Gigi is with her dad this weekend and I am feeling a little blue. I got online and started looking around for dolls from my childhood on eBay. I actually found and am bidding on a new in the box, mint condition Happy Baby by Horsman dolls. It was sold in the mid-70s and I am bidding on it for my sister, because it was her absolute favorite childhood doll and she has no idea where it went,

I am looking for a doll made by Ideal in the mid 70s called Baby Dreams or Baby Sweet Dreams. She had this peach fuzz all over her face, arms and legs and the rest of her body was vinyl. I remember her eyes opened and closed. A lot of the fuzz rubbed off the face of the doll I had, so she eventually got thrown out. I’ve thought about her off and on for years and I would love to find one that is still in its box, as I am not keen on a dirty, used doll. You know? I did bookmark a couple of eBay auctions for the doll that look relatively clean, but one is a little pricey and the other is in Australia. I’ll have to hold out for a better deal.

I was also quite fond of the My Friend Mandy doll by Fisher Price. (The ones made in the 70s, not the 80s.) For some odd reason, when I was in second grade I was using a cotton ball and nail polish remover to clean up the skin on her face. The remover got in Mandy’s eye and erased it. I must have been crying about it in school, because my teacher Mrs. Maiden offered to take it home and repaint it. She actually ended up making the eye out of construction paper, but I was wildly appreciative anyway.

I also love the Sunshine Family by Mattel. My mom is actually onto me to find her mint dolls of the Grandma and Grandpa from this collection.

I could go on and on.

What was your favorite doll when you were young?

I’ve never been on a cruise. I wanted to go for my honeymoon, but at the time my “other half” could not leave the country due to his Visa status. Maybe he can go on a cruise for his next honeymoon now that he is getting his citizenship. He can thank me for that. I sponsored him, like a fool.

Anyway, with ships docking right here in the Tampa Bay, there is no reason for me to not look into the Caribbean cruises that leave from here. When most people plan a cruise they also have to factor in the cost of airfare to a port, hotel stays in the port town, etc. I’m right here when the ships dock. That’s a natural savings right there.

Of course, one must remember not to book a cruise in the Caribbean during hurricane season, and that lasts until the end of November. It’s all about timing. I want to capture the savings a lot of cruise lines offer for “off-season”, but I also want to make sure I’m not going when the boat might be blown asunder. I’m a little attached to life, you know.

So, it looks like my options are to either choose a family cruise and take Gigi (which would not be much like a vacation, really) or to take a girlfriend with me. I am not yet to the point where I want to go alone.

Now that I have all of my things either in storage or here at Mom’s, my next task is to go out in the garage and organize all of the tings we brought and stored here over the last year. Also, mom has a fair share of things out there that are hers and that were her husband’s.

I know that for most people it’s all about spring cleaning, but here in Florida we tend to come alive in October, after the heat and humidity are gone and the weather turns into a mirror of paradise. We Floridians just feel compelled to do things different. I’ve got big cleaning plans for this coming fall.

Frank passed away almost 4 years ago. Besides some of his clothing and shoes, she has kept everything else. I found a cache of expensive medical supplies like a portable oxygen concentrator, a scooter chair, and some great walkers that I think we should donate to someone who cannot afford these kids of things. He had a full pension from the military, so medical issues were never a hardship.

I have way too many small kitchen appliances, books and craft supplies. Those will be the items of mine I comb through this fall. We already have some really cool shelving I am going to install in the garage to make everything more organized.

I feel like ready, set, go now. I’m eager for things to cool down so I can get to work.

On day like this, when I have had a full measure of harassment by my ex, I tend to listen to a little soul music to calm my nerves. In fact, right now I am listening to Samsonite Man by Alicia Keys.

I have made no secret of the fact that I do not intend to work this year. I decided to take a year off to be with my daughter, take her to counseling, and spend quality time making positive memories with her. After the divorce and then a year of me being in school in the evening, there is nothing she needs more than time with me.

Despite all this, my ex is filing papers to try and rework the child support he owes me monthly. And get this – he wants to rework it based on me making what I would make teaching for the county. The hitch is, I’m not working. I’m not making that salary, yet he wants to somehow push it through the courts based on the hypothetical concept that I could be making that money.

How annoying is that? I am in a position now where I am pretty much forced to pay my lawyer to get this all in order. What a putz, that ex of mine.

I am reading a poll right now that makes me think about the whole phenomenon of life imitating art. The poll says that one out of four American adults said they don’t even read one book in the span of a year. Actually, of all the people polled, half read less than 4 books a year.

Wow.

I have 9 books at the present time sitting on my bedside table and I am actually involved in three. Yes, I am a multiple book reader, reading more than one book at a time. OK, so not simultaneously, but I begin one book and read it a while, begin a second, sometimes a third and switch back and forth. It keeps things fresh.

One of the books I am reading is the new Jasper Fforde novel “Thursday Next: First Among Sequels”. One of the main plot points is the declining read rate of books. In the book, people cannot be bothered to read when they can watch mindless TV shows and play video games.

As an aside, if you have not read any of Fforde’s books yet, do so now. He is as clever as they come. I love his Thursday Next series. You could start with the first in that collection: “The Eyre Affair”. It’s as though Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett sat down to a buffet of classic literature and just went wild. Toss in a hard boiled female lead and the whole things becomes just that more delightful.

Man, I just opened up Jasper Fforde’s website and realized I’ve not browsed it in years. You can count on my being tied up for at least an hour now

Children who do not learn to LIKE to read will not do well in school. That’s my opinion. Notice that I did not say children who do not learn to read. Once you hit college, there is SO MUCH reading that if you aren’t used to even reading a book a year, you are going to falter. Frequent reading leads to fluency. Fluency leads to faster reading and better comprehension. You see where I am going.

I was driving to dinner tonight and passed the furniture store where my ex husband and I had bought a good deal of our furniture: bedroom pieces, king mattress, and some of the family room furniture. I thought about going inside after we finished our meal, but then I remembered how much I actually hate going in the store, despite liking their products. You walk in and there are usually 3 or 4 sales people standing right in the foyer. They do this weird, possessive ballet of sorts to try and establish eye contact with you and the first one that succeeds pounces. It’s awkward and it actually makes me consider putting on football pads and barging though the proverbial gates.

If you actually happen to enter the store when there are no employees in the lobby, then one will spot you from the second floor balcony and shout hello. If you even flinch in recognition, then they are charging down the stairs to claim you as their trophy.

You think I’m kidding? I know not all furniture stores are like this, but the one in question is all that and more when it comes to creepy sales people hungry for a sale.

I’m starting to most of my furniture browsing online now and I recently came across the online furniture store Wholesale Furniture Brokers. They have various outlets in Florida and Tampa has a warehouse opening soon. Because they operate in warehouse settings, rather than expensive storefronts, you are pretty much buying near wholesale with these guys.

This is more my style of shopping. I hate the high pressure. I hate going from store to store to compare prices, and I absolutely loathe the insane markup most furniture sellers commit.

I am listening to a Life Balance CD set right now and the topic that has been of most interest to me is the concept of Being Present.

So, let’s talk about what it means to be present.

The examples given were things like:

• Can you listen to someone talking and when they are done you realize you did not hear a word they said?
• When you are in a conversation, are you busy thinking over what the other person is saying so you can plan what you will say next?
• Do you drive home from work, arrive at your house and absolutely not recall the actual drive home?

Personally, I have been through so many traumatic life events in the past two years that I’ve been cored out emotionally. Being present for me is about even more than focus right now. It’s about connecting with me, my surroundings and those around me. I have taken on an edge of apathy that I want to cut through and discard.

I actually cultivated a disconnect after my divorce. I cut off thoughts, tucked them away and refused to linger. I did not resolve the thoughts. I just trained my mind to unfocus on the issue and ignore. I cut off emotions and I refused to let myself care about certain things after I while. Too much hurt was barraging me from all angles.

No more wandering thoughts. No more racing mind and disconnects. This is my immediate goal.

I grew up in the DC suburbs. We did not have a single ceiling fan in the house and it was just fine. Summer days got pretty hot, but summer nights cooled off and there was always the air conditioning. I do remember some particularly pleasant summer nights when I had a box fan in my window, but that was about it.

When I moved to Florida I noticed all of the houses have ceiling fans in pretty much every room. In fact, my old townhouse had ceiling fans even in the kitchen and the dining room. We had two fans on both the front and back porches of my last house.

You have to move the air down here. Even with the air conditioning running. The houses are fighting the white hit sun that has spent all afternoon soaking into the stucco and the insulation. Electric bills down here would be monstrous without fans, because using ceiling fans creates a downward cool breeze, redirects cooled air and makes you feel cooler. You can turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees, still feel comfortable, and save some money to boot.

I’m addicted. I can sleep in a pretty warm house now, as long as my ceiling fan is going all night and sending a blissful breeze over my skin.

Gigi’s birthday is not until February, but she has been talking to my dad a lot on Skype lately and somehow they concocted a while scheme to have a birthday party for her up in WV when we visit. I’m not driving to WV in February. That would be suicide with the snow and the icy roads. I’m looking at an October trip, so we can take in the foliage and enjoy the golden light on the evenings.

Anyway, we’re going to be throwing a faux birthday for Gigi while we’re up there, complete with a Barbie doll-cake and fancy party invitations. It’s still gorgeous up there in October and we can have the party out on the shores of the Shenandoah River, where it butts up to my dad’s property. Of course, it will be too late in the season to go tubing, but maybe we can take a boat out.

The attendees will mostly be relatives and some of my old college friends with their children. Gigi does have a little step-cousin that lives up there, though, so it’ll be fun to have her there. Plus the cousin’s birthday is actually in October, so maybe we have the parties back-to-back. More cake that way – it’s all good.

I’m going to be saying goodbye to my spacious work center. I have a desk with all kinds of room to spread out. As a graphic designer, space was an important issue. I’m not actually going to get rid of the desk, but it is going into storage. I’m going to replace it with a very minimal model. Bush furniture has a lot of options in desks and related items. I mean, I still want it to look pretty.  :) I can’t go sacrificing style.

I suppose in the long run this whole downsizing project I needed to accomplish is going to be good for me. I got rid of a LOT of things when I moved this last time. Most of what I kept is sitting sad and lonely in a storage facility. Once I do finally have the room to use it all again, I will hopefully be accustomed to the whole less is more philosophy. Living light can be good for your soul and I’ve found it is a skill you almost have to learn. I grew up in a big house and we had lots of things. I married into a situation that included more big houses. And now, my test has come and I need to re-learn a more frugal, possession-free existence.

How exciting. The kids around here begin school Tuesday! Gigi is beside herself with glee. She begins Pre-K. We have an orientation open house in about an hour over at her school and then she begins on Tuesday. The big kids at her Christian school start Monday.

I feel rather odd that I am not going into a classroom this fall. I wonder if putting off working a year will build fear and make it harder for me to do it in the end. I heard about a great job opening that would have had me teaching alongside a friend and I actually passed on it. Was that a mistake?

I actually just spoke with that friend and she has a part-time tutoring gig to supplement her pay and I considering giving the tutoring company a call in the meantime. I really think I would enjoy that sort of work while I take my year off.

I’ve been thinking about money so much more now that I am on my own and supporting Gigi without much assistance. I have to plan for the future in a way I never though would actually happen. I’ve been trying to sock away cash, find CDs with high rates of return and put serious thought into buying a home I could have paid off pretty quickly, just in case the market never really repairs itself. I’m also considering some life insurance policies. I’m not very educated in that arena and am doing some research on whole life insurance right now. There are just so many rules and options and details to consider and I don’t honestly trust an agent to educate me.

I like sitar music, but I like it in moderation. Now that my daughter and I are sharing a room, I’m listening to this sitar meditation CD she likes to sleep to over an over and over. Every night. It is the soundtrack of my dreams. I admit that it is better than the old CD she used to like to sleep to. It was an entire CD of renditions of Lavender Blue. I love that song, but enough is enough.

We found the sitar CD at a craft fare. I had lost Gigi for a few minutes and finally found her standing stock still, entranced by a guy with a long beard playing a sitar. We talked to the guy and he played samples of the music on various CDs he had recorded. Gigi chose the meditation themed one.

I’m going to try and wean the kid off having to sleep to music. I think that is my big life goal this week. You have to start small.

Just last August, the Tampa Bay area saw a record number of foreclosures. Experts feel it is due to the fact that so many people picked up ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) to finance their homes and potential investment properties. Once the rates increased and interest really started kicking in, people were unable to pay their bills.

I have some friends who gambled on that bet. They bought a large house with the idea of reselling it after they made some improvements. They expected to make a tidy sum and walk away able to pay for a more modest home in full. They really did expect to be living mortgage-free by now. Instead, they are facing foreclosure and the loss of their good credit.

Of course then the real estate market took a frightening plunge and things did not work out the way people had planned.

Foreclosure is a very scary reality for more people than you might think. When you are stuck in the middle of a foreclosure situation, where do you go for solid information? It’s not like your bank is going to be handing out sympathetic advice.

GotTrouble.com is a website that caters to people who are experiencing legal and financial trouble. It’s a clearing house for information and the section about foreclosure has helpful articles and local resources you can use right now. There are articles on the foreclosure process, how to deal with your lender, and state-specific laws.

Parents of teens, this is for you. Are you ever curious as to how well (or not) your teen is eating when they are out and about? I have one example for you and although I am sure it is not representative of every teen out there in the world right now, I am pretty sure it paints a pretty reasonable picture.

Tuesday I went to Denny’s for dinner, because it is the only place I have been able to find to far that allows two kids meals for free with the purchase of only one adult meal. I had both my daughter and my nephew with me.

In the booth across from us were three kids: two boys and a girl. They looked to be 16, possible 17, but no older. They were vaguely “Goth”, but only barely. The girl was a tad heavy, as was one of the boys. The second boy was rail thin.

Here were their orders:

1. The girl ordered cheesy fries as an appetizer, then cheeseburger and fries for her supper.
2. The thin boy ordered chicken friend steak with hashed brown potatoes and mashed potatoes. He requested that the whole order be covered with gravy.
3. The heavy-ish boy ordered the fried appetizer sampler – spicy chicken strips, mozzarella cheese sticks, crispy onion rings and dipping sauces.

This was quite solidly during the dinner time hour. Oh yes, they all had regular cokes to complement their meals.

And we wonder why more and more of us are teetering toward obesity?