It's A Coach Time of The Year! With A 25% Off Coach Store Coupon

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, A Coach Christmas! Oh YEAH! My new theme song! One important thing I learned young was NEVER waste your money! So I always coupon shop. But coupons for luxury goods are few and far between, but this year, oh yeah! This year is different.  Coach has a coupon for you.  So I just had to share this Coach store coupon with my readers.  I mean I don't want you guys wasting money either!

I know, I know, you don't REALLY need to carry Coach.  I mean think how much money you'd save NOT buying Coach, but carrying a leather Coach bag... sure makes you feel great!  That leather..... ahhhhhhh!  Kind of like that hand massage you get when you get your nails done, you don't really need it, and you could do your own nails, but some things... yes sometimes you're just 'worth it.'  So yes, I admit, I'm a sucker for Coach leather! But combine Coach products with a coupons! Ahhhh! Nirvana! And since I'm spending all my cash on others this year, I'm sharing my coupon with Santa.  (Hoping he'll use it on me!) I thought I'd share it with you too.

OK, so people are either Coach lovers or you can't believe those label whores would buy the stuff and pay through the nose to advertise for Coach. But for the fans, or if you're buying a Coach Christmas or holiday gift this post is for you!

Yes fans, this year Coach has a COUPON! Have you ever seen a Coach coupon before?  Have to admit it's a first for me, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Head on over to my Facebook page and find out how to get a 25% OFF COUPON for The Coach Store. 

My favorite Coach Store is in Ardmore PA, but they also have two stores in King of Prussia PA (presuming you're brave enough to face their parking lot AND the Blue Rt. at Christmas time) and one in Cherry Hill or Deptford Malls in South Jersey.  Philly residents can hit the store on Walnut Street to get their Coach gifts.  Live somewhere else, just visit the "find a Coach Store link" and enter your info and voila!

Share this Coach coupon with Santa too, he might as well save too.  Or leave it out with a 'hint' (maybe the names of bags you'd like for Christmas or other Coach products to make shopping so much easier!).

Beat The Christmas Insanity - Great Gift For Mom

I know, they don't look impressive, but these soaps sold by Yves Delorme will wow your mom, grandmom or other lady in your life.   Sometimes finding a gift for the woman in your life who HAS EVERYTHING is hard.  I mean what can you buy someone who has it all?

My local Yves Delorme, located in Bryn Mawr PA on Lancaster Avenue has fabulous soaps (not to mention candles).  But my very favorite is their Provence scent soaps.  These soaps come in a variety of sizes: bath, hand and guest soaps.  They have other scents as well, but this one is world class.

Put them in your favorite bathroom or add them to a drawer or linen closet to make everything in your life smell great!  Don't live in suburban Philadelphia? Head to their web site and search for stores.  Sometimes you can find it sold by other purveyors as well.  I guarantee a smile on grandma's face as she opens this gift.  Not only that, its a gift that she'll use up so you can give it over and over! BONANZA!

Why Getting An MBA Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

I came across an old notebook I used to keep in high school and college of things I wanted to remember.  Truisms.  Or things that seemed that way at the time.  One truism that hangs over my desk at home today is:

Don't be afraid to attempt something new.
Remember, it was amateurs who built the ark.
It was professionals who built the Titanic.
Author: Unknown

My status as an amateur no longer seems like such a bad thing.  My lack of a MBA no longer a deficit.  No, my amateur status has put me heads above those pros who think they know it all.  Oh I admit, there are SOME things I could use additional education in, but the lack no longer seems as great as it once did.

My degree (a totally unofficial one) you see, is in dreaming.  I'm a world class expert in dreaming.  No, Harvard doesn't offer degrees in Dreaming or even teach a class on "How to Dream 101" and Yale doesn't offer a graduate program called MD (Master of Dreamology).  And I can't go to Stanford for a PhD in Dreams.  No, some things you just have to learn on your own--you either do it or don't. 

I mean, who would have thought Noah could build an ark and round up all those animals?  Or that Columbus was right and the world really wasn't flat?  Sometimes you just have to dare to believe. To take that chance, to tilt at windmills. 

The next time someone tells you something is impossible remember this from Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol where the Queen and Alice are talking.

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said.  "One can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.  "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Why as adults do we lose the belief in dreaming of and accomplishing the impossible? Why do we stop taking the time to dream and dream big.  Return to your dreams.  You know, the ones you've put away in the back of your closet or stored in a box under your bed.  Get them out, dust them off, and dream again.  Believe the impossible dreams--if it's good enough for a Queen...

Momma, Fools and Cleaning Ladies

Growing up I learned a lot of valuable lessons from my mom.  How to starch sheets(thank god I don't do that anymore)... how to polish shoes(I've learned to move to sneakers or suede)... how to clean an oven (mine now self cleans) and polish silver(if you don't have any you don't have to polish it)... how to cook (although I still haven't mastered rolling up that ice cream roll without breaking the cake).  But there were a few lessons that although I learned them, I never quite understood until I got older.

One was the lesson called  "Clean Closets Happy Cleaning Lady." Anyone who has a cleaning lady knows a good one is a pearl beyond price. There just aren't a lot of GOOD 'environmental engineers' out there today. Yesterday's cleaning lady is now the CEO of her own company, no more vacuums and dusting or scrubbing for her! So once you find one, you'll do ANYTHING to keep her happy. I guess it wasn't so different when I was a child.

As a child, Rose was our cleaning lady. Rose arrived at our house like clockwork every week. She was our ever efficient cleaning lady who helped my mom make order out of our house of chaos. Not an easy feat when you have four kids under 10 running around under foot. Rose also worked for my grandmothers, so I guess you could say all our family 'dirty' laundry and houses kept Rose busy. 

The oddest thing about Rose's visits didn't have anything to do with her cleaning or with Rose herself.  Instead it had to do with the day before Rose came. The day before Rose came to clean, we had to clean so THE CLEANING LADY COULD CLEAN! What's wrong with this picture?

I suspect I'm not the only one who had to clean her closet and under her bed before the cleaning team arrived. But I still find it odd. I mean we were paying Rose to clean, so why was I cleaning before she came?  I've always wondered just what Rose thought of all the tidy little closets of four children under the age of 10. I mean, wouldn't you have wondered? 

The key lesson I learned from my mother was WHEN to clean. My mom's answer to that...ALWAYS.  Do it everyday. Don't let it get ahead of you. All valuable lessons, but the most important lesson was when MUST you clean?

The answer? Before the cleaning lady gets there! God forbid the cleaning lady knows that the rest of the week your closet is a mess! Or that your shoes are under your bed!

Maybe I didn't train my kids right. But at that age their closets(and under their beds)were never THAT neat. Of course I don't have a cleaning lady either(Ah! I knew I had an out there somewhere.)So I've adapted the reason to clean and when to clean for my children to suit our family. To my children I say, clean your closets frequently enough so when you open the door what's in it doesn't land on your heads. And don't put stuff under your bed and you won't have get down on your knees to clean it out, just occasionally vacuum. Better yet, buy a bed that has drawers under it so you don't even have to vacuum under it because dust couldn't get under there is it tried! 

I'm all for the easy route! (sorry mom!)  But most important of all I wanted my children to grow up knowing their 'momma didn't raise no fools' and they are smart enough to adapt my rules for their lives just like I did my mom's.

Eating Liver Won't Kill You, Will It?

I suspect most of us grew up hearing 'eat your liver, it's good for you!'  Yuck!  Yes I ate it.  I'm sure it's good for me.  Mother's are usually right about things like that--liver, Brussels sprouts, peas. 

But how many of you, now that you have your own kids, are repeating that particular mantra?  I have to say this is one area where Mom and I differ.  We always will.  I'm NOT going to make anyone eat liver.  Or Brussels sprouts, or peas, especially canned ones.  It's not that I don't agree it's good for you, it's I'm not about to make anyone eat THAT STUFF!

I'm one of those people who go to a restaurant and doesn't order sweet breads too.  The good news is that not eating that stuff won't kill you!  (Mom never told me it would, just that it was good for me.)  You'd think she would have gotten the message after my brother stuffed his veggies in his pants pocket and she found them for the zillionth time in the laundry! 

Of course Mom did let us cover the liver with ketchup to kill the taste (or maybe as a way to get another food group in us?)  For some reason we never had liver with onions, no idea why.  But we did eat other odd food.  Like gizzards.  OK, you get a roasting chicken or turkey, it comes with all that 'gunk' inside. We actually ate the stuff.  Yuck!  We also ate a lot of wild game.  Ducks, geese, sometimes venison.  Wild game is definitely an acquired taste. 

It was only after I grew up that I realized that a sure sign of just how much my mom loved my dad was her willingness to cook the things he shot! And eat them too.  (I guess I should give thanks we weren't eating squirrels or rabbits.) 

My children lucked out.  No wild game at my house.  No chance to chomp down on a piece of shot that got left in the duck for dinner.  No gamey tasting dinners disguised with gravy.  Nope, my mom didn't raise a fool, I married a man who didn't hunt and solved that problem! 

So thank you Mom for teaching me the value of the nutrients of liver, but thanks but no thanks, I'm NOT making my family eat it! I just force feed them TOFU!

The Dumbing Down of America

Are students today a product of the 'dumbing down of America?'  Were the Baby Boomer generation better prepared for college than students today? In my opinion the answer is an unequivocal YES.  The teachers in my past prepared me by not just teaching me facts and figures but by teaching me how to find the answers and giving me a desire to learn new things.

When I went back to college as an adult (40+) I was thrown into classes where the majority of the students were half my age.  Culture shock to say the least!  I came from being a stay at home mom of two to a full time student.  Most of the rest of my class were 20-23, and age I hadn't been in a long time! I quickly learned that age wasn't the only thing separating us.  They came from a totally different world.  One where correct English wasn't important, History wasn't taught, basic Biology wasn't understood and Art was an anathema. 

Their slang was different, their education had been different, and I ran into 'the dumbing down of America' first hand. 

The slang I could handle, although the constant parroting of 'that's so gay' took a bit of getting used to.  It was the lack of a good basic education that astounded me.  Their grammar didn't exist.  History didn't include some very basic important events.  And the concept of art appreciation was....under appreciated, basic biology poorly understood.

I was in a class where we were discussing busing.  It wasn't a history class, but it was obvious that to most of the class 'busing' had to do with how to take SEPTA (Philadelphia's local transit authority) and had nothing to do with civil rights.  I remember the professor (who was about the same age I was) looking at me as if to say 'you know what I'm talking about right? I'm not the only one who knows this happened.' 

I admit to being blown away at how ignorant many of the younger students were about current events or recent history.  I could understand if they didn't have a good grasp on the Crimean War... but busing? Come on!  So if you're a history teacher today, please take the time to bring your students up to speed on events that effect their own daily lives--like civil rights. 

Another example of the 'dumbing down' occurred when two of us were doing an oral report on making mobiles.  OK, mobiles, not rocket science, almost every baby has one hanging over their crib and most kids make them in preschool.  But we were talking about Alexander Calder's mobiles.  A little more advanced, but the same concept.  People kept interrupting and saying 'slow down, I don't know what that means.'  Have you been to the Philadelphia Art Museum? That giant thing hanging over your head in the lobby? Right, Calder, mobile.  Did they ever have an art history class?  Read Time or Newsweek?  If so they should have been familiar with Calder.  And even if they weren't we had photos so they'd be able to understand what we were talking about.  But they were so used to being spoon fed information using words with one syllable that they had a hard time following the presentation. 

Basic biology also seemed to present a problem.  One class in human reproduction seemed to stymie the men in the class. Out of nearly thirty students only fifteen passed the class--most of them dropped out after failing the test on human reproduction. Very scary.  After that class I no longer wondered how so many teens end up pregnant.

Another time a group of us were doing a oral presentation on Elder Abuse. A serious topic and one people working in health care need to be aware of. One student came to class for the presentation unprepared and with note cards written in English on the level of a 2nd grader. This wasn't a student who grew up going to poor schools or who had a learning disability. She'd graduated from Penn State. I guess I expected she had to pass a decent English Composition before she got out. 

Are students today as well prepared for college as the Baby Boomer generation was? In my experience, definitely not.  They are the result of 'the dumbing down of America.'  Unfortunately with the new 'teaching to test' mindset the actual education of our children and grandchildren isn't going to get any better. 

Squirrels, Food and Our Tax Dollars At Work

Photo courtesy of Phenomenica

The squirrels have had a busy season collecting nuts and burying them in MY yard! Yes, I know, they have to eat.  But since I've already had to take down a bird feeder because they were eating me out of house and home (worse than any teenage boy I swear!) I'm getting aggravated with all this digging, burying and then they have the nerve to come back and dig them up again! Holes, Holes and MORE Holes! And unlike a good golfer they don't refill the holes after they eat the nuts. 

As I was outside complaining to my neighbor about the inconsiderate nut buriers that infest our yards a little boy came up and asked us 'how do squirrels FIND their nuts after they bury them?' Wow, have to admit, it never occurred to me to ask that one!  But once he asked I HAD to find out the answer.  For any of you out there with children with enquiring minds that want to know or who are plagued themselves by the burning need to know just how they find the nuts they've buried in your yard I found the answer.

It seems most of the studies done on squirrel nut retrieval were not done in the wild but under controlled conditions. Students doing graduate work actually got GRANTS from the government to have squirrels run through mazes to test their memory and see if they used visual or smell cues to escape the maze.

Anyway, those studies suggest squirrels actually use their MEMORY to find all those nuts. There was some discussion about whether they used eyesight or smell to find their nuts but it seems that's not the case. Squirrels are most likely to remember larger number of nuts buried together than smaller caches of them (which is why I have more BIG holes not little ones in my yard). Squirrels also PRACTICE digging up the nuts and reburying them.  There's some suggestion that this 're-caching' helps the squirrels "refresh" their memory of where their nuts are and what they've stored where.

So the next time you're aggravated and saying "THOSE STUPID SQUIRRELS"...seems they aren't so stupid after all--they can remember where they buried all those nuts!