I wish I knew a better way to keep kids excited about activities they are involved in. My daughter is losing interest in her taekwondo classes and it is getting hard to get her to pay attention when we are there. It is only twice a week for half an hour each class and she is starting to tell me she doesn’t want to go.

We are taking the rest of the summer off for swim lessons and a family vacation before we start back up in the fall. I just hope she wants to go back when it is time; the class has done wonders with her Cerebral palsy. In the town we live in there are limited options on activities and most of them are sports related. I do eventually want her in sports if she wants but I don’t think she is ready yet.

I am also trying to find ways to keep her attention with her learning at home. I have a tutor for her but I also work with her on math and reading. She only will work for 10 – 15 minutes before she doesn’t want to do it anymore, I try to make it fun but she just wants to play. I have figured out that I can get her to do work two or three times a day but I would like to find the secret to kids attention.

Summer is here and gas prices are going up again, why am I surprised. This means that this summer we will be taking less long trips. I don’t know why they keep fluctuating so much, it always happens at the perfect time to.

I know that they raise prices during travel season to make more money off tourism travel. It just seems like the past few years it has been drastic changes and when it comes back down it isn’t back down to what it was before the hike. I do see that people are not traveling as much and when they do it isn’t as far. We will only take one trip this summer and it is only about a two hour trip from our home.

People just can’t afford to travel in these hard economic times and the big oil is only making it worse. I am not one of the people that is all gung ho about getting away from gasoline cars but the more greedy these companies get the more green I turn. These companies are just being greedy and in turn putting themselves out of business. Now everyone hates buying gas and are looking for other means of transportation.

My wife works for the state of Michigan and they have told all state employees that they need to take off certain days this summer without pay. Next year they plan on doing it again but only twice as many days. That means this year there will be two weeks unpaid and four weeks next year.

This is a lot of money when you only have one income and five kids to support. This is one of the sacrifices we are going to have to deal with in order to get the economy back on track in our state and federal level. We think this sucks but it has to be done, at least my wife still has a good job and we can put food on the table.

The union my wife belongs to is the U.A.W., the same union as the automakers, which has not been looking to good lately. When they decided to issue furlough days to all state employees, One of the first things the union tried to do was find a way to manipulate this to their advantage and get something out of it. This is the mentality that got our country in trouble in the first place, everyone is looking for a way to take advantage of a situation. When are the companies and big business going to realize that we need to buckle down and take our lumps to get this country back on track?

I don’t know if we are going to take the babies to many more parties until they get older and don’t need to be watched so closely. We try to take our kids to all the birthday parties and graduation parties we get invited to. The babies are at a stage where they love to run all over in different directions until we go crazy and have to leave.

The parties we go to are no longer any fun because we spend the whole time chasing kids and stopping them from breaking things. We come home exhausted and wishing we never went in the first place. I think having all those kids running around also stresses out other people at the parties as well, it’s not something that most people are used to.

Not to mention the prep to leave and the putting stuff away when we get home is work too. We will still take them to the Zoo and other places but the whole running loose is killing us. Having quadruplets is very tiring and two parents are not enough for these kids.

My wife is always bringing home stuff from garage sales that we don’t need, so I was very happy to see her walk in with a trampoline. She put it down in our already crowded living room and all the kids ran to see what it is.

The babies thought it was a cool place to sit and when you get bored, fun to push each other off of. My oldest daughter knew what to do with it and began jumping as soon as she could get the babies off from it. She spent the next 45 minutes laughing and falling and then crying. She still likes it and uses it quite frequently.

It turns out that trampolines are great therapy for cerebral palsy and help with muscle development and balance. The time my daughter spends on this is actually really good for her and actually something that might get used. I decided that this was a good purchase and worth the money. I might give my wife a little slack the next time she comes home with someone else’s reject decorations to plaster all over our house.

Ladies, you know how it is. As gals, our weight seems to fluctuate by 5 pounds throughout the month. Some of it is not entirely in our control and is due to hormonal factors (where we are in our cycle). But if your pants are fitting just a bit tight and you need to drop 5 pounds, I’ve found that there are ways you can do that almost effortlessly.

This is what works for me.

Trick Your Brain

It’s been said that all diets do is trick your brain into accepting less food. Your brain has a lot to do with your stomach, like it or not. Studies have shown that we really have no clue how much food we eat. Did you know one lab actually set up diners with a “bottomless” soup bowl (it was rigged underneath to constantly refill as the person ate), and they consumed nearly double the calories as the other diners, without feeling any more full? They simply couldn’t be convinced that they had eaten more calories until they looked under the table to see the way the equipment was rigged!

What’s the point? Sometimes we have to use little tricks to our advantage so we consume less food without feeling deprived.

For instance:

Use a smaller plate. Ever noticed how vintage plates are much smaller than modern ones that practically resemble turkey platters? Ever noticed how we’re all getting bigger? Researchers say there is a connection between the size of the plate and the amount of food you dole out onto it. Makes sense.

Another trick pertains to eating out: When you get your order, immediately cut your food in half and put it in a to-go box. You will most likely only eat the food on your plate and take the rest home to eat later instead of gobbling it all down at once.

Never eat from a “bottomless” pit. In other words, don’t eat tortilla chips directly from the bag. Set a portion out, put the bag away, and eat those. You’ll be more aware of how much you’ve consumed.

Drink a glass of water before you sit down to eat. It will help you feel sated, sooner.

Another trick that works to dull your appetite? Drink a tablespoon of oil before you eat a meal. I know it sounds gross, but it really works. You can use olive oil if you like (in fact an entire diet was built around this trick, called the Shangri-La diet), but I prefer coconut oil because it tastes better and has many health benefits. The fat tells your brain that you’re full.

Go to bed earlier. There are two reasons this works: One is because you won’t be up snacking at night if you hit the sack early. Another is because when you’re well rested, you’re less likely to engage in stressed out, sleep deprivation induced carboholism. Try going to bed when your kids do, or shortly afterwards, for a few nights a week.

If you do these things over the next few days, you’ll likely drop a couple of pounds at least. Works for me!

In search for a “skinny” eyeliner pencil, I came across Maybelline’s “Line Stylist”…it is available in the following colors:

Black
Brown
Blue
Green

The best thing about this eyeliner is that the black and the brown liners can double as eyebrow fillers, which is great.  I am a big fan of products that have two purposes in one unit.

The Line Stylist claims to wash off easily, which always is a cause of concern for me, because I don’t want something so sensitive to moisture that it streaks, runs, or otherwise prematurely leaves my face

The small, plastic, very narrow container that the Line Stylist is held in has its own set of pros and cons – it is compact and can fit anywhere – because of that – it is easy to misplace!

Ok, final moment – the best thing about this Line Stylist is that you can do the ever-popular and attractive “flick” (pictured) eyeliner that everyone is wearing right now.  This petite eyeliner is perfect for that “extra something” around the eye area.

I can’t believe that there are people out here that think they are actually vampires. There are crazy people out there that drink blood and think they need it to survive. I used to work with a guy that thought he was a vampire; he would drink animal blood and eat raw meat. He even had his canine teeth filed down to look like vampire teeth.

I thought he was just a freak and he was an isolated case, but of course he wasn’t alone in his delusion. I looked it up on the internet after watching a show on it and there are a lot of people out there that think they are vampires. They hang out and drink animal blood or human blood if they can find it.

What might even be worse is that there are people that actually support this and encourage the lifestyle. Mark Ecko has just introduced a new cologne for vampires to attract humans, I wish it were a joke but it’s not. The ad is very specific that it should only be purchased by vampires trying to get humans. There are whole lines of vampire products out there for sale. It’s bad enough that there are sick people out on the streets but there are also people saying that they actually believe them. Please  stop encouraging them, your making us humans look bad.

My wife just made a scrapbook for our friends and their son for his one year birthday. It was full of pictures and memories from the first year of their son’s birthday. I thought she did a great job and I was impressed by how professional it looked and all the little things you can buy to make it look so.

She seemed to enjoy making it and really was good at it. She has a pretty good accumulation of supplies and all the little stuff that goes with it like special scissors, and “zots”, and that kind of stuff. I started looking at scrapbooking supplies to buy her so she could do something she enjoyed. The supplies are really expensive and you need a lot of them. Some of the little decals cost over a dollar a piece and you use quite a few on every book. I think a quality book would cost between $40 and $80 a piece.

I noticed that a lot of people I know that did scrapbooking no longer are involved as much as they were even a few years ago. I would like to know that my wife would really enjoy this as a hobby before we sink a lot of money into it. I have no problem with the money if it is something she enjoys but I would love a cheaper way to try it out before we dive in head first.

One thing I’ve noticed with the 14% unemployment rate in our state is that just plain EVERYONE is having some kind of special, closeout sale, clearance, or lowering prices in general.  While the declining, nay, plummeting economy/sales is bad news for them – it’s great news for anyone that has spare cash laying around.  In a nutshell, now is the time to clean up sale wise.

Probably the best deal I’ve seen around is my local tanning salon.  The price of 150 minutes of tanning was once as high as $100, then about 6 months ago it was $85.  Three months ago they lowered it to $35.  What is it now? Just $25, time to sign up and get toasty!

They are also having mega sales on their accelerators, eyeware, after-sun lotion, etc. to the tune of 20-60% off their normal prices.  You just can’t beat that.  The savings don’t end at the tanning salon – there is a beauty salon attached to it and all of their “services” are being advertised for half off.

Thinking this trend was exclusive to my small town, I turned on the news today and saw that 5 star hotels are being rented out for 2 star hotel prices – and no – not via online booking specialists, but just by calling them up yourselves.  Faxes are being received daily at my workplace advertising week long cruises for just $250 per person.  So yes, apparently the savings are everywhere.

Unfortunately, most people are broke right now and can’t partake of these wonderful savings.  I saw an entire display of fruit go bad in the local supermarket this week as the price kept dropping and the fruit just sat there with nobody purchasing it.  Now fruit is a “luxury” – what’s next?