What my kids talk me into watching on Netflix.

The things I do for my kids...
My two younger daughters and I are self proclaimed nerds. We do it all The Avengers, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Hobbit, Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, Dr. Who, and the focus of this post Supernatural.

Have any of you watched it? I hadn't. I had maybe, kinda, sorta heard of it. It wasn't on my radar though. My niece binge watched the all nine seasons that are on Netflix and kept telling my middle daughter, Liz (13), "YOU HAVE TO WATCH SUPERNATURAL! They are BAE!" So Liz started hounding me to let her watch it.

I don't think that Mike and I are super restrictive, but we want to know what the girls are up to and they know it, and I appreciate that.  So we made a deal to watch it together. We don't do scary movies at our house and the first season was a little creepy.

The show is on the CW about two brothers, Sam & Dean Winchester hunting the demon that killed their mom when they were kids and along the way they have bizarre adventures. You name it and the show has probably covered it, urban legends, vampires, angels, demons, purgatory, leviathans and they manage to be a bit sassy and poke fun at themselves along the way.

Clare then 11,  got scared JUST into season two and quit watching and Liz and I continued. At first I did it as a bonding thing but it has snuck in a bit and I have found myself saying "Hey Liz, are you up for Moose and Squirrel?" These are pop culture references that she taunts me with as she has become obsessed with the fellas on the show. They are a bit of eye candy for sure. Clare has since decided to try it again, but only in the daylight. So Clare and I are on season 2 episode 10 while Liz and I are on season 7 episode 2. My husband just laughs at me. Oh well, my kids love me and I get to snuggle with them and feel relevant. lol I am including a few pictures just so you understand.

links for pictures
http://wallpapers111.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/jensen-ackles-wallpaper-8.jpg
http://wallpapers111.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/jensen-ackles-wallpaper-1.jpg
http://wallpapers111.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/jensen-ackles-wallpaper-3.jpg
http://www.spoilertv.com/2014/09/supernatural-season-10-poster.html

Hey, what are you listening to?

June is audiobook month, are you a fan?

I love real books. I love holding, buying, borrowing, stacking, even smelling real books. I have hundreds on several bookshelves in my home. This will never change. I have also come to value the the ebook. My daughters and I can go anywhere and if detained have dozens of books to choose from depending on our current mood. What I have really developed a fondness for though is the audiobook.

It started with a difficulty falling to sleep, I had way too many thoughts spinning around in my mind. So I logged on to iTunes and for $41.95 downloaded my first audiobook, A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 (Unabridged) I justified the price by it being 54 hours and 3 mins long.

Since then I have developed a bit of an addiction. I listen in the shower, in the car, between classes, and at work. However $42 per book is just not in the budget. I have figured out a few other ways that I would like to share.

Audible is a subsidiary of Amazon. They offer a couple of levels of service. I have the basic plan at $15/mo I get a credit which equals any book they have, regardless of the list price. If I don't use that months credit they add up, you don't lose them. Here is the link www.audible.com

Another perk to having audible is that if you also have an Amazon account you can buy a kindle ebook (to be read on many different devices) for maybe $4.99 and then add whispersync for $1.99. Whispersync adds narration and lets you listen to the book through the audible app. When you take a break the app saves your place and when you want to 'read' you pick up your tablet and open the kindle app and it opens to where you finished listening. Then suppose you are going to drive somewhere, you hop in the car and open the audible app again & lo and behold it opens where you finished reading. Magic? Maybe. Here is the link  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_9?url=searchalias%3Dstripbooks&fieldkeywords=kindle+whispersync&sprefix=kindle+wh%2Cstripbooks%2C313

If you have a Topeka Shawnee County Public Library Card check out this link https://tscpl.org, select the DOWNLOAD IT tab and it will open a huge world of FREE ebooks, audiobooks, music, movies, and magazines. My favorite is Hoopla. Hoopla has music, audiobooks, movies and tv. www.hoopladigital.com(Unabridged)

I have listened to countless books and love all of these versions. I hope you try at least the library options. enjoy.

This is what I do ...Keeping It All Together

I'm a busy mom with busy kiddos and I'm back in college. I would like to share a few helpful tips on how I am trying to stay on task in MM Boot Camp this summer.

First I read through the assignment block for week one. Then I discovered that there were more tips and requirements outside of the week one material... hahaha, oops.

Now, I read EVERYTHING, multiple times.

Then I copied the weeks assignments into a document. Each item is numbered and when I complete that item I strikethrough it. This helps me a lot.

I also copy and paste the written articles into the same document and that way if I am in a situation without wifi I can still read the document. (A hard lesson I learned while I was in Ireland last week with sketchy internet service).

I then copied the whole glossary sheet into its own document and then take a portion of it and paste it into the current weeks assignments.

Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully I am catching it all. I have lots of things on my 'Need to get done' list and I have to use my time wisely.

Any other helpful tips?

If I were to do it over again, traveling to Ireland with a group of 15.

My Mom just took her four kids, three d/s-in-law, and her seven grandchildren aged 10 months to 21 years to Ireland. We left on Friday, May 22 from Kansas and arrived bright and early on Saturday morning. Our own bus and driver, Mick took us to the most wonderful spots you can imagine and the weather cooperated beautifully. We were busy a lot, we traveled in and through 20 of Ireland's 32 counties.  Overnights were in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Adare. Oh so many breathtaking sites. But we loved Glendalough, Cashel, Yeoghal, Cobh, and Broadford. Blarney Castle, Bunratty Village and Castle, Guinness, Jameson, Dublin Zoo and The English Market.

(l-r) back Finley Weber, Declan Brennan, Elliott Weber, Liz Emmert, front Clare and Michaela Emmert. Abbey Tavern North Dublin, Ireland, Sunday, May 24, 2015

(l-r) Me, Michael Brennan, Mary Brennan, Patrick Brennan, and Kate Weber at the top of Blarney Castle, Ireland, Wednesday, May 27, 2015.

What would I do differently?  I think our little family of five packed well, but there is always room for improvement. We packed for layers as the weather goes up and down. That way we could add or subtract as we went through out the day and be more comfortable.  I think we should have tried to stay better hydrated. Traveling can really wear a person down and if you aren't drinking enough water it can be rough on your mood and then things can degrade quickly from there.

We seemed to have plenty of familiar snacks for the plane trips and it was fun for the kids to see what their aunts had that their moms didn't. Airports and hotels can be ridiculously expensive and why not take one less pair of shoes and pack a few more yummy treats. It makes your traveling Euros go farther too when you aren't buying snacks all day, then you can buy one more pint in the evening.

I think the hardest part of the trip was the traveling with the little children. It wore on their little nerves. They just wanted to run and play and squeal, you know, like kids.  What anyone traveling NEEDS to take with them though is a plug-in adapter for charging your phones, iPads, iPods etc. If you have any of these devices I highly recommend bringing a surge protector and then you can plug in several items at once. We only brought one adapter and had devices and power banks that were forever needing a bit more charging.

It was the trip of a life time for sure. If you ever have the chance to go to Ireland, take it.

Sláinte (good health)

Who Am I

l-r Clare (12), Liz (13), The Momma (Me), Mike The Pop, Michaela (21)                                                                              My Little Family off the Coast of  Youghal, Ireland.

I am Jenn Emmert. I retired last summer after a 20 year career as funeral director and embalmer and decided to go back to school.  My parents and I opened Kevin Brennan Family Funeral Home in 2001. I worked many, many long hours and missed a lot of fun things that my kiddos were doing. I am pursuing a B.I.S in Web Utilization, fancy phrasing for graphic arts, mass media with a small dash of computer science. I hope my postings will be of use and even a bit fun.