IMAD 2009

It's been a wonderful roller coaster week + since I managed to post. I really missed the blog. So now I have all kinds of things to report and since they won't all fit in one post --- well I'll try my best.

Did you all know that yesterday was IMAD? This is a international holiday. The acronym stands for "international Mary appreciation Day". This was founded by myself and my dear friend. It's a day devoted to the care and appreciation of those women named Mary or Maire or Marie or Maria or Maris or Mara ... well you get the idea. Any version of the name Mary is welcome. Those with mary names as their middle name are honorary participants and included as well. You can see that this encompasses a vast number of women.

IMAD, a history. My friend and I have a delightful tradition of not buying each other winter solstice gifts. Instead we take a day off in December, spend the whole day talking, shopping for others and eating nice meals together. It's fabulous. We noticed that some years the having fun parts got bigger and that much needed holiday shopping was not getting done. This made us feel bad which was contrary to what we were trying to create. So we created IMAD, a holiday for the dark and dreary time of the winter [end of February beginning of March] and we take a Friday off and spend the day having fun, indulging ourselves, eating well, seeing others, seeing art/beauty and practicing extreme self care. And December shopping gets done as well on it's own day.

Many wonder 'hey when is international Brian/Cynthia/Scott/Carolyn/"some name" appreciation day?'
Our reply is whenever you and your like-named set it. This is not a tradition that we are hoarding to ourselves. If you have a name that is widely used and you feel the need for your own appreciation day go to it!

But back to IMAD 2009. Basically an outstanding success. We got 8 inches of snow the day before so extra work and care driving were needed but fun was still had. We didn't try to meet for breakfast since just getting out of my driveway was going to take extra time.

We had pedicures [Ladyfingers in St Paul] at 9 am and perogis at 11:15. Ah perogis oh yummy bundles of potatoey [or prune] goodness. Museum at 12:30. We love to visit small museums on IMAD. That way we can really see the place, not feel overwhelmed and have plenty of time for the talking we love to do. ASI had a wonderful knitting exhibit and a glass exhibit. We also enjoyed touring the mansion. I love functional art and the 11 Swedish tiled shoves just blew me away. It was my first time there in 20 years. Quick shopping followed with fruit break, dinner at 6:00 with 10 other people. My sweet wife even got the VCR working so I caught the third episode of Dollhouse later that night.

All in all a stellar IMAD, just what I needed after the intense full week I had. I hope that people can be inspired to set aside a day for fun, play and cherishing for themselves very soon.