Punishment

I was so sad to read yesterday that a 9 year old girl ended up dead after a punishment doled out by her mother and grandmother.  Apparently they made her run for 3 hours without stopping because she lied to her grandmother about eating a candy bar. You can see the story here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/22/stepmom-grandmother-charged-in-girls-running-death/

This makes me sad and scared at the same time.  Obviously this punishment was way out of control and over the top.  But, when you think about it, any punishment has the potential to get out of hand.  It's actually in the news a lot, punishments that get out of hand and the child ends up seriously hurt or dead.  When you are spanking your child, what if you put in one too many hits?  What if you make your child pull weeds, (I had to do this many times at my grandmother's) and they end up dehydrated?  What if the coach makes your child run at football practice and you didn't know they had a heart condition that couldn't handle it?  Everyday, we as parents have to come up with ways to punish are children in ways that are severe enough to fit the crime and yet easy enough because they are, after all, just children.  It can be a very fine line.

Either way, every time I read an article like this, it makes me want to hug my son even harder and thank God he is in my life and hope I never lose him especially because of something avoidable like this.

Aromatic Escape

Many of you have been asking about Aromatic Escape and why I closed the business.  I actually had many reasons.  During our various conversations, I may have shared one or two of them with you.  But, I'll go ahead and share them all now, here.

1. I have told many of you that it is because I am tired of working all the time.  This is very true.  It seemed like all of my free time was being spent working.  Even though I cut my hours at work back from 9 hours to 6 hours, I was still working all the time.  I have my job that is now 6 hours a day so that I could get home in time to pick up Aaron from school. (Loving this!) I have my morning real estate assistant job, that I have to get up about an hour earlier than I normally would, it only takes about half an hour, but it can vary, so I make sure I have the time to get it done.  Then, I would have the afternoon and evening for Aromatic Escape.  Aromatic Escape was obviously not a thriving business or I would be able to quit everything else and just do it.  But, I was busy enough that I was busy.  But, not busy enough to make it worth the effort I was putting into it.  If I was always working, what was the point in getting off "work" early so that I could spend time with Aaron, if I was spending it working?

2. I had decided in the middle of 2011 to go in another direction with Aromatic Escape.  I was going to delve into home parties.  This had worked well in the distant past.  I had 3 friends that were eager to be my first consultants.  I had the pictures taken for the catalog (Thank you to my wonderful family for being patient and agreeing to go through that process with me).  I had designed all the order forms, flyers and the catalogs and was ready to go.  All of it took me a good 6 months to prepare.  Then, I sat down and started adding up all the printing fees, the license renewal fees, the website renewal fees, the website design fees (I would need to have a more professional site).  It was going to cost me a couple thousand dollars just to get this new direction started.  Aromatic Escape did not have the money itself to pay for those fees.  So, that meant I would have to foot the bill.  I can think of so many other things that my family can do with a couple thousand than put it into Aromatic Escape, right now.  Not that we have a couple thousand just laying around...

3. Most of you know what trouble I was having from the Freebie sites posting about a free sample that I had offered to my 200 Facebook fans.  They took my post and posted it on their sites.  So, I got well over 10,000 requests for FREE samples.  The samples, I could handle, but the stamp fees would have been astronomical.  So, at first I explained on my Facebook page that I just couldn't handle all the requests and would send out what I could.  Then, towards the end, when months later, I was still getting at least 100 requests a day, I started trying to reply to each one and explain that I was a small company and couldn't afford to send the samples that the Freebie Site promised.  I actually got nasty replies back.  So, I quit sending those.  All the people requesting the samples were saying how wonderful the free publicity was and how I should be thanking the freebie sites instead of being upset with them for not checking with me before posting the free sample.  Those sites should get permission to repost my offer.  I got free publicity all right, but I'm afraid that most of it turned out to be bad publicity because I couldn't fulfill the promise that they made.  So, what's the point in continuing a company that has all that bad publicity when I don't have the money to fight back and turn it around?

So, even if I am able to come up with the time and money to bring Aromatic Escape back.  I would love to be able to do so, I had a good product that everyone loved.  But, unfortunately, it will have to be under a completely new name...

Consideration!

Consideration!  Consideration for other people!  What I want to know about consideration is when did we lose it?  When did our society lose consideration for other people?

Last night, I was driving to my Father In Law's birthday party.  A girl, maybe in her mid 20s, was riding her bike leisurely across the street.  No problem, except that people were waiting for her to cross so that they could make a right hand turn.  Did she speed up her pace to get across the street quicker and get out of their way?  NO!

I see this kind of inconsideration all the time!  When I am taking my son to school, I see it in the kids.  Parents are trying to turn into the school, but the crossing guard is holding them up so the kids can safely cross the street.  This is wonderful!  We have put the crossing guard in place to keep our kids safe.  How considerate!  Are the kids considerate and pick up their pace to get across the street quickly?  NO!  Do they care that the crossing guard is standing there holding up the sign while they take their time to leisurely cross the street?  NO! Do they care that there is a long line of cars waiting on them to cross the street?  NO!  9 times out of 10, the kids will not increase their pace at all and sometimes, I swear, they even slow down!

I was not raised this way!  I know my friends were not raised this way!  We were raised to be considerate of other people!  So, is it the generation after me?  I just hope it doesn't continue!  Consideration for other people is one of the things society can't afford to lose!

Writing Again!!

I am very excited!! My muse has returned!  While Jay was driving and I was riding in the car to GA last weekend for our mini vacation, I used that time to write more of my book that I started a couple of years ago.  Last night I finished a chapter and started another.

Not knowing exactly where my plot or the book itself was headed, I was having a hard time getting much written.  Last night, my muse kicked me in the butt and I think I finally have my story line and where I am going to take the characters and how everything is going to play out.  I am very excited to see how it all turns out though because I am still not sure how I want it to end.  I guess I'll see what comes out of my fingers when I get there. :)

No Disney Passes :(

We have been struggling with what to do to get ourselves into a better financial situation without sacrificing the changes for the better that we have made in our family life.  So, we came to the decision last night to try our best to save money and pay off our credit cards and other unnecessary bills.  Which means, no Disney Annual Passes this year. :(

I'm going to miss my favorite mouse and all the fun he offers!  But, hopefully, it will help us and be worth it.  With the housing market the way it is, we can't even sell our house and buy a cheaper one because we would have to do a short sale.  It's very difficult to turn around and buy another house when you have a short sale on your credit.

So, I am looking forward to paying off the credit cards and being a little more financially comfortable at the end of each month.  Even if it means saying M-I-C (See ya real soon) K-E-Y (Why? Because I love you!) M-O-U-S-E!  Hope to see you next year! :)

Best Mildew Remover?

Ever since we decided to get rid of the maid, our Master Bathroom shower has been getting worse with mold.  I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it.  It was a pain to scrub and I tried bleach, but it wouldn't get rid of it very well and it would come back very quickly.  I couldn't exactly call the maid up and ask her what she used.

So, I did some research on the internet.  Everything I found was people swearing by something called K-14 found at Lowe's.  I had only ever heard of X-14.  But, went to Lowe's to find this miracle product.  Just my luck, they didn't have any to be found.  Not even a spot for it on the shelf....No X-14 either.

Determined to get rid of this pesky mold once and for all, I bought 3 different types of cleaners and hoped that one of them would work.  If not, I'd just have to head back up there and buy 3 different types and just keep going until I finally had the mold problem solved.

I looked at all the labels, I must have spent at least half an hour just checking them all out.  Finally, I settled on Damp Rid Mildew Stain Remover, Kaboom Foam-Tastic & Tilex Mildew Root Penetrator.

I decided to try them one at a time, because if I found one that worked right away, I could return the ones that I had not yet opened.  So, I tried the Kaboom first.  After all, those showers they show in the commercials are waaaaaay dirtier than mine.  So, I sprayed a small area.  "When the foam turns white, you're ready to wipe!"  Yea right!  It was really cool to see the purple foam turn white, but that's about all it did.  It didn't even touch the mold!

Next, I tried the Damp Rid, I figured it had a really generic/professional looking label.  Again, I sprayed it on a small spot, left and came back a couple hours later.  It lightened the mold, but did not get rid of it completely.  So, it seems the only thing professional about this brand is the look!

I was getting really frustrated thinking I would have to go back to the store for more testing bottles.  Then, I tried the Tilex.  I saved the Tilex last because I remember using it when I was a teenager.  It was my job to clean the bathrooms and Tilex never really did work very well on the tile.  It worked fantastic when I needed to spray bleach spots on my jeans, but not so much on the tile back then.

So, I sprayed a small spot.  Well, they must have changed their formula because this time when I came back a couple hours later <cue the Hallelujah music> aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! The mold was completely GONE!!  I was so excited I sprayed the whole shower down and waited.  The waiting was like waiting for Santa to visit!  But, when I came back to check, it was like the maid had just been there and the shower was all white and clean!!

It was worth the experimenting to finally find the right product that will actually work!  I think we may have found Aaron's Science Project for next year!  He'll have to borrow someone's shower though because mine will never have mold again!!

Review: 30 Minutes or Less

Last night I tried to watch the movie 30 Minutes or Less.  I say "tried" because I did something I can't remember doing for a long time.  I turned the movie off and did not finish watching it.  Now, I am the type of person that prefers to finish what I start.  I suffered through Napoleon Dynamite; I even finish books that I am not enjoying because they might end up being good.

Keep in mind that I like "Stupid, Funny" movies.  I usually like Will Ferrell movies, the Hangover & Zombieland type movies.  However, 1 hour into this movie and I decided it wasn't worth staying up any later for.  They dropped the F-Bomb every other sentence, which isn't a problem if the dialogue is funny and it works to make it even more funny.  This movie was just a bunch of dirty words strung together with zero laughs in between.

I'm glad I decided to just go to bed as I'm sure my dreams were more entertaining than the rest of this movie would have been.

Super Bowl Half Time Show

As always, there seems to be a lot of opinions about the Super Bowl Half Time Show.  I remember watching the year Janet had her wardrobe malfunction and we all got a nice view of her boob!  I was shocked and surprised.  Honestly, it happened so fast, I wasn't sure I saw what I saw.  The girls in the room saw it, but the guys missed it.  Ironic that was!  But, it sure was entertaining and the show itself was really good!

This brings me to last night't "show".  And that's exactly what it was.  A show!  The past shows since the malfunction have been save and quite boring!  I was glad to hear that Madonna was going to do the show because I remember watching her as a kid and she always put on a great elaborate show.  She did not leave me disappointed last night!

However, it seems most of the guys did not agree.  During the show my husband pointed out that she was lip syncing.  I really didn't care that she was lip syncing!  The show itself was really great!  She wasn't quite as limber as she used to be, but she still pulled off an entertaining show!

Madonna is Flash & Wow and I think that's what I got last night!  Great job!