What is wrong with Instant gratification anyway?

All hail The instant gratification generation!

Lately, with Christmas looming, I’ve been wondering what to buy for family members.  All the Christmas songs make it sound easy and fairly inexpensive.  After all, isn’t a personal handmade gift something to be treasured?  Sorry to say this is not so for the instant gratification generation! 

Instant gratification, so what does that mean?  Well, when a young adult sees a material thing they desire, whether it be a car, television set, expensive handbag or shoes, they buy it.  There is no waiting for the right time, a holiday, birthday or event.  They want it; they get it, right there and then.  If they cannot afford it there are always deferred payments, sales, and plastic.  After all, if they wait they may lose out.

Don’t get me wrong, we, the parents are responsible for this trend.  We’ve told them from the time they could walk that they deserve the best.  We’ve supported bad decisions, and helped them out of a debt countless times.  After all, they are adults.  They know the consequences, or do they?

The dangers of instant gratification are many.  High-interest rates, bad credit ratings, and money spent on impulse, when it could be used for more important things like rent and food. 

And what does this generation do when they become parents themselves.  They can no longer give in to the instant gratification to which they have grown accustomed.  They must sacrifice for their progeny.  They must become us, giving until there is nothing left to give.

I remember when I was a young mother.  My daughter was on top of the list.  Whatever she needed came first.  I wore my clothes till they were out of style.  I drove a used car.  I cooked dinners because restaurants were out of the question.  I paid my bills on time and my credit was immaculate. 

When my mother raised my three siblings and myself, she deprived herself of anything frivolous. If there was one piece of pie left, she cut it into four pieces and left none for herself. I believe that if there was a drought that woman would have died of thirst before she let us go without.

I am afraid for the instant gratification generation.  We, their parents will not walk this earth forever and one day they will have to depend upon only themselves.  They will have to sacrifice.  I hope that any new mother will teach their children unselfishness.  I hope that new mothers will sacrifice only when necessary and teach their children that instant gratification is not always possible. Unfortunately, as we age, we learn.  Maybe we learn too late.

I am afraid for the children of today. Every time  I enter a store there are always children crying and demanding their parents give in to their demands. And they do.  That, my friends, is instant gratification in its infancy.  And we only have ourselves to blame.

Do you have a special pillow?

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in this world.  Those who have a favorite pillow and cannot sleep unless they have it, and those who can sleep on anything that even remotely resembles a pillow.  I am one of the former.

Whenever I travel, I have to pack my pillow.  Granted, it takes up valuable suitcase space, but hotel pillows just don’t cut it.  It’s bad enough I have to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, but without my special pillow, I wouldn’t sleep at all.  I mean seriously, some pillows are too fat; some too flat but my pillow it just right.  It took me a long time to get that perfect balance of softness and squishiness.  I had to go through two crushed foam pillows, one fiber filled one and a memory foam pillow that was so heavy I could have killed someone had I the desire to engage in a pillow fight!

Now my husband can sleep on any old pillow and he just doesn’t get my pillow fixation. When I make the bed each day I am careful to place each of our pillows on the proper side, but every once in a while I make a mistake.  Since he goes to bed earlier than I do, if this happens I freak out as I watch him peacefully slumber on my special pillow.  What comes next is the planning phase.  I have to figure out a way to remove the pillow from under his head without waking him.  Although the man can sleep through a hurricane (and he has) this is no easy feat.

I pull on one end of the pillow.  He grunts and lets out a tiny snore.  I pull a little more and part of his head flops down.  His eyelids flutter but he returns his head to its lopsided position.  I realize there is no way to do this slowly and try the band-aid removal method.  You know the drill; just whip it off really quick.  So I yank it fast and his head bounces on the mattress, but I quickly move the pillow to my side of the bed.  He sits bolt upright looking at me.  Thinking fast, I tell him that he must have been having a bad dream and threw his pillow to the foot of the bed where I placed it. (The man swears he rarely dreams) In his semi conscious state, he looks at me and takes his pillow and continues his nightly snore fest.  I hug my special pillow tightly and swear I will not make this mistake again, and drift off to my dreams, which now that I have my pillow-- are sweet.

My question to you is this…Do you have a special pillow?

Busy, busy, busy

No time to sit back and relax?

Now that my daughter has graduated from college and my son is in the air force, one would think that my life should be settled down.  I shouldn’t be so busy. I should be getting bored right about now, right?  Um… no.

Life, I find, is kind of like a pail of water.  You stick your hand in that pail of water and when you take it out, guess what?  The space it was taking up in that pail of water is already full.

Your kid’s grow up and you think that things won’t be so busy, after all you don’t have to pick them up after track and you don’t have to take them for this lesson or that lesson.  Homework is no longer an issue.  Unfortunately that’s not how it goes.  Other things just take up that space! 

It’s even the same at the grocery store.  When all the kids were home and I went to grocery store I practically had a coronary every time the cashier gave me the receipt.  I don’t think I ever saw my son when he wasn’t consuming something.  I don’t know for sure, but I’d swear he even ate in his sleep.  A gallon of milk every two days was the norm. The refrigerator became an additional cooling device during hot summer days thanks to the door swinging open every few minutes.

Now it’s just the hubby and I.  We eat out a bit more.  I buy ultra-pasteurized milk in the quart size every three weeks or so. I don’t use near as much paper towels but even so, when I get the bill for my groceries each week, it’s the same!

Ok, so long gone are the days of picking up my daughter from a friend’s house with two different shoes my feet while she looks at me with the obligatory eye roll. (I mean just how do they roll their eyes like that and not get a headache?) And I won’t rush out of the house with my shirt on inside out while I try and make it on time to a PTA meeting. Even so, I still feel like there are not enough hours in the day to finish my do to list.  Yup, a pail of water.