Tomorrow is my mother’s 72nd birthday.  I cannot believe she is 72 years-old.  She is in amazing shape, of course she goes to the gym 3 days a week and walks 7 days a week.  So she does put a lot of effort into looking good.  We were just up in Michigan visiting my parents and I swear they look exactly the same as they did 25 years ago.

My mom is one of those people who will probably live to be over 100.  She has never had any serious health problem and she eats healthy and works out.  We are all so lucky to be born with good genes.  I swear my doctor even tells me that I would be a lot less healthy if I wasn’t born with good genes.  I guess some of us are really lucky.

We just got back in town after celebrating my parents 50th Anniversary.  I couldn’t help but wonder what makes marriage work for some people and not for others.  I really feel that divorce has become more acceptable over the years.  When I look back over the years I think that my parents stayed together because of all of us.  Now of course they are together for each other, but over the years it was the children that held it together.

For their anniversary we all went out to a big dinner on Mackinaw Island.  Stories were told from our childhood, pictures were given out, and many pictures were taken.  We all had a great time and it was good to see all of my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and brother and sister-in-laws.  It made me realize how blessed I am to have such a great family and such great parents.  

This year the Olympics are being held in Beijing. The media has been making all kinds of statements about the participants for this year. I have been following the news stories pretty closely because a lot of the accusations revolve around gymnastics. I was a gymnast years ago and I still love the sport so these stories have been of interest to me.

Initially the word was some of the athletes were underage meaning younger than 16. This of course would disqualify them from competing in the Olympics. Just recently I read another story talking about how China will hand pick there future gymnast at the age of 6 or younger. At that point they are sentenced to intense training to become Olympians. These young girls practice for hours a day, in my opinion sometimes the pressure of winning can be taken too far.

I just read the story about the two British women starting problems on an aircraft. Okay have we not had enough problems with flying over the past 8 or 9 years. You constantly hear people complaining about their flight and how security has become so crazy at airports, but then people turn around and act crazy like this.

What I got from the article was that there were 2 women, one 26 the other 27 who were visibly drunk on the plane. Consequently the flight attendant stopped serving them alcohol when they asked for it. One of the women got so upset that she tried to assault a crew member by hitting them with a bottle of liquor. One thing led to another and one of the women tried to open the cabin door at one point. Have people gone totally crazy or what? I hope to never be on a plane when people act like this.

I have to say today was a good day but a little rough.  I have never been very good at making decisions so I tend to put things off until I have to make a decision.  Today was one of those days in which I could not wait any longer to give my 2 week notice.  Don’t get me wrong I love my job, but the pay along with the commute was putting me further in debt than not working at all!

I know it sounds hard to believe, but really I felt like I was spending more on food and gas to get to and from work than what I was making in my paycheck.  I have put many days and weeks and hours into thought about this situation and felt that leaving was the best thing at this point.  The funny thing is I have never had to leave a job that I loved so much.  That is what is killing me, but like I said I know it is for the best and I know bigger and better things are waiting for me.