I love traveling. If I could make a career out of it I would. Unfortunately, I have yet to come up with a way to enjoy a career of travel while still enjoying a career of motherhood. Most of us I think tend to get away for a week here or there. Sometimes though it can be hard to get away for that long. Maybe it’s money, time at work- whatever. The fact is though, there is a good reason to get away. We all need it for our sanity. So, what about just a weekend getaway? I am big on weekend traveling. Love it. I am fortunate to live in Colorado, because just an hour or two driving west from where I live dumps me in the heart of the Rocky Mountains where I can camp, boat/water ski, hike, rock climb, snowboard, etc. This weekend I’m traveling to Salida, CO. It’s an “old west” town with a penchant for music, art and outdoor sports. It’s so nice there. My excitement this morning got me thinking, everyone should do this! It’s just a weekend, so it’s doable for nearly everyone. Here are my top ten reasons to get away for the weekend:
SO there you have it; as if you needed 10 reasons to take a weekend trip! Do some searching and find something that’s not to far from where you live (but still far enough away for it to feel “foreign”), pick an activity and then jump in your car on Friday afternoon. I truly value my little getaways, and I think everyone should incorporate them into their life. Happy Friday….
**Photo of Pagosa Springs, CO.
If I Were President by bluskygirl on October 18th, 2007
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All animals in nature do it; they prepare for the long winter by getting their home or den ready and then settle in until spring comes. We typically talk about spring cleaning- the time to cleanup our lives after the long winter. But, what if we were to prepare a little bit before the change of season? Maybe spring cleaning wouldn’t be such a chore, and winter would be a little nicer. Winter is often when we spend the most time at home and I find that getting organized beforehand often makes winter more enjoyable. Here are some things that I do to get myself ready.
This seems like a lot, but you’ll find winter to be far more enjoyable, and in many ways spring will be better too, because you won’t have quite as much to be done. What are your favorite ways to get ready for winter? Got any good tips to share?
Not Enough Hours in a Day by bluskygirl on October 30th, 2007
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Yep. As is typical of the beginning of the school year, my son is sick. It happens every year within the first month of school and it seems to be entirely unavoidable. It will inevitable snowball and as soon as one boy is better the other is sick, until finally I’ll get it but have not time left to take off for myself. B-E-A-utiful! Since I’ve already been through this a few times, I now start the school year off armed and ready. Here’s some tips to get you through the Sickies.
For You:
For your kids:
Got any other good tips to share? I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll be back at work and have a few days to recover before my little one gets anything!
If you Have a Baby in New York, You Better be Ready to Breastfeed! by bluskygirl on August 1st, 2007
An article appeared on my homepage today that I had to comment on.
Back to School... Are You Ready? by bluskygirl on August 22nd, 2007
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America's Education System is Failing in Two Key Places by bluskygirl on September 4th, 2007
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Making Memories for Your Children by bluskygirl on August 28th, 2007
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Our Parents, for Better or for Worse by bluskygirl on September 5th, 2007
I never really gave much thought to my relationship with my own parents until I became one.
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I never really gave much thought to my relationship with my own parents until I became one. Prior to motherhood, my relationship with them was just there. I didn’t think about it or entertain ways to improve it. Now, as a mother, I reflect back so much more on the things my parents did and ways that they chose to raise my sister and I. I consider the things they say and contemplate what their experiences in life had been that led them to believe the way they do. I see similarities in myself as well as differences and I try to appreciate all the things about them, no matter how difficult.
My mom is very different from me. She is very old-school. She believes I should be married to a rich man, and that “settling” for whatever you get in a relationship is just the way things are done. She has in her own life settled for a man that she doesn’t love, but who provides for her (she’s told me this herself, so it’s not just speculation). As much as I disagree with her choice, I respect her simply because she is my Mother, and so I accept her personal choices in life. I have told her how I felt, and we are at a place where we respect each other enough to agree to disagree. That said, she’s my Mom, so she still offers up her advice at every turn. Even though her advice makes no sense to me sometimes and is often radically old-fashioned compared to how I live my life, I still listen to her. I still respect what she has to say. Many people wold say I tolerate things I shouldn’t have to, and maybe in some cases I could see their point. But, I do it because I won’t always have my Mother around. I do it because I love her regardless of her difference of opinion and it’s worth it to me to listen to her reasoning just to be able to spend time with her.
When my Mom’s Dad was still alive, I used to go visit him once a week or so. He was in his 90’s, but still lived alone in his house. He was blind and so I would often go over to read the paper to him, or at least keep him company for a little while. My grandpa was born in 1904, and his favorite thing in the world was to tell stories about the past. I always listened to him tell me the same stories over and over again. I thought if I had to hear his Stanley Steamer story one more time I was gonna go crazy! Even though his stories got boring to me, now that he’s gone I would give anything to hear him tell that story one more time. I think about my parent’s getting older and it occurs to me that someday I’ll be listening to her tell me stories, and I want to be sure that from start to finish my relationship with her (and my Father) is one that I will have no regrets about later in life.
Someday my boys may look at my relationship with them and judge the choices that I made. For better or worse I do the best I can to love them, support them, and teach them how to be an adult. I am sure I will make mistakes along the way, I am human. Sure there are aspects about my childhood that I think my Mom should have done differently, but living in regret, resentment or anger towards her does nothing for me. It’s in the past. As a parent, I believe she probably is well aware of some of the poor decisions she made regarding my sister and I; but I also believe in my heart that she would change them if she could.
There’s no real point to this post. I don’t have any tips or advice to give. I just was simply thinking today that our relationships with our parents are temporary and priceless. While I realize that there are some cases where this does not apply (I realize there are some relationships which are broken in ways that cannot be mended), having a good relationship with your parents can make such an amazing difference in your life. I may not agree with everything she did when I was growing up, but I love my Mother and I plan to listen to every one of her stories about life, whether I think she’s being old-school or not.
Platonic Relationships... Impossible? by bluskygirl on September 25th, 2007
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How to Be a Better Lover by bluskygirl on September 11th, 2007
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Making Memories for Your Children by bluskygirl on August 28th, 2007
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The Good, Bad and Ugly of Online Dating by bluskygirl on July 27th, 2007
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How to be Happily Single by bluskygirl on August 1st, 2007
Being single used to be a temporary state for me.
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This post refers specifically to the United States, and I don’t really have any idea how other country’s education systems work but I would love to hear from those of you not in the U.S. about how your country tackle’s these issues.
There are some huge problems in the education system here, and I am not going to touch on all of them because I don’t have time to write a novel! If you look around online, even just in the blogosphere, what are the two main things you see people interested in? Money and Diet. I’ll tell you that those are my two primary topics of interest most of the time. It seems that no one really knows how to manage their money or their health, and here in America those are the two subjects that no one ever teaches you about in school. I suppose the education system expects that families will teach these things to their kids, but that only works if the families are already well educated in finance and health. Based on our debt problems and obesity rates in this country, I’d say we’re not.
Finance
I never took a finance class, nor was there any class about managing money and the expenses of living as an adult offered at my high school (or any others that I know of). Children should be taught how to manage their own money and the responsibility that you have when you become an adult. How did I learn about money? The hard way. I learned the way most people learn- trial and error. Our financial system in this country is a scam and it feeds on the fiscally uneducated. After many mistakes and eventually winding up in the hole, I’ve joined the millions of people who are online reading and learning about how to be financially independent instead of at the mercy of credit card companies. Sadly, I don’t see any hope for primary and secondary education in this country realizing the need for kids to have access to financial knowledge. So, I’m gonna do the best I can to educate my children myself. I’ve certainly made enough mistakes to be able to tell what NOT to do! I’ve also learned along the way some ways to save money that have helped me. Women and especially and young girls should learn to be their own financial advisor because all too often there is this idea that managing money is a man’s job.
Since I realize I live in only one of 50 states, you should look into your education system and find out if your child’s school offers a class in finance. If they do, explain to you child how important it is to know how to avoid the pitfalls of the American financial system. Even if the classes viewpoint differs from yours, there is still much to be gained from learning these things from a teacher instead of just the parent.
Nutrition
I don’t have to explain why I think we need to be teaching nutrition in school. Look at our country. I saw in the news that Mississippi has now surpassed the 30% mark for obesity. More than 1 in 3 people in Mississippi are considered obese. Nation-wide it’s an epidemic and we hear about it all the time. Colorado is the thinnest state, where I live, and we’re still holding steady with a 17% obesity rate. It’s not about fitting some standard or looking like a model. It’s a serious health concern, and what bothers me most is the number of kids I see that are already fighting with weight issues. Parent’s should be diligent about what goes into their child’s mouth, but if the parent’s are struggling to make healthy food choices then they’re certainly not going to be making smart choices for their kids.
America goes on these fads; something will suddenly become “in” or “out”… right now whole grains are the new thing. If the newest trend towards nutrition has convinced people to stop eating refined grains like white bread, that’s great! Still, there’s so much more to nutrition than the latest fad. Everything from the types of meat we’re eating (and how much) to choosing whether or not to buy organic. How about Fast Food? Most people have no idea the levels of chemicals, hormones and pesticides that they’re eating on a daily basis.
As far as obesity is concerned, nutrition doesn’t just have to do with what you’re putting into your body. It also matters greatly what you do with your body, and let’s face it- watching TV for two hours every night is not a good choice when combined with our choices of diet.
We have teenage girls who are starving themselves to be thin and maybe if they had been educated on how to eat healthy, they would be in a place where they were actually healthy and the desire to starve would not be as intense. A simple nutrition class on healthy foods, healthy activities, and the basic idea of the body as an energy machine (i.e. your weight is a result of what you put in vs. what you put out) would go a long way towards teaching children about their health. I have taught my kids a lot about healthy food choices, and while they’re not perfect and still chow down on candy once in a while, they’re leaps and bounds above most kids their age. I was in the produce isle the other day with them and they were fighting over whether we should get asparagus, artichokes or broccoli. They were nearly begging me for asparagus but I had just made it the other day and wanted to get broccoli. You should have seen the other parents nearby looking at my boys like they were mutants! They’re not…. the only difference in them is that I’ve had them eating healthy fruits and vegetables for so long now that they actually like them.
Nutrition is something that is offered more commonly in schools, but usually is an elective. If your child’s school does have such a class, convince your child the class is valuable. Even if they don’t use what they’ve learned initially, it will come back eventually and the acquired skills will be important for getting on a healthy track.
I realize that adding two subjects to school’s here in this country is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our flawed education system, but it would be the first thing I would change if I had the power to do it on my own. It will take parents to realize the importance of these things to convince schools to add such subjects, and most parents are still struggling from the lack of financial and health information they received. Our kids deserve to have the necessary skills to become successful adults, and if the school system supported these two subjects I think this next generation would be far more prepared than my generation was.
How To Save Money, Even When You Think you Can't! by bluskygirl on August 21st, 2007
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The Greatest Scam of All Time by bluskygirl on August 16th, 2007
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The Daily Grind: How Do We Make it A Happy Grind? by bluskygirl on September 11th, 2007
I picked up a blog post today that I thought was worth sharing.
Why You Should be Your Own Financial Adviser by bluskygirl on August 3rd, 2007
If you're single, then chances are you're well aware of your own finances.
The High Price of Fashion by bluskygirl on August 29th, 2007
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