One of the best things about living here in Florida is the nearly-daily opportunity to experiences some of the best our earth has to offer. I’m just a few miles from white-sand beaches. Fruit and flowers grow here all year. Twice this month I have visited an inlet on the Tampa Bay where quite literally hundreds of manatees were gathered to enjoy the warm waters. And, I can park my car on the sand, prop open my doors and watch dolphins playing in the surf.

Ah, dolphins. My sister has always had an affinity for them. She moved to Florida about four years before I did and one of the first things she did was locate a handful of dolphin rehabilitation centers where she could donate funds and be involved in supporting research, like programs that allow sick and disabled children to swim with dolphins as a form of physical therapy.

Once I moved to Florida and was able to see dolphins all round me near the Gulf beaches, I was won over as well. I started looking around at how many programs there are here in Florida dedicated to dolphins. They range from rescue and observational study to more interactive programs like the one at Sea World.

Because my daughter is so young and patience is not one of her more finely tuned personality traits just yet, I prefer a setting like Sea World where we’re guaranteed an interactive experience filled with a chance to learn everything our brains can retain about the dolphins. Plus, there is no way that by looking at dolphins in the wild I would have ever been able to see them playing with bubble rings. You have GOT to take a look at the dolphin bubbles video that Sea World has on their dolphin blog that shows their dolphins playing under water with bubble rings. If you cannot imagine what I am talking about, imagine a time when you have watched someone blow a smoke ring and apply that to air bubbles. It’s almost unbelievable – but, of course, you can see it yourself and seeing is indeed believing.

Today was a very surreal day at school. The students put on a series of assemblies to celebrate Black History Month. I have been looking forward to seeing the performances for a while now and considered it my good fortune that I had an opportunity to attend the performance during second period.

About halfway through the assembly, one of the assistant principals came to the front of the auditorium to ask the teacher sponsoring the event to stop the assembly and allow him to announce that they needed to evacuate the auditorium. I heard the words death and dying a couple of times, as I was sitting right behind them.

The students were evacuated due to a “medical emergency”. To make a long and emotional story short, one of our teachers collapsed at the back of the auditorium. Although EMS was called in immediately, they were unable to revive him and he subsequently passed away. It appears to have been a heart attack.

I did not know him well, but I did know his reputation. The kids were fond of him. He had a lot of close friends at the school. In any event, to look over and see one of my peers, someone not much older than me, receiving CPR – it was sobering. As I rush through my days, allowing fatigue to steal time away from my time with my daughter, or my hobbies, or my friends, I have been allowing days to blend into weeks until months have passed in the blink of an eye.

Each day counts. We all know this on an intellectual level, but we are hurried along by the rigors of life. I decided to take the situation and learn from it, reaffirm that I need to slow down and look at the world around me, enjoy my daughter’s childhood, savor the things I learn from others every day.

Not that I have a whole lot of fee time now that I am working again, but I still like to take some time every day and unwind with some online gaming. Come to think of it, I stopped having much time to game once my daughter was born. Still, I like to fit it in when I can.

My style is to find a game I can play online preferably for free, and then find a group of like-minded players to team up with for a more interactive game experience. I’m not particularly into super aggressive or violent games, and now that my daughter is interested in online games as well, I look more often for games we can enjoy together. May as well make it a family event and work in more quality time with my daughter.

Virtual paper dolls and online games based on cartoons only interested Gigi for so long. She has her eye on the generation ahead of her, just like any young child. I have no desire for her to zip right into teen oriented games, so I’m always on the lookout for age appropriate games for her.

MEGA Brands has some very cool, very kid-friendly online games available. We’ve signed up for several. The latest in our family gaming venture is MagNext Virtual. It’s a MMORPG based on MEGA’s popular MagNext toys. My daughter’s cousin has an impressive collection and they are always the toy of preference when we are there to visit – which is often. So, you can imagine that we were sold on the concept as soon as we found the game portal.

While you are playing, you can hang out in virtual social rooms, chat safely with other players and earn Magz that allow you to “purchase” new skills and cool game gear. Because the system is multi-player, you can challenge other players to contests and learn new game skills.

The best part, aside from the fact that it is action packed and kid friendly, is that you can play free forever. Sign up and join in on the fun. We enjoyed it so much my daughter and I had to make an agreement about a daily time limitation.

Girl Scout Cookies are in for my daughter’s Daily troop! Yay! This is another first in our home and my daughter and I are both so excited.

Back when I was a Girl Scout, I had to wait to start with Brownies, which I think was second grade. We did not have Daily Scouts then. Now girls can join Scouts in kindergarten. Most of the events are really just practice for the more advanced levels, but Gigi is learning the tenants of scouting, the pride of unity with other girls, and the joy of being part of something bigger than our local community.

Girl Scouts and Girl Guides are a worldwide network. I was a Girl Scout. My sister was a Girl Scout. Both of Gigi’s grandmothers were Girl Scouts and so was at least one of her Great-Grandmothers. It’s a family tradition, an American tradition, a worldwide tradition.

And so, back to those cookies. I am going to design a cute Thank You not for Gigi to sign. She can give them out as she goes with her dad to deliver the cookies at his office this week.

How tempting is it to give in and buy a brand new computer every couple of years? I know it is something I would like to do. However, I stepped back and re-examined my situation. I have some great computers already and all I really need to do is buy memory and a few other things to give them an update. Of course, my laptop probably needs a little more work than that, including a new power cord connection and possibly a repair for the DVD drive. Still, it is a solid piece of equipment and it would be a shame for me to just give up and spend several thousand dollars to replace it with the biggest and the best.

What is stalling me is the decision to try the upgrades and repairs on my own or to find someone locally that can do it for me. Don’t tell me to go to one of the service places in the big chain electronics stores. They hire complete morons. I’ve already been in and talked to more of them than I should have. I am looking around for a small business owned by geeks who really know their stuff, so to speak. The Yellow Pages are useless, because I want real opinions by real customers. If I ask around enough, I will surely strike gold.

When I went to see my doctor last week, I was down 35 pounds from my starting weight. That’s encouraging progress for just a little over eight weeks of work. However, this week I had gained back about 4 pounds. We could tell from the printout they gave me that more than half of that was water. I knew I was retaining water after all of the restaurant food I had last weekend when we celebrated my daughter’s birthday. I am super sensitive to salt.

Those other two pounds, though, were simply the result of allowing myself comfort eating this week. I have been feeling stress due to things my ex-husband is doing, as well as some pressure to get multiple projects completed. I let myself eat a good deal of bread and sugar. My body jumped at the carbs and held on tight

I also needed to stop and admit that appetite versus hunger is still a huge issue for me. The weight loss pills my doctor prescribed may indeed be an optional part of my weight loss plan, but I am not ready to stop taking them yet. I look forward to the day when eating becomes less mental, less emotional – but that is not today.

And so, I am scaling my menu back to the basics. Thankfully, I really enjoy all of the foods that are included in re-starting my diet. I adore mushrooms and dark greens, spinach and cabbage. I love lean proteins like chicken and low-fat cheese and low-fat ricotta. I’m not facing a hardship by eating these foods at all. I merely have to work harder to train my mind to not want sugar and carbs as often.

The mainstream media is finally comfortable using the word recession. I’ve been saying recession for a long time now and, in fact, I am comfortable using the word depression as well. Take an honest look around you. The jobless rate is frightening. Prices for food and other necessary items are going up instead of coming down. Housing prices might be more affordable for purchase now, but millions of people are losing money when they sell – or just plain losing their homes. Rental prices for homes and apartments are still sky-high and are not coming down to meet the demand for lower cost housing.

A depression could not be far off. Now, think about stories you have heard from people who were alive in the depression era. My grandparents are mostly dead, but I do have one grandmother who is still around to tell me stores of how she and her family survived. Also, my parents were both raised depression-era parents and were instilled with values of frugality and self sufficiency. Thank goodness they passed those values down to me.

Up north we always kept large gardens. My mother canned fruits and vegetables. I see now the value of growing as much of my own food as possible and “putting it away” for later use. I am ready to learn how to can. However, I live in Florida now and I have to re-learn how to grow a successful food crop. I know I am going to have to have good soil brought in. I will need to build a tarp to make sure my crops do not burn up in the sun. I will need to learn about planting season here and what foods do the best.

Fruit is an easy option to start. We have a large yard and although the grapefruit tree was cut down a few years back, the star fruit tree we trimmed to the ground this year will be back within two years. We have lemons and oranges in pots that are ready to go into the ground. We have apple trees of a variety that grow well in the Florida climate. I have looked online and found suppliers for Blueberry and Blackberry plants that should do well here. All of these things can be canned and will also provide a good deal of fruit to be eaten fresh.

I’m starting to get my financial things squared away. I am reaching some agreements with my ex husband about our house and getting as many small obstacles out of the way as I can so that I can press aggressively on toward buying one of the townhomes in a community slightly north of here when I lived when I was first married to my ex. I feel like it is a perfect place for me and my daughter.

Anyway, I am also looking at some of the smaller issues; like what items of furniture that I already own will fit one of the townhomes. What do I want to get rid of or replace or upgrade. I know that I will go ahead and buy a plasma TV that I can put on the wall with a LCD mount. I’ve put of f buying one based solely on the idea of saving money while I can. Even so, it is a “luxury” that won’t actually put me off my budget much and it will get its fair share of use. I’ll probably also replace my formal Victorian sofa with something much more kid-friendly, like a La-Z-Boy sofa. I know they are not massive purchases, but my head has just been in the kid of place where huge expenditures make me happy. I like comfort and security and lots of time with my family.

I would like to say definitively that all of the things I just talked about are solid goals for 2009. Of course, that all depends on what the school district does about salaries and new hires. It’s a tight situation with my job right now. As good as I am in my position, I can only move up if there is room for me to move up. It’s a logical process. Since it is only February, I am going to assume these are my goals for the year. If things change, then I will adapt.

It does not matter if you are single or married, a mother or childless – women need to give themselves the time to spend with other women in a social setting, free of stress, and focused on fun and relaxation. When I was newly married, I went out with girlfriends who were also newly married. When I had my daughter, I made time to go out at least once a month with other moms from my MOPS group.

Essentially, I feel like it is important to spend time with other women who share your current life situation. I’m not discounting friendships with people who are in different places in their lives, those are also important relationships. However, you just can’t blow off steam the same way you can when surrounded by girls who really get where you’re at in life right now.

I’ve got a couple of single friends I went thought my teacher training program with a couple of years ago. They are both a little younger than me, but most of the of the women in that class were married and don’t take the time to get out with the girls very often. I’m having dinner with these two girls tonight.

One also works in the same sort of teaching position that I do, but at another school. The other is looking for teaching work, but toughing it out at a publishing company right now. She and I have similar degrees from back in college. In any event, we are all pretty close to the same place in life. Of course, I am the only one with a daughter, but that is not what we focus on when we go out together.

I can talk to my other friends until the cows come home about the shortage of jobs in education right now, but they don’t fully understand. My teacher friends get it, but you only want to do so much venting with co-workers. I try very hard not to gossip in the workplace and once you start talking about the job situation, someone inevitably brings up one or more of the teachers at school that they do not think deserve to be teaching. It’s never safe territory once that topic arises.

Makes sure you are getting out of the house with your friends from time to time, ladies. A husband or a boyfriend should indeed be a best friend to you, but there is nothing like sharing time with like-minded women. They will understand you on the most basic level and that is important.

When my daughter was first born, I admit that I went overboard buying amazing outfits for her. She was definitely the best dressed baby in our social circle. And although I loved seeing her in pink and bows and flowery prints, I also went out of my way to buy her little black “Chucks” (Converse All Stars) and baby-sized Ramones t-shirts. My girl was a rocker from day one, sporting retro threads and mini versions of some of the t-shirts I loved wearing back when I was in high school. Hip Baby Clothes are what make a child stand out in the crowd of pink and blue clad kids.

To this day, I keep a few cool pieces in her wardrobe. When she chooses her own clothing she usually goes for pink and girly, but she also loves her skinny jeans and her rock tees. Sites like The Retro Baby makes it easy to find cools kid clothes. They have a ton of great onesies, like the Ramones design I have her on my blog. They’ve also got an impressive assortment of quirky Dr. Seuss designs and a Space Invaders onesie that’s got me all nostalgic. I even see some Peanuts t-shirts that I swear I used to own back in grade school. I can’t think of a better time to be a kid than the 70s and 80s.

Looks like it’s time to order some new t-shirts. She is growing out her current Ramones items. I can’t let her do without.

I moved backwards just a little this week – weight loss, stress levels, housework, etc. It’s been a difficult combination of sick family members, bizarre demands from my ex-husband, and a complete lack of energy on my part. I’m just happy it’s over – the week, that is.

I went along with 39 of the high school students and two other chaperones on a field trip today. I had been looking forward to it for a long time, but when faced with my low energy level all I could think about as I crawled out of bed this morning at 5:30 was that I could hardly wait to get home and go BACK to bed. The fieldtrip ended up being a lot of fun, though. I’m glad I pushed through.

And even though I fantasized almost all day about going to bed and sleeping as soon as I got home, I am actually up typing this even though it is going on midnight. I came home and realized I wanted to get so many things done. Earlier in the week I combined great manufacturers’ coupons with Buy One Get One sales at Publix to get 24 cent bottles of Glass Plus and 4 cent cartons of Progresso Broth. I made another grocery run tonight to use additional coupons I finally located here at the house and came home with free cans of dog food, 15 cent cans of Progresso Soup and bottled of extra virgin olive oil that only cost $2.50 a bottle after the sale and the coupons. Not a bad run, if I must say so myself.

In case you have a Publix close to your home, here are the details on the deals. Some have printable internet coupons and some require that you have coupons from past weeks that came in the Sunday paper. Remember that with the internet coupons, once your screen tells you the first coupon is printing, click Back on your browser once or twice to trigger a second copy of the coupon. Most coupon sites allow you two copies and you’ll want both for a B1G1 deal.

Glass Plus Glass & Multi-Surface Cleaner (32-oz bot.): $2.49, buy one get one free
$1/1: HERE
Price after (2) Coupons: $.24/each – save 90%

Progresso 100% Natural Broth (32-oz pkg.): $2.59 buy one get one free
$1.25/1: HERE
Price after (2) Coupons: $.04/each – save 99%

Progresso Soup (18 to 19-oz can or 15.25-oz bowl): $1.25
$1.10/1: HERE or HERE
Price after (1) Coupon: $.15 for 1, save 94%

Crisco 100% Extra Virgin Olive Oil (16.9-oz bot.): $6.49 buy one get one free
$1/1 in the 2/8 Redplum newspaper insert
Price after (1) Coupon: $2.74/each – save 58%
Price after (2) Coupons: $2.24/each – save 66%

I’ve got some sleeping in planned for tomorrow morning, and then I am going to complete as many additional assignments I can for my online Instructional Strategies class. Of course, I will reward all of my hard work by meeting two of my girlfriends for dinner.

What is one of the first words you think when I ask you to describe Florida? You might have said floral or tropical or relaxing, but when it comes right down to it most people would use the word “hot”.

Yep, it gets pretty hot in Florida. And while we don’t actually hot some of the high temperatures that the southwest and the northeast experience in the summertime, our hot season lasts a lot longer.

You adjust to the heat down here. For example, I don’t really have a winter wardrobe. I can wear summery clothes most of the year. Most homes around here have ceiling fans in pretty much every room. You learn that painting your house a dark color is rarely a good idea. And, you take seriously what sort of window treatments you use. What you use to cover your windows can make or break things when it comes to your energy bill in the summer.

While I want to keep the white hot sun from heating up my house via my windows, I also want to make sure my home looks great. Solar Shades come in all sorts of styles, including very trendy Roman Shades. You can make sure your room looks just right and at the same time keep your energy costs down, block UV rays, and insure that all important insulation that ultimately means your rooms will be more comfortable – even in the searing heat of an early afternoon in July.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I took my daughter for a very special afternoon tea at a cute tea house in town. We are also celebrating her 6th birthday this weekend, since I will not have her this year for her birthday. She will be at her father’s home.

So, we put on dresses and makeup and jewelry. We drank lovely cups of English Breakfast tea and Raspberry Truffle tea. We had dainty sandwiches and special little desserts, all served on a three-tier tray. It was a blast.

I think the setting really inspired Gigi to work on her ladylike manners. I have a problem, generally, with keeping her in a seated position throughout an entire meal. She did quite well today.

Sometimes it does not take much to make me happy. Life is busy and sometimes even hectic, but despite that – pretty much all that surrounds me is peacefulness. It’s times like this when I can take the time to look around and enjoy the small things.

For example, if I combine the Buy One Get One sales at Publix with phenomenal manufacturers’ coupons, I will be getting free boxes of Post Trail Mix cereal and free bottles of International Delights coffee creamers. Free is always exciting, and I love being able to supplement the grocery budget with goodies like these.

Want to Star in Your Own Film?

Well, it’s not such a far-fetched concept these days. We live in a society where most people have direct access to digital video cameras and sophisticated editing software. Starring in your own film is only a matter of your own motivation.

So, how would you like to win a cool $500 just by writing, directing and starring in your own digital short? Yeah, I know, it rocks. And, it’s as simple as creating your own digital commercial starring yourself (or even family or friends) and submitting it to Scour.com. Not only will the winning commercial win $500, it will also be featured on the Scour website.

Essentially, Scour will be paying the winner AND giving them an amazing amount of free exposure. That alone is worth more than you can imagine. Scour is a great platform for exposure, too, because the site is a sophisticated online search portal that allows users to vote and comment on relevancy, which adds the human touch that so many other search engines are lacking.

So, take a seat in your director’s chair and get going on a winning idea for a new Scour Commercial. You can check out their website for all of the nitty-gritty. Give them 45 seconds and they might just give you $500.