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Jerry Loggins Notes

Notes on life, family and friends by Jerry Loggins

Where is the work ethic

Posted by J L on June 10, 2013
Posted in LifeOpinionParenting  | Tagged With: , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Every once in a while I get really busy. Normally, I do my own yard work but this week I am just too busy to do so. That’s why I wanted to find a kid from the neighborhood to cut my grass. Despite my best efforts I was unsuccessful.

When I was young, I would have been looking forward to such an opportunity. I am saddened that there are seemingly no kids around here that want the same chance. This is the type of thing that makes me worry about the work ethic of our country. If we are not willing to work for our income, how are we supposed to compete with the rest of the world? We cannot all just sit around and expect to be able to live like kings if we have not made any effort to better ourselves.

To be honest, I blame the parents. Every time I turn around I see the parents are doing something that the kids are perfectly capable of doing themselves. I see parents vacuuming their carpets while their perfectly strong teenagers sit on the sofa nearby just texting their friends or playing games on their phones. Seems to me that parents are more interested in being their kids friends then they are in being a parent. Parents need to teach the kids how to do the work, and get them to chip in and help. Doing it all themselves is not fair to anyone.

It’s funny how things happen within the family, like all the trends, fashions, births, marriages, divorces, graduations, and all the other various events that come and go within our lifetime. They tend to come and go in waves. A good example is that this June we have had to attend six graduations for family members. Three were from High School, two were from college and the third was a cousin who went back to school via the Internet and they had a graduation party for everyone that finished those courses as well. All six were wonderful events, I’m so proud of each and everyone of the graduates and it will be interesting to see how these good folks fair from this moment on and where they end up in the near future.

The graduation announcements just seemed to keep pouring in this year. Funny thing is that these graduations will be the last that anyone in the family will attend for the next three years. That is when all of the kids that are in Junior High right now should be graduating High School. The key words here are “should be” but knowing some of the kids that are scheduled to graduate come 2015 and 2016 I wouldn’t bet any money on two of them to make it all the way to the end of high school. But only time will tell and stranger things have been known to happen.

So now that all of the graduations are done and over with, it will only be a couple more weeks until the family gets together for the 4th of July picnic that we all try so hard to attend. Hopefully the weather will be great, the food will be nice and hot and pray that the fireworks will start on time this year and it should all be good!

Life is hard sometimes

Posted by J L on April 23, 2013
Posted in LifeParenting  | Tagged With: , ,

Guest post by Steven Ballast

My life has not been easy by any means. Some of it I did myself, some of it was at the hands of my birth mother. I have forgiven her but forgiving myself came much harder. Looking back on my youth I can’t help but to think back on the first Christmas I spent with my foster family.

I moved in just before Christmas. I was born Catholic so we didn’t open presents until Christmas day. They opened their presents on Christmas eve and then Santa came that night. I didn’t touch my presents. Then Christmas morning came and I stayed in bed. They kept calling me to come see what Santa had brought me. I was 15 years old and what they didn’t know was I had never gotten a Christmas present much less had Santa bring me anything before.

I didn’t know how to act.  I didn’t know what to do. These people had given me something I had never had, a real Christmas and they didn’t even know it. I was ashamed that I had nothing to give them in return. I was ashamed that I was given presents when I had done nothing to earn them. I was ashamed to be treated as a part of their family when I didn’t consider myself as anything to them.

They showed me more love in just two days than I had ever had in my lifetime. I found the spirit of giving in their home. I found a family, a home, and most of all, love with perfect strangers.

Science project secret

Posted by J L on April 17, 2013
Posted in BusinessFriends and FamilyParentingShopping  | Tagged With: ,

Sometimes I have to wonder what in the world the kids are up to with their science projects. I’ve learned over the years to not interfere – they aren’t little kids anymore, but when they ask me where they can find a local company that performs tube bending services I have a really hard time not asking a million questions! I swear if they weren’t such upstanding kids, I’d wonder if they were up to mischief!

Eggs Galore

Posted by J L on April 3, 2013
Posted in LifeParentingPets  | Tagged With: , ,

Easter eggs (free clip art)

Easter eggs (free clip art)


We had some fun hiding Easter Eggs in the back yard for the neighborhood kids to hunt for. The dogs thought we were crazy. I could not believe how much work is involved stuffing little candies into plastic eggs. Hiding them was fun, tho, and watching the kids collecting them was even more fun. I’m glad the weather was nice so we could all enjoy Easter this year.