Husbands and Rings

Four of my five daughters have been blessed with wonderful husbands.  The fifth daughter is not in the market for a husband.  She is only 17 and it will be over my dead body that she becomes engaged!  The choice in husbands is as diverse as their engagement rings.

Engagement rings can be sentimental.  My oldest daughter wears my mother's ring as her engagement ring.  It is simple and modest.  It doesn't even fit the right finger, but to size it would remove the engraving on the inside.  It means so much to her, and so does he.

Another daughter was very excited about the possibilities her engagement ring could be!  Shopping together with her husband they scoured jewelry stores.  Jonathan's Fine Jewelers.  Jared's.  Tiffany's.  The skies the limit and she has a beautiful ring that she adores.  And she adores him too.

The third daughter to get married is an artist.  I'm sure you understand that it was virtually impossible for her husband to find the right look she was going for.  Together they shopped and found a timeless vintage piece. In combination with a diamond from his mother, it is perfect.  And her husband is the perfect match for her too.

And the fourth, always so laid back, easy going, and happy with just about anything, did not have much to say in the choice of her engagement ring.  I know they talked about it, and maybe shopped a little, but in the end, her husband did the choosing.  The ring is all she could have wanted.  And so is he.

This is a sponsored post for Jonathan’s Fine Jewelers, however, all the points and views are my own.

The Agreement

My best friend's sister has a rather large family.  She and her husband made an agreement when they go married about how they were going to choose names for their children.  He would be the one to choose the boys names and she would choose the girls.  They started their family, and you guessed it, boys and boys and more boys!

He decided to name all of their boys after mythology.  They have a Ulysses, Ares, Theosopholis, and Zeus, and others I can't remember.  I'm sure I am not spelling these correctly, but I abolutely love it!  She abided by her agreement and their family of mythology sons continues to grow.  Now some think she was crazy to stand by and keep this going, but they are the most beautiful family.

And think when they are older!  There is an err of confidence going to Hercules Tire Sales.  Or listening to a sports analyst named Zeus.  And wouldn't you want to do business with Ulysses?  And how about having an Ares, the Greek God of War, in your platoon?

I love this family.  And if it makes you feel any better, they did have twin girls.  Karyn and Taryn I believe.

This is a sponsored post for Hercules Tire Sales, however, all the points and views are my own.

The Pitch For Miles!

I played softball for many many years when I was younger.  I have so many great memories of this time in my life.  I started in 4th grade and played through high school and loved every minute of it.

Of course there were those times where you had a bad game, or we got pounded, but still, I was with great friends and we endured together.  My favorite memories are those games where we came from behind and ended up winning.  And my most humorous memories occurred when we were so far a head of the other team that our coach let us play different positions.

On one such game, we finished another inning of going through our batting order... twice.  This poor team couldn't get us out any other way unless we "popped out".  We knew it was time for the crazy switching of positions when we went to the field.

I played short stop and my best friend played third base.  She wanted to play catcher and so we thought it would be fun if I pitched to her.  The warm up before each inning?  This one was epic.  We had our shortest player on first base, our rather solid catcher barely making it out to right field, and I was warming up my pitching arm.  I was so concentrated on trying to get it across the plate, my catcher was very concerned that I was just lobbing a perfect home run pitch.  I could throw very hard... over hand.  It was this underhand pitching that was messing me up.  She kept yelling, "pitch harder"!  I send another strike across the plate and she would just yell "pitch harder"!  By the third time I was ready to just send a missile at her!  I did a windmill style softball pitch and nearly threw my arm out of the socket!  And the pitch was hard!  Very hard!  It flew right passed the batters head, over my "catcher", over the back stop, and so far into the parking lot that the ump just got another ball.  This pitch went for miles!

This is a sponsored post for Pitch Harder, however, all the points and views are my own.

Hardly Ever A Problem

These days, it seems like no matter where you work, or what you do, you need computer skills.  Like it or not, we have become increasingly more dependent on computers.  I must admit that there are days where I'd like to throw the whole thing out the window, but for the most part, I work online without much trouble.  Why?  Dedicated Servers.

When I talk to friends and family working on their computers and they are experiencing problems, I can honestly say, I usually am not.  My company has a dedicated server, which means I am not working online with the rest of the world.  I am only working with my fellow employees.  Our server is not shared with anyone else and gives us higher performance.

There is also the added benefit of security.  We have a tech person who manages our server completely.  He adds security patches, designed to fix problems, improving the usability and performance.  I love our tech person.  When I have any kind of problem, I just give him a call, and he usually knows there's a problem before I even get to him.  Another fabulous thing about dedicated servers.  We all work together, and like I said before, hardly ever a problem.

This is a sponsored post for Hivelocity, however, all the points and viewsare my own.

Obedience

I think everybody's been there.  It's that moment when you think you have the skills to be your own tow truck service.  Sure Towing San Jose is not that expensive, and certainly worth the peace of mind... but the thoughts still come.  "Oh yeah... I've got a rope."  "If I come up slowly behind you, I could push you with my car!"  "It's only a few miles to the house."  It was the second one that I got caught up in.

I'm cheap.  I didn't want to pay for a tow truck to take my daughters car around the corner and up a few blocks.  I decided I would drive my car and push her in hers.  I gave her exact instructions... extremely detailed instructions.  Do not use the gas.  Do not use the brake.  Just coast.  Let me judge the speed as to how I will connect the two vehicles, my front end to her back end, and I would simply push her home.

There were a couple of times that I pushed her kind of fast and she got away from me, but obediently, and just as I had instructed, she did nothing.  I gauged the speed and then pushed some more.  It was working beautifully.  Then we were turning into the driveway and my driveway is slanted upward quite a bit.  I gave her a running push and then braked at the bottom of the driveway.  Her car ALMOST made it to the garage.  It started to roll back... picking up speed... and I thought surely she would brake... but no... I had told her explicitly to never brake.  And never brake she did... as she crashed into the front of my car.

I wish all of my kids would listen as carefully and obey like her.

This is a sponsored post for D & M Towing and Transport, however, all the points and views are my own.

You're Going To Break That

Kids have this insatiable desire to touch things... over and over and over... and over... again.  It simply a boredom issue but never the less it certainly does get annoying... particularly when you know their constant messing with something will result in it getting broke... but they can't see this except when it happens right before their eyes.  A light switch for example.  It has to be turned on and off.  On and off.  ON and OFF until the light bulb blows and then they are amazed.  Other things they can't see that it is there constant wear and tear that resulted in the breakage.

A car has multiple opportunities for this type of breakage.  The radio buttons have to be pushed at a rate of 12 times per minute.  You know... the always checking to see if there is a better song we might be missing.  The window has to go up and down.  Up and down.  UP and DOWN.  But the latest breakage was the console thingy between the two front seats where you store CD's, etc...

It has a latch... that when resting your arm on the console... you can pop the console open and shut... with the touch of your fingers.  It makes me crazy.  I tell them over and over and over... and over... again.  And last week I was driving by myself and the console floated up on it's own.  It won't stay shut.  The little latch has been bent to wear it doesn't catch and now it won't stay shut.

I'm telling you that auto repair columbus new exactly what the problem was... "your kids play with it right?"  "Did you tell them that they were going to break it?"

Yeah.  I did.

This is a sponsored post for A-1 Streamline, however, all the points and views are my own.

Tricks

One of my daughter's friends spends a lot of time at our house.  She's like part of the family.  One day as I was explaining to her that in order to get a picture on our TV, she would have to tape the cable on the back at a very specific angle.  I demonstrated and it worked perfectly... but her reply makes me laugh to this day:  "I love your house! Everything in it has a special trick to it!"

And indeed it's true.  My iPod works if you jiggle the earphone cord.  The window will stay open with a wooden dowel placed to hold it up.  Produce has to be kept in the outside fridge because it will freeze in the one in the house.  And this is just a tiny bit of the "tricks".  And if we're to call them "tricks" then our cars are amazing magicians!

We buy used cars.  My family has always bought used cars.  From Boulder used cars, to San Diego used cars, to Rhode Island used cars... it just doesn't make sense to buy something new that will depreciate in value over night.

You must carry water with you when you drive the van because you have to fill the radiator every 1/2 hour.  The blue car has to be entered from the passenger side only.  The window in the Jeep had to be taped in the up position.  The tiny red car will over heat if you don't leave the heater on ... all... the... time.  Even in the summer.

We live a magical life don't we?

This is a sponsored post for Valley Dodge Chrysler, however, all the points and views are my own.