Baby Boomer Lexiconers-- The 40 + thread

[diane771]

Hi
I been posting for a bit and sometimes I get frustrated with some of the younger posters. So if its cool I would love to post here sometimes I have up todate news on Rob from all sources. so I can get answer for you . And I think I am going through a midlife crisis with this Twilight thing. To me it is just amazing how many people world wide are into the books and movie and how Rob Pattinson just became the man of the hour and well deserved. so I would love to post here. I am a grandma well GA GA is what Zack my first who is 3 named me and his little brother might call me that who knows, at home or at the doctors most of the time. and love all of this Twilight thing I think I am going crazy or crazier than I am already

[SweetKay]

Thanks for the welcome Openhome and Betwiched. I appreciate it! Welcome Diane771!

Betwiched - Congrats on the first one graduating, it's quite an accomplishment! Even tho they jump out of the nest, they tend to jump back in. Mine has a couple of times now. I don't mind too much tho, he's a really good kid. Good luck on the writing critique. I sure hope that you get the feed back that you are looking for. What type of story are you writing?

I will absouletely re-read the all of the Twilight books, but for now I need to give myself a breather before I do. Now I am trying to decide if I should watch the Twilight movie. From what I have heard, it is alot different from the book. Any thoughts pro or con about the movie?

SweetKay

[Bewitched]

Welcome Diane771. You're in good company here.

Openhome that is so fantastic about the doctorite of history. I love history. Always thought it would be fun to teach history.

SweetKay: I have the movie and it does have different stuff in it. My recomendation would be to watch it more than once. The first time, you are so excited you don't catch all the little details. I have the soundtrack too.

My story. Well my story is ... I don't know what it falls under. It's a little paranormal and romance. I can't make up my mind to make it YA or the next level up. It's pretty clean right now. Here's the synopsis I wrote:

Mayde James has just moved back to Lowell, Wyoming after being gone for 14 years and she has so many questions. What was her real mother like and what do all these crazy dreams mean. Why is she drawn to Jason Harden, like she should know him and why does she feel the same pull towards his cousin Gabriel?

Jason Harden will tell you it's been this way since he can remember and he can remember quite a lot. Mayde doesn't remember when she was called Jules, or Elizabeth or Rose but he can. While Jason works to help her find her memories something evil lurks to make him pay for a punishment from the past.

I'm taking the class at our local community college. The instructor is Jean Tennant. She use to write YA fiction but now I think she writes mostly childrens picture books.

[Openhome]

Bewitched: Wonderful story! Thanks for sharing it. I think it would be perfect for older YAers. They need as much clean stuff as possible!
Diane771: I forgot to say "Welcome!" I am very glad you came to hang with us. I have been very unimpressed with some of the teens on other threads, so I know just how you feel.

[Katwomankath]

Hello and welcome to all of the new posters on the Boomer thread.

I am so happy to see life on here. I have been very busy the last little while. My 13 year old daughter is a competition dancer and we just finished our last competition this last weekend. I help out at the studio in the office, with props and costumes. We just found out the studio will be closing after recital this year so we have been trying out new studios which has kept me running.

I also have a 16 year old son who is in a metal band and is brilliant but can't seem to pass his advanced English or chemistry classes due to the fact he doesn't want to put the effort out, but is learning the hard way (expensive on line classes to make them up at his own time and expense) that it would have been easier to do it the first time around.

My husband started a new job, which happens to be in Colorado and we live in Southern California, and we cannot sell our house because of the housing market disaster here in California. Our family is kinda in a unsettled state at the moment.

Bewitched- I would love to read your story. I envy all of you who can write. It is not a gift I posses. But I do love to read. Congrats on you graduate! I hope mine will someday make me proud too and then go on to fulfill his dream of becoming an anesthesiologist. If he ever passes advanced English.

Openhome- I have no on the invitation thing either but if anyone finds out please post.

SweetKay- I'm glad you stopped lurking and posted here so we could have the opportunity to get to know you. You are not alone with the obsession with the whole Twilight thing. There are not as many of us more mature readers but you would be surprised at how many of us there are. My mom loved the books and she is in her late 70's and my sister is your age and is the one who told me about the books. I have been to multiple signings and the breaking Dawn concert. I wish Stephenie would write more books because I can't seem to get enough. I also loved The Host. I have been a member of the Host Index http://www.thehostindex.net for a while also. Unfortunately many members have drifted away and we are trying to renew interest in it. There is more to it than you would see as a new member but if you have interest sign on and post there are some great people on there and I would love to see some new members to help get it running again.

Again welcome to all the new posters. It might be easier to keep this thread alive now that we have some more members. Feel free to pm me. I should be on a bit more now that things are starting to settle around my house. I'm a bit sleepy so sorry if I forgot anyone.

[Bewitched]

Kat!!!! *me dancing around like Alice* It's so good to see you again. I was just thinking about you yesterday and wondering how it was going. I think it must be a teenage boy thing. My son loves video games. It takes precedence over everything else. He's graduating by the skin of his teeth. Or maybe by the edge of my sanity.

[Katwomankath]

Good morning!
Video games have had a huge part of my son's lack of school work being turned in. World of Warcraft in the top spot and a few others not far behind. The girlfriend doesn't help but I do really like her. When my son got his last D & F notice I wigged out big-time. I told him if he wasn't going to go to school and do his work, not just socialize, I was going to emancipate him withdraw him form school and make him pay me $500.00 a month rent. I told him he would need at least a full time job because he would be paying his full way for everything himself and that included his car payment of $475.00 a month and his insurance that was about $250.00. I told him if he didn't like it he could move out and sleep under an overpass. Since then he has worked much harder to get a passing grade. Yes, I am a very mean mom! I would not be upset but the kid is very intelligent with scores on all his testing very high. I have been told by so many people that he could do anything he wants to if he just put forth a little effort. His teachers want him on the academic decathlon team even though his grades are lacking because he is so smart. I just want to beat him sometimes. He took a final yesterday in his advanced English class ant the last question on the test was which student did Mr. Coogan hate the most because he is so intelligent but refuses to meet his potential. The answer- My son! Go figure. I'm so thankful it is the last day of school I can't even begin to tell you what a relief, for a short time anyway.

Well I'm off to shower and get my day moving. I hope everyone has a beautiful, love filled, happy day!

Kat

[Openhome]

Your son sounds just like my brother. He aced every IQ test he ever took, but barely graduated from an alternative school because he simply would not do the work. Then he failed out of college. He worked maintenance at Disneyland for four years (while my parents went through countless agonized nights) and payed his own way until he realized he didn't like working hard for so little pay. He went back to school when he was 20, aced every class he took, graduated with a double degree in computer engineering and theoretical math, and now has a beautiful wife, three great kids, and a three digit salary.
There is HOPE!
By the way, my brother says that the key was my parents making him pay his own way and experiencing the repercussions of his own choices. He said that he never cared about anything until he started seeing that his choices were making him stupid and poor. Until he decided for HIMSELF that he needed to work a whole lot harder, he just kept failing.

[Bewitched]

Ah, a topic I can sink my teeth into and you ladies are making me feel so much better. You all know he's graduating but here's the deal. He doesn't want to work (his boss calls all the time wanting him to pick up hours), he won't drive the car we bought for him so my husband does. It's a stik. He drives my husbands car which we are making payments on plus paying for the insurance. He sneaks around at night and eats anything he can get his hands on. His sister is ready to kill him becuase she has to hide her breakfast food just so it will last. He is so disrespectful when we ask him to help out around the house. He's 18 so I don't really know how I can make him do anything. The whole "you live in our house you'll follow our rules" doesn't work. I'm afraid he's going to disappear after graduation and take hte car, then we'll be stuck reporting him for auto theft or just making payments on a car we don't own. He honestly has no clue on how to take care of himself.

I'm all for throwing him out. My husband on the other hand just want to keep giving him chances. I sometimes worry that this is going to break apart our marriage. I just wish my hubby could see that. We're suppose to be a team, not good cop, bad cop.

We've already started changing things with our other two. Next year they have to start doing their own laundry and they are going to have money deposited into their savings accounts. From that they have to pay for their school lunches and other nesessities. Hopefully they will catch on and learn how to budget properly. My aunt used this technique with her kids and it worked really well, espcially when her son spent too much money and had to find something for lunches one week before they got there "paycheck". They actually seem more mature than he did at their age, so I'm thinking it's going to easier for them to adapt. They both signed up to volunteer this summer after I told them that they could use those places as reference when they were old enough to get jobs.

You know what the weird thing is about all of this. His brother told me once they were talking about who they'd want to live with if something were to happen to one of their parents and they both said me. I guess I just figured me being the meanie made me the odd man out but apparently they know I really do love them. I guess they do talk to me more than their dad. Maybe it's because I don't pull any punches when I talk with them.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Back to your regularly scheduled lives.

[diane771]

Thanks for the invite
Maybe I can help, I was a young teenager when I had my son, divourced after 2 years and my biggest free was for him to grow up wrong I was mom and dad to him and when he was in highschool I loved him but I didn't like him. I was paying to send him to a prep school and he techincally didn't graduate they let him with the class and then he went to summer school. But to make it short I will say I was strict and now my son found a wonderful girl waited, got a house and then gave me 2 beautiful grandkids. He now is really knows what it is about and I know he is going to be a great father and he has made me proud but it took some time and hard work and it was worth every bit of it.