I lived through raising four teens and I am proud to report I am still in one piece, have all the hair on my head and my nerves are still in tact.  It isn’t by accident that my husband and I have loving adult children who are kind, responsible and well adjusted. Before kids morph into teens they are pliable children who respond “willingly” to guidance.  They require love, attention and discipline from the time they have the capability to speak. Consistency is imperative and your word must be your bond. If they can manipulate you once, it may not be a big deal, if continues, they will become masterful with manipulation.

It’s important to teach children a cooperative life style from a very young age. A four year old will run to the washer to help put clothes in the dryer. If you all the sudden feel its high time your 13 year old starts helping with the laundry, you’ll encounter some serious resistance. Talking openly with your children when their young sets the stage to having open communication during the turbulent teens.

If your teen feels comfortable talking to you about anything under the sun, they will discuss issues that may make you uncomfortable. Like, “my friend is drinking, or getting sexually involved.” It’s important to just listen, what ever you do, do not judge and absolutely do not lecture. They will NEVER, I repeat NEVER come to you again. Let them know you understand and ask them how they feel. Teens have so many emotions and transformations taking place in a society with strong messages about appearance, vanity and having a good time.

So many teens are attempting to be all grown up when they are still so child like and innocent, okay maybe not so innocent. I honestly believe it’s up to us as parents to keep the connection strong, not the other way around. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “you just don’t understand,” and the truth of the matter, they really think, we do not understand. Be careful. Being all buddy, buddy and I am your friend can be conflicting with the parental role.

Teens need and yearn for boundaries, they require constant reinforcement from their parents, reassurance they are loved and cared about even though they are acting like the anti Christ has possessed them. The fine line of balancing freedom with discipline is a trial and error experience. Teens need to start taking the reins of their lives in mile stones and not all in one full swoop.  A good friend reminded me years ago, we need to love them, and them love them some more.

Who would think a Minnesotan would come up with delightful reasons to live in Florida. The original post was in 2008, it referenced a book; Why I live in Florida: 101 Dang Good Reasons, The Hottest State in the Union Baby, haven’t read the book, but plan to get a copy of my very own. Following are just some of the author’s (unknown) favorite reasons to live in Florida, they’re some of mine too!

• Can you say “Sunshine State”?
• It’s just like the Midwest and Northeast, without the snow, ice, rat race, stress, bad food, and grumpy people.
• We didn’t invent margaritas, we just perfected them.
• Three national championship football teams provide infinite gloating material.
• Real key lime pie will cure just about anything.
• Spring Break comes to us, instead of the other way around.
• You don’t have to move when you retire.
• The Florida Lottery. It could happen.
• Electoral politics more creative than in any other state.
• A certain very important Mouse.
• All the Jimmy Buffett songs are true.
• We got hurricanes. We also got hurricane parties.
• More umbrella drinks per capita.
• It’s fun to tell your Yankee friends, “Excuse me, I have to be courted by a Presidential candidate.”
• The Daytona 500: for those who like to drink while they watch other people drive.
• South Beach known to induce first actual case of disco fever.
• Nation’s highest ratio of bare skin to clothing.
• Cutoff jeans accepted in most restaurants (and board rooms).
• Apalachicola oysters.
• The sugar white sands of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Cold beer tastes better in 100-degree temperatures.
• Cocoa Beach surfing rocks!
• The dancing never stops.
• The space shuttle launch.
• Even more important, tailgating before and after the space shuttle launch.
• Bike Week in Daytona is a great lesson in how to get arrested.
• No legal limit on blondeness.
• Boiled shrimp, and lots of it.
• No tanning bed needed.
• “You put de lime in de coconut.”
• Historic St. Augustine.
• Walking on the beach at sunset.
• Sailing is prescribed by doctors for stress-related ailments.
• Down time held in high regard.
• Badminton and shuffleboard considered hip.
• If you get cold, you can wear a thong.
• No unsightly igloos.
• The Marlins, Dolphins, and Buccaneers: you can catch ’em, go on the ride, see ’em at Sea World, or watch ’em play football.
• Folks still know the meaning of the word “neighbor.”
• Deep-sea drinking while you fish.
• Blue crabs.
• International Drive.
• Floridians never grow old – they just get tanner.
• The good thing about our rain: it will stop before you turn the page.
• Shelling on Sanibel.
• Key Largo diving.
• Bar hoppin’.
• Island hoppin’.
• 1,350 miles of coastline.
• 1,350 miles of bars.
• Glass-bottom boats, just in case you don’t have enough regular views of paradise.
• More than 1,000 golf courses allow us to research whether there could possibly be such a thing as too much golf.
• It’s fun to feel sorry for the North from November until May.
• Over 6 million Floridians can’t be wrong.
• Cuban jazz.
• Cuban cigars.
• We were good enough for Hemingway. Not to mention Madonna, Versace, and a few others you may have heard of.
• From any point in Florida a beach is only 60 miles away.
• We’re what you see in the dictionary when you look up “amusement.”
• If it can be made into a theme park, we’ll do it.

Florida vacations are so much more than seeing the mouse in Orlando. Although, Disney, a world wide vacation destination which attracts 16 million vacationers per year is still a high desired vacation spot. I am researching for a blog that I plan to  launch by the end of the year and searching for fun vacations that are tucked in every county in the fabulous sunshine state.

Some Florida destinations I have enjoyed: Visiting Thomas Edison’s winter home in Ft Myers, Henry Ford had a place next door. The banyan trees sprawl the grounds, along with many other extraordinary plants and vegetation from all over the world. The Flagler Museum in St. Augustine is another wonderful stop for site seeing. Henry Flagler, was very influential with guiding vacationers to Florida all the way down to the Keys the with rail road. Then there is always Key West, Ernest Hemingway’s stomping grounds. Of course living ten minutes from Port Canaveral, I have cruised from the well known port that sails frequently to the Bahama’s.

Future destinations include: Cross Creek, home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, exploring every Florida Spa I can and dining at the most fabulous eateries along the way. Other interesting destinations I plan to include in my blog are golf/spa retreats (husband loves chasing the little white ball), kite surfing, wind surfing, fishing and more fun on the water.

Don’t even get me going with the bed and breakfast selections, which are abundant near charming old down down areas. Old Florida charm weaves in out from town to town rich with historic relics with wonderful places to walk and ride bikes.

Here’s where you come in, if your a Floridian, please post a comment and share a Florida vacation destination and become a fan of Facebook.com/FloridaFunVacations

Florida, the sunshine state has struggled these past few years with the clouded anomaly of the real estate market. Rated 3rd in the US for distressed sales, Floridians have suffered with foreclosures, short sales and a loss of jobs. Fortunately out of all negative comes positive. The distressed sales now make it affordable again for retirees.  Sarasota Florida, was rated one of the top places to retire on CBS Money Watch and the average cost of of a home makes it affordable for young families to tap into the American Dream of owning a home.

Florida is not just about Disney and the millions of people mesmorized by Mickey Mouse. What       about Ernest Hemingway’s love for the Florida Keys , Edison and Ford had winter homes in Ft Myers, and Henry Flagler also left behind a legacy with his vision of the rail way system that went all the way down to Key West. It collapsed in a sever hurricane in 1935.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who live to be 108, helped Americans fall in love with the Everglades, the article in National Wildlife shares the story of this amazing woman who was a pioneer of preservation for what was considered to be swamp lands.

It’s easy to love life in Florida ! I am dedicated to help our state thrive again, it’s why I started Loving Life in Florida and Florida Fun Vacations. I want visitors and potential buyers to get acquainted with all the fabulous attributes of Florida. So many places to see and enjoy. Take a moment now, post a comment and let us know what you love about Florida!

Remember when cookies meant a delightful treat, delicious was something yummy and bookmarks were a trinket you could buy at Barnes & Noble. Learning Internet lingo demands time, effort and energy, it’s like having a part-time job, thank god for Google search. The social media mania is not something to be ignored. I remember when I was first invited to join LinkedIn and politely refused the invitation a couple years ago, gosh had a signed on then, I would have thousands of connections. Then of course facebook was all the rage and “what the heck is You Tube,” I asked my young teen aged son, who is now a second year college student. I have twollow who, to tweet what? I read the article about Twitter three times before I had a remote understanding of what this 140 character entry was suppose to do. RSS feeds, blogs, vlogs, friend feeds and we’re just at the tip of the ice berg. BTW – spam is not the delicacy of that fine canned what ever. Internet marketers bombard our email hoping we’ll suck up their latest ploy with their promise to make millions on the Internet. Have I been sucked it, how could I not, they make everything sound so simple with just signing up with Visa, Mastercard or Amex. Yes, it’s in the fine print that they’ll be charging your credit card on a monthly basis. It’s a new world my friend, oh wait are we friends in facebook yet?

So who is AgiatA1A? Like everyone one else it starts when I was born . . . in Hungary in a time of communist turmoil. My parents escaped in 1956 during the revolution. My dad carried me hundreds of miles to languish in the land freedom. When I was five, I became a citizen through my mom, the US was just coming off the cusp of McCarthyism and prejudice was evident everywhere. Being a proud man, my dad suffered severely. He was already an emotional mess with baggage that followed from living in war torn times his entire life. Unfortunately anti-depressants were not trendy and he had no ability to cope. My parents divorced when I was eight, too much pressure in an unfamiliar culture. I lived with my dad, which looking back in retrospect was a poor choice. I was so strong willed, there was no way my mom could sway me. I dug my heels in and refused to leave my dad, who was so obviously broken. I proceeded to yo, yo back and forth between my parents and became what is referred to as a difficult child and a rebellious teen. I fast became an American brat, took way too much for granted and had no connection to my roots. My mother with all her wisdom took me to Hungary when I graduated from high school, it was still a very communist country. The experience permanently changed my perspective and I came back to the USA a humble young lady. I married the first time for the wrong reasons and divorced after five years. Needless to say all the crap from being a kid caught up with me and I laid on the couch a number of years sorting out a misunderstood life. My husband of 26 years came with two beautiful girls when we married, we gave them two wonderful brothers. In all our years of marriage we have had ups, downs, in betweens and two sabbaticals. We survived the death of our daughter and the tragedy of loss. I tell you all this because so many experiences make up a life. I am able to say what many think about, but are afraid to speak. I have thoughts about so many issues and a desire to share what’s worked and what hasn’t, what’s good and not so good. I am AgiatA1A and I have something to say, perhaps you’ll listen

In the wake of short sales, foreclosures and decreased property values, a domino effect is taking place for homeowners and investors who remain in devalued communities. As properties continue to sell short or worse yet foreclose, property values continue to plummet, creating a vicious cycle of selling short and foreclosing. Owners and investors shake their heads and wondering if they will ever be able to survive the short sale syndrome.  

There is a simple, risk free way not just to survive but to recover. Even through it may sound too good to be true, the fact remains, it is true. It is possible to recover and recoup lost equity and rebuild wealth.  Who ever thought that factorial math would be a life saving component in our floundering economy? Canceling interest expense is our salvation. Interest can be canceled on mortgages, home equity loans, car payments, credit cards and any debt that sucks up interest. Let’s face it, paying interest equates to lost dollars. Reduce your interest expense and you can not only recapture lost equity, you can pay off all of your debts, including your mortgage.