As I was sitting on the couch, enoying a little Tangled with my cousins this weekend I felt something on my neck and thought I might have gotten a freak winter bug bite. Upon further investigation in the bathroom I realized what I had was a skin tag. Now, I have seen these on plenty of people in the past, but never on my own skin. Clearly, I wanted it to disappear immediately which is why I offered my cousin Laura $10 to bite it off remove it. For some reason, she didn’t want to help. That was Saturday. Now fast-forward to Sunday and Laura was humming a different tune.

As we sat at the breakfast table in Midland, Michigan with 8 of my other family members the frightening little tag was brought to the forefront of conversation yet again. All of a sudden Laura wasn’t quite so afraid of the little guy and she was vying to be the one who got to twist it off. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get a good grip. Ta da! That’s when a light bulb went off! There was a string hanging from my sweatshirt and she immediately crafted a mini lasso to wrangle that tiny bull off my neck!

The bull was lassoed all right, but he wasn’t budging. This is when the pain actually started to kick-in and the hilarity of grossing my aunts/uncle out at the breakfast table was wearing off now that my neck was beginning to throb. So I have this creepy string tied to this creepy tumor (yes, I looked it up on wikipedia, and technically it is a little benign tumor) and I’m experiencing some discomfort. Thankfully, my uncle is a doctor and he agreed to freeze the thing off after breakfast so we took a little family field trip so everyone could enjoy watching me get zapped.

There is still a little tiny piece of string wrapped around my skin tag, but I am expecting it to fall off tomorrow. It has started to turn kind of dark-red and is getting a little bit crispy. So, all I’m here to tell you is, if you have a skin tag… don’t let your cousins wrap string around it, because it hurts long beyond the point of humor.

I’ll post an update when it drops!

• I learned that people struggle at blogging once they begin worrying about the people reading what they write.  When I began this blog in June of 2009 I was working 3 hourly jobs and was learning a ton of random information from the wide variety of people I was interacting with. However, when I began at my current role (salary, 401k, health benefits – what, what!)  I started realizing just how small social media can make the world and I started getting apprehensive about what I was putting online. I realize that in the age of constant media-overload personal censorship can be a good thing, but at the end of the day, all of the most interesting people I pay attention to are the ones who aren’t afraid of putting themselves out there. So, I’m going to start blogging again and I’m not going to freak out if I spell something wrong or if I accidentally swear or throw in a sexual innuendo here and there. This is my own little blog and I’m still fairly certain my mom and Kelly Beaver are the only two who ever check it. [Rant, over. List, you may continue...]
• I learned how to let go. [Of an 8 year relationship.]
• I learned what it feels like to be part of a neighborhood again. After my limbo-years where I was going from East Lansing to Grand Haven to Ada/Cascade it is amazing to feel at home in the East Hills neighborhood here in Grand Rapids. I’m a sucker for small town vibes and East Hills is the perfect combo of all things I love. The Pickwick + Richard App’s Gallery + Green Well + Brewery Vivant + Antique shopping = happiness.
• I have learned that it is possible to develop incredibly close friendships within a short period of time if there is an equal exchange of honesty and vulnerability.
• I re-learned what it looks/feels/sounds like to fall in love with someone new.
• I learned that I’m excellent at saying goodbye. [But I'm ready to stop having to.]
• I learned how to garden! Kind of! And by what I mean by that is: I grew some herbs, some peppers and some tomatoes. I don’t necessarily know how these things happened, but I totally loved it.
• I learned what it’s like to have someone rely on me. I have been mentoring an 8-year-old girl through the United Way’s Schools of Hope program for the last year. My mentee expects me to be at her school, ready to read, every tuesday at 11:00am. Meetings are re-arranged. Flights are planned accordingly. The queen of 3 minutes behind, is on time, on Tuesdays. [If you live in Grand Rapids, you should consider becoming a mentor...]
• I learned (with help) that sometimes the best place you can be, is where you are.
• I learned came to terms with the fact that my drink of choice is a dirty martini (regardless of how much I’m sure my mom wishes it were a glass of cab). It’s really quite amazing considering one of my New Years Resolutions in 2008 was to make a list of all the foods I hated and be able to tolerate them by 2009. Green olives were on the top on that list.
• With the help of my dad, I learned how to shoot a hand gun.

[Throws hands in air, like a G, and exits.]

Lisa Rose Starner wrote a wonderful piece in The Rapidian last week that re-sparked my interest in maple syrup. Then, as I was driving home from the outskirts of Ada (Bailey) I saw that same little sign and immediately got worried that I had missed all the seasons syrup festivities yet again. I zipped down Buttrick Ave and ran inside to grab my computer. Quick, Lisa, tell me that all hope is not lost!

That’s when I saw it, Blandford Nature Center was having their Sugarbush Tours THAT DAY. It was 2:45. They were going from noon-4:00pm. I live 30 minutes away. I quick called and they fit me and a guest into the 4 o’clock timeslot. Life was good.

I called my Aunt Kathy (shortly to be renamed Aunt Jemima) who lives in Caledonia and we both immediately threw on our rainboots and headed toward our tasty tour!

Here is what I learned on this perfect little tour on the first sunny Saturday of Spring:

• “Maddogs” are trees that have branches that grow opposite of each other (vs. alternating branches). The three local tree’s that are the most common mad dogs are – Maple, Ash & Dogwood
• Sap is clear when it comes out of the tree. It looks exactly like water. Probably, because it is 97% water, and only 3% sugar.
• Maple syrup is 100% pure sap & heat. Once the sap is heated and the water evaporates, the sap becomes carmalized which gives it the brown color it is recognized by. Once the sap has been reduced to 66% sugar, it is now maple syrup. If you continue to evaporate the water out it will eventually become maple sugar.
• A sugar maple should be 40 years old before it is ever tapped.
• The stint that the sap drips out of is only around the size of my pinky. Or you’re pinky too, probably.
• The sugar maple needs to be at least 10 inches before it can be tapped with one bucket. It should be 18inches before adding an additional bucket.
• 1 tap gets around 10 gallons of sap per season.
• It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup

And just as a side note, yesterday for dessert we had vanilla ice cream with hot maple syrup and it was fan.tas.tic!

My disability comes from an incredibly stiff bandaid. This self-proclaimed ‘Heavy Duty’ first-aid essential is protecting my poor little ring finger and although I appreciate it’s hard word, due to it’s tight love-sqeueeze I’ve already had to correct approximately every fifth word for typos. Needless to say this will be a short post.

What does my injured finger have to do with what I learned today? Well, I’ll tell you that I SHOULD have learned this a month ago, but it’s finally becoming clear to me. One month ago Alexis and I decided we needed a little post-work manicure. We attempted to go to Douglas J, but unfortunately they were closed. We tried another salon that turned us down before finally arriving at a little place called ABC Nails. The name ABC should have been my first red flag. (Only a small select group of people will understand why I might say that, but just trust me.)

Now I’m not one to hate on a cheap mani but I’d bet my uninfected ring finger that they are not up to any sort of health code. The 11 year old that did my nails did such a disastrous job that in addition to the fact that my french manicure looked a considerable amount like the top of the Rocky Mountains this chick actually stabbed me. Stabbed me. My finger bled so much that it filled an entire paper towel. Not like a drop here, a drop there, an entire paper towel.

All I’m saying is, my finger still hurts from this minor stab wound. I think it might be time for some antibiotics. But honestly, it’m probably 30 days overdue. So what I’m trying to say is, it is never worth it to get your nails done at a salon that makes you sit in chairs with stuffed panda heads. Ever.

Time for a new paragraph. I just re-read what I wrote up there (^) and it is no wonder I have been advised to work on my professional writing skills. No filters. No order. No point.

Time for another new paragraph. (FOCUS LIZZIE, FOCUS.) So this morning at our Wake up Wednesday Roxanne Buhl from Davenport University’s Institute for Professional Excellence spoke about managing change within your organization. One interesting thing that caught my attention, but wasn’t all together supposed to be that important, was when she mentioned that employees only spend 60% of their work day performing tasks that are assigned to them. Meaning, obviously that depending on that employee and their motivation levels there is a) opportunity to go above and beyond or b) a lot of free time to cruise around on facebook (easily interchangable with: amazon.com, twitter.com, youtube.com, gmail.com, espn.com, etc. depending on your personal poison). Kevin, if you’re reading this, don’t worry, I spend at least 99% of my time working on CCL. Except for when I’m at Schools of Hope, or Lunch, or stretching, or when I accidentally get lost in Twitterland, but on average…99%.

All in all, I thought that was an interesting factoid. I will have to keep that in mind when I have a bunch of little minions under me. Make sure they are happy so I get at least 90% of their time. I will probably have to limit my use the word minions in order to make that happen. Ah, it’s a give-and-take world baby.

-Lizzie

Now, I have had pickled beets a handful of times on a Greek salads but this was the first time I have had them plain and they were, well, they were beets. They were decent. But most of all, they were beautiful! I found that pink color that radiates from a can of beats to be incredibly gorgeous. Donna gave me the idea to make a pretty little ‘beet martini’ and as some of you may know, It’s rare that I’ll turn down a) an odd combinations of food and b) a martini. As I stuck my finger in the juice to sneak a little taste to see if I should make the move to grab the bottle of vodka I noticed something strange… Although I had licked the juice clean off my finger, my tip was still pink! Quite pink. That’s when my mom (and all her wisdom) pointed out how I would be a moron to drink a beet martini because my teeth would certainly turn that same color. Thanks, mom.

DING DING DING. That’s where the epiphany happened. My finger was – pause for dramatic effect – beet red.

For the record, I did look this up to make sure it wasn’t just my mind jumping to conclusions and it appears I was right – that really is the origin of the phrase beet red. And all this time I’ve been saying beat red…

An hour later my day took a turn that you can never expect. As one new life was entering this world another was leaving. Today, for the first time, I experienced the joys of birth and the sorrows of sudden death within the same hour. It is the strangest feeling knowing that tears of people I love were being wept at the exact same moments last night, for completely opposite reasons.

So today, as I held my little newborn cousin the frailty of life fresh on my mind I learned what it felt like to experience heartbreak for those mourning and hope for those celebrating at the exact same time.

- Lizzie

Life and death are balanced on the edge of a razor.  -Homer, Iliad

If anyone wants to join me sometime, let me know. We have three pair. Or if you locate a pair of size 9 cross country boots, I would love those as well.

-Lizzie

“Anyone who can walk, can snowshoe.”

Where was I? Oh ya, I had this Talk & Tour with the lead Architect for the Secchia Center (shh!) Dick Temple and the Senior Director of Advancement, Susan Lane. They did an incredible job giving us an overview of the impacts that the MSU College of Human Medicine is having on the Grand Rapids community. What did I learn, you ask? Well…

• There were over 6,000 applicants for only 200 spots in the current med class. (100 in East Lansing / 100 in Grand Rapids) – I guess that means I should be more impressed with my friends Karan & Mike who are currently going through the program!
• The Secchia Center cost $90 million to build. $50 of that was raised by private donors. It is entirely financed without public funding!
• All of the furniture is made by Steelcase (not surprisingly necessarily but good to know!)
• In its first ten years, the facility is projected to increase regional economic activity by $1.57 billion.
• The building is 180,000-square-feet.
• Over 1,000 local Physicians assist in educating the MSU medical students. Whether it’s teaching one hour or one semester.
• They have these buttons w. speakers on them in the lecture halls so that when a student wants to comment during lecture, they can press the button and their voice is projected. Not only the students in the lecture hall can hear more clearly, but also the students who are simultaneously hearing the lame lecture can hear and respond.
• They have ping pong and are about to get a wii. (But no bowling alley in the Union – suckers!!)
• They have these nuts surgical simulation rooms (Styron donated) that are insanely realistic. The dummies that the students operate on can talk. Yes, talk. They also can have reactions when the students are putting an IV in. Not to mention they also bleed and die (well, if things don’t go well). Susan Lane mentioned that other institutions who use this technology have had problems with people getting emotionally attached to these dummies because they are so lifelike and they can experience strong negative emotions if they kill them. Wild world we live in!

That’s the gist of the most interesting things I learned. It is a BEAUTIFUL facility and if you have the opportunity to check it out, I would recommend you do!

- Lizzie

“The Year of Practical Thinking” by GILES TURNBULL

Giles did something that I think would helped me stay on track. He kept things simple. So from now on, I will continue to record what I learn, but I will try to keep it simple so I don’t have to stress about whether I have time to write or not. To begin this journey I will start with a recap of things I have learned but haven’t had time to blog about.

The End of 2010′s Life Lessons:

• If your nipples chafe while running to the point of bleeding it is a running term called “Red 11′s”. Sick, I know. (I’m not a runner, so NO, I did not learn this from experience.)
• The Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital is aiming to go completely PAIN FREE in 2011. That means even the insertion of needles for iv/sedation/etc. will be completely painless. I think that is incredible.
• A “tompion” is a small pellet made out of mud and saliva which a bear inserts into his booty before hibernating for the winter, to stop the ants getting in. (I can’t verify that. But it was recently in a book I read…I wish I could remember which one…)
• That you can play darts at Cambridge House downtown
• That darts can give you a sore elbow for roughly 4 days. I can verify that, 100%.
• That even when you buy Orbitz.com’s “Price Assurance” what you’re really getting is a cash-back deal if someone else books the same flight. Not a different airline, at the exact same time. $200 mistake.
• That turtles can live with wheels as their legs.
• That 30 Rock is much funnier than I gave it credit for, for the past 6 seasons.
• (More somber note) There are 1,350 *documented* homeless students in Grand Rapids Public Schools.
• The number of vacant homes in Grand Rapids has gone up 66% since 2008.
• Between 2004-2010 18,000 homes in Kent County were foreclosed on (1 in 11). 8,000 of those were in Grand Rapids… (1 in 7 homes).

On that note, I have officially decided to stick with my decision to blog for a year. We can have this conversation again in August. Stay tuned, friends.

- Lizzie