New Banner Site

Sike Graphics did my banner and I think he did a pretty good job on it. Right now he is offering his standard banners/headers for $5.00 a piece. Custom banners will be available soon. I'm going to have him do some other headers for me too.

Another Pair of Work Boots

I don't know about you, but my husband is very hard on his clothing and shoes. Every time I turn around, he is telling me he needs new pants or work boots. He works out in the field a lot and what I don't understand is that he will wear his new shirts out in the hot sun. After a while, the collars on his shirts start to fade out and they look horrible.

His work boots always end up with holes in them. I went to worksbootsusa.com and found a whole slew of boots to choose from. They have several brands including Timberland, Wolverine, Caterpillar, Converse and more. They offer free ground shipping on orders over $50.00. They have a wide range of prices so it is easy to find one in your price range.

This boot website needs links so please check them out and give them some business.

Christmas Presents in July

The art fair in the park was great! Usually when I go, it's the same old stuff and I end up not getting anything. This year, I went because I wanted to get a head start on some Christmas presents and I wasn't disappointed.

I ended up buying a beaded necklace and earrings for a friend. I also found for myself some Chinese characters painted on tile and framed. It will go perfect with the other items in my Asian theme living room.

At least I made a little dent in my shopping for the holidays.

Skin Problems

I was noticing my son's acne problems were starting to get worse again. Sometimes his skin looks very good but because he has been having to sunscreen a lot lately, the oil from the lotion appears to be causing his skin to erupt again.

Lakeviewderm.com offers treatments for acne,moles, psoriasis, rosacea, spider veins and more. They even offer Park Ridge Botox treatments for wrinkles, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and laser resurfacing.

It's too bad these dermatologists are located in the Chicago, Illinois area. I would consider using them for my son's condition.

The Dark Knight

Yesterday, my family and I spent a fun day going to an art fair, shopping and then to see the Dark Knight. I wasn't sure that I wanted to see it even though I had heard it was very good. The critics said it was haunting and very dark and I didn't want to be depressed.

No other movies were showing at the same time so I ended up seeing batman with the rest of the family. It turned out to be great and I thought of course, Heath Ledger's characterization of the Joker was nothing short of phenomenal. The reviews were right. I also liked the idea that good and evil were the flip side of the same coin. The movie had some really thought provoking scenarios on human behavior that I found quite interesting.

All in all, a big thumbs up on this one!

Personal Loans

I hate to keep harping on the lousy economy but unfortunately that is what's on the forefront of everybody's mind. It was a nice relief to see the gas prices drop a little bit but will it stay that way? I doubt it.

I am quite concerned about the food prices and everything else that is now going through the roof. People are being stretched thin and I am not sure where it is all going to lead except that this cannot be good.

I found Personal Loans Online that may help ease the burden. They have loans available up to $15,000.00 and even people with no credit or bad credit can apply. The processing is easy and quick.

As with any site, please read the terms of use very carefully and research the site before making any commitments.

New Banner Business

My son wanted to start a business. He's only 14 and so now he is doing headers for websites and blogs. He just designed mine for my site. I told him that if he wanted to do different headers for my blog, I would rotate them around. He is working on a website to advertise his business and so I will have more on that later. His prices are $15- $20 for custom headers and $5.00 for his standard ones. I think he has a knack for it so we will see how it goes.

Alzheimer's Memory Walk

We have been touched with Alzheimer's as my father-in-law was diagnosed about 5 or 6 years ago. He took all the tests and then immediately went on medication. The medicine has slowed the progression of the disease. His short term memory is starting to be affected but he is still doing pretty well considering his diagnosis.

About 5 years ago, I remember meeting my father-in-law's sister at a 50th anniversary party and she must have asked me the same question, 20 times. I couldn't believe that she was still driving around because she was obviously having some memory issues. Shortly after that she passed on. Alzheimer's seems to be very prevalent in the family. My husband's dad's dad had it pretty bad and died of it back in the 70's.




The Alzheimer's Memory Walk put on by the Alzheimer's Association is the largest event in the country and involves walks in over 600 communities. Volunteers of all ages are being asked to participate in these walks to help raise awareness, funds and research to fight this deadly condition. The walks themselves are 2 to 3 miles in length. Sign up to volunteer or become a team captain. Let's find a cure!

Back From Our Short Trip

We ran down to see my nephew play in his soccer tournament. It's too bad that we don't live closer. Have never gotten to see him or his sister play anything because we live about 12 hours away. Since his tournament was in Portland, it was a doable drive for us.

Got there on Friday evening and found out that our motel room only had 1 bed to it for 4 people and no rollaways to be had. All other rooms were booked up. Thank goodness they gave us a king size bed. At least 3 of us got something to sleep on. One of my sons had to sleep in the chair.

Anyway, my nephew, had a good first game. He headed in a ball to score at the beginning of the game. His team held onto the lead but lost it in the second half when the opposing team scored 3 goals. The next day, my nephew was injured in the first minute of the game and then was benched for the remainder. A little bit of a downer for us but his team did well and won.

We had to leave after that to go home. My nephew was able to play the next day and they won their semi-final match but still haven't heard from my brother whether they took home the championship or not.

Iderma.com

Now that I am at the ripe age of 50, I am paying more attention to my skin. New anti aging products are all over the place and I am considering using them. Iderma.com sells Azure Cosmeceuticals which use hydropeptides to boost collagen and elastin production which reduces wrinkles. Iderma also sells Mineral Makeup which has great coverage and UV protection. They carry several brands of anti-aging cosmetics including CaliDerma,Heliocare,Elta MD and more. I, for one, will be checking them out.

More Opportunities

I don't know what is going on but it seems like there have been more opportunities available lately. Has anyone noticed this too? Since I signed up for SocialSpark.com,I have seen an increase so I think it must be making a difference. I hope it keeps up and I will continue to blog as fast as my little fingers will let me type.

Save Money Through Dealking.com

With the economy in dire straits, I have been looking at all avenues to save some extra money. Dealking.com is a site that lists hot deals and offers coupons to several stores. They also offer cash back to Old Navy,Sears, Target, Toys R Us and many more. Including Christopher and Banks which is one of my favorite stores and they offer a 3% cashback there.

Sign-up for the DealKing affiliate program. This is a new program where Dealking will pay bloggers for anyone that signs up. More money can be made if that person purchases an AT&T Go Phone. You can receive $25.00 cash back and then another $5.00 for each phone sold.

I am definitely bookmarking this site for future reference.

Good Delicious Recipes

I was looking around the internet and found some great recipes on the Jenny Craig site.
All you have to do is register and then the recipes are available to you for free. I don't need to lose very much weight but I wanted to prepare recipes that I knew would be healthy for my family.



This chicken dish was called Sweet'n Sour Glazed Chicken. Can be made under 30 minutes and only had 216 calories. It was delicious!

Paintball

My kids have taken up the sport of airsoft where they shoot each other with plastic pellets. Eye protection should also be worn as the bb's can take out an eye and as we found out, a tooth. Much to my horror, one of the neighbor's kids had their mouth open and their front tooth was shot out. I have banned my kids from playing it at least temporarily until they buy a full face mask.

Since the ban, my sons have been exploring paintball and have been begging me to take them to a paintball course. I was checking out the Ultimate Paintball website and saw that they were selling a good selection of gear including BT Paintball Marker Guns, Masks,Woodland Digi Pants, vests,bulletproof chest protectors and free shipping for orders over $99.00. From what I can see, at least with paintball, you are covered from head to foot with protective gear so it seems that may be the safer way to go than airsoft.

Quick Trip

This weekend, we are going to run down to Portland and see my nephew play soccer. He's coming up from California and this will be the first time we will get to see him play. He's pretty good as he made his high school varsity team as a freshman last year.

I know my boys will enjoy a break from the remodeling and we plan to maybe hit the museum and the Saturday Market too if they are game and do some shopping which I know they will not turn down.

It's a beautiful city that's for sure.

Northern Trust Bank

Scary times are upon us and it doesn't look like there will be a quick fix in the near future. My husband and I are 10 years out from retirement and with stocks dropping and oil prices going through the roof, retirement may be out of the question.

Personal financial planning services at Northern Trust may help with rebuilding your goals for retirement. My husband and I have plans to travel the world and with help we may still be able to live out our dreams. Northern Trust is a premiere bank. They are global leaders in asset management and services. Whether it be financial planning,private banking, business banking, trust and estate services and more, Northern Trust can meet your needs.

With careful planning, I am hoping we can weather this storm and still come out ahead!

Stain Disaster

I was prepping my closet doors for staining and had to get some kind of pre-stain so that when I did finally stain, it would go on evenly. Did that and then went to apply stain. It was too light almost clear and not at all what the picture showed on the can. I was racing for the hardware store before it closed for the day, went and got a darker stain. Raced back home because I had to apply the stain within 2 hours of the pre-stain.

Again the stain was too light. I kept applying it but it never got darker. Not only that but the stain was uneven in places. The prestain did not do its job!

Thankfully, I have a back-up plan and that is to paint the doors the same color as the walls. I think that will be the best option but OMG what a headache and of course more work for me. The temperatures are hitting the 90's so I am going to wait until evening to start painting the doors.

New Affordable Eye Wear

Both my sons vision have changed for the worse over the last few years. Unfortunately they have inherited the bad genes for eyesight from both sides of the family. The boys have been complaining that their glasses needed to be updated to a stronger prescription.



ZenniOptical.com offers great prescription glasses starting at $8.00. They also sell bifocal lenses, anti scratch, uv protection, and more for extremely affordable prices. The secret to their low cost is that they sell direct to the customer with virtually no advertising or middle man. It was difficult to buy new glasses for the boys every year because our insurance didn't cover any of it but with ZenniOptical.com that won't be a problem any longer.

Catch Zenni on MyFoxWGHP.com

Chinese Herbs for My Cat

Awhile back I had blogged about my cat having a weeping eye. We tried to take her to the vet but couldn't catch her. I found a site where they sell herbs to treat cats and dogs with certain ailments. I emailed the site and told them the problem. They sent me some herbs and I have been putting it into my cat's food every day. The only problem is that she needs to have 3 doses a day but since she lives outdoors, I don't know when she is going to show up. I have been giving her canned food so she has been coming around at least once a day for that treat. It has been a few weeks and her eye is looking much better. Check out pawhealer.com for natural and holistic medicines for your cat or dog.

More on Glenn Beck

I was perusing the Glenn Beck website again and found his blog. Having more liberal tendencies, I am sorry to say that I do not see eye to eye with him on some of his views but I am always willing to listen to the other side and not discount it just because it's coming from a conservative perspective. I do agree with his opinion that sexual crimes against children are treated as minor offenses when they should be treated a lot more seriously. For those of you who are interested in hearing his take on various politics with a humorous edge, he will be performing at the Dallas Majestic Theater on July 17th. This show will be broadcasted nationwide to select theaters.

Doors and More Doors

This past week, I have been staining the inside of my French Doors and they did come out looking great except the stain is a shade lighter than what the bedroom door will be. Since my French doors are fiberglass, I can wipe the stain off and start again if I am not satisfied. It's a little tricky because the longer I wait before I brush it, the darker it will become. I have to make sure that my two doors will match because it will be easy to leave one side on longer than the other. I also had to stain one side of the grilles. Later I will be painting the outside of the French doors white as the outside of the grilles. I bought another stain to do the closet doors. I tried to match it to the French doors and to my bedroom door which will be done in the same stain as the bathroom vanity. Not sure how it will all look with 3 different stains. The match will not be exactly the same. I am trying to save myself another $300.00 by staining the closet doors myself instead of the cabinet makers. It has been a long 3.5 months and I am beginning to see that there is an end to all of this.

Who the Heck is Glenn Beck?

I have been listening to conservative talk radio all year although I am not a conservative just to see what views the other side has been spouting these days. I came across Glenn Beck who has a popular conservative talk radio show which airs over 260 stations and also has a TV show on CNN's Headline News.
A political satirist, he is doing a summer political comedy tour. On July 17th, he will be performing live from Dallas and that performance will be broadcasted to select theaters across the country via FathomEvents. There are several videos and interviews posted on GlennBeck.com. His video on free health care pokes fun at the Democrats and their push for a more socialized health care system. If you are conservative or not and enjoy a laugh or two, you may want to check this guy out.

Cholesterol Check Results

I had blogged on my cholesterol earlier about going in to get it checked. Well I got the results back and it was 198. A lot better than last time at 227. My good cholesterol number could have been a little better but all in all I am happy with the improvement. I have oatmeal every single day and I have been exercising at least 30 minutes 4 to 5 days a week. I would like to see it even lower but for now I am satisfied with the results.

Alternative to Embryonic Stem Cells

I was at a wedding reception this past weekend and ran into a high school teacher who had a science student that was doing regeneration work on insects. They had given the insect some grape extract and the insect regrew a leg that it had lost. Normally the insect will partially grow the leg back but in this experiment, the entire leg was regenerated and that was really exciting news. The teacher also told me that regeneration can occur in humans too. If you cut the tip of your finger off, often times that will grow back. I was flabbergasted, I had never heard of that before.

That incident reminded me of the type of work stem cell researchers are doing today. I find the subject extremely fascinating . Stem cells are unspecialized cells that can be used to regenerate tissue or different types of cells. The potential benefits for Alzheimer, spinal cord injury,Parkinson's, diabetic, arthritis,and stroke victims is enormous. The flip side is that there is a huge controversy over whether or not embryos should be used to harvest the stem cells that are needed to continue this type of research.

Little did I know that there may be an alternative to using these cells. It appears that women's menstrual blood also contains stem cells that exhibit similar properties to bone marrow and embryonic cells.


There is a company called Celle that allows women to collect their menstrual blood and using a cryo preservation technique, the sample will be stored for an annual, semi annual or quarterly fee . These cells may have the potential in the future for treating some of the debilitating diseases like diabetes, osteoporosis and etc. There is a Celle Client Testimonial video that talks about the benefits of storing the cells for future use and for use by other family members.

Here is a press release with more details about the company:

Taking Control: Future Therapies for a Host of Serious Diseases May Be Found in Women's Menstrual Blood

July 07, 2008: 01:28 PM EST


OLDSMAR, Fla., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- With today’s hectic lifestyle, where most women are juggling careers, family, relationships, and a host of activities, the idea of possibly facing a serious illness in the future is not something that readily comes to mind -- especially when a woman is in the prime of her life. But what most women don’t know, is that the key to treating a number of possibly life-threatening diseases that she, a parent, a sibling or even her children may face in later years, such as osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, may be found within her own body -- in vital stem cells, which can now be harvested from her own menstrual blood.

Now, thanks to the revolutionary research and technology of C’elle, a service dedicated to providing women with a safe and easy method of collecting and preserving stem cells found in her menstrual fluid each month, even the busiest woman can take control of her future, right in the privacy of her own home. With C’elle’s non-invasive collection process, menstrual cells are processed and cryo-preserved (stored at a very low temperature) for potential cellular therapies that may be used in the future. These self-renewing cells one day may even be used for sports medicine or cosmeceutical treatments, such as anti-aging therapies.

"C’elle enables and empowers a woman to take control of her future health, and possibly of those genetically closest to her, in a fast, painless and stress free way," said Michelle Kay, Marketing and Sales Manager for C’elle. "We live in exciting times, as science and technology are discovering how extremely valuable menstrual blood stem cells really are, and the enormous treatment potential they represent for future therapies. C’elle’s ongoing research is supporting these promising findings."

For more information about C’elle, please call 1-877-892-3553 or visit www.celle.com.


I have never heard of such a service and it seems quite unbelievable like something out of a futuristic science fiction movie. But at the same time, it is exciting new cutting edge technology and my hope is that stem cell research will continue to progress so that some of these diseases will be eradicated.

The Fourth Month

We are well into our fourth month and the remodeling is progressing slowly. I finally painted the entire room and master bath. My husband has tiled the shower but now we are waiting for the double sink vanity to be finished. The cabinet makers told me they would be ready in maybe another 2.5 weeks. It's been about 2 months since I put the order in and we can't put in the tile floor nor the engineered hardwood floor in the bedroom until the vanity is finished. I have been running around ordering sinks, faucets, shower heads, shower doors and the wood floor. I can't believe how expensive the bathroom is becoming. The faucet fixtures themselves were $900.00 alone. The shower door I wanted would have been another $800.00 but I settled for a less expensive model. On top of that, my money market account fired off a warning letter that I was withdrawing too often as there was a 6 withdrawal limit per month. Obviously, I did not read the small print when I signed up and I was sweating bullets because I thought they would send my checks back unpaid. Thankfully they did not but now I have to charge everything so I can pay it off in one lump sum. Next I have to stain the French doors and closet doors. I decided to get unfinished closet doors and I hope I don't regret the decision. It was either that or mirrored or white doors. I just made more work for myself.

My family reunion cruise is not looking so hot either. I have been working with a travel agent and have called Costco and another outfit trying to get the lowest rates. Looks like we don't have enough people to get the group discount. Costco gave us the best rate for the 3 day cruise to Mexico but still it will be a lot. About $1500 for a family of four and that does not include airfare. My brother pointed out that we can stay on land in a hotel with meals for about 1/2 that price. Trying to find something that fits everyone's budget is going to be tough.

Family Reunion Cruise

Down in San Antonio, I found out that it is going to be my brother's and my turn to organize the reunion for next year. My sister-in-law came up with a 3 day Mexican cruise. I thought it was a great idea. We have some elderly relatives, my parents included, that can't get around real well but love to gamble. The ship will have all these things on board plus plenty of activities for the younger generation.

Since, I have been back, I have been doing some preliminary checking. Right now the only 3 day cruise to Mexico is the one to Ensenada offered by Carnival and it's the party cruise. I called a travel agent and she wouldn't recommend it because she didn't think it would be a good fit for the reunion. Our other option is the 4 day cruise to Cabo San Lucas.

One good thing I found out is that passport cards are now available and they cost only $45.00 for adults compared to the $100.00 for the regular passport books. The cards would only be good for land and sea travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. This might be a better alternative for the seniors. My family also need to apply for 2 passports too. The wait for passports has gone down to 4 weeks from 3 months so I was glad to hear that.

I guess I will have to do some more checking around although I have only found 2 cruises so far that fit our time frame. I am glad I have a year to plan this.