Our family is very lucky to live across the street from an outdoor swimming pool. The kids and I spend a lot of time there during the summer and it is something that they never get tired of doing. They have all of their lessons there and it is a great way to spend some time together as a family in the evening.

This year, as they were getting the pool ready for the season, the kids noticed that they were bringing in some brand new inflatable slides. You would have thought that it was Christmas at out house and they could not wait for opening day.

There was another week before it opened and it was all that they could talk about. I decided to make them some obstacle courses in the backyard to try and keep their mind off of it, and though it kept them entertained for awhile, the new toys at the pool were all they could talk about.

We are going to a convention in New Jersey next year and are trying to figure out the best way to get around. Neither of us have ever been to the east coast, let alone New Jersey so we don’t want to rent a car and risk getting lost in a bad part of the city or just lost period.

I thought that hiring a car service would be good because the driver would be knowledgeable of the area and we would be more comfortable than riding in a taxi or having to try and find one off the street. In a limo New Jersey would be easy to navigate and we could see some of the surroundings like New York City too.

It’s a week long convention so we’ll have plenty of time to do some evening running around and maybe skip out on some seminars that we don’t need to be at.

I am so jealous!

An online friend of mine just went to see “Mary Poppins” on Broadway. She said they flew everyone’s perfect nanny in over the audience and the special effects were stunning. She lives in the New York area, so it was a great treat for her and her children. I wondered how she could afford it, until she tweeted on Twitter to someone else that, thanks to her American Express Card, she got an Amex presale password for discount tickets.

“Mary Poppins” has always had a place in my heart. The film came out in theatres when I was in college. I not only saw it as a babysitter taking someone else’s children to see it three times (with three different sets of children). But when the movie came to town where I was going to college, I went to see it multiple times. You may have heard me say this before — I wanted to be Julie Andrews.

Then when my daughter was little, Disney rolled it out of their vault and released it on video. Yes, VHS. And just like her mother, she never got tired of watching it. I must admit, however, I finally did get a bit tired of it.

But not so much so that I wouldn’t miss an opportunity, if it came up, of seeing a live theatrical version of it. The only thing I would miss, would be Julie Andrews.

I remember reading a few months ago in one of my business magazines about a start up business who was using the mobile device boom to build a business. If I remember correctly, they were offering a service to those who work in larger metropolitan cities that would allow the person to order food quickly through their mobile phone or other similar device.

They had a mobile site set up specifically for this service I’m sure so that people could quickly and easily access the information from a cell phone rather than having to log onto a computer and order.  The look of these wap sites is different than a normal website, but it makes it display properly on their mobile phone.  The food was then delivered to the person ordering also which made the service incredibly efficient.

I believe the service had to be set up specifically for use on mobile devices too because most websites won’t show up the same or provide the same ease of access when looked at by phone.

I never thought that it would come to me having to find a Utah divorce lawyer. When I said I do, I said it for the rest of my life and was not expected to be blindsided with the fact that my husband no longer loved me and decided that he would be better off without me.

I had never felt so hurt in my life and it was the first time that I was thankful tat we had been unable to have children. I put in a call to Eric K. Johnson, hoping that he would handle my case, as I was sure that we were going to be taking this one to court.

He did a great job on my behalf, and although I was sure that I had been happy in my marriage, I was really enjoying my freedom. I started living my life for me, no worrying what anyone else thought.

There is only one thing that really gets me angry when I own a website: when the hosting is down.  This makes me angry because if your site is not accessible to the world, then you can’t make money - it is as simple as that.

Most web hosting companies try to make sure that this never happens, but when you make the mistake (like I did) of purchasing cheap hosting, that is when you run into these problems.  Sure, the price I paid was only five dollars for the entire year, but I thought that it would be a lot more reliable than it has been.

Needless to say, I am sitting here now, looking for a new asp.net web hosting provider, and it is getting late.  It will take me at least an hour to get my site uploaded and re-installed once I do finally get the hosting, but chances are that my site will be down for at least two days.

If you ask me, that sucks.

I came across one of the most practical gadgets for cell phones the other day. It is not only a charger, but it has a little shelf  that is attached in some way to the charger’s plug, providing a perfect location to store your phone while it is re-charging. What a clever idea! How do people come up with these inventions?

It must be a mindset. I know I have an idea for keeping bugs from coming in around your windows when using a collapsible window screen. Why no one has come up with a solution for a product that’s been on the market for half a century is beyond me. The whole purpose of a window screen is to keep insects out, but propping the window open above the screen gives direct access to house for any number of flying and crawling insects. What were they thinking? It’s better than a wide open window, but in the throes of summer, not by much.

It may be Memorial Day but I’m working, not playing. I’m not feeling like a martyr. Not exactly. I’m dreading tonight.

I work in front of a window and our neighbors across the street are loud and sometimes obnoxious, so I hear things. Most are not fit for polite society.

But I digress. I don’t know if I’ve blogged here about this, but my sister is little-by-little fixing up Mom’s house. She had a window company install replacement windows downstairs. Well,  today I’m feeling jealous of my own mother.

See, if I had vinyl windows up here, I could shut out the noise emanating from the house across the street.  That would include exploding firecrackers that are threatening to send me into premature incontinence. But as it is, this old wooden window next to me is stuck wide open. I hope it doesn’t rain tonight. But if it does, maybe that will curtail the firecrackers. Oh! There goes another one. Oops. Gotta go…

When I created my first website many years ago, it was nothing to get real excited about.  I mean, when I put it together, I wasn’t so concerned about the looks as I was to the usefulness for the visitor.  If my site was pretty and useless, no one would come back, right?

Early on I learned that the portal I created needed to stand out from the crowd with unique features and usefulness in the eyes of the user.  Early on, I made sure to take advantage of the many news integration services available online and I provided my customers with the latest Internet trends news, as it was an SEO portal.

I still follow the same model today, many years later, and I have a huge following in terms of repeat visitors.  Now, all I have to do is figure out a better way to monetize the site, and it will be perfect.

I don’t watch that much television, but I found myself sitting there on the couch with it turned on.  I think it was on because I was a little tired, so I decided to do a bit of channel surfing to see what I could find.

Clicking through the channels quickly became boring until I stumbled upon a show about investing money.  It seemed like it would be interesting, so I thought that I would check it out.

On the show, they were talking about alternative investments for someone who would normally invest in shares.  Specifically, they were talking about the benefits of property investing and how easy of an investment that real estate can be.

What got me really excited was how easy it was to own multiple properties compared to purchasing your first one.

After watching the program, I think I will go down to the library and see if I can find some books on the subject - I think it is time that I make my money work for me.