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Oh course she does

sassymonkey — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:04:26 -0500

Though it was a teen/college crowd space long before it was a family place. And teens need to learn that it's not just about them and their friends when they have family on their account too. Absolutely. I just kind of understand why he blocked his family after that.

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I'm with you

Denise — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:45:04 -0500

My older kids started out with Live Journals and Myspaces and I didn't friend them there. They needed their space. Now, they're all on Facebook and they all friended me before I even had the chance to consider whether or not they would. I can even give my 19 year old a hard time about stuff I see on Facebook and have her friends come over and laugh at her mom giving her a hard time. She's cool with it all and so am I.

I also understood completely when she hesitated before friending her grandmother on facebook. She still hasn't friended her because while most of what she says and does there is fine, she doesn't want to risk troubling her grandmother when she puts a photo of herself wearing newspaper pasties and a skirt made of newspaper on her Facebook page.

~Denise BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings

Well, I got his mother's

jenmorrison — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:38:57 -0500

Well, I got his mother's point. She could care less if he's swearing around his buddies. But the kid needed to learn that posting a status with the f-word was like saying it loudly in the middle of a family reunion while standing next to his grandmother. Eventually you learn that certain social places require certain behaviour. Unfortunately for some teens, facebook has become a social, often family realm, not just for teenagers anymore. If his facebook only included his friends, then whatever. Swear like a trucker, who cares!

Anyway, I never look at teenage profiles either, including my nephews. Most of their news is stuff I don't need to know! And I rarely looked at his unless he was posting family photos. But the status with the eff-word was there on all our newsfeeds, including his grandmother's, for everyone to see.

Pay attention - there's a story everywhere you go.

Oh wow

sassymonkey — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:28:53 -0500

He got in trouble for swearing on Facebook? For real? Um, wow. Honestly, I'd probably block my family too if I were him.

My nephew and I are friends on Facebook but we largely ignore each other. I think we're both happier that way. I know I am. (Really, there's only so many "I love yooooouuuuuuuussss" between him and his girlfriend I can handle...and he's in his early 20s.)

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I know what you're going

SpendWiselyTexas@gmail.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:51:36 -0500

I know what you're going through. My husband son and I moved to Texas from the island of Bermuda about seven months ago. I've decided to make this new place home. What's helped is finding out about all there is to do in Texas, learn about its history and find places (like the diner mentioned in the post above) where I feel comfortable. This isn't my first big move so I know it'll take a while before I feel settled. Put yourself out there. Do what you like or what you think you might like and at some point you'll have made a home and found a community.

Spend Wisely Texas

Hi!

TigerDolphin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:06:00 -0500

keep the posts coming!

Hi!

TigerDolphin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:05:15 -0500

Thanks for your post! It feels really encouraging to know that there are others out there going through the same things as me. I will just have to give it more time. I'm just lucky we live in an age where I have the internet and telephone to communicate with my back at home social network until I feel comfortable here. I plan to look up some volunteer places. I just got to get used to the idea that yes, it takes more then 20 min to get from A to B. :) Eventually I will get used to that too. I am lucky that I have my brother only two hours away so I guess I am not completly alone. Just have to keep reminding myself that! It's nice to know what I'm going through is normal and will soon change in time! Just gotta get used to being outside my comfort zone. Thanks again for replying to this thread and I hope that others do reply too as there might be others out there going through a similar experience to me that would benefit from reading my posting. Hope you are having a great weekend!

Oh, honey, I totally relate

misseliza — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:10:25 -0500

Oh, honey, I totally relate - five years ago I packed up with my husband and moved halfway across the country to a place where I knew NO ONE. Minneapolis is VERY different from San Diego, even though they're both big cities, and it was a pretty hard first year. I think it took a good 18 months to 2 years before it REALLY felt like home - when I knew how to get everywhere, had found a hairstylist and a drycleaner and a doctor that I liked. What I think helped me the most was finding a little coffee shop I loved that I went to almost every day. I got to know the people behind the counter and a few of the other regulars - not as friends, per se, but as people I had a comfortable routine with. Having a place like that made me feel homey again. But the best way to meet people, at least in my experience, was to get involved - either volunteering somewhere, taking a class, or through Meetup.com (a lifesaver!!). That was the best way to find people like me - and to be honest, at the start it was mostly other people who weren't from here that I made friends with first, because they were in the same boat. I used Meetup to start a weekly dinner for people who were new to the Cities and that helped tremendously - to know I wasn't the only one struggling through all this.

I don't know if any of that helped, but just know that what you're feeling is totally normal and just part of the process. I promise it will get better.

you haver compileed some

midnightbliss — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:40:12 -0500

you haver compileed some informative sites here. At home, I usually recycle home decors or furnitures that are no longer used and make them into something useful or trendy, in that way, we no longer have to buy new decorations evrytime we decide to recorate or renovate. With a little creativity you can make old unused things into a new piece of decor or furniture and there's no need to buy a new 0ne.

Thank you

Momi — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:53:40 -0500

for this post that sums up so much of what I cannot say. When I had to surrender a pair of 2-inch plastic foldable scissors that I'd had since I was 10 at a very small airport in Iowa, the rage I felt was not just at the utter ridiculousness of the "threat" that those scissors posed but the feeling of insecurity and paranoia that engendered the regulations that prohibited those scissors.

Beautiful post, Pam. It's

Arrietty — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:46:17 -0500

Beautiful post, Pam. It's only the 10th - getting in early!

I would still like to go to Iran but maybe that's just me. Plus, I'm not American.

Love your post Pam

paulag01 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:21:30 -0500

What eloquence. I used to be terrified to fly.. at some point I chose to overcome that fear because travel was too important to me. Slowly my death grip on my traveling companion loosened (yes I was known to draw blood in fear of turbulence with a death grip)... yet like you the fear, real or imaginary hangs heavier now. The every changing dance of security measures... do they really make us safer or just try to, no one can say for sure. A tiny bit of loss at each corner...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and this post.

Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company

http://www.thepaulagcompany.com

Learn 5 Steps to Move from Fear to Freedom (free)

Aging

barbarahw — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:21:42 -0500

I've been thinking quite a bit about the disconnect between the age I am and the age I think I am.

Sitting at parent orientation as my son began college, it was all I could do to keep from leaving with the students as they shuffled off to pick their classes. Every part of me said I was seventeen and about to start that new adventure ... well, almost every part. I certainly don't look seventeen, and my body tells me quite often that I'm not seventeen ... but my mind just doesn't want to agree. Yet, there are thirty-three years of experience and memories in that brain. Why the disconnect?

I took the "What's your mental age?" quiz and it told me that my mind was 36 years old. (You have a rather young mind, even if it's no longer that of
an adolescent. You're on the right lines to become a mature and
responsible adult.)

Today, however, having buried my mother on Friday and sent my baby off to high school, I am feeling older. In fact, I feel old and tired. But I think this is a stage that will pass.

Intellectually, I think my mental age should more closely align with my actual age -- but whimsically, I like that I think of myself as seventeen. Okay, when I walk past a mirror or plate glass window, I'm often startled ... but giving my heart a jump is okay too.

Arianna's Got it Right

barbarahw — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:32:50 -0500

Did you have a chance to read Arianna Huffington's blog?

If you're divorced or separated with kids, this is a must read. Things are a bit raw right now between my husband and myself ... but my m.o. is that the kids come first. Arianna gets it too -- and thankfully, so does her husband. Best of all, her kids win!

Wonderful, Arianna!

Independence Day

barbarahw — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:17:26 -0500

This year, Independence Day has a different meaning and feel for me. Yes, I proudly stand as an American and celebrate the birth of our great country, a country born out of transition and division. I stand too as a woman on the brink of a new adventure, a new life perhaps, born too out of transition and division.

Its time for me to decide what this new independence will mean ... and how I will be in this world - separating both from my life partner of 29 years and the work in which I have been engaged for the past 13+ years. Who am I, how do I fit in the world now, how will I make my next mark? These are all questions raging in my head on this July 4.

And yet, I think too of my grandfather Sam, born this day in 1888 or so, who gave up everything to come to this country and begin a new life for himself and his family. he must have been asking himself these same questions and others, as he embarked on his new adventure. Perhaps Independence Day is a day of spiritual questioning and awakening ... a day for us to take stock of our place in the world, just as our forefathers did -- in 1776, and for Sam, in 1911.