Well, there is nothing like homemade dog food and treats – though I do not personally know what either taste like.  Okay, maybe I had a little taste when I made them, but I do not eat them regularly.

So, how do I know that they are good?

Well, my dog likes them.  He likes them so much that he pretty much won’t eat anything else – we haven’t bought any store bought dog food or dog treats for months.

We started making our own homemade dog food two months ago because my friend Beth dared me too.  She said I couldn’t do it and reminded me of the bad steak I made her years ago (yes that steak tasted like dog food – the meat was bad or something).

So, I took it upon myself to figure it out.  I checked online for some recipes, bought the groceries and tried it out.

We never looked back.

Our dog wolfed the food down the first time, and when we tried to give him the stuff we bought from the store he refused to eat it.  So, now when we make our supper, we also cook him his food for the next day.  It makes us feel like all of us are sitting down for a home cooked meal – I just hope we never mix up what we are eating with what the dog is eating – I just don’t want to ever try it.

My sister just went through an ordeal that just about ruined her life.  You see, she ran up a lot of credit card debt while in college to keep up with her need to shop.  Not long after getting out of college and starting her career, she moved out of my parents house.

Guess what she did?

She went shopping again.  This time for bigger ticket items such as furniture, a television, and of course clothes.  She thought things were going good until her credit cards started to come up as declined.  Pretty soon they were all over their limits, and she couldn’t make the minimum payments on all of them.

A few months into this, she started getting phone calls.  And more phone calls.  She was about to follow in my brother’s footsteps and have to go bankrupt.

Luckily, she received a phone call one day from a company that offered credit card negotiation services.  After talking to the salesperson, she decided that she would signup to their debt negotiation program.

They were able to get her some credit and bill consolidation help and reduce her monthly payments.  They also gave her some classes on responsible credit use.

Now, just two years later, she is debt free.  I think that she has learned her lesson from being on the edge of bankruptcy and is thankful for the help she received to get out of debt.

I was recently asked to teach a class at my nieces school about searching for a job, and what steps you need to take to get the interview.  This is the first week that I will be teaching it and I am very excited and a little scared about the whole project – it has been awhile since I taught a class.

As an outline for the first class, I have decided to cover how to make a resume with a regular pen and paper as well as take advantage of some of the services and tools that are available to us thanks to the Internet.

Part of these tools I am going to show them are resume writing services.  I am just going to touch on this topic, as I want them to learn how to write a resume and what to expect the resume to look like.

The other tool I will show them is an online resume builder.  In this instance all they have to do is fill in the blanks – and the site will spit out a resume.  It is definitely a good way to do it if you don’t have time to sit down – it helps you organize your ideas.

So, I just have to do some final tweaks on my presentation, but I think I am all ready.  I can’t wait until next week when we work on the interview process – that should be a little more fun.

Now, most people take their library for granted.  We assume it is always there, and to be honest, quite a few people don’t use it.  But for those of us who do, it is definitely a blessing.

In fact, just this week a friend of mine passed away and I was given the honor of giving the eulogy at the funeral.  Thing is – I have never written one and I had no idea how it was supposed to go.

So, I went over to the local library and found some books on how to write a eulogy.  Inside these books I was able to see some eulogy samples and find some great eulogy quotes I could incorporate into what I was writing.

I have started with a simple outline of what I want to write as I have over twenty years of friendship to draw upon when writing the eulogy.  As sad as I am to see Bill pass away, I am happy as he was in great pain with the Cancer he had.

Thankfully the library was able to help me out with what I needed to know.  We are definitely lucky to have a library in our community – if you have one in yours be thankful.

On the eve of my wedding, just three short years ago, I had a big problem.  You see, I needed to make a wedding toast – and to be honest, I had no idea what I was doing.  My wife to be was expecting a speech to remember – and that is what I wanted to deliver.

In order to deliver an award winning wedding speech, I needed to find some samples of wedding toasts to have some sort of guideline to go by.  I also was able to find some templates for instant wedding speeches and toasts – which provided me with all the samples I needed to make a killer speech.

I can remember spending weeks trying to pick out the things I loved about her, and the things I wanted to say.  It took me to the night before to create the speech I would say at the wedding.

If you ask her how it went, she would say it was one of the best moments of her life.  I can still remember her smiling and crying at the same time – she was so happy.  To this day, she still doesn’t know that I finished it the night before…

Sometimes it is nice to have a weekend off.  In fact, this weekend I have today (Saturday) off – which doesn’t happen very often.  Now, instead of running errands, or making my day really busy (which can easily happen on a day off), I have decided to just take a lazy day for myself.

I’ll let you guess where I ended up?  Right, sitting here at the computer.  I went to my favorite fun games website and looked for something to do.  I started off playing some fun puzzle games, but I quickly realized – I really wasn’t in the mood for anything that required a lot of brain power.  Besides, I was supposed to be enjoying my day, not working my brain.

So, instead I found some fun action games and played those instead.  You know the games I am talking about: shooting things, racing, and games that require a quick mouse press.

I think I will play for awhile and then go see a movie tonight.  Besides, I shouldn’t play games all day – my eyes and head will hurt too much from sitting in front of the computer.  I sure don’t want that to happen.

I have been considering investing in a franchise for a long time now, though I still have not found one to buy.  I have been keeping tabs on the top franchise opportunities, but nothing on the list gets me excited – and I would rather invest in something that is exciting for me.

One coffee shop that is strangely lacking in our town is Starbucks.  I have considered investing in a Starbucks franchise – but sadly they do not franchise their stores.  With that idea out the window, I am back to looking at lists again.

Back to the drawing board again.  I continued to search online for awhile and I did find something exciting: Subway.  Now, Subway is on the list of the fastest growing franchises, and I would rather be a part of a company that is growing rapidly instead of being part of some slow, old company.

I am going to look into this further.  I have requested a franchise information pack from the Internet, and I am sure I will get it in a few weeks.  I will have to make my mind up after I have a chance to look at the information.

I have noticed that my home office furniture affects my productivity.  I inadvertently ended up doing a study over the past month, with me as the guinea pig.

It all started about a month ago when I broke the back of my office chair.  The back was not broken off, but rather it ended up that the back of the chair moved where it hurt my back instead of supporting it properly.  The other thing that happened about a month ago was my keyboard drawer ripped out of my desk, forcing me to put my keyboard on top of the desk.  I couldn’t work more than an hour at a time, since between the two things, my back was very painful.

About two weeks ago, I decided it was time to get some new office furniture, as I wasn’t getting anything done.  I bought a new desk and one of those mesh office chairs and got rid of the old office furniture.

What has changed?

Two weeks have passed since I replaced the furniture and I have noticed a big difference.  I am spending more time at my desk and getting more work done, because it is so comfortable to sit there.  In fact, I would argue that my new office chair is the most comfortable chair in the house.  So, if you ask my opinion, office furniture affects productivity – it has sure made a difference in my case.

There is a winter carnival in our town every year in February.  The past few years I have volunteered in numerous capacities – everything from helping direct cars for parking, to security, and food preparation.  This year I have been given a larger role: getting mobile ATM machines for the event.

In the past, we just had a local bank bring out bank machines – there was a small rental fee and we made no income.  This year we have decided to check into renting some mobile ATM’s – with the goal of earning revenue from the transaction fees.

I have a list of ATM rental companies that I will be contacting to secure the machines we need.  Even though the carnival is not for a few months yet, we want to be sure that everything goes smoothly – and that is why I am looking into this now, not later.

The last time I had a to be in the hospital recovering from surgery, I was so worried that I would be bored.  I mean, I live a pretty active lifestyle, and for me to be stuck in a bed for a few days, that was a scary prospect to me.  I just really needed to find something to do.

There was one bright thing about the hospital I was staying at: they had wireless Internet in the rooms.  I was excited about this prospect, because it meant that I could bring my notebook with me.

So what did I do with my time?

I decided to do something that I hadn’t done in a long time: I did some free online crossword puzzles.  Since I wasn’t allowed to use my arm that I write with, doing crossword puzzles on the computer was better for me than using a book.  It also was less messy than using a pencil – the nurses appreciated that I kept my bed tidy (the nurses were a little fussy).

I even tried a free crossword puzzle maker, but the pain killers on made my mind a little fuzzy, so I didn’t come up with much.  I think if I ever have to stay in the hospital again (I hope not), I think I will bring my laptop again – my stay wasn’t boring at all.