When my son was three years old, we had a terrible experience with his daycare. Because of this, I decided that I needed to be able to stay at home with him. My husband and I started looking into options for an at-home business that I could run while taking car of Sam.

One of the things that our town was lacking was an outdoor adventure park for young children. It would be something that I could run and I would be able to take Sam to work with me every day. We found a place that had bouncy castles for sale and got to work on building our playground.

The first year, we had the castles and a mini golf course and the second year we added some inflatable slides. The park was a big hit and it was the perfect opportunity for our family to bring in an income and make sure that Sam was well taken care of.

I always wondered about sites that didn’t have htm or html file extensions. I would see pages ending in aspx and wonder what in the world it meant and what the difference was between that and html. Then I started seeing PHP pages and had the same question.

It took one of my online friends to explain why someone would use aspx or PHP. Well, he didn’t actually explain everything there is to know about them. My eyes would have glazed over 30 seconds into a technical description. But he was able to give me enough points of references so I could “get” it.

He said one of his clients wanted to use a particular script on her site and he recommended a windows environment for it. As a result she switched to asp.net web hosting.

As for php, I love the versatility and flexibility it provides on my blog. You’ve got to love the brilliance of programmers. God bless them!

When it comes to MLM success, there are a couple ways to achieve it. The first is by networking. A great networker can get some good MLM lead generation just by talking to everyone they meet. Not selling their product or selling their company, but just by talking to and meeting everyone they get in front of.

The other kind of person can do this too but in a somewhat different way. Maybe they are bit more shy about talking to people they don’t know, or who don’t know them. Blogging for profit can work to their advantage, because they can present the same information on line in a format where they can take their time to share who they are and meet new people without the fear of stumbling over their words or saying something dumb. Blogging offers several avenues for marketing and networking and lead generation for any business, without the fear of being in front of someone live.

I find it really frustrating when you find yourself at a decision that can make all the difference in the world to your life.  You know, the decisions where you decide to not where your seatbelt, or choose to buy the winning lottery ticket.

I ran into one of those situations recently, and I still haven’t decided what to do about it.  You see, I had a little bit of money that I received as inheritance from the death of my grandmother, and I was unsure of what I should do with it.

I asked my friends for advice, but they all had different suggestions.  Where one told me to invest in shares, the other told me to reduce debt.  Even my father had advice for me, he told me that I should use the money to get into property investing.

So, I still haven’t made up my mind yet as to what I should do.  With all these options, it might take me awhile to figure things out.

We are hoping to go to London in the next couple of years and want to take in the sights in safety and comfort so we are considering a limo hire for a tour through the city. With the terrorist threat, we would rather avoid public transit if we can.

Our friend who lives in London said that if we want a limousine hire a hummer to do it. Hummer limos have become quite the high class and fun new style of limo it would seem.

She told us of a couple more prominent companies who actually cater to special events and parties with themed hummers like the “ladies night” which is all pink and white, but she said most companies offer London tours also.

It will be a safe way to see all the tourist things and we may get a good idea of some of the more “local” attractions too if our driver is personable.

The one thing I hate the most about driving is the substantially increasing cost of car insurance. I have always been insured through the same company and it seems like my car insurance goes up every year. I would have thought that it would go down every year, as the value of the vehicle depreciates and every year that passes, they would have to pay less to replace the vehicle.

I was complaining this to my dad and he was also confused, as he says that his auto insurance decreases every year. He suggested that I call around and get some auto insurance quotes. I found a company that would charge way less than I was paying. I immediately switched my coverage over to them, but I was still angry that I had been paying without questioning it for so many years.

I know that it is mostly my own fault, for being so naïve, but I think it is all a little bit dishonest.

For the longest time, we have been using a switchboard in our office which has required us to have PIN numbers that we need to use each time we make a long distance phone call.  Though it does work okay, it can be rather tedious having to input the PIN number each time you make a call.

But there looks like there might be hope on the horizon.  You see, the switchboard hasn’t been working so well lately and management has been considering scrapping it and getting something new. 

Specifically, they are looking to buy some Asterisk hardware to replace the aging switchboard and move into the twenty first century.  We will also benefit from the VOIP long distance that the hardware will provide, and it will reduce the costs for the company.

I think that once they have upgraded the hardware, we will be having training sessions on how to use it.  It will be nice to have something change at work - there is just too much of a routine here.

One of my favorite things with the way that the world has become is that you can be more mobile, yet stay connected.  Sure, you can use a notebook computer to accomplish this, but honestly, even using my notebook doesn’t seem to be that convenient.

I would have to say that I am thankful that someone felt the same way when they made it so that cell phones could surf the Internet as well.  In fact, I love to surf mobile sites whenever I get the chance.

Sure, a mobile website is not as complete as the real thing, but honestly, it saves me from getting distracted.  I can just get what I need to get done, and get on with my life.

Also, I just can’t complain at all - it gives me something to do on the long bus ride to work.  I love living a mobile life.

Back in the day, shortly after my husband and I were married, we knew that it was imperative that we own our own business one day.  We were not sure what we wanted to do, but we knew that it would come to us when the time was right.  It was not long before we knew exactly what kind of business we were going to open.

While we were waiting for our house to be built we had to move to a small apartment.  There was no room for all of our things and we decided that we would put them into public storage Philadelphia until our house was finished.  We had such a difficult time finding a facility that had any room and we knew that the city needed more storage facilities.

Less than a year later we opened our first storage facility and now 10 years later, we have eight of them in the city and we have two of them in nearby cities as well.  The funny thing, as I still don’t think there is enough storage facilities and we could keep expanding and expanding to no end.

All things being equal, if I had the time, energy, inclination and money, I would go natural for everything. But since all those requirements are not likely to be met any time soon, I have to make decisions like replacement windows based on my abilities and capabilities. Prepping, painting, sealing and caulking wooden windows, much as I would prefer them, are not things for which I have either the time or expertise (or money to pay someone else to do them).

And all plastic and vinyl jokes aside, vinyl windows are practical, attractive and so easy to care for. They come in popular configurations, including tilt-ins for easy cleaning, adjustable locking mechanisms and just about any feature you might want. Well, except for “self-cleaning” which no one has invented yet - more’s the pity. Regardless of your preconceived ideas about vinyl versus wood, I recommend taking another look at vinyl replacement windows when you’re remodeling. Ours are beautiful, if not “natural.”