Then there are the others who wake up dreading what troubles the day will bring. Some of them have good reason – they are facing a day in court or perhaps a job performance review, a dispatch to the front lines of a war, or a difficult medical procedure. But many people are just depressed from their normal quality of life and daily troubles.

I wish I had the solution to the people who drag themselves through the day feeling depressed and sad. That must be awful. I try to start my day with a smile and a good cup of coffee. It doesn’t always work out that way, but I do make the effort.

I want to give them a chance to learn downhill skiing as well as snowboarding and have fun with some other winter activities, like sleigh rides and ice skating. We don’t get enough snow here in the South to even go sledding. So going someplace that is completely family friendly with a variety of winter activities for all ages is vital to our skiing holidays.

If we want to stay in the United States, I think that Killington is the most family friendly area and I’ve been reading the internet for more information on skiing in Vermont. But I have several friends who swear that we are better off going further north, into Canada and the Directline-skiing.co.uk/Whistler website seems to back them up. If we decide to go on up into Canada, we’ll definitely go to Whistler. From reading the website, Whistler is not only one of the top ski destinations in the world, it is especially great for families and beginners. There are adventure ski camps for all the different age groups, and the beginner trails take them through enchanted forests, past magic castles and there are even lifts dedicated to just kids. This is exactly what I have in mind and there are packages for every budget. This website is great for putting it all together and giving you all the details so you can plan the entire trip with just a few clicks of the mouse.

If we all have as much fun on their first learning to ski holiday, we can plan on a nice winter getaway next year, too. I’ve been wanting to ski France and Italy, and I’d love to bring the kids to Europe while they are young and appreciate being with their family. I’m afraid that once they turn into teenagers, the idea of a family vacation will not be met with as much enthusiasm. I intend to pamper and enjoy the kids as much I can while they are young and fun to be around. I hope that being a teenager doesn’t change that, but I’m preparing myself mentally for that, just in case.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are now sick with the lung disease called Mesothelioma because of their exposure to asbestos. It has become so widespread that people are having to file lawsuits against the manufacturers of asbestos so they can get help with their medical care and living expenses while disabled and dying. It is a heartwrenching story and thankfully there are some good Mesothelioma Attorneys that know how to help these people.

My father-in-law was in construction all his life and has first hand experience with the asbestos removal issues. He has helped some of his fellow union carpenters find a Mesothelioma Law Firm to take their case and help them bring their cases to court.

There’s a lot to learn when you are considering taking part in a class action lawsuit. A lot of the success of your case depends upon being able to prove not only your exposure, but also when you were exposed to it and proving that this is the sole reason that you have come down with the disease. If you were exposed to multiple situations, it could actually hurt your case. So finding a really good, experienced Mesothelioma Lawyer is critical to your chances of getting help and having a good outcome.

Obviously, I’m not giving anyone any legal advice. I am just summarizing what little that I know and have read about it. If you have a problem with exposure to asbestos and have been diagnosed with Mesothelioma, you should consult with an attorney.

My brother’s son and daughter-in-law just gave birth to a little girl. She was born over a month premature but seems to be doing OK. She only weighed a bit over 4 pounds at birth. that is really very tiny and I hope that she can gain weight and stay healthy enough to go home with her parents very soon. It is odd to think of my younger brother as a grandfather already. He is 10 years younger than me and yet he beat me to that milepost of grandfather-dom.

The other baby girl is was just born to a good friend of mine who immigrated here with his beautiful wife from Russia several years ago. This couple is very hardworking and serious about embracing America and our culture. They both adopted Americanized first names and they’ve named their new daughter Elizabeth. I did not know that Elizabeth was a name familiar to Russians, but there is a Russian spelling for this name and they plan to call her Liz. She was born right on time and is a healthy weight, although I have to admit that the announcement came in with her weight as kg and I had to find a metric conversion tool on the internet to figure out that her birthweight was just under 7 pounds.

John was middle aged and letting the weight creep up on him, 10-15 pounds per years. I’ve known him for at least 10-11 years, and up until recently you just thought of him as “could stand to lose a few pounds,” but not really considered him “fat.” But when you think about it, 10 pounds each year for 10 years and all of a sudden you are looking at 100 pounds.

So when I ran across him last week at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, I was shocked to see that he has shed almost all those pounds. It was a remarkable transformation and I’m sorry if it was ride, but I had to comment on it to him. He was so proud of his new look and didn’t appear offended at all. When prodded, he admitted he had been on the South Beach Diet for about 8 months and he looks marvelous.

John had chest pains one night and his wife rushed him to the hospital, fearing a heart attack. But thankfully it turned out to be severe indigestion. It was his wake up call,and he found his diet online by looking for great tasting heart healthy foods and discovered that the South Beach diet met his needs and matched his lifestyle. I think that’s was the secret to a successful diet must be: meet your needs and match your lifestyle.

But some of the guys are saying that they can’t get there this year. The price of gas, the mortgage crisis, the plant closings – all the bad economy things that have been going on these past 5-6 months are catching us all short on money.

I know I’ve had to cut back on spending and try to find ways to make my money go farther. I’ve never been a big fan of coupons, but now if I can save a decent amount of money it’s really worth it to look for coupons and deals on the things you plan to buy and save the money with very little effort. Got a honey-do list? Check for deals at Home Depot before tackling those jobs around the house. Saving money takes a little of the sting out of spending your premium weekend days on chores.

One of the best coupon websites is always putting deals on their page for the top stores. I just saved some cool cash on a pair of Nike’s from Footlocker. I wanted to get some new cargo pants and shorts for the camping trip and found some good deals at L L Bean.

The very best store with online catalog shopping for camping, hunting and fishing gear had some great deals at Cabelas. I was just about to get some new fishing gear when my buddy Jasper called to say he wasn’t going to make it. Now Jasper I can understand – he’s going back to school to finish up some classes and actually graduate this year. So you KNOW his budget is tight plus he goes back to class next week, so Labor Day doesn’t even work into a good schedule for him to take the days off. But the rest of the guys had better not let me down. This is a tradition – it must be honored!

So I used them up and went down to Sam’s Club to get a refill on the contacts, figuring it would take another week to order the refill and I could deal with that. But no. Come to find out the prescription for contact lenses only last for 6 months and my prescription had expired. so now I need another exam for $70 before I can order the lenses and then I wait a week for them to come in and then I make another trip. You know what? There’s got to be a better way.

So I went online and checked around for contact lenses and I most definitely found a better way. I can get the prescription for my contacts from any optometrist here, and then order my acuvue oasys contacts online. These are the lenses that don’t let your eyes get dry, even when you work outside or on the computer for long stretches. Not only do they have the acuvue’s in stock, but they ship them right away and they are delivered right to my front door. And here’s the kicker. They are cheaper than buying them here and they get here faster – overnight if I needed them!

So today it’s back to reality and actually I’m shifting the focus away from me and onto my family. Trying to be very practical here, who knows how many more birthdays I’ll be able to celebrate? I mean, I’ve already lived more years than my father lived. Cancer took him from us and that threat is always on my mind. My father passed away too young, but he had written a will and made good arrangements to take care of his family with term life insurance and other solid estate plans.

Probably one of the most important types of insurance that he had was mortgage life insurance . With that big expensive house, there’s no way my mom could have kept up the house payments and maintenance on just her own income. By having the mortgage protection he made sure that mom and us kids had a roof over our heads because the mortgage was paid off in full when he passed away. I know he had peace of mind and my mom needed that help.

The other important insurance was the term life because there was enough money to pay the funeral expenses plus all the household expenses for more than a year after he passed. That gave mom enough time to take care of everything and then find a good job to go back to work full time when she was ready rather than desperately taking something at the worst possible time just to pay the bills.

Having seen this first hand has made me keenly aware of my own responsibilities to my family and I have done the same type of estate planning. Let’s hope it’s not needed for a long time yet, but if something does happen I know that my family has been provided for.

So throughout this commercial, there’s a magical little green moth that flies around and lands on her shoulder while she’s peacefully sleeping. I don’t really know what the green moth has to do with getting a good night’s sleep.

Honestly, I don’t know the technical difference between a moth and a butterfly. I suppose I used to know the difference – perhaps from biology class in high school. But I can’t recall much of the biology class – I hated it.

So when I found this on the door jamb, I was reminded of the commercial and all these biology questions have come flooding back. It stayed there all day, but sometime during the night it flew away. I suppose it landed on some blonde girl’s shoulder . . .