What about them?
They are interesting, at least at the time you read them. And maybe even down the road when you bring up some of this useless information just for conversation sake.
I was rummaging through a book called The Best of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader and pulled out many facts which mean nothing to almost everyone, except me… for conversation sake that is.
These aren’t things you need to know, but maybe you can wow that person in your life who thinks he or she knows it all.
Here you go…

After two years of planning (and saving), we did it.
My family of four started summer break by rafting through the Grand Canyon.
It was awesome.
The wild Colorado River provided us days of rapids, laughter, excitement, physical challenges, and unforgettable family time.
After sleeping under the stars and cliff jumping, our 10-year-old daughter Ellen dubbed it as “the best trip ever!”
Our adventure began less than 24 hours after our girls’ school year ended with us on a plane heading to Las Vegas, Nevada.

My daughter Ellen’s fourth grade class just finished memorizing all 50 states and their capitals. We studied those darn things for weeks, using maps and homemade flashcards.
We’d quiz each other on road trips and while preparing dinner.
What’s the capital of Maine? Alaska? Oklahoma?
Where’s Carson City? Olympia?
For the few she struggled to remember, we made up silly sayings, like: “Sail ‘em (as in Salem) on in to Oregon!” and “Frank had too much KFC in Kentucky, so… Frank fort-ed.”

Every once in a while there is something posted on Facebook which I can’t go without reprinting in my column space.
There was a group of us sitting around talking about the “old days” and when I say that I mean the 1970s and 1980s. Those years don’t seem that long ago, until you actually do the math and realize how far back it really was.
Being in my mid-50s the 70s and 80s were school and college days.

I rarely see a few of my neighbors, but for some reason, when I do encounter those certain few, I look like a crazy woman.
Take last Sunday, for example.
One of those rare neighbors walked down his driveway just as I was carrying a big, dead bloody opossum down the road on the top of a board with my children following me, funeral- procession style.
I wanted to hide. I looked ridiculous, but instead, I smiled in my neighbor’s direction and informed him that we were going to bury the creature.

As journalists, we rely on open government and freedom of information principles to keep the public informed about its government. Sometimes, we are met with roadblocks.
Sunshine Week, which is spearheaded by the LifeEnterprise News Leaders Association, champions open and transparent government at all levels. That means from the local school board or city council meetings, to the emails a state representative sent that supports a bill, all the way up to the President at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.

If gratitude can seep into your blood, my February blood donations are brimming with it.
My daughter Anna required multiple blood transfusions during her open heart surgery, a a procedure she underwent when she was just seven months old.
So, if my blood donation day happens to fall in February (the month her surgery took place), I dedicate my donation to my now 12-year-old daughter, her skilled surgeon, and those amazing anonymous people who donated the blood that saved her life.
I became a regular blood donor last year.

I was venturing back through some of my first columns and came across this Schneid Remarks from 1990 when I worked at the Waseca County LifeEnterprise News. I actually thought it was quite funny.
I wrote this column about the art of refereeing basketball, something which I have always had a frustration with. Since playing high school and college basketball, and now reporting on the sport, I have grown to appreciate what referees have to go through.

Driving my kids to school one morning, and my fourth grader reports from the back seat:
“Mom! ‘Bob’ and I were talking, and he told me that his mom is going to drive him to and from the field trip next week because he gets sick when he rides a bus. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!” my little redhead spouted in utter disbelief.
A quick glance in my rearview mirror revealed her mouth hung wide and her eyes lit up in shock.

As my family gathered for dinner the other night, we noticed we were one cat short.
Usually, our three felines join us.
Honey, our big orange boy, stretches out to expose his great, wide fluffy belly near 12-year-old Anna’s chair.
Penelope, our sassy, but sweet little tortie, will try to sneak her way onto 9-yearold Ellen’s lap or will spend dinnertime weaving between our chairs, looking for dropped morsels.

I was having an in-depth discussion with a long-lost friend of mine the other day.
We were talking about goofy things which people probably scratch their head about for hours.
He showed me a website which includes many of these wild realizations people have on buzzfeed.com Here are some of my favorites to get your brain waves working…
"The best part of a cucumber tastes like the worst part of a watermelon.” I personally don’t agree with this one.
"Drinking water with a minty mouth is the cold version of spicy."

Are my kids the only ones who forgot how to act in public?
It has been months since the COVID lockdown guidelines were lifted, but I still find myself having to retrain my offspring on the basics.  It’s baffling, frustrating, and a bit hilarious.
Last weekend, my family of four ventured to Kohl’s and Target because 9-yearold Ellen needed a few things for camp.

As I sit at my desk at 7 a.m. Monday morning I started to tear up a bit. One because I was up this early after Bullhead Days and two because of a special event which is about to happen in our family.
The following day, Tuesday, June 15, is/was our son Jayson’s 21st birthday.
There are so many milestones in a person’s life and it seems as if this is one of the last ones which gets a dad a little bit sentimental.

My kids are ready, but this momma is still marking up the color-coded calendar and trying to figure out the logistics of getting everyone everywhere they need to be.
I’m excited for my girls to participate in swimming, soccer, tennis, and volleyball, plus a babysitting clinic and a few other activities—all good things.
But, what working parent can get their kids to a 10 a.m. event every day for an entire week and then be back two hours later to shuttle them home?
I get it.
It’s summer. Kids don’t have a schedule per se.

I have been a huge music enthusiast ever since I got that first transistor radio when I was six or seven years old.
As I got older, my music boxes continued to get bigger and louder. The transistor just didn’t cut it. So I got another radio, which had not only a large speaker in it, but you could also play cassette tapes in it.

We missed Easter this year. Well, most of it. My family of four (my husband, John, daughters Anna, age 11, and Ellen, age 9, and myself) recently spent a week in Florida with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s family of five. They have three kiddos—ages 7, 5, and 3, and one more on the way. Basically, the Ingebrands invaded Florida.