Halloween, an evolution

Posted on | August 17, 2010 | No Comments

You know, it happens every year. For us, it is just as exciting. Why? Well, let us tell you. Every year, Halloween is a little different. It’s all about the costume and that means that you get to write your own story. Frankly, you get to make the story a little different every year. It’s pretty cool and personally, I don’t think costume parties should be a once a year occassion. It’s tremendous fun to dress up and role play. It makes a great theme party whether it is Halloween or not. That’s just it… the great part about Halloween is that it is an evolving holiday. As a child, it’s all about the great costume… and winning the contest!

Well, as an infant and a toddler, the costume is all about the parents… but we’re starting with memorable childhood. I can remember all of the of homemade costumes that we worked on for weeks before Halloween night. It was a lot of fun anticipating the big day, almost as much fun as the big day itself.

Anyway, somewhere around highschool, dressing up for Halloween becomes less cool, at least with parents. Now, if there’s a group of teenagers, it might be fun but high school is generally a Halloween dormant period for some reason. Not to worry though! College quickly brings back group Halloween costume ideas. College is full of theme parties and costume ideas in general. It’s a great time!

After college, comes marriage and children. Group Halloween Costumes are still popular; they just take the family form! There’s the Jetson’s, Flintstones, Addam’s Family, Brady Bunch and many other great ideas. So, in our view, Halloween is the most evolving holiday on the calendar. It’s different every year…. every costume…. and it changes with your situation. Whether you are single or have a family, Halloween is flexible enough to provide something for everyone. In that regard, Halloween is the most diverse holiday, it’s blind to race and religion. It’s literally one of the most popular holidays accross gender, race and religion. Just about everyone has fun on Halloween!!!

Crazy Stimulation

Posted on | July 2, 2010 | No Comments

Saving Money

Posted on | April 6, 2010 | No Comments

In today’s world, we’re trying to cut back every place that we can. We have two kids in diapers. Diapers, Day Care, Formula, clothes and food are not cheap for these little people! That’s to say nothing of the sleep I don’t get and the extra consumable items we use now.

Of course, we wouldn’t have it any other way but we do need to find ways to cut back on our own expenses. We buy less clothing. We eat out less. We try to lower our regular bills as much as possible. In short, we try to get more for less. So, we’ll promote anything that provides value. So, my wife is looking for a new set of eyeglasses. It seems that our son (2 years old) didn’t like the frame of the last set. He gave them a little adjustment… it’s always bad when you hear, “uh oh, mama”.

Anyway, we did manage to repair them but it got us thinking about how easily they get misplaced or broken anyway. So, we’re going to try Zenni Optical. They have glasses for as little as eight dollars!

We’re looking at these for $35.95 which are some of their more expensive glasses..

But, she also likes these for $25.95…

And these for $15.95….

In any case, there are plenty of choices. Decisions, decisions, decisions!!!

Ways to save money

Posted on | April 2, 2010 | No Comments

If you are interested in the benefits of Energy saving around your house, I found a fun website to check out. This site has a free home audit that seems like a great way to learn more about your home and how you can potentially save money by reducing your energy consumption. Today, we all know that energy costs are going up. And, we all know that extra spending money is hard to come by. Really. reducing the consumption of energy in your home is one of the biggest opportunities you have of decreasing you cost of living without decreasing your standard of living. It’s probably worth learning more. Right?
The energy consumed by your home appliances is probably a significant portion of your home electric bill. I know it is in my house. This website offers a good number of tips to help you reduce the amount of electricity your appliances consume without losing the basic functions they provide. In other words, they are not suggesting that you turn them off all day!

Finding information on home energy is not an easy thing to do, and that’s exactly why I wanted to point out this website. I found it very informative and they nice thing, at least for me, was that their tips are easy to pull off. In other words, it’s not like you have to self-install solar panels on you house in order to find ways to use less electricity. Additionally, some of the tips and tricks are common sense, but only after you read them. I suppose there were some no-brainer suggestions that I should have been doing all on my own, but since I wasn’t doing them, it was great to have someone suggest the changes to me.

Visit the site if you have a spare moment, and please let me know what tips you did in your own home. Better yet, let me know if you see your electric bill go down. Even $25 bucks a month lower will add up at the end of the year!

Buying First Home Benefits

Posted on | April 2, 2010 | No Comments

If you are thinking about buying first home then you should read up on the government stimulus package because it may put some extra cash in your pocket. See, if you don’t research it, you may be passing up on of the best ways to get free cash in many years.

Let me give you an example. Say you are a first time home buyer and you make 80,000 a year. You and your family have always rented because you didn’t have the down payment for a new home. Let’s assume that you have saved up 20,000 and found a house that you would love to own for 200,000. You check the loans out and realize that you will qualify for a 30-year loan with 10% down payment. So, in theory you could take your saving, put in the down payment, and have a home of your own to live in.

You’re scared however because if you put all of your savings into the down payment, you have nothing at all left over for unexpected expenses. Say you lose you job or have unexpected medical expenses, then you are out of luck.

But wait… with this new tax credit, there might be a better solution. Because, if you take that same scenario, and add in the tax credit benefit you will get. All of a sudden you have over six thousand dollars in your savings even after you buy the new home. See what I mean?

Short story – research all of the ins and outs of tax credits before making you decision to buy or not to buy a home. Right now, there are some great deals for the buyers!

Rodeo Season!

Posted on | March 31, 2010 | No Comments

Every year my friend and his family go to the Rodeo. He is always talking about how great it is. How much he loves the food. How his kids always have a great time. And, how his wife gets into the competitions. I frankly always thought he exaggerated a little bit, but this year he convinced my family and me to go with him and his family to one of the biggest rodeos in texas, maybe one of the biggest rodeos in the united states, and maybe even on of the biggest rodeos in the world.

My job was to secure RodeoHouston tickets for all of us. Obviously he chipped in on the cost, but we wanted to make sure we all got seats together. I researched tons of ways to get tickets, and I ended up buying them from the link I included above. The reason I wanted to babble a bit about this ticket provider today is because they are able to get you pretty sick seats and really reasonable prices. Being a newbie and all, I was thinking I could just show up and buy tickets at the fair grounds. But, even with two people that would have been a mistake, let alone trying to find a big block of tickets for two families. I made the right call going with these guys, and if you want to do the rodeo, I’d suggest checking out their services.

Learn to Play the Piano at Home

Posted on | March 19, 2010 | No Comments

The skills that come from learning how to play the piano can be enjoyed for a lifetime. It’s fun at gatherings, holiday parties and it’s great personal time. You and your music. With the expansion of the information age, it’s amazing what can be accomplished through the world wide web. Yes, it’s possible to get piano lessons online.

It’s not quite the same as having someone right by your side but I think the conveniences far out weight the rewards. Think about it! You can get piano lessons over your morning cup of coffee. Having the ability to work the piano lesson into your schedule if invaluable.  If you have 30 minutes, you can sit down and work on your piano. It would be very helpful for you to get a keyboard to practice in front of your monitor or you can run a monitor your piano.  I’d probably recommend a wireless laptop for this scenario though.

There are piano lessons by DVD and sheet music which are all available through the Yoke Wong course. The advantage I believe is that you know exactly who is developing your lesson. While Yoke Wong doesn’t give out private lessons anymore, the website does have contact information. If you have questions, ask! I would delve full into the course for the first 30 days after purchase… it’s paramount that you make sure you’re satisfied with your purchase in the first 30 days because you have that window of time (if not satisfied) to return for a full refund.

At the end of the day, how well you play the piano is going to be largely up to you and how much you practice. It’s like everything else. Practice makes perfect! If you enjoy the piano, you’ll practice more because you’re having fun… and you’ll excel because you’re practicing more. We’d love to hear what you’ve learned… send us a sample!

Spring is Coming Up

Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments

With spring comes flowers and great landscaping ideas. Most people start their planning now. We live in Dallas and are trying focussed on finding great companies that do Dallas Landscaping. We’re looking for a professional company that does great landscaping design. It’s all about the pictures! Always ask to see a record of their work.

For us, we add a little but each year. Last year, we found one of the best in Dallas Outdoor Kitchens, or at least we think so! We got a nice patterned concrete patio with a flag stone wall and wrought iron fences. This year we would like to expand our patio and build up a nice stone retaining wall to help keep the rabbits out!

We’re thinking about adding some new trees and landscaping as well. I have to admitt that our favorite part (or at least my favorite part) is the garden. I love my garden! Fresh tomatoes and peppers all summer. One of our goals this year is to learn how to can pickels and salsa! So, I know I need cucumber plants, tomatoes, jalopenos, green peppers, red peppers, yellow peppers, onions, garlic, chili peppers and maybe some habaneros. It sure is fun to plan! Let us know what you’re thinking for your spring and summer projects!

Saving Money is in Season

Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments

Look, I do know a few people left that still use the rabbit ears and absolutely refuse to pay for cable or any monthly television service. For those people, I tip my hat. Seriously, television has become such a racket and let’s be honest, it’s probably not the best use of our time. However, I’ve had some sort of pay television service for as long as I can remember. I’ve had DIRECT TV, Verizon Fios, and Time Warner Cable.

The best advice I can give is to go for value. DIRECTTV has the NFL Ticket and that is a pretty nice deal. I love flipping back and forth between games. Verizon has a great bundle plan and Time Warner is somewhat price competitive but not currently offered in my area. DIRECTV claims that they can match Verizon’s bundle plan. You hear all of the jokes about bundling but it really can save you some money. If you can consolidate your phone, internet and television for under 85 dollars, you’re doing pretty well.

Currently, on television alone, Directv is offering deals under 30 per month… which is pretty good comparison to prices I’ve paid in the past. I guess the point is to be aware that prices are coming down and you need to take advantage of the changing market.

Trade Shows / Air Shows

Posted on | January 2, 2010 | No Comments

When you think about trade shows, most of the time you’re thinking about going to check out the boats, cars, electronics or new products. I’ve been to all kinds of trade shows looking at new products that were coming to market; sometimes, I have a booth or serve as a representative for our company at a trade show.

I had never really considered the work involved in setting up a trade show until I was placed in charge of coordinating an airshow from my days in the Navy. It’s amazing how many different kinds of  trade show booths and variations of display tables that are on the market.

The thing is that the Navy didn’t really let me go crazy with spending money on the display tables so we had to scrounge for set up ideas. We found tables in the warehouse and made our own banner stands
 for some of the premium displays like the F-22 Raptor and F/A-18 Super Hornet. At that airshow, we hosted the Thunderbirds. They were a little better funded and brought their own pipe and drape displays. It was set up like a VIP room where people could go in and meet the pilot’s just off of the airfield. The Navy did allow me to pick-up some nice table skirts for some of our display tables!

I prefer it that way. I didn’t want to waste tax payers dollars unneccessarily. For the most part, people are coming to see the planes fly. Everything else is for comfort and for entertainment between the flying sessions. People get to walk around and meet the pilots, sometimes go inside the aircraft static displays. Vendors always come in to sell models, t-shirts, patches, food and beverages. Many times the squadrons also sell their gear such as coins, t-shirts and patches.

If you’ve never been to an airshow, it’s free to the public and a great display of your tax payer dollars at work. There’s a great sense of pride and excitement. Go early, get a good seat, check out the static aircraft, and have a great time. Don’t forget your sunblock!!!