Bittersweet song of September By Beverly Beckham http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2010/08/22/bittersweet_song_of_september/?s_campaign=8315 I’m glad I’m not a young mother shopping for school clothes and new backpacks, studying the bus schedule, filling in the calendar with “No school day’’ and “Early release,’’ scheduling gymnastics and dance lessons, switching gears and mindset, getting ready to give my children back to the world, bidding this long, hot, summer goodbye. I never liked September when my children were young. It meant the end of something, not the beginning. Every year, when they walked out the front door and down the walk to wait for the school bus, a little taller and a little wiser than they were just 12 weeks before, my heart ached because I knew that when I got them back again in June, they wouldn’t be who they were now. Children grow in the summer, too, I know, but it’s different when school starts. They seem to grow faster then. Everything seems faster. There is a song from “Big: The Musical’’ that sums up the bittersweetness of raising children. It’s called “Stop Time,’’ and the first time you hear it, it stops your heart. “Nobody warns you of this parent’s paradox. You want your kid to change and grow,’’ the song says. “But when he does, another child you’ve just begun to know, leaves forever.’’ Even when you win, you lose. That’s the truth of the song. And that’s the truth about kids. You love your children at every stage exactly as they are. You love the way your baby fits snugly in your arms, the way he opens and closes his tiny hands, the way he sighs and leans into you when he’s sleepy. And you want to stop time. But you love it when he’s bigger, too, when he sits up all by himself. And you want to stop time, then. And when he learns to crawl. And when he walks and talks. And look. He’s starting kindergarten. And he’s learning to read. Can it get any better? Click the link above to continue reading.

How I Changed My Life In Four Lines
Changing your life can seem an incredibly tough and complicated thing, especially if you’ve failed a great number of times (like I did), found it too hard, and resigned yourself to not changing.

But I found a way to change.

And I’m not any better than anyone else, not more disciplined, not more motivated. I just learned a few simple principles that changed my life.

I’ve written about them many times, but realized they’re spread out all over the site.

Here is how I changed my life, in a nutshell.
To read on, go here:
http://zenhabits.net/4/" target="_blank">http://zenhabits.net/4/

A 40-year old woman and mom from our little town, wrapped her car around a tree yesterday afternoon while driving without a seatbelt on a snow covered gravel road. She died at the scene. I didn't know her. A few of my friends did know her. She was going home to let her dogs out. She never made it. She probably went home to let her dogs out hundreds, if not thousands of times. Routine. I cannot help but wonder how our routines rule us. How they make us think that everything is fine, the same and will always be that way.

The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More
You have to be rich to be poor.

That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.

Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.

So we'll explain it here. Consider this a primer on the economics of poverty.

"The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted."

Poverty 101: We'll start with the basics.

Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
To read the rest:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html

12 Things Happy People Do....
“I’d always believed that a life of quality, enjoyment, and wisdom were my human birthright and would be automatically bestowed upon me as time passed. I never suspected that I would have to learn how to live - that there were specific disciplines and ways of seeing the world I had to master before I could awaken to a simple, happy, uncomplicated life.”
-Dan Millman
To read this interesting list: http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/08/30/12-things-happy-people-do-differently/

10 Things to Avoid Saying to Adoptive Parents....especially in front of their children Please read this: http://www.babble.com/baby/baby-care/parenting-advice-adoption-adoptive-parents