Category: Life

Last Saturday, we had a wild night planned. I dropped Kate off at a birthday party, and since we had some time to kill before picking her up and getting crazy at the local corn maze, Andy, Sam and I went grab some dinner.

We have loads of dining options in our little town (I mean, at least three. Four if you count McDonald’s.), but since bar food is my favorite cuisine, we went here:

Laff’s.

As you’ll note in the picture above, Laff’s has two doors. The one on the left has a sign on the door that says “21 & over only.” The door on the right says “Family dining entrance.” We had forgotten Sam’s fake ID at home, so we just kept things simple and went in on the family side.

I was fiddling around on my phone while we waited. I “checked in” at Laff’s on facebook and uploaded a cute picture of Sam with the caption “You’ve got a baby. In a bar.” Quoting the old movie “Sweet Home Alabama.”

It was then I made my fatal mistake – instead of uploading the picture to my wall as I had intended, I posted it on the wall of a group about our hometown. Facebook mobile didn’t give me the option to delete it, so I commented on the photo admitting my error and apologizing. I posted the picture on my wall as I had intended, and forgot all about it.

Then, all hell broke loose.

By the time I checked FB again the following morning, my accidental posting had elicited all sorts of responses – everything from “That’s funny” to “we dont want to know about your baby in a bar, isnt that against the law??? Or do you want to portray children in bars, thats just shows you how twisted you are.” (Note: the grammar abuse is not my own.)

I was even reported to Facebook for this atrocity. (So far I haven’t gotten a call from Mark Zuckerberg chewing me out, but I’m still holding out hope that he’ll be in touch.)

And it just went on from there.

It was utterly ridiculous. I mean, am I the type of person who would take my three year old there late at night, prop him up on a bar stool and put beer in his sippy cup? NO. Am I the type of person who would go there on St. Patrick’s day and purposefully write in the wrong winning teams on the March Madness bracket hanging on the wall only to find out too late that it was not a dry erase marker but a Sharpie? Maybe. But that is neither here nor there.

Here is the point of my story – the lesson we can all learn from this random and odd occurrence.

Though there were a couple (very vocal) conscientious objectors, the vast majority of people who responded did so in my defense. A few of them I knew – a childhood friend of my mom’s and my third grade teacher, among others – but for the most part, I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me, but they still spoke out on the side of justice common sense.

That’s the thing about social media. When you put stuff out there – about your business or your beliefs or your preschooler’s alcoholic tendencies – you’re opening yourself up to criticism. In a lot of cases, the fear of a potential negative response prevents people from entering this space at all. And that’s a shame. Because the beautiful thing is that when complete insanity that does happen, others are there to add their two cents. I actually came out of this situation in which I was being flamed feeling great, because so many others had a sense of humor my back.

It’s like Sam says – the good guys always win.

When I was in Chicago a couple of months ago, I heard about Driving the Midwest, a website created by General Motors to highlight road trips throughout the region. Since my family and I were getting ready to go from Ohio to Michigan, I approached their team about how we might work together, and they were kind enough to deliver us a Buick Enclave to test out on our trip.

Ugh, just seeing the picture makes me want to cry. I loved that car SO MUCH.

But anywho, we wanted to make sure to drive it as much as humanly possible test it out appropriately, so we gave this thing a workout. Here was our route.

Germantown, OH to Charlevoix, MI to Mackinaw City, MI, to Traverse City, MI, to Empire, MI, to Traverse City, MI, to Leland, MI, to Traverse City, MI, to Germantown, OH.

We quite literally drove the midwest!

And we did it in style, in a Buick Enclave. Ahhhh, memories.

Here are some of the things we loved about driving the Enclave:

— The first thing that impressed us about this car (other than the fact that it’s lovely) was the capacity for luggage. We were going to be gone for eight days and we had a LOT of stuff. Suitcases, tote bags, coolers – it all fit in with no problem.

So much easier than when Andy plays what he calls “life-size Tetris” – packing the trunk of our cars!

— The built-in DVD player. We have had about 32 portable DVD players since Kate was born, and I have hated all of them. First of all, they break constantly (hence needing to buy 32 of them), and secondly, all the extraneous cords. OMG, the cords. They are EVERYWHERE. And changing a DVD requires a feat of acrobatics. So, having one built in was a dream. It also had wireless headphones (three sets!), which was fantastic.

— Which leads me to another feature we loved – the audio system. Again, it was built in, and touchscreen. We had satellite radio, which was awesome. The best thing, though, was that it worked independently from the DVD system, even though the controls were all located in the same area, so the kids could watch/listen to a movie in the back (with their wireless headphones) and Andy could still listen to the radio in the front.

— Which leads me to another point – the navigation system. The navigation system, dvd player, and radio/cd player were all controlled on the same screen, but all worked at the same time. The navigation system was great and never steered us wrong. I loved that I could enter the name of a place (I didn’t need an actual address) and it would find it.

— Speaking of all that, the touchscreen control panel also turned into a video screen when the car was in reverse, which showed everything behind the car and started beeping when we got too close to something. Needless to say, this was a really important safety feature.

— We were all so comfortable traveling in this car. The kids had plenty of room in their seats but also in between them and in front of them, which meant there was room for their stuffed animals and books and everything else that goes along with a kid-friendly road trip. Sam sat up so high in his car seat, which made it more enjoyable for him but also tons easier for us to get him in and out of it. I also had plenty of space in the passenger seat. The seat itself was wide and comfy, and I had a ton of leg room. The front two seats also had a feature that was new to me – seat coolers. Like seat warmers, but with the air conditioner. A nice surprise!

— I’ve failed to mention the number one thing – it drove like a dream. Since Andy did most of the driving, I’ll let him tell you about it.

Kate felt the need to get in on the vlogging action, so here’s a video of her talking about the Enclave.

Incidentally, the next time we went on a trip, Sam held my iPad up to the rest of us and asked “What do YOU like about this car?” He’s destined to be a blogger.

My very favorite thing, though? I felt very fancy driving around in this car. I honestly didn’t realize how nice it was to have a luxurious car. It made going to the grocery store seem exciting. While (unfortunately) I don’t think I’ll be replacing our beat up sedans any time soon, when we do, I would strongly consider buying an Enclave.

As you can tell, we all absolutely loved the Buick Enclave. In fact, I think Kate might love it more than she loves me.

The first day after our trip, I got home from work, hugged Kate hello, and said “I missed you so much!”

Her reply? “I missed the Enclave.”

Me too, kiddo!

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A huge thanks to GM and Buick for letting us test drive their car. For more info, visit DrivingtheMidwest.com. Make sure to check out the tab that says “Our Town, Our Heroes,” where you can see the hometown heroes honored by GM – and you can nominate your hero too!

Today is the opposite of Things I Love Thursday – I’m going to write about something I hate.

Running.

I seriously, extremely hate running. It’s hard for me, it doesn’t come naturally for me – I hate it.

Yet, every few months, I get the bright idea that I need to start doing it again.

I’ve started and quit before reaching my goals. A number of times. I’ve started and reached my goals – and then completely quit.

I’ve never really stuck with it. You know why? Because I HATE RUNNING.

But here I am again, five weeks into the Couch to 5k program. I still hate running, but I’ve come to the conclusion that A) I like what it does for my body and B) it makes me slightly less bitchy, so it’s probably best for everyone involved if I suck it up and stick with the program.

Here we go.