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  const ALL_POSTS = [{"id": "6299", "title": "Supermarket Shambles", "date": "2016-03-29", "dateFormatted": "March 29, 2016", "year": 2016, "excerpt": "There I was pushing the shopping cart down the isle, working on borrowed time as my nine-month old slept in his carseat propped awkwardly in the large part of the cart, while my two-year-old was neari", "content": "There I was pushing the shopping cart down the isle, working on borrowed time as my nine-month old slept in his carseat propped awkwardly in the large part of the cart, while my two-year-old was nearing the end of her patience as well as the banana she stole. Before I was a real mom, I was a perfect hypothetical mom. “I will never let my kids eat food they haven’t paid for,” I would say to myself when I would see a kid in a cart devouring a box of cookies while the mom pondered between the name brand or generic ketchup. Before I was a real mom I was also a perfect disciplinarian, “If my kid started demanding stuff while we were in the grocery store and then had a fit if i didn’t give it to her, I would scold her and leave the store immediately.”\n\nAs a real mom, there are days when I just completely throw in the towel. My kid will refuse to wear shoes, refuse to have her hair brushed and literally laugh at me if I threatened a time out, promise a sticker on her chart, take away her favorite toy or TV show or any of the other tactics all you-know -it-alls have said to do.\n\nMy first born is strong, smart, funny and cute, but she is not easy. Sure she is “easy” for those who see her once in a while, but for me she is not. However, I wouldn’t change her for anything the world.\n\nBut i digress...\n\nSo there I was with my feisty daughter and my sweet sleeping son, trying to squeeze a few more borrowed minutes when I looked down past the smeared rice cereal on the bosom of my shirt only to realize that my daughter’s flip flop was missing from her foot. “Where is your shoe?” i asked fully expecting the two-year-old to give adequate answer.\n\n“It fell off outside,” she said as if I should have noticed years ago.\n\n“Well, I guess we’ll look for it when we leave.”\n\nBEEP, BEEP the alarm for my grocery shopping went off with no option of snooze…\n\n“Nooooooo, I need my shoe nowwwwww!, go get it Mommy!!!” my alarm clock screamed.\n\nI could have done a number of things in that moment but instead I rewarded her for her bad behavior and bribed her with a box of cookies in exchange for a few more minutes on the clock.\n\nAs I continued to check off my shopping list, which was written in crayon on an envelope, which has a bill in it that I was probably supposed to pay a week ago, I look up and I see another mom, who might as well have been another species. The yoga-spin-super-mom’s hair was in a silky straight ponytail, her clothes were clean and she looked good in them, like really good. Her daughter wore a $12.00 bow, a clean dress, matching buckle sandals and was sitting in one of those cart-covers, which good moms place in their shopping cart so their children don’t pick up any germs (I was given one, but I re-gifted it .)\n\nRight down to her non-chipped nail polish and eye-lash extensions, this mom, by doing absolutely nothing, other than existing, was making me feel like I needed to go home and take a shower and shave.\n\nI gave her a friendly smile. And then the Athleta Spokesmodel spoke.\n\n“How old is he?” she asked with a Cinderella sparkle in her eye while showing off her straight white teeth.\n\n“He is almost nine months and this one is two,”\n\n“How fun to have two boys,” she said in her most angelic voice.\n\nAll of a sudden I did a quick scan of my front seat passenger and realized her Yoda shirt, jeans, one black flip flop and unbrushed hair, clearly equalled trucks and not barbies.\n\n“She’s a girl,” I say with the same tone i would use when i ask to pass the butter.\n\n“And I’m two and half, I’m bigger now,” my truck-loving daughter chimed in.\n\nWithout missing a beat, the organic-food-eating- mom, showed an appropriate amount of embarrassment and apologized for her gender mix-up.\n\nOf course I responded with blaming myself for not having a bow in my daughter’s hair.\n\nAs me and my “boys” move on to the check out my alarm goes off and this time no amount of bribing or negotiating is accepted. Right on cue, my little dude starts screaming as my daughter remembers her shoe is still missing and that we must all stop what we are doing and get it now before her little head explodes.\n\nI ignore it all, because frankly if i react I’ll probably go to jail.\n\n“Do you need any help out?” the cashier practically yells as the bagger grabs a second cart for my overflowing groceries.\n\nI wanted to say, “No it’s okay I am a super human person with a hidden extra limb that only comes out when i need to push two grocery carts.”\n\nBut instead i smiled politely and said, “sure that would be great.”\n\nAt this point my daughter has unbulkled herself from the cart and is climbing out and my baby boy’s face indicates he is being tourtured by his carseat.\n\nJust then a miracle happens.\n\n“There is my shoe mommy, right there, we found it!!”\n\nShe points at the ground with  shear joy and all of a sudden what had started  to feel like a slip down a dark rabbit hole, started to feel like Christmas morning.\n\n“Good eye goose!!” I yell with joy, matching her enthusiasm.\n\nAll the way home we sing “we found the shoe, we found the shoe” over the sounds of our screaming baby.\n\nAnd I decide then, that although matching outfits and buckle shoes and silky hair are nice, I wouldn’t change who I am for anything in the world."}, {"id": "6287", "title": "Judgement Day", "date": "2015-02-19", "dateFormatted": "February 19, 2015", "year": 2015, "excerpt": "When you are not a parent, your instinct is to judge those who are. When you are a parent your instinct is to feel like you are being judged.  Before I gave birth I knew everything about raising a wel", "content": "When you are not a parent, your instinct is to judge those who are. When you are a parent your instinct is to feel like you are being judged.  Before I gave birth I knew everything about raising a well-adjusted, well mannered, healthy, non-shy, but not obnoxious child, who listens and does what he is told, who is potty-trained before she is two and can put on her shoes, get herself dressed well before she is two and half. Oh and let me also mention that as a non-mother, my child would never throw a temper-tantrum in the supermarket, never talk back, never watch TV and wouldn’t even dream about trying to play with my phone.\n\nThen I became a mom and I realized how dumb I was about thinking how smart I was.\nHaving ideals about how you are going to raise your children is a lot different than actually raising them.\nFirst off, according to my fantasy timeline of accomplishments, my child is supposed to be swimming the length of the pool by now. So what if she is only 17 months old? I had plans for her and I bragged about those plans to many people before she was born, so who is she to say she is not ready to dive in and swim my expected 50 meters?\nAnd another thing, why won’t she sleep until it’s light outside? All the books as well as my previous nanny experience have taught me that if you do “A,B and C” it will equal a child who sleeps from 7-7. Not my wired up at 5 a.m. kid, she claims she is starving before sunrise. “Nana (banana,) Wawa (water),” she will yell at 4:57 a.m. My husband and I have considered getting her a self-feeder for her crib, sort of like the one hamsters have. But Fisher Price or Little Tikes doesn’t make one. Weird, right?\nFrom the time she came into this world and interrogated me with her inquisitive eyes, my daughter has humbled me more than I ever could have imagined. She has me breaking my own “rules” on a daily basis. As she screams loudly in the supermarket while struggling to unbuckle herself, it is not at this time that I tell her, “If you don’t stop, we are going to leave.” Rather, I am more inclined to open a box of cookies and hand her the entire thing, a practice I once judged. When the cart is full of food, I’m not leaving it in hopes of, “teaching my child a lesson.” Rather, I do what is needed to buy myself 10 more minutes so I can get out of there before she decides the cookies aren’t enough and she’d rather play with the raw hamburger meat.\nHow about when it’s time for me to leave the park and she does her famous death-grip on the chains of the swing, combined with contorting her baby-body into a piece of stiff plywood and screams as if I am kidnapping her?\n“Okay let’s say bye, bye to the swings,” I might say hoping that all of a sudden I have a sane person I am dealing with. But the thing is I don’t. What I have is a person not yet capable of compromise, who is obsessed with swinging. The only thing my toddler loves more than swinging is Pirate Bootie. “You give her that crap?” my sister will say.\nWhen my options are to either cut off her hands so she is free from the swings, or offer her five pieces of a snack that I wish I would have invented, I’ll opt for the latter.\nAccording to several child-rearing “experts” my future looks grim. By the time my daughter is 16 and I am wanting her to stop texting while we are out eating at a fancy resturant, I’ll have no choice but to lean over to her and whisper, “Listen if you put away the phone and act like you have manners, we’ll buy you a car.”\nThe good thing about me being a mom, for the rest of the moms in the world, is that I have stopped judging you. If you stick an iPad in front of your 2-year-old’s face because he is screaming on an airplane, I get it. If you order a pile of French Fries and a shake as dinner for your three-year-old so you can just eat in peace, I get it. If you let your kid wear five socks on one foot with 25 clips dangling in her hair and no shoes on her feet, I get it.\nThe most important rule not to break is giving our children all the love, safety and security they deserve. But beyond that, our parenting “rules” are likely break. Besides, if we didn’t break the rules, what fun would it be for those who are judging us?"}, {"id": "6282", "title": "Lost and Found", "date": "2015-02-03", "dateFormatted": "February 03, 2015", "year": 2015, "excerpt": "As I look back on the past several months, I'll admit I had a tough time transitioning from busy working mom, who went to school at night, to being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM,) who basically just has to", "content": "As I look back on the past several months, I'll admit I had a tough time transitioning from busy working mom, who went to school at night, to being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM,) who basically just has to care for one well-behaved child, who sleeps 3-4 hours a day. “You know how lucky you are?” I have heard over and over and over again, both because I am now a stay-at-home-mom and because my child takes two predictable naps a day. “Yes, I know, I am super blessed,” I have often said, not wanting to sound at all like I don’t appreciate the wonderful life which has been bestowed upon me. However, truthfully inside, I was screaming, “I am freaking board! What the hell does one do when they are at home that many hours a day while their child sleeps?”\n\nThe go-getters of the world write blogs and do some sort of online job or they use their time to research how to be a better mom or they start their own business or they keep a spotless house or they play tennis or do yoga or bake or sew or plan parties or work on scrap-books or all of the above. But for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like doing any of these things and as the minutes ticked by while my child lay peacefully sleeping, I thought of ways to distract myself from being truly productive. TV has never been an option for me, but I do enjoy a good chat on the phone. Um who should I call? I would think to myself as I folded laundry (a productive task I do love doing.) But for whatever reason, I would rarely pick up the phone. When I did pick it up to make a call, I felt desperate, almost like a girl in love, who was calling a boy hoping he would answer and want to talk to her as much as she wanted to talk to him. I found myself nervous to call friends whom I have known my whole life and when they didn’t answer, I felt rejected.\n\nI know I sound a little crazy, believe me I felt a little crazy. The thing is, when you go from a life to where you are so busy that you don’t have time to pick up the phone or immediately call people back or answer their text messages, to a life where you live for a phone call or text from a friend who might possibly want to hang with you and your kid during her limited awake and playtimes, it’s unsettling (at least for me it was.) The pathetic aspect about all of this is that with all of this time, I still wasn’t great about returning personal emails. My husband and his family LOVE to email as their primary communication and now that I am a SAHM there is an expectation that I should be reading and responding in a timely fashion, which I should, but I am not. So here I am, not intentionally playing hard-to-get via email (irritating my husband and sister-in-law) but playing “Debbie Desperate” when it comes to phone and text. I told myself, what I needed was a new computer and that that would be the grand-saving-tool for my new life.\n\nWhen I made the transition, I had to turn in my computer when I turned in my career, and although I have an iPhone and an iPad, I told my husband that the only real way for me to stay on top of emails and to inspire my creative juices to do something other than peruse Facebook or search Craigslist for used baby supplies that we don’t need, was for him to purchase me a new computer. “I deserve one,” I protested like a spoiled teenager. “I used to be a writer and you still think I should write, but what I am supposed to write on? I can’t blog on an iPad.”\n\nI look back at my manipulation and I am embarrassed. Back when I had a very busy life, nothing could stop me from being a writer. A true writer will write on their arm if they have to and I was one of those. I would write my ideas on the back of old bill envelopes or wrinkled receipts or one of my many three-ring-notebooks. When it was time to send my columns iPad off to my editor I would use my work computer or my old 2002 Mac or even hunt and peck on my iPad. I never cared what device caught my thoughts, I just cared that I was being heard, even if it was just an old bill-envelope that got a chance to feel my words.\n\nNow here I was with more time on my hands than I could ever dream of and I was manipulating the best man I know into purchasing an expensive piece of technology so that I could finally write my masterpiece or at least write something other than a text message. He had planned to surprise me with a new computer for Christmas, but I insisted that I must have it now because my thoughts and ideas were escaping by the minute. Again, I sound crazy and again I felt crazy. The truth is, I was grasping for some sort of imagined truth that I was this supermom who was working on her next novel or screenplay or something other than, just being a stay-at-home-mom, who works on her next text message to set up a playdate. Bottom line is, I didn’t like me for me. I felt like an underachiever and I was full of fear that everyone around me was constantly disappointed in who I had become as a SAHM. My daughter’s baby book was still empty, It seemed no matter how much I tired to be the SAHM I thought I should be, I kept burning dinner. I was becoming less and less interesting. At a time when I should have been grateful that God gave me every single thing I ever prayed for; the perfect husband, beautiful healthy daughter and time to devote to the two of them, I was instead feeling sorry for myself, wasting my time fantasizing about what it would be like if I had more to think about.\n\nA few months ago we learned that we would be expecting our second child, a baby boy due in May. I’d like to say that the news of my daughter’s brother immediately lit a fire inside of me inspiring my inner confidence to open my new computer and start banging away on the keys like I used to, but it didn’t. However, as I slowly came through the morning sickness into the other side of pregnancy, I have started to remember who I am. I am not desperate, I am not not interesting, I am not a person who wastes her time dreaming about where she’d rather be or whom she’d rather be, rather than appreciating where and who she is right now. Although I don’t stand in front of a classroom everyday and teach, I am still a teacher and although I don’t write a weekly column, I am still a writer.\n\nHowever, first and foremost I am a mom. There will be a day, when my daughter, will know her ABC’s and how to count and tie her shoes. She won’t want to hear “The Wheels on The Bus” and places like the park and MyGym will be a thing of the past. There will be a day when she won’t let me hold her on my lap, read to her, play puzzles with her or kiss her a thousand times a day or eat her toes. One day she will know more than I do and there will be little I can teach her, so for now I will appreciate every second, which I have with her. There will be a day when I will be busier than I want to be and I will wish for this time back. So this is where I am and I can say truthfully, that I am happy and I am grateful. It doesn’t mean that I don’t get restless but it means that while she sleeps, I will write (at least part of the time) because I know that even if what I write won’t always matter to everyone, it might matter to someone, even if that only someone is me. Besides, I can’t not write, especially now that I have this fancy new computer. :)"}, {"id": "6277", "title": "Death with Dignity", "date": "2014-11-06", "dateFormatted": "November 06, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "I had such a good day on Saturday. Rain in the morning allowed for extra snuggle time with my two favorite people and the blue skies with breeze allowed me to wear my new sweater as I walked with my h", "content": "I had such a good day on Saturday. Rain in the morning allowed for extra snuggle time with my two favorite people and the blue skies with breeze allowed me to wear my new sweater as I walked with my husband and baby girl down to the end of the pier to visit our town's small aquarium. Later, I met up with a girlfriend for a pedicure and that evening I went on a movie date with husband. It was a perfect day.\n\nMonday as I got myself and my wiggly girl dressed, my husband informed me that the terminally ill girl who had planned her own death for the 1st of November did in fact end her life. If I wasn't busy putting on my daughter's shoes, I would have cried right then. I have followed the story of Brittany Maynard for the past several weeks. The 29-year-old newly married women was diagnosed with a brain tumor which was expected to take her life within six months. Rather than wait for her terrible painful death, she chose to die with dignity. The last months of her life were spent traveling with friends and family and doing whatever she could to live life to the fullest. On Saturday Nov. 1st Maynard decided to die. The first word that comes to mind when I think of her is courage. She faced her illness, accepted reality and made a bold choice that would save herself and her family from furthered suffering. I was raised Catholic therefore, suicide is considered the ultimate crime. I know there are many people who are criticizing Maynard's choice to take her own life but all I can feel toward her is admiration. For anyone who has ever watched a loved one die of a terminal illness you know what it means to feel helpless, hopeless, fearful and angry. Here is a person who was once filled with so much life and then all of a sudden they are staring at you with no more will to live. I have been by someone's side as they have had no choice but to feel pain, no choice but to take so much pain medicine they don't even know who is in the room with them or what day it is. It's devastating and it's wrong. Maynard was a strong, smart, adventurous women who wanted to make a difference in the world. Her illness robbed her becoming a mom, it robbed her of living until she is old and gray, but she did not allow it to rob her of her dignity. She died on her terms, peacefully with her husband and her mom by her side. Of all the control that was unjustly taken from her, she rightfully took control of her last moment on earth.\n\nIn a video taken a few weeks before Maynard's death, her husband, Daniel Diaz, spoke of how he and the family were coping with the inevitable, \"We take things one day at a time, it's the only way to get through this. You take away all the material stuff, all the nonsense that we latch onto as a society and you realize it's those moments that are really what matter.\"\n\nI thought about my day on Saturday and how perfect it was because of who I chose to spend time with. Before and after Maynard received her diagnoses she lived life to the fullest, she didn't waste time doing things or spending time with people that didn't matter to her. I think no matter how we feel about her choice to end her life, we can all learn from how she lived her life.\n\n\"It is people who pause to appreciate life and give thanks, who are happiest. If we change our thoughts, we change our world!\" Brittany Maynard\n\nPlease visit, http://www.thebrittanyfund.org"}, {"id": "6172", "title": "Fireworks and Sippy Cups", "date": "2014-07-18", "dateFormatted": "July 18, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "So there I was driving down the street in my new ride, hair flowing, tan skin and feeling good about the recent baby weight I've dropped. Katie Perry was telling me I was a firework and in that moment", "content": "So there I was driving down the street in my new ride, hair flowing, tan skin and feeling good about the recent baby weight I've dropped. Katie Perry was telling me I was a firework and in that moment I believed every word she said. A little louder I said to myself as i turned up the volume and started singing along. The baby's carseat was empty and I was on my way to meet a friend for some much needed \"sister time.\"\n\nI glanced down at the center console and saw an old familiar friend, lipgloss. Why yes, I will put on that slight sexy shimmer I said to myself as I greased my lips at the next stop light.\n\nThat is when I saw him out the corner of my eye. His motorcycle engine revved as the light turned green and although his helmet covered his face, I imagined that he looked a little like Heath Ledger meets Vince Vaughn with just a sprinkle of Tony Soprano (what can I say,  I have a very specific type.) The traffic didn't allow him to move too far past my side. However, I didn't realize this was going to allow him to want to communicate with me. My windows were up and the air conditioning was on, but it was clear that he was trying to get my attention.\n\nWow, there is nothing like a little Burt's Bee lip gloss to get the day started.\n\nNeedless to say, I was obviously very flattered that this Top Gun body looking guy on a crotch rocket wanted to speak with me in traffic. He nodded his head in my direction rather quickly as to not take his eyes off the road for too long. I gave a nervous smile back. Wow, I mean I know I have been working out, but I wasn't ready for this type of impromptu attention from a man who isn't my husband. I saw the light up ahead and knew that within 30 seconds we would be side by side at the next red light.\n\nWhat should I say to him? I thought to myself as my foot moved from gas to break. Do I just ignore him, what if he follows me and keeps nodding at me? Will I be considered a tease? I would have just held up my hand to show him I am married, but I had just dropped off my ring to be sized (fingers lose weight too.)\n\nAlright, I concluded I'm just going to have to let him down easy and tell him that although I am extremely flattered, I am also happily married. As I finished rehearsing my break-up speech, our vehicles came to a stop. I looked to my right and sure enough he was motioning for me to roll down my window. As I rolled down the window and turned down the music,  he flipped up the screen from his helmet.\n\nI thought it would be better to hear him out first before I broke the news to him that we in fact are not soul-mates.\n\n\"Hey ma'am,\" he said with a concerned tone. \"You have a sippy cup on your roof.\""}, {"id": "6170", "title": "I have a Love Hate Relationship with Target", "date": "2014-07-18", "dateFormatted": "July 18, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "I have a love/hate relationship with Target. I mean don't we all? We love that it has everything from birthday cards to bananas, but at the same time we hate that when we go there to buy paper towels ", "content": "I have a love/hate relationship with Target. I mean don't we all? We love that it has everything from birthday cards to bananas, but at the same time we hate that when we go there to buy paper towels we suddenly feel compelled to buy a new coffee maker and redesign our entire kitchen.\n\"Okay I'm going to Target, I need a pep talk,\" I told my husband as I clutched  the brown paper bag with the all-too-familiar bullseye logo.  Inside the bag was a receipt and a colorful bikini  which I bought during one of those brain-fart moments when I somehow forgot that my butt, belly and boobs don't stay up on their own anymore. I remember the day of purchase,  it was glorious. There I was in Target by myself sans my constantly moving baby, who doesn't stay still in a shopping cart unless I put her in a straight jacket, which even Target doesn't sell.  I had gone in there to buy pajamas for the baby, bacon for the husband and a bathing suit for me. However, next thing I knew, I had spent 20 minutes debating between a coconut or cinnamon scented candle and somehow my cart was filled with picture frames for the grandparents, a toy for my sister's dog, a onsie for my friend's new baby, four tank tops for me, two fold up lounge chairs, a pink plastic kiddie pool and a \"# 1 dad\" trophy.\n\nBy the time I arrived to the bikini section, I realized that my two-hour window of time without my ever-crawling-climbing-squealing monkey was done. I flashed to my to do list and realized that getting my car washed, stopping by the bank and dropping off the dry cleaning all just took a back seat to the scented candles. All of a sudden, I came to. \"I don't need all this, what's wrong with me?\" I said to myself out loud. Realizing that I was about to spend our rent money on such fun colorful items I never knew I needed but suddenly had to have,I grabbed the nearest bikini off the rack, pulled out the footy pajamas from underneath the picture frames and dug out the  bacon from the bottom of the cart and left the rest. I thought about leaving an apology letter for the person who found the cart, but instead I told the cashier about my saga. Surprisingly she seem unamused by my oh so \"funny\" adventure.\n\n\"So this time are you actually going to try on a suit before bringing it home?\" My husband asked staring at me holding the brown paper bag with the red bullseye.\n\nI tell him that I will buy a bikini from somewhere else at some other time when I am not feeling like my boobs and stomach are one body part.\n\nI tell him that I am going to get store credit for the suit and that I am very nervous about entering into the Target vortex. I then warn him I might come home with pretty plastic plates and cups, throw pillows and new shoes for our baby who doesn't walk yet.\n\n\"I don't get it,\" he says looking at me like I'm a freak of nature. \"You don't even really like shopping.\"\nI try to explain to him how Target is a whole different beast. How a frugal sensible person such as myself can be transformed into a whimsical trust fund teenager without a care in the world. \"You walk in the doors and it's like an outer body experience,\" I say to him in all seriousness.\n\n\"You'll be fine, just go,\" he says with a little fear in his voice as if he just found out his wife is some crazy closet compulsive shopper.\n\n\"Okay but before I leave, what smell do you think you like better, cinnamon or  coconut ?\""}, {"id": "6155", "title": "Thin Mint Binge", "date": "2014-05-19", "dateFormatted": "May 19, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "Why is it that I don’t think twice about eating like four thin mints at a time? It’s as if those crispy little pieces of chocolaty-joy shouldn't count on my daily caloric intake. They’re too easy to e", "content": "Why is it that I don’t think twice about eating like four thin mints at a time? It’s as if those crispy little pieces of chocolaty-joy shouldn't count on my daily caloric intake. They’re too easy to eat and they go down so quickly. By the time I have closed the freezer door I've already popped one in my mouth and in the time it takes me to walk from the kitchen to the living room I have probably consumed enough calories for a three-course-dinner (salad dressing not included.)\n\nI keep a sleeve or two in the freezer at all times from about March until about May. I just checked and the last sleeve is half-way done, which is a good thing because this hot weather reminds me that in about a month, the whole, “I-just-had-a-baby-so-don’t-mind-the-pooch-belly,” excuse isn't going to work anymore. My goal is to lose the weight before my baby is old enough to eat Thin Mints. However, if she is anything like my husband or I, she has probably got up in the night without us knowing, climbed out of her crib and eaten her first Thin Mint. If she could say anything other than Momma, I am sure she would tell us, but thankfully I am left in the dark about her late night baby-eating-binge-adventures.\n\n“Why don’t you teach her sign language?” my mom and everyone else who knows more about being a mom than I do, will ask me.\n\n“I should, shouldn't I,” I respond pretending that I will consider it.\n\nAs if I don’t have enough to do besides teach my kid how to wave her hands around to sign, “more” and “all done.” I know when she wants more and I know when she is all done, nobody needs words or sign language for either of those statements. Think about us as adults when we’re eating to we need to announce to our guests that we are all done?\n\nBesides I don’t need my seventh-month old talking back to me with her hands like she is an angry Italian grandmother. The other day my friend’s kid had peas all over his mouth, chin, cheeks and hair and was screaming (I am assuming because he had a monster-sized-gas bubble after eating like a line-backer.) My friend was sitting in front of her screaming son moving her own hands like she just played a hand of black-jack, asking him, “are you all done?” she repeated again and again, “Show me all done.”  She commanded. Finally, the kid moved his hands like a Vegas Veteran. “Good job!” Mommy is so proud of you!” my friend said, looking at me like her kid just performed open heart surgery or cured cancer.\n\nThe truth is my daughter is smarter than I am. I knew this from the minute she was born and looked at me with her big blue inquisitive eyes as if to say, “Okay mom, you have been dreaming about this moment for the last nine months, what are you going to say?” It was almost like she was daring me to say something profound and then she was going to correct my grammar. She was a minute old and I was intimidated by her. I went the safe route and said, “I love you,” and then I got nervous and started babbling in the third-person, “Mommy loves you, Mommy thinks you are so perfect,” which I am sure she thought was a little weird, but thankfully she didn't say anything.\n\nRight now as I shove this Thin Mint in my mouth she is looking at me as if to say, “Mommy, you need to be all done with the Thin Mints.” However, because she doesn't use sign language or talk I can pretend she is looking at me saying, “Wow, mommy those look yummy, I think you should have another one, they probably make you smarter, skinnier and prettier than you already are.”\n\nSee, I told you my kid was a genius."}, {"id": "6133", "title": "High Heels", "date": "2014-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "Sometimes I wonder if my life would be different if I regularly wore high heels. I have never been a girly-girl but this doesn’t mean I am tomboy either. I’ve just been a little slow to learn things l", "content": "Sometimes I wonder if my life would be different if I regularly wore high heels. I have never been a girly-girl but this doesn’t mean I am tomboy either. I’ve just been a little slow to learn things like plunking eyebrows, wearing perfume or putting on lipstick. The kind of things most girls start doing in their teens, I put off until my mid 20’s. You know how you always have at least one friend in the group that you want to do a “make-over” on? Well, that’s me. I’m that friend.\n\nSo although I have been taught it’s not cool for a girl to have bushy eyebrows and callused feet, nobody has been able to break me of my high-heel-fear. To be honest, it’s a serious risk if I wear them, I’ve personally done my own research and I know that have about a 30 percent chance of falling or tripping when wearing high heels and if I have to walk on a sidewalk, the percentage goes up about 20 percent.\n\nThe highest I have ever gone in a pair, is about two inches. I can’t even think about those super sexy spiky high heels, if I even look at those on the shelf I feel wobbly in the knees. You know how some people, who are afraid of heights look at a tall buildings and get nauseous, that’s how I am when I go to Macy’s women’s shoe section and spot a pair of four-inch risk factors.\n\nBecause my fear of heels is rooted in experience, it’s hard for me to let go of it. Imagine if every time you put on a certain item of clothing, you had a flashback of falling in front of dozens of people. Now picture the fall as a face-first, knee-scraping catastrophe where your dress flies over your head exposing the part of your outfit nobody is supposed to see. Then, imagine that fall happening in front of an entire wedding party. Well, at least my hair looked good that day.\n\nTo help me get over my flashbacks, my old roommate would have me put on her high heels and walk around the house just for entertainment purposes (wait that sounded kind of weird, let me explain) I would hold onto the walls or any surface close to me and move about room with my legs shaking. “Girl, just let go of the bar stool and try to take a few steps,” she would say laughing at me, as if I were a toddler trying to walk for the fist time.”\n\nPart of the reason I don’t wear them, besides not wanting to take a trip to the emergency room, is that I am not a fan of false advertising. I mean it’s not a huge problem for me to wear eye make up and put on a little lipstick, but if I met someone I liked and I happened to be wearing high heels and I happened to look really good in them, I would feel obligated to tell them the truth about who I really am.\n\n“Just to let you know I’m not the kind of girl, who wears these things,” I would have to say.\n\nSo I suppose I will never know what my life would be like if I was the kind of girl who regularly wore high heels. But I think it will be okay. My flats and flip-flops and I have had a good time so far and I am sure life has many more adventures in store for us. And you never know, if I happened to get over my fear of heels I’ll probably realize its not the shoes that make the non-girly girl a woman, it’s the way she picks herself up after she trips in them.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6129", "title": "Green", "date": "2014-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "So I will admit I’m a flake sometimes. I’ll blame it on my ADD…I recently self-diagnosed. Last year, I made a commitment to myself and to my readers that I would stop using plastic bags and bring my o", "content": "So I will admit I’m a flake sometimes. I’ll blame it on my ADD…I recently self-diagnosed. Last year, I made a commitment to myself and to my readers that I would stop using plastic bags and bring my own bags to the grocery store.\n\nDated April 22, 2010 I wrote, “I am going to use those bags and if I forget them, I either have to carry my groceries or buy another bag.”\n\nWell, that commitment lasted for about a month or two. Then to make matters worse, I wrote at the end of that same column, “I would like to spend the next couple of columns on this same subject. I promise it will be riveting and if it’s not, at least do me a favor and toss me in the recycle bin.”\n\nThat last line is kind of clever, don’t ya think? However, I’m a columnist not a politician so my clever-cute ending doesn’t make up for the fact that twice I didn’t do what I said I was going to do.\n\nSo, first and foremost I would like to apologize to you and the environment for my lack of follow-through. I really don’t know why I can’t just remember those bags when I go in the grocery store. It’s probably the same part of my brain that forgets to charge my phone or forgets where I put my keys or my sunglasses. Unfortunately, that part of the brain doesn’t forget how good wings and pizza taste. I mean if I could forget how yummy wings and pizza tasted, instead of forget to take my re-usable bag into the store, I would look like one of those size-two women you see walking around Whole Foods in their yoga pants and tank tops.\n\nI don’t really want to be a size two, and I can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods, but what I really want is to remember my bags when I shop. So in order to help others and hopefully me I have looked up some statistics on our use of plastic bags and our problem with littering.\n\nWe all complain that too much money is being spent, here and there but according to the Earth Resource Foundation, the current projected annual cost to public agencies in California for litter prevention, clean up and disposal is $375.2 million.\n\nThe state will spend in excess of $72 million annually just to collect and dispose of cups and bags. Also according to www.Don’tTrashCalifornia.info (a website sponsored by Caltrans) the number one source of trash on the freeway are cigarette butts.\n\nWhen it comes to plastic bags, its pretty crazy. According to www.reusit.com there are about one million plastic bags used every minute and 500 billion to one trillion produced worldwide every year. A plastic bag can take 1,000 years to degrade and only one percent of those are recycled whereas 10 percent end up in the ocean. Of those 10 percent that end up in the ocean, 70 percent of those sit on the ocean floor.\n\nMaybe, you already know this and you have been recycling since before I could even spell my first name or maybe you know this and have ignored it, or maybe you’ve learned a little something and your going to try harder, I know I am. See you at the grocery store checkout, bring your bag and remind me to bring mine too."}, {"id": "6126", "title": "Grandpa’s Shirt", "date": "2014-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "While waiting in line at the bank the other day, playing my little game of, “If I had to pick anyone in this room to date, who would it be,” a four-year-old toe-head offered me some fashion advice. Sw", "content": "While waiting in line at the bank the other day, playing my little game of, “If I had to pick anyone in this room to date, who would it be,” a four-year-old toe-head offered me some fashion advice. Swinging from the bars, feet dragging on the floor, the little ray of sunshine looked up at me, pointed and said without introduction, “My grandpa has that shirt.” Before I had time to respond to her precious observation, the child’s red faced grandma, attempted to buff out the little “fashioniesta’s” comment by adding in her own insight. “No, no honey, grandpa doesn’t have that shirt, grandma does.\n\nI looked down at my deposit slip and thought to myself, “wow, not only am I broke, but now I am also aware that I have the fashion sense of an old man.”\n\nOh and to think that I almost used the drive up teller.\n\nLittle “Sunshine Suzie’s” take on my daily décor had interrupted my decision between the skinny guy in the suit and the beefy guy in the jeans. However, I aborted my little game so that I could turn my attention to more important matters.\n\n“Is that a tattoo on your foot?” the little pumpkin with the blue eyes asked me. “My daddy says tattoos are bad.”\n\nGrandma, who was collecting her money at the stable, looked like she was going to pass out from embarrassment. “Yes it is,” I replied. “And my daddy thinks they are bad too.”\n\nSeconds later, “toe-head” and I waved goodbye to each other and it was my turn to step up to the window where I would find out that this week I broke even.\n\nAs I left the bank I wondered if “pumpkin’s” dad was a Hermosa Beach’s tattoo shop naysayer. I appreciate these people (the tattoo naysayer) because they have painted me a very hopeful future.\n\nBecause I am the “kind of girl” who has not one but two tattoos, I’m obviously also the kind of girl, with “daddy issues” who likes a “bad boy.” The good news is, according to those against the tattoo shops, there is now going to be an influx of bad boys to the area. All along I thought it was the cheap happy hours at the dozens of downtown bars, which attracted the “outsiders” to Hermosa Beach but it’s not, it’s the tattoo shops. I can’t believe I have lived in Hermosa Beach my whole life and I had to wait until now to see the “thugs” arrive.\n\nI give Hermosa Beach credit, I mean our city has really put in a good effort in trying to attract people from everywhere, we have put in the “smoke” shops, the porn stores and welcomed bar after bar after bar after bar, but we were all wrong. If we really want to attract the punks of the world with their pit bulls and motorcycles, well then, lets bring on the high-end expensive tattoo shop.\n\nYes. That will do it.\n\nYou know what is even better about these tattoo shops? They are going to drive the price of housing down. Now don’t try to argue with me, I know that even when the market sucks home prices by the beach stay pretty solid, but folks, it’s happening, prices are going to plummet and you know what that means? It means that my “bad boy” and I will be able to afford a house here! This is great news for me. I thought I would never be able to afford to live by the beach, but now that it’s all going down hill, I’m in like flin!\n\nSo thank you Hermosa Beach concerned residents for your insight, because without it, I was about to throw in the towel of finding a decent thug to date or an inexpensive beach-home to buy.\n\nNo more little bank games for me, I’m just going to put on my grandpa shirt (maybe unbutton it a little and tie it up in the front) and then head on down to Pier Avenue or Eighth Street and wait for my man to roll up on his motorcycle. Hopefully, he’ll have a pit bull running along side of him, I love dogs."}, {"id": "6117", "title": "Getting Lucky", "date": "2014-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "The other day I hugged a guy with arms bigger than my own and I swear if I had the power to make time stop I would have. Don’t confuse this comment with desperation, I am not desperate, I am starved. ", "content": "The other day I hugged a guy with arms bigger than my own and I swear if I had the power to make time stop I would have. Don’t confuse this comment with desperation, I am not desperate, I am starved. Starved of affection from someone who isn’t my friend, isn’t my relative and isn’t the sweet little child of one of my friends or relatives.\n\nI know that this is a very delicate subject to talk about and if I am not careful I could be perceived as someone who is on the verge of going to Redondo Beach to get a “special” massage. But no, that is not the case. I am just expressing what it feels like to be a single girl who doesn’t hang out at the bar scene on a regular basis and hasn’t gone on a date for what seems like years. Actually, if I were a dog it would be years.\n\nFor so long I was doing so well at not caring if I had man-arms in my life, I would pride myself on changing the oil in my car and not needing man the way other single girls seem to always have to have one. When hearing how irritated some of my friend’s were with their husbands and how stressed out they were with their kids, I counted my blessings that I didn’t have to deal with such irritations. But now all of a sudden, I find myself a little bitter that I don’t get to partake in the “my husband or my boyfriend” conversations.\n\nHonestly, I think this new serge of neediness for man-arms started after attending a funeral last week. I was sitting in the church, sandwiched by two couples mourning the loss of a man who died of cancer after a four and half year battle. He was a police officer, a friend and a son, but above all he was a husband and father. That was his best role in life. His beautiful wife, Lee and their two little girls, Ashley and Madison, were so strong, so poised as they honored a man who will always be there hero.\n\nAs I sat there I couldn’t help but think of my own life and what I was missing out on. I know I could be criticized for thinking of myself during a time when I all should be thinking about is how tragic it is that two little girls will have to live without their daddy and how Lee has to go to bed at night without her husband, but I couldn’t help it. I just kept thinking what if die before I experience that kind of love, the kind of love that is unconditional, trusting and most of all ever-lasting.\n\nHere I have been thinking I am the lucky one who doesn’t have to deal with kids screaming all night because they are teething or a husband who can’t put his dirty socks in the laundry. But really, they are the lucky ones.\n\nI have complete faith that “Mr. man-arms” is right around the corner waiting to give me a time-stopping hug.\n\nI also now have complete faith that love isn’t about perfection or being able to predict a happily ever after. Love is about commitment and trust in one another, its about taking a chance on another person and no matter what the outcome is, if in the end they are still your hero, well then, you can always consider yourself one of the lucky ones."}, {"id": "6060", "title": "Christmas with The Huxtables", "date": "2014-03-19", "dateFormatted": "March 19, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "I am just coming to the end of a 10-day-east-coast trip, which, I spent with the BIL (Boy I Like) and his entire family. It would be kind of fun to write about all the mishaps or dysfunction I experie", "content": "I am just coming to the end of a 10-day-east-coast trip, which, I spent with the BIL (Boy I Like) and his entire family. It would be kind of fun to write about all the mishaps or dysfunction I experienced, but there was none. His family is so normal and nice, I feel like I have been a cast member of the “Leave it to Beaver” show for the last two weeks. When the plane lands at LAX, I’m thinking my dad, who is picking us up, is going to take me back to the set of Modern Family and BIL is going to make his way over to the Huxtable house for dinner.\n\nThe trip started the day after Christmas in the Adirondacks. We pull up to a lakefront home surrounded by just enough snow to make it look like a winter wonderland. The house was filled with children in footy pajamas, the smell of homemade food and hand knit stockings hanging from the staircase.\n\nThe family photos on the wall dated back to a time when I didn’t even know that photography existed and instead of having one half-eaten game of Monopoly, they had a designated game closet that was organized by age and theme. “Wow this place is like out of a storybook,” I actually said out-loud sounding a bit like Little Orphan Annie.\n\nUpstairs in the guestroom the beds were decorated with comforters sewn by BIL’s mom. It was explained to me that she made the comforters for BIL during his first year of college. If that wasn’t enough to make me feel insufficient for never learning how to sew a button, I was told that the family had built the newer part of the house.  ‘Is your family handy?” one of the cousins asked during family game night. “No, but I do know how to check my own oil in my car,” I replied.  I’m not sure why I thought that building a home and checking one’s own car oil are even in the same category but it was all I could think of at the time.\n\nWe spent the week ice skating on the lake, taking walks, playing lots of board games, organizing a family talent show and drinking hot chocolate and homemade cookies.\n\nHowever, despite the perfection, there was a moment in which I realized more clearly than I ever have before, that it is not about homemade cookies and hand-knit stockings. I saw the moment when I looked at BIL’s mom’s face one night when the nieces and nephews had just got done opening their presents. She was sitting on at the end of the couch and just kind of watching everything with this look of complete happiness. I recognized the look because I’ve seen the same look on my parents face.\n\nIt made me realize that we as human beings try so hard to do something with our lives so that we are not forgotten. Each of us in some way wants to leave our mark on the world before we die. And really the only thing we need to do so as not to be forgotten is love with our whole hearts.\n\nI know that sounds corny or cliché and I bet if BIL’s mom is reading this she will say, “That’s kind of corny.”\n\nBut honestly, it’s the truest thing I know.\n\nSure maybe BIL and I were raised a bit different; he with his hand-sewn ski-jackets and me with my department store bargains. But the bottom line is our families know how to love. However, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt me to learn how to sew to button or make a batch of homemade cookies."}, {"id": "6052", "title": "It’s Not Fair", "date": "2014-03-19", "dateFormatted": "March 19, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "Isn’t it weird how a lot of us think we are so right about so many things? Like our way is the right way and everyone else is just a dumb-dumb. I was thinking about this after I watched a local city c", "content": "Isn’t it weird how a lot of us think we are so right about so many things? Like our way is the right way and everyone else is just a dumb-dumb. I was thinking about this after I watched a local city council meeting. I listened to an argument about how detrimental it would be to cut jobs and salaries of city employees and what should instead happen is that certain taxes, which would affect business owners, should be raised.\n\nThe city council member, who proposed the idea, gave the argument that taxes hadn’t been raised in that particular area for a long time and the city was below the tax bracket of other neighboring cities. However, those who opposed the argument pointed out something that had received an increase were the salaries of certain unionized employees.\n\nWhile a couple of the city council members stayed safe in their responses to the suggestion of raising taxes saying it was “an area that was worth exploring” a couple others down right disagreed and said the city needs to tighten its belt rather than raise taxes.\n\nI started thinking about this issue on a smaller level.\n\nLet’s say you have two kids: “Autumn” and “Summer.” Autumn wants to earn money by way of allowance. Summer decides to make bracelets and/or sell lemonade.\n\nBoth kids work hard for their earnings but while Autumn gets the same amount of money each week for doing the same amount of work, Summer will often make twice as much money on a sunny day or during the holidays (when the bracelets and lemonade seem to sell more.) However, there are times when the bracelets don’t sell and nobody wants lemonade and in those times Summer doesn’t have the money to do the things she wants. Meanwhile, Autumn is still collecting a paycheck.\n\nAutumn started with an allowance of $10 a week but in the two years she has been working, her allowance has increased to $20. However, one day their mom, who is a Realtor, comes home and explains the market is down and she is not making as much money and will need to cut back on household expenses.\n\nUpon hearing the news that her weekly allowance might be in jeopardy, Autumn suggests that her mom start charging her sister for rental space. “She gets to make the bracelets in the living room, uses our kitchen for making the lemonade but she doesn’t share any of the money,” Autumn says. “It’s not fair.”\n\nMeanwhile, Summer argues her sister’s suggestion and offers her own solution, “I’ve already had to reduce the cost of my bracelets, It’s hard enough for me to make money. But Autumn keeps getting more money for doing the same work, why don’t you just pay her less,” she says “It’s not fair.”\n\nThe mom then looks at the both of them and says, “Your both right, its not fair.”"}, {"id": "6000", "title": "Mom and Jackie Birthday", "date": "2014-03-19", "dateFormatted": "March 19, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "There are no two people who make me feel more comfortable, more confident or more myself  than my mom and sister. Ironically, these are the only two people,  who will not, under any circumstances blow", "content": "There are no two people who make me feel more comfortable, more confident or more myself  than my mom and sister. Ironically, these are the only two people,  who will not, under any circumstances blow smoke up my … (As my mother has told me, “that’s your father’s job.”) If I write an article or even a post-it with typos (which happens a lot) they will tell me, if I gain weight they’ll tell me, if I date a guy who appears to know woman’s fashion more than I do and they think that’s a problem, they’ll tell me. On the flip side, no one has ever been there for me more or knows me better than these two women. Born two days and a few decades apart, my mom and sister are the strongest people I know and they are in my corner every second of every minute of every day of my life.\n\nThis last weekend the three of us went on a “staycation” to a very fancy hotel in Pasadena. Growing up we never bought our candy at the theatre but rather we would buy it at the store and bring it in. So it only seemed natural to bring our own facemask to the fancy hotel’s fancy spa. Here we were the three of us all steamed up and sauna-d out sitting around in the “contemplation room” in our robes, sipping our lemon water and eating our fruit on a toothpick each of us wearing a mud mask I had brought from home. “Wow, what type of facial is that?” a very fancy blond woman with perfect eyebrows and French manicured nails asked us.\n\n“The VIP Mask,” I answered. “It’s not on the menu, you just kind of have to know about it.” I was tempted to pull the CVS Brand tube out of my robe pocket and ask her if she wanted me to apply it to her face, but I am not qualified to do such a thing so I didn’t.\n\nAfter I was done being a VIP, I glanced over at my sister who was pealing her third orange and on her seventh plastic cup of guava juice. The girl can eat and the fruit was not satisfying her\n\nBorn on Valentine’s Day two weeks after my sixth birthday my sister Jacqueline came into this world with something to say. As a child she was labeled a “handful” but to me she was my hero. She was never and still isn’t a “people pleaser.”\n\nI remember as a teenager I was literally having a tantrum in my mother’s car because my high school graduation party invitations were not the way I envisioned. We were at the stop light and I opened the door, put one foot out and “threatened” to walk home. The idea was for her to be so scared of me leaving that she would succumb to my demands. However, it didn’t quite work-out  that way. In fact I think she probably said “I think that’s a great idea, let me pull over so you can get out.”"}, {"id": "5992", "title": "Fortune Cookie Praise", "date": "2014-03-19", "dateFormatted": "March 19, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "Isn’t it good luck to get two fortunes in one cookie? So what happens if both fortunes say the same thing? Recently, after finishing my teriyaki chicken, I cracked open my plastic-wrapped-less-than-fr", "content": "Isn’t it good luck to get two fortunes in one cookie? So what happens if both fortunes say the same thing? Recently, after finishing my teriyaki chicken, I cracked open my plastic-wrapped-less-than-fresh-dessert, to find that I had stuck the lottery; a two-fer fortune, both reading, “You are never bitter, deceptive or petty.”\n\nWell halleluiah, move over Jesus Christ, there is a new woman in town. According to Dragon Express Chinese Food, I’m the new ruler of the heavens. Okay, okay before I discourage all my atheist readers, let me get on with my point.\n\nLet’s start with the first adjective. Doesn’t it take a certain amount of bitterness to promote change in the world? I’d like to think that even Mother Theresa was a little bitter.\n\nThe words deceptive and petty, those are words I’d wish not to be associated with, but honestly, I have been both petty and deceptive and not just once or twice. My father would like to believe that I am angelic (my mother knows better) and that the fortune I received is one that I should have tattooed on my forehead. Except angles don’t have tattoos they have wings. The reality is I have tattoos and neither of them have anything to do with me living a life without pettiness, deception or bitterness.\n\nThe key word on the small strip of white paper, which negates anyone from authentically taking this fortune to heart, is the word “never.” A word, which I believe in a way, is a contradiction in itself; it means everything and nothing all at the same time. I mean basically until a person is dead and the evidence shows they have stayed true to his or her statement, we can’t really take it seriously. If you think about it, more than any other word we use, the word “never” has the most potential to result in a contradiction. Given this, using it can not only result in limiting one’s potential, but it can also result in guilt, which can result in shame, which can result in most of the problems we all have. If I believed in my “nevers” I wouldn’t be running my fourth marathon and I wouldn’t be able to say sorry to those I have wronged.\n\nPeople who have disagreed with me in regards to the use of these absolute words have told me that words such as never and always are a sign of a person’s commitment to whatever they are attaching it to. I have been told that the use of these words is a sign of maturity and self-awareness. But I disagree.\n\nOf course, there are exceptions. I do believe 99 percent of mothers always love their kids and would never intentionally hurt them. But now that I got that loop-hole out of the way, I want each person to think about all the times they have ever said never.\n\nHave you stayed true to your statement? Has it stopped you from believing that you could do more? Has it made you feel guilty for what you haven’t been able to live up to? If I am wrong about this whole thing (but I NEVER am), let me know because I have a fortune with your name on it. And if there is more than one of you, don’t worry, I have two."}, {"id": "1", "title": "Jennifer Evans' Insight Out: Prioritizing with a 6-month-old", "date": "2014-03-12", "dateFormatted": "March 12, 2014", "year": 2014, "excerpt": "Once upon a time I was good about sending thank-you cards and birthday cards and “just because” cards, but now, not so much.\n\nI feel like now, actually right now as I am writing this, I am in constant", "content": "Once upon a time I was good about sending thank-you cards and birthday cards and “just because” cards, but now, not so much.\n\nI feel like now, actually right now as I am writing this, I am in constant survival mode. My phone has binged 10 times in the last seven minutes and I don’t want to pick it up. I should have never sent that picture of “Baby P” in a group text, because now I will be sitting here trying to concentrate on writing this column while I know my family is going back and forth with each other discussing the picture of “Baby P” up on all fours looking as if she is going to crawl.\n\n“Wow, she is so advanced,” my dad will write. “Are those her Christmas pajamas she is wearing?” my sister, the constant comedian will ask. “Isn’t it 2 p.m.? Why haven’t you dressed her yet?” my mom will question.\n\nThis back and forth between my family members about “Baby P” will go on into the night, my phone binging with each comment.\n\nWhat is my point? I really don’t know. I started talking about cards, right? OK, let’s get back to that. When the BIL and I were dating, I gave him eight cards on his birthday, and as much as I hate to admit it, this year he didn’t even get one card. My sister-in-law, who always makes sure that a card and gift arrives for me on time for my birthday, also didn’t get a card from me (her birthday was Sunday) nor did she get a thank-you card from me for my on-time birthday gift. Same story goes for my mother-in-law, who also gave me a very thoughtful gift and whose birthday was two weeks ago. Oh, and now that I look up at the calendar I see that I will also be missing the birthday of my niece and nephew (twins who were born March 3). Sorry kids, your Aunt Jen is dropping the ball left and right and all the way down the street where it is sure to get hit by a car.\n\nI knew when I had the baby and decided that I still wanted to work and go to school and keep this column that I was probably biting off a little more than I could chew. But I typically enjoying eating more than I should, so I went for it. The problem is that I love and I am passionate about everything I am doing, so there is nothing that can be taken off my plate. I’m like a fat lady at a cruise buffet, stuffing myself silly.\n\nOn another note, “Baby P” will be 6 months old this week. She has this new way of communicating via high-pitch scream. While the BIL (Boy I Love), who is enamored with his daughter, has dubbed her glass-breaking shriek as “warrior training,” I have other words to explain it. But perhaps that is because I am not as familiar with warrior training as some people. I hope she soon grows into “ninja training” because they are stealth. I fear this supposed “warrior training” scream might lead the neighbors to believe that we are spending our time pinching our child rather than hugging her.\n\nI look at my little warrior and I think about the day she will be overwhelmed with school, sports, volunteer work, friends and whatever else she decides to bite off. Will I tell her to cave in and give up something? I hope not. I hope I tell her how proud I am of her and how much I know she can do anything and everything she sets her mind to, but that having it all isn’t always a walk in the park. Having it all and trying your best takes a lot of effort and sometimes sacrifice. I think I will tell her that I, too, have felt like giving up and the times that I did, are the only regrets I have.\n\nHowever, the times that I didn’t give up are when I felt the most proud to be me. I will also tell her that she has an awesome family and that if there is a year where we don’t get a birthday or thank-you card, not to worry, all will be forgiven."}, {"id": "6140", "title": "Teaching Seventh Grade", "date": "2012-12-11", "dateFormatted": "December 11, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "The room is so quite, still and empty that it almost makes me wish they wouldn’t have left.\n\nI find myself consumed with them, intrigued as to why some succeed and others resist the opportunity to do ", "content": "The room is so quite, still and empty that it almost makes me wish they wouldn’t have left.\n\nI find myself consumed with them, intrigued as to why some succeed and others resist the opportunity to do well. They are all capable of being well above average and although I have been told not to take it personally when they don’t meet my expectations, I do take it very personally. It’s my personal responsibility to help them see themselves the way I see them. I see them as smart, creative people who are easily distracted but willing to listen if need be. They are motivated by rewards. It’s up to me to find a fitting reward and when I have done so, it is less likely I’ll have to go in search of a consequence.\n\nI see them as people who crave attention and affirmation. Weather they know it or not they have a need to know I care about them. Few people in this world are motivated to do anything for another unless they know their work, energy, thought and time spent will be well-received and ultimately cared about.\n\n“But they should care about themselves and that should be what drives them to do well.” Some skeptics have told me.\n\nPerhaps some do, but most seventh graders care about things, people and events that are right in front of them. To see the big picture is overwhelming and foreign to most. Though college is right around the corner, they still see it as a mile a way.\n\n“My son sees the bigger picture,” the parents may argue. “He already knows he wants to go to USC or Stanford.”\n\nI am sure he does.\n\n“Remember what we were like in seventh grade?” my best friend Tania asks me, reminding of the time we got held after class for talking too much.\n\nI remember all too well. The ups and downs and in betweens and though it is nice to reminisce, I have no desire to go back in time.\n\nThough I would love to know each of my student’s stories of why some are ambitious enough to work beyond what is expected of them, while others do the minimum, I am more concerned with how they view themselves. I am less concerned if they are a victim of their circumstance, but more concerned if they have the desire to be victorious despite their circumstance.\n\nThey are hybrids. Stuck somewhere between being an adult and being a kid and although we all think they should have nothing to worry about besides, sports, school and friends, they have everything to worry about. They have to grow up and stay young all at the same time. Moment to moment their brains are being asked to make right and wrong choices and the battle between what they learned as five-years to what they think they know now to what they don’t even know they know, can turn a simple decision like not talking in class or doing their homework on time, feel like one of the biggest challenges of their lifetime.\n\nFortunately for them though I am new to this teaching gig but I have never been so sure that I am where I need to be.\n\n“Seventh grade is such a tough age,” I am frequently reminded by the experts of the world.\n\nPersonally, I think 28 was a tough age, but what do I know, it’s been a longtime since I was in seventh grade.\n\nWhat was your middle school experience like? Jenniferevans02@yahoo.com\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6050", "title": "Body Hoarder", "date": "2012-12-04", "dateFormatted": "December 04, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "Why does it feel like my workout clothes went through the dryer ten times on the highest heat?\n\nWhat happened? I have a new car and live on the second floor, so whose funny idea was it to give me a sp", "content": "Why does it feel like my workout clothes went through the dryer ten times on the highest heat?\n\nWhat happened? I have a new car and live on the second floor, so whose funny idea was it to give me a spare tire and a set of sandbags for a wedding gift? I am like a body- hoarder. Holding onto every inch knowing I can’t take on anymore, but do anyway.\n\nAnd now here I stand sleepy-eyed at my new “personal training” gym with the “Boy I Love” next to me watching little miss perfect pony tail demonstrate a box jump with a pull up.\n\n“So,” she says as she lightly hops on the box, like a delicate fairy and pulls herself up in one swift movement like an Olympic gymnast, “this is how you’re going to do it.”\n\nI look across at myself in the mirror and notice my socks are mismatched, my shirt is inside out and my broken shoe lace is broken again. I start to wiggle my stubbed toe to see if it was ready to “box-jump”, and that is when I realize I have a small hole in my shoe.\n\nMeanwhile, with her eyes dressed in mascara and her jiggle-free body wrapped in something she borrowed from a manikin in a shop-window, little miss ponytail, appeared to be awake well before my alarm went off.\n\n“Everybody down on the floor and let’s do some push ups,” I hear ponytail command.\n\nI drop to the floor and as I start to push up my glasses fall off my face. Nothing screams “world-class” athlete like a pair of black rimmed glasses sliding down your nose.\n\n“Why didn’t you wear your contacts?” the BIL asks in between reps.\n\n“Probably the same reason why I don’t have on matching socks,” I say out of breath.\n\nPush-ups and pull-ups are BIL’s time to shine. He’s got enough muscle stored up from his glory days, that even if he wants to be fat he couldn’t. The worst that can happen to his brick-house body, is he might get a little belly or some under the chin gobble, gobble (I call it his “goo goo”.) His cure for the gobble, gobble is a week or two of no bacon or ice cream matched with a few times at the gym. However, I don’t have those same glory days on my resume, therefore, the junk stays in my trunk a little while longer.\n\n“Look at that babe, I lost three pounds,” he’ll say after our first workout.\n\nI’m thinking of wrapping myself in plastic wrap next time we go to the gym so I can have the same results. I can just imagine myself with my broken laces and holy shoe, jumping around as the sweat collects in the plastic wrap around my body causing it to slip out of my shorts.\n\n“Is that plastic coming out of your shorts?” pony tail would ask.\n\nI mean what would I say? I can’t think of any reasons for wearing saran wrap, that wouldn’t make me sound a little crazy.\n\nInstead, here I am at 6:12 a.m. with no saran wrap, struggling to jump up onto a box, two inches off the ground.\n\nThud. Thud. Thud.\n\n“Try to land softer,” ponytail instructed. “Absorb the jump with your knees.”\n\nThud, thud, thud,” my loud jumping feet responded as my glasses slip off my face onto the ground.\n\n“Opps, here ya go,” she said picking up my spectacles and handing them to me. “Oh and be careful, your shoelace is broken.”\n\nEmail me at jen@jenslife.com\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6044", "title": "Learning On The Job", "date": "2012-10-30", "dateFormatted": "October 30, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "They were all staring at me, waiting for something profound or at the very minimum something of interest to come out of my mouth. A variety of writing utensils stemmed from their pre-teen hands. Some ", "content": "They were all staring at me, waiting for something profound or at the very minimum something of interest to come out of my mouth. A variety of writing utensils stemmed from their pre-teen hands. Some did as they were told and brought the bare essentials to class: pen and paper. Others found a stray pencil or forgotten marker left on the ground, a few of them sought refuge from an overly prepared neighbor, “Can I borrow a pen or pencil,” I heard whispered a half a dozen times.\n\nNow it was my turn. Had I prepared enough? Probably not. Ten minutes before the hallway filled with chatter and locker door slams, I felt overly prepared, but as the minutes ticked up to the ringing of the bell, I started to second-guess myself.  What if my lesson has no point? What if I run out of time or have too much time at the end? What if I all of a sudden forget what a verb or an adverb or an adjective is or I can’t remember the necessary elements of a narrative essay? What if they ask me something I don’t know? What if they ask me something I do know but I can’t explain it.\n\nIn this moment of expectation from a group of people whom I already have invested so much, I knew there was no time for self-doubt or second-guessing.\n\nI gave them their warm-up assignment and prepared them for what was to come next. We talked about their vocabulary words, specifically about the word receding and why and how it was used both as a verb and an adjective in their text, we talked about theme and genre and the difference between the two.\n\nI wasn’t perfect. I stumbled a bit, but hopefully not too much.\n\nThe very pregnant teacher, who I will be substituting for, sat at the back of the classroom bravely observing me while I tried to fit into her shoes. We are separated by 14 years and 364 days of teaching experience. While I spent my 20s finding myself, she had the wherewithal to help others find themselves. She is one of the good ones. Actually, she is one of the great ones and I have been lucky enough to learn more from her than I ever could have by reading the five “How to be a teacher” textbooks currently sitting in the backseat of my car.\n\nPeople have repeatedly reminded me of how crazy I am to venture into a teaching career (teaching is a verb but noticed how it is used as an adjective) how difficult it is to find a teaching job and how little money I will make. They inform me, “teaching isn’t what it use to be” and I need to make sure I have a “thick skin.”\n\nI am not sure what any of that means. All I really know is that I have wanted to be a teacher since I was 12-years-old. I took a longer road than most to get here, and thick skin or not, I am ready and excited to be here.\n\nAs I stood before the students those first couple of days I realized how lucky I am that I am not perfect and I don’t know everything. I reflected on my past teachers who thought of themselves as perfect people (notice how perfect was used as a verb and adjective) who knew everything about everything, no wonder they always seemed so impatient and frustrated with their class.\n\nPerfect or not perfect, I cannot imagine I will never be frustrated or become a little impatient. However, what I will promise is I will always be prepared with more than just the bare essentials and even if I don’t have something profound to say, I’ll do my best to say something of interest, not because I am interesting but because I want to keep the interesting students interested.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6042", "title": "Loving Last Place", "date": "2012-08-15", "dateFormatted": "August 15, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "Not many people appreciate last place as much as I do. As I child I played softball and our team was known as the bad-news-bears. For two consecutive years we lost every game and each one was more fun", "content": "Not many people appreciate last place as much as I do. As I child I played softball and our team was known as the bad-news-bears. For two consecutive years we lost every game and each one was more fun than the one before. But as I grew older and the sports became more competitive I quickly realized that nobody was interested in someone who was comfortable with last place. Instead of agonizing over it, I opted to stay on the side lines cheering on my friends as they won volleyball games, competed in swim meets, became football champions and jumped hurdles higher than I ever believed I could ever jump.\n\nAs much as I would not have minded being last, I was more afraid of not being accepted if I came in last.\n\nThe BIL (Boy I Love) isn’t comfortable in last place. I understand his distain coming in less than first, second or third and I am sure it is one of the reasons why I am attracted to him. However, I wondered up until this last weekend, what he would think, if I ever came in last place.\n\nWould he love me less?\n\nI got my answer last Saturday when the two of us participated in the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation’s South Bay Dozen. We both agreed to participate in at least three of the 12 water events, which involved various paddling, swimming and surfing skills.\n\nWe arrived at the designated beach at 7 a.m., paid our entry fee and got our numbers inked on our arms. I started to look around at the crowd of competitors and noticed there was no ounce of extra inches in the group. I started to panic. “Honey, look at these people, they serious athletes,” I said. He assured me we’d be fine. “So are we babe.” I looked him up and down and then looked at the ten six packs standing in front of me and decided to reiterate my point. “No, honey, we are people who go for a jog once in a while and these are people who are discussing their recent Iron Man times, like real Iron Man.”\n\nHe told me it was time we started to soar with the eagles and that we needed to step up our game.\n\nNext thing you know he was done with his race (finishing somewhere in the middle) and it was time for mine.\n\nI have run marathons and participated in triathlons and other various large community events, but in those situations it’s easy to hide among the hundreds or even thousands of participants.\n\nHowever, here at the South Bay Dozen there were four woman in this particular competition; myself and three woman who, you could bounce a quarter off of any part of their body.\n\n“I just want to warn you now, I am going to be last,” I told the BIL as I loaded my board into the water.\n\nI was right.\n\n“Good job honey, you got fourth place!” The BIL said with pure excitement. I realized he didn’t care if I came in last and neither did all the people who cheered for me when I came into shore.\n\nAs the day continued I participate in three more events, garnering three more last place positions. Each one was more fun than the one before.\n\nThe money raised during the day’s event was put toward a wounded warriors program, helping rehabilitate those soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.\n\nHere I was worrying about coming in last place, meanwhile there are men and women returning home from war, who have to face more fears, self-doubt and anxieties than I could ever imagine.\n\nYea I’m okay with being last or as the BIL informed me in the final event of the day; “Honey, you weren’t last, you were 17th.”"}, {"id": "5990", "title": "4th of July", "date": "2012-07-04", "dateFormatted": "July 04, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "I’m not trying to sober up anybody’s 4th of July drinking parade, but I would like to take a moment and remind all of us Americans that the day before the 5th and after the 3rd , is not just about fir", "content": "I’m not trying to sober up anybody’s 4th of July drinking parade, but I would like to take a moment and remind all of us Americans that the day before the 5th and after the 3rd , is not just about fireworks, burgers and red cups.\n\nThough the Hermosa Beach Iron Man is an important tradition as well as the Strand-house parties and community fireworks, it is just as important to recognize the reason behind why we put on those red and white bikinis and Uncle Sam hats.\n\nLet’s start by recognizing the 1,343,812 men and woman who have died for our country since The American Revolutionary War to our current War on Terror. Let’s also remember each and every single brave man and woman who is currently fighting for our country, as well as all of the surviving veterans who have ever put their life on the line so that we could celebrate our independence.\n\nAll you high school graduates out there, who are getting ready to go off to college and celebrate your independence, just remember with independence comes an extreme amount of responsibility. Our country claimed its independence 236 years ago. Relatively speaking, the United States of America is still a teenager. However, though we are one of the youngest, we are the most self-sufficient, smartest and strongest unions in the world. This doesn’t mean we are perfect, but despite our issues (and right now we have a fair amount) we are still the most desired country to live in or be from.\n\nOur country began its independence with 2.3 million people and 13 colonies. Today, according to the United States Census, that number has grown to 313.9 million people.\n\nIn honor of our country’s growth and it’s 236th year of independence here is an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, which was signed in Boston, with 56 signatures on July, 4, 1776, two days after our country declared its independence.\n\n“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”\n\nGrowing up, my parents’ main concern for me and my sisters was for our safety and happiness.\n\nAs individuals and as a country it is nearly impossible to always be 100 percent safe and happy but as Americans it is our responsibility as much as our right to pursue safety and happiness to the extent that is possible.\n\nSo while we are drinking, eating and lighting up the sky during this 4th of July week, let us remember there are no rights without responsibilities. Though it is too easy  to focus on the disappointments of our country, we should remember our obligation as Americans to strive for safety and happiness, because without fulfilling those rights, we have failed as responsible Americans.\n\nHappy 236th Independence Day and to many, many more safe and happy years."}, {"id": "6104", "title": "Changing Your Norm", "date": "2012-06-26", "dateFormatted": "June 26, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "My future sister-in-law, Jill and her husband Doug, wake up at 4:30 a.m. on a regular basis. For most of us, that hour is considered the middle of the night, but for them, that is the hour when one or", "content": "My future sister-in-law, Jill and her husband Doug, wake up at 4:30 a.m. on a regular basis. For most of us, that hour is considered the middle of the night, but for them, that is the hour when one or more of their children start the day.\n\nDuring our weekend visit, the BIL and I usually didn’t make our way upstairs earlier than about 8 a.m. Considering when the rest of the house had woken up; I was surprised they weren’t sitting at the table ready to eat lunch. Instead Jill was in the kitchen making her brother and myself a breakfast of eggs and fruit and ensuring us that the coffee was brewing.\n\nWhen it comes to juggling life with smiles on their faces, Jill and Doug are master ringleaders of their circus.\n\nThe BIL and I haven’t started our circus yet. As a newly engaged couple, we still live a pretty selfish life. Most mornings our biggest decision revolves around paddle boarding or sleeping in an extra hour. We both know we want to have children and we both are confident in our parenting skills. However, fantasizing about a life with children and the reality of having children are worlds apart.\n\nI have been around children long enough to know that minute-by-minute they can throw you for a loop. One minute they are giggling and cuddly and the next minute they are arching their backs and screaming. In a single day a child can have more mood swings than a person who is bi-polar. Nothing lasts. By the time a parent figures out how to stop their children from sucking their thumb, the child has moved on to picking their nose. By the time they have bought every book on how to pottery train, the child is already picking out their underwear. It can be fascinating, frustrating, exhilarating and exhausting all in the same minute. Some parents get it and roll with it and others find it too challenging to handle.\n\nJill and Doug are parents who get it. This doesn’t mean they are perfect and have all the answers every minute of the day, but it means that when they are thrown for a loop, they try their best and they cut each other some slack when needed.\n\nDuring the weekend we biked and hiked and played tag and even got some time to windsurf and paddleboard. Every outing included all of the children and sometimes all of them started and finished the activity and sometimes they finished before they even started. However, during those single activities their were dozens of up and down moments and moods that allowed us to learn that a perfect day or a perfect life, isn’t about what we expect, but it’s often what we didn’t expect.\n\nOne day, if we are lucky, the BIL and I will be the ringmasters of our own circus and our mornings will start before the sun comes up and our evenings will end with bedtime stories. However, for now I will let the sun wake us up and let the surf decide if I will take the boards out or pull the covers back over our head, besides like the BIL ensured, “Don’t worry honey when we have kids they won’t wake up until 7 a.m.”\n\nYup, like I said, the difference between reality and fantasy is worlds apart. Come to think of it, I bet our kids will also come out potty trained.\n\nJenniferevans02@yahoo.com"}, {"id": "6149", "title": "Too Good To Be True", "date": "2012-05-20", "dateFormatted": "May 20, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "I probably need therapy but instead I’ll just unload all my fears and anxieties to you. As some of you might know, I recently graduated college and got engaged to the BIL (Boy I Love) all in the same ", "content": "I probably need therapy but instead I’ll just unload all my fears and anxieties to you. As some of you might know, I recently graduated college and got engaged to the BIL (Boy I Love) all in the same day. It was a dream day, except it wasn’t a dream, I woke up the next day, looked at my finger and there was the gold and diamond ring that has been in his family for 100 years.\n\nEvery time I look at the ring, which is about 1,236 times a day, I have a mixture of love, excitement and terror. Make no mistake, I know I am marrying the best man in the world. He is everything I could ever ask for and more. I am just worried he doesn’t know what he is getting himself into. Hasn’t he read my columns? Doesn’t he know that I loose stuff and I forget stuff and I don’t always pay attention when I am driving and sometimes I accidentally gain five or six or seven pounds. I get parking tickets and my car is a mess and I usually run about 10 minutes late for everything.\n\nAnyway, as we all know, actions speak louder than words and I think lately I have subconsciously been trying to prepare him for what might be a lifetime of “opps moments.“\n\nA couple of weeks ago I lost the key to his house, I didn’t say anything, instead I took the hide a key and then I lost the hide a key. Opps.\n\nLast weekend we drove to Mammoth and when we got there I realized I left my purse in a gas station bathroom in the Mohave Desert. Opps.\n\nThe BIL is so forgiving, unlike other guys who would make me feel clumsy or absent minded, the BIL made me a new key for the house but this time it is a huge pink Hello Kitty key. “This will be harder to lose.” he said.\n\nAs for the purse incident, he called the gas station and had them hold onto it until we drove back through Mohave on Monday. “Maybe we should just get you a bigger purse, something that is too big to put on the back of the toilet and forget.”\n\nIt all just seems too good to be true. Or is it?\n\nIn all honesty I am not intentionally testing his patience but I will say, it seems I have really ramped up my idiosyncrasies in the last week. I hope for both our sakes it doesn’t continue for too much longer. However, until it stops, I have a couple more stories to share.\n\nLast weekend we went skiing for the last day of the season (same weekend I left the purse in gas station) there wasn’t a lot of snow on the mountain and only the upper mountain was open, including the top. Just to let you know, there are a few ways to get down from the top; the hard way, harder way and the really super difficult way.  Although I have been down all of the runs this season, this last weekend I decided that I was too scared even attempt the top. I can’t explain my sudden fear other than to say I felt like if I did it I was going to get badly hurt or possibly die and then my dream life would turn into a nightmare.\n\nSee, I told you I needed therapy.\n\nAnyway, I went to the top and made it down the hard run and so I decided to go back to the top with the BIL for the super duper difficult run. However, about three turns in, I froze with fear and didn’t move. Opps. Everything in that moment was so scary. The BIL was a few turns ahead of me. Despite his coaxing and encouraging words I didn’t move for 30 minutes. To add insult to injury, I cried. It wasn’t a pretty site. Oh my god, I thought to myself, I am one of “those girls” (whatever that means.)\n\nThe BIL never lost his patience, never made me feel bad or weak. He just waited and helped and about an hour later we were down the mountain having a very well deserved cold beverage.\n\nOne would think the story is over but it’s not. The next day (after we returned from skiing) while driving his car home from work I got into a fender bender (a pretty bad one.) Opps.\n\n“All I care about is that your okay,” he said to me. “Now did you remember to get the house key off the ring when they towed the car?   Opps."}, {"id": "6018", "title": "Engaged", "date": "2012-05-18", "dateFormatted": "May 18, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "There are weekends when all you do is laundry and walk the dog and then there are other weekends when all of your dreams come true and your life is changed forever.\n\nLast weekend I didn’t do laundry.\n", "content": "There are weekends when all you do is laundry and walk the dog and then there are other weekends when all of your dreams come true and your life is changed forever.\n\nLast weekend I didn’t do laundry.\n\nI already knew when I woke up the day would be one I would remember forever. I put on my fancy new dress, matched with super cute shoes and waited for my very awesome friend Carly to arrive to do my hair and make-up. While the hustle and bustle of getting ready took place, my cap and gown hanged in the living room as a reminder this wasn’t a dream anymore. I had actually done it; in a matter of a couple of hours I would be a graduate. No longer would I have to carry around the insecurity I had not finished college. No longer would I have to settle for a job I wasn’t 100 percent in love with. No longer would I have to explain to people where I had gone to school and why I had left but that I planned to finish one day. That “one day” was here.\n\nGraduating would have been enough for one day, but the BIL (Boy I Like) thought I deserved more, he always does. He loves to think big. Like he said to me when we designed our Halloween costumes, “Babe, puff paint is for amateurs.”\n\nAnd he was right, though it took more time and effort, sewing a “B” and a “G” onto our super hero costumes, it took it to another level. It’s that level of hard work, creativity, risk taking and love for life that I want to spend the rest of my life with.\n\nGraduation would have been enough, but instead we decided to stop by The Mermaid after the commencement and have a Bloody Mary.\n\nI thought it was just going to be the family and the BIL but instead the bar was filled with all my favorite people, they yelled surprise as I walked in the door. I had managed to keep my eyes dry for graduation but they didn’t stay dry for that moment.\n\nIn that moment, looking at all the people whom I love, I was reminded of all of the love and support I have in my life and why I was able to persevere with school.\n\nLittle did I know, my day of surprises had just begun.\n\nAbout 15 minutes into the hugs and congratulations, the BIL pulls me aside and loudly starts to tell everyone how proud he is of me and how much he loves me. He then handed me a velvet box. (I know what you are thinking because I thought the same thing….why isn’t he on one knee?) Well, a guy doesn’t need to get on one knee when he is giving a new car to his girlfriend.\n\nI opened the box and there it was, a new car key, which was attached to my dream car; a 2012 Ford Focus (they should pay me for this column.) But it wasn’t just any Ford Focus, it was a Ford Focus with balloons and streamers and bows on it.\n\nThere it was right in front of me; a car with air conditioning, a car with turn signals, a car with no dents and no miles, a car that doesn’t need oil in it every three weeks, a car that gets more than 16 miles to the gallon. Well, that would have definitely been enough for one day. But not for BIL, he is limitless and loveable and reminds me everyday that I need to dream bigger.\n\n“There is one more thing,” he said pulling me into the back room of the Mermaid.\n\nThe back room of The Mermaid with its yellow stained walls and drooping ceiling never looked so beautiful. It was decorated like the set from The Bachelor complete with a table for two and long stem red rose. On the table was a hard cover book wrapped with white satin ribbon.\n\nAt this point I was freaking out on the inside and trying hard not show it on the outside.\n\nAs we took our seats for two in the private room, my BIL untied the ribbon and read the book he made. He told the love story of his great grandparents and how his great grandfather Conrad gave his bride to be, Anna a very special ring with their initials engraved on the inside. BIL’s mother, Charlotte, later wore the same ring and a few months ago Charlotte gave it to BIL to give to me.\n\n“Will you marry me?” he said at the end of his story this time he was on one knee.\n\nThere it was on my finger, the ring that was purchased more than 100 years ago, was now something that will remind me everyday of the importance of marriage, family true love and dreams coming true.\n\nThe graduation would have been enough, but thankfully, enough isn’t good enough for the person whom I get to spend the rest of my life with.\n\nIt was the biggest, most life changing and above all happiest weekend of my life. What I didn’t do was my laundry, but that’s okay there is always next weekend.\n\nI am happy to share video footage of the day, captured my Yahoo Ultimate Surprises if you email me at jenniferevans02@yahoo.com I will send you the link."}, {"id": "6123", "title": "Graduation", "date": "2012-05-15", "dateFormatted": "May 15, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "Today is Tuesday. For you it is probably Thursday or Friday or a week from now, depending on when you picked up the paper from the driveway or outside of your favorite coffee shop.\n\nAnyway, for me, to", "content": "Today is Tuesday. For you it is probably Thursday or Friday or a week from now, depending on when you picked up the paper from the driveway or outside of your favorite coffee shop.\n\nAnyway, for me, today is Tuesday and besides being Tuesday it is also my last day of college as an undergraduate. I take my last two finals tonight and then that’s it, I did it, I graduated.\n\nIt hasn’t been a flawless journey and toward the end though I hoped everything would be sealed up in a bow and looking good, it’s not. But it’s done and I did it.\n\nSomeone said to me the other day “You should be proud of yourself.” My response was self-deprecating and a bit pathetic. “It’s not that big of a deal, I’ve gone to school so long I should have my doctorate by now,” I joked.\n\nWell, I take that back. Yes, I am proud of myself.\n\nRecently, I perused my roller-coaster transcripts and I remember the good times and the bad. My transcripts are decorated with enough letters that if I wanted to play scrabble, I’d be in pretty good shape.\n\nBut I digress.\n\nToday is Tuesday and today I will take my last two finals and this weekend I will walk with the class of 2012 and I will graduate with my English Education Degree.\n\nMore times than not I believed this day would never be here, but as soon as I stopped believing that way, it was here.\n\nMy sister once told me that all I had to do is want it for myself, believe I deserve it and then I would get it. She is right. If there is one thing learned from this journey besides how to read Middle English, it’s that half the battle of accomplishing a goal is believing you can. I know most of us have read this statement somewhere and I am sure some of you have it tattooed on your body in one way or another. But very few of us implement it in our daily lives.\n\nI still have trouble believing in me. I am person who still believes in the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause but believing in myself and knowing what I deserve and realizing my worth, is a challenge.\n\nBut today is Tuesday and in 8 hours I will take my last final and will have done it. Since I was 18 years old I wanted this but it took me until now to know that I can do it.\n\nIf I could talk to the 18-year-old Jennifer and tell her what I know now. I would tell her to never stop moving forward, don’t tell yourself it’s too hard or that you don’t need a degree or that a job or traveling or a boyfriend is more important. I would tell her there are a lot of bumps in the road and reasons to exit, but don’t. Fix the tire and get back on the road ASAP.\n\nI have loved and hated this journey but here I am at the end steps away from the finish line and today is Tuesday and I am proud of me."}, {"id": "5998", "title": "Feeling Sick", "date": "2012-05-01", "dateFormatted": "May 01, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "As I am writing this I am home with a fever and strep throat. The only way I can think to explain strep throat is that it feels like two giant hot coals are sitting at the back of my throat and every ", "content": "As I am writing this I am home with a fever and strep throat. The only way I can think to explain strep throat is that it feels like two giant hot coals are sitting at the back of my throat and every time saliva starts to build up I have to make the decision of to spit or swallow. Spitting is just gross but swallowing is painful. My fever got up to 102 at one point and I have changed my pajamas about 12 times in the last 12 hours.\n\nRight when I was about to feel very sorry for myself, I picked up a magazine in the doctor’s office in which I read an article about a woman who had cancer and her body was being held together with metal rods, which included a metal halo around her head. The article went into detail about how painful it was for her to vomit (a standard reaction to chemotherapy) but how she wanted to keep fighting because she had two young children.\n\nSeveral minutes after reading the devastating article the doctor called my name after taking my weight and blood pressure and temperature she asked what my pain level was. I would have said 9 or 10 but because I had read the article about this heroic woman, I said 7 and then even felt like that was too high of a number.\n\nI think unless we are chronically ill or have a major handicap, most of us take our health for granted. I know I do. I don’t remember the last time I had a fever and I don’t know if I have ever gotten strep throat. But here it is and I am realizing how fortunate I have been to have been in good health as well as have people who are willing to take care of me when my health goes south. The BIL (Boy I like) is a good caretaker, he drove me to the doctor, he has picked up medicine for me and snuggled me even know he knows I am very contagious. I asked him to put this numbing spray in my throat but before he did he sprayed it in his own throat to see what it was like.\n\nHis action reminded me of a memory I have of when I was about four years old and I got up in the middle of the night because my eyes were hurting. I woke my dad up and he grabbed some drops from the bathroom and took me back into my bedroom and told me to tilt my head back so he could put the drops in. in which I responded by crying and giving him a long “noooooo.”\n\nHe put on his best convincing and soothing voice “But princess, this is going to make your eyes feel all better.”\n\nI refused and cried louder. Until he finally instructed me to watch him do it first, to show how easy and painless it was.\n\nI sat cross-legged on the bed with my footed pajamas staring at him as he tilted his head back and squeezed the drops into his eye. In an instant he was yelling profanities I had never heard before. I of course started crying and my mom woke up wanting to know what the “heck was going on?” Taking the bottle of drops from my dad’s hands, she read the label closely and informed us that he had just put nose drops in his eyes. His eye was red and sore for two days. My eye was fine the next morning.\n\nWhen your children or your spouse is sick or anyone you truly love is sick, you tend to feel hopeless. You want the medicine to work faster and the pain to go away so you can go back to good night sleeps and enjoying life. But I guess everything has to run its course and for some people they never get better. When I think of those people who are fighting cancer, or chronic pain or anything else that doesn’t allow them to enjoy life, I just hope that they have someone, at least one person, who will make them soup or hold their hand or make them laugh. For those of us who are healthy, maybe we can think of someone who is sick and we have been meaning to visit but we don’t like hospitals or we have been meaning to make a casserole to bring to them but we don’t have time.\n\nMaybe we should make just a little extra time and space for people who are under the weather and may not have a lot of people who visit.\n\nHowever, when you do make a visit, make sure you read the labels before administering any medicine, you don’t want to end up with a mouth full of profanities."}, {"id": "6024", "title": "Elizabeth Birthday", "date": "2012-04-03", "dateFormatted": "April 03, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "Born April 3, 1990, Elizabeth Grace Evans weighed just 4 pounds. She was born a few weeks early but as far as I was concerned, she came right on time.\n\nThe day she was born I was playing out in right ", "content": "Born April 3, 1990, Elizabeth Grace Evans weighed just 4 pounds. She was born a few weeks early but as far as I was concerned, she came right on time.\n\nThe day she was born I was playing out in right field. My dad interrupted the softball game to ask the coach if I could leave. Seeing as though I hadn’t caught a fly ball in two seasons and my batting average was in the single digits, the coach quickly obliged.\n\nOn the way to the hospital, I had a million questions for my dad as to why she was born  early and if she was okay. He answered them to the best of his ability and warned me that she was in a special incubator and it would be a few days before we could take her home.\n\nTen days later, on Easter Sunday, Elizabeth came home. She was dressed from head to toe in pink and I was so proud to be the first to change her diaper.\n\nFor years she was my little shadow. Until she was about five, her favorite outfit was a pair of pink bike shorts with cowboy boots. She had little round glasses and long hair, which she rarely let me put in a pony tail. She loved dogs and although one bit her, she was still never afraid of them. She would do her homework in the back of my car so she could have enough time to play when she got home from school. When she was toddler she didn’t like the sand, but by the time she was 10-years-old she was enrolled in surf camp and loved the beach.\n\nFor her 12th birthday I threw her a huge birthday party in the backyard and I knew then, that my time with her was soon coming to an end. She was big now and her friends were more important then her big sister.\n\nSoon thereafter, on a hot summer day, I went to pick her up for an ice cream date and she opted not to go. “I think I just want to stay here and hang out with my friends,” she said rather bluntly.\n\nI  was crushed, but I knew I had to put on a brave face. “Ok sweetie, have fun with your friends, I‘ll call you later,” I replied with a fake smile.\n\nAs soon as I pulled out of the driveway, the tears came streaming down my face. I knew it was the end of an era. Soon her little round glasses would turn into contact lenses and her pink outfits would turn into skinny jeans. Her friends would take the place of our dates together. No longer would  I be the coolest person in her life.\n\nBecause of Elizabeth I know what it means to value the time you have with the younger people in your life.\n\nWatching her become a teenager wasn’t easy. The first time she told me she hated me, I knew the meaning of the phrase “we hurt the ones we love the most.” Thankfully, I once was a teenage girl and I knew her words held little meaning. However, at that moment when she was screaming at me, I would have paid any amount of money to rewind the clock and have back the little girl with glasses and cowboy boots.\n\nToday, that little girl, turned teenager, is now a beautiful, smart, sweet almost 22-year-old young woman. Our family will celebrate her birthday this week because next week she is on her way to Hawaii. This past weekend, she and I and Jacqueline were together chatting away senselessly. In that moment I felt like the luckiest person alive to have been able to be a big sister twice to two of the most incredible people I know.\n\nThank you Elizabeth Grace for all that you are to me, to our family and to this world. Happy Birthday and enjoy your adventure."}, {"id": "6151", "title": "Two Week Road Trip", "date": "2012-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "I counted 12 mosquito bites by the time I got home from my two-week road trip, which included six states, five National parks, a friend’s lake cabin, lots of hiking, one European in a pair of Speedos ", "content": "I counted 12 mosquito bites by the time I got home from my two-week road trip, which included six states, five National parks, a friend’s lake cabin, lots of hiking, one European in a pair of Speedos and a beetle that looked like a baby dinosaur.\n\nI survived, rather I thrived. For a person who never was, but always wanted to be a girl scout, I feel like I have earned some patches.\n\nFirst on the list I should get a patch for best backseat driver; the space I created for myself in the truck sitting behind my friend Amy and her husband Christian was one that allowed enough space to make an on-the-road-Toby-Keith- music video. There is nothing like driving on a highway sandwiched by rolling hills and cattle while blasting “Made in America” to make one feel like they should have a shotgun in the rear window and an American flag hanging out the back. Yee haw!\n\nNext on the list I earned a patch for hiking. Although I wont get into each hike because that would be super egotistical and boring, I will brag that despite my fear heights and tears streaming down my face, I climbed to the top of Angles Landing in Zion National Park. Unfortunately, the picture I have of me on top of the landing looks like my arms have blow up water wings on so needless to say that one didn’t make the Facebook cut. Next on the list, I earned a patch for sleeping in a tent. Maybe I didn’t sleep as soundly as my road trip partners did but I also didn’t opt to sleep in the car when I had convinced myself that both the dinosaur beetle I had seen roaming outside of the tent and the Speedo-wearing-European were going to kidnap me and I would be the next story source for Dateline.\n\nNext, I get a patch for eating a lot of food. It’s not easy for a South Bay girl, to throw caution to the wind and eat things like a deep-fried pork chop sandwich or a Buffalo burger and fries or even the worlds best apple pie. I even earned myself a spot on the wall of fame at Angie’s Diner in Utah for eating a desert that is typically designed for a party of 12 (I’m also on their Facebook page if ya want to check it out.)\n\nI also earn a patch for finding the cheapest hotel in Vegas because if I had to set up and sleep in a tent one more time I would have drowned myself in the two inches of melted ice left over in the cooler we hauled around for two weeks. So instead of taking my own life, our crew spent the last night at Palace Station for $21. What I don’t get a patch for is gambling, otherwise I would have probably used my winnings to buy some patches, but instead I used my winnings to buy free ice at the ice machine so that we could drain the cooler which only carried some left over hot dogs and a six-pack of Montana brewed beer that I picked up for the boy I like.\n\nFinally, I get a patch for being lucky. Lucky to have friends who I can travel with for two weeks, share a tent, a car a cabin and a run-down hotel with and love even more at the end of the trip than I did at the beginning. I’ll get two patches if they feel the same about me.\n\nNow the only question is, I wonder if the European finally put on some pants and if he did, did he invite dinosaur beetle over from some hot dogs and S’mores?\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6111", "title": "Family at The Lake", "date": "2012-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "As I am writing this column i am with the BIL (Boy I Love) and his entire family at their Piseco Lake house located in the Adirondacks (upstate New York). The nearly 100-year-old cabin  is alive right", "content": "As I am writing this column i am with the BIL (Boy I Love) and his entire family at their Piseco Lake house located in the Adirondacks (upstate New York). The nearly 100-year-old cabin  is alive right now with about two dozen family members ranging in age from 22 months-old to 888 months-old. We are four days into our vacation and the group has had only one minor trip to the emergency room (stitches in the chin) and one trip to the clinic (stomach virus). We take out the trash 40 times a day and do the dishes 140 times a day and because of the water shortage (lack of rain) we are encouraged to bathe in the lake, which I  like. We have water skied, tubed, boarded, canoed, kayaked, and tore up the lake riding the wave runner. The home was built by my BIL's great grandfather, Luther Edwards and his son Frank  and was to serve  as a summer vacation spot for the family. To build the home, the father son duo had to haul wood on a unpaved road via a model T. As I look at all the family pictures on the wall some dating back to 1862, I wonder if the Edwards men ever realized what they were building at the time.\n\nThis  is the thickest home I ever been in, there are layers upon layers of family memories. Generations have grown up here, been married here, laughed, loved and died here. This house has felt pain and known how to comfort, it has felt frustration and known how to sooth, it has felt lonely and known how to give company and more then ever, it has felt joy and known how to celebrate. It has been a haven for children desperate to grow up and adults in need of a return to childhood.\n\nThis house holds my BIL's best memories. Memories of how he learned to water ski, memories of the trouble he would get into with his brother, sister,  cousins and lake friends, memories of his first summer job, of his first kiss behind the roller rink and most of all memories of his dad. I will never meet my BIL's dad but from  what I gather,  his dad, Pete worked hard and played hard, he was adventurous yet a planner, strickt yet loving and above all he was a true family man. August 18th marks the 18th anniversary of when BIL's dad was killed in a car accident while driving up to the Piseco Lake house.\n\nSailing was a passion for BIL's dad. Days after his death, the family raced a sailboat in his honor. From start to finish,  the family noticed the same monarch butterfly following the sailboat.\n\nEarlier today some of the children and some of us adult children went on a treasure hunt. Pirates had come to Piseco and left some treasure for the children and we went on a mission to find it. As we loaded up the pontoon boat and set out on our journey in search of clues, we looked up and saw a monarch butterfly, which stayed with us for most of the journey. I want to believe BIL's dad isn't missing out on seeing what awesome adults he created and what beautiful, loving, smart and creative grandchildren he has. The butterfly we saw today let us know that although he's not physically here, he is not missing out on a thing.\n\nWith most big things in life I tend to be a bit of a scaredy-cat. So knowing that I am getting married in two months from now, should freak me right out. But being here makes me less afraid, it reminds me that along with my own wonderful family, I will now inherit more love, support and good times than I ever could have hoped for.  Plus, how cool is it to have an excuse not to shower everyday, that reminds me, I better grab some soap and jump in the lake, I'm getting a little stinky."}, {"id": "6108", "title": "Difference between Boys and Girls", "date": "2012-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "It’s been said a million different times a trillion different ways: Boys and girls are wired differently.  Books have been written, seminars have taken place and therapists have made a lot of money fr", "content": "It’s been said a million different times a trillion different ways: Boys and girls are wired differently.  Books have been written, seminars have taken place and therapists have made a lot of money from people who just refuse to believe that boys think differently from girls.\n\nHere is my story: The BIL (Boy I Like) and I are sitting in the Jacuzzi, enjoying the moonlight and the hot water when all of a sudden his eyes drift off into the distance and then focus back on my face. He takes a deep breath and I think to myself, wow he is about to tell me he loves me and he can’t live without me.\n\n“So babe” he says.\n\n“Yea,” respond in a sexy whispery kind of voice, knowing for sure that I am about to hear the words I have been waiting for.\n\n“I’m really thinking that I need to move that bamboo tree over to the other side of the yard,” he says very seriously.\n\nI rest my case.\n\nIf I wrote a book or hosted a seminar it would be called “Boys are simple and girls are not.” With that title, I’m pretty sure even boys would buy the book.\n\nOf course there are exceptions to every rule, believe me I have dated my fair share of girly-boys in my time and let me just say to the ladies; if you think dating a guy who is constantly “in touch with his emotions” and has no problem expressing himself or how he feels about every little thing, its not, it’s exhausting.\n\nLadies, here is the deal in a nutshell (no need for Mars and Venus or Dr. Laura) maybe guys don’t always tell us how they feel about every little thing but a lot of times when they do it’s like when those quite-Buddha-type people speak, they don’t say a lot but when they do it’s really profound. I won’t tell my BIL this (but I will tell you), if he never said ‘I love you’ again, I would still know he loves me. I know he loves me because he makes me the best breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had, he learned how to play one of my favorite songs on his guitar, when I needed an outlet for my computer he set it up right away or when I did my first triathlon he came to the beach before dark.\n\nHe’s my biggest fan and I am his. And in this crazy confusing world of relationships, that is all two people should really need. So if he wants to talk about gardening while we stare at each other in the moonlight, well, that’s ok with me, besides I agree, he does need to move that bamboo to the other side of the yard.\n\nGive me a shout out if you please… jenniferevans02@yahoo.com or follow me on Twitter."}, {"id": "6077", "title": "Bat Wings", "date": "2012-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "The other day I waved goodbye to a friend and I noticed my bat wings were in full effect. I am not sure how long they have been this moveable but now that I noticed, I am obsessed with them. For those", "content": "The other day I waved goodbye to a friend and I noticed my bat wings were in full effect. I am not sure how long they have been this moveable but now that I noticed, I am obsessed with them. For those 2 percent of you who don’t know what bat wings are, they are the extra pocket of jiggle located on one’s lower/inner arm.\n\n“Just do some push ups and you’ll be fine,” the BIL instructed. The BIL couldn’t have bat wings if he tried. He barley does any exercise and he looks like a stunt double for the incredible hulk. Back in his teen-years and 20’s he was a professional water skier so he has muscle memory that won’t forget. Back in my 20’s I had so much fun that my whole body forgets what it looks like, the only muscle memories I have are in the pictures of me jumping off cliffs in Jamaica or parting in Hawaii.\n\nA friend of mine recently told me I need to stop being so self-deprecating. She was telling me this as I was staring at her no-cellulite, six pack body. “Ever since I had my kids I decided I wasn’t going to be hard on myself anymore,” she said to me, standing in a bikini, her butt the size of a small ten-year-olds.\n\nShe, like so many women in the South Bay work hard for those bodies and if they didn’t, then all the yoga, Pilates, spinning and personal training businesses would be no more.\n\nI am not trying to be the chubby girl who disses on the hot chicks for working out and looking good (especially the hot moms who have to work extra hard.) The truth is I am not really that chubby, I just have a little extra body insurance on my arm and butt area and perhaps on my thighs as well. I can’t really afford the insurance, but I just haven’t had time to cancel it.\n\nPerhaps I am feeling a bit more self-conscious because I just got back from Thailand, where they don’t make fat girls. I was talking to one of the Thai girls and commenting on how beautiful her skin was and how universally thin everyone in Thailand is. She said to me in her broken English, “We eat like birds and we don’t eat bread like white girls do.”\n\nAwesome. Well, I guess I am going to have to start on my diet of crumbs, but not bread crumbs of course.\n\nThe fact is, how many of us will ever be truly 100 percent satisfied with our bodies? I mean there are just so many elements to a completely perfect body. It’s not just getting rid of the bat wings because when that is done you have the cellulite on your butt and then you have the teeth that need whiting and then it will probably be time for you to get a pedicure and when that is done and you think you look perfect, you’ll probably find a black hair coming out of your chin or some weird mole on your arm and you‘ll realize that your skin will never be as smooth as it once was.\n\nIt’s exhausting and as much as I want to be this strong healthy woman who says she is done with trying to compare herself with others and is just going to accept her flaws, I am not that person, yet, but I will be because I have to be, just like all of us have to be. None of us are perfect and there is always someone who is going to look better than you, unless your Giselle.\n\nSo along with working on my bat-wings (via push ups) more importantly I will try to say goodbye to self-deprecation, However, until I know it’s totally out the door, I probably won’t wave it goodbye wearing a tank-top."}, {"id": "6028", "title": "Easter Egg Hunt", "date": "2012-03-19", "dateFormatted": "March 19, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "When my parents promised me and my sisters an Easter egg hunt until we were no longer the “kids” of the family, I doubt they had any idea that we would be the “kids” of the family for this long.\n\nMy s", "content": "When my parents promised me and my sisters an Easter egg hunt until we were no longer the “kids” of the family, I doubt they had any idea that we would be the “kids” of the family for this long.\n\nMy sisters and I love a good Easter egg hunt, but because all egg hunts are for “children only,” my mom and dad are forced to hide the eggs (well they don’t really do it, the Easter Bunny does.)\n\nEvery year we ask ourselves “are we too old for this?”\n\nMy mother thinks we are all a little crazy and we need to “grow up.’ On the other hand, my father, who still thinks we need training wheels, says there is nothing wrong with hiding more than 100 plastic eggs filled with candy around the family living room for his three little girls. “Who is going to get the bonus egg this year?” he says with pure anticipating in his voice.\n\nThe “bonus egg” has money in it and depending on if my dad has had a lucrative year or not, the “bonus egg” can either buy a Happy Meal or fill a gas tank. My youngest sister who has a nose for money, has been winning the bonus egg since she was in diapers. I remember the first time she won it. I protested. “She doesn’t even know what to do with that money,” I remember saying. She looked up at me with a chocolate smile and stumbled into her room grabbing her piggy bank.\n\nI was wrong, she knew exactly what to do with it.\n\nYear after year I tend to be the biggest looser of the hunt in more ways than one. Not only do I never get the bonus egg, but I also usually end up finding the least amount of eggs. My sisters will be sitting on the floor, counting their eggs out loud and be in the 30s or 40s and meanwhile, I will have stopped counting before reaching 20.\n\nThroughout the years I have had friends visit the house on Easter Sunday and watch in amazement as three adult woman run around my mother’s house pushing and shoving each other in effort to look for the dozens of hidden plastic eggs. “One of you needs to have some kids soon,” my friend Tania has said shaking her head looking at my sisters and I with a concerned look.\n\nHowever, it doesn’t stop at the hunt. After we are done with the hunt, we open our Easter baskets filled with stuffed bunnies, candy and other goodies that the “Easter Bunny” has brought us.\n\nThis weekend I will be in Thailand with the BIL (Boy I Like.) I am hoping that the Easter Bunny can travel that far, but just in case he doesn’t, I packed some plastic eggs.\n\nAgain, my mother thinks I am crazy. “Honey you can’t be serious, are you really packing plastic eggs for your trip?” she says to me.\n\n“Mom, I know the Easter Bunny exists, but I can’t count on him to come all the way to Thailand,” I say seriously. “I mean, that is crazy.”"}, {"id": "5996", "title": "First Time I Left College", "date": "2012-02-18", "dateFormatted": "February 18, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "The first time I left college I was 19-years old. My best friend and I decided to move to Hawaii for one year. We had high expectations. We would arrive, temporarily stay with our friends, find jobs, ", "content": "The first time I left college I was 19-years old. My best friend and I decided to move to Hawaii for one year. We had high expectations. We would arrive, temporarily stay with our friends, find jobs, get a cute little house by the beach and live like “Turtle” from the movie North Shore. Well, things don’t always go as planned.\n\nMy first job was at a bar/restaurant, which basically required me to wear 4-inch heels, a mini-skirt that had less material than a loincloth and a shirt that resembled a bikini-top. When I was handed my “uniform” I made a joke to the manager that I actually wanted to work inside the restaurant and not out on the street. She didn’t get my humor. I lasted three nights before I quit and took a job at a neighboring ice cream shop.\n\nNow all we needed was our cute inexpensive beach cottage. Surprisingly, we found one and it even came furnished with pets; cute little black-brown bugs with huge tentacles. We might have taken the cockroach-cottage but it would mean that we wouldn’t be able to eat, considering the cost of groceries in Hawaii is on par with buying food at the Staples Center.\n\n“I want to go home,” I announced to my friend three months into our yearlong adventure. She did too. So we did and by the fall semester I was enrolled in college again. However, unfortunately my wandering eye continued to plague me, luring me away from my higher education. I have been distracted by jobs, boyfriends, trips and at the top of my list; self-doubt.\n\nSelf-doubt will try to eat you alive and if you couple it with procrastination you are really in trouble.\n\nThis May, after a very long on-again-off-again relationship with college, I will finally graduate.\n\nCollege isn’t for everyone. There are plenty of people who truly don’t see the value in it. But for those who do, you need to go and finish.\n\nTrust me, there is no substitute for your college degree. You can tell yourself that being a parent is a substitute or being a spouse will do the trick, owning your own company may take away some of the sting and I am sure moving to a different country will help you temporarily forget. But in the long run, if you want the degree now, you will always want it and it will always, always bug you if you don’t finish.\n\nIf you don’t believe me, just ask Steven Spielberg he graduated from California State University of Long Beach in 2002. I wonder if his college degree was a requirement to make next his film or if it was just something he really wanted to finish? I’ll have to remember to ask him when I make it to the Academy Awards.\n\nI wonder if  “Turtle” would consider staring in my first film.\n\nEmail with comments or questions"}, {"id": "6039", "title": "Making Changes", "date": "2012-01-28", "dateFormatted": "January 28, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "During one of those rainy days last week, I was sitting at the kitchen table typing away when all of a sudden I looked out the window and saw a flatbed truck pull up behind my 1995 Ford Thunderbird.\n\n", "content": "During one of those rainy days last week, I was sitting at the kitchen table typing away when all of a sudden I looked out the window and saw a flatbed truck pull up behind my 1995 Ford Thunderbird.\n\nI ran outside into the rain wearing my pajamas and bare feet and naively asked the flatbed man if he was about to put “old red” on the back of his tow. He instructed me to talk to the police officer, who pointed out that my tags were expired and to his knowledge I had several unpaid parking tickets. “I always have unpaid parking tickets, but don’t  you think this seems kind of extreme,” I exclaimed. “Besides it’s my new year’s resolution not to get anymore tickets, so if you tow my car it’s really going to wreck my flow.”\n\nHe gave me one of those big brother looks and nodded to the flatbed man that “big red” and I were free to go.\n\nFor all of you, like my mother, who are concerned, don’t worry, I marched myself to the DMV that day and I am proud to say I am the owner of brand new 2012 tags.\n\nI haven’t even told my BIL (Boy I Like) this story, it’s got to be pretty scary dating a girl, who frequently looses her cell phone, pays more money in parking tickets than rent, and is a writer but can’t spell the word resturant (restaurant.) What can I say? I am who I am.\n\nI know I am not alone. There are a lot of you “hap-hazards” out there. Your car is a mess, your computer screen is filled with documents, you have tape holding together at least one item (for me its my computer charger), you hate to iron, you burn food often, you have outstanding library books (and when I say outstanding I mean your 30-years-old and you still haven’t returned the book from freshman year) you wear odd socks, you have clothes in your closet that haven’t fit into since the your glory days, you buy a month long yoga pass and you only go twice, you often forget the combo to your bike lock, you misplace your keys every other day along with your sunglasses or cell phone and you think the trunk of your car makes a perfect storage unit.\n\nI just want to let you all know that you are not alone and there is help. Well, I don’t know about the help part, but you are not alone.\n\nFor me, I just started with one thing at a time. For example, I am pretty good about the clothes in my closet but I will probably never iron and I don’t care if my socks match. I don’t lose my keys as often as I used to, but I still have trouble with my cell phone. I thought I was pretty good returning library books, but I just found one in my messy car that was due four months ago. I figure if the tape is holding the charger together, it’s fine. I wish I could be better about going to yoga, so I will work on that this year. The computer screen thing is easy to fix I can do that right now and after I am done with that, I will go clean my car.\n\nSee how easy it can be? I feel like a new woman, I am glad we were all able to relate and work on our resolutions together.\n\nWait, is it street sweeping day? Oh I hope I didn’t get a ticket… I parked right outside that restarant, I mean restaurant.\n\nWhat is your resolution? Email me at jenniferevans02@yahoo.com"}, {"id": "6094", "title": "Birthday Column", "date": "2012-01-28", "dateFormatted": "January 28, 2012", "year": 2012, "excerpt": "In celebration of my birthday week I am going to talk only about me for this entire column (sounds fun, right?)\n\nI like chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. The first boy I kissed is Stewart Sherman", "content": "In celebration of my birthday week I am going to talk only about me for this entire column (sounds fun, right?)\n\nI like chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. The first boy I kissed is Stewart Sherman, it was a peck, I was 13 and we were playing spin the bottle. I hardly ever wear sun block but it is one of my favorite smells. I have never made too much or too little money. My computer is eight years old and works perfect. My car is 16 years old and works even better than my computer. I did not vote for our current President. I do believe in God. I rarely wash my hands. I love my sisters more than anyone else in this world. The person I love to spend the most amount of time with is my BIL. I never played high school sports but I wish I did, I have two tattoos but I wish I didn’t. I have yet to graduate college but I will in May 2012. I am a very slow reader and a very poor speller. I wish I had a smaller butt and I hate those sneaky black hairs that randomly appear on my face. I like to cook but nobody knows. I love to play board games. I wish I knew how to sew. I love to ski, hike and I love the ocean. If I had one wish, I would wish that we could find the cure for cancer. I hate cigarettes but I don’t think they should be banned everywhere. I have been in love three times, but the third is the best. I have never been married and I don’t have any children. My favorite foods are sushi and Mexican. The farthest place I have traveled is Tanzania. My favorite place in the world is home. I got my tongue stuck in my braces when I was 26 years old. I have paid more in parking tickets than I have on any other single thing. I have pretty good manners. I bite my nails and I pick at the sides of my thumb. I like yoga but I never go. I have 398 friends on Facebook but I really only know about 100 of them. I don’t wish for world peace. I forget to bring my own bag to the grocery store. I am scared to talk in front of big crowds. I have a hard time memorizing things but I can remember details. My favorite bar is the Mermaid. I love to wear matching outfits. I watch the Bachelor. I am usually late paying my cell phone bill. I broke my wrist when I was six. I snuck out of the house for the first time when I was 14. I am the happiest and poorest person I personally know. One of my favorite things to do is read Madeline and Henry a story. Sting is my favorite artist. Screaming children don’t annoy me but screaming parents do. I dig live music and comedy shows. I pretend I like Greek Mythology because as an English major I am supposed to. Easter is my favorite holiday but I could do without Halloween or Thanksgiving. My DARE officer was Officer Thompson. I still sleep with my teddy bear. I hope to be a teacher one day. Last week I forgot to wish one of my dearest friends, Whitney a happy birthday, but she didn’t forget mine, and for that, I am truly the luckiest person I know.\n\nThank you for reading. I promise I won’t do this to you again…well, maybe next year.\n\nJenniferevans02@yahoo.com\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6068", "title": "A Trip to the Fire Station", "date": "2011-11-14", "dateFormatted": "November 14, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "She was supposed to be napping. “Jennifer, I think me and Strawberry (her teddy bear) would rather rest on the couch,” she said standing in front of me, looking up with her big green eyes, clutching h", "content": "She was supposed to be napping. “Jennifer, I think me and Strawberry (her teddy bear) would rather rest on the couch,” she said standing in front of me, looking up with her big green eyes, clutching her rainbow bear. Her curls were extra curly, her cheeks were extra rosy and she gave me a look where I knew that I was going to have a tough time sending her back to her room. She continued making her case, “Strawberry just sometimes doesn’t feel like taking a nap in the bed and I have to be with her otherwise she gets scared.”\n\nI gave in. How could I deny Stawberry’s request?\n\nI have loved Madeline since the day she was born, November 26, 2007. Up until a few months ago I was her fulltime nanny. Of all the jobs I have had in my life; Madeline’s nanny has been the most rewarding, challenging and entertaining job of my life.\n\nShe was on the couch for about 20 minutes before she walked into the kitchen holding up her pink-pudgy thumb. “It’s stuck,” she said showing how she had wedged the lower-case letter “a” past her knuckle.\n\nI used olive oil, soap, cold water, ice and even peanut butter. But two hours later, I had to admit, the letter “a,” which was intended to be with the other magnet letters on the fridge, was not budging.\n\nAt the suggestion of my sister, I took my little buddy to the fire station. She was sweet and bubbly and polite when we first walked in, she even had a little joke, “I’m A-Ok,” she said sticking out her thumb. The firefighter and captain seemed charmed by the little girl with curls and a teddy bear. They showered her with stickers, a red plastic hat and even offered her a cookie, in which she asked if they had candy corn instead. They seemed pleased to take on the challenge of removing the “a” from her pudgy and now very reddish, purplish thumb.\n\n“So I think what we are going to have to do is use this metal cutter and try to cut it off,” the firefighter said to his captain.\n\nI knew as soon as the words left his mouth, there was going to be trouble.\n\nThe stickers, the bear, the hat that she had clenched so tightly, all dropped to the floor. Tears started streaming at a rapid pace and the word “No,” came flying out of her mouth like a lighting bolt and was heard throughout the entire fire station.\n\nThere was no negotiating with the little girl wearing light-up shoes and a polka-dotted dress. There was no convincing her that although they would cut the letter, they were not going to cut off her finger.\n\nFirefighters are trained to run toward burning buildings and save lives, but when it comes to a screaming three-year-old who is yelling, “get away from me, I don’t like you anymore,” I’m not sure anyone can prepare for those flames.\n\n45 minutes and countless bribes and promises later, the letter “a” was removed. And despite the trauma they thought they caused the little girl, the next day she delivered two pictures and a hug for each of them.\n\n“So how is your thumb? The captain asked as she handed over her thank-you picture. “It’s A-ok,” Madeline said. “And guess what? My letter “a” can still stick on the fridge with the other magnets. So, did you get candy corn yet?”"}, {"id": "6037", "title": "Crazy Town", "date": "2011-11-04", "dateFormatted": "November 04, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "You never know you’re crazy until you do something crazy. That’s the craziest thing about being crazy. One minute you’re “normal” and the next you’re “crazy.”\n\nTo come back from crazy is a longer jour", "content": "You never know you’re crazy until you do something crazy. That’s the craziest thing about being crazy. One minute you’re “normal” and the next you’re “crazy.”\n\nTo come back from crazy is a longer journey then getting there, believe me, I’ve gone, come back and gone again…rinse and repeat.\n\nI thought I had been back from crazy town for so long that I didn’t think I could go back without knowing I was on my way. I was wrong.\n\nHere is the situation in a nutshell: The B.I.L (Boy I Like) recently gave me a key to his house and when he left town I “organized” a couple rooms in his house. I wanted to surprise him.\n\nSure, I might have moved a couple pieces of furniture and gone through his personal paperwork for purposes of filling and managing it for him, and yes I might have cleaned up the entryway and sorted out his tools and sports equipment and yes I did throw out some things and decided that he didn’t need that many magazines.\n\nWhen I was done, it looked exactly the way I envisioned.\n\nOpps.\n\nIt’s not that he was mad when he walked into his house after being gone for a week. I’d say the look on his face was shock.\n\nI knew right at that moment I had visited crazy town and not even known it.\n\nLater, when I asked my sister if she thought what I did was crazy she gave me a solid “yes.” I tried to get a different answer from others but I couldn’t.\n\nI even met a woman, who wrote a book called the “Man Whisperer” and asked her what she thought. She said that I was just trying to mark my spot.\n\nI hate to admit it, but when it comes down to it, she is right. Although my conscious intention was motivated by the idea that I was solving an organization problem I perceived he had, on a subconscious level I was leaving my mark.\n\nThe truth is, it feels like B.I.L. has all of his ducks in a row and I feel like I don’t yet. So, organizing his stuff made me feel worthy, important, like maybe I could disguise my ducks for a little bit longer.\n\nSo I’m I crazy? Am I in love? Or I am just a girl who will always feel like her ducks aren’t in a row and compensate by helping others?\n\nI’ll let you know when I have the answer, until then I’m just trying to find my way back to normal and I think I’ll take my time, I don’t mind being a little crazy."}, {"id": "6026", "title": "El Segundo", "date": "2011-09-27", "dateFormatted": "September 27, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "I didn’t get the job the first time I applied at The Beach Reporter 10 years ago and it was a good thing I didn’t because I was not qualified. However, the publisher at the time Richard Frank and the ", "content": "I didn’t get the job the first time I applied at The Beach Reporter 10 years ago and it was a good thing I didn’t because I was not qualified. However, the publisher at the time Richard Frank and the editor at the time, Garrison Frost, encouraged me to go get a little more experience and then check back in with them. I did and about six months later I started writing local business and Realtor profiles. Soon thereafter I was given the opportunity to cover the happenings of El Segundo.\n\nThroughout my years of reporting on the “Mayberry” “other beach city” town, I have sat through more than 200 city council meetings, mourned the death of one mayor and one mayor pro tem, watched the come and go of three city managers, the promotion and retirement of police chiefs and fire chiefs and the retirement of a superintendent and the hiring of another as well as the change of positions for principals, teachers and administrators.\n\nI have reported on the death of children who were shot, ran over or struck with illness. I have reported on countless “Bright Lights” who spend their free time volunteering to make the community a better place. I have got to know the gadflies of the city as well as those who are less vocal but have more to say.\n\nI made more than my fair share of mistakes, which have included misspellings of names, the wrong vote-count on a city council motion, street names, dates and misquotes.\n\nThe city as a whole has been very kind to me in helping me get information, calling me back and most of all forgiving my little and sometimes big mistakes. Hopefully, I am more respected than not, but often in this situation there is no way of knowing.\n\nHonestly, I never meant to be a city-news reporter. But I am so grateful for the experience and I feel that the knowledge I have gained both in regards to city politics and reporting is an education I could not have received anywhere else.\n\nLike every other business, The Beach Reporter has had to tighten its belt in the last couple of years, so I wasn’t surprised when our editor told me a few weeks ago that El Segundo was on its way off our pages.\n\nThis week is my last week to report on the city that in the last nine, I have truly come to respect and admire. It’s the end of a chapter for me, which really only means the start of a new one.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6048", "title": "Your Butt Is Out", "date": "2011-07-27", "dateFormatted": "July 27, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "I’m new to the world of stand up paddle boarding. I was introduced to it on Fourth of July weekend by the boy I like.\n\nHe is very into it and I got the sense that he was hoping I would be into it too.", "content": "I’m new to the world of stand up paddle boarding. I was introduced to it on Fourth of July weekend by the boy I like.\n\nHe is very into it and I got the sense that he was hoping I would be into it too.\n\nThe good thing is I like this new sport about as much as I like the new boy. However, like boys, the ocean can test you too.\n\nSo here I was early morning sky, pony tail in, bikini on, leash strapped, board shorts tied and the boy next to me the two of us staring at the crashing waves. “It might be a little rough getting out there, you want a push?”\n\nI told my first lie to the boy I liked. “Nope, I’ll be fine I can do it myself.”\n\nAnd off we went.\n\nCrash goes the wave knocking me of the board… my bikini top starts to come lose.\n\nThat’s okay I think holding the paddle in one hand and keeping the board steady in the other. I can always tighten the strings when I get out there.\n\nCrash again. I’m topless. The boy has managed to paddle his way out past the waves.\n\nMy hands are full of paddle and board, my forearm is holding up the suit and before I can even think about my top half being exposed the ocean takes the bottom half down as well.\n\nThe ocean got to third base faster than the boy did.\n\nThe boy turns back. He is hoping I will just figure it out and magically be by his side; the two of us paddling together like we are invincible.\n\nHe has a business call at 8:30 a.m. and the time is ticking.\n\nPony tail is a wreck, board shorts untied, bikini is on its way to being fish food and the only thing in tack is the leash which is attached to a board that feels it might rip my leg off at any time.\n\nWow this is a blast.\n\nThe boy paddles back to me puts his board on the shore. For a split second I think, we are done.\n\nI’m wrong.\n\n“Okay I am going to push you out there.” He says as he approaches me. He ignores that I am half dressed and look more like bramble bush than the girl he’s dating.\n\n“I don’t even think my bottoms are still on” I stammer. “And if I let go my top is gonna…”\n\nBefore I can finish explaining my wardrobe-woes he tells me to get on and it’s time to be pushed.\n\nI know what is about to be in his face but I jump on anyway because between him and the ocean I really, really want to pass this test.\n\nBefore he or I have much time to prepare my “baby got back” is exposed on the board squashed on my heels.\n\nThere is nothing I can do. I can’t pull up my bottoms I’ll lose his paddle, I have to just kneel on the board with my bare butt in his face.\n\nIf he or the ocean knew how I felt about having my rump shaker exposed they would both be more sympathetic.\n\nLet’s put it this way, if I was ever keeping a government secret and my captives needed to use torture techniques to get me to spill the beans, they wouldn’t need to chop off my pinkie, all they would have to do is threaten me with the idea of showing my bare booty to a crowd.\n\nThankfully, it was early, and there was no crowd.\n\n“Your butt is out,” he said as he pushed me into the wave.\n\nThanks captain obvious.\n\nDue to the fact that salt water started coming out of my eyes and Flipper was wearing my bikini top, we decided to call it a day.\n\nWalking up the beach the boy turns to me and says, “Well like anything, paddling has its peaks and valleys.”\n\nI lied for a second time. “That’s okay, I still had fun.”\n\nHe looked at me. “Pull your top down, your boob is out.”\n\nThanks, I had no idea."}, {"id": "6090", "title": "Big Butt Blunder", "date": "2011-07-26", "dateFormatted": "July 26, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "Every girl has her problem area. Even the 10s will find something that they don’t like about themselves. Their middle toe is too long, their knees are knobby (personally I would pay for knobby knees) ", "content": "Every girl has her problem area. Even the 10s will find something that they don’t like about themselves. Their middle toe is too long, their knees are knobby (personally I would pay for knobby knees) their arms are too hairy, visible veins in their legs or ears that stick out.\n\n“Perfect body” girl complaints are like busy work, whereas normal girl complaints are a real task; flat chest, thunder thighs, bat wings, muffin top and my personal favorite, junk in the trunk.\n\nIf I was ever keeping a government secret and my captives needed to use torture techniques to get me to spill the beans all they would have to do is threaten me with the idea of showing my bare rump shaker to a group of good looking (and even not good looking) guys.\n\nI’m pretty sure I could keep quite if they repeatedly dunked my head in a toilet or held a knife to my pinky finger, but the secret would be out if they lined up Vince Vaughn and a few of his closest pals to check out my “baby got back.”\n\nNow I am not as insecure as I used to be, in fact nowadays I will walk from point “A” to “B” on the beach, sans the towel around my waist. There have even been some recent instances where I have actually got up out of bed during a “slumber party” to get some water and I haven’t taken the entire comforter with me as a butt shield.\n\nSo I guess I could say that I am making progress on letting go of my booty insecurities but I still have a long way to go. I am sure with a little more jogging and squatting and perhaps some self-tanning I could get handle on my back-end buddy.\n\nHowever, if there was just some way to communicate my insecurities with the ocean, I would feel a little better about not wearing board shorts when I went stand-up paddle boarding with the guy I like.\n\nI have tried making a “back-end” deal with the Pacific; it went a little like this… “How about I never put plastic in you and in exchange you don’t rip off my bikini top, board shorts and bathing suit bottoms while I am trying to hold a paddle and get the board out past the waves all while the guy that I am dating, is standing right behind me giving me a helpful push.”\n\nYou know what Ocean said to me? “No deal.”\n\nFollowed by, “Sorry Jen, this is your time to be humbled since you had such an easy time the first six times you went out on the water with this guy.”\n\n“Well, Ocean” I said back. “Humble is one way to describe it. However, humiliating would be a little more accurate.”\n\nYou want to know what a bright white, non-firm rump-shaker looks like when kneeling on a board sitting squashed on the back of a pair of feet? I don’t want to know what it looks like and it’s my butt. But you know who does know what it looks like? Yup, my “slumber party” guest. He knows. It’s right there in his head forever stuck like an awkward stumble.\n\nOh well, I’ve had worse happen to me. I guess a little early morning BA action isn’t the worst thing in the world. Unless you’re my mother, who always seems to have the comforting thing to say, “Oh honey, that sounds really embarrassing, you know that area of your body isn’t your strong suit.”\n\nWow mom, I had no idea, and here I was thinking I could were a G-string at the beach. Thank goodness I had this experience to humble me. Well, at least my ears don’t stick out and my toes are cute, I don’t what I would do if I had to worry about that.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6075", "title": "Bachelorette Parties", "date": "2011-06-28", "dateFormatted": "June 28, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "You know what I love about weddings?\n\nBachelorette parties.\n\nLaying around a secluded pool with a few of your closest calmest and most innocent girlfriends while sipping on lemonade in the hot Palm Sp", "content": "You know what I love about weddings?\n\nBachelorette parties.\n\nLaying around a secluded pool with a few of your closest calmest and most innocent girlfriends while sipping on lemonade in the hot Palm Springs or Vegas sun, really makes me feel relaxed, rejuvenated, revived.\n\nJust a couple of us gals chatting about finger nail polish and recipes, “So how do you make that sauce?” one of us will say to the other. Later on we gather around singing kumbia and if we really get crazy we’ll play, truth or dare. “I dare you to say the F word,” one of us will say to the other. “Well only if you tell me the truth about how you make that sauce…”\n\nIt’s really a super time.\n\nI would give you a blow by blow of what we all did on this last girly-gathering but my mom has always said don’t do anything you wouldn’t want printed on the front page of the newspaper but there is simply no room for my story on the front-page. So I wouldn’t want to bore you with any kind of details in this silly little column far, far from the front page.\n\nOn a different and almost unrelated note, I went on a date last week. I haven’t done that in a while.\n\nI say almost unrelated because when you’re my age and you go on a date the night before getting into get in a mini van with seven of your married and almost married friends… it’s the equivalent to announcing that you may have discovered a way to eat fries and not gain weight.\n\nThey want information and they want it all.\n\n“So, how was it?” they will start out. But I know what they really want, they want details and by details they want to know about any weirdness, creepiness, rudeness or obsession with Mickey Mouse this person may and hopefully may not have.\n\nI have to be careful because if I use the adjective “nice” too many times it will either bore them or alert them that it’s probably not going to last. Fortunately, I was able to use descriptions such as interesting and engaging. In which one will ask, “interesting, like he has a lot of interests or he’s just weird?”\n\nThe truth is I am terrified on first dates. I watch a reality TV show where the girl has to go on date after date with different guys and honestly I would rather be stuck in an elevator with one of those smelly amusement park goers (you know, the ones you find in line at Space Mountain, who shy away from deodorant on a hot summer day.)\n\nI’m not sure what it is about the whole process but I do know that I need to get over it.\n\nThe poor guy who took me out the other night started the night out with a joke. He said, “Wow your lucky you live across the street from a scrap booking store.”\n\nIf he only knew that the last guy I dated owned a Caboodle, he would know that I couldn’t have even recognized his comment as a joke but instead spent the next 20 minutes wondering if perhaps he scrap-booked on the weekends.\n\nIf I only had the front page to share all the juicy details of my date, perhaps I would, but I don’t. I just have this space and what happens in this space stays in this space."}, {"id": "6003", "title": "My Dad is Cool", "date": "2011-06-14", "dateFormatted": "June 14, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "Last year, about this time when I walked into the Mermaid in Hermosa Beach to meet my dad for dinner I thought maybe I had entered a church. Everyone was silent with their heads bowed, which is weird ", "content": "Last year, about this time when I walked into the Mermaid in Hermosa Beach to meet my dad for dinner I thought maybe I had entered a church. Everyone was silent with their heads bowed, which is weird because although Mermaid is about as much of a Sunday morning hangout for my family as church is for others, it was still a bit odd.\n\n“Princess,” my dad whispered to me as I walked in. “Yea dad, what’s going on? Did someone die?”\n\n“I made copies of your Father’s Day column and passed it out to everyone, they are all reading it.”\n\nEach week since that day, my dad makes about 10 copies of the article and keeps them folded in his back pocket, ready to pass out to anyone who comes his way. If you think Kim Kardashian’s mom is a good agent, you haven’t met Jerry Evans. He is relentless, you could tell that you are blind and don’t have time to read the Xeroxed copy of the article, and he will give it to you in brail and tell you it only takes a minute.\n\nHe’ll do the same thing this year, so for all of you reading this right now, your lucky, because it means you got to shake hands with the coolest guy ever, my dad.\n\nNow I don’t say he is cool, because he is my dad, I say it because he is. It’s a fact. I’ve done my research.\n\nHe is the reason why I am cool, also a fact.\n\nWhen the snow is blasting down and the weather is freezing and all the other people are coming off the mountain, my dad will hand me an extra pair of gloves or goggles with mini windshield wipers and ask “you good for a couple more runs?”\n\nMy sisters and I and our dad are the last to come off the lake, the last to come in from the cold, and at midnight if we feel like swimming in the ocean, my dad is there with us.\n\nNot to be morbid, but if tomorrow I got hit by a bus and my life flashes before my eyes, it would be a full life filled with a lot of fun, because of my dad.\n\nBecause of my dad, I know a good road trip doesn’t need a TV or radio, I know that money can come and go and it should never define who you are and I know that honesty can make or break your character and character is the one thing that will keep us afloat in any situation.\n\nNot to long ago, my dad had minor surgery and I went to pick him up. I opened the curtain and there he was sitting up in bed, dark sunglasses on, hair perfectly in place, flirting with the nurse. “Hey princess, I just gave Sheila a copy of your article and she loved it.”\n\nSheila, the nurse gave me a smile and told me it was a great article and then added without hesitation. “Your dad, is very proud of you, your so lucky he seems like a very cool dad.”\n\nYea I know. It’s a fact.\n\nHappy Father’s Day to all the cool dads, especially mine."}, {"id": "6071", "title": "Accepting Your Numbers", "date": "2011-03-20", "dateFormatted": "March 20, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "I am a pretty healthy person, on a scale of one to ten, ten being perfect, I would give myself a 7.5 maybe even an 8 for my mental/emotional stability  and about a 6.5 for my physical health (though w", "content": "I am a pretty healthy person, on a scale of one to ten, ten being perfect, I would give myself a 7.5 maybe even an 8 for my mental/emotional stability  and about a 6.5 for my physical health (though with my new healthy lifestyle that number is getting larger every day.) However, these are my numbers as a single person and this is why I like being single, because my numbers tend to improve. However, I don’t know why, but every time I get into a relationship both those numbers gradually start to dip. The last long term relationship I was in, which was almost three years ago, by the time we broke up I was a 4 mentally and a 2 physically. So, basically I was a super chubby girl who cried a lot and had control and jealousy issues. Bottom line I was a hot mess.\n\nAbout a year ago, I finally decided to try the boyfriend/girlfriend thing again. About two or three months in, I felt my numbers slipping at a faster pace than ever before, so I got out.\n\nSo now here I am, single, pretty much getting more awesome by the minute, but living with the fear that someone might eventually want to date me, which they will, especially if my numbers keep  increasing.\n\nPeople have suggested that I should read self-help-books on how to find love “the right way,”  but I sort  of feel that nothing except reality prepares you for reality. I have talked to several of my friends, who when they were pregnant they read lots of books about childbirth and child rearing but, after going through labor none  of them said to me, “Oh yes, pushing my eight pound baby out of my private area was a breeze because I read the book. Not to mention the sleepless nights followed by a couple years of temper tantrums. If it wasn’t for the books I would be so tired and probably feel like I wanted to drop my kid off in the desert, but thankfully those books saved me.”\n\nI could be wrong, or I could have a bunch of friends who just didn’t read enough, but I have a feeling that the only way to prepare yourself for things like marriage, motherhood or any planned or unplanned chapter in your life is to be the best person you know how to be so that you can have the strength to deal with whatever obstacle comes your way. Combine your greatness with having a little faith in the universe or God or whatever you believe in and hopefully you’ll land on your feet or at least have a hand to pull you up when you don’t.\n\nBut really, what do I know? I feel like most of the time I am just trying to survive and not look too ridiculous or let too much get by me, all while trying to convince myself that there is a man out there for me, who won’t get under my skin so much that I don’t even know what color I am anymore (that was a joke not a racial slur.)\n\nFor now, I have decided to try my hardest to be my best. I’ve really never done that before, better late than never, right? And when the time comes for me to crack open the book on “how to find love the right way.” hopefully I’ll read it slow and realize that its not all about numbers, sometimes its just about accepting who you are.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6011", "title": "Expired Tag Resolution", "date": "2011-03-19", "dateFormatted": "March 19, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "With the amount I just paid for my car registration, I could have taken a trip for two to Mexico. And we’re not talking Tijuana my friends. We are talking all-inclusive Cancun with a villa on the ocea", "content": "With the amount I just paid for my car registration, I could have taken a trip for two to Mexico. And we’re not talking Tijuana my friends. We are talking all-inclusive Cancun with a villa on the ocean and my own personal waiter, who serves me margaritas on the veranda, type of Mexico. However, instead of Cancun and margaritas I got a little red sticker to put on my license plate.\n\nI don’t know how I manage to top myself each year with the expense of my car registration, but I do.\n\nI think in the back of my mind I picture a magic fairy rescuing my parking tickets from my glove compartment and then magically paying them so that at the end of the year my registration looks more like a Target receipt and less like a Brittney Spears shopping spree.\n\nMore important than losing weight or keeping my car clean or saving money or writing a book or making more time for myself or any of the other New Year’s Resolutions I had debated on, this year my resolution is to not get any parking tickets. It may sound boring to you, but its life changing for me.\n\nThis year, because I am single, it was less embarrassing that I had to fork over a small fortune and because I am making a vow for it never to happen again, I won’t ever have to worry about getting “the look” from a significant other when I tell them, “Oh sorry, I know you wanted a Christmas present this year, but I have to pay $800 worth of parking tickets, so here’s a homemade card.”\n\nI was driving down the street while I fantasized about my new life as a ticket-free-person, who can be like other responsible adults in the world, when I spotted a police car. For the last couple of months I have been doing my best to stay behind the cop cars on the road with the intention of hiding my shameful expired rectangle sticker. However, now with my new red 2011 sticker I wanted to flaunt it, so I quickly changed lanes to be in front of the police car.\n\nWithin seconds he bleeped his lights and was pulling me over. Wow, I thought does he want to personally pat me on the back, congratulate me on my new purchase? I proudly pulled over and rolled down the window.\n\nThe officer informed me that my left break light was out and therefore didn’t see a signal when I changed lanes.\n\n“Yea, but did you check out my new tags,” I said. “That counts for something, right?”\n\nJenniferevans02@yahoo.com"}, {"id": "6138", "title": "Happy Birthday Mom and Jac", "date": "2011-02-09", "dateFormatted": "February 09, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "When I was a kid and my mom would take my sister and I to the movies, we would bring in our own candy, so it only seemed natural last weekend when we stayed at a very fancy hotel with a very fancy spa", "content": "When I was a kid and my mom would take my sister and I to the movies, we would bring in our own candy, so it only seemed natural last weekend when we stayed at a very fancy hotel with a very fancy spa that we would bring our own mud masks.\n\nThere we were, the three of us in our spa-given robes and slippers, having just prepped our pours in the sauna room, ready for my CVS Brand mud-mask, sure to make all our beauty dreams come true. Once we applied our masks, we retreated to the “contemplation room” to snack on fruit and lemon water. As my sister peeled her third orange and gulped down her fifth glass of complementary guava juice, a very fancy-looking blond woman with gold earrings and a French manicure entered the room and took a second glance at our green faces. “Wow, what treatment is that?” she said picking up a toothpick of fruit.\n\n“It’s the VIP mask, it’s not on the menu,” my sister replied without flinching.\n\nThe woman, who I am sure has had more than just a couple masks in her life, wasn’t sure what to think of us, but smiled and left us to contemplate in our room.\n\nA couple of hours later, the three of us enjoyed a tea party fit for the Queen. However what was better than the scones and mini sandwiches, was the moment, the weekend we were having.\n\nBorn two days and four decades apart, my mom and younger sister are two of my favorite people in the world. This week, is their birthday week, my sister who taught me what it means to love unconditionally, was born Valentine’s Day and my mom, Penny, who loves me unconditionally, was born on Lincoln’s birthday.\n\nNot everyone is as lucky as I am to have two women in their life who have exemplified strength, love and loyalty as my mom and sister have.\n\nThey are not perfect and neither am I, but we are each other’s go-to people. We are honest with each other about everything from big bellies and butts, to dating people who are all wrong for us.\n\nWhile I have written a lot about my sister and even my dad, I haven’t written much about my mom. Like all good moms, she hangs-out in the background, performing a virtually thankless job. The truth is, she is my hero. She is the reason why I am able to enjoy the simplest of pleasures and why I know how to appreciate what is in front of me without feeling deprived of what isn’t yet mine.\n\nMy mom has taught me grace, she has taught me forgiveness, gratitude and has taught me that in this world although things won’t always go the way you planned, if your patient they will go they way they are intended.\n\nThese are not lessons she has written down or lectured me on. But rather, it is because the way she has lived her life and treated others, that I know how to live mine.\n\nIf it weren’t for her, I would not have brought the mud-mask, and if it weren’t for her and my sister, I wouldn’t feel like a VIP. Happy Birthday Mom and Jacqueline, I love you!\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6131", "title": "Happy Birthday Mom and Jac", "date": "2011-02-09", "dateFormatted": "February 09, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "When I was a kid and my mom would take my sister and I to the movies, we would bring in our own candy, so it only seemed natural last weekend when we stayed at a very fancy hotel with a very fancy spa", "content": "When I was a kid and my mom would take my sister and I to the movies, we would bring in our own candy, so it only seemed natural last weekend when we stayed at a very fancy hotel with a very fancy spa that we would bring our own mud masks.\n\nThere we were, the three of us in our spa-given robes and slippers, having just prepped our pours in the sauna room, ready for my CVS Brand mud-mask, sure to make all our beauty dreams come true. Once we applied our masks, we retreated to the “contemplation room” to snack on fruit and lemon water. As my sister peeled her third orange and gulped down her fifth glass of complementary guava juice, a very fancy-looking blond woman with gold earrings and a French manicure entered the room and took a second glance at our green faces. “Wow, what treatment is that?” she said picking up a toothpick of fruit.\n\n“It’s the VIP mask, it’s not on the menu,” my sister replied without flinching.\n\nThe woman, who I am sure has had more than just a couple masks in her life, wasn’t sure what to think of us, but smiled and left us to contemplate in our room.\n\nA couple of hours later, the three of us enjoyed a tea party fit for the Queen. However what was better than the scones and mini sandwiches, was the moment, the weekend we were having.\n\nBorn two days and four decades apart, my mom and younger sister are two of my favorite people in the world. This week, is their birthday week, my sister who taught me what it means to love unconditionally, was born Valentine’s Day and my mom, Penny, who loves me unconditionally, was born on Lincoln’s birthday.\n\nNot everyone is as lucky as I am to have two women in their life who have exemplified strength, love and loyalty as my mom and sister have.\n\nThey are not perfect and neither am I, but we are each other’s go-to people. We are honest with each other about everything from big bellies and butts, to dating people who are all wrong for us.\n\nWhile I have written a lot about my sister and even my dad, I haven’t written much about my mom. Like all good moms, she hangs-out in the background, performing a virtually thankless job. The truth is, she is my hero. She is the reason why I am able to enjoy the simplest of pleasures and why I know how to appreciate what is in front of me without feeling deprived of what isn’t yet mine.\n\nMy mom has taught me grace, she has taught me forgiveness, gratitude and has taught me that in this world although things won’t always go the way you planned, if your patient they will go they way they are intended.\n\nThese are not lessons she has written down or lectured me on. But rather, it is because the way she has lived her life and treated others, that I know how to live mine.\n\nIf it weren’t for her, I would not have brought the mud-mask, and if it weren’t for her and my sister, I wouldn’t feel like a VIP. Happy Birthday Mom and Jacqueline, I love you!"}, {"id": "6146", "title": "The Bachelor", "date": "2011-01-25", "dateFormatted": "January 25, 2011", "year": 2011, "excerpt": "So I was watching one of TV’s worst and best reality series “The Bachelor” and while it always baffles me that there are this many good looking woman in the world, who have great bikini bodies, but su", "content": "So I was watching one of TV’s worst and best reality series “The Bachelor” and while it always baffles me that there are this many good looking woman in the world, who have great bikini bodies, but such little self-esteem it also puzzles me how each season several of them make this “profound” statement;  “Well, if Brad likes Michelle, he is not the one for me, because I am nothing like Michelle.”\n\nOk ladies, I don’t have my PhD but please, step into my office…\n\nI get how one could believe that statement to be true, but the reality is that none of us really have a “type.” We may think we do and we may have some basic requirements of the other person such as they don’t do drugs, they have a job and they change their shirt once in a while. But in reality, beyond the basics, none of us have a “type.”\n\nWe commit to another person based on how they make us feel about ourselves, not if they like to sky-dive or sew or if they play sports or not or if they would rather go to the movies or a concert. Hopefully, most of us enjoy feeling good about who we are and take pride in self-improvement and so we pick someone who encourages this.\n\nOn the contrary, relationships usually come to an end when we start influencing that other person to feel less-than about his or herself (unless you’re in a co-dependent dysfunctional relationship. if that is the case you should ask for your own reality show or join the cast of Jersey Shore.)\n\nThe point is that “Brad” could just as easily like the semi-psychotic “Michelle” just as much as he likes “Lindsay” the kindergarten teacher, it’s all about how those women  make him feel.\n\nSo now that I got that out of the way, I’d like to announce that it is my birthday this Friday and I have to say I am feeling super fired up.\n\nI am not at all where I thought I would be at this age and honestly I couldn’t be happier about it. I am where I am in life because for the first time ever I don’t really care about my “neighbor’s” path to happiness, instead I feel really good about blazing my own trail. Without sounding too cheesy or overzealous, I’m pretty sure that with this state of mind I have the potential to write the next Katy Perry hit.\n\nAfter I write my song, I am going to gather those girls from “The Bachelor” and we are going to record a music video in Spain or Brazil (I am dying to go there and it would be great if MTV could pay for it.) I am pretty sure we can get a reality TV show out of the whole adventure, which I will agree to as long as we get a better timeslot than “Jersey Shore”, not that I know when that airs, I mean, give me a break, I do have some standards. Besides Snookie doesn’t need my “Charlie Brown” advice, it appears she’s got it all figured out."}, {"id": "6086", "title": "Believing In Santa", "date": "2010-12-25", "dateFormatted": "December 25, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "I know Christmas is over but it’s never too late to talk about the believers and the non-believers.\n\nI am a believer. No matter what I have been told or the experiences I have had in life, nobody can ", "content": "I know Christmas is over but it’s never too late to talk about the believers and the non-believers.\n\nI am a believer. No matter what I have been told or the experiences I have had in life, nobody can stop me from believing in Santa Clause.\n\nI didn’t think my belief was that out of the ordinary but it seems that am the only adult, who has never had an “ah ha” moment when it came to finding out that Santa Clause isn’t real.\n\nFrom about November through December I spent the majority of my childhood trying to defend my belief. It was an easier arguement to win when I attended catholic school because I would just pull the whole God card. “If God can create the whole world, then don’t you think Santa can deliver some presents once a year,” I would say.\n\nAs I got older I decided it would be best if I kept my whole “I still believe in Santa” thing under-wraps unless I was talking to kids of course. However, if one is a true believer, it’s hard to hide your thoughts, especially when you say them out loud. `\n\nRecently, I was at a party and we were all in discussion about family values and all that is wrong with the world (you know one of those light-hearted conversations) and all of a sudden I blurt out “Yea I mean what’s up with the song, ‘I saw mommy kissing Santa Clause?’ Basically its promoting adultery,” I stated with strong conviction.\n\nAs soon as the words left my mouth I could tell something was wrong with what I said.\n\nFortunately, my sister was among the group I voiced this opinion to and she tried to buff it out with saying how funny I was. However, I didn’t catch on, and it only got worse.\n\n“But I am being serious, I mean, is it ok to cheat on your husband if you’re doing it with Santa?”\n\nShe couldn’t save me from that one.\n\nThe good thing about still being a believer is that people trust me with their children. I took my friend’s three-year-old daughter, Madeline, to the mall about a week before Christmas and right when we walked in, there was Santa (or as I call him, a Santa-wanna-be).\n\nMadeline made it clear that she did not want to see Santa, as far as she was concerned, Santa lived in the North Pole and he was someone who was talked about but not to be seen. However, she happened to catch a glance at him when we entered the mall. For a while she didn’t say anything and then about 15 minutes later she voiced her concern. “Jennifer, are we in the North Pole?” she asked very seriously. “No honey, we’re in the GAP,” I answered.\n\n“Then why is Santa here?”\n\nThe line at the GAP was long but not long enough to answer all of her questions.\n\nWhen we got in the car she requested to hear some Christmas music. Within seconds of turning on the radio, “I saw mommy kissing Santa Clause” came blaring out my car radio.\n\n“That is so silly, that mommy kisses Santa Clause,” she said from the backseat. “Yea, your right,” I said. “It’s pretty silly.”\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6009", "title": "Extraordinary Saturday Night", "date": "2010-12-14", "dateFormatted": "December 14, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "So last Saturday night after a few cocktails I ended up in the hospital. One minute, I was at my favorite watering hole, The Mermaid, drinking a heavy-handed vodka soda and the next minute my friend C", "content": "So last Saturday night after a few cocktails I ended up in the hospital. One minute, I was at my favorite watering hole, The Mermaid, drinking a heavy-handed vodka soda and the next minute my friend Carly (who wasn’t drinking a vodka soda), was racing us down Lomita Boulevard toward Torrance Memorial Hospital.\n\nThis isn’t the first time something like this has happened and I hope it won’t be the last.\n\nBy the time I arrived, my best friend’s labor contractions were about eight minutes apart. Earlier that evening a group of us, which included about a half a dozen kids a dozen adults and a couple pregnant woman, walked down to enjoy the tree lighting and snow-play in downtown Hermosa Beach. Before we left the house Tania was feeling a little something and by later that night while back at her home she was feeling a lot something.\n\nI know it might be more exciting for you to hear about my dating life rather than my best friend’s birthing experience, so I will let you know that while enjoying my cocktail at the “Maid” I did bump into a guy I recently went on a date with. He’s a nice guy and I would probably like him just a little bit more if he didn’t wear a visor. But hey, who am I to be the style police, lately I have been wearing the same jeans about three to four days a week along with chipped nail polish (both on feet and hands) for about a month, oh and did I mention that my eye brows resemble that of an old man?\n\nNow, you know who doesn’t have old man eye brows and chipped nail polish? Baby Dominick DeCarlo Prince, who was born 2:31 a.m. December 12, 2010. I tried to get Tania to wait until 2012 so he could have a really cool birthday but she said she wasn’t down with giving birth to a two year-old. I guess, I understand, I mean, I have never given birth but I am sure it would probably be tough to carry and deliver a 25-pound toddler.\n\nSo here I was at the hospital all fired up and ready for her to deliver. But of course, how most of these scenarios go, it’s a hurry up and wait process. Which actually worked out pretty well for her husband and his friend and me, who were craving In and Out Burger.\n\nLooking back, we probably should have at least whispered about our cravings while in the room. I mean, here Tania was going through labor pains and puking and we are all discussing double doubles. Of course Tania didn’t say anything to discourage us, in fact following the In and Out conversation we ventured into playing funny movie clips on our phones and then debating which is funnier “The Hang Over” or “Grandma’s Boy.”  Yea, it was a real meeting of the minds.\n\nSo after the food was finished and the debate was settled (Hang Over was the winner), it was time to welcome, little Mr. Baby Dom into the world.\n\nI have to say, there is nothing that compares to the sight of a brand new baby. His full head of hair, his almond eyes and heart shaped lips, were better than perfect. Like his mommy, Domineck is sure to be extraordinary.\n\nMore than anything his birth reminds me of how blessed I am. How lucky I am that 25 years ago, when I was the new kid in school, Tania asked me to eat lunch with her. I suppose I can hope that Dom is smart and clever and athletic, but really my biggest prayer is that he has a best friend to eat lunch with, like I always have."}, {"id": "6143", "title": "Hospital Trip", "date": "2010-12-14", "dateFormatted": "December 14, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "So last Saturday night after a few cocktails I ended up in the hospital. One minute, I was at my favorite watering hole, The Mermaid, drinking a heavy-handed vodka soda and the next minute my friend C", "content": "So last Saturday night after a few cocktails I ended up in the hospital. One minute, I was at my favorite watering hole, The Mermaid, drinking a heavy-handed vodka soda and the next minute my friend Carly (who wasn’t drinking a vodka soda), was racing us down Lomita Boulevard toward Torrance Memorial Hospital.\n\nThis isn’t the first time something like this has happened and I hope it won’t be the last.\n\nBy the time I arrived, my best friend’s labor contractions were about eight minutes apart. Earlier that evening a group of us, which included about a half a dozen kids a dozen adults and a couple pregnant woman, walked down to enjoy the tree lighting and snow-play in downtown Hermosa Beach. Before we left the house Tania was feeling a little something and by later that night while back at her home she was feeling a lot something.\n\nI know it might be more exciting for you to hear about my dating life rather than my best friend’s birthing experience, so I will let you know that while enjoying my cocktail at the “Maid” I did bump into a guy I recently went on a date with. He’s a nice guy and I would probably like him just a little bit more if he didn’t wear a visor. But hey, who am I to be the style police, lately I have been wearing the same jeans about three to four days a week along with chipped nail polish (both on feet and hands) for about a month, oh and did I mention that my eye brows resemble that of an old man?\n\nNow, you know who doesn’t have old man eye brows and chipped nail polish? Baby Dominick DeCarlo Prince, who was born 2:31 a.m. December 12, 2010. I tried to get Tania to wait until 2012 so he could have a really cool birthday but she said she wasn’t down with giving birth to a two year-old. I guess, I understand, I mean, I have never given birth but I am sure it would probably be tough to carry and deliver a 25-pound toddler.\n\nSo here I was at the hospital all fired up and ready for her to deliver. But of course, how most of these scenarios go, it’s a hurry up and wait process. Which actually worked out pretty well for her husband and his friend and me, who were craving In and Out Burger.\n\nLooking back, we probably should have at least whispered about our cravings while in the room. I mean, here Tania was going through labor pains and puking and we are all discussing double doubles. Of course Tania didn’t say anything to discourage us, in fact following the In and Out conversation we ventured into playing funny movie clips on our phones and then debating which is funnier “The Hang Over” or “Grandma’s Boy.”  Yea, it was a real meeting of the minds.\n\nSo after the food was finished and the debate was settled (Hang Over was the winner), it was time to welcome, little Mr. Baby Dom into the world.\n\nI have to say, there is nothing that compares to the sight of a brand new baby. His full head of hair, his almond eyes and heart shaped lips, were better than perfect. Like his mommy, Domineck is sure to be extraordinary.\n\nMore than anything his birth reminds me of how blessed I am. How lucky I am that 25 years ago, when I was the new kid in school, Tania asked me to eat lunch with her. I suppose I can hope that Dom is smart and clever and athletic, but really my biggest prayer is that he has a best friend to eat lunch with, like I always have."}, {"id": "6054", "title": "Investing In What I Already Have", "date": "2010-08-24", "dateFormatted": "August 24, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "I drive a 1995 Ford Thunderbird. The car, which was paid in full, was a gift after I was forced to give up my much newer and sleeker ride. The truth was I had lost my job and I realized a high car pay", "content": "I drive a 1995 Ford Thunderbird. The car, which was paid in full, was a gift after I was forced to give up my much newer and sleeker ride. The truth was I had lost my job and I realized a high car payment wasn’t a priority over rent and food.\n\nFrom the time I signed the lease for the car I resented it.\n\nI had insisted on going into the dealership on my own (no boyfriend or dad). However, I wasn’t there to buy a new car. I was there to pay off my lease on the car I already had. Before I left for the dealership I had made some phone calls and done my research, I had calculated the accurate pay off information, based on the car’s current value and the interest rate of the loan. Despite all of this, the car dealer’s salesmanship, charm and ability to play on my vulnerable ego put me behind the wheel of a car I didn’t need, couldn’t afford and barley even liked. By most people’s standards this was not a fancy car, but for me it was the biggest purchase I had ever made.\n\nI remember driving off the lot feeling like a bit of a fraud, a sell-out. I had never based my worth on material things but in someway this vehicle made me feel better about myself. The car dealer had done his job at playing on my emotions at the time. “You deserve this,” he had said. “You work hard and you seem like you’re a person, who doesn’t put herself first. This car can be your first step in having higher expectations for yourself.”\n\nAbout an hour after me stepping foot on the car dealership’s pavement, I transformed from a strong independent women, who knew exactly what she wanted and what she had to do to get it, into a 20 something year-old naïve girl who was eating up an ego boost delivered from a guy who spent his days manipulating people for money.\n\nI have always been a bit of an open book and sharing my personal life with the car salesman, whom I had only just met was natural for me. As we sat down to go over my “options” I proceeded to have diarrhea of the mouth, opening up about everything from my rocky love life to the job I hated. Without much probing he was able to get me to fall into enough of an emotional state that if my credit had been good enough I would have upgraded car’s stereo, had the windows tinted and put rims on it.\n\nAt this point, I wasn’t even bargaining to bring the price of the car down because I felt my salesman-turn-counselor deserved a good commission for being such a “good listener.”\n\nThe “emotional stability” the car gave me lasted until I had to make the first payment.\n\nA couple of years later when the T-Bird entered my life, I was grateful but in a way I felt like I had taken a step back in life. However, last week when I was faced with the choice to fix the T-Bird or buy a new car I realized that while I may not be where I expected to be in life I am the person I want to be.\n\nDriving away from the mechanics last week in my 1995 dented up beauty I felt like I had truly arrived and although the seats aren’t leather and there is no navigation system, its all mine and that makes it the sweetest ride in town."}, {"id": "6006", "title": "Fathers Day", "date": "2010-06-15", "dateFormatted": "June 15, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "My dad has three daughters and I am the oldest. Like most men do, I think he always pictured having a son. An offspring to throw around the football with and later on in life go have a beer with and w", "content": "My dad has three daughters and I am the oldest. Like most men do, I think he always pictured having a son. An offspring to throw around the football with and later on in life go have a beer with and watch the game. However, instead, he learned how to put ponytails in hair, and had an education on Cabbage Patch dolls and the color pink. Fortunately, the middle sister was about as much of a tomboy as you could get. She played baseball, liked to fish and wasn’t grossed out by bugs or rodents. Our family jokes that she is the son he never had.\n\nStill my dad has always told us he wouldn’t have had it any other way. All of us are his “Princesses” even the tomboy is his princess.\n\nAs I get older I realize how lucky I am that I have always had my dad as both a father and a friend. Our family isn’t picture perfect by any means but we have more love between us than most families I know. When I was younger and my parents got a divorce my dad promised he would never be more than a couple of miles away and he never has been.\n\nHe has never missed a birthday, a graduation, a first day of school, a prom, a holiday or any other important day in any of our lives, including the typical Monday morning ride to school or Sunday family breakfast. He is the person that each of us goes to for advice or for affirmation, he is the person we are worried the most about disappointing but rarely does he makes us feel that we have. He always lets us each know that he is proud of who we are and what we contribute to this world. “I have the best daughters in the world,” he’ll often say to anyone who will listen. My sisters and I know that no one has our back or loves us more than our dad and he knows the same about us.\n\nBefore I finish this mushy tribute to my dad, I’d like to say this to all new fathers; there is no substitute for time you spend with your children. One day we grow up and we will be able to choose who we spend time with and although my dad never had a son, he always has someone to watch the game with.\n\nHappy Father’s Day Dad, from your firstborn princess. The officer informed me that my left break light was out and therefore didn’t see a signal when I changed lanes.\n\n“Yea, but did you check out my new tags,” I said. “That counts for something, right?”\n\nJenniferevans02@yahoo.com"}, {"id": "6065", "title": "A mother's Love Survives The Teenage Years", "date": "2010-05-04", "dateFormatted": "May 04, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "When I was a little girl I was an angel (or so I am told) I was one of those kids every teacher loved and all parents wanted their kids to play with. I don’t mean to brag but seriously I was a pretty ", "content": "When I was a little girl I was an angel (or so I am told) I was one of those kids every teacher loved and all parents wanted their kids to play with. I don’t mean to brag but seriously I was a pretty bitchin’ kid (I love that word and I think its time to start circulating it again.) I would do things like wrap up my toys and books and give them as gifts to my parents while serving them burned toast and microwave-cooked eggs in bed on a Sunday morning.\n\nBut then I turned 13 and as my mother has often described that is when someone else took over my body. “It was like it happened overnight,” my mom said. “You went from being this sweet, agreeable, loveable child to this teenage monster.”\n\nShe was right. I went from playing John Denver on my record player to blasting profanities on my tape deck and all the while here was my single mom, just trying to survive. However, looking back she did more than “just survive,” she thrived.\n\nEven when I thought I was getting away with sneaking out and lying about where I was and who I was with, my mom knew my every move and she knew because she cared, she cared more about my safety and well-being than anyone else did in this world and no matter how old I get she is still my biggest protector.\n\nThankfully, she has eased up from the days of when I was first born and she would request that the people visiting me wear medical masks. “Mom, why do all these people holding me have the Michael Jackson mask on?” I tease. “I just didn’t want you to get anything, I was a little overprotective at first,” she admitted.\n\nI was telling my boyfriend (yes, I have one now) all the horror stories of how I acted as a teenager and as the tales flowed freely out of my mouth I was reminded of what a “B” (rhymes with witch) I was to my mom. There was the time when my eighth-grade graduation invitations didn’t look the way I wanted and I got so upset I jumped out of the car at a stoplight and stormed off. I fully expected my mom to chase me down, but like a good a mom she didn’t (good moms don’t buy into their teenager’s bad behavior.)\n\nThere was the time when I was grounded and I was told to go straight home after school and I didn’t because I wanted to watch my then-boyfriend’s water-polo practice. My mom pulled up in the parking lot right as I was about to make-out with my boyfriend after practice. “Get in the car, right now young lady” she said standing behind me, her arms folded. “Why are you here!,” I yelled. “Will you just go away, I hate you!”\n\nI can’t imagine what that must feel like to here those words come from the mouth of a person, who you would give your life for. The person you created and love more than anything else in this world. The person, who you go to work for everyday so you can buy them clothes, put food on the table and a roof over their head. The person you put a smile on your face for even when you feel like breaking down or giving up or walking out.\n\nHow did she do it? How do all you mothers out there do it? “Because I love you,” my mother has told me when I have asked.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe teenage years passed and today my mom is one of my best friends. I know I might be wasting my words but if there are any teenagers reading this and you have said or are thinking about saying those frightful words I once or probably twice uttered at your age, think about who you are saying it to. She loves you more than you love yourself, probably everything she does that you think is ruining your life, is actually saving your life and besides whether it feels like it or not, you will have the rest of your life to do all the things you think are so important now (like making-out.) Besides it’s way more fun to be described as a bitchin’ teenager then a “B.”\n\nAt least I think so."}, {"id": "6073", "title": "Baby Steps to the Green Side", "date": "2010-04-20", "dateFormatted": "April 20, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "I’ll admit I might be the least “green” person I know. I’m really bad, I don’t even separate my bottles or paper goods from my regular trash. My favorite kitchen accessory is the roll of paper towels,", "content": "I’ll admit I might be the least “green” person I know. I’m really bad, I don’t even separate my bottles or paper goods from my regular trash. My favorite kitchen accessory is the roll of paper towels, which as a person who lives by herself, I probably replenish more than a family of four. If I had the space to ride the honest-train a little longer I might want to comment on how I feel about “global warming” but I don’t want to create too many more enemies.\n\nHaving said all that, I will say I am good about turning out lights, not letting the water run and I don’t drive a whole lot. I figure I am probably pretty even with the person, who recycles and then takes an hour-long shower, hops in their SUV and then drive 40 miles to work.\n\nBut I decided after our Green Issue came out last week, that I wanted to be better than just even with the average.\n\nIt was about a year ago, the first time I bought one of those re-usable 99-cent bags to bag your groceries in. I felt good when I bought it and even better when the lady stacked my boxed up processed food in it. I walked out the store all proud like I had just been initiated into the “green” club. However, it wasn’t long before I lost my membership; as soon as the groceries came out of the bag, my green phase was over and I think I started using the bag for the gym. Since then, I have purchased about a half a dozen of those store-logo bags, just so I could have that “I belong to the tree-hugger group” feeling.\n\nUnfortunately, I have never been able to remember those nifty bags when they are needed and what’s even worse is that since I haven’t been spending much time at the gym (okay, no time at all) the bags, which were meant to prevent excess trash, have now started to become a source of waste.\n\nSo, I decided last week that enough is enough I am going to use those bags and if I forget them I either have to carry my groceries or buy another bag. Since last week I have had to buy three more bags (I’m pretty forgetful) but I am getting the hang of it. I even went clothes shopping over the weekend and used a re-usable bag. I seriously feel fired up and although I don’t qualify to be the president of the “tree-huggers-club” I do feel that if I can get on board with re-usable bags in an effort to eliminate plastic and paper bags from grocery stores, so can everyone else.\n\nNow, I know I am going out on a limb, but I figure with this column I probably have a little more leverage than if I didn’t have this column so if you (my 6-8 readers) can stand it, I would like to spend the next couple columns on this same subject. I promise it will be riveting and if it’s not at least do me a favor and toss me in the recycle bin."}, {"id": "5988", "title": "Freedom of the Truth", "date": "2010-02-22", "dateFormatted": "February 22, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "I remember the first time I lied to my father. I was about 9 years old and I had gone to the movies with a friend and we were supposed to see a rated PG movie but instead we saw “Stand By Me, which wa", "content": "I remember the first time I lied to my father. I was about 9 years old and I had gone to the movies with a friend and we were supposed to see a rated PG movie but instead we saw “Stand By Me, which was rated “R.”\n\nWe bought tickets for the other movie and snuck into the 1980’s River Phoenix flick. When it was over, my father picked up my friend and I from the movies and asked us how it went. Sitting in the back seat starring down at my lap or out the window, I gave him one-word answers. It felt horrible to lie and what made it worse was that if I told the truth it would also get my friend in trouble. I ended up telling the truth later that night before I went to bed. I did get in some trouble and my friend was pretty upset with me but after about a week, it all blew over.\n\nThat day I learned the meaning of the “truth will set you free.” I will never forget the anxiety I felt, the knot in my stomach and just the shame I had for lying to someone who trusted me.\n\nMost of us would agree that lies are told out of fear of what the truth will bring to the table. I’ll never forget watching the breaking news when former President Bill Clinton was accused of cheating on his wife but he denied the charges. Although I was disgusted at his behavior I was devastated that he lied. It has always baffled me the extremes people take to cover up a lie; the time they waste and the people they hurt.\n\nWhy do we all think we are so above making mistakes? It doesn’t matter who we are; teachers, judges, politicians, priests, mothers, fathers, doctors or police officers, we all make mistakes and sometimes we make really big ones. But that’s all they are; mistakes, lapses in judgment, they are moments of which we made a bad choice. But if we tell the truth it stays at one bad choice and it doesn’t need to start costing us more of our integrity more of our self-worth or more of our respect.\n\nIf we are brave enough to be honest, the truth will truly set us fee. For me, honesty is the clearest form of courage that exists. Unfortunately I feel like in our society, bravery is illustrated on a more physical level. We tell our kids when they fall and they don’t cry that they are being brave. Really? So it’s brave to hold in your tears when you’re hurt? Bravery is not in the masking of expression; it is in the honesty of expression. It is having the courage to tell someone, for better or worse, the truth.\n\nRecently, in both our local and national news there have been a couple of different stories of people who because of their lies, they have disappointed society and damaged the reputation of not only themselves but of the people who are associated with them. I suppose that was the inspiration for this column, either that, or I just really wanted to remember how much I loved the movie ‘Stand by Me.’\n\nI guess my point is that no matter how big a mistake a person makes, lying is always a bigger mistake, its really that simple. I know I am not saying anything that hasn’t been said a million times but I figured It can’t hurt to remind people of some simplicities between right and wrong. And although I would love to say that I have never told a lie since the day I watched my first rated ‘R’ movie, the truth is, in the last 20 years I have told my fair share fibs, speaking of which I wasn’t really 9 when I saw that movie, to be honest I was 11.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6114", "title": "Forever My Valentine", "date": "2010-02-09", "dateFormatted": "February 09, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "When I was a teenager my mom walked in on my boyfriend and I kissing in my bedroom. It was about 4 p.m. on a weekday and she wasn’t expected home until 5:30 so you can only imagine my shock when all o", "content": "When I was a teenager my mom walked in on my boyfriend and I kissing in my bedroom. It was about 4 p.m. on a weekday and she wasn’t expected home until 5:30 so you can only imagine my shock when all of a sudden I hear her voice (which as a teenager was like nails on a chalkboard) exclaiming to me in her most irritated tone, “What in the H… do you think you are doing young lady?”\n\nI responded with the first thing that came to mind, “My homework.”  I said trying to compose myself. Then, in a typical teenage manner I added fuel to the fire by adding, “what are you doing home anyway? You’re not supposed to be here yet.”\n\nYea, I was a real treat as a teenager. I gave my mom years of sneaking out, talking back and bad grades. Fortunately, my behavior didn’t carry on too long; otherwise I might not be alive to write about it. Although she probably wanted to kill me as a teenager, thankfully, today, my mom and I are the best of friends.\n\nWhile my mom knows how much I love and admire her, I don’t think she will ever get the credit she deserves for the work she has done as a mother and as a human being. Without a doubt my mom is the strongest and most forgiving person I know. She is the reason why I strive to handle most disappointments in life with grace. It is because of my mom’s example that I know what it means to let go of what isn’t and live your life as is.\n\nWhen I look back at my mother’s life, I realize how courageous and how selfless she has lived. She made countless sacrifices to ensure my sister’s and I happiness.\n\nFebruary 12th is my mom’s birthday and two days later on Valentine’s Day it is my sister’s birthday. Born two days and four decades apart these two women have each been a source of inspiration, strength and unconditional love for me. They are my every-day-of-the-year-Valentines.\n\nWhile couples across the country will be professing their love over a romantic meal, red roses and champagne, I will be signing happy birthday and eating cake and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing, unless of course I get a last minute “homework assignment.”"}, {"id": "6092", "title": "Birthday Column", "date": "2010-01-28", "dateFormatted": "January 28, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "Thirty-four years ago on this date (January 28) my pregnant mom was stepping over a hedge in my Godparents front yard and her water broke. Many, many hours later, I was born at Little Company of Mary ", "content": "Thirty-four years ago on this date (January 28) my pregnant mom was stepping over a hedge in my Godparents front yard and her water broke. Many, many hours later, I was born at Little Company of Mary Hospital.\n\nMy dad said when he first saw me, he felt sorry for me because I looked just like him, in fact, I looked so much like him that until the lower half of me was born, he thought I was a boy. He loves to tell that story and it sort of answers the question of why there aren’t too many first-born pictures of me. Thankfully, by the time I was about six months old I started to look more like a baby girl and less like a 35-year-old-man-baby.\n\nMy mother likes to tease me that I make too big a deal out of my birthday. But like most people who partake in self-indulgent behavior, I blame my parents. From my first birthday and on, I was brought up that it is customary to be the center of attention on your birthday and the week surrounding it. From the time I could remember I have had some pretty fantastic birthday parties; everything from a whale watching trip to merry-go-rounds and puppet shows set up in my backyard.\n\nAs an adult I have carried on the tradition and I have taught others to do the same. If you are one of my best friends or have ever dated me or are related to me, you have had a surprise birthday party and I have probably planned it.\n\nAnd why shouldn’t we make a big deal about the day we were born? Why shouldn’t we celebrate one more year of life? I mean its kind of insulting to our parents and God for that matter, if we don’t celebrate, right?\n\nNow, for anyone who knows me they know there are a couple of things I require for a good birthday party; a cake with candles and lots of people singing and birthday cards with meaningful messages about how great you think I am.\n\nOne year, the guy I was dating forgot to pick up my birthday cake and bring it to the restaurant.\n\nBig mistake.\n\nI tried for a total of 2 minutes to act like I didn’t care and then feces hit the fan at a rapid speed. The greatest thing about me acting like a 3-year-old who just had her teddy bear taken away, was that my friend caught it all on videotape. Here I was an adult woman in the bathroom of a restaurant crying over cake. I’ll admit It wasn’t the highest point in my life but although I was super duper embarrassed about my crazy-girl melt down, I apparently got my message across, because I have had some great tasting birthday cakes since then.\n\nHonestly, the reason why I love my birthday so much isn’t really about the cakes and cards, it’s a day where I am reminded of how blessed I am. I have a lot of people who I have the privilege to love and who love me right back and on my birthday that’s what I am celebrating. Out of everything in my life, It’s those relationships, which I am most proud of, its those people, who have helped shaped who I am and who allow me to look forward to another year of life.\n\nSo, happy birthday to me and thanks to my mother for stepping over that hedge (that’s how babies are made, right?) thanks to my Godparents for making dinner that night, thanks to my dad, because without him I wouldn’t have had such strong manly features as a baby and thanks to all my friends for reminding me that its not about the cake or the cards, its about the people who are standing next to you in the bathroom, drying your tears and making you laugh at yourself for acting like an overgrown toddler, while at the same time instructing someone else to go buy this girl a cake, and make sure its chocolate and whatever you do, don’t forget the candles.\n\nJenniferevans02@yahoo.com"}, {"id": "6034", "title": "Curbing Your Wheels", "date": "2010-01-23", "dateFormatted": "January 23, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "Apparently I didn’t get the memo about curbing your wheels in Manhattan Beach. I got it now, in the form of a $45 ticket. That city has some balls, seriously, you have to love a city that finds specia", "content": "Apparently I didn’t get the memo about curbing your wheels in Manhattan Beach. I got it now, in the form of a $45 ticket. That city has some balls, seriously, you have to love a city that finds special ways to ticket its people and then come the holidays they claim its too broke to offer the free traditional December parking not to mention the other expected community events such as the children’s art walk or the police and fire open house.\n\nI get it, we all do, times are tough, but I’m sorry maybe rather than sitting around dreaming of ways of how to ticket people and take things away things from the citizens you serve, you should look at your very expensive city staff who continues to get pay increases despite a decline in cost of living. I know you have to give them raises otherwise they will strike, which personally I would love to see the police and fire and city staff strike because they are angry that they not making more money and getting more benefits and more time off and better retirement. Make no mistake I am not dissing the people who serve, I am merely dissing their unions and the government that enables this greedy behavior.\n\nThink about it, if the city would have decided not give raises maybe just this one year or maybe even for two years, then they could have still offered the free December parking as well as all the other community events and by doing that it would have attracted people to the city and then those people would have shopped in the stores and ate in the restaurants in downtown, supporting the businesses and then those businesses would have a better chance of staying in business and not laying off their employees. Get it?\n\nIf you keep punishing people who work for themselves your not going to have anybody who wants to work for themselves, and then America will be gone and if your in favor of that, then please don’t stay here, move to Denmark, they have blond people too.\n\nWhen the owners of this newspaper told the managers we needed to take a few furlong (unpaid days off) or lay more people off, our staff stayed. Sure it sucks, and I am sure some employees are bitter at the owners, but guess what? They own it. Period. Each of us has the power to start our own newspaper or any business for that matter, if we really wanted to. People all the time come to this country with little money and without knowing any English and start their own businesses. So if you’re pissed about “working for the man” then simply start your own business and if you can’t, then be thankful for the job you have.\n\nI am so proud that our paper is surviving this economy, and not at the expense of our customers. We haven’t all of a sudden charged more for advertising or stopped delivering to certain areas. We just cut back and the funny thing is that some of us would probably make more on unemployment than we would be working for the paper. But we love our jobs, we are proud of what we do and the product we produce and the people we serve.\n\nI realize that everybody wants to blame somebody else for the economy. Some want to blame the banks, while others want to lash out at the government. But the truth is we are all to blame. We can blame the lenders for the shady loans that were given or we can look at ourselves and take responsibility for the fact that we bought into all, I am no genius, but even I know that if you make less than $100,000 a year you shouldn’t be buying a million dollar home. And if you’re a Realtor or lender and your suffering right now because of the shady loans you knowingly gave out, well, that’s Karma.\n\nIf anything, I wish people would think for themselves, if you belong to a union, don’t just read your handouts, think. Think about the people you serve, think about where else you’re qualified to work and would still get the money, benefits and retirement you get.\n\nIf you work in finance or real estate, think not only about yourself but think for your clients and customers, who might not be as aware, let them have a real reason to trust in you.\n\nI know I’m not saying anything too original, for those of you agree, you already think this way, and for those of you who don’t agree, I am sure you’ll let me know.\n\nBut hey,most importantly, don’t forget to curb your wheels when your in Manhattan Beach. Consider this your memo."}, {"id": "5986", "title": "Game Day", "date": "2010-01-12", "dateFormatted": "January 12, 2010", "year": 2010, "excerpt": "I remember watching the Dodgers win the 1988 World Series. Orel Hershiser was at the mound and when he threw the final strike he knelt down and prayed seconds before his team victoriously rushed out o", "content": "I remember watching the Dodgers win the 1988 World Series. Orel Hershiser was at the mound and when he threw the final strike he knelt down and prayed seconds before his team victoriously rushed out onto the field. I was a kid (ok a pre-teen) at the time and the moment looked so magical it made me want to climb into the TV and jump on their backs and cheer. I wanted to be part of it, part of the excitement and joy that came with being on a winning team.\n\nAt that time I had already tried playing soccer, and although I was terrified of the ball and not very coordinated, I loved putting on the uniform. I loved the shin guards and cleats and walking around in my red and white polyester shorts and shirt. I was number 10 and my team was called the Kicking Candy Canes. I was a horrible player. I was so nervous before every game and I used to just hope that the ball wouldn’t come my way because I knew I wouldn’t know what to do with it. However, it was worth it because when the game was over I would proudly where my uniform for the rest of the day. I loved being asked by strangers “oh did you have a soccer game today?” “Yes,” I would proudly say. “I play for the Kicking Candy Canes.”\n\nI hadn’t thought too much about my days of soccer until recently when my sister and I went running at Aviation Track, where several soccer games are held each weekend on the fields which the track surrounds. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about what I saw at those fields. This was no AYSO, this was in fact the Mercedes Benz of soccer. These girls, who all could have been Kids GAP models had the best looking uniforms I have ever seen, we are talking college-level material here. But the thing that really almost caused me to choke on my water were the backpacks; each eight to ten-year-old player had her own Nike black backpack with her last name and jersey number on it. “Wow,” I said to my sister upon seeing the backpacks lined up in a row “That’s incredible. I mean when I was a kid I used to roll up to the field carrying my stuff in a Vons grocery sack.”\n\nMy sister and I ran around the track 32 times, not because we love running or enjoy watching kids soccer, but because we are a team and this was our practice. Our big game will be held March 21 where we will join 25,000 other people in the Los Angeles Marathon.\n\nMy sister as well as I, was also never an athlete, but there is no one who deserves to have World Series moment more than she does.\n\nWhen she initially asked me to train and run it with her I have to admit I wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea. But then I pictured how awesome it would be to be by her side after she threw the final pitch.\n\nAs we were running our last lap she reminded me that it was the first time she had ever run eight miles. “I can’t believe I just did that,” she said. We hugged and I told her I was proud of her. Just then on the soccer field one of the girls scored the winning goal and the team erupted with joy.\n\n“I know you want to run out there with them,” my sister said jokingly.”\n\n“Na, it’s okay I’m going wait for our game day,” I said. “But I wouldn’t mind having one of those fancy backpacks.”"}, {"id": "6099", "title": "Car Rides", "date": "2009-12-14", "dateFormatted": "December 14, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "Back before three-year-olds had their own personal backseat DVD players and nine-year-olds were text messaging on their cell phones, I was a little girl sitting on my dad’s briefcase in the front seat", "content": "Back before three-year-olds had their own personal backseat DVD players and nine-year-olds were text messaging on their cell phones, I was a little girl sitting on my dad’s briefcase in the front seat of his car (yes it was legal back then.)\n\n“Keep your eyes peeled for Chelsea Street, princess,” he said on our way to school in the morning. “Dad, I’m not a potato,” I’d say giggling.\n\nOn long road trips to visit my grandparents in Oregon, we would play “eye spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter…” and sing along to Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra blasting from the tape deck. It seemed like there was never a dull moment in our long treks across the state or even just to the local mountains. I kept my dad busy asking questions about how telephone wires worked or why it looked like the sun went into the ocean or why can’t you roll down the window in an airplane?\n\nI didn’t know it then but it was those car rides to school and long road trips across the state, that served as a foundation for the bond my dad and I have today.\n\nSure, it wasn’t always a blast, there were countless times of being stuck on the road due to bad weather, trips when I got car sick because of the windy roads or the time my sister screamed in her car seat for two hours. But these were moments, which became memories. They were challenges, which we overcame as a team, as a family. These moments taught us coping skills, the importance of relying on our thoughts to distract us and encouraged us to make conversation and use our imagination.\n\nLast week, my dad and I re-lived our road-trip-glory-days and ventured on a 13-hour drive to Eugene, Oregon to watch his alma mater University of Oregon beat the Beavers and take a seat in the Rosebowl. No doubt the game was incredible, but even if we had traveled that far to watch the game in a sports bar, it still would have been one of my favorite road trips.\n\nAs we headed toward Redding in our first leg of the drive my dad and I exchanged ideas and debated opinions, we waxed philosophical about our perceptions of the world. We reminisced about when I was kid and both agreed that we are so fortunate to have my mother and my two sisters in our life.\n\nI thought I knew most of my dad’s childhood stories but as we drove through the town he grew up in and he showed me the church he and his family attended, more and more memories were shared. We visited the spot my grandpa took him and he brother fishing, we saw the house that he lived in as a boy and while walking down memory lane, my dad bumped into an old high school friend he hadn’t seen in 20 years.\n\nThe road trip illustrated what I have always believed to be true; that it is an accumulation of simple moments, which makes for the strongest and most genuine of relationships. My parents have spoiled me at Christmas and my birthday and in between. It is because of them that I have never gone without. However, that is not why I love them. I love them because they listened to my endless questions while we drove in the car, they read to me before bed, they took me for walks in the rain and they never let me forget whom I could go to if I was ever in doubt or in trouble.\n\nI’m not a parent yet but I hope when I do have children they can be as open and honest with me as I am and always have been with my parents and siblings. I think as a parent you don’t have to be perfect, children are pretty forgiving of the imperfections as long as long as we can trust that you have always wanted the best for us.\n\nAs my dad and I were in the final stretch of the road-trip heading home I glanced to my right and I saw a little boy staring a movie in the back seat of his parents SUV, he was watching the movie “Nemo” (one of my favorites) and I actually started to get sucked in to watching it from a distance, until my dad changed lanes.\n\n“Hey princess keep your eyes peeled for the 405,” he said joking. “Dad, I’m not a potato.”\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6046", "title": "Kennedy", "date": "2009-11-30", "dateFormatted": "November 30, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "So, I was watching Oprah the other day and she was interviewing Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the late United States Senator Ted Kennedy’s second wife. Kennedy, as most of us know died of a brain tumor in ", "content": "So, I was watching Oprah the other day and she was interviewing Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the late United States Senator Ted Kennedy’s second wife. Kennedy, as most of us know died of a brain tumor in August, but before he died he wrote a book about his life (shocking).\n\nI am embarrassed to say that I didn’t know much about Senator Kennedy, I am honestly not the most educated person when it comes to politics, so about half way through the show when Oprah asked Victoria about the “Chappaquiddick incident”, I was oblivious.\n\nAnd then I was shocked. (I know, I can’t believe I didn’t know about it either).\n\nFirst of all, it shouldn’t be referred to as an incident. In fact, in my opinion, what he did should have been categorized as involuntary manslaughter. In 1969, while driving after leaving a party, he accidentally drove off of a bridge and into pond. In the passenger seat was Mary Jo Kopechne, 29.  Now, I’m no lifeguard but I’m pretty sure that in that situation, if you can’t help a drowning victim, your supposed to call for help as soon as you can. But Kennedy, who was married at the time, thought it would be a better idea to leave her there to die and then eight hours later call the police. However, by then they had already discovered the car with the dead women in it. A few days later he admitted to leaving the scene. He was sentenced to a couple months of jail. Although he was the one to tell her parents she died, he didn’t tell them that he had anything to do with it. They later found that information out by reading the newspaper.\n\nJust as a side-note a few years before that, Kennedy had been in a plane accident where the pilot had died but someone else in the plane pulled him out of the wreckage. I guess that “incident” didn’t have the profound impact on him one would hope it would.\n\nWeirdly, he was forgiven (thankfully not by all of you, otherwise he would have become President) and was able to continue his political career; in the eyes of some people he died a hero. Americans voted for him time and time again and despite his moral compass being so incredibly off track, he had enough votes to serve as Senator longer than almost anyone else.\n\nHonestly, when I think about it too much it freaks me out. It really brings to light how much some people don’t care about doing the right thing. I thought it was pretty bad when former President Bill Clinton cheated on his wife and then lied to her, his daughter and the entire world, but at least with his lie nobody died. I mean sure, he embarrassed the country and his wife and daughter, but nobody died. And because there is a 50 percent divorce rate and many men have cheated on their wives, Clinton, today, is still regarded as a great person by many. Personally, I wouldn’t walk next door to meet him, let alone line up for a book signing. But that’s just me, call me crazy, I think the President or anyone who his responsible for making decisions on behalf of millions of people, should have a moral compass that should set the bar, not set the average.\n\nIf I could, I would just like to ask the people, who voted for Kennedy all those years, what if that was your daughter or sister or best friend that he just left to drown? Would you still look past that “incident” simply because you want a health care plan? He is a coward, not a hero and I am embarrassed for our country that he was a Senator for so long.\n\nWhile he was traveling the world, eating lavish dinners, falling in love with his first and second wife, teaching his kids and grandkids to sail in Cape Cod, Mary-Jo’s parents, who only had that one child, was missing their daughter everyday.\n\nThe question was asked if he had been drinking at the time he drove off the bridge and left the women to die, and of course he said “No.” I would bet my entire $72.00 I have in my bank account, that he was, but we will never know for sure especially since he conveniently waited eight hours until coming forward.\n\nI realize people make mistakes and we need to forgive them. I am a fan of second chances, but I am also a fan of admitting what you did was wrong and not just because you have been caught, but also because you have respect for the people you have wronged. I am a fan of the whole truth not just the part you are comfortable with. I am also a fan of what goes around comes around. I wonder if Kennedy believed what goes around comes around?\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6101", "title": "Changing The World One Push At A Time", "date": "2009-11-02", "dateFormatted": "November 02, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "There is always at least one kid on the tire swing when I pull up, but by the time I turn off my engine there are at least a few more, who have hit the playground and are ready for a push.\n\nOn my way ", "content": "There is always at least one kid on the tire swing when I pull up, but by the time I turn off my engine there are at least a few more, who have hit the playground and are ready for a push.\n\nOn my way there my mind is usually filled with stuff that keeps me up at night, but as soon as I open my car door and I hear my name being called everything that was bothering my brain fades out. It’s Wednesday, 6 p.m. and I know that for the next couple of hours I will be free of stress, free of thinking about myself; what i  need to do or should have done, what  I don’t have, what I should have, what I think I need in my life or what I don’t have but want. For those two hours its not about me, its about them, its about what they need and all they need is a push on the swing or a pass of the basketball all they need is someone to watch them ride their bike or do a trick on their skateboard all they need is help with their homework or a pat on the back or a hug or a tickle or a high five.\n\nIt’s funny, because society has named them “needy” children but really what they need is far less then what they rest of us think we need. They don’t need the newest computer or the latest Wi game, they never ask for the hottest toy or even really care about latest trend. They care about each other, because each other is what they have. They don’t consider themselves deprived, unlike so many of us do, they don’t talk about what they don’t have or what they can’t have, instead at a very young age they have learned that what they have in front of them is enough. However, this doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve a trip to the beach, presents at Christmas, a basketball that’s not flat, ice cream from an ice cream store, new shoes or a trip to the movies. It doesn’t mean that they should just have to accept that their inheritance be their destiny.\n\nThey deserve to be regarded as people, who could change the world and they deserve to be told and to be taught that. They deserve to feel like they can do anything, they deserve to be exposed to world outside of their own backyard, they deserve to have pride in where they come from and the opportunity to feel like one day they can be leaders in their own community.\n\nEach and every one of them has changed my world, they have made me a better more aware person. In times where I have felt like nothing is going my way, they remind me that even if life doesn’t go your way, its still going and you have an obligation to go with it.\n\nWe are all given opportunities based on where and whom we are born to, some of us thrive or fail despite or because of how we entered this world. I know that for me, there was always someone watching me when I hit a baseball, someone who taught me to tie my shoe, someone who instilled values in me and helped me develop the depth of my character. I have never had to do life on my own I have never had the feeling that no one would notice if I did something bad or good.\n\nThis Sunday, November 8, from 2 to 4p.m. at Lucky Strike Lanes. I will co-chair a fundraiser for the children, who have changed my world. I have already received so much support from so many of my friends and I am optimistic about the success of the event. One thing I do know for sure is that no matter how the event turns out, the tire swing will be there on Wednesday and if I am lucky, someone will be waiting for a push. Jenniferevans02@yahoo.com"}, {"id": "6088", "title": "Best Job Ever", "date": "2009-10-19", "dateFormatted": "October 19, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "When my editor asked me to nanny for her nearly two years ago I was hesitant at first. Admittedly I thought to myself, aren’t I too old for this? What would my friends, who were well into their career", "content": "When my editor asked me to nanny for her nearly two years ago I was hesitant at first. Admittedly I thought to myself, aren’t I too old for this? What would my friends, who were well into their careers as teachers, therapists, nurses, directors of sales and marketing, think about hanging out with an overgrown babysitter?\n\nI’m just being honest, I would love to say that I didn’t feel insecure about taking a job that was perhaps better suited for a 20-year-old college student or person who may have just moved to this country, but the truth is I kind of felt like the world’s biggest underachiever. However, despite my petty insecurities I also knew that the nanny opportunity would allow me the option to write for the paper as well go back to college.\n\nWhat I didn’t realize was that it would also give me the opportunity to fall in love.\n\nBorn to two blond Manhattan Beach parents, we were all surprised when Madeline came into this world with a head of thick dark brown hair. “This is a special one,” the nurse said looking at her seconds after she was born.\n\nI would soon find out after meeting her that “special” was an understatement. My first day on the job, she was about three months old and I knew as I held her that I had made the right decision by being her nanny.\n\nIf you work with kids or if you are a parent, then you’ll understand what I mean when I say that there is nothing more enlightening than the innocence of a child. We forget that there was a day when we didn’t know what a dog was or what sound a helicopter makes or that milk comes from cows. It’s like all of a sudden we are grown ups talking about health care reform and the war but it really wasn’t that long ago that we were just learning to put on our own shoes and that the letter A is for Alligator.\n\nEvery day I see Madeline I am reminded of what is more important than the economy, or traffic or politics. I reminded the instant I walk into the house and I hear her scream my name and run to me with her curly (now blond) hair and her big blue eyes. “Daaaaaaaaa” she yells to me. (We think she calls me “Da” because she overheard my mother calling me darling one time) I pick her up and say I love you sooooooo much.\n\n“So much” she repeats.\n\n“Yup so much” I say.\n\nFor now, I get to teach her things like what sound a horse makes or what a triangle is or how to say please, thank you and sorry. But before I know it, Madeline will be smarter than I am. There will be a day when I will visit her at college and she will speak intellectually about the world. She will have questions I probably won’t have the answers to and she will have perspectives that I never thought of.\n\nI look forward to that day as I look forward to every day I have the chance to see her grow and change. Her evolution is the most profound experience I have ever been a part of and because of that I can’t imagine my life without this job.\n\nUnfortunately, I am still not free and clear of my insecurities. I still compare myself to others and in my mind I often fall a bit short of where I think I should be. But then, like a miracle, the next day arrives and I walk into work and before I can even think about whether or not I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing with my life, I hear the screams of a little girl with curly blond hair and blue eyes.\n\n“Daaaaaaaaaa!”\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6022", "title": "Embarrassing Moments", "date": "2009-09-08", "dateFormatted": "September 08, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "Most people have had one or two really embarrassing moments in their life, I on the other hand have more than the average person. It’s gotten to the point where I have set my own bar for embarrassment", "content": "Most people have had one or two really embarrassing moments in their life, I on the other hand have more than the average person. It’s gotten to the point where I have set my own bar for embarrassment. For some people they would be absolutely humiliated if they tripped and fell in public, but that’s nothing for me. Sure, the first time it happened I was mortified, but now a day I just jump back up and keep on going. I was a freshman in high school when the first big one happened. It was the first day of school and I was wearing a loose white skirt, with my red Jansport backpack and cute black sandals. I was feeling good about being there, confident that this day was going to be the start of something great. But as I left my first period algebra class sandwiched among the bustle of other students, my mind must have got distracted and next thing I knew I was lurching forward, knees and palms hitting the ground, backpack flying over my head and as for the white skirt staying in place, well, lets just say I was glad I had on clean underwear.\n\nI’ve learned throughout the years to do my best to prevent embarrassing moments especially during times like weddings, graduations or things of that nature. This summer I was in two weddings and I was convinced that I was going to trip while walking down the isle, thankfully for me and the rest of the wedding party I didn’t. However, this isn’t say that I haven’t had my fair share of wedding spills. However, rather than bore you with the details of how I fell in front of an entire Greek family and my dress flew up exposing my Spanx (acts like a girdle but looks like bike shorts), I will move on to some other less physically painful but equally embarrassing moments. At the top of my list is one I title “Its not funny anymore” so I am in the airport with my father and sisters ready to board a plan back home from Portland, Oregon. I was about 26-years-old at the time and was wearing braces. Most people get braces on when they are 10 or 11 but because I am a late bloomer I decided to get them at the great age of 26. So my dad and I are sharing some onion rings at the airport restaurant while my 20 and 13-year-old sisters were at the gift shop. Because I like to eat and because I like to talk, deciding to do one instead of the other can often be a challenge for me, but in this particular moment the consequences were nothing anyone could have expected. My father knew something was wrong when I dropped the other half of the onion ring and left it floating in the ranch. “What’s wrong princess?” he said with concern seeing the fear in my eyes. “Dad, I think my tongue is stuck in my braces,” I said slurring (hold your tongue in place and say it and you will know what I sounded like.)\n\nI rushed to the bathroom only to find that my suspicions were right. Twisted slightly to the right and held in place my tongue was not going anywhere. My sisters soon heard the news and rushed in to see the problem the youngest one just starred while the oldest one kept asking me questions so that she could laugh every time I talked. “I think I see a part of the onion ring still perched on your tongue,” she said cracking herself up. At this point the drool had kicked in so severely I had resigned to holding a paper towel close to my jaw. After several jokes about the situation my frustration finally kicked in and I blurted out (again hold your tong and say this) “It’s not funny anymore!”\n\n“Does this mean we are going to miss our plane?” the teenage sister said. My dad yelled from the bathroom asking if we had any luck un-hooking the tong, which we hadn’t. Then if things weren’t worse my father and I had to go up to the lady who was about to board the plan and explain our emergency, hoping that they could somehow hold the plane or direct us on what to do. Fighting back the laughter she suggested that she call the paramedics to see if they could help. Within five minutes the most handsome set of four paramedics arrived to rescue me from my braces. Now, tripping at a wedding is one thing but sitting in a crowded airport at age 26 having your tong removed from your braces while drool trickles down your jaw, is pretty unique.\n\nWe just barley made the flight, we were the last to board the plane."}, {"id": "6136", "title": "John and Sally", "date": "2009-08-10", "dateFormatted": "August 10, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "My friend John was married to his wife Sally for 55 years. They moved from Pasadena and bought their home in Manhattan Beach more than 40 years ago where they raised their two children Ann and Kendal.", "content": "My friend John was married to his wife Sally for 55 years. They moved from Pasadena and bought their home in Manhattan Beach more than 40 years ago where they raised their two children Ann and Kendal. The first time I met John I was working behind the counter at Martha’s Corner on 22nd Street in Hermosa Beach. At 18-years-old I was sure I knew everything about love and marriage and I was rambling on to a co-worker. With my back to the customer, who had just walked in, I was ranting about how all men at one time or another cheat on their wives and the only difference between a cheating husband and a non-cheating husband is an ignorant wife (I know, pretty harsh stuff for an 18-year-old.) Meanwhile, the customer, who was sitting at the counter patiently waiting for his soup didn’t say a word. “So, How long have you been married?” I turned around and asked him. At 72-years-old, John told me that he had been married to his wife Sally for more than 40 years. “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”\n\nAt that point, perhaps the manager should have been called and I should have been fired. But instead, John answered the question; “Nope, I have never cheated on my wife and I don’t ever plan to.”\n\nI quit working at Martha’s 22nd Street more than 10 years ago but that hasn’t stopped John and me from engaging in our weekly coffee dates. During our almost 15 years of friendship, John and I have seen each other through a lot. Through the years we have exchanged opinions, worries and advice and have learned in detail what our families mean to us. I learned early on that there is no one that meant more to John than his wife Sally.\n\nSally, an artist in everyway, enjoyed coloring her hair bright yellow and would never wear an outfit that didn’t stand out. When her children were teenagers she would offer their friends free art classes, in which they would forget about their troubles at home and focus on the beauty of paint on canvas or papier-mâché. Years later she did the same for her grandchildren and their friends.\n\nJohn, an engineer who typically dresses in a button up and long pants, is the antithesis of his wife. As much as he didn’t understand her need for stacks of art books and cluttering habits, John always said that his wife brought the color into his life. In their retirement the couple enjoyed visiting museums and watching films and eating at their favorite restaurant, Phillipes.\n\nHowever, a couple years ago, Sally’s heart began to slow down and as John would tell me during our coffee dates, she didn’t feel up to doing much anymore and he was now in charge of cooking the dinners, shopping and keeping the house in order. “She doesn’t like my cooking,” he would tell me week after week. “But most of the time she’ll eat it anyway.”\n\nA few weeks ago as he was by her side, John finally had to say goodbye to the women, who decorated his life for 55 years. “I knew it was time and I saw it coming but it was still hard to say goodbye,” he told me.\n\nWhile I still have my opinions about marriage and I am disheartened at the statistics that 10 years for a marriage is considered a “long time,” it is because of John that I still believe in the vow “till death do us part.”\n\nJohn and Sally weren’t the perfect couple and together they suffered losses and challenges that would have broken-up other couples, but they made a choice to stick with each other, to love each other and to come home to each other every night. Their marriage and devotion to one another was an accomplishment few people are able to say they have achieved.\n\nOne day I believe they will meet again and when they do I picture Sally with her canary yellow hair telling John that she can’t stand his chicken dinners, but even so she will tell him that she wouldn’t have wanted to eat it anything else."}, {"id": "6097", "title": "Bunk Bed Memories", "date": "2009-07-13", "dateFormatted": "July 13, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "My dad told us last week that he is going to move from his Hermosa Beach walk street house he has been living in for the past five years; I have to admit that although I tried to react positively, the", "content": "My dad told us last week that he is going to move from his Hermosa Beach walk street house he has been living in for the past five years; I have to admit that although I tried to react positively, the truth was that on the inside I was sad at the news.\n\nIt makes sense why he would want to move; my sisters nor I live there anymore and although we visit all the time, he doesn’t need all the space. “I’ll still stay in the area,” he assured me.\n\nI totally get it and I know his new place will be just as great, but for some reason a part of me feels like I should chain myself to the deck in protest.\n\nI remember when he first found the place on 5th Street. Although I was well beyond the age that I should be living with my parents, due to certain circumstances (I was broke) I had asked if I could live with my dad for a little while. He was living in a two-bedroom apartment with my youngest sister who at the time was 14. She of course was thrilled that her 20-something-year-old sister would be sharing her room. About a month after I moved in, my other sister (the middle one) asked if she could live with my dad too. Because my dad is crazy about his kids, he was thrilled at the idea that his two adult daughters and teenager would be under one roof. He went out and found the perfect house for us.\n\nI remember standing in the empty living room of the new place. The large sliding glass doors looked out to a sunny spring day and when we stepped out on the deck and looked to our right we saw an unobstructed view of the beach. “So what do you think princess?” my dad asked. “You think your sisters will like it?”\n\nI knew then that my plan to only stay with him for six months would probably spill over into the next year. The three bedroom place meant that the middle sister and I would be sharing a room. We figured that the teenager needed her space more than the 20-something-year-olds. The question became how to fit two beds in the room. As a joke my mom suggested bunk beds, “like when you guys were kids,” she said.\n\nThe next day, the four of us; my sister, mom, dad and I went shopping for bunk beds (no this is not a joke.) “I cannot believe I am 26-years-old and I am going to be sleeping in a bunk bed,” I said about 20 times that day.\n\n“When I was your age princess, I owned a home and I was married,” my dad responded. “But that’s okay, everyone has their own pace they move at.”\n\nThe salesman, who sold us the bunk beds must have thought he was on candid camera. “Who is this for?” he asked. After finding out that it was for the two overgrown “kids” standing in front of him, he asked (trying not to laugh) who would be sleeping on the top bunk. “I will,” I said.\n\n“Well then,” he said clearing his throat. “Might I suggest a Bunkie Board, it will offer extra support.”\n\nSome people don’t have the opportunity to have these low- moments in life; standing as a grown women in a furniture store with your parents buying a bunk bed for yourself and sister, but I have been blessed to have these priceless moments that I can now share with the world.\n\nSo we took the bunk beds with the Bunkie board back to the house and that became my space for two years (I told you I would overstay the six-month mark). That room is empty now and in less than a month the whole house will be empty.\n\nMy sisters and I and my dad are not the only ones who will miss the house. For the last five years it has been a gathering spot for so many of my friends. From Fourth of July parties, birthday parties, New Year’s Eve and even a purse party. The house has given us a lot of memories.\n\nHowever, my most favorite memory was on a summer night soon after we moved in and my dad and sisters and I were sitting around when the youngest sister suggested we should all go for a swim in the ocean. Instead of finding reasons why we shouldn’t go night swimming, we all just jumped up and went.\n\nLooking back, although I was a bit embarrassed about living at home as an adult, I know now I wouldn’t have traded that bunk bed experience for even the nicest studio apartment, besides, who doesn’t love climbing up a latter to go to bed?\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "5994", "title": "Flight 937", "date": "2009-06-29", "dateFormatted": "June 29, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "So here I was on a flight to Chicago and this male fight attendant was seriously gushing over these three semi-hot girls. I say semi-hot because without the make-up, gold earrings, aviator glasses and", "content": "So here I was on a flight to Chicago and this male fight attendant was seriously gushing over these three semi-hot girls. I say semi-hot because without the make-up, gold earrings, aviator glasses and French manicures, I would have given them a “7”, but with it all I gave them a “9.” Now, if I was a guy, two out of the three of them would have gone down in rating due to the wedding rings they were wearing, but that didn’t seem to bother this prince charming with his gold plastic wings and his crisp blue uniform. The fact that the two cuter ones were already taken did not deter him from hooking them up with small bottles of vodka and soda mixers. “Yea!” they all cheered as he brought them their reward for talking to him and asking all about his budding career as a flight attendant and where he calls home.\n\nMaybe I am just bitter, I thought to myself at the time. Maybe I should have put on some makeup and worn my tank top with the thin straps, perhaps then I would have been privy to the “happy hour” that these Charlie’s Angels were experiencing.\n\nI think my favorite part of the whole exchange was when the single girl of the trio conspired to ask for flight-boy’s phone number and then her sidekicks would ask for another round of drinks. These girls were smooth and this guy was just “sweet” enough to be more than happy to hook them up with a second round of liquid courage.\n\nIt turned out that that it was a birthday for one of the girls and a bachelorette party for another.\n\nTheir next move to attain some cocktails was a again predictable, but still pretty smooth. “Take a picture with us,” they requested to boy in blue and then followed it up with a promise to make him famous on their Facebook page. “Oh my gosh, this is such a great picture, you have amazing eyes,” the birthday girl said.\n\nThat move earned them round three.\n\nAt that point the bachelorette was making friends with the six-month baby old sitting across the isle from her. As she cooed at the baby she casually touched the father’s knee while his wife sitting next to him tried to appear that she didn’t care that the tipsy bride-to-be was fondling her baby and husband.\n\nBefore I go on with my story, I want to make it clear that I wasn’t judging the three 20-something-year-olds and their boy-toy. In fact, I’d like to admit that the last time I was part of a bachelorette party I ended up slow dancing to no music with a guy I just met by the Marriott Pool in Palm Springs.\n\nAs the flight came into its last hour, I did what I do best; made friends. “Congratulations on getting married,” I said to Miss. Engaged in seat A-8.\n\nAfter some simple conversation she offered me the ultimate me sign of acceptance.\n\n“So do you want a cocktail? That cute little flight attendant totally hooked us up,” she informed me.\n\n“Sure,” I said. “Hey, cheers to getting hooked up!”\n\n“Cheers” my new posse repeated. “Now, lets take a picture.”"}, {"id": "6057", "title": "Friendship", "date": "2009-06-15", "dateFormatted": "June 15, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "People say that they are lucky if they have at least one or two good friends in their life and while I agree with that statement, I have been blessed with more than just one or two.\n\nWhile I have alwa", "content": "People say that they are lucky if they have at least one or two good friends in their life and while I agree with that statement, I have been blessed with more than just one or two.\n\nWhile I have always been aware that I have wonderful people in my life who are there for me when I need to cry or want to celebrate, as I get a little older and wiser I have learned not to take these bonds for granted. My friends truly are the riches in my life, it is because of them that I don’t ever feel lonely just because I am single, I don’t ever have to want for anything even though I live on a tight budget and no matter where I am or what situation I am in, I can walk with confidence because I know I have the support of my amazing friends.\n\nI am constantly reminded of what an inspiration they are to me. Weather it is a charity event I attend for one of their non-profits or if it is a weekend bacholorette trip in Palm Springs, each and every one of them have tremendous hearts and enthusiasm for life.\n\nThe other day, one of my friends, who is also a writer, told me that sometimes my column is like reading a page out of my journal and that although she liked it, I should try to challenge myself by writing on a more broader level. I agree with her and I appreciated her constructive critisism, but I have to say it’s easier for me to write straight from the heart. In my opinion, friendship and the importance of it, is a pretty relatable and profound subject, in fact, I think it is more important than the economy or politics or world peace. Friendship teaches you about trust, loyalty and communication. With a good friendship you can learn more about yourself than any paid-therapy or self-help book.\n\nA little less than a year ago I was going through some tough times and I could have felt that I was losing everything. However, it was because of my friends that I never felt like I had lost anything that I was supposed to have. I have always known I had good friends but to be honest, after having to rely on my friends as much as I did during my tough time, I have a much deeper appreciation for them and I truly recognize each of their individual qualities.\n\nMy writer friend does have a very valid point and I in the future I will try at least once in a while to write about things like road rage and the exuberant cost of movie theater popcorn, but most of the time I think I will probably find my inspiration from the people in my life.\n\nFor those of you who have let life get too crazy to keep up your friendships, I hope this column inspires you to pick up the phone or write an email to someone who you once did or still do consider a friend. Because there is no substitution for a good friend; a person who makes you laugh, who puts you in check if you need it and who will remind you of all the great qualities you have.\n\nI guess what I am trying to say is that if the saying goes that you are lucky to have at least one or two good friends, I am the luckiest person I know.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6031", "title": "Drinking And Driving", "date": "2009-06-01", "dateFormatted": "June 01, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "A couple of months ago my 19-year-old sister visited a women’s correctional facility in Orange County. She was there to fulfill a requirement due to a DUI she received last year, (don’t worry, I asked", "content": "A couple of months ago my 19-year-old sister visited a women’s correctional facility in Orange County. She was there to fulfill a requirement due to a DUI she received last year, (don’t worry, I asked her permission to air out her dirty laundry in the paper) after her visit, she told me about a girl she met, who was the same age as her, who was serving a 15-years-to-life sentence at the facility because she had decided to drink and drive and ended up killing two people.\n\nThis girl, who was born and raised in Newport Beach, had received a scholarship to college and was looking forward to a summer internship at an advertising firm. However, because of her mistake she is locked up for the rest of her life. “There is no amount of money or anything my parents can do to get me out of here,” she cried during my sister’s visit. “Besides, it’s hard to even live with myself knowing I killed two people. I can’t sleep without having nightmares.”\n\nAs my sister repeated what the girl said, she herself started crying. “Jen, when I was looking at her and listening to her I just kept thinking that that could have been me,” she said to me as we drove down the freeway after leaving the jail.\n\nMy sister was right, that could have been her and it also could have been me or could have been a number of people I know who at one time or another have drank and drove.\n\nOur high schools in the area are about two weeks away from graduation. In two weeks, our teenagers will feel like they have arrived, like they can conquer the world, like nothing or no one should be able to get in their way. Don’t get me wrong, there is almost nothing wrong with feeling that way, but I hope they understand that without some common sense, all of their excitement and thirst for life could be taken away in an instant.\n\nI love the enthusiasm of a teenager; I love how quickly they fall in and out of love and how everything is such a drama and how they are so optimistic about the future. In my career I have interviewed several teenagers, who were smarter and more creative and had more depth and compassion for the world that I ever had at their age. So this is why I am writing this column, because I don’t want to hear about any of them getting into a car after drinking and making the same mistake that my sister did or that girl she visited in jail did.\n\nLast year, Mira Costa High School conducted the “Every 15 Minutes” program in which they staged a drunk driving accident. I was there in the crowd among the teenagers watching and while some of the students really took it to heart, some of them didn’t. Just like this article, some people will take it to heart and take the time to share it with someone who will benefit from it and other people will use it to pick up their dog poop or to line their bird cage with.\n\nAt first, my sister was hesitant to let me share her mistake in the paper, but after a few minutes of thinking about it, she told me that if sharing her mistake would stop someone else from doing what she did, than it was worth the embarrassment it might cause her.\n\nSince my sister received her DUI, she had to sell her car to pay off the thousands of dollars in fines. Her driver’s license was taken away from her so she has had to take the bus to and from school (she attends a local college) and her job. She is eight-hours of community service away from getting her license back but once she does get it back, her insurance will be too expense for her to pay. However, she said that after attending the many classes and visiting the jail, she is glad she was pulled over that night.\n\n“This had been really hard to not have a car and to have to go to all these classes, but all I keep thinking is I could have been that other girl and spent the rest of my life in jail or even worse I could have died,” she said. “Seriously, I am really lucky.”\n\nI agree, she is lucky and maybe some of you reading this are remembering how lucky you have been, I know I am. But after you have your moment of refection and count your blessings, please do me a favor and share this column with at least one teenager, because I don’t think it is okay to just rely on luck. Besides, if you really need something to pick up dog poop or line your birdcage with, there are other less interesting newspapers to use that for.\n\nAnd one more thing, congratulations to all of the South Bay’s graduating high school students, each of you deserves to make all of your dreams come true.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6015", "title": "Epic Storm", "date": "2009-04-20", "dateFormatted": "April 20, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "It’s not that common for a snowstorm to hit New Mexico in the springtime, or maybe it is, but for this story I am going to say that it isn’t.\n\nAbout four weeks ago, my friend Whitney and I set out on ", "content": "It’s not that common for a snowstorm to hit New Mexico in the springtime, or maybe it is, but for this story I am going to say that it isn’t.\n\nAbout four weeks ago, my friend Whitney and I set out on a cross-country adventure from here to Chicago. Her being the planner of the trip and me being the one who didn’t even really know what sates we were going to go through to get there, made an interesting and pretty much perfect driving couple. She was responsible for all the driving and directions and I was responsible for looking on the bright side of things when needed. Let’s just say that when you are driving cross-country with a jam-packed Subaru and a cat on your lap and an unexpected storm hits the road, looking at the bright side of things is as worthy as a tank of gas.\n\nSo here we were about 40 miles from the Texas boarder and we were getting pulled off the road for the third time. However, this time it didn’t appear that they were going to let us back on. “How long before they open the roads up?” Whitney asked the police officer, in which he informed her that it would be at least until the next morning and that we should hurry up and get a room in town while there were rooms left. “This is ridiculous,” was her response, as if he had control over the weather. This was my cue. “Hey girl, lets just find a hotel and the nearest bar and make the best of it.”\n\nAbout 15 minutes later we were checking into our room at the Quality Inn. The sign on the wall of the lobby let us know that we were in the town of Tucumcari. Another sign on the lobby wall let us know that there was a bar available to us, which opened at 5 p.m. At the point of check in I was offering up every positive spin I could to the situation. “Everything happens for a reason,” I told Whitney. “Let’s just get something to eat and go to the little bar and see what happens; it will be an adventure.”\n\nAbout an hour later after changing out of our sweatpants and Ugg boots we were down in the lobby counting the minutes until five o’clock. That is when I first noticed Scott. He was sitting on a small couch in the lobby among the truckers and travelers also milling in the lobby waiting for the magic hour. Needing a better look, I walked across the room crossing in front of him, to get a Styrofoam cup of coffee. On my way back, with Folgers in hand, I took it one step further and talked to him. In our brief exchange he informed me that he too would be paying a visit to the hotel bar when it opened.\n\nAbout 10 minutes later, he and his buddy along with Whitney and I were the first four travelers to belly-up to the small bar. For the first 30 minutes of conversation I didn’t even know Scott’s name but I knew that I didn’t want us to stop talking anytime soon, if ever.\n\nWith the roads still closed the next day, Whitney and I decided to caravan with Scott and his traveling buddy Mick, who had mapped out an alternate route. However because he was heading to Buffalo and we were stopping in Chicago, we ended up saying our goodbyes at an Arby’s somewhere in Oklahoma.\n\nIf I had enough space in the paper I would write exactly how I feel about Scott and I how every time he calls I smile or when he sends me cute text messages I wish I could crawl through the phone and be next to him, but instead of boring you with the details, I’ll just say that although springtime snowstorms might cause closed roads and chaos, But sometimes, if your lucky, finding the positive side of things can be as easy as walking across the room and pouring a cup coffee into a Styrofoam cup.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "5982", "title": "Hope", "date": "2009-04-06", "dateFormatted": "April 06, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "It seems more than ever people are clinging to the word hope like a security blanket. It was hope combined with the word “change” that helped encouraged more than xxxxxxx American people to vote in th", "content": "It seems more than ever people are clinging to the word hope like a security blanket. It was hope combined with the word “change” that helped encouraged more than xxxxxxx American people to vote in this year’s presidential election, more than the country has ever seen in its history.\nThe definition of “hope” according to Encarta World English Dictionary is “to have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true, especially something that seems possible or likely.”\nContrary to the definition I know that in times when I have had an impossible or unlikely situation I have used the word hope to stop me from being consumed with the unfortunate reality of what might or might not happen.\nThe other day I watched a bunch of eight-year-olds play basketball and the team I was routing for; the Hornets were down by 24 points with three minutes left in the game. Despite it being a nearly impossible win for the Hornets, I held on to “hope” until the buzzer went off. In my mind I knew they would loose, but it was hope that allowed me to stay excited until the end.\nSome of the synonyms listed in the dictionary for hope are; expect, trust, anticipate. Personally, I think all of those synonyms have a more confident sound to them than the word hope. I mean if I say, “I expect that there will be tickets left for the U2 concert” or “I trust that I will fall in love and live happily ever after.” That sounds a lot different than if I use the word hope in either of these situations.\nLately, I have heard people say over and over again that they “hope” this economy gets better soon. Well, according to financial experts, “soon” could mean two years from now. The fact is that for whatever reason, this downfall in the economy needs to run its course and neither hope nor change (unless it’s billions in spare change) is going to bring the economy back on its feet. But enough about the economy we are all pretty sick of talking about that, right?\nI guess what I am saying is that although I love the word hope I think sometimes people rely on it too much. It’s just one word and by itself it can’t take care of everything.\nWhat I think we need to do is believe in ourselves a little more and trust ourselves that no matter what situation hits us we will know how to make the best of it. There is no doubt that this is a tough time for everyone and some of us are losing our jobs, homes, cars and savings, but instead of using hope to hold on to those things, we should use hope for the new opportunity that will come your way to replace what you have lost.\nDespite their loss, the Hornets will be given one more opportunity to make it to the play-offs next week. The eight-year-old that I hang out with, who is on the team told me that he hopes the team does better in the next game. I gave him a little lecture about the word hope and not relying on it too much. “Forget hope,” I said. “Just work harder and believe in yourself and your team and you’ll win.”\nHe looked at me and said, “I hope your right.”"}, {"id": "6106", "title": "Chloe Ann Scott", "date": "2009-02-25", "dateFormatted": "February 25, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "As I drove to the hospital to meet Chloe Ann Scott for the first time I couldn’t help remembering the first time I became friends with her mom, Suzanne more than 20 years ago. The two of us along with", "content": "As I drove to the hospital to meet Chloe Ann Scott for the first time I couldn’t help remembering the first time I became friends with her mom, Suzanne more than 20 years ago. The two of us along with a long list of good, but also not-so-good-12-year-olds, played on the same softball team, which her dad, Bob coached. We were the South Bay’s version f the “Bad News Bears” Bob told us he wasn’t going to shave his beard until we won a game. By the end of the season he looked like Grizzly Adams. When I wasn’t hanging out in the dug out braiding hair or eating a taco boat, I would play in the outfield. Meanwhile, Bob made Suzanne play pretty much every important position because she was the only one, who really knew what she was doing.\n\nThe year before her dad coached, we had different coach. However, we were just as bad, partly to do with the fact that we had pre-teens like me on the team who came straight from school and would forget to bring their shorts to practice. One day, when I showed up in my jean skirt to practice the coach (not Bob) got angry and told Suzanne to chase me around the bases and if she caught me I would have to do laps around the field. Well, lets just say I could have ran my fastest and Suzanne could have probably walked and she still would have caught me. But she didn’t. She did the ultimate fake-slow run and I was so thankful for it.\n\nAs I sit here reminiscing about seventh grade and all the years between now and then, I think about Chloe and all that she has to look forward to and all that her mother and father will try to protect her from.\n\nWhen she is old enough maybe I will tell Chloe about how her mom didn’t catch me on purpose and what it means to let people beat you even if you know you can win. I will tell Chloe about what a great friend her mom has been to so many, and that in life, the depth of a good friendship will save you more so than money or power ever can. I will tell Chloe how much her parents love each other and love her and that the love of her family will be the most reliable source of support she can ever have. I will tell Chloe that throughout the years her mom has befriended people of all walks of life and she has never judged them but instead celebrated them and to do that it takes character, and there is no substitute for good character. I will tell Chloe about when her dad made several phone calls to switch his schedule because he didn’t want to miss out on decorating her nursery and as the day came closer to her arrival he would ask, how’s my girl doing?\n\nAnd finally, (if she is still listening to me) I will tell Chloe that nobody believes in her more or loves her more than her mommy and her daddy and while at times she may feel like everything is upside down and world isn’t right, everything will always be okay, especially if she has a good friend."}, {"id": "6020", "title": "Emotionally Available", "date": "2009-01-16", "dateFormatted": "January 16, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "What does it exactly mean when a person says they are “emotionally unavailable?”\nThe other day when I was bellied-up to the bar enjoying a little happy hour, the guy sitting next to me started talking", "content": "What does it exactly mean when a person says they are “emotionally unavailable?”\nThe other day when I was bellied-up to the bar enjoying a little happy hour, the guy sitting next to me started talking and within a few minutes he volunteered the information that he felt like he was “emotionally unavailable.”\n“Wow, that’s deep,” I said. “So does that mean when you hear a joke you don’t laugh? Or what if someone cuts you off in traffic, you don’t get angry?”\nHe told me I probably wouldn’t understand what he meant unless I had had my heart broken before. I decided we needed to know each other a little longer than 10 minutes before I would share how I have “never had my heart broken before” and before he could enlighten me about his path to “emotionally unavailable,” I excused myself saying I had to use the bathroom. However, I never found my way back to his side of the bar.\nI’m not going to lie or beat around the bush or candy coat it or make lemons out of lemonade… the fact is, it can be a little frustrating being a single girl in the South Bay, especially if your emotionally available. My friend suggested I go on Match.com, but I just can’t do it, I feel like it would be too overwhelming.\nI bought some shoes the other day online and I knew exactly what I wanted to buy before I went to the site, then next thing you know, I get on the site, where there are hundreds of pairs of shoes and I was on there for an hour perusing the selection. I ended up buying three pairs because I couldn’t decide what I wanted and two of them were exactly the same style but different colors. I can only imagine what I would be like if I went to some Internet dating site.\nI am actually kind of dating this one guy right now and for the sake of his privacy I’ll call him “M.” Honestly, I like him a lot; “M” and I have been friends since high school and throughout the years when we have both been single at the same time we’ve been there for each other. However, although “M” isn’t as “emotionally unavailable” as some, he’s not as available as I’d like him to be, plus I think he is about 2-3 years away from “settling down.”\nI don’t blame “M” for not wanting to settle down just yet, if I was a man I probably wouldn’t be ready to settle down for a few years either, especially if I lived in the South Bay and my year-round-view consisted of girls on the beach in their bikinis playing volleyball. But for women it’s different; you get that feeling of, “opps, I didn’t mean to still be single at this age.” But the South Bay does that to you. It’s like one minute your 23-years-old, hanging out at Sharkeez and the next minute your 33-years-old going to your friend’s baby shower.\nI’m a born procrastinator so I am just banking on the fact that my biological clock does a little procrastinating as well. I’m really not too worried about it, I mean after my last relationship, I just feel happy to be able to relax and focus on myself. Relationships can take some work, but when you get stuck in a bad one, it’s like going to a job that you know you should quit and everyday you stay, you morph into this bad version of yourself that you didn’t even know existed. I’ve only really been in one “boyfriend/girlfriend” relationship and for the most part it was kind of a nightmare, so I’ll admit, am definitely no guru when it comes to commitment.\nMaybe that’s why “M” and I are working so well together, we don’t have the pressure of the title. “What if we were boyfriend and girlfriend?” I asked him the other night while we were out. “Well, maybe we could be, but I think we’re both a little too emotionally unavailable right now.” He said half smiling. I looked at him for a minute, knowing he was kind of right and then excused myself to use the bathroom. “You coming back?” he asked me sarcastically as I hopped of the barstool. “Yea,” I said. “I’ll be back.”"}, {"id": "6013", "title": "Expect the Unexpected", "date": "2009-01-05", "dateFormatted": "January 05, 2009", "year": 2009, "excerpt": "On the third day of the new-year I attended my friend, Suzanne’s baby shower. Surrounded by her friends and family, the mom-to-be glowed with appreciation and excitement as she opened each tiny little", "content": "On the third day of the new-year I attended my friend, Suzanne’s baby shower. Surrounded by her friends and family, the mom-to-be glowed with appreciation and excitement as she opened each tiny little dress, pair of booties or baby accessory.\n\nA year ago, the only baby-clothes that interested Suzanne were the ones that she dressed her two Chihuahuas in. I don’t think she or any of our friends expected her 2008 to be such a whirlwind of blessings and excitement. However, as she sat in the big comfy chair opening her gifts, with her belly sticking out and her wedding ring shinning, I think we were all reminded of how much can change in just one year.\n\nFor me 2008, was filled with surprises. Admittedly some of the surprises were not as welcomed as others, but all in all the one thing I learned was that even though you think you have a plan, sometimes God (or whatever you believe in) has a whole different agenda.\n\nThis year, I am entering 2009, with some ideas of where I think I want to be a year from now, but besides a couple of birthday parties and maybe one vacation, I am not going to plan anything, in fact scratch the vacation, I’m not even going to plan that. It’s actually kind of liberating to take this approach, I mean, who knows what could happen; I could win the lottery (which means I probably should start playing) I could buy a house (if I won the lottery), I could get married (I need a boyfriend first), I could get pregnant (that’s if I get married), I could be picked for a reality TV show or I could get fired from my job (which would be okay if I was on the reality TV show.) The possibilities are endless, well not endless… I do know that I will not be named “The Next American Idol” but besides that, I really do think anything can happen. On the other hand, I could end up looking back at 2009 and realize that not much in my life has changed at all and that 2009 looks a lot like 2008. And if that is the case, I’ll consider myself pretty lucky. Well, I could do without the part where my boyfriend dumped me, got married to someone else and then my apartment burned down. But other than those few details, I wouldn’t mind having another 2008, I mean without challenge, there is no growth, right? (See, I wasn’t joking about being on a reality TV show.)\n\nAll sarcasm aside, I must admit that with just a few days into 2009, I already feel excited about what might happen this year, so far the non-planning approach is working out for me. Meanwhile, what I do know for sure is that sometime in February my friend Suzanne will become a mom for the first time and although her baby-shower gifts will help her prepare for what is expected, it is how she will handle the unexpected that will make her a great mom. And about as certain as I am that I won’t be the next “American Idol” I am just as certain that Suzanne’s baby will be a  very much loved little girl.\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6083", "title": "Believing In Santa", "date": "2008-12-25", "dateFormatted": "December 25, 2008", "year": 2008, "excerpt": "I never had that defining moment when I realized Santa Clause wasn’t real. I even wore sweatshirt when I was about 14-years-old that read, “I believe in Santa.”\n\nFirst of all, what teenager wants to w", "content": "I never had that defining moment when I realized Santa Clause wasn’t real. I even wore sweatshirt when I was about 14-years-old that read, “I believe in Santa.”\n\nFirst of all, what teenager wants to wear a holiday sweatshirt? And second of all, did I really believe that some chubby guy in a red suit was the one, who brought me my cabbage patch dolls?\n\nI suppose everyone has their ideas about what they will believe in, what they will always question and what they simply refuse to believe. As a child, my dad rarely read me books; instead each night when he tucked me in to bed he would tell me a story from his childhood. Time and time again I would say, “dad tell a story about when you were a little boy.” Each time he would start out “When I was a little boy growing up in Roseburg Oregon…”\n\nI didn’t know it then, but my father’s tales of his childhood would be the foundation of our bond and the reason why I was able to hold on to my belief of Santa.\n\nWhen I was about 8-years-old he told the story about his Christmas at Aunt Winnie’s house. All of his cousins were there and as they were playing, one of them found a hiding place under the stairs. “When we ran in there to hide, we saw all of our Christmas presents! I knew then, Santa wasn’t real,” my dad had said as he told his tale. “But then the next morning, there was this huge model electric train circling the tree that was from Santa Clause and I knew it had to be really from him because I hadn’t seen that present under the stairs.”\n\nSome people think its silly to let their kids believe in Santa for too long, while others, like my parents, who now have three adult children, still encourage us to leave a note with cookies by the tree.\n\nI suppose the more you have to believe in, the less you have to worry. There have been countless times in my life where I have said aloud, “I’m just going to have to believe that everything is going to be alright.”\n\nAnd in the end, it always is.\n\nLast week, I walked into my studio apartment to find that while I was gone for the night there had been a fire. My neighbors hadn’t heard anything or smelled anything and because I had left all of the windows shut, the fire was contained to only my apartment and it had extinguished itself. My bathroom looked like a bomb when off in it and the rest of the place looked like the inside of a BBQ. Most of it was just smoke damage but as I looked at my black-stained bed and the smoked windows with the burnt shades, I realized then, why the night before I had decided to sleep on my dad’s couch. I live just five houses away from my dad, and believe me, every night of the week a pair of pajamas and my own bed beats sleeping on the couch in my clothes. But it was really cold last Thursday night and I just didn’t feel like walking those 100 steps to my own place. If I had taken the short walk to my apartment, I might not have had the chance to write this column or remind my dad how much I enjoyed his bedtime stories.\n\nI guess what I am trying to say is that this year, I am especially excited to leave my cookies and note for Mr. Clause, I think I will tell him thanks for all those years of great gifts and if he wants to give me anything else he can, but for right now, I am just happy to be sitting around the tree with my family, wearing a silly holiday sweater and reminiscing about “When I was just a little girl growing up in Hermosa Beach…”\n\n&nbsp;\n\nMerry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all The Beach Reporter readers."}, {"id": "6120", "title": "Going Back To School", "date": "2008-10-09", "dateFormatted": "October 09, 2008", "year": 2008, "excerpt": "A couple of years ago I made the decision to go back to college. I knew it would be a challenge but one thing I didn’t expect was that my past would have a run in with my present. Settling into my fir", "content": "A couple of years ago I made the decision to go back to college. I knew it would be a challenge but one thing I didn’t expect was that my past would have a run in with my present. Settling into my first day of class, I started to convince myself that I really didn’t look too much older than the other students. However, that thought came to an abrupt end when I felt a tap on my shoulder, “Excuse me,” the girl behind me said. “Did you used to babysit me?”\n\nSure enough I had. “Oh my gosh, that was like so long ago, I totally remember,” she loudly exclaimed. “So why are you here? Are you like teaching this class or something?”\n\nMy toddler-age classmate and I spent the rest of the semester comparing test scores and essays and thankfully, I did better than her in the class (I needed some kind of ego boost.)\n\nI am aware that I suffer a bit of arrested development; it’s a condition I have had since I was about 21. However, I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone, there are many of us in the South Bay, that still act like we are 21. I have had my moments of trying to act my age, there have been times where I have actually said “no” to going out for drinks on a weekday, saved my money to pay parking tickets instead of spending it on shoes, and I have even taken my car for an oil change within the month it is due.\n\nI don’t have a husband or kids to make me appear as though I am a 32-year-old women, therefore, it’s kind of up to me as to how I act or responsibilities I want or don’t want to take on. As far as looks go, I have to say, I look pretty young for my age, but not as young as I used to look. Something has happened in the last couple years to where there are times I don’t even get carded at the grocery store and people are getting closer and closer to guessing my real age.\n\nWhile I thought that going back to school would fit with my “Peter Pan” syndrome, it actually reminded me that there are some profound benefits to finishing college at the age appropriate time. While it is true that I am young in spirit, I really don’t care to go back to the days of eating Top Roman and partying on a Monday night.\n\nHowever, I knew that it was time to step out of my comfort zone and into a world of Internet studying and late night essay typing. When the semester was over, I was relieved although not completely satisfied with a couple of my grades. I honestly didn’t do as well as I should have in a couple of online courses that I took, but I figured at least no one but me knew about it. Well, I was wrong.\n\nJust a few weeks ago, when my friend Jen and I went out for some “happy hour” drinks, she called her friend Jill to join us. When Jill sat down, I wanted to climb under the table, but instead I introduced myself. “Hi, I’m Jennifer, I recognize your picture, I actually took your online anthropology class last semester,” I said with a little embarrassment.\n\nShe said she remembered grading my late emailed papers and online tests and we both commented on what a crazy coincidence it was that I was in her class and we have a mutual friend.\n\n“How old are you anyway?” she asked you don’t look that old.\n\nI wanted to tell her that I was older than a babysitter, younger than a homeowner, and somewhere between going to college and getting married. But instead I took a deep breath and simply said, “I’m 32.”\n\n&nbsp;"}, {"id": "6080", "title": "Being Fired", "date": "2008-08-21", "dateFormatted": "August 21, 2008", "year": 2008, "excerpt": "I remember hearing someone say that whenever you get fired from a job it means you didn’t quit early enough. I have only been fired once. I was 15 years old and I was working at Baskin and Robins ice ", "content": "I remember hearing someone say that whenever you get fired from a job it means you didn’t quit early enough. I have only been fired once. I was 15 years old and I was working at Baskin and Robins ice cream and although I didn’t mind scooping 31 flavors, the bosses always made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good enough job. To be honest at age 15, when all I could think about was hanging out with my friends or who I had a crush on, I probably wasn’t doing a good enough job. However, nevertheless because of their constant criticizing I always felt a little on edge and insecure while I was working. Even when they patted me on the back, I knew it would be a matter of time before they scolded me for not cleaning the fudge container properly or have a talk with me about not stacking the ice cream correctly in the freezer. Eventually, this continuous nit picking got to me and I started to not want to come to work. I would call in sick or say I couldn’t find a ride. On about the fourth or fifth time I did this, my boss said. “I’m sorry Jennifer, we’re going to have to let you go.”\n\nWhen I hung up on that sunny summer day I remember feeling both devastated and relieved.\n\nI haven’t thought about that firing in a long time and honestly I don’t think I learned much from it until recently when I was journaling and I suddenly realized how being fired from a job and being dumped by a boyfriend are so similar that one circumstance can be a metaphor for the other.\n\nI recently was dumped. Until now, I have never been officially dumped by a boyfriend.\n\nWow, talk about a humbling experience. I mean I know there are way worse things in life that people have to deal with, but still, this really hurts and the worse thing about it is there is nothing I can do to change the situation. Quite frankly I don’t think I would change it even if I could. I honestly need this, I really do. I needed to get fired from that relationship. The truth is one of us had to get fired and this time it was his turn to do the firing.\n\nIt was two years ago when I quit because I didn’t like the hours and I felt that I wasn’t being appreciated enough. But then out of desperation I applied for the job again last year. At the time I didn’t have another job-prospect and he needed someone to fill in, so I guess it was a matter of convenience, besides even though we didn’t work that well together at least we felt comfortable with one another and we trusted each other. However, there is an old saying that once you leave you shouldn’t go back and I shouldn’t have applied for the job and he probably shouldn’t have hired me back.\n\nYou get it right?\n\nRecently, I learned that my position at my former job was filled before I was officially fired. The thought of who this new employee is or what she looks like or if she has the right skills to fill my shoes, can keep me up at night, so I try not to let it. Instead I will have faith that one day I will find my perfect match and although there might be a little nit picking, and he won’t always stack the ice cream in the freezer right, or I won’t always clean the fudge container perfectly, no matter what, both of us will always show up for work."}, {"id": "6062", "title": "10,000 Calories", "date": "2008-08-21", "dateFormatted": "August 21, 2008", "year": 2008, "excerpt": "“How much is 10,000 calories?” a friend randomly asked the other day. Before I could think of an answer, he quickly followed up his question with, “Because Michael Phelps eats 10,000 calories a day.”\n", "content": "“How much is 10,000 calories?” a friend randomly asked the other day. Before I could think of an answer, he quickly followed up his question with, “Because Michael Phelps eats 10,000 calories a day.”\n\nThe night before I had just watched Phelps swim in his second Olympic relay and receive his fifth gold medal for this Olympics giving him a total of 10 career gold medals. By the time this article is published, Phelps could have as many as 13 total career Olympic gold medals. Phelps is 6’4 has a size 17-shoe and when he swims, it’s hard to believe that he is in the same category as the others. He is a big fish in a big pond and he makes the others look small. There has never been an athlete more successful than he; to date, he is one of the most decorated Olympians in the world.\n\nWatching him the other night, I try to imagine what it must feel like to be him, to accomplish all your dreams and live beyond the goals you set for yourself all by the time you were 23. I mean, what’s next? What is he ever going to do that is better than winning 13 gold medals and beating several world records?\n\nUnlike Phelps exceeding my personal best at age 23, is not so much of an issue for me. I ran a marathon earlier this year and lets just say I have between a second and two hours to which I could improve on my time and another two hours if I wanted to beat any world records.\n\nI have to admit I am the ultimate underachiever. Well, okay maybe not the ultimate, but I definitely fall into the description of “doesn’t reach full potential.” I procrastinate, while at the same time I try to do too many things at once, never really perfecting any of them. I know I am not alone in my habits and in fact there are a lot of us out there. We have been accused of being scatter brained, scared of success, unwilling to commit, we thrive on distractions, we can get A’s but instead get B’s, we love to read but rarely finish a book and our ideas are exceptional but we lack in follow through.\n\nWe are a therapist’s dream; there are dozens of clichés to explain our untapped potential and even more textbook explanations. We can blame our non-supporting and ever critical parents, our non attentive and lackadaisical teachers, the fact that we did or didn’t grow up with money or that it was too much of a burden being the oldest child, we were too ignored as the middle child or too coddled as the youngest child. Whatever our excuse or deeply rooted issue is, the fact remains, we are underachievers. And the truth is most over-achievers probably have a much more checkered past than we do. Bottom line is, we have no real crutch to lean on.\n\nI have a greeting card that I bought 2 years ago, which I hang on the inside of my front door, forcing me to read it everyday, it reads “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”  It is such a loaded yet simple question. The other day when I read it I thought of all the Olympians, not just the gold medalists, but the ones who nobody knows, the ones who know that deep down inside they might not ever stand on the podium, but they are there for the experience, they are there to push themselves to the limit and they are there to achieve greatness, not just for themselves but for our entire country. They are the best of the best and I have to believe that it’s not just because they are athletically inclined but it’s because they took a risk to be the best, they believe in themselves and they are dedicated to their dream.\n\nI hope I am not always an underachiever, I don’t think I will be. Maybe I am just a real late bloomer, When I was a little girl I had this little knitted framed picture on my wall of a little girl, above the girl’s head the picture read: “Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” I have to say, I am lucky because everyone in my circle seems to be very patient, I suppose they know or rather believe more than I do that although I will never beat any world records, I am destined to go for the gold."}];

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    "happy-birthday-mom-and-jac-2011-6131": "6131",
    "the-bachelor": "6146",
    "believing-in-santa-2010": "6086",
    "extraordinary-saturday-night": "6009",
    "hospital-trip": "6143",
    "investing-in-what-i-already-have": "6054",
    "fathers-day": "6006",
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    "baby-steps-to-the-green-side": "6073",
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    "birthday-column-2010": "6092",
    "curbing-your-wheels": "6034",
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    "bunk-bed-memories": "6097",
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  function postSlug(id) { return ID_TO_SLUG[id] || ('article-' + id); }

  let filtered = [...ALL_POSTS];
  let activeYear = null;
  let searchQuery = '';
  let sortOrder = 'newest';

  // ─── YEAR FILTERS ───
  const years = [...new Set(ALL_POSTS.map(p => p.year))].sort((a,b) => b-a);
  const filtersBar = document.getElementById('filters-bar');

  const allBtn = document.createElement('button');
  allBtn.className = 'year-btn active';
  allBtn.textContent = 'All';
  allBtn.onclick = () => setYear(null, allBtn);
  filtersBar.appendChild(allBtn);

  years.forEach(yr => {
    const btn = document.createElement('button');
    btn.className = 'year-btn';
    btn.textContent = yr;
    btn.onclick = () => setYear(yr, btn);
    filtersBar.appendChild(btn);
  });

  function setYear(yr, btn) {
    activeYear = yr;
    document.querySelectorAll('.year-btn').forEach(b => b.classList.remove('active'));
    btn.classList.add('active');
    render();
  }

  // ─── UTILITIES ───
  function escapeHtml(str) {
    return String(str)
      .replace(/&/g,'&amp;').replace(/</g,'&lt;')
      .replace(/>/g,'&gt;').replace(/"/g,'&quot;');
  }

  function highlight(text, query) {
    if (!query) return escapeHtml(text);
    const safe = escapeHtml(text);
    const safeQ = query.replace(/[.*+?^${}()|[\]\\]/g, '\\$&');
    return safe.replace(new RegExp(safeQ, 'gi'), m => `<mark class="highlight">${m}</mark>`);
  }

  function contentToHtml(text) {
    return text.split(/\n\n+/)
      .map(p => `<p>${escapeHtml(p.trim())}</p>`)
      .filter(p => p !== '<p></p>')
      .join('');
  }

  // ─── LIST RENDER ───
  function render() {
    const q = searchQuery.toLowerCase().trim();
    filtered = ALL_POSTS.filter(p => {
      const yearMatch = !activeYear || p.year === activeYear;
      const textMatch = !q || p.title.toLowerCase().includes(q) || p.excerpt.toLowerCase().includes(q);
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    });

    if (sortOrder === 'oldest') filtered.sort((a,b) => a.date.localeCompare(b.date));
    else if (sortOrder === 'alpha') filtered.sort((a,b) => a.title.localeCompare(b.title));
    else filtered.sort((a,b) => b.date.localeCompare(a.date));

    const grid = document.getElementById('articles-grid');
    const noRes = document.getElementById('no-results');
    document.getElementById('count-num').textContent = filtered.length;

    if (filtered.length === 0) {
      grid.innerHTML = '';
      noRes.style.display = 'block';
      return;
    }
    noRes.style.display = 'none';

    grid.innerHTML = filtered.map((p, i) => `
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        style="animation-delay:${Math.min(i * 0.03, 0.5)}s">
        <div class="card-date">${escapeHtml(p.dateFormatted)}</div>
        <h2 class="card-title">${highlight(p.title, q)}</h2>
        <p class="card-excerpt">${highlight(p.excerpt, q)}&hellip;</p>
        <span class="read-more">Read article →</span>
      </a>
    `).join('');
  }

  // ─── ARTICLE DETAIL ───
  function openArticle(postId) {
    const post = POST_BY_ID[postId];
    if (!post) { showList(); return; }

    // Find index in current filtered list for prev/next nav
    const idx = filtered.findIndex(p => p.id === postId);

    document.getElementById('article-date').textContent = post.dateFormatted;
    document.getElementById('article-title').textContent = post.title;
    document.getElementById('article-body').innerHTML = contentToHtml(post.content);

    // Prev / Next nav (older = higher index, newer = lower index)
    const nav = document.getElementById('article-nav');
    let navHtml = '';
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      const older = filtered[idx + 1];
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        <div class="nav-label">← Older</div>
        <div class="nav-title">${escapeHtml(older.title)}</div>
      </a>`;
    } else {
      navHtml += '<div></div>';
    }
    if (idx > 0) {
      const newer = filtered[idx - 1];
      navHtml += `<a class="nav-article-btn next" href="#${postSlug(newer.id)}">
        <div class="nav-label">Newer →</div>
        <div class="nav-title">${escapeHtml(newer.title)}</div>
      </a>`;
    }
    nav.innerHTML = navHtml;

    document.getElementById('list-view').style.display = 'none';
    document.getElementById('article-view').style.display = 'block';
    window.scrollTo({ top: 0, behavior: 'instant' });
    document.title = post.title + " — Jen's Life";
    // Update URL to slug-based hash (without triggering hashchange)
    const slug = postSlug(post.id);
    if (window.location.hash !== '#' + slug) {
      history.replaceState(null, '', '#' + slug);
    }
  }

  function showList() {
    document.getElementById('article-view').style.display = 'none';
    document.getElementById('list-view').style.display = 'block';
    document.title = "Jen's Life — The Archive";
    window.scrollTo({ top: 0, behavior: 'instant' });
  }

  // ─── HASH ROUTING ───
  function handleHash() {
    const hash = window.location.hash;
    if (hash.length > 1) {
      const slug = hash.slice(1); // remove leading #
      // Support both new slug format and legacy #article-{id} format
      let id = SLUG_TO_ID[slug];
      if (!id && slug.startsWith('article-')) {
        id = slug.replace('article-', '');
      }
      if (id && POST_BY_ID[id]) {
        openArticle(id);
        return;
      }
    }
    showList();
  }

  // Back button uses href="#" which clears the hash → triggers hashchange
  document.getElementById('back-btn').addEventListener('click', e => {
    e.preventDefault();
    history.pushState(null, '', window.location.pathname);
    showList();
  });

  document.getElementById('home-link').addEventListener('click', e => {
    e.preventDefault();
    history.pushState(null, '', window.location.pathname);
    showList();
  });

  // ─── SHARE / COPY LINK ───
  document.getElementById('share-btn').addEventListener('click', () => {
    const url = window.location.href;
    navigator.clipboard.writeText(url).then(() => {
      const btn = document.getElementById('share-btn');
      btn.textContent = '✓ Copied!';
      btn.classList.add('copied');
      setTimeout(() => {
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        btn.classList.remove('copied');
      }, 2000);
    });
  });

  // ─── EVENT LISTENERS ───
  window.addEventListener('hashchange', handleHash);

  document.getElementById('search').addEventListener('input', e => {
    searchQuery = e.target.value;
    render();
  });

  document.getElementById('sort-select').addEventListener('change', e => {
    sortOrder = e.target.value;
    render();
  });

  // ─── INIT ───
  render();
  handleHash(); // handle direct link on page load
  </script>
</body>
</html>