I’m Old Enough To Know …

California Sunset / Photo by Nate Sanchez

I don’t love getting older. But one good thing about having passed a certain number of decades is that you become much more confident about certain things. Here are a few things I’m finally old enough to know. …

  • Patience is truly a virtue – and one of the best ones to get you through life. Patience can make you a great parent and a great spouse.
  • Respect is the key to every relationship. Respect your spouse. Respect your kids. Respect your coworkers. Respect the guy who pours your water at the restaurant. If you project your respect with honesty and sincerity, it comes back to you tenfold.
  • The way you talk to your kids when they’re young (yelling or not, swearing or not, with patience or not, with respect or not) is exactly the way they’ll talk to you when they’re about 13. And then forever after.
  • You can’t be everything to everyone.
  • It’s okay to say no.
  • It’s important to learn what your boundaries are and then set them early in every relationship, from friendships to work.
  • Childhood friends are to be cherished. No one will ever know you better than your childhood friends. You were your purist, un-formed self with them.
  • Everyone has obstacles in life. Never assume you’ve had a harder day or a harder life than the person standing next to you.
  • You never regret a family getaway.
  • Getting out of your own neck of the woods – for even just a day or a night – reminds you of how big the world is, and how people live differently than you. Not better or worse, just different. It makes the world open up, and then your mind.

What about you? What’s your favorite thing you’re old enough to know?

So Did the Pumpkins Come Out Early This Year?

My lovely Golden Spoon pumpkin-flavored yogurt — from a previous year!

So is it just me, or did pumpkin-flavored-everything arrive a little early this year?

I imagine it’s sorta like Christmas decorations, getting earlier and earlier. Marketers probably thought, “Hey, we make a ton of money on this stuff! Why start in October? Let’s start in September, people!”

Still, it’s technically summer on Sept 1, and real-live pumpkins probably aren’t even ripe yet, but there we have it: Pumpkin Spice Lattes in Starbucks, Pumpkin-flavored yogurt at Golden Spoon, Pumpkin-Spice Eggo waffles in your local freezer section. … All available since Sept 1 this year.

Not that I’m complaining, exactly. …  Continue reading

End-of-the-School-Year Craziness

Ah, the end of the school year. This is where things get really crazy. Turning in books, verifying grades, trying to scramble for that last “B,” banquets, parties, permission slips, yearbooks, school dances, teacher gifts, dress-shoes for promotions … the list goes on and on. Moms everywhere know what I’m talking about.

Rene is in a showdown with a crazy retiring-in-two-minutes teacher who has left the entire class bewildered with “missing assignments” notes when she left for some kind of surgery and has never returned. The substitutes have been bewildered also. The kids have all been glumly picking up slips for summer school. But there might be a knight in shining armor who swooped in to finish the last two weeks as the “permanent substitute” (there’s a fun phrase). And here’s the kicker – he had this same teacher years ago when he was at the school! So he feels very sympathetic toward the students and says he believes in “transparency” and “online grades” (thank you, sir!) and has vowed to get all their grades online so they can check to see what they’re really missing and if they’ve perhaps already turned it in. So, with 1 week left, we’re ending on a cliffhanger, here. I hope everything works out for Rene.

Nathan, meanwhile, is experiencing spring fever like I’ve never seen a child experience spring fever. My two older kids have always really liked school, and seem to stay motivated until the end. But this child. … hmmm … He just wants to head to the beach every single day. Since about May 1. Poor dude. But he’s almost done, too. We remind him of the countdown every day.

Summer, oh summer – We can’t wait to see you next week!

P.S. I also think we must be the LAST district out for summer???

Sunday Morning Weigh-In: I Lost!

Well, I lost.

But that was a good thing!

I lost a total of 9 pounds in our company “Biggest Loser” contest! Which is 15 pounds since Christmas.

So I didn’t win any money, but I still “won.”

(Best kind of contest, you know.)

Now I have to keep it up. …

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