I recently had the opportunity to interview an old teacher of mine that was willing to talk to me about the education system and her views on the current environment in schools compared to the past.

Now she brought up quite a few points that I never really had thought of until I interviewed her.  She was very concerned that the parent involvement in schools had steadily decreased over the time that she had been teaching.  Many of her students have problems that she is aware of but does not have the time to help them.

If parent involvement in education was still a priority as it was when I was a child, she feels that her job would be easier.  She finds that even in Kindergarten, they are teaching more and more children basic skills they should have before they come to school.  Those kids that do come to school with the skills they should have may have behavioral problems because they are bored while the teacher teaches things they already know.

At the end of the interview, I asked her what would be the one thing that would change her students experience in the education system?  Her reply was parent involvement.  She argued that if the parents just took the time and cared about the education of their children, her job would be completely different.

Well I decided that maybe I should setup a website about Scrapbooking – it is my passion and I thought it would be nice to share that with the world.  Being new to the whole "website thing" I really didn’t know where to start except I needed to get a domain name.

I read online somewhere that I would need web hosting as well.  I looked around and found some free web hosting, but I don’t care for them putting ads on my site.  I should be in control of what is on my web pages, and I quickly decided against the free option.

I did manage to find some affordable web hosting for just five bucks a month.  They even had a tutorial to show me how to setup a basic website – and so far it looks okay.  Even though I was overwhelmed at first, it really was not that hard – all I had to do is read about my options and pick from there.

Looking for a job is never fun, so I want to get an interview and get a job ASAP.  That being said, I didn’t want to do a lot of work to get to that point – in fact, as little work as possible.  Common sense tells me that I cannot speed up the interview process at all, so I looked to my resume for the answer.

Sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper hoping that the resume would just jump out of my hand was crazy – I am not a professional resume writer.  Wait a minute – that’s it!  I decided instead of writing it myself, I could hire a resume writing service to do it for me.

Hopping onto the Internet, I did a quick search for the best resume writer, and I visited the first site in the search results.  Not even five minutes later, after filling out the vital information, I was done.  Now, I just need to be patient and wait till I get my resume – then the rest will come easy.

Now, it is not every day that someone in my family dies.  In fact, I cannot remember the last time someone died in my family – that is until a few days ago.  You see my Uncle Jim passed away from a heart attack suddenly in his sleep.  Since he was single when he passed away and I was his favorite nephew, I was chosen to write his eulogy.

Well, I really had no idea on how to write a eulogy – this would be my first.  A simple search on "how to write a eulogy" solved my problem and I found a few eulogy samples to help me out.

He was a great inspiration to me and I wanted to make his eulogy a real tribute to him and his life.  I found a few eulogy quotes that helped to get across my feelings about him.

The funeral is on Wednesday, so I need to practice my speech.  Even though it has been the death that has affected me the most, I want to give a tribute to him that he would be proud to hear – straight from my heart.

My cousin was married last month in New Zealand and I was lucky enough to be able to attend.  It was a big of a fiasco at first, but ended well.

When I arrived in Auckland, the hotel that was hosting the wedding did not have my reservation – and they didn’t have any available rooms.  The race was on to find a room – and the time of day (it was almost sunset) and my jet lag was not helping.  I took the pages in the phone book labeled "Auckland Hotels", flagged down a cab, and headed to the closest one.

I tried the Auckland Heritage Hotel and was told I could stay the night, but there would be no room available for the following night.  I decided to take the room and call other hotels from there.  It was a lovely hotel and I wish I would have been able to stay more than one night.

I quickly called around and found a room at Airedale Hotel for the remainder of my stay.  Although not as fancy as the Heritage, the Airedale was cozy and comfortable.  The staff was excellent and I enjoyed the remainder of my stay immensely.

The wedding was beautiful and went off with no problems.  Good thing the hotel didn’t lose their reservations!

I just recently came back from Orlando, Florida.  I had a great time and was able to go to Universal Studios and Disney World – dreams I have had since I was a child.

You know the trip was pretty good – though we did have some bumps along the way.  We had some problems with the hotel that we originally booked and ended up staying in the Disney World Resort Hotel instead.  Let me tell you that they were nothing short of amazing – we were treated like royalty.

I was thinking that I should share my good and bad experiences on my trip with others.  I looked online and found a Disney World forum – I signed up immediately.  I posted my problems with our original hotel as well as our luck with the hotel we stayed at. 

I think that next time, before we go, we will check online and see what others have said before we book our trip.  It would be good to know where not to stay, and where we could get a deal on airfare.  It is too bad that I didn’t think of it sooner – I usually ask my friends for their opinions.

Well, I have to go back to work on Monday – too bad my holiday is over.  I think we will start planning our holiday for next year – too bad I have to wait a year to go!

Now, I have an old mobile phone that I have had for about three years now.  Don’t laugh – I know most of you out there only keep your phones for an average of 18 months.  Personally I believe that I should keep the phone until it breaks or the battery no longer holds a charge.  Stepping on the phone by accident last night means that I am looking at a new one now.

Out of the latest mobile phones on the market the brand I am most comfortable with is Sony.  Specifically the Sony k850i caught my eye with it’s cool colors and integrated 5 MP camera.  It is hard to believe that my old phone never even had a camera – that will be one less gadget I have to carry with me.

Now, most of the reviews of the k850i have been favorable, but I have seen a few complaints about sending text messages on the phone.  For those of you out there that are text message sending machines, this may be important, but for me, I just need a phone and camera.

I am going to my mobile phone provider tomorrow to buy this new Sony phone.  I might need someone to help me figure it out though – when it comes to gadgets, I am not too good.  Anyone want to help a girl out?

My husband was in a terrible car accident and is now confined to a wheelchair.  As our house has quite a few stairs, we thought we would have to sell it and buy a more accessible home. 

This upset both of us and our children, which prompted me to do some research to make our house more accessible.

I knew we would need to install stair chair lifts, but I was unsure if they would work on our spiral staircase – I needed to make sure before I ordered one.  I looked into stair lifts and found that they would work on our spiral stairs and that they were remarkably easy to run.

I found some curved stair lifts that would work on the spiral stair case and had them installed.  My husband came home from the hospital and within a week he was using the lifts himself, with no help from the rest of us.  We were all happy to stay in our home and I was happy to see my husband adjusting well with his new life.

I have had a MySpace account for a long time but I have never changed the theme.  It wasn’t until today that I decided that I needed to do something – I am so sick of the default theme, so I wanted something better.

Looking on the Internet, there were quite a few free MySpace Layout sites for something that would work for my site.  My criteria was not too specific, but I wanted something that I could look at and enjoy.  Also, I really didn’t want a Myspace layout that was hard to read – some of my friends just aren’t that good at reading (don’t tell them I said that   ).

In the end I settled on a choice between two different scenic MySpace layouts: one of the ocean, and the other of the forest.  I really like both of them and it will be a hard decision.  Some of my friends are coming over tonight and I am going to get their opinions.  Whatever the result, I will be so happy to say goodbye to the default layout.

Lately I have been taking advantage of some lucrative business deals because I have changed the way I get financing.  This change is a little more extreme than just changing institutions – in fact, it is a change of financing strategy.

The reason for my change is that I have been taking advantage of some real estate auctions – where they need the money right away.  Now, I used to use unsecured business loans exclusively, but frankly, the amount of time I have to wait and all the paperwork I need to fill out, kind of turns me off now.  I have had a few business partners in the past that had some shady credit and had to get business loans for bad credit – and if that was me – I would never be able to get financing in time for anything.

So, what I have done in the last few months is turn to business cash advances for my financing.  What sold me on the product is that you know if you are approved within 24 hours, and you can have the money in hand in less than a week.  Also, the application takes me about 10 minutes online – which frees up my time to find other deals.  It has been  a successful substitution to business loans – and I will continue to recommend it to everyone – take a look into it, and you will know what I mean.