7. When my friends with babies come to visit they complain my house is no longer child-proof.

6. My daughter told me someone “wasn’t her type” today… (when did she become old enough to care, let alone have “a type”?)

5. The teenage exchange student staying at my house really looks like a kid! (When did teenagers become so young looking, by the way?)

4. The Legos my kids are playing with were mine when I was a kid… and they are now 30 years old.

3. The party I had last weekend started at 3pm… and ended by 9.

2. The only guys who give me a look-see in public all have gray hair (or no hair!).

1. The only public places I frequent to even give guys the chance to give me the once-over are the grocery store, gas station, and Home Depot.

As I returned to full-time this year, my paper-based system has become quite tedious. At the end of the month, I must pull out my calculator and add up all the hourly notations under each day. I just finished my invoices for May and was frustrated at how long this process took, so I decided to revisit my method. Enter FreshBooks.

I’ve reviewed both FreshBooks and BlinkSale in the past, when recommending similar tools to readers of my books. I was impressed with their features over a year ago, but FreshBooks in particular has grown quite a lot since my last review. I love that they offer the ability to send snailmail copies of invoices for you (at minimal cost). This is not offered by BlinkSale.

Another reason I selected FreshBooks is its integration with a Mac OSX Time Tracking Widget, making it super easy to track client time on the fly (without having to visit the FreshBooks web site).

So this morning I created a FreshBooks account (free for the first 30 days) and am going to test it out. I’ll be able to send my first invoices at the end of June and am looking forward to testing the time tracking tools in the meantime. I’ll let you know what I think next month. In the meantime, check out FreshBooks for yourself.

Don’t get me wrong - there are *some* good shows being produced today. I do allow my girls to watch American Idol (once they are through with the auditions) because I think it is a good “slice of real life” in that there are people who win and people who don’t win. And thankfully, everyone (so far) has accepted their fate quite graciously on AI. They also love The Magic School Bus (which is a great educational show on PBS). And then there’s… um…

The rest of the shows that my girls’ friends watch tend to focus on dating relationships. My oldest is almost 9 and I asked her, “are you ready to start dating?” Thankfully she replied, “no way mom!” Well, that settled it. She doesn’t need to watch shows about “how to snag a guy” or “how to get him to kiss you” or anything similar.

Movies are the same… we don’t need to see a movie just because everyone else is (gosh, when did I start to sound like my parents?!). I took a lot of flak from other parents because I didn’t allow my girls to watch the Shrek movies. I read reviews of popular movies before going to the theater, and the reviews of the Shrek movies discussed how much “potty talk” was used. I have enough trouble getting my kids to use nice words, why add more potty talk to their vocabulary? The way I see it, movies and TV are basically fluff… they are not necessities required for my kids to grow up happy and healthy.

But if a good one comes along, we’ll be there! Our favorite series thus far has been the National Treasure series. It’s the first big screen movie series our whole family can enjoy. [You might say, “wait - there’s lots of violence in those movies” and you’d be right. But the type of violence shown in these movies is more akin to what I watched as a kid in Bugs Bunny, and is therefor not a problem for us.]

Anyway, back to the title of this post… I heard about a father whose kids wanted to watch a popular movie that was rated PG-13. The kids made a list of all the pros (everyone’s seeing it, top-notch actors, award-winning, etc.) and the cons (only 3 swear words, minimal violence, sex is off-camera, etc.). To illustrate his point, the father made a batch of special brownies and told the kids they could see the movie if they could eat the brownies without being affected by the cons. You see the brownies were made with top-notch ingredients and an award-winning recipe, but there was just 3 tbsp. of dog poop added. He mixed it really well and baked it at 350 degrees, so hopefully you won’t notice that little bit of crap… This illustration may be a little far fetched for some folks. But why expose my kids to crap if I don’t have to? Thanks to TIVO and about a zillion TV stations, I can tailor my kids’ media intake to be exactly what they need (without any added crap).

Ice Cream Man achieves his mission through sponsorships by companies like Blue Bunny (who makes ice cream of course). And he says he pays for gas on his debit/credit card but doesn’t really pay too much attention to how much it adds up to (which is probably a good thing if he doesn’t want to get too depressed).

My biggest question for Matt was why? To which he answers… “Here are a few reasons: 1. Free ice cream makes people happy, 2. Because I know there’s a way I can give away hundreds of thousands of free ice creams, 3. It’s the best job in the world (I think), and 4. Hopefully, it’ll inspire and motivate people to get out and do stuff, like fulfilling their dreams.”

Hmmm… guess that about sums it up. Oh except for one more thing.
Matt, could you head over to my neighborhood next?

Losing your child is any parents’ worst nightmare, but losing your child at the hand of a sibling is torture. That poor boy has to live with this for the rest of his life. The worst thing would be for parents to blame the sibling, because at that point they would be losing two children instead of one.

But I don’t believe Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman will do that. I believe God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and perhaps He has brought them to this moment “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

If you haven’t heard it before, Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song about little Maria a few months back. It’s called Cinderella. It was inspired by a bath time that Steven tried to “hurry,” but Maria and her sister Stevey Joy weren’t exactly cooperating. Listen to the song and be inspired by the lyrics of this special song. (Have some tissues handy if you have kids!)

Someone wrote the following on Steven’s blog, and I think it sums up the story perfectly:

The stroke of midnight came too soon.
The grand ball came to an expected and unexplainable close for your Cinderella. And like the story-book Cinderella, the magic came to an end, but in a different way.
Your Cinderella exchanged her beautiful gown, not for common clothes, but for a spotless, white robe.
Her glass slippers for a street paved with gold.
Her tuxedoed attendants for a host of saints and a chorus of angels.
Her distant prince for the ever-present Prince of Peace.
Her bejeweled chariot for a heavenly mansion prepared since the foundation of the world.
And she exchanged her gleaming white horses for the reality that she never needs to rush off again – she is now home.
Really, the grand ball came to a close for those left behind. But for Cinderella it is just beginning.

You can create as many online cookbooks as you want, and even have them printed and bound to store in your kitchen (offline). I love that you can add recipes from several online recipe sites (although I’d like to see them create relationships with even more recipe sites to make the whole process even better). You can even upload photos to further enhance your personal recipes. It’s a great replacement for my (offline) notebook of collected recipes (especially since many of those sheets are faded, torn, and stained).

Check it out when you get a chance. If fact, I’ll even share a favorite family recipe for Monkey Bread (or Monkey Ball Cake as the kids usually call it). Enjoy!

‘Cause sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand
What you’ve been up there searching for
forever is in your hands
When you figure out love is all that matters after all
It sure makes everything else
seem so small

- Carrie Underwood, “So Small”

This game is like Pictionary - you draw until someone guesses what you’re trying to draw. It’s totally addicting, so watch out. (Come on… just one more game.) It’s even more addicting when you’re actually winning! The best part of this web site is that they actually list the total number of hours that have been wasted playing Draw My Thing since it was created (which was pretty recently). Nothing like seeing how many hours you’ve wasted on a web site to keep you coming back!

I don’t have a ton of time to waste these days… but for those moments when my brain is fried from work and the kids aren’t around… Draw My Thing is perfect. Check it out and maybe I’ll see you there sometime.

Remember the election in 2006?
At the time of that election:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses)
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it! Remember it’s Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what’s handed to him by Congress.

Quote of the Day…”My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.” — Barack Obama

Taxes… Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
Verify: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Under Clinton 1999
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750

Taxes Under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates. It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.