I’m at Myrtle Beach with tow of my best friends.During the day, we went to the pool, went to the beach, and generally tried to wear the kids out so we could have grownup time after they went to bed. So, what is the first thing we do when the kids go to bed? Pull out our laptops and set to playing online.

In our defense, it is raining and someone has to stay with the kids, so it’s not like we can really go out. It’s funny, in my college days I would have immediately pulled out a bottle of something to drink and I would have wanted to talk and talk and talk. But I’ve learned a lot in my adult life. I’ve learned that sometimes you don’t have to talk, it’s enough just to be with your friends. I’ve learned that everything I have and everything I am I owe to my family and friends. I’ve learned that sometimes you just have to get away, even if you don’t get away from it all. Have laptop, will travel.

Have a beautiful rest of your week, Love Shak-ers.

My little man is about to start kindergarten. I couldn’t be more excited about this. Not only does this free up a large chunk of time for me during the day where I won’t have to deal with a bunch of kids all over the place, but it also means he’s growing up. Growing older. He’ll be seeing new things, without me and my input.

Some mamas are sad when their baby goes to kindergarten. I choose to instead be sad when he graduates from high school, because right now although his world is about to expand, it’ll still include me a lot. He’ll come home from kindergarten and tell me about his day, and he might call his teacher “mama” by accident and he might call me by his teacher’s name by accident. And we’ll all laugh about it, and it’ll be good fun.

I wonder if he’ll behave himself in school or if he’ll be a problem child. I wonder if he’ll like school. So far I have one kid that loves school and one kid that hates school. Maybe he’ll be agnostic on the issue like I was.

A whole new world is opening up for him. I wonder if he knows what he’s in for.

We got an email from the fine folks at a really awesome website called Swaptree.com. Here’s what they had to say about it:

Swaptree.com is a site where you can trade your video games, books, DVDs and CDs, with other users, for free.   The service is completely free, and you only pay for shipping.  Swaptree even simplifies the mailing process, by providing you with a perfect postage label that can be printed right from your computer, so you never have to go to the post office.

Parents in particular find Swaptree interesting.  What parent hasn’t been frustrated when they buy a $55 dollar video game for their child, only for them to get bored of it 2 weeks later and want another, or when they spend $200 on Baby Einstein DVDs, only to have their child quickly move onto the Dora stage.   With the recession squeezing everyone a little tighter, we could all use a little more free in our life.

Now to the contest.  Starting July 20th we are giving away 10 iPhones and 10 Wiis, in 10 days.  Qualifying is free and as easy as sending out a tweet or joining our Facebook fan page.  Full details are here:

http://www.swaptree.com/giveaway

Hurry and get your entries in now!

Little_e_ on Livejournal made this amazing train table out of leftover cardboard. What a great way to repurpose something that would normally go into the recycling bin! Way to go!

Here’s the link to the post on Craftgrrl with many amazing pictures!

My daughter’s nuts about Mylie Cyrus and I have to admit, I like her music too.

Lightning: phatman on Flickr

I love driving on a rainy, thunder-lit night. The first part of my drive was amazing. Beautiful lightning, thunder and one of my favorite CDs the soundtrack to my drive. I loved every second of it, that’s why I volunteered when my husband let me know that my oldest son needed to be picked up from band.

Then came the slightly less fun up. My son got in the car and started talking. No, I love to hear my son talk, but lately the only- and I mean ONLY thing he talks about is cars. Now, I like cars, but it being the only topic of conversation makes me bored really fast. I think between cars and girls, I’ve lost him for awhile. He’ll be back, he’s my son. But for now he’s lost in the world of cars and girls and more cars. I’ll let him stay there for awhile, I think.

I don’t know about your local school systems, but the ones in my area are a fairly big mess. I am lucky to live outside Davidson County, where the biggest mess is, but ours aren’t in the best of shape either.

That’s why it’s so great to see one educator that’s really on the ball. Working with tireless energy, he’s causing change within his own school. Many of my family members are educators, and I know they would love to have a principal like this at the helm. There are so many teachers and principals that care so much, but are tired because the system itself is broken. They should look to this man as a good example of what they should be doing.

This is the cutest thing I’ve seen all day:

From the “they seriously said THAT?!” files- a private swim club kicked campers out from their club because, and I quote, “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.” I can tell you right now, being black isn’t “catching.” America can elect a black president, but we certainly can’t swim together?

I actually had to check the date on this article to make sure that it didn’t come from some really old archived article. It didn’t. Change is coming to America, and we’re getting better as a whole, but will *some things* never change? That kind of prejudice directed at children really burns me.

My family and I had a great July 4th weekend. But something strange happened that I cannot fully explain since I have no proof, just a weird feeling. We spent some time with someone my husband knows only vaguely. The guy was really nice, was good to the kids, everything.

Yet, there was something strange about the guy that I couldn’t put my finger on. He acted in a generally appropriate manner, but I was weirded out by the whole thing. I was a little put off by him insisting my 8 year old daughter be allowed to light a firework, but again, it wasn’t way out there or anything. I just decided never to let the dude be alone with my kids, is all.

But then my husband said he felt the same thing. One of the things the dude said to him made him feel really awkward- the guy said “You daughter is really cute, I don’t mean anything by that, but she is really, really cute.” It wasn’t exactly WHAT he said, but how he said it. I don’t know. The fact that my husband and I BOTH were weirded out by it, means I don’t think we’ll be hanging out with dude anymore.

Have you ever been in a situation like this? How did you handle it?