I’ve been watching the television show series Ax men on the History channel lately. I ask my wife to tape it for me and then I watch the tape later on during the week when I have time. Sometimes I forget to ask her to tape it for me, and then I get angry at her for not remembering to tape it! I forget that she is juggling a lot of things and expect her to remember every single detail of what I want. So then I get mad at myself for getting mad at her! Oh well, she is a forgiving woman! Fortunately I’ve found that the show is on several times every week so if I forget to ask her to tape it I can usually watch it again later on anyway. So it’s all good.

Over the course of my life, I have had to take several student loans to get through college. I was not a good enough student in high school to get many scholarships or grants, and my folks were not in an economical position to pay for my schooling. If I wanted to go to college, then I needed to get as many college loans as I could get. Unfortunately, the college expenses exceeded the amount of money that I could borrow through the subsidized programs and I even had to get a couple of private student loans to finish up.

I’m really glad that I was able to get these loans to get my college degree, but I have to admit that I am finding it difficult to make the payments on the loans.  I’m worried that with this economy going the way it seems to be going (prices keep going up) that I’m going to be having to ask for a hardship deferral on the loans, which is something that I really don’t want to have to do.  I want to get them paid off!

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about how the paper version of newspapers are obsolete, and that the newspapers are going to go out of business; being replaced by online news. I’d hate to think that were true; I like getting the paper newspaper. I like to take it with me to work, to read on my breaks. I like to take it in the car with me and read when I’m waiting for someone to meet me.

I use the newspaper a lot after the reading is over. I use it to wash my mirrors and windows. I use it to line the carpet to protect it from kitty litter when I’m cleaning the litter box. And, when I have puppies, I use it as an aide to house break them. If I had birds (I used to, but don’t now!) I’d use the newspapers to line their cages.

Veterinarians and animal rescue leagues need used newspapers to line their cages. Schools need newspapers to teach social studies and current events.

I hope that the paper version of the newspaper sticks around for a very long time to come!

I think it is very interesting how the elementary school children in the public school system are taught one version of American history and that it takes a very long time for them to learn about all of the “skeletons” in the American closet!  Once they learn about all of the sordid details of the “bad” parts of the American history, it’s a miracle that they have any patriotism left at all!  I think it’s only natural for the college students to become disappointed and disillusioned with the country.

Which is really too bad, because even thought there have been a lot of bad things in the American past, the country IS growing and trying to improve!  The fact that the American President is bi-racial is proof of that growth!  I think that the American flag is going to be getting a lot more respect now that President Obama is making so many positive changes.

We have an American flag that hangs on a bracket attached to a post on our front porch.  It is getting pretty rough looking; I am thinking that it is just about time we got a new one.  I’d like to get a tall flagpole to install in our garden as a centerpiece and put a new flag there.  I think that would look really nice.

In my opinion, people should be diligent about making sure that they have enough insurance, both for their homes and the vehicles.  These are big ticket items that would devastate someone financially if something bad happened to them and the owners could not afford to fix them up.  However, in this economy, people need to pay careful attention to what insurance they are buying; they want to make sure to get the best value for their money!

With that in mind, I think it is wonderful that you can get Online Instant Insurance Quotes to help you find out what is available “out there” without having to make a lot of phone calls.  I love how you can get Auto Insurance Quotes and Home Insurance Quotes with just a few clicks of the mouse and keyboard!  You can get all of the information you need in the comfort of your own home!  Isn’t technology wonderful?

I guess I just wasn’t paying attention to the calendar because I was surprised yesterday to see so many people with ash marks on their heads today.  Everywhere I went I saw a lot of people with black smudges on their foreheads.  I never really understood what Ash Wednesday was about, the religious significance of it, why it’s done, pretty much anything about it.  I remember as a kid I asked my parents about it and they just told me “that’s something the Catholics do on Ash Wednesday.’  And then I said “oh” and left it at that.  I’ve thought about asking someone who has ashes on their forehead about it, but did not want to seem stupid.  I guess I’ll google it!

I was given a crock pot today by my sister Amy. She had just bought a new one, and thought I might like to have her old one. Paula was thrilled to get the crock pot, too! We’ve never cooked in a crock pot before! Amy gave us the cook book that came with the crock pot, but it doesn’t really have very many recipes in it. Only a few of them sound like anything we’d like to try.

Paula decided we should try to find some crock pot recipes online, so we used a new search engine called Daymix.com that Amy told us to try to find the recipes. The search experience resulted in a few leads on some good places to get crock pot recipes, and it referred us to a few blogs about cooking in a crock pot. One of the blogs wrote about converting recipes from oven to crock pot and from crock pot to oven, which I thought was really helpful!

I read that the New York Post offered a half- ***ed apology for their very offensive editorial cartoon that depicted two police officers shooting a chimpanzee and implying that a monkey could have drafted a better stimulus package.  Their apology was sort of “if we really offended you, we’re sorry but if you are only pretending to be offended and are really just trying to stir up trouble for us because you are our enemy, then we aren’t sorry at all!”

Then they go on to claim that they were not targeting the President, but Congress in general.  Well, since WE, THE PEOPLE elect ALL OF THEM to office, then WE SHOULD BE OFFENDED that they are telling US that we are pretty stupid to be electing a bunch of monkeys to run our government!  And if we ARE that stupid, who is to blame?  The NEWSPAPERS who did not give us enough information about the candidates who were elected!  If we are to be expected to elect people to run the country, we need to have enough information about them to make SMART decisions, and that responsibility SHOULD lie with the news media!

I think that it is great that so many car manufacturers are developing, manufacturing, and selling a variety of hybrid vehicles.  Finally they are starting to respond to what the consumers actually want and need!  I’d like to buy a new vehicle in the next couple of years, once the economy settles down a little bit and we are a little bit more confident with our financial status.  For now, we are looking at cars like the honda civic hybrid 
and the toyota camry hybrid as the frontrunners for our car search.

My brother has been telling me that he wants to buy the new audi a3.  I was reading about that car on the website thecarconnection.com and think that it is a nice looking car.  I was surprised to read in that review that they seem to think that Americans in general don’t like hatch-backs and wagons.  I love them!

As you may have noticed in the recent thread of posts, I’m trying to find ways to stretch our budget. It would be a good idea to try to find ways to increase our income, too! My brother-in-law tells me that he has been making extra money web hosting. I asked him how he managed to do that, and he told me to read the article on the web hosting webpage published by the webhostinggeeks.com.

So I’ve been reading their website, and found that they have a lot of interesting articles about web hosting, and that they rate and review a lot of web hosting providers.  I was surprised and impressed that they have even created a web page that rates and reviews “green” web hosting providers!  I was comparing their rates with the other web hosting providers and saw that their prices were very competitive!  I’ll have to give some thought as to whether or not this type of business would be a good fit for our family.

I know so many people that are only happy if they are complaining.  That really is a sad way to live a life, isn’t it?  No matter what, they always find fault with every little thing.  I try hard to find the good in things, to find a reason to be happy and content.  I’ve always felt that whatever it is you are looking for, you will find it.  If you are looking for the flaw, you will find it.  If you are looking for the benefit, you will find it.

There is a website called mindfullivingtv.com that has been created by the renowned Dr. Kathleen Hall that is dedicated to teaching you how to lead a happier life.  There are television episodes you can watch, and articles you can read.  If you want to learn how to improve your life, check out this website!

I was reading the web hosting articles and tutorials that I found today on the webhostingrating.com website.  My sister asked me to teach her how to set up her own web page, and I figured that I really didn’t know that much about it to really teach someone else!  So I turned to the Internet to try to educate myself better.  My mother always used to say that the best way to learn something is by teaching it to someone else!  I think she was right!

One of the things that I like about this particular web site is that it has recommendations based on ratings and reviews for the top 10 web host companies, but it also reviews and rates companies that provide cheap web hosting too.  There’s a lot of information packed into this site!

I’m starting to get my 1099′s and W-2s in the mail – I’m getting anxious to start doing my taxes!  I’m hoping for a big refund check this year.  I’m in a little bit of a quandary, though.  I got both Turbo Tax and H&R’s Tax cut software in the mail for free, and I’m not sure which one I really want to use!  I know they are both good programs!  What to do, what to do!?  What would you recommend?

When I was a kid, just getting out of high school and looking to go to college, I had to apply for college scholarships to help me pay for my college education.  I was also lucky enough to get some grants and student loans to help me with tuition costs.  It took a long time to pay off the student loans, so I recommend to any and everyone that they should try to get as many free college scholarships and grants that they can scrape up to help them with their college expenses.

Many scholarships are based on prior academic achievement, but some can be won by entering competitions, or signing up for free scholarships offers that involve earning points and redeeming them.  However you can get a scholarship, today’s student really should check out all of the different options.

One of my nephews was really fortunate to be given full scholarship to the college of his choice, but he earned that through a lot of hard work in high school.  He never got a grade lower than an “A” his entire scholastic life!   And he took as many advanced placement classes as he possibly could take, and participated in community service organizations and played on several sports teams.  His scholarships have been hard won, but his work paid off – he is getting his college education for free!  Scholarships are a great thing!