I got a haircut today and it reminded me how much better I feel when I feel I look presentable.  This thought lead me to write about the Locks of Love program.  A couple of years ago my hair was quite long and I asked my stylist if I could donate it.  My salon works with the Locks of Love program and knew all of the requirements for donation. I have close realtives that have struggled with hair loss and a neighbor friend who lost her's following chemo for cancer.  These la...

Happy Father's Day to all of the Dads out there.  I especially want to wish a wonderful day to my Dad and my husband (who has become an incredible dad).  Like the saying goes "Any dick can be a father but it takes a real man to be a Dad". My Dad is a classic father.  He worked a physically and mentally difficult job the entire time I was growing up.  He would come home at the same time every night, shower, have dinner and read or watch television.  Weekends were for h...

I recently read a very powerful story in Parents magazine about a woman who was forced to deal with the loss of her baby who was born at 23 weeks.  The part that really stuck with me was when she talked about not being able to put herself in other's shoes prior to this experience.  That ability is called Empathy and it seems as though a lot of people just don't have it. I was impressed that she recognized the fact that she always had good intentions toward other people in their time...

I don't know if many people struggle with this, but it is an ongoing thing for me.  I know who I want to be, inside and out.  I recognize both my strengths and weaknesses.  One of my greatest weakenesses however is self discipline. I know that to be the person I want to be on the outside, I need to exercise.  Why do I have so much trouble just doing it?!  On mornings that I get up before everyone else and use the treadmill and eliptical machines or go for a walk, I fe...

I think most people dial a phone number with very little effort or attention.  I want to bring it to everyone's attention that it is always an obscene hour somewhere on the planet and you could really apply undo stress by dialing a wrong number.  Please be sure what you are dialing. What inspired this cautionary note?  I was in a very deep sleep when awoken at 4AM by the ringing of my bed side phone.  My brain instantly thinks "Oh dear God!  Who died?!" when the phone...

I usually dread Mondays so I am trying to point out to myself the good things.  A more recent favorable thing to make Mondays easier is the new stuff that is always posted on JU.  It seems as though most of us get pretty busy over the weekend and JU gets pretty slow.  Come Monday, new stuff galore! Another thing about Monday is the sense of a new start.  Sure, you trashed the house and really screwed up your diet over the weekend.  Put it behind you and start anew on ...

My 9yr old son always seems to have deep thoughts right before bed and right when he gets up in the morning.  He usually has interesting questions regarding how things work or why God made things they way they are.  I just felt like sharing his latest with you.  Yesterday he woke up and immediately asked "How come in baseball a strike is a bad thing but in bowling it's a really good thing?" Clever, isn't he.  Can you answer that one?

Maybe it's because I think of my cell phone as just another tool I use to get through each day, but I really don't see the big hoopla over ringtones.  I picked one of the rings that came with my phone.  I can see why you wouldn't want everyone's phone ringing the same way since that causes the, "everyone check to see if it's yours" problem.  But that is the extent of my interest in ringtones. I am aware people shop for songs to use as their ringtone.  I've seen the commerc...

We have a local church that has a corner of land that you can see very well off from a major intersection.  Each Halloween they display a graveyard of crosses which are supposed to represent the number of abortions performed in the US each day.  The only reason I know this is I inquired.  The church is soooo misguided!  First of all, I don't think the "graveyard" is effective anyway but it certainly isn't when displayed on Halloween!  Everyone just assumes it's a Hal...

I was just thinking about Halloween since my boys have been talking about what they want to be this year.  My favorite costume, although I had a lot of great ones, had to be the alien costume my mom made in 4th grade.  It had an arm made out of dryer tubing with a rubber glove sewed on the end sticking out of the middle of my back.  People kept shaking the hand on my back   My put crazy braids in my hair, painted extra mouths and eyes on my face and I loved it! So what wa...

I don't know if your community has this but ours starts football and cheerleading at the 4th or 5th grade.  Our neighbor friend has a 5th grade daughter who is in cheerleading.  She is a beautiful, sweet little girl.  I had concerns about the peer affect of such a thing but figured since it wasn't school related that it probably wouldn't be too bad. Well, today this little lady showed up for me to take her to school in her cheerleading outfit.  I was a bit shocked.  S...

I don't know about anyone else but I think Gradparents' Day is just another Hallmark day conjured up in an attempt to guilt people out of their money.  How many people even know about it?  Who is the jerk who came up with it? You have to be a parent to be a grandparent, correct?  As a parent, you already get honored on Mother's or Father's day, correct?  Why should you then get a "Grandparents'" day? I am pretty sure my mom was making fun of the "holiday" by saying "I s...

I am trying to figure out what made my mood yesterday so different from today.  Yesterday I felt energetic and determined to get things done.  Today I feel down and bummed. The weather is gloomy today but it was a bit gloomy yesterday too.  I got up earlier yesterday.  I think that and the fact that my husband was in a terrible mood this morning put me in a funk.  When he leaves for work mad I just feel like going back to bed for the day. Yesterday I just got going...

I have seen the word "perfect" in the title of a lot of blogs today: Perfect life, perfect blogger, perfect country, etc.  I tend to believe that "perfect" can't exist except on a personal level.  You can say your spouse is "perfect for you" but they can't be perfect in general because everyone has different, tastes, needs, interests. You have to put down a lot of qualifications to meet before declaring something perfect.  What is a perfect life for instance?  Some might s...

As hobbies go, I personally think scrapbooking is one of the most useful.  I have a friend who is a Creative Memories consultant who turned me on to scrapbooking a few years back and I love it!  My kids, friends and family love the results too. I have always enjoyed photos even if they are of people I don't know.  I simply find people fascinating.  So when I was invited to a scrapbooking party by my friend, I figured I would go even if it was just to look at other peoples'...