A word from our sponsors

In honor of Father’s Day, LifeStory has a campaign going. This one is for those people whose father has passed on. The campaign lets you make a memorial site, win a hardcover book and a subscription to Modern Widow’s Club Magazine. Here are the contest rules and requirements:

Create a LifeStory between June 9 – June 23, 2013 that is in honor of a passed father.

Invite your friends to contribute to your LifeStory page, asking them to share stories, photos, and memories. That is all that you need to do to enter, then the top 5 LifeStory pages with the most posts and comments will receive a the hardback book with all of the stories, photos and memories from the page and a one year subscription to Modern Widows Club magazine.

Contest Rules and Regulations:

Winner will be determined by the total number of posts and comments on a single LifeStory page. The top 5 LifeStory profiles with the highest numbers at the end of the entry period will be awarded prizes as noted above.

Contest begins at 12:01am on 6/9/13 and closes on 6/23/13 at 11:59 pm. All posts must be submitted by contest deadline to be counted. Top LifeStories will be selected 6/24/2013 and will be based on total number of posts and comments on a single LifeStory page.

Winners will be announced on our Facebook page on June 24 and notified via email. They will have 30 days to claim prizes. Hard back books will be designed and delivered within a 6 month period. Each book will be designed based on LifeStory profile content. Only content posted on LifeStory.com will be included in book. Video and link postings will not be included in book.

Only the first year of Modern Widows Club magazine will be paid for by LifeStory.com, all subsequent yearly subscriptions are the sole responsibility of the winner.

Estimated Prize Value: $75, preserving memories: Priceless

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Miracle-Gro for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

We are at the end of the school year. This year plants seem to be the theme. First our adult daughter brought home a started Dragon Fruit in a glass jar. It is sitting in some type of grow goo until we find out how to make a tropical plant grow in an arid local. Next our soon-to-be first grader brought home a lima bean plant. Needless to say, when your kid is just graduating Kindergarten, you cannot just throw away his plant project. So the lima bean is sitting next to the Dragon Fruit in a cut plastic bottle. Yes, we have our own little version of The Gro Project next to our front door.

When it comes to fun garden projects, we are fans because they are easy and the kids like them. My personal opinion is that I like to grow things that are edible. Flowers are pretty but fruits and vegetables are useful. For kids, nothing is more awesome then making a salad out of vegies that they grew. One of the reasons that we use Miracle-Gro is because the plants grow faster. When you have a 6 year old staring at his newly potted plant, growth speed is important.

Take a look at the Mircle Gro Pinterest page for some ideas and look at their products like Shake’n Feed All Purpose Plant Food and Moisture Control Potting Mix for indoor plants and LiquaFeed All Purpose Plant Food Advance Starter Kit for in-ground plants.

My brother-in-law’s (Lee’s brother) is a couple days off of mine which is right around Halloween. Since I have been married, we have had a Halloween/Birthday party for the two of us. They started as simple family and friends parties but grew to really big family and friends parties. By the time we left Miami, a party with two hundred people was not uncommon. As we became for affluent, we did things like table cloth rental, catering and live music. I do not miss much about Miami but I do miss that. These parties were an annual event and I miss being part of them.

Guest post written by my buddy Aldo Mays

Mom’s been a big help since my husband died…I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her. My husband was in the service and we had only been married for 2 years when he was killed in the line of duty but I’m young enough that I didn’t know much about managing a house on my own. To be honest, having to pay the bills and keep the grass cut and find out if we had car insurance was really overwhelming for me, especially while I was also mourning my husband. Mom started sending me links to articles to read about housekeeping and links for http://www.electriccompaniesindallas.com/ and places nearby that did dry cleaning. Slowly but surely I learned my way around being a homeowner and now I have to say, I feel more confident than I did three months ago. I know I’ve got a long road ahead of me as a widow at such a young age. My husband and I dated all through high school too so he’s the only man I’ve ever loved. It’s going to take me a while to get over his death but I’m proud of the way he served our country and I’m grateful for the time we had together. If only he had come home rather than staying out there, but what can you do when your loved one is deployed? I’m just going to try my best to honor his memory and keep building a life for us here in Texas. I know that’s what he would have wanted and he definitely would have wanted me to be happy. Between the dogs, his family, and my mom, I know I’m eventually going to be alright. I’m actually grateful for all the stuff I’ve had to do that’s seemed so overwhelming. If I hadn’t been thinking about utilities and insurance I probably would have been really, really sad about my husband all the time, so it’s been good to be busy.

Thanks for the guest post by Jo Levy

I don’t know what I can do to teach my kids the value of money. They’re just all about the newest shoes and whether or not they’ve got the right computer tablet and who does their hair. Their hair! They’re only 12 years old! My daughters are twins and they’re both very pretty and they’re getting to that age where other kids are starting to notice. I don’t want it to get to their heads that they get a lot of attention or make them feel like they don’t have a responsibility to be good citizens and live responsibly. I’ve been asking them to do chores now to earn their allowance which is a good start and my younger daughter is really into couponing, too. I sat down Sara, the older twin, the other day and asked her to look atwww.ElectricCompaniesTexas.net with me and find a cheaper electricity plan but she wasn’t really interested – she kept asking me to switch over to Zappos and find her a new pair of shoes. As if I’m going to buy a twelve year old a pair of high heels! Anyway, my husband thinks as soon as they turn 14 I need to make them both get jobs at different places so they can really feel how hard they have to work to earn $200. I remember when I first got started working and had to go in for 8 hour shifts on Saturdays. What’s worse than that? All my daughters do on their Saturdays is go to the mall to see their friends and think about ways to spend my money! They’re great girls, don’t get me wrong, but I want to make sure I’m teaching them while they’re young the value of a dollar. I know it’s a harder lesson to learn when you’re 21 and you’ve already ruined your credit score so it’s hard to tell what’s doing the right thing and what’s pushing it too far. I don’t want to be the mean mom but I want to do right by them now.

CoupleDumb

Memories In Honor Of Dad

Plant Fun

Party Time

Moving On With Life

Teaching my Kids