Her mom just installed a security system to protect her home. I was surprised that someone who lives out in the country would need an alarm system, but since she lives alone now she is smart to take precautions. I know it gives my girlfriend some peace of mind, too. If there was an emergency, her mother would have local responders there to help a whole lot faster than trying to get in touch with family members who live an entire state away.

Another issue with living so far out in the country is that you cannot get cable. But many places that don’t get cable can get satellite television service  which is what her mom has. I’m glad that she is able to continue living in their homestead and doesn’t have to move closer to town just because her husband passed away. I’m sure she is lonely and misses him, but I bet she likes still being “home.”

We drove to the nearest musical instrument shop to talk to the owner about how much a reasonable price would be to ask for the trumpet when we listed it in the paper for sale. While the shop owner talked with Chuck I walked around the store and checked out all of the cool yamaha keyboards that they had on display. My father would really have enjoyed playing one of the newer keyboards they have on the market!

I suggested that she contact a Charleston real estate agent about finding a house that she could rent with the option to buy near where her new office is going to be. She has several dogs and I know that it will be almost impossible for her to find an apartment that will allow her to keep her dogs, and renting a house with a fenced in yard so the dogs could run around loose in the yard would be so much better for all of them.

Even so, in this unstable job market, I think that I would negotiate a contract with the company that would put her mind at ease about getting laid off shortly after moving. I would hate to move to a new city to accept a new job and then end up laid off after I picked up and moved to a city where I had no friends or family nearby!

What was really offensive to me about this was the way that the competitor jumped into the conversation. She wrote “I hope that Jillian doesn’t mind and doesn’t feel like I’m stealing her sale but I’m really broke and I really need the money more than she does so please order them from me.” And I was just completely shocked! How would SHE know how badly I need the income? And the buyer then agreed to buy them from HER instead of me! To say I’m shocked is an under-statement!

One trick that I learned about saving money back then was to not even bother fighting with their father for who would get the kids on a holiday, like Easter or Halloween. I’d go ahead and let them spend the night before at his house, and the day of the holiday, and even the next day too. I’d put off shopping for Easter candy, or Halloween candy until the day AFTER the holiday and then I’d go to the stores and buy a modest amount of holiday-themed goodies at the drastically reduced prices and when they would arrive home I would give them the small token gifts and they would be perfectly happy with what I had given them.

I became pretty skilled at providing cheap vacations as well. Those days were largely before the Internet was even invented, so I would use a travel agent to line up a time-share condo rental and cheap air-fare if the destination was too far to drive, or I’d arrange to drive to my parent’s house in the Washington DC area, stay with them (for free) and do a lot of the Smithsonian Museums, the National Zoo, and spend some great time with my parent’s at their beach house on the Northern Neck in Virginia. We’d go for boat rides, and picnic on the beach at Shark’s Tooth Island, and hunt for shark’s teeth. My siblings would show up and we’d use the family boat to go tubing and water-skiing. A day trip or two to King’s Dominion, or Luray Caverns might round out the vacation. Good times can be had without having to go deep into debt!

I can remember as kids we would compete to sit in one of the few (an therefore coveted) big Adirondack chairs that had the best view of the waterfront. Picking freshly steamed crabs on top of the old newspaper-covered Picnic Tables on the porch. Somehow when picking crabs we didn’t need to worry quite so much about being quiet and polite. And finding branches to stick our marshmallows on and toasting them over the fire pit while sitting on the Park Benches that formed a semi-circle around the fire.

I miss those times, but am glad for the memories.

I was glad when Michael Vick was arrested for dog fighting. I have always wondered which one of his posse got mad at him and ratted him out? As far as I am concerned, every single one of the pissants who worked in his kennels and attended the dog fights should have been hunted down and caged. They were all just as guilty as Michael Vick and I can guarantee that just because Vick was arrested that the people who were involved have not stopped – they have just moved on to another cruel dog owner holding dog fights in another place.

I have no knowledge of any dog fights in our area, but we do have a constant problem with dogs running loose in the streets. Many of these dogs have not escaped accidentally – they have owners who knowingly let them out to run. I’m not afraid of being bitten by any of these dogs, but I do worry about my own dogs being attacked in my yard or a driver hitting one of the dogs running in the road and having an accident. I have a small fenced area for my dogs to run and if we ever go out of the house other than their exercise pen they are on a leash.

He was a kid during the Great Depression, but that affected him for the rest of his life. His mother abandoned all her 3 of her kids and took off, so he was raised by his grandmother. He dropped out of school after the fourth grade so he could earn money and help the family survive. He was driving his grandmother’s car when he was just 10 years old and glued pieces of lumber to the pedals so he could reach them.

He never trusted banks or the stock market after the big crash. The only investments he made were low risk cds and he never put more than $100,000 in any one bank account, as the FDIC only insures deposits up to $100,000.

When I tried to explain to him that a certificate of deposit is an option and that the maturity dates could be planned for maximum benefit and taxes, he would get upset and tell me that I didn’t know what was talking about. So I wasn’t able to help him much, but at least I tried.

With no little kids around the house, we haven’t decorated Easter eggs for several years. But I do like seeing what other people do with their eggs, and I thought this photo of decorated Easter eggs was really clever. I doubt that I would ever attempt anything like this, but I admire people with the imagination and talent who can do this. I usually am content with the PAAS box of dye pellets and some stickers or white crayons to doodle on the eggs. I have been creative with two tones eggs and stickers, but that was a long time ago. Maybe some day I will just boil a dozen eggs and color them for the fun of it – kids in the house, or not!

One thing that I’ve been putting off since last winter is going through our coat closet and sorting through all of the stuff that we haven’t’ worn in a long time. It also kind of serves as an overflow closet, which means that a lot of the time I’ll just throw junk in there when I don’t have time to find a proper place for it in our home. I’m paying for that now and trying to stop doing that.

I went online to see if I could find some tips about how to organize my closet. I did find a few tips and even bought some organizational stuff to help with it. We have so many gloves and scarves that were littering the floor, so I think that those organizational things will really help.

That’s when I started asking around and one of my Tekkie friends told me about a web site where you can download a free YouTube downloader. That is exactly what I was trying to find – and here it is!

The same site does other things, too. Like they have a YouTube to Video Converter and Video Converter Software for editing what you harvest from Youtube and making it your own. I can see a lot of good uses for this software for business presentations to hobby projects – I’m glad someone figured out how to do what I was hoping to accomplish.

Even someone who has years of experience with buying and selling stocks can get help from portfolio rebalancing software if they just take the time to get everything organized and then a close look at what they need to do.

I spent four years as a volunteer for a local non-profit and a big part of my involvement had to do with financial matters for the organization. Our Board’s Treasurer as actually a locally successful stock broker who made himself very accessible to the rest of the Board when we had any questions or concerns. Although I did not always agree with his recommendations, I learned a lot and would be totally comfortable using a DIY portfolio management program online.

I keep seeing advertisements online for women to apply to Walden University to make themselves more competitive in the business world. Since I’m always looking for ways to increase my value to employers, I went to the WaldenU website to check it out.  I saw that President Bill Clinton was their keynote speaker a few years ago at their July commencement ceremony in Minneapolis!  How cool is that!

The thing that bothers me about getting more education, as in a college education, is that I already have two business degrees, and for the job market that exists in this area I keep hearing that I’m “over-qualified.”  I interpret that to mean that what they REALLY mean is that they think I’m too old, and that they are using this “over-qualified” excuse to disguise their ageism.  And yet I still am several years away from being old enough to collect Social Security.  Seems like I’m in between a rock and a hard place, and I’m afraid that more college degrees won’t help! What do you think?

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