Running with Perseverance

Works for Me: Thank you iTunes!

Today's official theme for Works for Me Wednesday is: "Mom I'm bored" Please share a tip for keeping your kids busy in the summer!

I'm going to veer off the path a little bit and share an idea that is along the same lines, but really doesn't have to do with kids.

Road trips seem to be a common occurrence over the summer.  Ours are usually to Texas to visit family and work on fund raising for FOCUS.  For our family it usually goes like this:

Leave early in the morning before it's dark.
Children fall asleep.
I drink a cup of coffee so that I can talk to/keep company with my husband who insists on driving the whole way (mostly because he doesn't like my driving...but that's another post!  hahaha).
Husband turns on sports radio.
I fall asleep.

Then we all eat and repeat.

There is something about sports radio that guarantees that I will fall asleep.  I can't read, listen to my ipod, nothing really.  It makes me tired!

There is something about my wonderful husband that compels him to not want to talk to me while we're driving.  This makes me tired too.

Here is the solution!

Podcasts!!!!!  They are free on iTunes, you can find them on any topic, and we both enjoy listening to them and discussing them.  My personal favorite is the Dave Ramsey podcast.

So, to beat boredom in the car, try these little gems.  They're shorter than audio books (which is good if one of you isn't too keen on the book choice), more engaging than music, and they have the same effect as sports radio on me for the children.  My kids could care less about living debt free, so they contentedly sleep through it or eat licorice...

Check out We are THAT Family to find out what works for others!

First Dentist's Visit!

One of the things I am most thankful for right now in our state of life is the wonderful health, vision, and dental insurance that we have.  For so long (the first 4 years of our marriage) we had none of those things and I certainly do not take them for granted.  Today, the girls went in for their first visit to the dentist!  They did such a great job, I was so happy with their behavior and their willingness to do something they had never done before.  I chose a pediatric dentist whose website I found online and I was extremely pleased with both the dentist and his "helpers" (as they call themselves).  As a young mother, I am obviously plugged in to the internet and automatically turn to it for answers to my questions, including - What dentist should I choose for my children??

The website had all the forms online to print out that you typically need to get through at your first appointment.  It took me a good 20-30 minutes to fill them out at home, I can't imagine having to do it at the office with a squirmy baby and 2 kids wondering what is taking so long.  Secondly, and even more impressive was the print out coloring book that they offered online.  It can be personalized, printed out, colored, gone over, and kept.  I sincerely believe that my children were comfortable at the dentist's office today because they knew what to expect due to the coloring book. 

All 3 girls saw the dentist today, got a clean bill of dental health (Yay for no cavities!), and had such a great time that Gabrielle keeps asking to go back to see Dr. Keith!

Here they are with their sparkling teeth and new toothbrushes:

Welcome to my blog experiment!

I have been playing around with different blogging sites, and I am excited to try out typepad as several of my favorite bloggers post here. The iMac blog I started up is decent, and I love the user friendly options it offers such as dragging any image into my posts, etc, however, I don't like the layout and how difficult it is to change things around. Maybe that's just my new Mac anxieties coming out, since I have only had a Mac for about a month. Either way, I've been blogging for a long time and I feel as if I am pretty technology competent, so it's discouraging that the iMac program was so confusing to me.

Here's to my first typepad post. I'll be posting more in the days to come. Then I'll make a decision from there. I have a feeling that this might be my home...