Before I got married, I considered myself adventurous. I went skydiving (which is awesome! Totally recommend.) Took spontaneous trips to Vegas, and got really creative when I was broke. 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a hard worker as well and was very responsible with my obligations of work and whatnot. But I also had so much fun.

I didn’t think I would get married. When I worked in the corporate world, I saw myself traveling at least once a month on business and taking annual vacations to Europe, Ireland, and almost everywhere.

So what happened? I found the most amazing man and got married in my early twenties. Seven years later, I have two young children, am a stay at home mom, and I write novels in my free time. I must say that life turned out better than what I had planned for myself. My husband is my best friend and we have so much fun together, and my kids are too adorable for words. Of course, having my debut novel come out in February is a huge bonus.

But what made me think about my life was when I told my five year old son that I used to go rock climbing. He looked at me and scrunched up his nose. “Are you teasing?” he asked.

Sigh. My kids see me so differently, and I don’t blame them. Since I have a little one who won’t sleep unless she’s in her crib, I don’t even go camping right now. My current lifestyle gives off the appearance of a woman who, while getting regular exercise, doesn’t get out much. Some of that can be attributed to my baby weight. I’m still working on losing it (I’ve lost 50 pounds and counting), but being overweight really makes a difference when you’re trying to hike or run after your children. Plus, I gained so much weight with this last pregnancy that it gave me major knee problems. (The joys of being a mom, right?)

Of course, once the kids are older and I’ve lost the weight, I’m pretty sure I’ll come off as more active. I definitely miss camping and will go as soon as my little one is ready for it. I’m also hoping that my kids will let me teach them kick boxing since it’s something I love.

But I guess the question is, how will my kids see me? How do my friends and neighbors see me now? I’m sure they see something totally different than what I think.

I remember when I was a teenager and my mom had told me that all she wanted to be when she grew up was a homemaker. I stared at her in complete disbelief. That’s not how she came across at all. She was a single mom who worked full time at the hospital. She took good care of us, but I never would have guessed that her ambition was to stay home and raise children. Now, irony of irony, I’m doing the opposite of what I had aspired to, and the opposite of what she did.

So what about you? How did life turn out differently for you? Do people around you see you as something very different from what you see in yourself? I’d love to hear about it!

Okay, so I know this post is going to seem so random (my blog is called “random thoughts” for good reason), but I discovered the most amazing toilet cleaner and I have to share!

We live in an area where hard water stains are the norm. For the past ten months, I have been trying to clean off the build-up in my toilet bowls. The hard water stains looked like an ugly brown coating the inside of my toilet bowl. It was just where the water line was, so above that was nice and white. It made for a very nasty look. Whenever someone was visiting and asked to use my bathroom, I emphasized to them that I really do clean my toilet. I cannot stress enough on how bad my toilets looked.

Anyway, I tried using name brand products that were designed specifically to remove stains from toilets. I would let those products soak into the toilet for hours, then work up a sweat scrubbing the crap out of it. The result? Maybe it would be less brown than before, but nowhere close to that perfect white I desired. Then I moved on to other methods people had told me about. I tried Coke, vinegar, and denture tablets. None of those helped. The closest I got to having a white toilet bowl was using CLR. This was a lot of work, though. I had to remove all the water from the toilet bowl first, then soak the CLR on the stain, and then scrub so hard that my toilet brush lost half of its bristles. The result? Almost totally white, but not quite there. Plus, the stains were quick to return.

So one day, as I lamented the nastiness of my toilets to a friend, she told me to go to Walmart and buy The Works. It was the cheapest toilet cleaner on the shelf, and I was feeling pretty skeptical. However, my friend had never led me astray before (plus I figured I was only wasting a dollar and change), so I got it. I poured the cleanser into my toilet bowl, let it sit for five hours, then scrubbed. The result? Gleaming white porcelain shining at me! I hardly even had to scrub, too. It was amazing!

So now, I’m on a mission to let everyone know about this cheaply fabulous product. I know this is kind of a silly thing to blog about, but you have no idea how much time, money, and effort I’ve spent on scrubbing my toilets. Now that I’ve found something that does all the work for me and is totally affordable, I can’t keep my mouth shut about it. They have other products (glass cleaner, shower cleaner, fabric refresher) that I now want to try.

So for any of you who have problems in those areas of your house, especially toilets, I’d suggest trying this product. See if it works for you as well as it did for me.

(Yes, I do realize I’m falling into the stay at home mom cliche right now, but what can I say? I am a stay at home mom, after all!)

I just finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James. If you haven’t heard of this book yet, I don’t know where you’ve been! 🙂

It’s been a top selling book since it came out a few months ago and is the number one book for book clubs across America. Part of it’s popularity is sprung from the scandalous content. A young woman, just graduating from college meets a slightly older man who is the epitome of success with his business. He introduces her to his secret of BSDM. That’s pretty much the entire plot right there.

This is not a book I would usually read – just not my typical genre. However, as I am in the writing industry, I make it a point to read the top sellers. Plus, I was intrigued. What about this book is driving the consumers into a frenzy? So I got a copy and read it.

My first impression was not too flattering. I am not impressed with lead female characters who are clumsy, and think they’re not pretty while every male they happen to come into contact with seems to lust after them. It’s a very unrealistic personality, in my opinion. Plus, even the most beautiful women don’t have every man they meet fawning all over them. I can’t explain why, but that little detail is such a pet peeve of mine. (Maybe because that personality was glorified after Twilight came out…)

Moving on. The more I read the book, the more I felt like I was reading a different version of Twilight. Girl meets guy that she is almost obsessively drawn to, he seems equally drawn to her. He reveals his big secret and she can’t tell anyone while their relationship hits all kinds of highs and lows. Just replace the big secret of vampires with BSDM, and there you have it.

While saying this, I must admit that Anastasia’s character came out more as I read the book. In Twilight, I felt Bella’s character was pretty much the same throughout, and I could see Anastasia growing and standing up for herself as the story progressed.

As I’m sure you can tell, I wasn’t keenly impressed with this book. But I have to admit that there was something about it that pulled me in. (And no, it wasn’t just the sex!) The author wrote Christian Grey’s character quite well. I felt he was dynamic and mysterious. EL James did a wonderful job of only giving out little snippets here and there about his past. It was just enough to have me speculating while wishing for more. It’s what kept me flipping the pages, and it helped me understand how Anastasia’s character wanted to be with him.

One respect about this book that is so different from Twilight was that the content is definitely rated R. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous to read it because of the BSDM, but I felt that it was tastefully done and didn’t push the limits. I think the most eyebrow raising aspect of the book was reading through the contract that Christian wanted Anastasia to sign. I learned all kinds of things I didn’t really need to know, but was glad to find that the characters didn’t actually do half of what was listed in the contract.

Of course, this is book one of a trilogy and the ending was definitely a cliff-hanger. I am invested enough in this story to want to finish book two and three.

So quick recap: Overall, I’d say the writing was good, and that I just wish there had been a bit more of a plot with a more original character. I gave it three out of five stars. While it’s not my favorite book, it was worth reading.

Knowledge is power, and even if you aren’t a power monger, knowledge is a good thing to have anyway. Knowing things can help us in our day to day lives and learning can give us satisfaction as something that interests us. In the past, the knowledgeable were considered very valuable people as much of the population has little or no education at all and educated people found themselves at the very top of society.

Nowadays, however, most of us in the modern world have received at least a basic education that would make us appear to be academics in comparison with our past generations. Just the ability to read and write alone is something that was revered in days gone by, although it is now something that we take for granted. Because we are so fortunate to have such a valuable ability, we really should try and make the most of it by learning as much as we possibly can.

Books

Books are fantastic. Books can teach us about whatever we want to know, or they could simply entertain us. Even when reading a good novel we are likely you glean knowledge from what is in the story. Even if it is a casual way of learning it is still very effective and the more books we read, the more we learn. Of course, reading is also great for our minds as it exercises our mind by making it think instead of having the thinking one for us. Many books, such as text books, are of course more of a collection of information rather than a story and are intended to teach more than entertain. Although some people may enjoy getting deep into a text book, those that don’t enjoy it so much can still benefit for the knowledge they gain. Without books, the world we live in would be a very different place today.

Broaden your Horizons

One of the best ways to learn is through personal experience and finding yourself in different situations. Because we live on such a massively varied planet there are almost a limitless number of things to learn and anybody will always find something that they did not yet know.

Get Out!

Try to travel as much as you can and as far as you can. Try to avoid package holidays where you will spend your time associating only with people from your own country, eating food from your own country and surrounded by culture from your own country. Try instead to holiday off the beaten track where you get to meet the locals and experience how other people live their lives. You could learn new things that you would not have learned anywhere else, and things that can be of use to you even once you have returned back home. People that have travelled far and wide are often wiser than those that stay closer to home, and have a great deal of information and experience to share with others. If you are somebody that likes to learn, travelling to another country could be just what you need.

Go Web Surfing – Solve a Problem, Play a Game

If it is information you are looking for, the best place to find it is probably on the internet. The internet holds a vast amount of information on any topic you could imagine, with contributions made from countless people from across the planet. With such a vast wealth of information at our fingertips there is now no excuse for not learning new things even if it means only spending a few minutes to learn one new thing at a time.

You could use the internet to solve a problem at home. You could use it to help somebody you know or to learn something that will help you professionally. You could even use the internet to learn just because you have some spare time and have nothing else to do.

Generations ago people would have jumped at the opportunity to be able to learn as well as we can today. It would be a shame to waste the learning opportunities we have now and we should learn at any given opportunity.

If you have the time, you could also learn to play poker and then try to win some money by playing others at www.pokerstars.co.uk