Yesterday, we had a full-on party for Asha's 6th birthday. Thanks to Mari's preparation and exhaustive researching of party options, we found party nirvana. At the local gym, the YMCA will run a gymnastics party for a very reasonable sum (less than Chuck E. Cheese, which we hopefully will never use). This involves zero prep on our part, and for an entire hour, and instructor just runs the kids around the gym and has them do exercises on all the equipment. After the kids were good and tired, we herded them into an adjacent rec room, fed them ice cream and cake, opened presents, and we were done. What's more, the kids loved it too (Asha - "I'm the happiest girl in the world"). For the record, I do realize that the YMCA idea is far more expensive than a stocking cap, a knife, a fork, some mittens (preferably sewn together with a long piece of yarn), a pie plate, some dice, and a hershey's bar wrapped 6 layers deep in brown grocery bags.

I always find it interesting when we get directives at work that tell us how to do stuff that we should already know how to do. One such example surfaced about a month ago when we got a "dress code". I will now list many items which I found in the dress code, followed (in parentheses) by the number of times I have seen them in the office:

miniskirts (0)

leggings (0)

shorts (1 - there is this one weird guy in engineering)

midriff shirts (0 ... ok fine 1, but technically, the dude in question just has a
very large midsection, and was not wearing a midriff shirt)

tee-shirts (0)

shirts with advertisements or slogans other than (insert name of my company here) or the shirt manufacturer (0, although the letter of the law dictates that snooty executives that are always showing up with Ralph Lauren-logoed shirts are in
violation, since Ralph Lauren doesn't actually make anything)

tank tops (0)

exercise or similar apparel (0)

sleepwear (0 - I have nodded off once or twice at work before, but I wasn't wearing sleepwear)

hats, visors or other non-religious head coverings (0 - note that in an office where I used to work, a Steeler's stocking cap would qualify as a religious head covering)

flip-flops or beach-type foot wear (0 - see earlier post on how HR tricked some employees into wearing flip flops to a company sales meeting, but that wasn't in the office)
slippers (0 - but that's not a bad idea. Maybe I could also get a smoking jacket)

Recently we also receive the new officially sanctioned company power point template (Yay!). One nugget of advice in the document that came along with the file: "When comparing (my company name) to a competitor, use warm colors to represent (company name) and cooler colors for the competitor." The presentation comes with a palette of acceptable colors to use for representing my company. The fact that we have people who devote time to this level of minutiae is perhaps one reason my company's stock price has tanked so bad this year.

Mom is coming to visit this week, which we are all looking forward to. Although we are done moving in to our house, maybe Mom can Feng Shui it up real nice for us.

Lastly, I found a link for a housing concept we are now considering: click here