But, on to the winners:

H&R Block At-Home Deluxe tax program — waiting to hear from winner

Joy Berry books — 1 set for younger kids and 1 set for older kids — winners have responded to me

Walmart $25 gift cards — winners have received their cards

I need to pick winners for the:

• Relion Thermometer and Safety 1st childproofing pack
• Alvin & the Chipmunks BABW
• Kodak Digital frame
• Pearl of Wisdom Cervical Cancer
• Joanie Leeds CD City Kids
• Pillsbury Sweet Rewards pack
• Casio Men’s watch
• Casio Women’s watch

I need to post my Wanchi Ferry and Nerf giveaways. Stay tuned!

Do you ever think back to when you were a tween or a teen? How different was your young adulthood when you compare it to your daughter or son? Were you a tween when there was no such word? Wasn’t life different for kids back then?

Whether you were a tween/teen in the 70s, 80s, or even 90s, life for tweens/teens today is challenging, invigorating, scary, and different from the past. Tweens/teens today have less freedom to roam around the neighborhood, but more freedom to explore the unknown world online.

I was never a tween or a preteen. At some point I turned 13, but my life did not change. There were a few rites of passage that were significant…traveling around town by myself, taking driving lessons, choosing a college, and leaving home for college. What big events in your life signaled that you were no longer a child?

Just think about the number of gadgets, places, and even food that weren’t around when you were a tween/teen.

• Internet
• e-mail
• DVD players
• CDs
• high-definition TV
• Great Wolf Lodge
• Chick Fila
• Animal Kingdom
• Universal Studios
• toaster strudel
• Starbucks
• reality TV
• Taco Bell
• ATM machines/debit cards
• touch tone phones

I started a new group over at Momster.com for moms who want to chat about how life as a tween or teen has changed. Join Momster to add your two cents’ worth to the discussion.

I don’t remember completing the 2000 Census. I know I completed it, but I don’t have any recollection of the form. Was I in the fog of toddlers and preschoolers? Why yes!

While our house is the same house as back in 2000, there have been changes since then. Here’s what we were doing in spring 2000.

• Our girls were 4 and almost 2. Our son was not born until 2003.
• I drove a Ford Windstar. My first minivan.
• My husband was a high school English teacher, part-time volleyball coach, and part-time PhD student.
• I was a freelance editor.
• Our yard had only one tree…our lowly, still hasn’t grown much Charlie Brown tree.
• We had a deck, but were starting to think about finishing our basement.
• Our yard had a swingset…a wooden structure with 2 swings, a baby swing, a family swing, and rings. We thought it was immovable until a huge hailstorm in 2008 flattened it.
• We still had a Little Tikes Playhouse until Hurricane Katrina blew it through our kitchen window.
• Our old basketball net was still standing. (After being knocked down time and again, my in laws bought my son an in ground basketball net.)
• We had not yet visited Disney, Great Wolf Lodge, Niagara Falls, Sesame Place, New York City, and England.
• I had no idea what blogging was.
• I had an AOL e-mail account. It was dial up. I could not use the phone and the internet.
• Caller ID was an extra charge. So was Call Waiting and Call Forwarding.
• Only my work colleagues used e-mail. Most of the authors I worked for insisted on giving me the changes to their galleys over the phone. I would beg for my authors to fax the galleys to me, but no. My kids would be cooperative (not!) by pushing the Fisher Price Corn Popper toy back and forth as I would write down the author’s changes.
• My office was my unborn son’s bedroom. It’s funny to think of the desks, computers, printers, and bookshelves in what is now his room.

I did not know about the following in 2000:

• Bouncy house places like PumpItUp and Bounce U
• Great Wolf Lodge
• Animal Kingdom
• high-speed internet
• DVD players
• PS2, or 3, or wii, or XBOX
• high-definition TV

What were you doing for Census 2000?

When I was 15, my grandmother was in the later stages of breast cancer. When she was well, I hung out with her. But once she was sick and came to live in our home, I distanced myself from her. I recall an angry argument with my mother — one of the few from my teen years. She wanted me to sit with my half-sleeping, half-awake grandmother. I just could not do it. I also could not explain to my mother why I was unable to sit with my grandmother.

When the person who your daughter was staying with asked her to go to the hospital and see you, what did your daughter give as the reason for not going? I’m wondering if she doesn’t like hospitals. Kids deal with illness in different ways. Perhaps, her method of coping is to ignore you until you are back to you.

When kids are little, we read them books about “going to a sleepover,” “having an operation,” or other tough situations. I found a book on amazon about “Essential Guide About Talking to Teens.” Here’s a link.

Your teen may not be the talkative type. How about writing her a letter letting her know you know it is hard to see you sick, or with a bandage, or in hospital. Encourage your teen to respond in whatever way she can: writing you a letter, e-mail, text, or in a journal. My tween and I communicate at times by journal. I will ask her why she is doing something and she will answer me. We have had a few brief but productive discussions.

Want to join Momster? You can join here. Follow Momster on twitter. Fan Momster on Facebook.
I wrote an article over here on explaining death and illness to tweens (applies to teens, too).

Go here and let Cozi know What Kind of a Mom You Are?

Posing with Minnie after fabulous brunch at Chef Mickey's...do you think they deliver?

All of the above statements make sense to me. How to solve my dinner dilemma?

• I posted a question over at DC CityMommy asking who knew a good site for making dinner when you have 4-5 ingredients. One person responded with a link to this site. The recipes look interesting. Do you know of any other quick recipe sites?
• Found a place where you can cook a meal and take it home to reheat for your family. Close to me too. Have you ever tried Let’s Dish? I would love to try it out.
• Found this local place where you can pick up an entree and take it home to bake it. Or Thyme Out can deliver it to you. I’m out of their delivery area, but would love to try their Take and Bake!

What do you do to make dinner less overwhelming?

But, what is “extraordinary” anyway? Certainly people have been described as extraordinary…Mother Theresa…Rosa Parks…Nelson Mandela. Tourist traps can be called extraordinary…Taj Mahal…Great Wall of China. Can an ordinary person be extraordinary? Can an ordinary person do something extraordinary? Yes! Yes!!

I think that an act that is done by a humble person is more awe-inspiring than one done by someone is known for extraordinary acts all the time. For me it is all about the level of enthusiasm that the person exudes. If you are passionate about something you will inspire everyone around you to raise the bar on their own activities.

What are you passionate about? What lights your fire? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Nothing like being under the gun to write. Pressure? No pressure! I just have a day to write about my passions. No, not feeling anxious here…no, not me!

Passions. I should start by defining what the word means to me. Something I am passionate about. An activity I love doing. A passion is not something run of the mill, but something extraordinary.

But, what about me? What am I passionate about? Top 5:

1. My family – health, well-being, citizenship, education, well-rounded. I want to instill all these values and more in my three children. It’s a work in progress.
2. Our financial health and future plans. As a SAHM and nonbreadwinner, I find myself having little to say about our finances. I’m not the best person to balance the checkbook. I care that we have investments, but don’t pore over financial statements. I don’t do the taxes. But, I do care that we have a house to live in…good schools to send our children to…a vacation every year or so.
3. My job. Three kids ago I had a good job with benefits. I was a workaholic who was paid very little, but that did not stop me from giving my best each and every day. Seriously, the pay was O.K., but someone should sit down with English majors from small liberal arts colleges and tell them…here’s the deal: Make sure you are passionate about working in publishing as the pay is not what will keep you there. As an expectant mom, I persuaded my boss to let me work from home…best decision I ever made. Sure I was stressed keeping up with the dueling tornadoes of “freelance work” and “baby and toddler.” After 6 years, I was done…spent. One more kid and a couple of years as a SAHM-school volunteer-independent music product consultant and I was ready to dive in to blogging.
4. Blogging. After years editing and proofreading other people’s writing, I love that I get to write for me. I write here and here and here and here.
5. Future. I don’t know what the future holds for my kids, my husband, or me, but I want to live my life in the best way possible.

Submitted to the Mabel’s Labels BlogHer 10 Contest.

I love reading the paper, but I was overwhelmed by 7 newspapers per week. I try to read the headlines online, but it isn’t the same as sitting down with a mug of joe and reading the paper from cover to cover. I know…who has the time to read a newspaper these days, right? But, I did. I would take a morning and read 3 or 4 newspapers from cover to cover. Somehow I never managed to find the time during the day to read each day’s paper, but once or twice a week I would read a couple of papers at a time. But, I started to feel as though I was drowning in papers on the days that I did not read the paper, so I canceled it. I miss it. My husband missed the Sports section. My teen misses the Sunday circular with the Washington Post Magazine and the flyers for all the stores in the area.

Anyway, here’s an excerpt from the chart about who falls in to what generation:

Traditionalists

Born: 1922-1945

Life-Shaping Events: WWII, Depression, FDR era

Traits: conservative, disciplined, respect authority

Baby Boomers

Born: 1946-1964

Life-Shaping Events: Man on the Moon, Vietnam War, free love

Traits: idealistic, “Break the rules,” politically correct

Generation X

Born: 1965-1980

Life-Shaping Events: Women working, Gulf War, MTV

Traits: pragmatic, self-sufficient, skeptical

Generation Y

Born: 1981-2001

Life-Shaping Events: 9/11, reality TV, Internet boom/bust

Traits: Authentically confident, well-educated, tolerant and diverse

Source: Annie Loehr’s Generational Cheat Sheet, July 9, 2009, Washington Post.