Schools out!  Summertime!   I want to put in yet another plug for reading.  Our Public Library, like so many others, offers a stupendous summer reading program for kids of all ages.  Sign up, check out books, read, return books each week get more books and earn prizes.  It’s that simple and fun. 

Reading through the summer is the best way to keep up the learning continuity.  Teachers say that kids who read all summer find it much easier to get back into the swing of things when school starts, and it’s FUN.  

Don’t make it a punishment or a chore, but do set aside some time every day for a little reading.  Listen to books on tape while your driving, or turn off the TV and listen to a book while your doing chores around the house or one of our favorites is to “read” while we weed the garden.   If you've already established the good habit of reading at bedtime, keep it up!

Curl up on a hot summer afternoon with a chapter book you can share with the kids   Have your children read a page or two, and then you read a few pages.   

We are going to start out with E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, and then have a sleep-over and watch the movie (in the back yard).

 You might also like, The Chronicles of Narnia; by C. S. Lewis, or maybe Laura Inglls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series.

There are lots ways to make summer reading fun.  Just do it!

"It is our choices -- more than our circumstances -- that determine our destiny. No matter how tough things get, we still have the opportunity to improve our circumstances, or make them worse."

 Those cute, inspiring quotes on the fridge ..........   Reality check.

I can't write much right now cause I made a choice to redo an entire section of our garden and it is getting to be a REALLY tough job.   I have to go outside in this beautiful early spring sunshine (would somebody pleeease pray for rain) and make the best of this wonderful opportunity I now have to improve my yard,

or make it worse.

What was I thinking?

Today’s economy has a lot of us thinking more about how we spend, what we buy, and how to make every dollar stretch.

In teaching our young children about money, one of the things that seemed to work fairly well for us, was to have them keep track in a small notebook of every dime (and sometimes it was just dimes) they had.  From the age of about 8 or so any income, or expenditure, no matter how large or small was entered into the notebook.   Wishes or wants, and have to’s were also written down so they could budget and save for things they really wanted.  They also all had savings accounts in a credit union.   

Now, here's where I  tell you that they are all independently wealthy, have no debt and are ready to support their parents in our old age.   Dream on.

But for the most part it did help teach them some good money management tools and instill some good habits.

Saving was especially easy for our youngest; she once told her older brother if he would drive her to the store she’d get him a treat.  He could pay.