Between my husband and I, we have raised 6 teenagers… boys and girls! One thing I have learned over the years is that the moment you attempt giving advice, they will bolt like a Ferel animal!
Why? Hormones!
Teenagers are similar in behavior, to a hot blooded Thoroughbred Race Horse… always hungry, mad, excited, horny and quite sweaty! You feed them the best you can, and try to sooth them when they are angry. You try to calm them when they won’t stop bouncing off the walls, and diligently make efforts to coral them from freely using their private parts.
Daily, you make every effort to hose them off before they leave the house… throwing a stick of deodorant in their general direction. Ok, well, a horse may not know how to use a stick of deodorant, but then again, neither do most teenagers. I caught one of my kids using a can of Febreze for body spray… not even kidding!
I will go back even further, into my teenage years, confirming that I myself had intentionally assigned ALL adults with the label of ENEMY #1. Whether it was hormones, a traumatic upbringing or both… I did NOT listen to anyone!
No amount of coercing could entice me to go back and re-experience my teenage years, and quite honestly, kids today look the same as we did back then… hungry, mad, excited, horny and, yes… sweaty!
If I were to do anything for my teenage self… it would be to protect her, shelter her, encourage her, and guide her through my example, instead of my wordy grownup words…
Though you will find me, most mornings, sipping a steaming cup of coffee… my go to favorite drink is good old fashioned H2O!
My early years found me happily drinking Big Gulp size sugary sodas and/or hot chocolate with scads of baby marshmallows overflowing over the edge of the cup. I know that I drank water by itself sometimes, but mostly it got mixed in with the Kool-aide.
Moving into my teenage years, I, like many teens, began mixing a bit of alcohol into my cocoa. Chocolate was the only thing strong enough to mask the flavor of alcohol, which to me, tasted like aftershave or cologne. Again, I know that I drank water by itself during those years… I just don’t remember.
I grew into an adult, becoming the mom that drove the kids to every bloomin activity they thought up… so, I developed a glass of wine in the shower kind of mini-vacation lifestyle.
I had to drink water more often, to rehydrate, but it still had to have one of those Propel flavor packs mixed in the bottle. Eventually, I moved on from that favorite, due in part, because my kids figured out how to unlock the bathroom door.
I found my perfect storm of a drink, during my kids teen years, when the moms had to begin sneaking alcohol in travel mugs. My girlfriends and I discovered that if you mix Malibu Coconut Rum with Dole’s Orange Pineapple Banana Juice, the kids just thought it smelled fruity.
We called it Fru Fru Juice, when they asked what we were drinking, and then we handed them a Capri Sun. I definitely had to rehydrate from those family camping trips.
Years have come and gone, leaving me a great deal wiser about my need for water, as well as lessening my desire for anything with alcohol in it. Once in a while I might have a drink, but now it just tastes too sweet. I don’t even like pop anymore… just give me a good cup of peppermint tea.
Several years ago I watched this documentary about water, that was extremely interesting. I learned a great deal about how the body processes water, pulling the minerals it needs to replace the ones used up. Did you know that if you drink water that has been distilled, or has too little PH in it, your body will take from your own minerals to try and fix the water you’re trying to put in your body… you actually sacrifice good minerals already in your system to make the water more balanced.
I found this idea so interesting, that I started to drink a 32 oz. bottle of high PH water about once a week, since my drinking water is just out of the tap. Now I am spoiled, because I can fully taste the difference in my water… good water really does have flavor!
These days, you’ll find me drinking either coffee or water, and if I put any flavor in my water it’s going to be my peppermint herbal tea… but mostly, I just like water as, well, water!
Enjoy the coffee, cocoa, fruit, and cookie flavored water…
I just finished writing a new children’s sing along book, starring none other than my little Dinky Do!
It seems my crazy lady, sing songy ways of rhyming, works perfectly for creating children’s books. I’m going to spend some time focusing on the antics of my Barnyard Babies for a bit.
Maybe if I put enough of these little books together, someone might take an interest in bringing them to print… if not, at least I will have had the pleasure of imagining the stories.
As the DailyPrompt seems to now think we are all in kintergarten with this question, I am disinclined to aquiess to it’s request. With that being said, I am able to reflect on the shoes I’ve worn over the years.
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
I do still have my first pair of baby shoes tucked away in a box…
From baby booties til now, I have moved from sneakers to cowboy boots… back to sneakers… from sneakers to differing ladies fancy shoes… back to sneakers… from sneakers to moccasins… back to sneakers… now resting in a shared sneaker/slipper lifestyle.
I keep em as long as they will hold up, as I am not one to give up on a garment just because it looks a bit faded or worn. Quite honestly, my shoes don’t feel right until after they have been stretched, stained, and well broken in.
My sneakers average a life of about a year, but that’s pushing it… and I usually own twin pairs so they will last longer. I walk alot!
Right now, I own a pair of fluffy slipper shoes that a friend gave me last year. They are stained from my coffee spills, but oh so faithfully comfortable.
There ya have it, folks, more information than you ever wanted or needed to know about the life of my feet…
Here, have a cookie that my feet have NOT been anywhere near, though there have been a few squirrels involved in presenting them…
Often times, I think we think too much about things.
We think on a thing for a while, and then, thinking we know all the things we should know about that thing, we do a thing or say a thing about that thing, without really knowing all that we should have known about the thing we thought we’d already thought enough about!
What I think we should do with the things we think we have thought enough about, is think wisely about the thing we thought about and before trying to do a thing with the thing we thought we thought enough about… keep the thing we thought about to ourselves, unless what we think about the thing is helpful to another who may need to know the thing we have thought about for them to think about.
Journey With Me! 