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In my recent article Kids Just Wanna Have Fun I offered some ideas to keep your fun hungry kids happy. But, duhhhhh. . .I forgot the FREE FUN STUFF! Well ya know thats the most important stuff. I dont know where my mind was that day!

So, now that Ive seen the error of my ways, Let me share some more great activities we sometimes forget about as we get older. These timeless activities have been around for ages. Things that we enjoyed as kids are still fun for kids today. Even in an electronic society!

If you have kids, most likely you have a box of crayons somewhere. I hate to admit it but I still love to color! Come on, give it a try no matter how old you are. I have found that it is contagious. Even if your kids think they are "too old" for coloring, you will be surprised how quickly they join in when they see you enjoying it! Go ahead, it works every time.

Silly putty is another fun activity that we tend to think e're "too old" for. But the older you get the more creative ideas you have and the more silly fun you can have. So come on, get your creative juices flowing.

Hey ladies, and maybe some of you gents too, do you remember paper dolls? I had almost forgotten they existed until one Christmas I came across a paper doll kit in a craft store. Suddenly, I remembered the hours and hours of fun I had playing with these simple toys. And, they are so much easier to dress than Barbie. Sorry Barbie.

There are literally thousands of craft ideas that can keep you busy for hours or days. Crafts come in all different levels of difficulty. So find one that suits everyone in the family and work on it together. Hmmmm, could this mean more conversation time! Take advantage of these fun times together. Get to know your kids better.

You can also choose a variety of different level crafts to suit everyone and work on different crafts all at once. Either way, you're accomplishing several things at once...

Children LEARN through creating.

You'll be keeping that FUN meter up, keeping them from getting bored.

You'll be SAVING MOMEY on outings by finding creative ways to have fun at home.

You'll have more "QUALITY TIME" to get to really know your kids!

Need some ideas? Just visit your local craft stores or do a search online. Check out FamilyFun.com for some super ideas for having creative fun with the family. Youll find arts and crafts, party and game ideas, parenting help, recipes, and even travel ideas.

If you're into quilting, sewing, knitting, crocheting........well if you are, you know the possibilities here. It's not just for "old folks"! Get the kids involved. There are kits created for these activities. Kits created specifically to get children interested and having fun doing these activities.

There are so many wonderful ideas for crafting the possibilities are mind blowing. One walk around your local craft store and Ill bet you can come up with a craft idea for each week of the year, at least, if not two or three per week! Take a pen and paper. There's so much to take in!

Crafts for painting, sewing, candle making, transfers and art supplies that personalize items (purses, shirts, bandanas, jewelry, tote bags ..etc.), drawing, knitting, quilting, doll making, puzzles, woodworking, scrap booking..well I could go on and on. But, best thing for you to do is get on down to that craft store and get some ideas.

Please, dont buy everything you see! JUST GET IDEAS. Keep a notepad of ideas and then remember to look for arts and crafts supplies in your thrift stores, consignment shops, and at yard sales.

Oh, and dont forget to recycle items you might normally trash. Keeping a good supply of these items will help keep expenses down. Things like, scraps of fabric, ribbon, paper, egg cartons, coffee cans (all sizes), Styrofoam (packing pieces or sheets) wrapping paper scraps, buttons, toilet paper and paper towel tubes. Dont throw away anything that you could possibly use in a craft project. Dont get carried away though. Never keep more than you have room to store comfortably.

Seriously people, HAVE FUN WITH YOUR KIDS! They wont be kids forever, and believe it or not.You WILL miss them when theyre all grown up and out the door!

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Perhaps we should discuss some theory of exploitation of another mans defense system. The best way to exploit a defense system is to find a whole or weakness. Since the United States knows all our own weaknesses we should find a way to shore up the most critical, yet realize that we do not have to shore up everyone provided we have a contingency or back-up plan in case of attack. Think of a football team with a safety, if the opponent breaks thru the first two lines of defense then your safety picks them up and takes them out.

If the International Terrorists were to believe that there are ten ways to move people, freight and goods, then the disruption of the system(s) of any one, two or three makes no difference. So once the system is up and running and it is known to be redundant to such a large degree, then the game is over, we win, since no one would attack knowing our will could be compromised, as the system can repair itself just like the human body. If they take out two refineries, we have 1000 more. If they take out power lines, we re-route. If they take out rail lines at a choke point we ship by truck; if they take out a freeway, we re-route immediately. Thus all such targets would be silly. They would not affect our civilization, merely provide more work for Americans to rebuild stronger, thus we are unaffected. We win in advance as they know it is no use at all.

Self-healing distribution channels for power, water, waste, transportation, information, etc are all in place. So by building our civilization strong we also protect our selves from Natural Disaster disruptions as well. No International Terrorist of act of God can defeat us, that seems to be the answer. No weakness without back up. We can beat them if they try or we have already beat them if they don't then onto the next sector to protect. Protecting the Nation becomes a process of elimination of any and all weakness.

Think of it like this. There is no good or evil, as it all just is. But the closest thing to evil is mediocrity, in difference and weakness. If your remove them from your systems, you do not have to worry about being attacked, because if you are you are strong enough to instantly re-group, get a little pissed off and rage holly hell on your opponent. It is merely a decision of our nation to be in it to win it and not let anything stand between us and goal-line without being totally obliterated. Again without malice or anger, as it is only about one thing; Winning and that means the Protection of the American People and our civilization.

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We do not remember days. We remember moments. Casare Pavese

A couple of weeks ago, a dear reader emailed me for help on documenting her familys life and history. For several generations, we knew this as stuffing pictures in shoe boxes. If we were super-organized, we used photo albums. Today, we call this scrapbooking.

The fastest growing hobby in our countrywith more than 25 million Americans, or 1 in every four households, participatingit didnt even exist as an industry eighteen years ago, when I first contemplated how I would document and organize our own family photosor memories as they are now called. Less than ten years old as an industry, scrapbooking holds more than 52, 000 sites on the Internet; over 4,000 retail stores support this multi-billion dollar industry and even traditional stores such as office supply giants, pharmacies, groceries, and gift shops all carry a sampling of scrapbooking products. The maze isto me anywaycompletely overwhelming. To even partially navigate its many avenues both exhausts and bewilders me.

When you calculate the time and expense required to not only take quality photos (a high quality 35 mm camera, digital camera, and video camera are all practically required paraphernalia), it boggles ones mind to add in the additional cost of documenting your pix once developed. The average scrapper spends $50 per month on her hobby, or roughly $600 a year in supplies. Scrapbook papers generally cost anywhere from 10 cents a piece to upwards of 50 cents a piece (while browsing online sites I came across some fabulous specialty papers for my military enthusiast son, so I purchased papers with a military theme; they cost 45 cents a pop plus shipping) Add to that the cost of stickers, brads, and trinketsall totally adorable in their own riteand your personal scrapbooking arsenal just escalated another couple hundred degrees.

And what about ink pads and rubber stamps? Gotta have those, too. At anywhere from a couple dollars to ten to twelve dollars for a decent stampas well as several dollars per each ink pad (gotta have all those wonderful colors, you know!)youre by now in this stuff too deep to escape fiscally unscathed.

And we havent even gotten to embossing yet.

Oh, geez.

So whats a rocket mom to do? Practically speaking, at what point do you jump onto the scrapbooking craze while maintaining all of the other parenting strategies deemed so important in raising brilliant kids? I mean: can you really instill a musical heritage into your kids, immerse them into sports and exercise, and shape their character and help them to become more spiritually matureand scrapbook all at the same time? Are there really enough hours in the day to get in a good workout at the gym, get dinner on the tableand scrapbook? Can you add community service to your calendar as well as add colorful borders to your family photos? And is it really possible to hammer in that decorative brad (which seriously requires a good whack on the kitchen cutting board) and keep the baby down for a nap all at the same time?!?

OK. Enough already. Heres my advice on getting your arms around the whole scrapbooking/creative memories/documenting-your-family-history thing:

Find an organizational scheme that you think you can stick with over the next dozen years or so. Trust me: motherhood, while certainly easier in some ways over the years, does not get any less demanding. You just shift areas in which you spend your time. Time, money, and energy are your three most valuable resources todayand they will continue to be until the day you go up. So find a system to which you believe you can reasonably commit. If the whole idea of scrapbooking each and every page of your baby journals wears you out (as it would me), then switch to a system that is less creatively taxing. My personal choice: photo albums from Exposures. (www.exposures.com) Theyve been in business long enough that I trust theyll be there as long as we all still need their stuff. The last thing you need to worry about while selecting a system is the possibility of changing it mid-stream. I researched their product line until I was nauseous. I wound up using over-sized, attractive three-ring binders (offered in three different colors) that work perfectly for our family. I buy a few at a time so I know Ill never run out. I also buy their archival scrapbook paper, and use old-fashioned photo corners for every picture. You might want to look for albums that are offered in a variety of colors, in case youd like to color-code your family. (see http://www.selfhelpcenters.com/family.asp#1 for my recent article Color-Coding Your World)

Decide if you want to be a documenter or a scrapper. Theres a world of difference here. Documenters organize their pictures once retrieved from the store (pharmacy, Costco, etc.) and then put them into albums. Sureyou can add titles, captions, dates, and quick journal entries. You can even use color! But you dont spend an inordinate amount of time on each page. Scrappers, on the other hand, make each page of photos a veritable work of art. They use artsy background papers; crop each photo; add beautiful borders; make great use of sticker art, brads, and trinkets; and punch designs to coordinate with the page theme. You should decide which path youre likely to travel down as soon as possible. Like it or not, you need to get your systema system, any systemdown before you take the plunge, as each system requires a hefty financial commitment. (The only inexpensive alternative is to buy cheap albums from a discount store (with those old-fashioned non-archival magnetic pages) and throw in your photos. You wouldnt do that, Im sure)

Start collecting art and craft supplies. Regardless of which system you use, your childrens happy childhoods require that you spend time doing art. Make regular art days part of your familys weekly schedule. Those rubber stamps and ink pads that youre picking up on sale now will become a wonderful collection down the road. Lets face it: you need colored markers, pencils, pens, paints and papers anyway. They all add to your childrens artistic development. So perhaps documenting or scrapping your familys memories will be part of your regular art day for the next few years. OKso youre not going to take up sculpting for awhileor oil painting, rug hooking, or knitting. Thats alright. Just stay on track, keep picking up supplies, continue to browse art supply stores, and purchase fun stuff as you see fit. If you find yourself drawn to fancy papers and expensive stickersgo ahead and splurge. Youre going to need some of this stuff anyway, so try to make thoughtful and purposeful buying decisions rather than compulsive ones!

Try to stay on top of things. But dont beat yourself up if you fall behind. I always tried to use holidays and summers to catch up with my albums, but with major moves in four of the past six summers, those plans went to pieces. So I am terribly behind in organizing and documenting my familys life. OK. So life goes on. I just commit that when I have time Ill renew my photo journey. Its a process. Itll never be finishedso I dont let myself get all whacky over it. If possible, though, you should come up with some system: perhaps you are on the ball enough that each and every time you pick up pix from the developer, you immediately put them into albums. Youd get an extra cherry in your sundae at my house. Perhaps after you pick up your pix you throw them all into a large drawer, with the hopes of organizing them one day. (Thats been me these last few years.) OK. So thats a system, too. Just be sure that one day isnt too far into the future, promise?!?

Figure out where this all fits into your familys direction. You may be committed to too many thingsprofessionally and personally. This may simply have too small a role in your familys purpose. The commitment of energy alone to the whole scrapping thing might wear you out, leaving you feeling totally unglued and unable to do the other things in which you are truly passionate about! Thats OK!!!!! Maybe this just isnt your time!!! Stop beating yourself up. You may prefer to use your fingers teaching your child to finger-paint, your lap rocking your newborn, and your energy driving your kids to music lessons. You might rather use your discretionary funds supporting a missionary rather than spending it on pretty background papers for family photos. I cant tell you whats right for you. I can only help do the heavy lifting. So Ive done the research, evaluated some of the options, and am presenting them to you for your ultimate decision. I can help to equip youand encourage youto propel you to excellence. But in the end, this is your archiving. Above all, dont stress about this. Spend time your kids first and foremostand these decisions will fall easily into place in due time.

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Now that you have caught your dream fish, do you know how to clean?

Good job. You must be so proud of yourself. You have just landed the biggest fish of all. How do you clean it? You certainly don't want those ugly fish scales all over your wife's clean kitchen. Now what to do. What about cleaning the fish before you leave your fishing spot.

You will need a great knife to start with-a fish fillet knife. Spread out some old newspaper. Use a fish scaler or knife and work against the grain of the scale. Once all the scales are removed, you can toss the newspaper and rinse the fish.

Now it gets even messier. Do you know how to gut the fish? The less mess the better. Take your knife with the blade pointed toward the fish's head, poke the stomach and slit the fish moving the fillet knife towards the fish's head. Do not cut deep.

Secondly, take the fish fillet knife with the blade pointing toward the fish's tail and open the stomach. Remove all the fish guts.

Thirdly, remove the gills and lastly, wrap up the messy newspaper and toss. There you have it. A perfectly cleaned fish.Smoking Celebrities
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Custom car accessories help gearheads to soccer moms personalize their rides and improve resale value. Dealer service departments can guide your ride customization effort, installing custom features and ensuring you meet warranty guidelines.

Breaking down the hot trends.Hip accessories abound. Choose from rims to running boards, spoilers to grills, and stereos to sunroofs.

Lighting (neon, strobe, and fluorescent) is a top customization trend. Clearance lamps and fog lights are also popular.

Raise your cars profile with wheels and lift kits.

Cool wheels are another hot trend. Choose from a variety of styles, including white walls or monster tires. Custom rims make a huge impact on a cars look and resale value.

Do you prefer a big bruiser or stylish low rider? A body lift kit raises the body from the frame so that taller tires can be installed. Suspension lifts improve clearance between axles and the ground. You get better results in terms of height, handling and ground clearance.

On the flip side: lowering kits make vehicles look sleek and mean. They also improve handling and response by dropping a vehicles center of gravity for better stability in turns.

Body shop artists at RK Auto Group say color is IN this season.

Another way to change a vehicles look is by painting it with bright non-factory colors. RK Chevrolet has a state-of-the-art downdraft paint booth that gives the finest finishes available outside of the factory. Dont forget pinstriping, custom flames, interior painting of dash panels or powder coating of vehicle components.

Want more options? RK Auto Group suggests talking with your local dealer today.

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Balancing Your Work, Family and Social Life

By Gene Griessman, PhD

Many of us have an image of personal balance as a set of scales in perfect balance every day. But thats an unrealistic goal. You are in for a lot of frustration if you try to allocate within every day a predetermined portion of time for work, family and your social life. An illness may upset all your plans. A business project may demand peaks of intense work, followed by valleys of slow time.

Balance requires continual adjustments, like an acrobat on a high wire who constantly shifts his weight to the right and to the left. By focusing on four main areas of your life emotional/spiritual needs, relationships, intellectual needs and physical needs at work and away from work, you can begin to walk the high wire safely.

Here, drawn from my conversations with many high successful Americans, are ten ideas for balancing all aspects of your life:

1. Make an appointment with yourself. Banish from your mind the idea that everyone takes precedence over you. Dont use your organizer or calendar just for appointments with others. Give yourself some prime time. Regularly do something you enjoy. It will recharge your batteries. Once youve put yourself on your calendar, guard those appointments. Kay Koplovitz founder of the USA cable television network, which is on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Koplovitz ran the daily operations of the network for 21 years. For more than two decades, there was always some potential claim on her time. Therefore she vigilantly protected a scheduled tennis match just as she would a business appointment.

2. Care for your body. Having a high energy level is a trait held by many highly successful people. No matter what your present level of energy, you can increase it by following these steps:

Eat. Dont skip meals. Your physical and mental energy depend upon nourishment. Irregular eating patterns can cause a frayed temper, depression, lack of creativity and a nervous stomach.

Exercise. Over and over again, highly successful people mention the benefit of exercise routines. Johnetta Cole, president of Bennett College for Women and former president of Spelman College, does a four-mile walk each morning. She calls it her mobile meditation. The benefits of exercise are mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. If you are healthier and have more stamina, you can work better and longer.

Rest. A psychologist who has studied creative people reports that they rest often and sleep a lot.

3. Cut some slack. You do not have to do everything. Just the right things. Publisher Steve Forbes taught me a lesson: Dont be a slave to your in-box. Just because theres something there doesnt mean you have to do it. As a result, every evening, I extract from my long list to-do list just a few musts for the following day. If, but three oclock the next day, Ive crossed off all the musts, I know that everything else I do that day will be icing on the cake. It is a great psychological plus for me.

There is nothing wrong with pushing yourself hard, disciplining yourself to

do what needs to be done when you hold yourself to the highest standards. That builds up stamina and turns you into a pro. At time, though, you must forgive yourself. You will never become 100 percent efficient, nor should you expect to be. After something does not work, ask yourself, Did I do my best? If you did, accept the outcome. All you can do is all you can do.

4. Blur the boundaries. Some very successful people achieve balance by setting aside times or days for family, recreation, hobbies or the like. They create boundaries around certain activities and protect them. Other individuals who are just as successful do just the opposite. They blur the boundaries. Says consultant Alan Weiss, I work out of my home. In the afternoon, I might be watching my kids play at the pool or be out with my wife. On Saturday, or at ten oclock on a weeknight, I might be working. I do things when the spirit moves me, and when theyre appropriate.

Some jobs dont lend themselves to this strategy. But blurring the boundaries is possible more often than you may think. One way is to involve people you care about in what you do. For example, many companies encourage employees to bring their spouses to conferences and annual meetings. Its a good idea. If people who mean a great deal to you understand what you do, they can share more fully in your successes and failures. They also are more likely to be a good sounding board for your ideas.

5. Take a break. Many therapists believe that taking a break from a work routine can have major benefits for mental and physical health. Professional speaker and executive coach Barbara Pagano practices a kind of quick charge, by scheduling a day every few months with no agenda. For her, that means staying in her pajamas, unplugging the phone, watching old movie or reading a novel in bed. For that one day, nothing happens, except what she decides from hour to hour. Adds singer and composer Billy Joel, There are times when you need to let the field lie fallow. Joel is describing what farmers often do: let a plot rest so the soil can replenish itself.

6. Take the road less traveled. Occasionally, get off the expressway and take a side road, literally and figuratively. That road may take you to the library or to the golf course. Do something out of the ordinary to avoid the well-worn grooves of your life. Try a new route to work, a different radio station or a different cereal. Break out of your old mold occasionally, with a new way to dress or a different hobby. The road less traveled can be a reward after a demanding event, a carrot that you reward your self with or it can be a good way to loosen up before a big event. Bobby Dodd, the legendary football coach at Georgia Tech, knew the power of this concept. While other coaches were putting their teams through brutal twice-a-day practices, Dodds team did their drills and practices, but then took time to relax, play touch football and enjoy the bowl sites. Did the idea work? In six straight championships games!

7. Be still. Susan Taylor, editorial director of Essence, sees to it that she has quiet time every morning. She regards it as a time for centering for being still and listening. She keeps a paper and pen with her to jot down ideas that come to her. The way you use solitary time should match your values, beliefs and temperament. Some individuals devote a regular time each day to visualize themselves attaining their goals and dreams. Others read, pray, meditate, do yoga or just contemplate a sunrise or sunset. Whatever form it takes, time spent alone can have an enormous payoff. Achievers talk about an inner strength they find and how it helps them put competing demands into perspective. They feel more confident about their choices and more self-reliant. They discover a sense of balance, a centeredness.

8. Be a peacetime patriot. Joe Posner has achieved wealth and recognition selling life insurance. Several years ago, Posner helped form an organization in his hometown of Rochester, NY to prepare underprivileged children for school and life and, he hopes, break the poverty cycle. You may find some equally worthy way to give something back through your church, hospital, civic club, alumni association or by doing some pro bono work. Or you may help individuals privately, even anonymously. There are powerful rewards for balancing personal interests with the needs of the common good. One of the most wonderful is the sheer joy that can come from giving. Another reward is the better world that you help create.

9. Do what you love to do. As a boy, Aaron Copeland spent hours listening to his sister practice the piano because he loved music. By following that love, he became Americas most famous composer of classical must. When I asked him years later if he had even been disappointed by that choice Copeland replied, My life has been enchanting. What a word to sum up a life. By itself, loving what you do does not ensure success. You need to be good at what you love. But if you love what you do, the time you spend becoming competent is less likely to be drudgery.

10. Focus on strategy. As important as it is, how to save time for balancing your life is not the ultimate question. That question is, What am I saving time for? Strategy has to do with being successful but successful at what? If others pay your salary, being strategic generally means convincing them that you are spending your time in a way that benefits them. If there is a dispute over how you should use your time, either convince the people who can reward or punish you that your idea about using time is appropriate, or look for another job. The what for? question should also be asked about the life you live. It is truly a comprehensive question and gets at the question of wholeness.

So what makes for a successful balance life? I can think of no better definition than the one given by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because I have lived. This is to have succeeded.

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