Hope you all had a good start into 2009!

A new year, a fresh start. I'm personally not a fan of making New Year's resolutions, but I have something I'd like to share with you, and I think there's no better time to ponder on this than now. It's an email which seems to have been doing the rounds for quite some time already. It's pretty longish, but I promise if you read it til the end, you won't regret it.

3900 Saturdays

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the
quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's
the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first
few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup
of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as
a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life
seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio
in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I
came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a
golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the
broadcasting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with
something about 'a thousand marbles.' I was intrigued and stopped to
listen to what he had to say.

'Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they
pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your
family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work
sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you
missed your daughter's 'dance recital' he continued. ;'Let me tell you
something that has helped me keep my own priorities.' And that's when he
began to explain his theory of a 'thousand marbles.'

'You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average
person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some
live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

'Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is
the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire
lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in
any detail', he went on, 'and by that time I had lived through over
twenty-eight hundred Saturdays.' 'I got to thinking that if I lived to
be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So
I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended
up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles I took them
home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in
the shack next to my gear.'

'Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it
away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on
the really important things in life.

There's nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to
help get your priorities straight.'

'Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take
my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last
marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next
Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing
we can all use is a little more time.'

'It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your
family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75
Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!'

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off
I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on
the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few
hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. 'C'mon honey,
I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast.' 'What brought this on?' she
asked with a smile. 'Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time
since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop
at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.

Assuming you'd live to be about 75 (quite a feat, nowadays!), how many marbles would YOU have left? I haven't bought marbles myself (i'd need about 2000+), but ever since I read this email, I feel like I'm constantly being nudged to use my time left here on earth wisely. For every day I spend just sleeping in or doing nothing noteworthy, I feel like I've wasted yet another day of my life. I get this visual that my life time is draining like sands in an hourglass. What if this would have been my last? I would have spent it doing nothing. Weekends are worse, because I feel weekends must be spent in a more meaningful way as those are the days that the family is together.

A new year has just begun. One Saturday gone. 51 Saturdays left. How are you going to spend them?

Yes that's right, my baby turned 6 today. Since we are in the Philippines, the fun day is almost over for the birthday boy.

Born December 29, 2002 via c-section, the little tyke is now 6 and speaks his mind all the time. I can't believe it sometimes that the baby I held in my arms is now a grown boy and is still growing. It seems like yesterday only when he was such a cry-baby and I would panic each time he went on his crying spiels especially during bed times. Now he sleeps on his own time, though still co-sleeping with mommy.

For a single mom like I am, I can't help but be mighty proud I have raised a wonderful, energetic, smart little kid. I know it is part from over (heck, it will never be over!) and we still have a long way to go. But I have to say that we have conquered a lot in the last six years.

Happy birthday Baba! I love you very much.

Hosting a Christmas party or dinner? Aside from planning the menu and program, make sure to make precautions against food poisoning and other mishaps. AAPCC Board Member Edward Krenzelok, PharmD, director of the Pittsburgh Poison Center and Drug Information Center at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and professor of pharmacy and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, offers the following safety tips:

• Children are at greatest risk for alcohol poisoning during the holidays. Do not leave beverage glasses where children can easily reach them. A child's natural desire to imitate partying grown-ups requires special vigilance on the part of drinking adults.
• Never leave gifts of perfume or cologne, which also contain alcohol, under the Christmas tree where a curious child might find them.
• Keep hot foods hot at 140 degrees or above and cold foods below 40 degrees to reduce the likelihood of food poisoning.
• Wash your hands before and after food preparation to prevent the spread of food-borne illness. Washing is especially important before and after handling raw meat.
• While most holiday plants are relatively safe, always keep them out of the reach of children and pets.
• Cherished old family ornaments may be decorated with paint that contains lead. Store them away if the ornaments are peeling or in poor condition and children or pets live with you.
• If you have holiday visitors or are visiting another residence, make sure that all medications and other potential poisons, such as household cleaning products, are out of the reach of children.

Happy holidays!

I am a single mom and eversince my son was a babyI have raised him with my mother, his grandmother. Fast forward to today - 6 years later - lest to say that my son really is one big grandma's boy. Yup, he isn't a mama's boy but a grandma's boy!

It has many advantages of course, as my mother is always there to tend to his every little needs. She's practically the "nanny" who took care of him while I go to work. However, it could have disadvantages too. Like who is the real authority over the child, you the mother, or the grandma who is your mother too. A line has to be drawn somewhere and I tried my best to do that.

At the moment, my mother and I are working the balance of disciplining and spoiling. My son is now turning 6 in a few days and so far so good. It has worked for us so far, thankfully!

I love it when our house is decorated for the winter holidays. However getting to that point is nearly impossible. I always have the highest of hopes to start early and managing all the other things in life get in the way. Halloween was no better this year, for the second time I let my child and friends decorate the house and yard.

We live in one of those suburban cities developments where everyone's house has several of the same signature builder touches. We like it - the schools are great and close by, the streets are full of kids and the area is safe. The downside is most houses look a lot of like on the outside and at times on the inside too. We may not all celebrate Christmas but I bet 90% slap up decorations for some winter holiday.

I have this Norman Rockwell dream of making cookies and cocoa while we put up the tree but I don't know if we can ever get that far until school gets out or work is done. Don't get me wrong - we always get there, it is just about two weeks later than those enterprising moms who decorated the inside and out the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The one thing we did do is making a Christmas wreath. We love to get a blank wreath and hot glue gun the heck out of stuff on it. As with any creation, it isn't perfect but it was made with a lot of laughs and it is an original. I think the time being silly and making something special was worth it.

So we may be one of the only houses on the block without all the bells and whistles up yet but we do have an original on the door.

My 6-year old son cannot wait for Christmas. Remember this Christmas wishlist? Well I can already tear it to pieces because each week that he accompanies me to the grocery store, we ended up buying other sorts of toys on display.

And he wouldn't budge, we gotta pick up one piece each time. Now it's helicopters and tankers. Gosh, when will kids ever realize the value of money? My Christmas budget is already screwed up!

Are your kids getting ready to write Santa? Why not combine their holiday gift pleading efforts with a good deed. Check out this neat program from Macy's.

Writing letters to Santa Claus is an age-old Christmas tradition for children all over the world. Macy's is collecting these letters in a special Santa letterbox at all Macy's stores. For each letter received, Macy's will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Believe Meter will measure America's belief, based on our collective spirit - including the amount of letters received and other current events that reflect the season's generosity.

If you've got a Macy's close by, drop your letter off there and help out!