep score, and we would see who did the best every day.  It’s those kinds of memories that make me love the show even more.  My kids are too little to watch Jeopardy, but I hope when they get older that I can play against them too.

Now, I am a Press Your Luck fan too.  Who can resist the Whammy guys?

What’s your favorite game show and why?

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Last week was a pretty good week.  My week started off with an email from a New York Times reporter wanted to interview regarding a post I wrote about Amazon’s frustration free packaging.  Once I picked myself up off the floor, I emailed him back and told him it was okay to call.  I had a great conversation with their technology reporter, and I went on my merry way.  Seriously, my  heart was beating about 400 miles an hour while this was going on.  I asked for him to let me know when it gets printed, and I thought that was the end of it.

On Thursday, I was super surprised to get a call from the New York Times again!  This time they wanted to send a photographer to my house to get pictures of me and my kids!  I ended up with 2 hours to get me and the kids ready and clean the house.  It went well, I think, and I hope to find out soon when the article will get printed.

I feel incredibly blessed right now even though my mom is teasing about when Oprah is going to be calling. 

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Next time the federal government bails out the big business morons, they really need to attach some strings and some consequences.  It is absolutely ridiculous what the ABC15 reporters found. At first glance, the 2008 Asset Management Conference held this week at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix looked like a normal conference. However, the people who went to it were less than ordinary.  American International Group made efforts to disguise the conference, and there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property (they were a $343,000 sponsor of the event which was not allowed under the bailout rules). The ABC15 Investigators went undercover at the resort and observed AIG executives having poolside meetings while drinking coffee and working out at the spa while other attendees were in conference rooms for seminars.  The executives were also seen at after parties drinking it up and having AIG pick up the tab (ie the taxpayers).  I wonder what else we picked up the tab for: taxi trips, travel insurance, room service? The hotel staff were told they weren’t even allowed to say AIG.

This, of course, comes on the heels of them getting another $40 million (or is it billion?) of taxpayer money to bail them out.  Yeah, I think we need to take the blank check away.  How about you? Obviously, AIG doesn’t get it.

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