I used my new video editing skills (I use the term “skills” loosely) to make this video birthday card. We hope you like it Grandma Ginny!

For the rest of you…if you get bored with the cake-cutting, skip to the dancing scenes at the end.

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My old friend and coworker, Steve Poe, sent me this photo today. It was taken on May 30, 2005, of Cullen (my coworker Michele’s son), Evan (Steve’s son), and Aliya. I just LOVE the expression on her face! We were at Cullen’s birthday party and I have no idea what her problem was, but she looks so much like Norah. I think if a handsome older boy had his arm around her today she’d have a different expression, but at the age of 3 1/2 she just wasn’t that into him.
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I would normally poo-poo a convenience food like this but I have to admit, I actually like Bagel-fuls, which are frozen bagels with cream cheese inside. Here’s why:

1) They look like Twinkies so eating them feels *naughty*, especially for breakfast.
2) The kids and Ben don’t like the chive version, so I always know how many mornings I can feed myself before I have to make a run to Stop & Shop.
3) They take about a minute total – I toast them on the light setting and then put them in the microwave for 20 seconds. I can have a hot breakfast ready in half the time it takes the kids to get their seatbelts buckled.
4) I don’t have to worry about cutting myself while hacking through a frozen bagel. Spoiled cream cheese and freezer-burned bagels are no longer on my worry-list. I won’t ever get stuck with an old blueberry bagel again.
5) They have 200 calories and 4 grams of fat (2.5 grams saturated fat). A Dunkin Donuts sesame bagel with plain cream cheese has 560 calories and 22 grams of fat (9.5 grams saturated fat). I think I just heard Helga pass out. We also need to consider the fact that since I’m not going through the DD drive-thru to get a bagel, I’m also not buying a caramel latte or stealing a couple of the kids’ munchkins. 360 calories saved x 365 days in a year = 131,400 calories / year. If a reduction of 3,500 calories = 1 pound, that’s 37 pounds. I’ll be ready for ce-ment pond season in no time.
6) They cost less than half the price of a bagel with cream cheese from the DD drive-thru.
7) Call me crazy but I think they taste pretty good, particularly when you factor in the convenience, cost, and reduced calories and fat. Don’t knock ’em till you try ’em. And if you don’t like them, I’ll take the rest of the box off your hands.
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I usually buy the kids’ winter coats at LL Bean because of the great quality and because I know that they really stand behind their products. When Aliya was at Next Generation, her teacher told me that the zipper on her (LL Bean) winter coat kept splitting apart. I had every intention of exchanging the coat and even called LL Bean one time to start the process. Unfortunately I called at the end of the season and they didn’t have any suitable replacements in stock.

When Adlani reached size 4T, he wore the coat too. The zipper split apart every so often but I still never got around to taking care of it (story of my life). This year, nobody wears a size 4T, so the jacket has been sitting on the piano waiting for me to do something about it. Last week I started up a live chat with LL Bean. They told me what color jackets they had in stock in that size, I picked one, and called to give them my credit card number. I received the new jacket, which was on sale for $45, and returned the old one which I had originally bought for $59. The old one was in somewhat rough shape, but amazingly I received a refund check from LL Bean yesterday for the original $59 purchase price!

Is that amazing customer service or what?? When I was at the LL Bean outlet in December, a customer brought in a bag to return. It had no tags and she didn’t have the receipt. The cashier asked her how much she had paid for the bag, and immediately refunded her $40. Companies with great products and service like this will be the ones to survive in this economy.
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