I Have Never Been on a Train.

My morning routine consists of getting my children up and ready for school, driving them down to the bus stop, and then I return home to a cup of coffee and to my computer to check my email, messages, and of course Twitter.

At first, I really had no clue as to what Twitter was used for. One of my daughters has a Twitter account, so being a concerned mother I established my own Twitter account and followed her to make sure it was safe. I then realized after a day or two what Twitter was and how it worked. I added some people, some people added me, and then I started tweeting and reading tweets.

I like reading about what people are doing, especially those who are traveling. You see, I have never been on a train, subway, plane, taxi, or a bus. So, I like reading about those who travel in these ways. It is like an adventure for me. I don't have the foggiest idea of how to transfer between planes, or how to hail a taxi other than what I've seen on the television. I have no idea what a layover is. One day I will find out and it will be my very own adventure.

With that said, I may never have used those types of transportation before, but I have rode on a mine car that went back into a deep dark mines. I have also ridden a goat on accident (don't ever listen to your older brother who insists you sit on the goat to hold it down while he milks it). When I was a child, I even rode a tree. Sure did! My friend's brother tied a rope to the top of this tree, pulled the top of the tree down toward the ground and when it was low enough, I got right on there and held on with my life when he let go. I was flinged back and forth for just a few seconds, but it sure was fun!

Let's see, hmmm, I also rode on the back of a car hood down a snowy hill, used it as a sleigh. It was dangerous though, because one time there were a bunch of us piled on it and someone fell off and had to get stitches. Needless to say, the adults made us stop riding on it after that. We kind of sneaked and did it anyways though.

I rode a spaceship when I was six! My brother made it for me out of a cardboard box. He even drew controls and buttons on the wall of it with crayons! I would climb inside and he would close the flaps. He would do the countdown and when it was time to blast off, he would shake that box as if I truly were flying high into the sky!

I have never been on a train, subway, plane, taxi, or a bus. However, I have ridden a goat, mine car, spaceship (even though it was pretend), and a car hood among other things. What have you ridden?

The Start of the School Year

As a mother to three children, two teenage girls and an eight-year-old boy, I am mentally exhausted before the start of the school year. Shopping for clothes, school supplies, and other necessities is at the top of my exhaustion list, followed closely by getting schedules straightened out.

School shopping is total chaos for me. I am quite sure that most mothers will agree with my point. Normally, my children drag me through one store for hours and then just pick out one or two items, then we move on to the next store in which the process repeats. If I try to help pick out their clothes in order to get the shopping over with, the clothes that I hold up only get gawked at with "I am NOT wearing that" attitudes. Basically, the shopping experience takes days on end, and I end up being consumed by total exhaustion afterward.

This year I let the girls shop online to see if it would help the situation. I gave them a spending limit and I let them choose their clothes to put in an online shopping cart for me to review. I only had to take a couple of things out that I didn't approve of and they replaced them with other goodies. I am not exhausted as I did not really have to be present during the 'shopping' experience except to place the order. The girls had fun and found what they wanted easily. The orders came to my door within a week and all things are settled. I have decided that this is the way it will be done from now on.

The last chore to do was to get the girls' schedules from the high school. My oldest daughter will be a junior and she got her schedule first. I was excited to see that she did get vocational school for the last half of her day. The rest of her classes were the ones that she had chosen and needed. I was relieved that I did not have to change anything on hers.

Now, my second daughter will be a freshman. She is highly intelligent, scoring at twelfth-grade levels on her tests. She needs classes that will keep her mind occupied, otherwise she will be a class clown, it has happened before-true story! When she got her schedule, she was very upset. They had placed her in Algebra I (which she had already completed last year), Drama, Art, regular English, and a few good classes. The child has enough drama in her life, she is a teenager, she doesn't need to take a class for it.

Yesterday I go to the high school to see the Guidance Counselor to have these classes changed. I was very lucky that the counselor at the school was very nice and I had no problem in changing her to the college ready classes and Algebra II. She also has to take a weight-lifting class as she is a volleyball player, so we added that to her schedule too.

School starts tomorrow in my town and I am hoping that everything is taken care of and that nothing unexpected comes up. I am sympathizing with mothers and fathers around the world who are going through the same thing...trust me, I feel your pain