Outside

I will be putting away the treadmill! It has been nice enough to be able to get outside and walk. This has been such a great change from the treadmill. Treadmills are great for getting in some exercise but they are pretty boring! I always look forward to being able to be outside. The warm weather and sunshine just brightens my spirits. I just love spring!

Parenting

With the teens its acne treatments and with us older folks its the best weight loss supplements. Why is it there is always something to deal with once we get past the age of 10? I think that we should have many more years that are worry-free. I think that perhaps there was a time when there were. And somehow we have now made our kids into small adults at very early ages. I think that 10 might not even be accurate. Kids are worrying about so many things way before that age. And every single day we are fighting for our kids to not fall into that small adult category. It makes us weird parents but that is okay. Its better to be weird than to just follow the pack when it comes to parenting!

Skin

I have been struggling with getting Jasmine to wash her face. I am glad I am not spending money on the best acne treatment for her. She is terrible about washing her face! I mean even when she is in the shower she doesn't do it. All I am asking her to do is wash it while she is in the shower. Once I get her to accomplish that I will move on to getting her to wash her face before bed. I am not sure how to instill in her the want to keep her skin nice. I'm not sure if she figures she has a boyfriend who loves her so it doesn't matter or what. Oh, the trials and tribulations of raising kids!

Back in Time

Waking up on the first day of spring a person should be filled with hope and a feeling of renewal. Today is the first day of spring. I did not wake up with either of those feelings. Instead, I woke up feeling like we were just entering winter. After a couple of weeks of really nice weather, we woke up to a sky and the ground filled with snow. That will be a natural fat burner for those birds that have just migrated back to the north after a winter in the warm south. And for us northern folk it is a mental set back. We have been gearing up for spring work and suddenly we are back in the throes of winter. Blah!

How Does It Work?

My question has never been does nutrisystem work. It works. All sorts of folks lose weight by eating their food. They lose lots of weight. My question has always been what happens when you reach your goal? Do you just keep eating their packaged food for the rest of your life? Or do they wean you off of the packaged food and onto real food? It is something I wonder about every time I see one of their commercials on tv. I wish that on their commercials they would show people who are years out from their weight loss. I would maybe be more apt to believe that people actually keep the weight off.

Contact

Ah, young love. Jasmine's boyfriend is leaving for about 9 days. She is having a hard time with that. I would not be surprised if she goes off her feed this week. It will be like taking phentermine without the side effects.

I suppose if he had not lost his cell phone a few weeks ago it would make the separation easier. But as it stands she will have very little contact with him while he is gone. It is something that their generation is not used to. They are connected with their friends 24/7. They don't know what it is like to only be able to make long distance phone calls on Sunday night because its cheaper. Or too send a hand written letter because its cheaper than a phone call. Nope. All they know is that they can be in contact with one of their friends via any manner of ways at time.

Its certainly a different world they live in. Personally, I like not having constant contact with my friends and family. It really does make the heart grow fonder.

Keepsakes

I was cleaning out the girls closet last week. I found a box of clothes that I am saving back. They are clothes that my kids wore when they were little. I have dresses, sweaters, hats, kids ties and little shoes. It was fun to go through that box but also sad. It is so hard to fathom that my oldest is now driving a car and signing up for college classes. And my youngest is reading books and making her own toast. It just isn't fair that the time we have with our kids literally flies. I think that it should be some of the slowest time we experience. But it isn't so I am trying to savor the remaining time I have with my kids. It will be over entirely too quickly!

Tough Times

Several years ago I would often hear the checkers at stores complain about their job. At the very least, they would be more interested in counted the minutes until they got off than they were in doing their job. Things have changed. Now I may hear some complaints but it is always tempered with "At least, I have a job!". I can only imagine what it is like to try to conduct a finance job search or any other job search for that matter with today's economy and job market. I think most folks are truly thankful for the job they have whether they like it or not! I know I have heard Tom even say that he is just thankful he has a job. It is amazing how our thinking can be changed by tough times.

HOT!

So the weather has been consistently above freezing for about a week. Even the night time temperatures are warm. (Yes, I said warm!) The other night our upstairs was so warm even without any heat that Tom and I had to open a window. We couldn't sleep we were so hot! The window helped a bit and it was nice to wake up to the sounds of birds. Soon we will be running our ceiling fans 24/7 and wishing we had air conditioning. I don't relish that. For now, I am just enjoying a little more sun and warmer temperatures.

Egg Issues

Spring is finally starting to raise her head! It brings a lot of great things like warm weather, flowers, birds and sunshine. It also brings an increase in egg production as the daylight hours get longer and longer. I am almost thinking we need to order some fancy point of purchase displays to help sell our eggs. We sometimes have a hard time selling what they produce now. And we certainly never have enough room in the fridge to handle them all. I cannot even imagine the bind we will be in come June when they are all laying. We need to come up with some creative marketing to sell them all.

Yay!

What a milestone today is. The kids drove off to school today in my son's car. Now they have been driving to school some in my van. But we finally got the auto insurance quotes looked at and the car titled and licensed this weekend. It is now a legal vehicle and I don't plan on my kids riding the bus all that often from here on out. The girls will have to ride most afternoons because Clint has practice. However, the morning rush is not so much a rush when they are driving. That is the part of the day when I am glad he can drive them all to school!