sorrow

this past saturday evening a friend of ours texted me. it read, "have you heard what happened here? i am a wreck." because my iphone went swimming i am using my moms old phone and don't have all of my contacts in there. i had to ask who the text was from, and what happened where. the reply came with her name, and that a little boy had drowned in their pool. my friends daughter is 17, and she had a coworker over visiting. this coworker is 18 and has 2 year old son. he was playing with my friends 5 and 7 year old boys while the older girls visited. my friend and her hubby were not home. the little boy managed to unlock the back door, get outside, and into the family's above ground pool. they were unable to save him, even with the 17 year old performing cpr. such a sad sad situation. such a tragedy. i dont even know the little boy or his family, yet my heart is breaking for them. my heart is breaking for my friend and her family as well. they are amazing people who i trust fully, they have kept my kids before both at my home and theirs. as has the 17 year old daughter as well. this could happen to anyone folks. anyone with a toddler knows the speed and quietness at which they can travel. its superhuman. saturday night i went to walmart and purchased alarms for my doors, and had the hubby install 2 on our back door that leads to our pool area. i also got online and ordered an alarm for our pool, http://www.yardandpool.com/PoolEye-Universal-Pool-Immersion-Alarm-p/pe23.htm and it is scheduled to ship today and be here in 2 days, so wed or thurs at the latest i should have it here and installed! sure, we just had a new fence put up. it has locks and is extremely sturdy. our kids know they are not to be back there without us. but kids dont always follow rules. and visiting friends may not know the rules. or neighborhood kids could see a gate open and wander in. or teenagers who like to "pool hop" could accidentally get hurt while going around the neighborhood hopping from one home's pool to the next. you just never know. please pray for everyone involved in this tragedy.

Bills, Shmills

Bills. Yay. What fun, what joy they bring to our lives. To open the mailbox, hoping for a huge check from publishers clearinghouse, only to find tons of envelopes and post cards, none of them sending you money, but all of them reminding you to send them money. You'd think they'd return the favor a few times a year, wouldnt ya? My question, and yes I want you to answer, is this. How do you and your spouse divvy up the bill paying? Do you combine both of your earnings into one pot and then pay all the bills out of that pot? Why? Do you do a his and hers type set up, where he pays a portion of the bills and she pays a portion of the bills? Why? If they are in a one pot process, who is in charge? Why? We have tried several different methods over the years to see what works best for us. We have done it with me being in charge of the pot. We have tried it with him being in charge of the pot. Both have pros and cons. For the next few months we are going to try this his/hers method. I dont know what is going to work best. I dont suppose it really matters so long as it all gets paid, right? But for curiosity sake, I wonder what other families do and why. Do you have any great pointers to share, or any great failures to share? I know for us our greatest failure is lack of organization. If the bills dont get put in the same place no matter who checks the mail....well, you can imagine how that goes.