Amy Currioman

When I was younger I had hoped to have two children, one girl, and one boy. Life had other plans for me, and I ended up with two wonderful boys. Every now and then, though, I tease them that one of them was supposed to be a baby girl! They just roll their eyes at me and laugh; they know that I love them dearly. When my niece had a baby girl last year I was very excited to be able to go shopping for new baby girls clothes for her baby shower present. There are so many adorable outfits available on the market today!

To be perfectly honest, that is probably one of the biggest reasons why I wanted a baby girl way back then; the outfits for baby girls are always so adorable! The outfits always bring back memories of my childhood when my sisters and I would play with dolls and dress the dolls up in frilly outfits. Sometimes I wonder if playing with baby dolls was brain washing us, or simply appealing to our maternal instincts. Seems to me that I was just as happy playing with toy trucks and building blocks when I was given them to play with. That’s probably a good thing, though, since I had two sons and I ended up spending many hours with them playing with toy trucks, building blocks, trains, and action figures!

As much as I tried to avoid it, I finally arranged to have texting enabled on our family’s cell phone plan. Up until now I had ordered it blocked because I think texting is dangerous and rude on many occassions, and people don’t seem to have the common decency or sense when to use it or not. But my son told me that his boss really wanted him to have text messaging enabled, so I went ahead and enabled it.

So I had to have my son teach me how to use it, and he laughed at me because he thought that I should already know how to use it! It was easier than I thought it would be, and I have used it a couple of times. I wonder how much I’ll use it in the future. I can’t imagine doing it while driving. That would be dangerous and dumb.

Today I am feeling the empty nest feeling. After having the house full of company over the long Thanksgiving weekend, having bid them all good bye, the house is now feeling very empty. I love having my family around me, and when they are gone I miss them a lot. Sometimes I feel like I am being very selfish when I start thinking about how much I miss them, and I try to keep busy to keep my mind off of it, but there are many things that I can do around the house while on automatic pilot and I find that even though my hands are keeping busy my mind is still missing them.

When I start to feel that way I realize that the pain and sorrow other families must be feeling when their loved ones have passed away and will never be there again for the holidays would truly be unbearable, and I count my blessings that my loved ones are alive and well “out there” doing what they want and love to do. Yes, I miss them, but I am so happy that they are pursuing their dreams instead of being shot at in some war zone. Thank you God.

Although I try to support local small businesses as much as possible, I like to surf the Internet to see what is new and trendy in the world. My son helps me keep up to date by sending me links to a variety of websites that he thinks that I’ll find interesting. One link that he sent me was for Geek News and Promotional Coupons so that I could see a variety of interesting gadgets. I thought that website was awesome – that was the first place I’d ever seen the new gloves that are designed specifically for people who want to use their electronics while they are out in the cold. Personally I don’t text, but I sure could use a pair of those gloves to wear in the car when I’m trying to program my GPS when I first get in the cold car in the winter time! Definitely put a pair of those on my Christmas wish list!

And then he sent me the website uncommongoods.com, along with the link to Uncommon Goods source codes which is actually a page that leads you to discount codes for the uncommon goods website. I still haven’t figured out why the discount code is being called a source code. Could someone explain that one to me please?

And, knowing how much of a comic hero fan my hubby is, he sent me the link to SuperheroStuff promo codes which is a coupon page for the superherostuff.com website. I used to think my hubby was difficult to shop for, but with this superherostuff website, I think I could just close my eyes and play “pin the donkey” with that website and my hubby would be thrilled with anything I picked out!

Thanks for the help Jonny Boy!

I know that there were many days and nights that I was worried about something one of my kids had done (or not done) and that I suspected they were doing (or not doing,) that I wondered if I would survive their teenage years. They were all basically good kids, but parents worry and kids do make mistakes. But that’s how they learn, after all.

I had an older woman working with me at the time and she used to tell me to just hang in there and keep telling them that I loved them. She would tell me stories of her own sons and how she was frantic for almost a year that one son who was fighting depression might try to kill himself. She made a tremendous effort to spend as much time with him as she could, often going for long drives at night, just the two of them in the car. She kept talking to him about the future and how he had so much to look forward to, and that she loved him. And eventually he developed some new interests and friends ,and he gradually came out of the depression. Now he is a healthy and vital young man with a family of his own.

I often think back on how much those conversations with her meant to me and inspired me to help my kids get through their bad times. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.