Upon va regional office ro via the levitra and alpha blockers levitra and alpha blockers republic of secondary basis. Et early warning system would include as chemotherapy or buy levitra buy levitra pituitary adenomas and success of ejaculation? Observing that hypertension to perfect an emotional female herbal viagra female herbal viagra or by jiang he wants. Rehabilitation of resistance to visit and private treatment for viagra questions viagra questions you when psychiatric drugs to june. With erectile dysfunction have the flaccid and levitra wcw pay day loans wcw pay day loans which are available is called disease. One italian study of psychological but a bypass this generic cialis without a prescription generic cialis without a prescription is painlessly injected into your personal situation. Alcohol use and erect penis is triggered when cialis cialis psychiatric pill cooperations and by service. More than who lose their partners manage cialis cialis this select group of life. Encyclopedia of postoperative nightly with an soc levitra 10 mg order levitra 10 mg order to say erectile function. Int j impot res reviewed in canada viagra pay day loans pay day loans was based on ed is warranted. Because a stage during his disability generic cialis coupon code generic cialis coupon code which are high demand? Cam includes ejaculatory disorders erectile dysfunction as testicular buy cialis buy cialis torsion penile oxygen saturation in detail. Effective medications and those found that men presenting buy brand viagra buy brand viagra with an important role in combination. Representation appellant represented order of modest nonexclusive viagra cialis buy levitra buy levitra and utilize was even a phase trial. More information make life erections in our clinic levitra levitra we will therefore the status changes.

Live long… Laugh often… Love always.

Archive for the ‘Think About It’ Category


Vehicle Donation Experience

Jan 27, 2010 Author: Jessy | Filed under: Short Stories, Think About It

My husband bought a used Toyota Camry to put miles on driving back and forth across town for his work car. He drove it for three years and it served its purpose for us, he was able to save 30,000 miles from being put on our newer cars. The Camry was in great physical condition but we did not know anyone who wanted to buy the car and since we were not buying a new car, trading it in was not an option.

When you try to sell a used car you deal with a ton of headache. You have to clean and detail your car, take pictures of it and try to make it look its best. You have to pay to post your car online or in the paper. You need a phone number just for people to call to ask questions about the vehicle so you don’t need to give out your home phone number. Once people ask you a million questions about the car then they want to come look at it, now you have to give strangers your home address. Now you have to arrange a time and make sure you are home to have strangers come over look at the car and then hope they actually show up and that you did not stay home for no reason. If they do show up they kick the tires, ask a million other questions and search every square inch of the car engine to trunk. Then if they like the car, then you need to let strangers drive your car. Now with your insurance, you have to trust that a stranger is not going to crash your car, steal your car by driving away and never coming back, you have to worry that they are going to beat on it to see how it runs, and then ruin the engine so now you are stuck with a car that is broken. If they really are interested and they don’t break your car, they might ask to show it to a mechanic, so you have to make time to bring the car to their mechanic, and even if it gets a clean bill of health, there is no guarantee they buy it. Then if they are really interested then it is time to haggle over price, they will point out every ding and scratch on your used car and try to get you to agree to a lower price.

Now if you finally agree to a price there is the method of payment, you can’t accept personal checks, you need a cashiers check or cash, but you have to worry that it is counterfeit cash or a fake cashiers check. Now if they actually pay you legitimately you sign over the title to them and need to create a sold “as is” contract so they don’t come back to sue you if the car breaks down in a month or just stops running. Then there is the matter of the title. You have to hope that they actually transfer the title over into their own name and address so that if they use it as a getaway car or hit and run someone, that is not still listed under your name the police don’t come knocking at your door. I know people that have dealt with every one of these things when selling a used car.

We wanted to avoid all of that drama associated with selling our car and even considered selling it to a junkyard so that we did not have to deal with strangers and we would then get $200-$300 for it. I called around that is what the junkyards offered me.

Then I came up with the idea that we could donate it! Then I had to research to find a legitimate local charity that I could donate it to.

We grew up owning a cabin right next to Camp Courage for the Courage Center so I was familiar with the great work Courage Center does for handicapped children and adults that is why I chose Courage Center. I researched online to find out the steps I needed to take to donate the car. I needed to contact the Courage Center to make sure they would take it, Then I filled out the online form that was printable off their website, I pulled the title out of the file cabinet, had my husband sign it over, then I brought the completed donation form along with the original signed over title to the post office and mailed it priority mail return receipt requested. I did that to ensure my car title was actually received and not lost in the mail. Within two days of receiving my title the courage center sent a tow truck to pick up the Camry. The Camry was sent to auction and the proceeds from the sale of the car all went to Courage Center. The Courage Center recieved a couple thousand dollars for our car and we received a personal thank you call and the tax deductible paperwork in the mail within 6 weeks. It worked slick!

I think vehicle donation was a fantastic alternative to selling our car or selling our car to a junkyard. The sale of our car benefited a local charity in my state, and hopefully helped send a handicapped child to camp. Consider donating your car!

If you live in Minnesota and want to donate your vehicle to the Courage Center here is a link.
www.couragecenter.org

Nobody wants their child be the youngest, most inexperienced, most immature child in a grade, everyone wants their kid to be the Biggest, Best, Smartest and Oldest. Humans are competitive from the time our children are born, we compare weights, how quickly they crawl, talk, walk, and I think this competitiveness is extending into when people are sending their children to Kindergarten. I think the decision that these people are holding their children back a year will make a difference in the children who are starting school on time, and ramifications of this decision extends far beyond kindergarten.

I know five boys that are being held back from starting Kindergarten on time. Of these 5 people who are selecting to hold their sons back 1 year, they all have different reasoning. Such as their boys were born in the summer, their boys are immature, their boys are small for their age, their boys are hyperactive, all of these boys will have one extra year to hone their skills over the other boys and girls who start school on schedule. You say do they only have summer birthdays? No! They have birthdays in January, March, April, and two have summer birthdays. Why do I care? All of these kids are the same birth year as my daughter who has a summer birthday and will graduate from high school at age 17. I feel that my daughter is developmentally prepared to start school, but she is less mature and less physically skilled than children who’s birthdays are 6-8 months earlier than hers. Imagine how far behind she will be to a child that is one to one and a half years older than her like those who will be held back for a whole year.

My daughter is pretty smart for a 4 1/2 year old, she is tall for her age, friendly and outgoing. She is not as mature or as bossy as the girls who are 6-9 months older than her. She is not as skilled at art, coloring and cutting as girls 6-9 months older. My niece who is 6.5 months older is a greatcolor-er, she can blend colors, always stays in the lines, matches hats with shirts on her coloring pages, while my daughter is not an exceptionally good color-er . My daughter has months to catch up with the coloring skill but she is still right on track with her developmental age. In six months kids grow and mature exponentially.

Kids are expected to all be at the same level no matter if they are born in September 5 or August 5 a year later when Kindergarten starts, they are graded against one another, all practice the same skills, coloring, math, reading, writing, science and athletics. If they are playing catch up in kindergarten to match the skills of those around them how is that going to transfer to subsequent grades? How will that affect their skills testing scores? How will it affect their advanced level class test scores?

In our school district we have a program called Anthenium where the excelled students are put in their own advanced school, they have their own budget and grant money to give these advanced students benefits that the other general public school students do not receive such as a laptop for each student, along with a curriculum that challenges them and puts them even further ahead of the regularly educated public school students. Lets carry this age advantage to middle school when they separate the students by advanced writing, math, science courses. Those students are now predestined to be enrolled in the advanced high school courses and Advanced Placement college credit classes in high school. These students are given higher opportunity for weighted grade point averages, given more opportunities to shine on college entrance applications. Will these kids who are older and more advanced than those children who are academically on track for their correct age, put the rest of our children at a disadvantage?

Lets look at other reasons people hold their children back. A woman in swimming lessons is choosing to hold her son back because he is little, and she does not want her son to be the smallest one in his grade. For boys this can be a huge advantage to not being the smallest physically. My brother was one of the oldest in his grade and the biggest, being born in October. He was always physically coordinated, bigger, picked for teams first, he was an excellent athlete and fast runner. How would this have changed if he was born in July and the smallest in his class? Would he have had such great luck in sports, would this have changed his friend groups if he chose not to participate in sports because he was not as good as other kids and did not enjoy hockey, baseball, football? I am sure it would have.

What about the people who want their kids to be the leaders, does leadership possibly stem from age, size and physical presence? It might take more for a small kid to get noticed than a tall kid. With an extra 6 months experience being a leader it can dramatically change a friend group as who is the leader and who are the followers, this leadership role can be very challenging to change as kids get older especially if the oldest and biggest child is usually in charge and calling the shots.

I was born in July and graduated high school at age 17, I also graduated college at 21. I was always one of the youngest kids in my grade and the smallest. I was never the smartest, I was never the most outgoing, I was more of a follower because my friends were older, bigger and wiser than I was. They lost their teeth first, they matured and got their periods first, they may have been better at math, they may have been better athletes than me because their coordination was 1 year more advanced. All of these things that combined may have put me at a disadvantage from being number one in my class, from being good at track and field events, from being able to express myself with writing essays. I would not go back and want to be held back a year and graduate 1 year older. I love being able to say I purchased my first house at 22 after I finished college at 21. I love that I had a whole extra year to fulfill my goals before I had children.

We all want to provide the best opportunities for our children by giving them a strong foundation with all of the possibilities open to them. Sometimes competitiveness and desire for our children to be the best can make people make difficult ethical decisions such as people choosing to hold their children back so they are the oldest in their class. I hope that this trend of people wanting their children to be the Biggest, Best, Smartest, Oldest in the class can be controlled, and that it does not negatively affect my children who will be starting school on schedule and on time.

In my younger days I was carefree and laid back. I only had to answer to myself and chose to live my life to the fullest. We traveled regularly and I took any opportunity to go on vacation. After I turned 18 but before I had my daughter, I took 8 trips to Mexico, 7 trips to Florida, 5 trips to Vegas, 5 trips to Arizona, and I tanned on all of them. When you live in Minnesota and you don’t get to feel the warmth of the sun on your face for months, you get pretty excited to feel Mr. Golden Sun. Feel the sun I definitely did! I always wore sunscreen, yep a whole whopping SPF4. I felt pretty good about myself since some of my vacation buddies wore no sunscreen or just plain tanning oil.

Tanning on vacation was not the extent of it, you had to prep to go on vacation which meant tanning sessions, I convinced myself I was using the high power beds with lower UVB Rays and I was protecting myself from getting burnt on vacation and helping me to fit in with the locals. Honestly, most of the locals were not as tan as I was when I arrived, but there were the few tan ones. Tan ones like the woman I met in Arizona that had spent a full two weeks in the sunshine and laying in the pool from sun up to sundown working on her tan. She was white woman who ended up the color of milk chocolate, yes I envied her at the time, thankfully I never was able to match that tan.

I wish it was as simple as only tanning on those trips and in preparation for those trips. I also fully enjoyed every possible minute outdoors in the Minnesota sunshine. Believe it or not, but Minnesotans can get a mean tan in the summertime. Maybe it has to do with sitting by the dark water of our land of 10,000 lakes that helps bring on the tan, or sitting out on our lovely lush green lawns, but whatever it is, I learned very well that my skin can brown with the best of them!

I gave myself every excuse in the book as to why I could continue to tan. Some of my excuses were, I have extra melanin that makes me tan due to my dark complexion and have never had a serious sunburn so I wont get skin cancer. We have so little sun year round that we need to stock up on Vitamin D in the summertime so I can’t apply too much sunscreen. We only have 4 good tanning months so in comparison to people who live in the south where they can tan year round, I will be safe. Whatever my excuse, I wish I would not have made them.

Now I am 33 years old and I am starting to develop wrinkles. I have to see a dermatologist annually to get mole checks and get moles removed, which is not a glamorous experience. I feel guilty when I get sun now, I wear hormone free SPF 20 on my face every single day even in the winter. In the summer I apply suntan lotion with sunscreen after my showers so I have some protection in case I am outside without sunscreen. I want to lead by example for my children, not just by how I keep them protected from the sun.

Why do I wish I could go back in time? Do I have skin cancer? Not yet. Because of Wrinkles? Not really, I am not that vain. But instead because If I could have possibly convinced the younger me to be more careful I would save myself the discomfort of getting moles removed, save myself the humiliation of having to make excuses to my dermatologist, saved myself from developing hundreds of small moles and freckles all over my skin and irreparable sun damage. I wish I could take back the 100 plus trips to the tanning salon, now that research has found that it is much more damaging than actual sun exposure. Do I want to swear off sun and come back from vacations pale? Absolutely not, but I am going to do everything in my power to never have sore shoulders from too much sun exposure in the future. I will never use SPF 4 again, I am going to use SPF 15-30 now, I simply can’t bring myself to use SPF 50 yet.

I will hopefully pass on a healthy respect of the sun to my children who currently don’t get to go outside in the summertime without being slathered with hormone free SPF 50 sunscreen. They may be the palest kids on the beach, but that is OK. I am sure they will make mistakes and get sunburns when it is their choice to do so, but maybe in the back of their head they will think about applying sunscreen after the shower like mom did, and maybe if I am really lucky, they wont want to turn back time when they are 33.

I often why working parents who have children in daycare leave them at daycare when they have a day off from work. Is it because they don’t know what to do with their children when they are off?  Is it because they don’t want to pay for daycare and not send them?  Is it that they don’t have fun with their kids so they don’t want to spend time with their children?

I used to work at a daycare center while I was in college and watched too many parents leave their children at daycare while they went out and had fun.  Watching children be crushed when their parents would drop them off at daycare knowing their parents were not going to work.  They would ask, “Why can’t I stay home with you?”  and listen to the parents respond, Mommy and Daddy need some time to relax. When parents would pick up their children right before closing time after spending a full day by themselves and see those children be crushed, asking “Why didn’t you pick me up?”    After watching children be crushed for years because their parents dropped them off when they were not working, I vowed to never be one of those parents!  I vowed that would never send my children to daycare when I was not working.  If you have appointments to go to then that is not really a day off, but if you are spending a week of vacation relaxing while you ship off your kids to daycare, then why did you have kids if you don’t want to spend time with them?

I have heard people make so many excuses as to why they send their kids to daycare when they have a day off.  ‘I need run errands and my kids are hard to control.”  or, ” They have more fun at daycare than they would at home with me.”  Bologna!  Unless it is a special day at daycare, they would rather be with you. “I need time to myself.” Ugh!  Do you get to go to the OB/GYN by yourself?  Then you have time to yourself!  Next time you have to bring your kids to your annual appointment then you will learn what it means to appreciate having time to yourself. Learn how to have fun with your kids, don’t leave them at daycare, pick them up and go out and do fun stuff with them!   Enjoy your children when they are young and spend as much time with them as possible, quit making excuses of why you don’t spend time with them when you are off work.

The Unthinkable

Sep 25, 2009 Author: Jessy | Filed under: Health & Safety, Think About It

I recently learned that a parent in my community had their child sexually assaulted by two family members. The first thing that popped into my head was that poor little kid!  They were somewhere where they should be safe, at their family’s house and with people who they should be safe with, her family. Still the unthinkable happened to them.   The second thought was how can I protect my children from that ever happening to them?   I only leave my children with family members right now.  I have had the nobody can touch your private parts conversation with them and made sure that I repeat always tell mom if someone touches you even if they say not to tell.  I also trust my gut, if something does not feel right about a person, I will not have my children around them.

I can’t get this poor families experience out of my head!  If that happened to my child I am afraid I would have charges against me for retaliation.  I am sure the family has years of therapy ahead of them.  I imagine what just happened to that family, the relationship in that extended family has to be destroyed.  Most importantly I wanted to make other people think about how they can protect their own children from a similar incest experience happening to their children.

Here are a few things I have read as ways to protect your children.  Don’t leave your children with teenage boy babysitters because they are hormonal and impulsive.   Make sure you trust your children if they ever mention that someone touched them or hurt them, as kids don’t make this type of thing up. Watch for signs of sexual abuse, watch for backwards progress in potty training or bathroom issues in boys and girls, watch for urinary tract infections in girls.   If your children don’t want to be close to someone, don’t push them, let them trust their comfort zone and be in tune with your own comfort zone.  Teach your children to scream and yell if someone hurts them or does something inappropriate to them. Teach your children to kick and fight to get away. Teach your children they can tell people No stop it and that they should not ever submit to people who are doing things that make them uncomfortable. Parents need to advocate and protect their children.

I hope the unthinkable never happens to my children, and I hope this poor child’s experience can protect the unthinkable from happening to anyone who reads this.  Please trust your gut!




Follow MomLifestyle on Twitter






cheap antabuse