Jobs and Money

            We all know those people… Those people whose parents get them everything.  The thing is, I have learned to not be jealous of these kids, but instead almost feel bad for them; they are not learning hard work and when the time comes and they are cut off, they won’t know how to react.  I have been working since I was 14, and my parents buy very little (if anything) for me anymore.  I think that it is very important that teenagers have their own jobs, even if it is only during the summer for some very important reasons:

1.      Having a job teaches some responsibility.  In order to keep a job you have to show up on time, in the proper attire, and be able to maintain order outside of work.  If one is consistently late for work they are most likely going to be fired and have to find another job, but because of references, getting fired from one job can become a vicious cycle.

2.      Having a job makes you learn simple hard work.  Rather than always just sitting in front of the TV playing video games, a job gets you out there and being productive.

3.      A job shows you there are more important things than sleeping and hanging with friends.  Have you ever thought about how you are able to go see a movie all the time with your friends? That’s right! Some other teens are at their job so that you can be lazy and spoiled.

Even if you have a job, you may not have to buy your own things.  Although having a job is important, I believe the real value and importance is when you have to start paying for things on your own rather than asking your parents for money:

1.      It teaches even more responsibility than the job itself.  You have to learn to manage your money and figure out what it is that’s really important.

2.      It shows you the value of money.  When you are making your own money, it makes you think harder about spending it because you know the work that was put into getting it and are therefore less likely to spend it.

3.      It helps you in the future.  Someone who is cut off will probably not know how to budget their money very effectively and could end up in a lot more financial problems than someone who is gently eased into spending their own money as a teenager.

I obviously think it is important that teenagers have their own job and spend their own money.  It is something I have been doing for a long time.  If you are struggling to find a job and are one of my fellow Mizzay bloggers, I know two places that will be doing hiring soon and you could leave a comment.  I know as a teenager, the jobs available out there are not always the best or pay all that much, but that only helps teach hard work that much more.

505

Just Keep Driving

           Lately I have been reading a lot of posts from my fellow bloggers about driving, so I decided to write my own post. Now I’m not going to say I’m a terrific driver, because I can be kind of a spaz sometimes, but at the same time I follow the laws. I’m going to go over some of the laws I see broken all the time:

1.      Speeding, I mean not like the going 5 mph speeding, but like doubling the speed limit. I live along a recently widened five lane street, and following this change everyone has decided to go 55 mph down the street while the speed limit was only raised to 35 mph. The speed limits are there for a reason, I don’t live down some major street, the street was widened to accommodate increased traffic from surrounding suburbs but it is still residential. One of these days, an accident is going to happen when someone pulls out of their driveway because there was a speeding car not following the law.

2.      Not stopping at cross walks for pedestrians, it really isn’t that hard is it? I know I always stop at cross walks since when I was little trying to cross the road to and from school, no one would stop. This might be a little law, but it is a state law in Iowa and one of these days a little kid is going to get killed trying to go to school.

3.      Not stopping at stop signs, like hello! The signs say STOP for a reason, how much more idiot proof could they really be? I live by a four way stop, and I’m tired of people just rolling through. When people roll through a sign it can cause an accident, someone will go, because technically they should never have gone if they didn’t make a complete stop, and those two cars will collide. It is really not that hard.

4.      Making all those left turns after red, I mean I’m okay with one or maybe two cars going, but I know I have seen as many as 5 cars go through and make a left after the light turns red. This is really frustrating to people waiting to make left turns the other direction who currently have the legal right to go, and if they don’t notice one of those late cars going it may cause the two cars to collide.

5.      People who drive ridiculously slow.  I know this is the opposite of speeding, which I also complained about, but someone who is driving really slow may mean that another car would come up and rear-end them if they didn’t know how slow they were going.  I know, unless it’s on the interstate, there generally isn’t a minimum but still, stay within like 5 mph over the speed limit unless the roads are bad.  Last night I was driving behind someone going 15 mph in a 30 mph zone, and at first I almost hit them and then it is just plain frustrating.

There are a lot more laws I could go into that I constantly see broken, but I feel like this is starting to be a very long post the way it is, so I am going to just say this.  People, be smart, drive smart, and follow the law.



560

Dying Thoughts

            If you happen to live under a rock, you might not have heard about the whole Apocalypse and end of the world thing on December 21, 2012.  Well, it is December 23, 2012 so if you are reading this, you are a survivor!!! CongratsJ even though I didn’t really believe the whole end of the world thing, it was able to get me thinking about things (especially when I was driving on the snow and ice and I really thought I might die).  What if I actually was to die, not because of the end of the world, but maybe some crazy person, a freak disease, or even just driving to school or work?  I’m only seventeen years old, and I haven’t really finished living my life yet.

            For starters, it got my thinking about some friendships that well maybe I should try and repair.  It is hard enough living with regrets about how I have hurt some people I really care about, but I would hate to die thinking that some of those people really don’t like me.  You always hear people say things like, “I wish I could die and see who would go to my funeral” well I would hate to think that some of the people I care about the most probably wouldn’t even go, or care.

            Second, well my family and how they would be.  I wonder what would become of my brother and my Godson, and some of my younger cousins.  I think about how my parents would feel.  I would hope that someone would be there for them, but would there be?

            Third, like I said earlier, I’m seventeen years old and I want to grow up.  I want to go to college, get my dream job of being a Neonatologist.  Most important to me, however, I want to get married and have kids.  I love kids so much, and I want to be able to have some of my own.

            Fourth, I’m not as religious as I would like to be when I die.  I know that I am supposed to always be ready or whatever, but I’m not and I don’t know when I will be.  I think I am like a lot of teenagers in the fact that I only go to church because I have to, and well honestly I hate it.  Some of my best friends go to my church, but at the same time I don’t want to go, I think that they would all be ready but I still have my doubts.

            I guess, well like many teenagers, I’m not ready to die but I also know that it is the circle of life.  I would not be able to prevent my crazy driver hitting me while I walk along the side walk, but hopefully that doesn’t happen and I still have some time left.

479

Family(:

            It is only two days until Christmas in case you didn’t know.  To celebrate, my family went up to visit my grandparents two hours away, along with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  My family is a little unique in many ways, and well today it became very obvious when after many years at my grandparents, someone announced that next year we were buying them a bigger sofa so family pictures would be easier.

            I have a large family, in case you didn’t figure that out from the sofa reference.  However, in recent years it has increased tremendously.  My grandparents got married and had my mom shortly after high school, and total had four kids.  You wouldn’t think their few kids would really amount to all that much, but well my aunt was like her parents and got married right out of high school and had my oldest and only other girl cousin, Jessie, and two other kids.  My mom got married a few years after Jessie was born, and had me between their two boys, and for a while the kids came rolling along.  In a span of two years my aunt had her last kid, my uncle had his first son, and my mom had my brother, and my remaining uncle adopted 3 kids…. Then everything stopped.

            About four years ago, the cycle of no kids that had been going on for over six years suddenly ended.  It all started with my cousin Jessie who had her first son, the next year my uncle had a son then another the next year, and then my other uncle started to foster a boy who he adopted this past summer, and along came two more boys that are being adopted on Friday.  To end the recent outgrowth, my cousin Jessie had a baby girl (FINALLY) on 12/12/12 and today I finally got to hold her.

            Holding the little girl in my arms after 17 years of boys in my family really got me thinking today.  My family might be crazy (like 6 kids under the age of 5 crazy) and all, but we are all family.  We may have our ups and downs, our fights and disagreements, but we all love each other.  Every few months we come together, no matter which person is no longer talking to whom, and just hang out.  We won’t all be here forever, and we want to make the most of this time while we can, and create the best memories.

417

Snow Day(:

            In case you haven’t heard, there was a blizzard this week in the middle of the country.  I happen to live in Iowa, which was one of the worst hit places during the storm.  Where I live, we got about six and a half inches of snow.  To be honest, this much snow really isn’t that big of a deal where I live, the bigger problem was the wind that the storm brought.  Due to the wind and the snow, I had a snow day on Thursday and a two-hour delay on Friday.  I know there are some people that just moved to Iowa, or maybe somewhere else that is snows, and you may have no idea what to do when you have one of these oh so awesome snow days.  Here are some of my favorite things to do on snow days.

            The most obvious thing to do is go sledding.  Depending where you live, this may not be possible on the actual snow day, but instead a few days after.  All you need to go sledding is a hill, snow (preferably wet snow rather than fluffy) and a sled.  Some people I know don’t even use a sled, but if you have an old garbage can, the lid can always work for a homemade sled.  While sledding, you don’t always have to do the same thing, you can always grease or oil the bottom of the sled, or build ramps with the snow to increase the fun.  If you think that sledding is a little too childish, there is always the possibility of snowboarding or skiing, whatever makes you happy.

            When you get done sledding, one of the best things to do is make a nice cup of hot chocolate or coffee (if that is your thing).  Now, you may be that person that enjoys just plain old hot cocoa, but if you go sledding a lot you may need some new ideas to change up the taste.  The most obvious change to a cup of hot chocolate is to add some marshmallows, if you get tired of that you can always try adding a little bit of peppermint or mint flavoring to add a cooling taste to the normal hot drink.  Try adding your own ingredients to come up with different tastes that you may enjoy.

            If it isn’t possible to get out and go sledding due to the weather being bad, you can always bake some cookies.  This may be a problem if you don’t generally keep the ingredients around to bake, but this can also increase the fun as it becomes a scavenger hunt to find a recipe that you just happen to have the ingredients needed to make it.

            I know that some people lost electricity during this most recent blizzard, and if that happens, it is always possible to light some candles (and if possible a fire in the fire place) and cuddle up to read a book or play some board games with your family.

            Whatever you chose to do with your day off, enjoy the weather because it won’t last, so might as well make the most of the snow while it is here.

533

Holiday Traditions

            I think that every family has some sort of holiday traditions, even if they don’t realize it.  They might be as simple as what you eat or something goofy like you have to do the Chicken Dance before every gift you open.  Honestly I really had to kind of think about some of the traditions my family has since they are all pretty basic and not that goofy.

1.      Every year, on the Sunday before Christmas, my entire family goes up to my grandparents on my mom’s side and we have a very large gathering.  This started happening long before I can actually remember since we have such a large family it is hard to make it work for everyone on Christmas.

2.      For Christmas on my mom’s side we always do a sort of gift exchange.  Everyone under the age of 18 has their name put in one hat and everyone else in the other hat, and we all take turns coming up and drawing a name.  Whoevers name you end up with is the person whose present you are getting but there are some rules.  On the kids side, you can’t buy a present for a sibling or a godchild (which only affects me and one of my cousins) and the gift must be in the price range of $10-15.  On the adult’s side, you can’t buy a present for your spouse and the present must be in the price range of $15-20.

3.      On Christmas Eve, we always invite my grandparents from my dad’s side, cousin, and my dad’s sister who lives in town to our house.  This is the night where we open most of our presents and we always have some sort of big meal.

I’m sure I am missing some of my family’s traditions, but even simple things like these count as traditions that make the holidays mean what they do to you. Merry Christmas to all!

323

Christmas Shopping

            Every year Christmas rolls around and I think just about everyone is caught off guard.  This year I am especially scrambled and I am truly starting to wonder what happened to December.  Here we are, December 16^th and I basically just started my Christmas shopping.  I have found that this last minute shopping is both good and bad, and I will go into that in a little more detail in a little bit.  However, I am getting a little worried since I still don’t know what to get some people on my list and I really only have one more week.

            Where I live, all the stores to do your Christmas shopping are basically in 2 areas.  I hate driving in traffic, and you can imagine that getting this close to Christmas these areas are nuts! It also really doesn’t help that the mall nearest my house is right off of a highway, so not only do you have the shoppers but also everyone just driving down the highway.  Once you do get to the store you are going to, or the mall, you have to try and find parking which can sometimes be a nightmare.  Me, being the teenage driver I am, usually just drives to the very back of the lot and pulls in since I still can’t park my car very well but at this time of year most likely there are cars there too which is very frustrating for someone who can’t park with a car on both sides of theirs.

            Another bummer about going shopping this close to Christmas is that many things are already picked over.  I’m not saying that stores are out of everything but you can’t necessarily get the color you were planning on getting or you might have to order it, it seems like a lot more frequently than the years I started my shopping sooner.  I know today I was trying to find a certain outfit in Newborn but ended up having to get it in 0-3 months instead because the color I wanted to get was out of the smaller size.  Just little things like that make waiting a bad idea.

            I’m not trying to say that waiting this late to do my shopping was a bad idea, however.  I have found a lot of good deals and stores have been sending me a lot of coupons for bigger and bigger discounts the closer we have gotten to Christmas.  Waiting also has allowed me to get more ideas as to what to get some people, every year it always seems like someone tells me something else I could get them after I already bought something so it eliminates a lot of that.

            I’m not sure whether I will wait on my Christmas shopping again.  I know that it was not something that I necessarily planned on doing but instead kind of just happened.  I think that if you are somebody who doesn’t mind traffic or that extra- long line at the store, it would be cheaper to wait rather than buying everything right away at the beginning of December.

520