Sunday, March 29, 2009

If The Life Expectancy Of A White Male Is Over Seventy Five Years, You Have Plenty Of Time When You're Ten

Tonight Ed and I are sitting in Buttonwillow, California waiting to deliver our load tomorrow morning. He's working on our taxes, I'm doing something less "work" related...

Every month, I write a newsletter for my oldest nephew, who is ten years old. It's typically five pages and I include a "Place of The Month" category where I take a whole page to describe a place we've been in detail, along with any interesting facts or information about it. I always include pictures I've taken if I have them. Another category is called "Side Trip" which is just a column where I highlight something small about another place we've been - for instance, last month I did Venice Beach, California. One of the things I knew my nephew would be interested in was the fact that it was the place where Carroll Shelby opened his first Shelby manufacturing plant in 1964. It was at this location that he converted a stock Ford Mustang into a "gutsy, incredibly fast street-legal race car".

I have a column that highlights events of the month like holidays and birthdays, a column with trivia and jokes and a column titled "Ed Says" where Ed and I collaborate on a topic of the month. So far we've done "saving money", "practicing to improve your skills" and "being organized".


As I was working on this month's newsletter, I asked Ed for a topic idea for his column. He said, "How about cleanliness?" I was like, "Uh, NO. My sister-in-law is the cleanest person I know. You could smish food into her carpet and eat it; I don't think my nephews need ANY tips on how to stay clean."

So then he said, "Well, how about 'Life is Short'?"

I said, "Life is short? Baby, he's ten. Life is not short when you're ten."


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In the spirit of extending life, I'd like to wish a very Happy Birthday to my dear friend Nikki, who turned 34 today! Please visit her new blog to read about her and her amazing search and rescue dog, TBAA.

5 comments:

Team Caffee said...

Life is short!! You are right when you are ten who cares now that I am in my 40's life is getting shorter. Now though we can have more fun and less worries about what someone might think. The newsletter is a great idea.

all things bradbury said...

shoot, you guys are just youngins out there yet!!...i'm looking at the big double-nickel (i learned that term on the cb..lol) come june, so as a bonafide card-carrying member of aarp, i can definately concur that life is short and movin fast!!....the newsletter sounds wonderful...i may have to steal the idea for my grandkids....

sheila said...

LOL, that's funny. That newsletter sounds awesome! What a wonderful thing to do for your nephew! You're a nice Auntie!

Hedon said...

Dude!

That's an awesome idea. You have got to be the coolest Aunt and Uncle ever!

Dreamybee said...

Wow, that is so cool that you do that for your nephew! I hope he appreciates all that.