I have been away for a while

I know I haven't written in a while. I can never seem to get motivated on the weekends. It must be all that relaxing. This weekend Amanda tried to make me work but I got out of it when my drill ran out of power and I didn't have the charger with me. I still keep forgetting to bring the charger to her house. That's not true. I keep forgetting to pack the charger. Once in my bag, it will be no problem to run it by her house. Woops.

I got a flu shot today and my arm feels like it got hit with a baseball bat. Although as shots go, those aren't that bad at all. I say this as someone who joined the peace corps and got several shots every week for quite a while. Also at work, my boss asked me why i odn't work with teens anymore. I described my ideal teen program which pairs teens and seniors and she was interested so I spent a little time developing that idea a little more. From the brain storm I learned:

• It's really important to involve a diverse group of teens. Every once in a while, something will happen and it's like only for people who are this one faith. Like the contribution I have to make isn't at all valued because I don't share the faith tradition. And it feels really bad. So any youth program I'm involved in for sure needs to involve kids of many backgrounds.


• Wouldn't bother me if all the seniors were from the faith tradition of my agency. No one knows why.


• I have really high expectations of teens. Meaning I believe that teens can deliver a truly professional product. It took a long time for me to learn how to help teens deliver a high quality product, but once I gave them the right tools, the kids who worked for me could do anything.


• Teens need to be paid. This has to be a job. No other way to have ridiculously high standards than by offering a monetary reward.


• This is my baby. Meaning, I need to be in charge. Is that wrong?

Over the weekend, I saved some web pages to share with you as well.

• Quick: To the Bat Cave is a well done story about a bat biologist. Want to know how bad the OCD is? One of the bats pictured on this page is the red bat. Why is that important? It's a tree bat. It doesn't live in caves. Ever.


• For Amanda, who's been on a broccoli kick of late, Brocolli extract may help prevent skin cancer. Does that run in families like other types of cancer? That'd be important to know.


• 25 Unexpected Websites for the Uncommonly Curious makes me feel like I know about things before everyone else, which boosts my self-esteem. Kelly check out the two sites with full books online. Especially relevant given your Book meme.


• The 88 least healthy fast foods judged by trans-fat levels. I got out of reading this, "Liz can go to Wendy's and Chipotle and not feel bad." I'm not sure that was the intended take home message.


• 10 Great Workouts to Spice Up Your Running Program for anyone who is still running. I'm still working out, just haven't been on a run in a little while.


• the Horrifyingly Cute Photoshopping Contest. This is just wrong (but totally safe for work).


• Great information about Europe all done by maps. Also for Kelly who is learning about human geography (I think) and may enjoy this information.


• The top 87 bad predictions about the future. I'm not sure if "we'll never fill up 1G of memory" is on the list, but they're all in that vain.