Top Specialty Journal

One of the most rewarding things in my life are my kids.  It never ceases to amaze me as to how wonderful they are and how creative they can be.  I try to be the best parent that I can, and therefore I try to make time for them every Sunday.

So, today I have been playing with my daughter and her dress up clothes.  You see, we have a big chest full of play clothes for her so that she can let her imagination go wild.  Truth be told, pretty much all of the clothing is second hand, but she loves it anyway.

Today, she decided that I was going to be film and video cameraman since she was going to be a movie star and producer.  I guess we have let her watch a little too much TV, but a game like this was going to be harmless, right?

Well, she drew up some storyboards on the chalkboard in the basement, and we proceeded to record the movie.  I used the digital camera, and she dressed up for the roles that our story had.

I think that after she goes to bed tonight that I will edit the video, and put the film together so that the whole family can watch it tomorrow.  Needless to say, we had a great time and a lot of fun.  I hope we do this again.

Technorati Tags: film and video cameraman, storyboards

One of the things I love as a writer is that there is never any shortage of interesting subjects to write about.

For instance, one of my clients is a real estate agent, and I write newsletter and newspaper articles about Florida real estate for him.  Another client has a variety of entrepreneurial websites, mainly for job seekers but also some other related topics, and I frequently write press releases and articles for his websites.  Still another client sells boat supplies, so I write some materials about boating and boat accessories.

I think it’s this variety that keeps me energized about my work.  I love to write, but I know from experience that it gets really boring to write about the same thing all the time — no matter how much I love writing itself, I can’t handle the monotony.

So my advice to you is to always make sure you have variety in your work or your business.  No matter what your industry, no matter what your service or product, there should be a way to introduce variety and take the edge off of the monotony.  Doing so makes your business more likely to succeed, because if you’re not tired of it you’ll have much more to give.

Technorati Tags: boat accessories, boat supplies, real estate agent

I have been looking for new work recently. I’m hardly the only person who is in this position right now. Maybe others have noticed something that I’ve noticed which is that there are a lot of internship positions that are being advertised right now.

I have been working for over fifteen years. This makes me feel like I’m too old to consider doing an internship. However, a friend insists that I’m not too old at all. He says that I should do an internship for the following reasons:

• It’ll get me back in the office. I’ve been working from home for a long time so this could be a good thing. I might be able to start back in an intern position whereas a hired position might be more difficult to obtain.
• I could learn a new industry. There’s a cool internship position at a boutique clothing store called Room Seven. I don’t know anything about this industry but I could learn through an internship position. It would be like getting a fresh start.
• It would get me a foot in the door. It’s never good to be so snobby that you can’t accept a way into employment just because you think it might be beneath your skill level.

Technorati Tags: boutique clothing, Room Seven

One of the things that I truly miss is the farm.  Having been raised on the farm, I miss the atmosphere, the sounds, and the style that a farming life brings.  But when I fell in love with a city boy, I decided that our love was more important than where I lived, so I followed him to the city.

But after I left home, I had a constant longing for the life I left behind.  I knew that Jake wasn’t going to want to move to the farm, so I had to find ways to bring the farm to our home.  I thought maybe we could add a western flair to our home, so I would have something in the city that reminded me of where I came from.

I knew that it would have to be simple, or my husband wouldn’t go for it.  So, I took it upon myself to find some simple western decorations that would be unobtrusive but still let me know that they were there.  Jake didn’t seem to mind the few that I added to our home, so I thought that I would try something else.

I was surprised that Jake liked the western bedding that I bought, but it could have been the fact that it was warmer than our old bedding set.  Needless to say, I love that he lets me have little reminders of home here – it makes living in the city not quite as bad.

Technorati Tags: western bedding, western decorations

Many health practitioners specialize in very specific fields. In fact, there are a real drought of general practitioners that provide services for the overall public. One such specialty is what the audiologist focuses on: providing patients with hearing aids and other devices to help reduce the effects of hearing loss.

The great thing about a specialist is that they tend to truly know their stuff. Granted this focused knowledge and experience often costs more, but at the end of the day, you really want to ensure yourself that the very best person is providing you top quality care.

If you discover a diminishing capacity to hear like you once did, you’ll want to seek out the help and advice of a trained, experienced professional. Most people have health plans that will make referrals to a hearing specialist. When you visit them, you’ll undergo a series of audio tests that will determine if you are suffering from hearing impairment.

Once a loss is determined, the nature and percentage of that loss will be presented to you along with a variety of options you may employ in order to offset it. Hopefully, you’ll be lucky to discover that a good old fashioned ear wax cleaning is all you need. If not, there are some great hearing aids on the market that should help solve your challenges.

Technorati Tags: hearing aids

Gardening is a hobby that a lot of people enjoy. It’s a relatively affordable hobby. However, you do need to purchase some tools to get a good garden going.

Follow these tips for buying gardening tools without spending too much money:

• Figure out exactly what you need in advance. It’s nice to have a gravel screening machine for your compost pile but topsoil screening machines aren’t necessary for the new gardener. Make a list of what you want and cross off anything that you don’t need. You can always get it later if you still want it.
• See if you can buy any of the items on your list used. There are a lot of people who start to garden only to discover that they don’t like it much after all. These people sell off their barely-used gardening tools at a low price. Get in on that deal!
• Get the inexpensive version first. With most things you want to buy the item that will last over time even if it’s pricey. However, if you’re new to gardening, you may want to get the cheaper version of your tools to start with in case you’re one of those people who begins to garden and doesn’t like it much. If you fall in love with gardening you can invest in better tools down the line.

Technorati Tags: gravel screening machine, topsoil screening machines

A small website might be fine for a very small business or a first website, but soon you will find that you need to upgrade — particularly if you have an ecommerce site or your website gets a lot of traffic.

There are a lot of options to choose from for business web hosting.  For instance, you might choose a dedicated server: Basically instead of being on the same server as a bunch of other websites, the hosting provider puts your site on your very on server.  This is a great option for large websites or sites that get a lot of traffic.

Another option is server colocation, which is basically where the server belongs to you — and therefore all repairs and maintenance are your responsibility — but the hosting provider provides space, power, and an Internet connection at their facility.  This allows you more control over your server, without the responsibility of having to maintain power and connectivity.

There are also hosting options that support businesses in other ways, too.  For instance, many hosting providers offer hosted email, where your and all your employees’ email are hosted on a shared or dedicated server, so that you can access it from any computer — or even your phone!

As you can see, there are a world of options for business web hosting.  What options will YOU choose?

Technorati Tags: computer network, dedicated server, server colocation, web hosting

One of the things that I try to tell my grandchildren is that they need to make sure to take care of themselves throughout their lives.  I have seen so many of my friends pass away early, or lose their faculties long before I would have thought they would.  It saddens me to see them when they get to this state, and I guess I am happy for the healthy choices that I made along the way.

You see, I just had my 82nd birthday and I still live on my own.  My wife has since passed away (bless her soul), but I have carried on living ten more years than she ever did, and there are no signs that I am going to be on deaths door anytime soon.

Sure, if you come to my home, you will see that I need a lift chair to visit with you in the living room, and I need stair lifts to get up and down the stairs, but otherwise I am doing fine.  In fact, I tired my grandson out last year when we were digging up the potatoes in the fall – he couldn’t believe that I was in better shape than he was.

So, here is my advice to you: take care of yourself all through your life and you might even make it to 100.  I know that is what I am trying for.

Technorati Tags: lift chair, stair lifts

Though I am not the most computer savvy person out there, I like to think that I can get myself around a computer ok.  I can handle surfing the Internet, checking my email, and even playing solitaire, but that is about it.  I’ll admit that I sometimes struggle when I am trying to do something specific, and that is exactly what happened to me this morning.

You see, my family is traveling to Orlando in the fall for our vacation.  I know it is maybe a weird time of year to go (since the kids are in school), but it was the only time that my husband and I could get time off from work at the same time.

Anyway, my problem was finding a website that offered Orlando car rentals.  I was using a search engine, but truth be told, I wasn’t getting the results that I was looking for.  Nothing was really working out for me, and when that happens, I get really frustrated.

So, I took a half hour break, and then I came back and tried to search for Orlando car hire.  As it turned out, that was the magic words that allowed me to find a site where I could book a car for our trip.  Thankfully, I was able to figure it out.

Technorati Tags: Orlando car hire, Orlando car rentals

My ex husband is unbelievable.  I should have seen the signs when we got married-too young, at 21 and 23.  But he’d never been around the block.  Still, he was responsible and a hard worker, though he didn’t really help with the yards or with home improvements; that was okay.  Then with kids, he loved them but didn’t really know a lot about what to do with them.  He just seemed to get bored with the whole family thing after six or seven years.

Plus, then his career took off and he was travelling all the time…just when the internet got big.  He worked for TBS, so he had a lot of sports to cover.  And in those hotel rooms, he found some online dates and well, you can guess the rest.

The worst thing is how he’s treated the boys since then.  He never calls. No birthday cards.  Never did see even one of my youngest son’s concerts nor did he even show up to his graduation.  I think he’s being smote down by God or something because now he’s got this weird skin condition and he looks terrible.  Well, he’s made some good money for his new wife, but I hope he eventually loses it all and has to end up doing shuffleboard maintenance or something.

Technorati Tags: shuffleboard maintenance, TBS