- home again -

We're back home from a wonderful time in Las Vegas with Suzie, Winston, and their cute new baby. I should say I'm back home, because Scott flew from Las Vegas to New York to be with his family for the wedding of his sister Jill & Ron's son, Brandon. They are having a grand time - Scott and his four sisters. I can imagine that there was a steady stream of loud laughter in their rental van as they toured the Syracuse area yesterday.

Oh, it was hard to say good-bye to that sweet granddaughter - but we will make the trip to Vegas as often as possible, and they'll come here too. I'm so glad for digital pictures, videos, Skype, and phone calls. They melt time and distance and make it easier to keep in touch.

I heard an interview on the radio yesterday about a company that was very successful despite the economy. The president said that he thought one of the keys to their success was "over-communication." Because his employees always know what's going on, they try harder to do their jobs and contribute. I thought to myself that it could be the same in families. I think you can create more closeness with "over-communication," and (my kids are probably cringing right now), I'm going to try to do that.

I came home to a wish-list of things I want to do in the next month, and also a stack of newspapers and mail including a week of Wall Street Journals, which I love to read. It comes with our local newspaper every day, and I have to discipline myself to not sit down and suck an hour out of my morning reading it front to back. So now the conundrum is whether to just carry the pile of WSJ papers straight to the recycling bin or to glance through each one. I decided to check out the Friday edition only.

Of course, I was rewarded. There's a 3/4 page article about make-up expert Bobbie Brown and her picks for the best products for face and body. Though I cringe at the price of this stuff, it sure is fun to read about it. Glad I didn't miss that! I also read through some of the op-ed articles and a few articles in the finance section - because the WSJ writers make them interesting not dry. And I looked for the sports column by my favorite sports writer Jason Gay. He's a master at tongue-in-cheek writing and sports metaphors that totally entertain me. And an ad for an interesting new book that I immediately downloaded to my iPad. Arghh...more reading!