Mom. Student. Wife. Doctor?

Europe! The continent where history comes from. At least, that's what my dad used to call it. He's kinda right. The history of western civilisation still exists there - castles, canals, cathedrals, palaces; you name it, they've got it, FOR REAL.

Anyway, I've been thinking that it might be time to take a trip over there. I've never been, and I figure that if I want to learn something while I'm on a break, there's probably no better place to start, right? Not that I could get round all of Europe. That'd be stupid. I hate when people say they've "done" somewhere. Like, 'Yeah, we've done Venice and now we're gonna DO Florence'. What the hell do they mean? Do they mean they visited that place and understood something of its nature, or do they mean they just ticked it off on their itinerary? So, trying to "do" too much of Europe would, I think, be a mistake. I like to get a real flavour of a place, to imagine that I could live there, stroll the streets; order the same drink in the same bar two nights running. That kinda thing.

So, where to go? For the sake of interest - not to mention for the sake of love - I gotta get to Paris. Ever since Gene Kelly strutted its romanticised, rose-tinted streets in 'An American in Paris', I've always wanted to go. I can just picture myself in a cafe, sipping absinthe and smoking Gauloise. Ah! Then there's Barcelona - home of my favourite architect Gaudi. Some people look at his buildings and see garish, 'gaudy' piles of kitsch; not me! I think they're beautiful and about as close as you can get to a fairytale in reality. Plus, I can speak a little Spanish (though apparently Castilian is a very different thing). Then there's London, where language is, hopefully, no problem. I've also got a couple of relatives there, so that'd save on cost. Then there's Venice! The city of dreams (or something). It just sounds like the most unique place on earth - like a living museum. Perhaps some places a little more off the beaten track: Warsaw appeals for some reason, as does Ljubljana. There are some cheap flights to Barcelona, so I'd probably start there, and maybe end in Dublin, where I've always felt like I have some weird affinity. Sigh! This is all just a daydream at the moment, but that hasn't stopped me from making day-dreamy plans. Someday soon I'll just book those tickets and head off; back to the cradles of western culture. You never know, maybe I'll never come back…

I was having my hair done and was talking to the hair dresser, you know how that goes, yap, yap, yap about anything and everything. Anyway, somehow we got on the subject of personal responsibility and how it is so lacking in our society these days. We were both on the same page about it.

For some unknown reason, people in our society seem to believe that nothing is their fault. They like to blame other people and circumstances for their own bad choices and bad behaviors. I think that this is perhaps what is causing so many problems in today's youth. They don't feel that they need to be accountable for anything, and if they get caught doing the wrong thing, well they are just kids, they don't know any better. Then you have the parents who stand up for these kids and say well they didn't realize that if they got behind the wheel of the car drunk that they were going to kill someone, it was just an accident.

Well, if you look at this what they are really saying is that I never took the time to teach them that their actions would have consequences. In my opinion that is the equivalent of them saying that they weren't parenting them. I am a firm believer in consequences and even with my children as young as they are, I really do try to reinforce the theory of consequences every day. It is not that I believe they are meant to be perfect, I know it is part of the human experience to make mistakes, but learning from those mistakes is the most important thing. I tell my kids already that there are consequences for every action, even if they don't get caught doing the wrong thing, the universe and God see and know all. I am a firm believer in the boomerang effect, the fact that what you put out into the universe is what you get back and that in and of itself should be enough for people to want to do the right thing.

It is our jobs as adults to not to allow other adults or children to act as if they don't have accountability for their actions. We need to stop giving adults large lawsuit settlements for things that are really no one's fault but there own. We need to encourage our kids and everyone to tell the truth and teach them a conscience so that they can't live with themselves when they have done something wrong. I know the errors that I have personally made, and they still come back to haunt me, but I also know that I have made amends for those actions and have proven that I am truly repentant for my actions by committing myself to not doing those same things again. This really shows God your true repentance. Having been raised Catholic, I know that the church says just go in and confess to a priest say a few hail Marys and God will forgive you. I don't exactly believe that is what God was getting at. I think in short what God was trying to say was learn from your mistakes and don't keep doing the same things over and over again. Saying I am sorry means nothing if you are doing the same thing day after day. To show you are truly sorry is to turn around your attitude and behavior and refrain from doing those same things again.

Let's reinforce for our children the importance of acknowledging their mistakes and moving forward and away from making those same mistakes. Our kids must learn about consequences, if they don't they will never have a successful life.

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I really must wonder why the speed limit in this country is what it is? I know that if you were to speak to government officials and the police, that it is for safety reasons, but that in my opinion is a far cry from the truth. One reason that I am not buying that is because if they really only wanted people to be able to drive up to 70 miles an hour, then why would they provide us with cars that can go 100+ miles an hour. Doesn't that really seem as if they are setting us up for failure? And in other countries people are allowed to drive that fast. Take the Autobon in Germany, just as an example. I have never actually been there, but from what I hear, it is quite the experience, and the cars on there go over 100 miles per hour. The German government, has obviously not felt that this was a dangerous practice, or they probably would not keep allowing people to drive at this rate of speed. And I mean really what is the difference? What if you are only driving at 70 miles and hour, then will only be mamed, but if you are driving at 100+ miles an hour, you would die instantly? Which one sounds better to you? I can tell you that I would much prefer dying instantly to laying out the rest of my days as a vegetable. In any case, doesn't our government set us up for the fall, isn't it to be able to charge us a fortune for our speeding indescretions?\par

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What about seat belt tickets? Now don't get me wrong, I can truly see the value of wearing your seatbelt, but why is it our government's right to tell us that we must wear a safety belt in our own vehicle? Honestly, not wearing your seat belt only poses a threat to your safety, it doesn't have the potential to injure any one else on the road, so truly why does it matter to them wheather or not you are wearing it? I just can't get over sometimes, the control that we the general public allow these people to have over our lives. And I guess even more appalling to me is the fact that they do it under the guise of protecting us, and when we don't follow the rules they collect 100's of dollars from us. And if they are collecting this kind of money from all the wrong doings in the world, then why is it that the police auxillary league calls me to donate money to them? And isn't it even more amazing that if you do support them, then they send you a sticker to put on your car, so that the police will take it easy on you? So in effect, if I understand them correctly, what they are essentially saying is that they ticket us, in a sense to collect money from us, but if we are generous enough to give willingly, then they won't collect the ticket money from us. Basically this is like bullying for donations...Isn't it??

Did you ever have one of those days? I bet if you have kids than you have. It was Saturday morning and we were just kicking back with the kids, I was trying to get a little cleaning done around the house and the kids were watching a video and eating their cereal. I try to feed the kids nutritious foods, and so I give them Kix cereal. I feel it is one of the better cereal choices on the market today. In any case, all of a sudden my daughter comes up to me hysterically crying, at first I think, what is going on and then I realize that she is holding the side of her nose, so I feel her nose and there is a huge bump, so I am talking to her asking her what is in her nose, and I finally get out of her that it is a piece of Kix cereal that she has shoved up inside her right nostril. I now begin calling to my husband, just completely panicked he comes running down the hall soaking wet, he was in the shower. When I tell him the situation he tries to get her to blow it out but she sucks in instead moving the piece in the wrong direction. Now I am going to be brilliant and get tweezers to reach up their and get it out, well if you have never seen kix cereal before it is in this little round ball shape, which is not easily grabbed with tweezers in case you were curious.

Now I am beginning to think that I will have to take her to the emergency room and wonder what they will have to do to get this cereal out of my 3 year olds nose. I am less panicked about the cereal being in there and more worried about how the doctors are going to want to get it out and also how much it will cost me since I don't have any insurance.

Finally out of complete panic and desperation I call the all knowing great wizard of Oz, better known as my father. For some unknown reason my father has a huge amount of knowledge about nearly any subject that you can imagine. Perhaps it is just that he remembers everything, but since getting a little older, no matter what the situation, I know that I can always count on my dad for an answer. No matter how far away he is or what time of the day or night, he always has at the very least some good advice or suggestions. So I call dad and explain the situation to him, he asks about the type of cereal, since he is not familiar with Kix, and once I explain it to him, he says just take an eye dropper and squirt some water into her nostril and it will shrink. (I should have been able to figure that one out on my own, but sometimes in a crisis I can't think, that is when I call Dad) In any case, after squirting the water into her nose it shrank, went into the back of her throat and she swallowed it, the end.

Sometimes it's good to sit back and take stock. For me, those moments are few and far between, what with the kids and all this study. Still, last week my husband and I managed to find a mutual window of opportunity for one such moment. We got a babysitter in, and booked tickets to a film followed by a table for two at a nice restaurant. Bliss!

Over dinner we got talking. Reminiscing about when we first me (schmaltzy I know!), when we got married, when we had the kids; all those kinda things. Then we talked about where we wanted to be: me a doctor (I hope), and maybe moving somewhere else. Maybe back to New York. Anyway, the running theme of all of this - whether for good or bad - was money.

With me studying, money is at the forefront of both of our minds a lot - generally speaking, not having enough of it. We took a little comfort in the fact that the economy in general is doing pretty badly at the moment; but one of the main features we foresaw for the future was having and spending more money. At the time this was just how we were talking - inadvertently bringing up our finances probably because we were out having a night on the town - but it struck us both later that it was not a little sad that money had infected, albeit quietly, our entire night out; not to mention our aspirations and memories.

Now we might be a little poorer than we want to be right now but (and this'll sound like a cliché) we are so rich in other ways. So we have a mortgage and loans, but I like to think they're perfectly manageable; we have the kids, but they're cheap really, if you're frugal; I'm studying, which doesn't bring in any money, but it is a huge investment in the future. If I can make chiropody work, then I could earn a tidy sum.

The point is we're alright. We have enough money to do much more than get by, and we have a lot more than most. Honestly, I couldn't be happier at the moment, and it's nothing to do with having enough or too little cash. We had our night out - which was great - but I wanna keep that kind of thing as a treat: a special occasion we can grab sometimes. Most of the time I'm happy with my man and my kids, at home within our family. And I'm very grateful for that.