There are some great ex's out there!

There was a man that I had lived with for 2-1/2 years (before meeting my husband of almost 14 years now) who had a little girl that I fell in love with. She was so sweet...a really good kid. That had absolutely nothing to do with her dad (who I learned was your basic deadbeat). He blamed everything on her mother, didn't spend time with his daughter when he did decide to make time to see his child and then had really bad judgment on the things he did while she was there. I left him, but his ex-wife kept in touch with me! Her mother and her stepfather did a wonderful job of raising her and this man's ex-wife always let me know how she was doing, pictures, gifts at the holidays over the years. It was really sweet (and such a HUGE difference between what we deal with from my husband's ex). Now we're all friends on Facebook.

She's now all grown up - married with one child and twins on the way. I want to find something meaningful to get for her and am running through my mind anything from baby gift baskets to one substantial gift. I just don't know!

It does go to show that not all ex-wives are bad. I've met some ex-wives who I would trade with my husband's ex in a second!

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Supposed Answering Machine Message at Australian School (more likely a prank)

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Health Class in 7th Grade

My daughter has a semester long health class as a 7th grader. I asked during Open House what was on the agenda. I didn't think they'd only be talking about acne treatments and I was right. There will be some chatting about puberty, which just made my daughter cringe when she heard, along with healthy eating and the importance of exercise. I can remember at that age being embarrassed to talk about that stuff in school with a bunch of people but it was the only place I learned about what I needed to know since my parents wouldn't talk about it.

I am open with all the kids (mine and my stepkids) to talk about anything they want. If they ask it, they will get an answer. I also supplied several age-appropriate books on the shelves. I want to make sure they have all the knowledge they need when they're ready for it (in case they're not comfortable talking to their dad or me about something...but I hope they always are).

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Boy Hidden in Crawlspace to Keep Away From Dad

Two years ago, an Illinois father, Mike Chekevdai, was awarded temporary custody of his son, Richard "Ricky" Chekevdia. Mom, Shannon Wilfong, then took her son and went into hiding...into her mother's home in a specially built room no higher than a washing machine. The child's grandmother says that she did put the boy into this crawlspace but he didn't live there. I sure hope not!

Says a police officer:

"We let him out of the police car and he ran around like he's never seen the outdoors," said Illinois State Police Sgt. Stan Diggs. "It was actually very sad."

All this time, the boy was three miles from his father, who had no idea what had happened to his son. The mother had accused the father of molesting their son, but child welfare didn't find any evidence of abuse.

The mother is now in jail (charged with felony kidnapping). Her mother and her fiance are being charged with aiding and abetting.

Dad will be reunited with his son later this week.

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Organizational Development

When I worked outside the house full-time, I worked directly for the CEO of the company as his personal assistant as well as managing the corporate offices of our company. I am not an "everything in its place" kind of person. I am more of an orderly chaos kind of person. It may not LOOK organized, but I know where everything is. Somehow it worked. I enjoyed my job and the responsibilities, received regular promotions, raises and good performance reviews.

If I had wanted to further myself and my role with the company, I would have looked into an Organizational development program like what is offered at Gonzaga University. It would have opened up more avenues for me for future promotions within the company and given me more options should I have decided to work elsewhere. Perhaps even my own consulting business would have been a possibility.

Gonzaga University is a not-for-profit, private university in Washington. If you check out their web site, you will see that they've been ranked as one of the nation's best universities by Forbes Magazine.

Some of their online Master's programs offered are Organizational Leadership, Communication and Leadership, and the online Master of Science in Nursing. I've always wanted to go back to school and preferred an online program because of my kids. It's something I've not given up on doing yet.

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