Golfing Fun

A couple of times I have taken my daughter and a bunch of her friends to play miniature golf. The course near us is indoor and during the evening hours you play under black lights. The kids always have a great time!

The last time we went the group was pretty large. It was a bit crazy with some of the kids taking some hard drives at their ball. I think they forgot they are inside! But it was still a lot of fun just to watch how the kids have fun. The usually forget that a parent is there and can act pretty funny. I especially like when they all laugh at how white everyone's teeth look under the black lights. Its always funny to them.

I'm glad my kids aren't too embarrassed to have me along on outings with their friends.

Sledding

I can't believe that there are only 3 weeks of summer left. Before you know it we will be dragging out our snowboots, gloves, hats and heavy coats. If this winter is wet, people will be dragging out snowmobiles, assorted sleds and snow tubes, too.

There is nothing quite like sliding down a hill at a fast rate of speed. Gosh, we had fun as kids doing that. I think that if I did it now I would really be sore the next day! My Dad used to clean our driveway and pile the snow for use to sled down. I'm talking about a farm driveway. It was big and all of that snow made for some fantastic sledding hills!

Taking a Trip

This weekend we are planning a trip. We are going to pack our stuff on our thule roof racks and head on out of town! We are going to visit Tom's aunt and cousins that live near St. Louis. While we are there we plan on going to the St. Louis zoo for the day. My cousin and his family are going to meet us there so we can spend the day together. We are all really looking forward to this weekend. It is different than our normal weekend trips. That makes it more exciting for all of us!

Good Memories

I have a lot of great memories of my Dad. He smoked cigars until I was in 6th grade. More than once as a little kid I would reach up to hold his hand only to get the hot end of a cigar. I know that bothered my dad a lot. That I would get hurt. I can still remember what kind of cigars he smoked. Phillies Sport. Funny the things you remember.

When he quit smoking he started drinking coffee. I have more memories of him with a cup of coffee than I do with a cigar. He would always have a cup of coffee in the truck with him. This was long before travel mugs and there was always spilled coffee on the floor. Thankfully his floor was not carpeted and he would just hose it out. Such great memories.

Local TV

It wasn't all that long ago that we used to be able to get all of our local TV stations by using our antenna. In fact, we never even considered paying the extra for LocalTV-Satellite when we got satellite TV. It seemed silly that we should do that when we could get it for free. And then the government stepped in. Suddenly we were faced with buying a new TV so we could get local channels, hook our existing TV up to a converter box that may or may not work or we could check into companies like localtv-satellite.com. Nice options, government.

We finally ended up paying the extra to our current satellite TV provider so that we cold watch the local news. I suppose we could have looked into different providers, too. I think we can only get DishNetwork and Direct TV where we live. So, there really aren't many choices in that respect. We are happy that we can get the local channels but in all reality I kinda liked how it was before.

Mesothelioma Cancer

Isn't it amazing how we go through life not giving much thought about how the small things around us will affect us later in life. I think that is very much the case for asbestos. All of us have lived or worked somewhere that exposed us to this Mesothelioma Cancer causing particle. I know I have and you probably have, too.

I can remember how I loved my grade school. The teachers, the staff, the kids and the building. It was all a lovely picture of love and learning. I have many fond memories of that school. Little did I know that every day I was breathing in something that might kill me later in life. I had never heard of Mesothelioma cancer. In fact, I had hardly heard the word cancer.

Today, we have all heard of Mesothelioma cancer. We all know that at some point in our lives we were exposed to asbestos. And we all know that Surviving Mesothelioma is not a common thing. However, more and more people are battling it and winning. Paul Kraus offers a free book about struggling to survive this cancer. I am sure it would be a wonderful thing to read if you have or know someone who has Mesothelioma.

Unaware

There are times that I wish I had a few wireless cctv cameras set up around the house. Sometimes I would like to be a fly on the wall to just watch my kids. I don't mean that in a creepy, spy-like way. I just mean I want to catch them completely unaware in those moments when they are completely absorbed in what they are doing. Have you ever been able to watch your kids when they are like that? I have. It gives me such a feeling of love and accomplishment to see them being themselves. I would love to be able to see more of those moments.

Money Management

I have been doing some thinking about document management lately. I used to have somewhat of a system to maintain our documents. That went by the wayside a long time ago. I used to save all of my paid bills and file them away. Then I started just shoving them in big bags after they were paid. Just recently I decided there really was no reason to save all of my paid bills. My new system is to throw the bills away as soon as they are paid. I am still not completely happy with that system. I think I may save the bills that I cannot look up online for 1 month and throw the ones that can be found online away when they are paid. Sometimes I do look back at the month before. I would also like to start tracking our spending and begin paying for things in cash rather than using a debit card or check. Lots of changes coming in how I manage our money!