Thinking Outloud

My father in law’s birthday is coming up and I’m really having a difficult time thinking about what to get him. He is almost 70 so he has everything that he wants. So I have decided that I’m just going to get him a gift card from Kohls. This is one of his favorite stores to shop at. This way if he sees something he likes he can just purchase it. The upside of all this for me is that when I do purchase the gift card, I will be able to use one of the Kohls coupons that I have to save a little money for myself. So in fact we each get a present!

No not really.  But I just love the title of the post.  Don’t you??  Honestly though on Monday or Tuesday I will be say GOOD BYE to dial up.  It honestly can’t come soon enough.  For the past two years I have been doing all my online work through dial up and I can’t tell you how slow and aggravating this has all been.  So last week when I got an announcement in the mail from my local phone company about upgrading to high speed for the same price as I am paying right now, I decided to check it out.

I then discovered that for six months I would be paying the same for better service and then after that I actually will only end up paying $7.00 a month more to keep the service.  For $7.00 a month, you can bet that I signed right up.  The only thing that confuses me is why in the world didn’t I look into this sooner.

So hopefully in a few more days it will be bye bye to dial up and HELLO to high speed!

With yesterday being Valentine’s day and all, it got me to thinking back to years ago when my husband and I first met and took a wonderfully romantic vacation. At that time, we only had my oldest son, so it was a lot easier to get away and we had a little bit more disposable income than we do now. Well since I’ve started remembering this story, I thought I would share it with you all.

First of all I would like to say that 15 years ago my husband and I were both a lot younger and more adventerous. So we decided that we would like to take a vacation of a lifetime. So we checked around and asked different people for their vacation ideas. After doing our research we then headed to Las Vegas. The first thing we did was get our own guide about things to do in Las Vegas. Then we took full advantage of everything that Las Vegas has to offer. We went to the different casinos, bars and restaurants. We had such a good time, took lots of pictures and we will remember it forever.

If there were anything that I didn’t care for about this vacation, it would be on how difficult it was to obtain all the information that we wanted pertaining to this great city. But now with this site over at Trusted Tours & Attractions this wouldn’t be a concern. Not only do they give you tons of information regarding a lot of cities in the US, but if you sign up for their newsletter you also have a chance at winning a free digital camera. So you would get the best of both worlds. All the information you need regarding any romantic trip that you would like to take and the opportunity to win something free.

Honestly guys I am a blogging addict and extremely proud of it!!  I have a “few” blogs that I post on a regular basis.  I try to keep them updated as much as I can and I am always tweaking them to make them more reader friendly (is that a term?).  One of the things that I am constantly doing and driving myself crazy about it changing my word-press themes.  I usually find one that I think I like, but after staring at it for a few weeks, I then decide that it just doesn’t give me the feel that I want.  So, I then start my search all over again.

So, don’t be surprised if you come back to this blog within the next day or two and find that I have changed the theme once again.  Hopefully one of these days I’ll get all my sites looking the way I want them to and then I can concentrate on doing what I like to do best.  And that would be blogging, blogging and more blogging.  Can you say “addict”? lol

Both the kids got a letter sent home from school the other day concerning Valentines day.  My son’s grade 2 class will be giving out Valentines day cards and having a little party as well.  My daughter’s grade 4 class is leaving it up to the students on whether they want to participate or not.  The only thing the teachers ask is that if they do choose to give out cards, they give a card to everyone.  Now that she is in the older grades, there will be no party.

I have to tell you all though I had a real hard time finding her Valentine’s cards that were not too young for her.  There were tons of cards for kids around my son’s age, but not a whole lot of selection for children her age.  She ended up going with Blue’s Clues which is way to young for her, but it was really the only option for her.  She is happy with her selection, but I’m really thinking that this may be her last year for giving out cards.  If not this year, next year for sure.  That is a shame, as she really does enjoy participating in all the Valentine’s day celebrations.

I am very happy that my kids are so popular, but sometimes it can be a real pain. My son has been invited to two different birthday parties next weekend. This means that I need to drive him to two different places and buy two separate gifts. I was thinking about asking him to choose which one he wanted to go to but then thought about it again and figured that I would try to get him to both.

Both the parents are putting so much work into these separate parties, that I would feel bad if I didn’t allow him to attend. One of the mothers is sending out Kentucky Derby party invitations for her son. My son thought that it was so cool that he gets to attend a Kentucky Derby party that I didn’t have the heart to tell him no. So, I guess I’m off to buy a couple of birthday presents.

One of my dreams in life is to own my own franchise. If money was no object the franchise that I would choose to participate in would be Tim Horton’s. If your not from Canada, you probably wouldn’t recognize the name of this franchise. But, it is a coffee franchise and it is the biggest and well known coffee franchise in Canada. Everywhere you look you will see a Tim Horton’s. Matter of fact in our small town we have three. But I honestly think that if I were able to buy into one and put it up around here, I would still make lots of money. It is a well known franchise.

It has been such a long day and it’s only the middle of the afternoon.  This has been what my day has been like so far.  I woke up with a headache and even after taking some Advil, I still have it.  The kids have been fighting constantly.  And, I mean constantly.  My daughter (who is 9) is in one of her “moods” and my son (who is 7) is in an agitating and winey mood.  So combine the two moods and what do you get?  Fight after fight after fight.  The only way I have had even a small amount of peace is I have to put them in their separate rooms for some quiet time.

I honestly hate to do this, but if I don’t I think my head is going to explode.  But the problem with this is, is that their rooms are right beside one another, so then they start fighting through the walls.  If I could just get an hour of peace, I think my head would stop aching and maybe all this fighting wouldn’t bother me so bad.

The older I get, the more I start to think about investments for my future. Right now I have a couple of small investments that will hopefully give me a little extra money during my retirement years. But, I am always on the lookout for more. So this is why I was quite happy to find a site over at monex.com where I can do some extra investment shopping.

Over at this site, I will be able to purchase gold, silver or other precious metals for investment purposes. I can either have them delivered right to my home or this company will store them for me until I need them. The rate of return on these investments are quite reasonable and because this company has been in business for quite a long time, I know that they are reputable. So, I am off to make some more investments for my retirement future.

Just before Christmas I was starting to get a little discourage with my working from home online adventures.  It seemed like all the programs that I was involved with were starting to diminish.  I know it was a rough three months around here as far as online income was concerned.  But, after talking to several people who earn all their income online, the advised me to stick with it and sooner or later my online income would pick up again.  And I’m happy to report that it has!  After a long three months, the month of February has really started to boom.  I almost (notice I said almost) have too much work.   But, I’m not complaining and I am extremely happy to be busy again.

I guess the best part of this dry spell is that it taught me a very valuable lesson.  Not to give up, keep plugging away at it, and eventually things will get back to normal.