Time to leave the family home and get on with your life as a single parent? A move like this doesn’t start with boxes. It starts at 11.30 pm, staring at your phone, running the same loop: Is this the right call? Can I actually pull this off? I’ve been there, and it’s not subtle. It’s a low-grade hum that follows you around for days. When you’re a single parent, it’s not just logistics. It’s…Read More
I just got home from a fun and rewarding, if somewhat stressful, weekend judging young entrepreneurs at the Colorado DECA State Career Development Conference, held annually at the beautiful Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. Two full days of reading pitch decks, 20+ page sales plans, and, especially, having high school-age young adults present both scripted business ideas and the results of their own entrepreneurial efforts with their local communities. What’s DECA? Founded in 1946 as…Read More
This is the weekend of the 37th Annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout, also known as the Lt. Governor’s Cup on the Grand Glaize Arm of the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. It’s best described as the NASCAR of boat races: The largest unsanctioned high-speed powerboat race in the United States, drawing over 100,000 attendees. It’s also a great fundraiser, and last year it raised almost $750,000 for local charities through fees, memorabilia sales, and…Read More
If you’re old enough to drive, you’ve probably learned the value of keeping your car locked and ensuring that you don’t have valuables visible to curious passersby who might peer into the vehicle. You might have learned this the hard way, however, by having things stolen from your vehicle or even having that horrible feeling when you walk to your parking spot and find that your car’s not there anymore. I recall years ago driving…Read More
I had a chance to learn about a great entrepreneurial event for kids 5-17 coming up in various locations in Colorado (and other states throughout the USA): The Children’s Entrepreneur Market. It’s like a farmer’s market, but every table is a young businessperson selling… whatever they can figure out to try and sell. Working with various non-profits in this space, I can attest that young folk are just as entrepreneurial as they’ve ever been, and…Read More
As you guide your teens through their growth and development, cooking skills are among the most essential things you should teach them. In addition to spending quality time in the kitchen, cooking can equip teens with valuable life skills, such as patience, discipline, and responsibility. Furthermore, research published in Food Science and Nutrition found that cooking and food preparation skills can encourage healthy eating attitudes in teens and young adults, specifically college-aged students. Skills like…Read More
If you spend your weekends fixing things, building things, or pretending you know how to fix and build things, sooner or later you’ll run into a job that’s bigger than your pickup and a YouTube tutorial. That’s when renting heavy equipment becomes part of the plan. It sounds simple. It isn’t. Between tight neighborhoods, unpredictable weather, and a rental market that gets picked clean during peak season, you need a strategy that keeps the project…Read More
Like so many children, my kids grew up enjoying macaroni and cheese as an easy lunch or dinner. It’s a classic combo that’s available from big food conglomerates like Kraft Foods and tiny vendors that offer gluten free, dairy free, and all sorts of other combinations. Goodles, from Gooder Foods, has taken this space by storm and now has quite a wide distribution network, including all the major supermarkets, Target, Walmart, etc. Your local market…Read More
I admit it, I keep dreaming about redoing my garage to make it a more inviting workspace, whether I’m working on my car or just organizing some of our gear. To do that, I’d need to renovate it (and get rid of the clutter). But a garage renovation? How much does that cost? Well, before we get to costs, let’s just agree that garage renovations allow you to not only fix or revitalize your space…Read More
I’ve been driving since I was 16 and figure that I stopped at gas stations approximately weekly, meaning that I have visited gas stations over 2,000 times. Since I’ve also gone on quite a few road trips, let’s bump that up to 2,500 gas station visits. They’re pretty standardized here in the United States, 4-6 pumps on “islands” with a small convenience store that offers snacks, treats, and beverages. Some are dirty, the very last…Read More
It may surprise parents of younger children, but after decades of parenting, I begin to see that it’s a process of nurturing and then letting go. It’s not about controlling, directing, forcing, or pressuring a child to make specific choices or head in a preferred direction. As I’ve written about before, I actually view parenting, particularly of tweens and teens, as analogous to shipbuilding. When they’re very young, you give them ‘guardrails’ so that they…Read More
My daughter kindly bought me two weeks worth of food from the company Green Chef and last night I finally had a chance to cook up my first meal: Baked Lemon Pepper Tilapia with Feta. It was fun to prepare, and the results were quite delicious and plenty for two people. But there are trade-offs with this popular form of food prep that I wanted to explore, along with sharing more information about the experience…Read More
If you’ve got tweens or teens in the house, you know the worry of wondering if they’re going to be bullied – or bullying someone else – online, along with questions about whether they’ll succumb to scams or creepy adults masquerading as youngsters. Twenty five years ago, it was easy since the only interaction children were having in the digital world was through chat rooms on AOL and similar, but with the rise of social…Read More
I had a chance to head up to the humble but surprisingly interesting and informative Loveland Museum a few days ago to catch a special exhibit of famed photographer Ansel Adams’ WWII photos of the Manzanar “relocation” camp. It was both interesting and distressing. When Japan attacked the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the United States immediately declared war on Japan and fired up the enormous war machine that was America…Read More
Jeep has come a long way from its original vehicle, the Willys MB, a tough and durable car for wartime. Sold to the US Army in the 1940s, the Jeep 4×4 became one of the enduring symbols of World War II, and the first commercial Jeep, the CJ, was introduced immediately post-war, to great acclaim. The original price? $738 per unit. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $12,000. Suffice to say, when Jeep invited me to…Read More
The compact SUV space is hot, and there are a lot of great options for today’s car buyers, from the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 to the Mazda CX-5. In the Chevrolet lineup, the compact but roomy Chevy Equinox offers yet another solid option, though whether it’s truly competitive is another story entirely. In fact, people still view companies like Chevrolet as based in America to compare with foreign car companies like Toyota and Honda,…Read More
While it might be difficult for most to believe, let alone accept, few marriages last forever. And conjecture this is not; it is a reality substantiated by multiple studies. One of those studies was not too long ago published by Forbes, an international media company focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and lifestyle. In that study, researchers revealed that nearly 690,000 marriages ended in divorce in 2021. While this might cause some people to…Read More
One benefit of being a car writer is that I get to spend lots more time behind the wheel of various vehicles than a regular Joe. When I decided to trade in my Toyota Highlander a few years ago, I leveraged that experience to choose what has proven a really great compact SUV for my needs: A 2017 Mazda CX-5 Limited. While it’s become a bit small as my kids have grown up to be…Read More