Two thirds of our body make up is water. It is common knowledge that we should drink 8 glasses of water to maintain good health. Over the years I believe this philosophy has become so identified with the area of diet and weight loss that people forget that it’s just plain essential for good health. I know I did.

I used to carry a water bottle with me everywhere and drank at least a gallon of water per day. It was easy to do when I had a 9 to 5 office job with a schedule and a routine. It should be easy too, working at home with everything I need to eat and drink healthy at my fingertips but it’s the structure that’s missing. I need to make a priority of fixing this.

So okay. I’m ready to drink more water. Why’s it gotta be so hard, though?! The water coming out of my tap is filled with chemicals. Bottled water is bad for the environment and we are not supposed to use those bottles over again. We can BUY reusable water bottles to be kinder to the universe, but we still need to buy the water filtration pitcher and THEN oh my goodness have you seen the price of the filters?  I have a Brita pitcher which I love. I just put in my last filter. I lucked into a pack of them that were in a clearance bin somewhere, otherwise I might have been still using the last – outdated – one. Look – I know that clean healthy water is one of the biggest priorities I have. But what makes me mad is that clean water should not be so difficult to access. Just like clean, organic food, it makes me mad that I have to pay for something that the earth once supplied in its cleanest healthiest form.

Guess what I found out today. That those water filters that attach to your faucet are super affordable. Duh. Why don’t I have one of these? It solves all the problems – clean, convenient, and affordable. You can even find discounts online if you shop around or grab a  pur water filteration coupon code.

Okay. I’m all set now. How about you? How do you purify your water?

Some time after Christmas has passed, like maybe exactly one month, I start looking at things with disdain. My living room furniture is 15 years old. It lacks luster and is not really comfy anymore. Faded, tattered linens. Broken up mismatched drinking glasses. Pffft. And there is always something that really stands out. Fortunately last year the thing that bothered me was a simple fix. I finally went on a mission to find – and found – the perfect plaque in the perfect colors with the perfect saying – to  replace a clock I took down in the kitchen. Also – the rug and shower curtain in the guest bathroom. I know these aren’t major purchases financially – but I am very particular about what I want and I won’t settle until I find it. So I still love how my guest bathroom looks except now – a year after the new curtain and rug, and a month after being out shopping, the sink has become an eyesore to me. Uh oh.

Shower curtain / rug combo – easy. Vessel sink / vessel sink faucets combo – super duper not easy.

I cannot complain about my house really. It was new when we bought it in 1997 and its neutralness maintained its timeliness. But it is starting to seem dated to me as decor has evolved dramatically over the last several years. I always intended to change all the Formica counter tops but now I just want to rip everything out and start over. The vessel sinks are not really that expensive. The vessel faucet actually costs more than the sink. Then there’s the cabinet or pedestal, though. Now I’m into big dollar. More than any of my Christmas and Birthday money can help. But that’s okay. Now that I realize the pattern and where these feelings are coming from, I think if I wait it out, they will pass until there’s room in the budget for bigger projects. Maybe for now I can get some towels that aren’t torn or bleach stained. That would make me happy too.

Post Christmas Shopping Dysfunction. Did I just invent something new or have you experienced it too?

For funzies I searched the healthiest cities to live and was not at all surprised to find that California boasted 10 of the 20 healthiest cities. And I learned that I was right to have that ) Los Angeles moving company on my list. LA was #10 on the list! I also drifted off into fantasy land for a minute thinking about San Jose (#1!)  and San Francisco. I’ve been to both and experienced an instant increase in quality of life when my allergy, sinus, and body aches disappeared. I know the grass is always greener and every place holds its challenges, but I think that waking up feeling your physical best every day would only lead to achieving your personal best every day.

Still, Michigan to California is quite a distance to leave between friends and family so I have to consider that as I adjust the parameters of my job search. Wish me luck!

If you could start out fresh anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Champagne

So now I’m sitting back, no worries, thinking “I should  become a tax preparer.” I mean how hard can it be, right? Take a tax class, find some clients, crunch some numbers for a few months, make some extra money… Oh right – one problem – I can’t do math. It makes my  head hurt. Probably that whole “finding some clients” thing might prove to be difficult as well. Hm. I better think of something else to make some extra money.

Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about being in love and honoring the one you love, correct? But over time, to me, it has become a tool of the flower, chocolate, and greeting card industries. Like everything else, its meaning has been bastardized. And not only has the meaning been corrupted, but pressure has been put on everybody to love the same things. Chocolate and roses. Pfffft. I hate roses. And I’d rather have a Reese’s peanut butter cup than a box of chocolates. Or a heart shaped Twizzler. Now THAT would be something.

Oh and how could I forget jewelry?! Don’t even get me started.

So that’s why Valentine’s Day irks me. I love individuality though, so for ME I would love it if SOMEONE say … made me a bouquet of Reese’s peanut butter cups on wooden kabob skewers. I’d probably be moved to tears. But let’s face it – not many … “people” we will call them… think like that. Hence the default roses and Forrest Gump chocolates. WELL finally a delivery service that has unique custom yummies and pretties that can be made to suit your Valentine and really show them you know them and care.

For instance – I use the term “love bug” alot and you should have seen me when I scrolled over THE LOVE BUG gift. A bouquet of tiny red flowers popping out of a pail that looks like a lady bug, accompanied by 6 fudgy cake pops in the shape of love bugs! I squealed. I did. Cookies, fruit, wine, bath stuff, brownies- OH and this brownie cake! You know what – just click here for Shari’s brownies  and you can browse for yourself.

It’s been a particularly tough few years. Whatever your budget, whatever your “Valentine’s Day” beliefs, it couldn’t hurt to devote a day to YOUR love bugs and make sure they know how much you appreciate them. I think we all could use a hug right about now.

In the early days after the adoption we had my daughter in ballet and drama, and my son id karate, baseball, and wrestling. It was great. At 3 and 7, having been uprooted many times from families and schools, we found value in the socializing and confidence building in addition to the fun they were having. Classes were kinda pricey – and dance was over the top with the costumes at recital time, but it was worth it to see them blossom.

As the years went by and it became increasingly difficult for me to work due to their special needs, the kids had to start making choices about which activities they wanted most because without my income we couldn’t swing them all. The last year we did ballet we even opted out of the recital because it required too much money too close to Christmas. Cut to now, as a national recession has piggy backed on top of our already tight belt tightening, nobody is enrolled in anything.

My daughter loves to draw now. She’s into cartooning. Since we haven’t been able to enroll her in art classes, we have found lots of free resources on the internet and she is teaching herself some amazing things. She can often be found with her head in her netbook and for a hot second I am concerned and then I realize, she’s reading stories and studying art strategies. Do I still hope to get her enrolled in art classes at some point? Yes. She says she wants to be an artist for Sega, so I need to do what I can to get her the training she needs. But for now she’s okay.

My son is a tougher customer. He is a video game addict so anything we can do to get him out and socializing and exercising an using different skills is welcome. Guess what he loves – snowboarding and mountain biking. Neat right? We bought him all his gear last year figuring it would last him through this year but his boots and pants are too small. Dammit. And he wants to mountain bike like his Dad which is great, except that by the time I buy him the Canondale Lefty bike, Yakima bike rack, Peralzumi shoes and everything else he has picked out – we won’t have money left for groceries. For months.

Does he need to have top notch everything to get started? I don’t think so. But his Dad’s head is stuck in the days when he had lots of disposable income and it’s difficult for him to accept notions such as “budget” and “walk before you crawl.” Sigh.

With my son just two years away from 18, graduating high school, and facing college & life, the financial aspect of raising children is really weighing heavily on me. Like so many others, the last few years have brought us reduced savings accounts, assets, and home values. It’s like having to start all over, but in the negative, and we have only two years to catch up and get prepared for college.  Then a few more years for the other college student, and then somehow for retirement. I know things always work out somehow, but as I sit here an contemplate and try to make plans and set goals – I just don’t see how.

I should add that I am sick today and seeing mostly everything in negative light so I bet I’ll have a better disposition in a few days.

What activities do your kids enjoy? What gets them off the electronics?

My baby brother just graduated from high school. He is so smart and is moving to downtown Atlanta to go to Georgia Tech. He will be the one in the family that actually owns the beach house for us to rent during the summer. We went last weekend to get him moved into his new place. He is renting a one bedroom apartment downtown right by the school. The apartment is fine, but I noticed the neighborhood that it is in. I tried to not make that the first thing I said when he was showing us his place for the first time. He was all proud of himself now that he is growing up and moved out of mom and dad’s house. I tried to ooh and aah over the place before I talked about the scary neighborhood that it is located in. I told him he really needs to get a Alexandria home security system. Then he goes off on how that isn’t manly and how he is not going to do that. I really wish he would because I would feel a lot better about him living there.

Although I never really caught the Christmas spirit this year and felt a little insecure by the significantly smaller budget we had to spend, as I reflect back on it, it was a pretty great one this year. True we had less money to spend, but coincidentally, no one had any expensive electronics or gadgets on their lists. In fact, all my son wanted was the RETURN of his iPod touch, from which he’s been grounded since summer. It is a little cruel that he has an ipod docking station in his room with no device to dock in it, but let’s not spoil this lovely reflection by dwelling on that.

My daughter confirmed for me that it was a good holiday when she off-handedly said, “Mom I think this was the best Christmas ever.”

I wondered how that could be. We have had Christmas mornings so big that there was barely any place to sit and open the presents because they took so much space. In addition to the quantity, in past years the presentation is always elaborate, with many wrapped presents of all sizes, bigger gifts such as hockey tables and doll houses unwrapped and put together, new slippers for everyone to put on, and activities to keep the kids busy until Mom and Dad woke up. Not this year. Why would it have been better?

When I asked her what about the presents made it a better year, she said it wasn’t really about the presents. She said that although there was less to open, she got some very specific things that made her happy. And that was good. But what made it a good holiday season was everyone was together. I told her that was a nice thing to say and wonderful thing for me to hear, but I was confused. Aren’t we ALWAYS together at the holidays?

And then it hit me. No real estate.

I quit real estate last year and this is the first year that I didn’t have to show houses every weekend and run out at night during the week. We did more little things like watch holiday shows together, drink hot cocoa, and make treats. And since I didn’t have any big deals pending, I wasn’t stressing over needing them to buy Christmas. I just made it happen as we went along. No waiting, no worrying.

There were many points over the summer – when we were fighting my Father in Law’s cancer and we were in and out of the hospital with Andrew that I thought to myself, it’s a good think I quit real estate because I would have been a mess trying to juggle customers in that mix. But this realization felt different. I never realized that my family felt the stress of my job. I guess I knew they felt my absence, but to the point of it overshadowing the whole holiday period? I wouldn’t have guessed. And the truth is, that cannot always be helped. Parents have to work. But it was heart warming to know that my daughter’s Christmas was so enjoyable because I was around and everyone was together more. That really is the true spirit of the holiday, after all.

I am an only child and before my kids I had no insight whatsoever into sibling rivalry. After being subjected to Drew and Sari’s nonstop bickering I foolishly decided that brothers and sisters at that age just don’t like each other. I reminded them that family is to be treasured and that they need to look out for one another. I resigned to waiting it out until they figured it out. Until I found the note.

One day after the kids went to school I was cleaning Drew’s bedroom and I found some dollars on the floor. When I picked up his clear acrylic bank I saw a torn piece of notebook paper folded neatly and stuffed down the slot. Like any good Mother I popped out the rubber stopper and retrieved the paper. It said, “Don’t tell anybody but I really do love my sister. She is pretty cool.”

My heart was warmed! Drew had always blamed Sari for their situation because it was after her birth that they were removed from their biological home when he was 5 and put into the foster care system. I worried that his aggression toward her went beyond sibling rivalry and into someplace deep and sad. It may have in the beginning and may resurface in the future, but here was hope that he really did cherish her.

Not sure what the proper thing to do was, I shared with Drew that I read his note. I feel it is my job to snoop and be aware of everything in my kid’s lives, I don’t feel bad about that, but I thought I should let him know. I asked him if it was true that he was developing a soft spot for her. Unsure of what to expect, I was surprised and a little tickled when he said, “Yeah, it’s true Ma. You know, she’s just a little kid still. She doesn’t know how dumb she is.”

That was just about the sweetest thing I had ever heard. Do you remember how old you were before you stopped detesting your sibling?