I did a giveaway a few weeks back, and I am not really into making people jump through hoops to enter.  I mainly like to be entertained, so the ‘required entry’ was a question:

What is one thing you do for your kids “because it’s good for them” – whether they like it or not?!

I loved the answers, and thought it would be fun to share them with you all. So here it is.  The Top Ten Things Big Binder Readers Do To Their Kids {Whether They Like It Or Not!}:

1. I make them go to bed early.
2. I make them eat their veggies!
3. I make them go to church.
4. I make them clean their bedrooms!
5. I make my kids journal!!!  This makes them practice their reading/writing AND hopefully someday they’ll read them as adults & think how awesome their mom is for making them do it
6. I make them unload the dishwasher…everyday.  (I know, I’m practically torturing them.
7. I make them send thank you notes for gifts they receive. My 2 year old even colors pictures or scribbles just an “N”.
8. I buy / prepare unusual (to them) food, and make them try it.  Sometimes they actually like it!  = )
9. I make them visit libraries
10. I make them read – I wish I didn’t have to tell them to, but I do because it’s good for them.  I wish they’d do it on their own, though!

I love that all of this “mean-ness” is going on out there.  You ALL are Raising The Next Generation of Awesome! What do YOU do to your kids that they will (hopefully!) thank you for later?

This post is linked up to Top Ten Tuesday at Oh! Amanda.

Got a crisis? I’ll be right there with my calm self.  Something new? Let me show you how it’s done.  But transition? I STINK AT. I hate the in-between.  And right now, there is some in-between going on in my life.  How will it go? How will it look? How will it affect us?

It un-nerves me.  Which leaves me no room for minor annoyances and consequently, makes me a smidge short tempered. 

I’ve decided to take it all out on this post, and just whack away at some things that I would otherwise roll with but now? They are more annoying than, well, transition.

1. Bacon.  Not bacon itself, but as an ingredient it is everywhere.  Why you gotta be all up in my cupcakes? Get next to my eggs, where you belong.
2. Groupon.  And all of it’s deal site cousins.  First, it was fun.  Now I spend approximately 17 hours a day deleting screaming deals on teeth whitening.
3. Debt Ceiling.  I have no words.  I started suspecting that the crazy guy talking about the rapture in May was actually correct and it really did happen, leaving us all behind.  With Congress.
4. Ants.  A very scientific study {conducted via a chat with one of my neighbors} has concluded that ants are TOTALLY worse this year than in years past.  I dreamed ants were in my food last night.  I still have the willies.
5. Humidity.  Seriously, enough already with the record-breaking heat. 
6. Volunteering.  Do I dare? Yes.  I do dare.  I am sick of committees, meetings, and emails.  I need a break from making the world a better place.  I can barely make my house a better place.
7. Online disorganization.  I cannot keep track of Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn or Klout.  How many different ways do I need to communicate with someone I have never met in real life?  I have already declared RSS feed bankruptcy and gone back to email subscriptions.  Don’t make me put the smackdown on you, Hootsuite.
8. My children fighting.  She stuck her butt out at you?  Really? Let me tell Congress.  Oh, wait, they’re busy…
9. Neighbor kids.  I love having them over.  I don’t mind feeding them lunch.  And dinner.  Or even finding them standing in the middle of my living room when I get out of the shower.  Surprise! But if these children do not learn how to shut the doors after themselves I am going to get deabolts and lock them out forever.  It’s the exact same as opening the door, except you just push it the other way.  Is that so hard?
10. BlogHer.  Not the conference itself, but the fact that every single person in the entire universe is going.  Except me.  It’s like all of my friends are going to summer camp together and they’re going to come home all, tight-knit and with experiences and jokes I totally won’t get because I wasn’t there. 

This very grouchy, pouty post has been linked up to Top Ten Tuesday at Oh! Amanda, where  I’m sure you will find people in much better moods when you go visit.

If “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” I will be very sad. What happened in Vegas was life changing, but it didn’t involve a slot machine or a Black Jack table.

I learned some very powerful lessons, as well as some fun ones. These are the Top Ten Things That {Happened In But} Did NOT Stay In Vegas.

1) My kids are absolutely fine without me for a couple of days. In fact, when we called to talk with them the first day they were having so much fun they were “too busy to talk, Mom”.

2) My husband’s friends are incredible. Reunions can be kind of a drag for the spouses because the former classmates are busy reminiscing about things the spouses at best weren’t present for, and at worst would really rather not know about. I genuinely had fun and felt like I was hanging out with my own friends instead of borrowing my husband’s.

3) Everything is enormous in Vegas.  I don’t know; Texas.  I think you might be beat.  This was what I got when I ordered a Chicken Pot Pie from Hash House A Go Go.

5) Young people these days are crazy. The girls especially. They wear shoes as high as stilts. It is their prerogative if they want to dress like strippers, but they were crowding up the sidewalks with their slow, wobbly shuffles.

6) I am really lucky to be raising kids in Grand Rapids. I already knew this one, but my husband and I spent the first 24 hours feeling really bad for parents who have to explain what kids growing up in Vegas are exposed to.

7) My husband really, really loves me.He was so conscientious about trying to make me feel like I wasn’t just ‘tagging along’ on his reunion trip and even took me on a date away from the rest of the group. He told me the reason he wanted me to go was so everyone would know how awesome I was, because he could tell them, but they wouldn’t believe it without meeting me

I forgot if that was then"come hither" or "stop taking my picture" face.

8 ) There really is a difference between dry heat and humidity. I always grump about it, saying “I don’t care if it’s 104 in dry heat. Hot is hot.” Then I got off the plane in Michigan, and couldn’t breathe even though it was 30 degrees cooler than it was in Vegas.

9) My husband has as much of a need to be around his native landscape of the mountains as I do the Great Lakes.  I want to make sure he gets out to visit them {and his friends, too} more often than we have in the past.

10) I am doing way too many things. Thanks to a crappy Internet connection in the hotel, I didn’t get most of my email for five days.  The result when I got home was more suffocating than the shock of the Michigan humidity.  The next couple of weeks will be spent whittling down and simplifying my involvement in different projects, organizations and groups.  I need to spend less time on things that create email and meetings, and more things that create happiness. 

Conservatory at The Bellagio

Have you been on a vacation? What did you learn?

This post is linked up to Top Ten Tuesday at Oh! Amanda.