It's OK to be WEIRD!

The Best Gift for Your Child

2009-07-14T14:36:00Z

I have said this very same thing many times myself, and when I read it today in one of my e-zine subscriptions from a friend of mine, I thought I would post it here, and say it AGAIN!

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The Best Gift For Your Child
by Michael Webb
Founder, www.50secrets.com

You love your children; you deeply desire to see them grow up healthy and happy. But what is the most important thing you can give your children to help them grow up feeling loved, nurtured, self-confident and at peace?

There are many good answers here, such as providing a comfortable home in a safe neighborhood; making great sacrifices to help your children succeed in school; demonstrating unconditional love; setting consistent boundaries; modeling healthy values; and on and on.

One other important factor too often gets left off that list, and I'd place it right at the top. It's loving your mate.

You're two of the most important people in the world to your children, probably THE most important. How do you think your child feels when one parent yells at, belittles, taunts, or insults the other? I imagine they feel like I did when it was obvious my parents didn't love each other. I was torn, hurt, angry, scared, and uncertain about my future.

It is especially traumatic for children to see their mother with whom that child has always had a special attachment by nature of the birth and child rearing process - being hurt or neglected by their father. Too many dads con themselves into believing that the best way to invest in their children's future is to work long hours so they can live in a nicer neighborhood and send their children to better schools. In the process, they often end up jeopardizing the element that actually has the most impact on their children's lives the relationship between Mom and Dad.

What a child's house looks like on the outside isn't nearly as important as what it feels like on the inside. Every child has a deep desire to see a committed, loving relationship between the two people he loves the most.

So, the good news here is that, with a little effort and creativity, you can provide your children with security, comfort, peace, stability, and health - by loving your mate. It may seem indirect, but it's very real.

Expressions of love between a child's father and mother should not occur solely behind the bedroom door. It is vital for children to hear positive affirmation of their parents' love for one another. It is equally crucial to see parents backing up those words with deeds -showing that they really are special to each other. It's giving warm hugs and gentle kisses; lightly scratching backs or massaging shoulders; snuggling together while watching movies; buying gifts or making presents for each other "just because"; talking with each other and laughing out loud.

Your children are likely to emulate you when it comes time for them to find a spouse. They will probably mimic your affection and duplicate your disrespect. Most mothers and fathers would love to have a hand in choosing a mate for their children; it's just ironic that they don't realize how much influence they already have.

I couldn't have said it better myself! Thanks Michael!

Amazing Little Leaguers

2009-07-05T22:30:00Z

We just finished our Little League baseball season. Our youngest son enjoyed his first year of playing, and I'm sure he'll play again next year. They learn so much in just the short time they play. I am totally amazed.

I'm also amazed at the kiddos who DO NOT listen to the coach or the helpers. They already know it all I guess. But most of the time those kiddos are also the ones that I see not listening to their parents, either.

The division that Mr. Cutie is in is Coach Pitch - the coach pitches to his own team. It was great to watch my son learn about how to properly swing the bat, how to keep his eye on the ball watching it all the way until he made contact with the bat. His coach was great with him in the batting area, and equally helpful on the fielding side of things. I can honestly say that my son was one of the better players on the team, and we were so proud of how hard he worked and how much he learned this season.

It was even better listening to my son trying to tell ME how to bat when I was at the plate for our softball team! "Keep your eye on the ball, Mom. Swing the bat level. Swing hard. Watch the ball hit the bat. ... " All the same things we spent all season telling him! LOL!

Mr. Cutie had just received his little trophy at the end of the season when someone sent us a link to a story about another very special Little League player. We were all inspired by Adam Bender's story, and I thought it was worth passing along to you all as well.

I love what my little guy does, and he was totally impressed with Adam (rightfully so). I hope you enjoy this amazing Little Leaguer as much as we did!

Can I be part of a choir like this, please?

2009-06-30T23:08:00Z

A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from StumbleUpon with their 'suggested sites for SweetMummy". It's an automated e-mail that I usually ignore. For some reason, I opened the e-mail and even clicked on one of the videos it recommended. I'm glad I did. WOW, was I in for a treat!

The video I clicked on is already becoming a YouTube sensation. With over a million views, the video has obviously impressed many. I must have watched it two dozen times myself. My kiddos love it, too!

I've been involved in several kinds of choirs and I would totally love to be part of something like this: Perpetuum Jazzile performing Toto's "Africa", live!

Perpetuum Jazzile is an acapella jazz choir from Slovenia, the only choir of its type in the country. I've not heard anything like this anywhere else either. I just love it, though. It sounds like something I would very much like to be a part of. How do I find a choir like this!?

In this performance of "Africa", they have me totally intrigued from the beginning, with the simulated rainstorm, including thunder and lightning. The first time I heard the thunder, I totally got chills!!!! Wow, is it ever convincing!

In true acapella form, there are no instruments in this performance - vocals provide all the background 'instruments', and the virtuoso vocal percussionist is amazing! The 'instrumental' part in the middle of the song is also quite impressive. They do with their voices, in amazing harmonies, what Toto did with synthesizers and keyboards.

And they look like they are having so much fun! I know I would be!!

I love hearing all the fantastic harmonies and vocal gymnastics that these folks do. You may already know how much I love bass voices, and once again I am in love with those amazing deep tones. (I am especially taken with the gentleman in the light blue shirt with glasses, bottom row, second from the right! LOL! Doesn't he look like he's having fun, too!?) They are a beautiful group of people, both to watch and listen to.

Investigating Perpetuum Jazzile some more, I have found other videos of performances, from this concert and others, and all of them just blow me away. Great music, inspiring arrangements, wonderfully unique ways of coming to the songs, fresh and new approaches to old and new favorites alike, as well as fun and interesting twists.

I had this video playing in the background one time when I opened another window on my computer and was doing something completely different, not watching the video at all. The rain sounded even more like rain and the thunder just about made me jump out of my chair. How fun is that!?

I am watching and waiting with much anticipation for more from Perpetuum Jazzile. AND watching for anything like this that I might be able to be a part of - this kind of thing is right up my alley!! Sign me up for this kind of choir!

Report: Girl Adventure!

2009-06-17T11:59:00Z

A week ago the girls in our family took a little trip, and had ourselves a little adventure. I mentioned before that my mom-in-law, my daughter, and myself were going to be driving 4+ hours to visit some new friends and a fantastic quilt store we had been told about. We were excited for some girl time away from the normal routine!

We got away about 45 minutes later than we expected. As we drove north toward Calgary, we saw some serious looking clouds and wondered what kind of weather we were in for. Banff and Canmore have been known to have weird weather in June (well, all of Alberta, really, but being in the mountains these communities are more susceptible to that). We drove through rain and slush and snow pellets right in Calgary itself, and as we headed west past Olympic Park and out toward the Rockies things cleared up very nicely.

We got to Banff right at 12:30, the time we were shooting for, even though we had started late. Alberta has nice roads, and, except for actually getting through Calgary, which we found to be less than straightforward, we made good time.

What fun it was to meet my Facebook friend (from BC) and her Facebook friend (from Wales) who were travelling together across Canada! We had a lot of fun with them for the few hours we had together. We enjoyed a lovely lunch together at the Ptarmigan Inn in downtown Banff, and then headed back east to Canmore for the headline event - visiting The Sugar Pine Co. Quilt store!

WOW! This quilt store was SO awesome! The setting was lovely, nestled in downtown Canmore with gorgeous views all the way around, and the store itself was fantastic. 2 stories of fabric and quilting notions and patterns and everything a quilter ever needs.

There are over 300 finished quilts on display in the store, with patterns available for most of them and MANY MANY more. The store was VERY well laid out and organized so that we could easily find what we were looking for. The trick, of course, was deciding what we were looking for! It was almost overwhelming!

There were easily hundreds of bolts of fabric, and thousands of fat quarters. The layout of the upstairs where all the fabric was kind of resembled a lowercase letter "h", and even with so much stuff in there it was easy to get around and explore!

They had many applique patterns for beautiful landscapes and other fun stuff! Racks and racks of patterns - I could have gotten into a LOT of trouble in this store! But instead, I focused on helping my daughter find a couple of little projects.

She is just getting into quilting, so we were aiming for simpler patterns for her to try. She found a very cute applique pattern that has Good Luck Cats (nikko cats) on it - 3 of them sitting in little baskets. We picked out all the fabric for it, too.

She also decided to do a little "Trip Around the World" quilt (the pattern is very simple), so we also picked fabrics for that.

The fabric and patterns were her "Happy Birthday" presents from Mom. She turned 10 on Monday, and this trip was just before her birthday so she decided that was what she wanted for her birthday! A woman after my own heart!!!

I did get a few fat quarters of fabric to go with a project I've been collecting fabric for. I also got two gorgeous patterns for nativities. WOW! Can't wait to do them! My daughter and I made it out of the store spending less than $80!

My mom-in-law found a fun project and bought fabric for it and another pattern that she had brought with her. She spent most of her time hunting down just the right fabrics. She, like my daughter, got most of her fat eights for $0.99, so she also got out of the store spending less than $100.

Just after 4pm we realized that we really ought to be going very soon, since we still had 4 hours of driving left to get back home. We bid a fond farewell to our new friends and headed back east.

Hitting Calgary just about the time for rush hour, we decided to stop at one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. We quite enjoyed our meal at Chili's, and even got to watch part of the Stanely Cup Final game 7! We had lots of leftovers to bring home too!

Driving back south and east we had a beautiful sunset behind us as we finished off our day. It was about 9:30 when the radiant red sun finally set completely and we were home shortly after that.

My bum was SO sore from driving all those hours, and all three of us were very tired, but we all enjoyed our day together very much. It was fun to take my daughter on this little girl adventure. She was thrilled to be a part of it (even if she was grumpy the next morning from not getting enough sleep). We'll have to do it again.

I've heard of some more quilt stores around here that aren't quite as far away. OH, the adventure awaits!!!

Going on a Girl Adventure

2009-06-09T01:04:00Z

Tomorrow my mom-in-law, my daughter, and I are going on a little girl adventure!

A Facebook friend of mine is travelling across Canada with one of her Facebook friends (who is visiting from overseas) and we're going to drive up to Canmore to see them!

My Facebook friend is a quilter - that's how we met - and she's mapped out quilt stores to visit along the way. We couldn't pass up that opportunity.... It sounds like so much fun!

So, we're driving 4 hours to go shopping at The Sugar Pine Company quilt store! It's a 2-story quilter's extravaganza!!!!

My daughter started quilting last summer, and she's excited to cut school to go with us to this great store. My mom-in-law has been quilting for a few years, and I've been quilting for about 10 years now.

The guys in our family often go out for an all-day hunting or fishing excursion, but we've never done anything like this for the girls - not quite like this anyway. It's going to be a great time! We'll be gone all day tomorrow!

I'm finishing getting the details ready here at home so I can be gone all day - who's picking up Mr Bud from school, what is Mr Cutie doing when he gets home from school, what's for dinner, who's driving Mr Bud to his soccer game, etc... Lots of things I usually do that I won't be doing tomorrow.

I'll be sure to report back with how the trip went. Girl Adventures are always fun to report on!