Thankfully I learned this a while back, from a colleague back in 2000.

He regularly told us stories of some extravagant surprises he’d be planning for his mom or his dad (or both). When people remarked on this, he replied that you must do things like this for your family while you can, because one day they’re not able anymore and you don’t want regrets, you want great memories.

For all he turned out to be a selfish back stabbing liar in many things, in this he had his heart and priorities in the right place. And I am glad it inspired me to do some trips and other things with both my parents.

Things like that become particularly important right now after I have had a chaotic 2 weeks due to the biggest scare yet with my mother’s health. It doesn’t matter that you have known for years that there was an incurable, deadly illness - when suddenly things get dramatically worse overnight you are not ready. You think you have prepared yourself to let go, but there you are, all day in a waiting room in a hospital, giving DNR instructions and seeing someone you love barely conscious, with lots of tubes and surrounded by beeping monitors… and you just want to scream, cry, pound a wall…

The crisis is over for now but it will happen again, and I won’t be any more ready for it.

So go on, spoil your family while you can.

It can be taking them away for a weekend, or cook them a meal, or just spend more time with them at home, or do something nice and helpful like repaint their house or help in their garden…

Happy news today. My super friend Lene and I have found out that there was no draw for the 4 days of Nijlmegen and therefore we are in.

For information this is a 4 day walking festival in the netherlands - it is surrounded by a music festival and loads of other things.

http://www.4daagse.nl/index.asp?taal=en&pagina=homepagina

I am very excited now, but I also must train up a little. I know that I used to do whole weeks without much training, or 100 km straight.. but I was a bit younger.

It was part of my “new year” resolution that I would use what I have - by that I meant

- read books I already own that I havent read, or reread books I havent read in a while, instead of buying new stuff
- play games I own that I never finished or barely started, instead of buying new games
- watch DVDs I own, and catch good films on TV, instead of buying more

I have done pretty well on the book front, not buying many this year (all right, I think I did buy about 30, but almost all used and many reference books), doing a lot of swapping, and reading quite a few books.
I have also done ok on the games, revisiting games like “Might and Magic 6”, “Evil Islands”, Galactic Civilisations, Disciples 2, and keeping playing WoW and Guild Wars.

It’s all about enjoying what one has, and reducing the amount of wasted stuff in my life.

But I can do better, so here’s a challenge I am setting myself:

Each week I will do the following
1) read a book I have owned for more than 1 year. I will alternate fiction (easier) and non fiction. I will blog about it here.
2) play an old game I havent played in 1 year, or ever, and blog my impressions
3) watch one of my old DVDs and blog about it
4) spend some time on one of the million web2.0/community sites that I registered for and never did anything, blog about it, and decide whether to dump it or not

I will also do a similar pledge about discovering new things, but that is another post and another challenge

Last year I got it into my head to create some herbal tea mixes for my mother. It seemed like a good idea, I could do some mixes supposedly for her various ailments, and she would love the idea that I had created those for her. After all, how hard could it be

As is my (*sigh*) habit I didn

(uk centric)
http://www.supermarketownbrandguide.co.uk/intro.php

Test all the supermarket licensed products to see which ones are really good. Save money where it’s worth it

Another good resource is the forum thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=23002