Last week, our country paid tribute to those who lost their lives needlessly in the horrific terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. Many firefighters, families and friends of loved ones lost paused for a moment of silence between 8:46 a.m. (when the first of the Twin Towers was hit) and 10:00 a.m. (when Flight 93 went down in a Pennsylvania field). Nearly 3,000 people were killed that morning, including the19 al Qaeda terrorist hijackers who carried out the attacks.

The National Geographic Channel put together a four-hour mini series titled “Inside 9/11”. I was only able to catch a portion of this program, but it was very chilling to watch. In 1998, Osama bin Laden granted an interview to journalist John Miller, former co-host of ABC’s 20/20. It must have been very unnerving for Miller to sit and listen to bin Laden declare war on the United States, threatening to target both our military personnel and civilians. The events that would lead up to the September 11^th attacks began shortly after that interview was granted to Miller. Two United States embassies were the targets of suicide bombers in Kenya and Tanzania on August 17, 1998 - the work of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The group was also said to have been behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. 

It was disturbing to learn that the 19 radicals involved in the September 11^th attacks lived and walked among us for years, using their real names and obtaining state driver’s licenses. The hijackers designated to storm the cockpits and re-direct the aircrafts to their intended targets were enrolled in flight schools in the states of Arizona and Florida. We welcomed the executioner with open arms.

We had the opportunity to rid ourselves of bin Laden on at least two occasions; however, we were so worried about injuring or killing innocent civilians, we ended up pulling the plug on the missions. Osama bin Laden never reciprocated that courtesy. He’s killed thousands of innocent people – Americans – and still he walks a free man. Has he won his war against the United States?

For those of you who are avid golfers, the PGA National Resort & Spa is a golfer’s paradise. Located in West Palm Beach, Florida, the resort has hosted more than 19 major PGA tournament events since the doors opened in 1981. The property boasts four incredible championship 18-hole golf courses: The Championship, The Haig, The Squire and The Palmer. The Estate championship course is located five miles west of the PGA National community in Palm Beach Gardens. The courses were designed by golf architects Tom & George Fazio and Karl Litten, as well as golf legends Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. The fairways and greens are in excellent condition and will challenge even the most experienced golfer with water hazards and multiple sand traps along every course. 

For the Labor Day Weekend, the PGA National Resort & Spa offered active duty military guests FREE rooms from Friday through Monday. In addition to the free rooms, active duty military guests were offered a special rate of $30 per person for a round of golf (with a golf cart) and two free buckets of balls to use at the driving range. That’s a steal in a resort of this grandeur! Use of the zero-entry pool and spacious Jacuzzi was also included in our stay.

I have stayed at plenty of hotels and resorts across the country; however, never have I found hotel staff to be so friendly, attentive and accommodating. We were greeted by four different staff members (valets, bell boys, etc.) before we even reached the registration desk. They didn’t treat us any differently simply because we had free rooms. Many of them thanked my husband for his service. The food was fabulous and the social scene was invigorating. The resort was very family-friendly.

If you ever find yourself in the West Palm Beach area, even if you’re not passionate about golf, the PGA National Resort & Spa is a must-see. Sit at the iBar located in the Lobby of the resort and watch your favorite sports programs from one of the four flat-screen TV’s while enjoying a cold, draft beer and sliders. And if you’re ready for a scrumptious fine dining experience at the Ironwood Grille, be sure to request Placido as your server. You will be well taken care of.

On Wednesday, May 6, 2009, the home furnishing giant, IKEA, held a grand opening for its 353,000 square foot store in Tampa, Florida. This was the third store the Swedish company had opened in the state of Florida and needless to say, the locals were excited. People were camped outside the front doors of the building for more than four days prior to the grand opening. Two days prior to the grand opening, huge crowds were lined up around the building hoping to cash in on the FREE chair IKEA was offering to the first 500 customers through the door (a $90.00 value). By the time the grand opening arrived, the store had to utilize dozens of its employees in order to direct traffic for the mass amounts of vehicles filling up the parking lot! Did these people really take time off of work to be a part of this madhouse? And if they’re unemployed, what are they doing spending money they don’t have on things they probably don’t really need? Hard to fit a couch in the cardboard box you’re living in.

I just don’t understand why I keep hearing about this terrible economy we’re currently facing when I see the malls, movie theaters, sporting events and IKEA jam-packed with people spending money. I think we should just be honest with ourselves - we’re really not broke, we just have our financial priorities screwed up. We charge up our credit cards every month while we accrue ungodly amounts of interest and continue lying to ourselves that we will eventually pay it off. What’s worse is that we’re constantly exhausting our credit card limits for “non-necessities”. Instead of groceries and the mortgage, we splurge on the new $300.00 iPhone, the $230.00 iPod and the $60.00 Beatles Rock Band for our Xbox 360 which we purchased last year and still paying for on credit.

We need to take financial responsibility and start digging ourselves out of the proverbial hole we’re in. Dig or be buried alive.

We have been listening to the controversy surrounding President Obama’s impending speech to our school children for more than a week.  Well, the day has finally arrived.  Did you watch President Obama’s lecture or read it on the internet?

This entire controversy has made me sick to my stomach and embarrassed to be an American.  It is unbelievable to me that we have shown such disrespect to the President on this subject matter.  Regardless of whether you voted for Obama or not (and I did not), WE (as a People) elected Barack H. Obama to act as our President of the United States and our Commander in Chief.  He should be held as a highly respected official in the eyes of our country and our children.  Why would we tell our children that a Presidential speech encouraging them to strive for more, stay in school, be responsible for themselves and be an asset to their community, be ignored?  I can’t imagine there is any possibility our children would be successful at anything they wanted to do in life if they are not properly educated or well educated.  Of course, crime, drugs and poverty need no education. 

Schools locally in Florida were actually granting children an “excused” day off if their parents barred them from watching the Presidential speech at school today.  Now, not all schools or classrooms chose to air the speech.  This was a back-to-school speech about education, not a trip to the zoo.  I believe children are more likely to listen to their parents when the same information is reinforced and repeated to them by other respectable adults.  Had my son been old enough to be in elementary school, I would have insisted he sit and watch or listen to Obama’s speech.  This is our President; for God sakes, give him the respect he deserves!

Like most of us, I grew up reading, listening and singing a variety of nursery rhymes.  Our mothers lulled us to sleep with her sweet voice singing “Twinkle, twinkle little star….” and “Rock-A-Bye Baby”.  As a child, I never really paid much attention to the words of the rhymes.  They were silly rhymes that all of us sang and all of us knew the words to.  I bet you could still recite some of those rhymes today.

It wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I grasped what some of these rhymes were actually saying.  For example, let’s look at the nursery rhyme about the old lady that lived in a shoe.  It speaks of whipping her children and sending them off to bed without any bread. Rock-A-Bye Baby portrays a baby in a cradle falling out of a tree.  I found another rhyme that I was unfamiliar with called Ladybird Ladybird.  Have you heard of this one?  The second verse declares, “Your house is on fire, your children shall burn!”  What kind of sick people would write about burning children?

In my quest for answers, I found that nearly all of these nursery rhymes revealed an interesting history; some written as far back as the days of King Henry VIII.  Unless you take the time to research the meaning behind these rhymes, on the surface, they sound bizarre, somewhat harsh and, in my opinion, a little warped.  Writing about three blind mice and seeing how they run is quite an amusing visualization.  Blind mice would be running into walls wouldn’t they?  And just for the record, it appears Ladybird Ladybird refers to smoking bugs out of vegetation by setting fires and has nothing at all to do with actual children.  I think I’ll stick to the more optimistic rhymes which teach my son that “life is but a dream”.

Does anyone else struggle to find the time to exercise these days? When I was younger, you couldn’t keep me away from roller skating, playing volleyball at the beach, biking, hiking, diving or golfing. Every weekend was jam packed with activities, friends and the great outdoors. Of course, living in Southern California allowed me the opportunity to stay active nearly year-round. Yet, as I got older, I made more and more excuses for the sedentary lifestyle I had fallen into. I used the excuse that I was “too busy” to exercise and simply did not have the energy after working all day. But honestly, I just plain didn’t feel like it.

I would join the gym with the intention of being faithful to my workouts. That would last for about the first two or three months; then, I’d get bored. I would mix up my workout routines, sign up for a spinning or kick-boxing class to try to avoid boredom, but I was hopeless. I found exercising indoors extremely insufferable. Running on a treadmill going nowhere while staring at a variety of TV screens broadcasting negative news became depressing, not invigorating. Eventually, I would stop going and tell myself (and everyone else) I didn’t have the time.

Now that I am a full-time mother, I am more aware that I need to set a better example for my son by being active (by the way, playing Tiger Woods Golf on the Nintendo Wii does not constitute “being active”). So yesterday, I purchased a pair of quad roller skates (yes, roller skates – not blades), threw the baby in the Jogger and went skating this morning. My son shrieked with delight as we raced through the neighborhood. Though I didn’t set any speed-skating records, I was proud of myself for not falling on my butt the first time out! Who would have thought putting on a pair of skates after 20 years could be this much fun and still be considered “exercise”?!

Were you aware that some schools still utilize corporal punishment to discipline their students? I have a friend who recently relocated to Mississippi. She has two children – one is in 8^th grade and the other is in pre-school. When she enrolled her children for the new school year, she was informed that the school exercises corporal punishment. Not believing in this method of discipline, my friend signed a document stating the school was not permitted to “paddle” her children. The new school year began a couple of weeks ago and already her older son has been suspended. You would not believe what the suspension stemmed from.

When my friend’s son, “Josh”, found another boy’s lunch under his desk during his 5^th period class, he took the bag with him to the cafeteria in order to deliver it to the boy. While waiting in the lunch line, another boy, “Danny”, asked Josh what he had in his hand. When Josh told him it was another boy’s lunch, Danny snatched the bag out of Josh’s hand, took out a bag of potato chips and began eating them. Danny’s friend, “Kyle”, took out and ate a granola bar. Josh was able to grab the lunch bag back and deliver it to the boy whom it belonged to. Josh informed the boy that although Danny and Kyle had eaten a couple of his lunch items, his soda, sandwich and fruit were still in the bag.

The boy reported the incident to the school office. When called into the office, Danny and Kyle admitted to eating the boy’s lunch and received two paddlings! Now, I’m all for a good swat on the rear-end if it’s warranted, but doesn’t that seem a little extreme to you? We’re talking about potato chips and a granola bar, not stealing the Mona Lisa! Josh was accused of “passing out” the boys lunch and was suspended for two days! Additionally, the three boys were instructed to pay a total of $2.50 to replace the boy’s lunch. Maybe I’m naïve, but I think they went a little overboard on the discipline. 

If you’ve ever had to search for a job, you know what a pain in the rear it can be. Call me naïve, but I have been amazed at the scams I’ve seen out there. We have all heard about them, but to actually sit down and read about the truckloads of money you can make with “No experience necessary!” is almost insulting. Any legitimate job offer is going to require you have some form of experience and you will need to submit your resume before they’ll even talk to you. These guys don’t give a rip what your qualifications are, but hey, you can earn thousands!

Every time I found an ad on a particular website (okay, it was Craigslist) that said “Apply Here”, “Learn More”, “Get Started Today”, it took me to a website that told me how I can make thousands of dollars in a just few hours a day. If you have the stomach to read all the way to the bottom of the ad, they tell you that “for a small investment, you too can…” Get real! 

I was really disappointed to find that Yahoo! HotJobs also had postings that claimed you could “Earn Great Income from your Home Computer”. Just out of curiosity, I clicked on one of the job postings and in big, bold letters I was told to “Stop Everything You Are Doing Right Now – The Next Five Minutes May Change Your Life”. Though I have to give them credit for one thing – I didn’t have to read the entire ad. The required investment amount was provided in the very first paragraph!

And don’t even get me started on the classifieds that don’t tell you they are recruiters.

So I’m watching the news last night and every channel is talking about and broadcasting the release of the Lockerbie bomber. In case you missed it, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 for his involvement in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in December 1988. The flight was headed to New York carrying mostly American passengers and blew up over Scotland, killing 270 people – 11 of whom were on the ground in the town of Lockerbie. The broadcasts showed Libya having a huge “Welcome home” celebration for this terrorist. 

Recently I was asked where I personally “fit” in the area of the political and social spectrum. I was taken aback as no one had ever really asked me that question before. Most people just want to know who you voted for in the last election. I did not grow up in a political family. As a matter of fact, I cannot recall ever hearing my parents, or grandparents for that matter, discussing politics. Thus, I am not well-versed in the subject of politics.