I am not a person who enjoys shopping, especially at Christmastime. Several years ago, I tried to figure out a way to avoid this. I tried shopping early on in the year for Christmas, but this failed, as nobody knows what they want for Christmas in March.

I was so busy one year that I made everyone gift baskets with homemade bottles of wine and jams. These proved to be very popular that I decided to try it again the next year. Everyone still loved it, so I have made it a tradition now.

It is such a win-win situation. My family and friends all get the baskets that they are looking forward to and I never have to set foot in a crowded mall at Christmastime. As for the nieces and nephews, they get gift certificates for the movie theatre and I know they enjoy that.

For my parents twenty-fifth anniversary, my brother and I decided that we were going to send them on a cruise. They are both very hard working people, who have always given us everything that we ever needed, and as this was something that they would never consider doing for themselves, we decided it would be the best gift we could give them.

I wanted to make sure that they had nothing to worry about, so I picked up some extra brochures on medical tourism companies. I know that my dad would be concerned about this and I decided it would be best to leave this decision up to them.

They were so surprised when we gave them the gift. My mom was delighted, as I know that she would love to see more of the world. They had such a good time that they are actually considering making it an annual event. Good for them.

I have always laughed at those infomercials where the really pretty girl says that she is going to stay in on the weekend and find local singles. You know for a fact that she is not one of those people that stays in and chats with creepy guys on the phone.

I am all for free online dating sites, but I really don’t get the phone ones. At least on the websites, you can see what the person looks like. I think that if someone is desperate enough to open a voicemail box with the telephone singles than they are either ugly or pathetic or both.

I guess that this may sound pretty judgmental, but I have yet to meet a happy couple that met over the phone. I know several people who met over the Internet, but none that have met over the phone. All I have to say for the people that try it is to get a life.

One of the most frustrating things for me as a business owner is that most of the time, I am just flying by the seat of my pants.  Sure, I do have a plan, but having never been a business owner before, I am finding the learning curve a bit steep.

The biggest challenge that I have faced so far is how to position myself in a market that is saturated.  You see, I operate a restaurant in a city that has the largest number of restaurants per capita in the country.  That not only presents a problem, but it puts me in the situation where if I don’t figure things out fast, my company will be out of service.

In an attempt to place myself better in the market, I have hired a professional logo design service to help me out.  They will give my business a logo with which to work under, and I am expecting great things from working under a new banner.

I will be able to put it to the test in a couple of weeks when they deliver me the final product - hopefully my sales will reflect the new look.

I went down to one of the local stock trading brokerages in town today to get an account.  I decided that I would try my hand at trading on the stock market with a thousand dollars just to get the feel of how it worked.

I had been trading on a virtual stock exchange, and things had gone very well with it, with my portfolio posting huge returns on investment.  In fact, since the virtual market mirrored the real one, it seemed that it was going to be just as easy in real life, though I guess I did have something to lose.

So, once I signed up for the brokerage account today, they gave me a beginners investors package that came complete with guides on how to trade stocks, and mentioned trading on the QQQQ.  I will have to read it over before I make my first trade, but I feel that I have finally taken steps in the right direction when it comes to my financial future.  I’ll just have to see where that path leads me.

When I first hooked up my phone I was pretty excited.  It was the first time that I had a phone number that was in my own name and I would finally have my own name in the phone book.  Bear in mind that I was pretty young at the time, so small stuff like this did get me excited.

Since I was living in a town where my parents didn’t live, I needed long distance.  I asked the phone company what that would cost and they told me that I would have to pay a deposit as well as their highest rate for the calls.  This didn’t sit well with me, and since I didn’t have any history with them, there was nothing I could do about it.

So, instead of going with the phone company, I found some cheap calling cards that would allow me to call long distance at less than half the price of what the phone company wanted to charge me.

The added benefit was that I could use the calling cards anywhere - there is definitely some freedom in being able to call anyone, anywhere.

Shortly after I turned thirty, I came to a realization in my life. I had always been overweight and I was winded one day when my little boy wanted me to play soccer with him. I knew that there was no way that I should be outperformed by a four year old, and I decided that I was finally going to do something about it. I did not want to only live to see my kids grow up, but I wanted to have the energy to experience life with them.

I started to lose weight, but I was still lacking the energy that I wanted to have to play with the kids. A friend of mine suggested that I try Zeolite, stating that it would rid my body of bad toxins and that it had definitely helped her in the energy department.

I decided to give it a try and after only three weeks, I felt absolutely incredible. I had more energy than I had ever had before and I actually wanted to get out and exercise. For the first time, since having the realization about losing weight, I knew I was going to be a success.

While I was online the other day, searching for some free Macbook air software downloads, I came across a game that I am now addicted to. I have no idea how it came up in my searches, but I am so glad that I found it. It is called Fairy Godmother Tycoon and I have pretty much been playing nonstop since I found it.

I will admit that I am not getting enough sleep, but I am still making it to work on time. Though, I think about the game a lot at work and cannot wait to get home and play it again. I am not looking forward to the day that I wrap the game, as I know that means it is over, and I never go back and replay games.

I guess that I can always find a new game to love and enjoy when I am finished this one. The worst thing is that I never did find the software I was looking for.

One day, while driving to another city with my toddler in tow, our car decided to just up and die. I was very thankful to have roadside assistance and I did not hesitate to call the toll free service that they provided. They sent a tow truck for us and we soon made it back to the city, where I decided to call my husband and let him know what had happened.

We had the car towed to a local mechanic’s shop and decided to sit tight and see what he had to say about it. He called later on that day and told us that the best thing we could do for that car was to drive it off the bridge and never think about it again.

I had no idea that the car had been in that bad of shape or I never would have thought of being on the highway with it. We have a new car now and I am so grateful that I had a list of toll free numbers to get me and my daughter out of a bad situation.

If you have ever tried to create something more complex than a basic menu for your website, chances are you have become frustrated - really frustrated.  I found that when I tried to create a web menu from scratch, the coding was all of a sudden out of my league.

But I wanted my site to look at least as good, if not better than the competition.  I figured that if my site looked more professional than the competition, I would have a better chance of generating the sales I needed so that I could quit my “real” job - so it was very important to me.

After searching online for a solution, I found a company that sold quick and easy web design software that would take care of all that tough coding without me requiring any coding knowledge. 

Needless to say, I picked up a copy really quick and now I am enjoying how easy it is to create sites - sure beats coding them myself.