It is the second year that I have had a deck, and I love it.  There is just nothing like going out on the deck to barbeque, or watch the kids playing in the yard.  In some respects, I feel like the king of the world, looking out over my nicely groomed yard.

But, owning a deck is not always a rosy experience.  There is some maintenance involved that I am just starting to get into.  Things such as staining, cleaning and repairing are words common to the lives of deck owners.

For example, just last weekend I was at the local hardware store picking out which wood stains I would use on the deck.  Yes, my deck is two toned, don’t ask me why, but it was like that when I bought it.

I was also looking at the available deck sealers on the market to see if I could find one that would reduce the amount of my life that I would have to devote to maintaining the deck.  I was able to find one that will require that I wash the deck once or twice per year and that’s it.

Even though it does require work, I wouldn’t trade my deck for anything.  There is just nothing quite like sitting out on your deck on a warm summer’s day drinking lemonade.

It seems like just yesterday, that we were happy if our CD players would tell us what track they were on.  Or listening to a cassette tape and listening to the whole thing because there just wasn’t an efficient way to find the song you wanted to hear.

Then there were MP3 players – where you could actually see what song you were looking for on a convenient LCD screen.

But, we are now on the verge of moving past LCD to MP3 players OLED screens.  What this will mean is a resulting increase in battery life for the player, as well as cheaper production costs.  There is even talk of making MP3 players and PDAs with foldable displays, further reducing their size.

Some of the early devices that will have OLEDs will be based on Sony OLED technology.  Though there are a couple of devices currently on the market, it will be some time before the thinner and cheaper OLEDs become the mainstream display technology.

I will never again take advantage of the chance that I am covered by medical insurance ever again. As a single mom on a low income, I have decent enough coverage, but it is not enough. When I had a little extra money, I bought some temporary insurance to tide us over until I could further decide what to do.

When my daughter fell out of a tree and broke her arm, I breathed a sigh of relief for this coverage on the way to the hospital. Rather than worry about money, I knew I was able to just be there to comfort and reassure her that she was going to be alright.

I later found out that my temporary insurance had run out only two weeks before. I berated myself for letting this happen, as my medical bills were now much higher than the insurance would have been. Sometimes I wish that I did not have to learn everything the hard way.

I would have to say that one of my biggest lessons in business and investing is this: it is all about who you know.   All the networking you do, wherever you go, is like putting an army of people to work for you to find the best deals and investments when it comes to real estate.

Okay, I might give these people a bit of an incentive.

On my business card, I have put: “$2000 Reward for presenting me a deal that I close on.”

With money on the table, you would be amazed how many private property deals come across my desk.  It is like I get first pick of properties that haven’t even made it to the market yet.

Usually, I can get a great deal as I can come up with the cash to finance the deal quickly, resulting in quicker closing on the properties I buy.  This makes both me and the seller happy, and puts the investment to work for me quicker.

There is nothing like getting the best deals before they are available to everyone else.

I went to do an online search to see where I could find some cheap NBA tickets. I found that I could probably get cheap ones on eBay, but I didn’t want to bid on them and I did not want to wait for the auction to end to find out if I had won them. I would rather just buy them and know that I have them.

I do not buy NBA tickets very often and I really wanted to go to a particular game. I found out that the guy I really like was going to be there and I wanted to just “casually” bump into him while I was there. The things I will do for love. But, in my defense, he is really good looking and seems to be a perfect gentleman.

I talked my friend into going with me. This took some doing, as she thinks it is silly to go out and buy NBA tickets just to try and impress a guy, but she did agree to go if I paid for her ticket. She also admitted that he was really good looking and that if we do fall madly in love she will take back everything she said. I am keeping my fingers crossed because I love it when she is wrong.

This year, for the first time ever, I had to hire and assistant to help me read through the admission essays for my dance school. Some people think that it is odd that I have my prospective students write essays when they want to become better dancers, but I run a very elite school and I must know the hearts of these students before I allow them to represent the name of my school.

I found that by having them write an application essay, it would help me to weed out the ones that were not completely serious about spending their lives as a dancer. At this school, dancing is much more than just a hobby or a sport. It is a lifestyle and I expect my students to maintain the structure and discipline that is set forth for them as soon as they get accepted.

This year, I offered the applicants the choice of sending in an essay or doing an online essay. I got such a tremendous response that I knew I certainly could not go through them all by myself and still be starting classes on time. I had one of my senior dancers come and help me with this. She thinks like I do, therefore would see in the students what I do.

My wife gave me a simple task today and sent me out to the pet supplies store.  You see, Rex, our dog, needed some dog food.  What I did not know when I left home was that my little task would turn into a nightmare.

I went to the petsupplies store that we frequent and looked to see if they had the dog food that we usually purchased.  Unfortunately, they were out of stock but they did have the Rawhide that I was supposed to pick up.  I asked the sales clerk what other stores in town sold the dog food that we needed and he provided me with a list.

For the next three hours, I drove around town, going store to store, looking for the special dog food that I was supposed to bring home.  For whatever reason, none of the stores I visited had any in stock.

I was just about at my wits end when I drove into the parking lot of the one pet store that I had not visited.  As it turned out, it was a miracle - they had the food that I was looking for.

When I got home my wife almost and believe that my little task turn into a huge nightmare.  Needless to say, in the future I will be calling around town before I make the trip to the pet store to buy food.

If there is one thing that I could go back and do in my life it would be to learn and master piano. I love piano music and I especially love movie theme music when it is played on the piano. I wish that I could just sit and play for hours. Instead, I buy all of the CDs that I can find and they will have to do.

I did buy myself a piano and I sometimes like to put on a good CD and just sit at the piano and listen. I like to imagine my piano keys moving in time to the music. This is one of the most relaxing things that I can find to do.

When I am down, I sit at the piano with a hot cup of tea and watch the rain come down while listening to the theme song for “A Beautiful Mind”. It soothes me beyond anything I have ever felt before.

My daughter even suggested that I take lessons, but I know that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. So, I will just continue to do what it is that makes me happy.

Last summer, when I was getting remarried, my son wanted to go and stay with his dad while I was away on my honeymoon for a month. I told him if it was alright with his dad than I did not have a problem with it. He called and asked his dad and for once, his dad said that he would be glad to have him. This made me happy as their relationship is very strained.

I figured that his dad would come and pick him up, but with scheduling conflicts, we learned that my son was going to have to fly to his dad’s house on his own. This made me extremely nervous, as he is only seven years old. The thing that concerned me the most was the five hour layover in Philadelphia.

I went to talk to the people at the airport about having a child fly solo and they assured me that my son would be very well taken care of. We were told that during his layover, the Philadelphia airport transportation people would take very good care of him and would not let him out of their sight. I decided to let him do it and we all survived the ordeal.

It isn’t everyday that your boss turns fifty, and that you have the opportunity to create a surprise birthday party for him.  At least that is the plan around the office - we will see if it executes successfully.

We were at a loss of what we should do for his party.  In prior years, all we had was a cake, and that was it.  This year, we were looking through birthday party ideas online to find something that can make the day unique, and make it appropriate for work.

There is only a few more days until the birthday party, so we need to figure out what we are doing quickly.  I think that the staff are all getting together tonight after work to iron out the details.  I just hope Dan, our boss, appreciates the effort we put into it - after all, you only turn fifty once!