I love living in Miami. Besides the glorious weather that we have for most of the year, the people in Miami are very colorful.  Miami is a true melting pot of many cultures and this makes for great art, music and food. (It does make for horrible traffic and drivers but its worth it to live in such an amazing city).

That being said, Miami is full of nutballs. I went to go get my Flu Shot on Friday at Walgreens.  I saw this lady walking through the entire store with her two dogs on leashes.  They were not service dogs. They were regular dogs.  Not one person that worked in the store said anything. They sell food in Walgreens!  What the heck? To make matters worse, I kept looking at the lady as she looked liked she could be one of the PTA moms that I know. She did not look like a loonie at all, she looked like one of my friends.  What does this mean? 

Moderation?

Every year the Halloween Candy heads into the house after a night of trick or treating.  Every year, that bucket of yummy sugar starts calling to me. Those little tiny-sized candy bars. They are not that evil right? They have less than 1/2 the calories of a real chocolate bar.  I start with just one. Then it seems like I am eating one every time I walk into the kitchen. They start calling my name. "Just another little one honey. What harm can one little chocolate bar do?" I can't stop. I eat too many throughout the day. I would have been better off just buying one candy bar, eating it and being done with it.

This year I decided that I could eat whatever I wanted on the actual day of Halloween which was at least four fun-sized chocolate bars (Which is equal to 2 full sized candy bars!) and went to sleep nauseous and with a great idea.  I decided that I was not going to eat any candy from the Halloween bowl after Halloween.  Not one piece. In fact, I decided that I was going to detox off of white sugar starting November 1st. I'm going to try to make it until Thanksgiving,  but I'm taking it one day at a time.

Yesterday was day one. Guess what? It was super easy.  I had drawn a clear line in the sand. I could have none of it. It was was less difficult than trying to limit myself to a piece or two. I did not crave it. I did not think about it. I easily walked by the bowl. I was not tempted at all.

I guess my problem is that I don't have the "moderation" gene when it comes to sugar.  I can't eat just a little bit.  I know that some people can. Have any of you learned "moderation" when it comes to sweets or am I just out of luck?

Dreaming of paradise...

Even though I live in paradise year round, when I plan a vacation (or daydream about one), I tend to head out to sea.  This week my favorite blogger  Empress Bee is blogging from the middle of the ocean. She got me thinking and dreaming about cruising.

A new ship is heading to Miami this winter called The Norwegian Getaway.  I'm thinking that this might be the next family vacation for us as this new ship (it arrives here in February) sails from here to the Caribbean year round.

I haven't sailed on NCL in awhile but the new ship looks like it could offer the  perfect family vacation. If you have kids or teens and haven't cruised, you might be missing out on the perfect family vacation. It has been said that traveling with children is usually just a change of scenery rather than a vacation. I think that cruising might be the exception. I've cruised with my boys several times starting when my youngest was 7 and these trips have always been a blast.

These are my top five reasons why a cruise could possibly be the best way to travel with kids and teens:

1. Everyone goes on the same vacation but everyone can do what is fun for them.  Ships today have kids and teen camps, game rooms and tons of activities for kids and teens to partake in.  The Norwegian Getawy is going to have a waterpark onboard. This would definitely keep my guys busy for quite a while.  When my son was younger, he wanted to go to the kids camp every single night. 

The Getaway is also going to have a huge sports complex complete with a  ropes course! 

2. You might see something besides the top of their heads during the trip. Today's modern ships have wifi and celluar-at-sea available but they are not cheap. Therefore, the "unplugging" of the kids (and the parents) is one of the best parts of this type of trip. I always make everyone turn off the phones and stick them in the room safe when the ship sails away from the dock.  (those roaming fees are steep on cell phones) 

On my last three cruises, we used the "post-it note" method. The kids had to leave a post it note with the time and their destination on the mirror in the cabin so we knew where to find them.  This worked like a charm. When they were younger, we used walkie-talkies.  This gave them a little bit of freedom and we did not worry. Even with the huge ships we were on, we could always find them.  We had rules about not going into other people's cabins, etc.  We usually found them at the free pizza parlor!

vs.

3.  For the most part, a cruise is paid for ahead of time. Unlike checking out of a regular  resort after a week and having a giant bill, you pay for the cruise before you step onboard.  Most meals are paid for so just your spending money is on the bill at the end. If you don't go crazy, it is usually not too painful to look at your bill at the end of the week. I have two teenaged boys. I think that cruising definitely is less expensive than feeding a la carte.

4. There are less decisions to be made than on a regular vacation.  For the most part, you can plan out your dinners and shows ahead of time on most cruises.  I always do this.  This means that I tell everyone in my family, "Dinner is at 7 tonight in the main dining room. You need to wear a collared shirt and long pants" There is no arguing involved. There is no whining It makes it easy on everyone.  If you have ever spent a day sightseeing and have tried to  get a whole car full of hungry tired people to agree on a type or cuisine or restaurant, you know what I'm talking about. Those type of discussions have led to having dinner at "Golden Coral" or "apple bees" in vacation destinations which is a wasted vacation meal opportunity in my book.

5.  Mom and Dad get a vacation too. You only have to unpack everyone once.  No one is bored.  Dad can sunbathe or gamble or scuba dive. Mom can sit somewhere in silence and read a book while watching the waves roll by or get a salt scrub in the spa. 

 The Getaway not only has a full spa but in it is a Salt room which is supposed to mimic the natural, highly therapeutic salt caves in Eastern Europe.  Sign me up!

As for cost, cruise prices vary with cruise lines and times of the year.  I think that a week on cruise is probably less than a week in Orlando  ( a day ticket to see Mickey is now $100 per person!). While I love theme parks just as much as the next mom, when I get off of a cruise I feel energized, relaxed and that everyone got away from it all. 

Now I just need to convince my husband to let me plan it! 

Only in Miami...

    I took this photo myself yesterday at an intersection near the mall. (I was not driving and photographing!)  It cracked me up. I guess dogs need to get to the mall too.

Teens and Drugs?

     Last night I attended an information seminar at my son's high school.  They talked about a lot of important stuff but the thing that stuck with me the most is when a family therapist stood up and mentioned that there are a lot of drugs in schools today. All schools, not just the "bad" ones. Way more craziness that when I was in high school in the 80's.  

     She stated that parents are naive about it.  She mentioned that the latest craze at high school parties is that all attendees raid their parent's medicine cabinets and steal a few pills. All of the attendees place the pills in a bowl in the middle of the room so it looks like a big bowl of colorful candy and they each kid takes a few. Talk about dangerous!

     I try to scare my kids about drugs all of the time. I have a cousin that ruined her bright life with drugs.  We have a close family friend whose father is a deadbeat crackhead. I don't edit the stories when talking about these two stories.  I try to remind them that they can't experiment. When someone famous dies of drugs, I remind them.  I hope that they listen.

    Then today I read that the producers of GLEE have decided NOT to have Cory Monteith's character, Finn,  die of drug use.  If you remember Cory died recently of a heroin overdose.(they have not announced what kills the character but have announced that it won't be drugs)   Its a wasted opportunity if you ask me.   

    I used to love GLEE but when the main characters graduated, I lost interest in the show BUT a lot of young children and teens still watch.  They will be crying tonight watching everyone pretty much glamorize the death of a young man by singing songs about him.  Wouldn't it be better to try to save a life or two by making him die from trying drugs just once. Something to scare kids. Like how about Finn went to a music festival and tried Molly (a  form of ectasy) and died. In my opinion, its a travesty that they are not using his death from drugs as part of the story line.

Time to squish the girls...

I got my annual mammogram today.  I always get mine in October because with all of the pink ribbon stuff going on everywhere, I can't forget.  If you are due for one, get it this month, then it will be easy to remember when your next one is.

One of my good friends skipped hers one year because her mother was dying.  It was the wrong year to skip. By the time she went the following year, she had a tumor that was big and had spread to the lymph nodes.  No one knows if it would have shown up the year before, but bets are that it would have, as by the time it was discovered it was a big and mean tumor.  She is fine now but she had a pretty crappy time kicking cancer's butt.

Sorry for the scary story but it serves a point. If you are due, don't put it off. Mine today hurt like hell but it was over very quickly. I know far too many women, young and old, that are BC survivors. 

Bragging????

Something really good happened to my son this week.  I'm really proud of his accomplishment.  I wanted to brag so I called his grandparents.  I also told my best friend who happened to call me as I was reading the letter that brought the good news.  I wanted to shout the great news from the rooftops and tell anyone else who would listen but I didn't. Why? Because I'm not a bragger.

I'm not a big fan of braggers. (Especially social network braggers)

I think that they brag because:
1. They are truly happy or excited about the thing.
AND/OR
2. They want others to be happy for them.
AND/OR
3. They want others to be jealous of them.

What happens when someone far removed brags (especially on social networking?)
1. People are truly happy or excited for them
AND/OR
2. People are jealous of them
AND/OR
3. People think negative thoughts about them

 I'm at the age where many of my friends have kids in the high school/college stage.  This seems to be the height of bragging age. My real friends tell me the highs and lows of their parenting lives. I feel true joy for their triumphs and real empathy for the-not-so great news with regards to their children.  I've never felt a negative or jealous feeling when someone that I really care about has something great happen to them.

That being said, when Facebook friends start bragging about their straight A student or their child's acceptance to the Junior honor society, I'm not that happy for them.  Sometimes, I even have negative thoughts like "I can't believe the jughead who used to call his Dad "A-hole" at the playground is now making the Princiapal's honor roll" or worse.   I'm not a jealous person. I truly believe that I would not want to trade lives with anyone on the planet but there is something about bragging that really rubs me the wrong way.

Bruce Feiler in an article in the New York Times titled A Truce in the Bragging Wars discussed the fact that Mommy bloggers only agree on one thing, that parents should stop bragging about their kids. He even set out guidelines for acceptable bragging (i.e. brag about effort, brag in context, brag to granny)

Feiler goes on to say that Parents want to brag because parenting is such a scary road and they want reassurance that they are doing well. I'm not sure that this is the case. I think it is because it really, really sucks when things are not going well with your kids.  Whether the problems with your kids are tiny (when my two year old bit a kid at pre-school almost every day, I thought I was a complete disaster as a mother) or the problems are bigger and more dangerous (as problems with older children often are), it is very hard to be happy. When you see a bad report card, it makes you feel worse than the subject of the report.  When your child screws up, it makes you feel like you failed.  So when your child accomplishes something whether it be peeing in the potty or getting into college, it is hard not to feel like it is your accomplishment too.


How do you feel about bragging? 

Date Night Disaster...

Our favorite date night idea of late is to go really casual and find a place on the water where we can sit outside.   This is why we live in Florida, to enjoy the weather. The lack of tourists in the summer makes these types of places bearable at this time of year and we have had a mild summer so it is not too hot. Last night, we picked a new place called Joe's Tiki Bar.

Joe is located along a quiet stretch of the Intracoastal. Despite their very odd interesting menu choices (they serve sports bar food like wings, mexican and cuban food and sushi), the view was great. We sat outside while the sun set and watched the boats slowly head home (it's a no wake zone, so it is very mellow).  We ordered some appetizers and beer and just hung out.  There was a horrible karaoke type of singer but she wasn't that loud.  Waitresses were yelling at each other but we thought it was kind of charming in a dive-y type of way. 

As we headed out, things took a turn.  We valet parked the car (parking at places on the beach is limited and even dive bars have valet only!).  The valet decided to pull the car up right on the major street instead of in the valet lane.  This annoyed my husband as it seemed very dangerous and lazy of the valet. We were sort of commenting on this as we pulled away and did not notice what was to come.

We drove the 15 minutes or so home and when we got close, I insisted that we stop for self serve frozen yogurt at Tootie Fruitie.   My husband asked if I had to get yogurt. "YES!". 

My husband asked if he had to go in with me. "YES. I don't want to eat it in the car. I don't want date night to end!".

 So he pushed the button that turns off my car and we realized that the stupid valet never gave us the key. I have one of those dumb cars that has keyless ignition. I don't know who came up with this bright idea but it is just dumb.  Furthermore, my car makes the faintest bell noise three times if you pull away without the key being present. (if you don't wear your seatbelt, it yells at you!). Why you can even drive without it reminding you that you don't have the key is beyond imagination. 

 We were at Tootie Fruitie and had no way to restart the car.  Tootie Fruitie is a little over a mile from my house. I was wearing flats (it was casual date night) but they were not really walking shoes.  Regardless, we started to hoof it home.

Along the way, we asked our local pizza delivery boy if he could give us a lift but due to some insurance regulations, he couldn't . Just kidding but if I had spotted him, I would have asked.  We cut through the Publix parking lot on the way home and I looked for someone we knew.  Luck had it that we had to walk the whole way. We called Joe's Tiki Bar and after getting hung up on three times, we finally got ahold of one of the yelling waitresses who said that our key was at the bar.

We made it home, got the other car and set of keys. My sweet husband dropped me and my little one off at the car (and the yogurt store) and he left to go back to the Tiki Bar. I got my yogurt (it was great and refreshing after my walk!) and he retrieved the keys which were handed over without apology from the management. Big Surprise.

As we were walking and bitching, my husband said "you've got a topic for your blog tomorrow!"

Note to self: The next car needs an old fashioned key. I can't believe that this does not happen to ditzy old me more often!

Goodwill just hit the motherlode...

My little one is not that little anymore. We went for his yearly camp physical and he grew four inches since last June. He is now officially taller than I am (I am 5'8"!) This is certainly bittersweet.

He kept telling me that he had no clothes to wear. His closet was so messy that I couldn't believe this statement, so we decided to attack his closet today. I made him try every single thing on.

I am not lying when I tell you that I loaded up ten white garbage bags into my SUV and hightailed over to the goodwill drive through donation place.  He really has nothing to wear, poor thing. If you are around Target, Old Navy or the mall this week and you see a crazy brunette loading up, that is me.  

I did order him some t-shirts from my favorite site 6dollarshirts.com (i don't get any hook up for mentioning them but I do love their site!)

 Here is the one I'll be looking for in the sleep away camp online photos next month! Isn't this the perfect camp shirt! 

I surrender...

This week, I tried to finish up a freelance law project and list a ton of fab stuff that a friend gave me to sell on eBay.  I had a lot of work to do and wanted to try to get back in the groove after the weeks of Bar Mitzvah chaos.  

First of all I had the cast debacle with my son. 
Then my computer started acting wonky and I spent hours on the phone with applecare getting it back up to speed
Then my iphone started acting wonky and I had to spend hours at the apple store getting it back up to speed.'
Then the flood came...

I realized that sometimes life gets in the way of life and hopefully my groove will return next week.

Oh yes, did I say flood?  We had a flash flood here in Aventura.  In the morning, the weather girl said to expect some light rain during the day due to the tail of tropical storm Andrea which was heading far away. 

The weather people in Miami are gorgeous but not very good at their jobs. I don't know why I even watch.  It started to rain. And rain. And rain. 

Our little city got 15" in one afternoon.  My place is usually fine in the rain but this was heavy and fast.  The entrance to my house is up three steps but I have a very large sunken living room which is on ground level.  During the 15 years that I have lived here, we have been through hurricanes and tropical storms, water has only seeped in under the sliding glass doors once. That was during a freak flash flood about five years ago during December. A little water leaked in, we sucked it up with a wet vac and forgot about it.

Yesterday I noticed a little water coming in around 2 p.m. I put down towels and some water absorbing things that look like giant sausages. By 3 p.m. more towels. By 4 p.m.  I was out of towels and I felt defeated, the water just started coming in. Luckily, most of my house is two feet higher than the living room.  I told my husband to leave work (He just started with a new company a week ago. I've already called once with a child headed to the emergency room and now with a flood! His new office must think we are a dramatic family!!!)  


It is a good thing that he left when he did. As it was, it took four times longer than usual. The closer he got to the house, the more cars were stalled out in the road. It took 45 minutes to go the last mile to my house! During the point that I wanted to take a shower but had no dry towels! I was glad that my living room had not been re-decorated lately and that I was not attached to anything in it other than photographs which had been moved to higher ground. Facebook friends from the area reported really long commutes as it got later. The rain finally let up and the water was sucked up. No permanent damage.

Here are the towels outside waiting to be washed. It may be time for new towels.

Here is the little lake in my front yard. Usually it looks so pretty. Floods are messy

I highly recommend that you own a canister style wet vac. We would never have been able to get a company to come out yesterday, everyone was flooded!!!

Summer is here....

As a mother of two boys who completed 9th and 7th grade yesterday, who hosted a Bar Mitzvah in the Bahamas two weeks ago, whose husband, after much deep consideration, just made a major career change , who now has to pack 4 camp trunks for sleep
away camp, who decided to undertake some freelance lawyer work which is more time-consumng than ever, who has been to 1 ER and two orthopedist offices in the past week, and is peri-menopausal,  I AM EXHAUSTED.

Usually when Summer Break arrives, I am enthusiastic. I am usually dancing in the carpool line. Not this year but I have resolved to fake it until it arrives.  In the words of one of my BFF, "respect the lull".  No homework. No 6:15 a.m. school bus to make.  No less nagging , bitching and yelling. 

Furthermore, soon the beasts will be heading off to the mountains for a month of good clean fun. This means, maybe 2 Publix Supermarket trips (the whole month!!!!) , way less laundry, way less driving and no nagging, bitching or yelling! Woo Hoo. Just typing that made me feel a little more summery.

My new true love..

I  interrupt my Bar Mitzvah planning craziness to introduce my new true love. The Flogg.

The Flogg is a hybrid between a clog and a flip flop and are the hottest new shoe around. These things are flying off the shelves here in Miami. So much, that the store that I tried them on in did not have my size in black so I had to order them online.

These babies are not only high heels but seriously comfortable. As I've bitched and moaned  blogged about incessantly on this blog , I injured the joint in my foot over thanksgiving and have been on a quest for comfortable, yet  chic shoes.  I think that they do exist. These have a nice thick footbed so they are really easy on the injury.

I just bought this pair and will road test them on the cruise. I wore them around my house (up and down the stairs 20 times) today and they were like heaven so I 'm thinking they are going to be perfect.  If they are, I'm seeing more Floggs in my future this summer.  I'm already lusting after these...

By the way, this is an unsolicited, uncompensated rave review of these shoes. I just know that these are the next big things and wanted to share my opinion 

Swag Swag Swag...

I'm still working on my cruise swag bags. If you want to catch up go here, and here.

They are coming along quite nicely but once again, if you, the reader are my sister, please stop reading now. Everyone else, here are a couple of more glimpses...

The group is over 40 people but other than t-shirts and hats, I really had trouble finding personalized items in small quantities  at normal prices. Sure you can get personalized tote bags for $30 each, but I wanted to make overstuffed bags with tons of stuff in it to make my guests feel pampered so I had to do a lot of it myself.



Here is a card that will go in every bag. The front features the guest of honor on a past vacation. I made them on Shutterfly and they came out so well. Very professional. Easy to do and affordable (about $1 per card)

In addition to the adult totes, I had to make 12 kids totes for the under 18 crew.  Once again, I could not source a bag that I liked in a small amount via traditional wholesale sites,  so I turned to eBay.  

As with a few of the things in the bags, I found what I wanted on ebay and asked the seller if they would give me a quantity discount. I was able to source the string backpacks below, lanyards and iphone speakers by asking ebay sellers to give me a wholesale discount. In addition, for some of the swag for the ladies, I asked in a boutique if they would give me a discount for quantity and they did.  So the moral of the story is that even if you are not spending hundreds of dollars, if you need a dozen or so items for a party, you can still be considered a "wholesale" buyer. 

I got these string backpacks for way less than they are selling in the stores. They have a nice mesh pocket on the front and the quality is good. 

I decided to personalize them only by attaching a Sam's Crew Personalized Luggage tag which I made myself as I own not one,but two laminators. I own them because I bought them on separate occasions at Costco because I thought that I needed to laminate something.  I'm so happy that they finally got used. The tags have each kid's name on the back so that we can figure out they belong to on the beach. The luggage tag can easily be removed after the trip and the kids can use them for camp.

l

Going through the baby photos...

     Generally when one throws a Bar Mitzvah party for her child, there is a slide show to prepare. At some parties, there is a slide show of the guest of honor at various ages with family and friends which plays in the background.  At other Bar Mitzvahs, the parents stop the party all together, turn down the lights and show a long chronological montage of the Bar mitzvah boy from birth to present day. 
     My preference is to have it playing as background art because who really wants to watch 15 minutes of photos from the life of a 13 year old other than the parents and grandparents of said child? This is what I did at my first son's party. This was an easy way to do it as I did not have to edit the photos to songs or cut out any photos. The slide show played during the party and honored my son without boring anyone to death. 
     For my youngest son's upcoming big event, we are going on a family cruise, so unless I can convince Royal Caribbean to play photos of my son on the close circuit televisions in every single one of the 2730 cabins on the ship, I'm not doing a slide show.  This is quite a burden lifted as I have 11,000 photos on my trusty mac and hundreds more in albums and boxes from the pre-digital camera age.
     That being said, I made a personalized photo album from Shutterfly featuring about 20 photos of my son at various ages.  It is a hard cover bound book. I  kept the pages around the photos white and will bring it on the trip and let everyone sign it with well wishes for him. 

     My blog is supposed to be anonymous but no one would recognize this guy today. He is almost as tall as me and his blond hair is now curly and brown.

   The big challenge was narrowing it down to around 20 photos of my son. It was like  Sophie's choice. Especially when it came to Halloween costume photos. Infant in a dog suit (in). Superman with muscles (out). 7 year old elvis complete with white jumpsuit and wig (in of course!).  I got so frustrated last week that I just gave up. How can I pack 13 years of cuteness into one little album.

  

     I promised myself that I would cross this off of my list this weekend so I hunkered down and finished it. My husband was mad that I did not give him final approval before I ordered it but I saw a tear in his eye when I showed him the proof online.

    One down, 7000 more things to do before the big day. Wish me luck that I will get it all done without needing to color out my gray more than once before the trip!

Fiats and Fun in Florida....

Hey fellow Boca Girls! (once a Boca Girl, always a Boca Girl right?). From May 9th-12th, an Italian themed celebration is taking place at the Fountain's Center on Camino and Powerline.

The Event will showcase some awesome Fiats (If I did not have to bus around every kid in my neighborhood, I'd drive one). One of the Fiats is custom painted by Miami artist Abstrk and there will also be a Chrome Fiat 500 Abarth Model on display.

There will also be a pop-up Pizza Cafe sponsored by Lavazza Italian Coffee with free samples! Other festivities include a sing along movie night to MAMMA MIA and some mother's days events

Go to www.Fountainscenter.com for more info.

Living in Miami is always an adventure...

One of the best (and sometimes the worst) things about living in Miami is that it often feels like you are living in another country. 

Miami is a true melting pot. It is not just Cuban (as many people think), there are also tons of Central and South Americans, Caribbean people and lots of Russians along with immigrants from all around the world. Driving is often a big old party, especially in the winter when the Canadians and American snowbirds head down to warm up.

I love that I can go to my local supermarket and try to figure out what languages the other shoppers are speaking. I love the accents.  I also love the restaurants.

Last night my husband and I tried a new-to-us restaurant in Coral Gables, which is a city within Miami-Dade County. It was called Aromas del Peru.  It was a little Peruvian restaurant. Peruvian food is different from Spanish or Mexican food that you might be familiar with. All Miamians, including us, know enough Spanish to order food in restaurants but we were a little confused because we don't really  know Peruvian food so the experience was like being on a mini-vacation for us.  Our waiter spoke no english so we sort of asked him to bring us what he thought we would like. A risk? Yes. Fun? Yes

We started with  a  causa. A causa is like a potato knish with filling. The filling we had was crab. It was beautiful and delicious.

The waiter then brought us a huge dish of cerviche. It has shrimp and other fish. It also had some type of beans, sweet potato and corn. It was absolutely heavenly. 

After that, we were full but the waiter then brought out a seafood only paella. It was amazing.  

He then brought us some type of torte with dulce de leche and apricots.

This place was amazing. Yum Yum. Yesterday was one of those days where feeling like you're living in a foreign country is a good thing! 

Spring cleaning....

As many of you know, I have a very successful  eBay consignment business. I have no trouble selling high end and other desirable brands, but I have ahard time selling good old regular mall brands for any type of profit. The amount that stuff like Gap and J.Crew clothes sell for is just not worth the time or effort. Luckily, I just came across this cool site called Like Twice and I'm cleaning out my closet right now.

They send you a bag or a pre-paid sticker and you mail them your unwanted clothes like Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, etc and they mail you a check. You probably won't get rich, but something is better than nothing right? They also sell gently used clothing so if you need some well-priced spring stuff to fill your closet back up, you may find something good! 

Don't you love the feeling when you purge out your closet? I do. Here is the link to their site like twice

Maybe we should be a little goofier...

Yesterday as I was pulling out the the supermarket, I saw a cute little old man get into his very expensive and nice Mercedes Convertible and put on a pair of giant novelty sunglasses.  He had a big smile on his face as he peeled out onto the street.

I had to laugh. He looked absurd. If I was related to him, I probably would have been embarrassed. He looked certifiably insane. A crazy person. 

I looked about the parking lot and everyone had a smile on their face. They were laughing with him. He was spreading joy.  Perhaps I need to be a little sillier as I age. Anyone with me? 

Snag a Husband as fast as you can?

This photo has nothing to do with the topic of my blog today. I snapped during my walk on the beach this am and was more interesting that any photo that I could come up with for my topic! 

Princeton University Alumna Susan Patton is urging current female students of her alma matter to find a husband on campus before they graduate.  Patton, who graduated in 1977, wrote a letter to the campus newspaper trying to remind women on campus that their male counterparts are smart, ivy league men who are going to leave campus and marry women in the outside world who are young and less intelligent than Princeton Students. 

You can read the entire letter here, but in summary, her advice to the daughters that she never had is that in addition to the MBA or whatever degree they are seeking, they should also seek an MRS degree while still in the ivy league environment. "you will never again be surround by the concentration of men who are worthy of you".

Her reasoning is that there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than the Princeton female students.  She goes on to state that men have a much more unlimited stock of women to choose from and many men marry beneath them in terms of intelligence or education, especially if the woman is pretty.  In addition, men don't have the biological constraints in terms of find a mate to have children with.

I heard Patton speak on a radio show this morning and while I want to hate her advice (especially because it seems so snobby and because she has sons), it is quite practical if you really think about it.

I goofed around all during my college days. I went to a great Univesity but it was not Ivy Leaque. The boys that I met and dated were not serious, nor was I. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to experience life. I wanted to go to law school so I did not even think about snagging a husband during those days.

When my sorority sisters would announce their engagements, in the surprise, secret, dramatic ways that sororities do this, I was never jealous. In fact, it seemed ridiculous to me. We were too young. We had stuff to do. Through Facebook, I've kept in touch with many of these girls and just about all of them who got engaged during undergrad are now in their mid 40's and divorced.

I will say, however, that once I went to Law School, I looked around and was amazed but the plethora of single, smart, soon-to-be successful men. I really enjoy hanging out with smart people so I loved this.  I started to think, wow, if you want to be a lawyer's wife, this is the place to be. I even thought that I should write to the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and suggest Law School to women looking for a rich (or soon to be) husband.  

I was in Law School to snag a law degree and not a husband.  I began to think that a lawyer -lawyer marriage might involve a lot of arguing as this is what lawyers are trained to do and the fellow students were not as attractive as I first thought once I spent a million hours with them. 

 I did happen to meet my husband during law school. He was the non-lawyer friend of some fellow students.  

As the mother of two teenaged sons, I don't know if I would be terribly excited for them to  ge
t married in their early 20's.  I think that the craziness of one's 20's is best acted out at the time rather than squeeze out later when they are middle aged.  But as we all know, I barely have any control at this point. I'm sure that they won't care what I think by then.

What do you think of Susan Patton's advice? I'd love to hear your opinions.

GIVEAWAY for South Floridians!!!

The taste of Grove is Miami's original family-friendly food festival. Me and my clan are going to eat, drink, rock and stroll.

The festival was nice enough to give me a four pack of tickets to giveaway to one of my lucky readers. Leave a comment if you want to win. Tell your friends. I will hold a drawing of all entries on Fiday April 5th at 11:30 p.m. so leave your  comments by then.

Even if you don't win, the tickets are only 10 bucks for adults and 5 dollars per kidlet so it is totally affordable.