It isn’t often that someone comes up with a truly novel idea that is so simple that it should have just of been obvious.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful by any means, and in fact, I am trying to give a compliment to the inventor.  There is just something magical about watching an entrepreneur or inventor create an idea and make it materialize in the real world.

A good example would be what I saw when I was out today to buy TV screen protectors for work.  I had no idea of what to expect as I was just sent the store to go pick them up, but what I saw when the sales clerk showed me what I was looking for was pure genius.

You see, a tv screen protector is the obvious compliment to the newer televisions on the market.  In fact, go check them out - I bet you will kick yourself for not thinking of it first.

Many years ago, I came to the realization that it makes more sense to ask a specialist about something than just someone at random.  I found that most people wouldn’t tell you if they didn’t have the answer and they would rather just make something up than tell the truth that they don’t know.

The experience that taught me this was when I went to buy some plants for my yard: I wanted to know more about lantana care before I bought some.  The store clerk told me that they were just like any other plant and that I shouldn’t have any problems figuring it out.

Boy was he wrong!

Needless to say, all the plants died and so did my landscaping design ideas that I had in my head.  Now, if I want to know more about landscaping designs and plants, I make sure to take advantage of the excellent customer service at the greenhouse - they know what they are talking about.

It is funny how our priorities change with each child that we have. When I had my first son, I had all of my thank you cards written out for each gift the day after my baby shower. I was so organized and I thought that I was the most perfect mother there had ever been.

Having more children changes that very quickly. We had our third child over four months ago and I still have not sent out the birth announcements. I have good intentions and I have them all in envelopes, but I guess it is too daunting a task to go to the post office and mail them out.

My organizational skills are somewhat nonexistent now. I don’t know where anything is anymore. If I can’t find something, chances are that one of the kids had it and it could be absolutely anywhere. Gone are the days of neatly folded laundry put properly in their drawers still warm from the dryer. We wear them right out of the baskets now.

I am one of those few people who was lucky to find the man of my dreams on the Internet. After a move to a new city, I was lonely and I was looking for some friends. I decided to check out some free online dating sites and see what I could come up with. I knew that it certainly did not hurt to give it a try.

I was extremely interested in the sections that allowed you to find local singles. I was not necessarily looking for a relationship, but I knew that it would be great to find a guy that had some things in common with me, and I thought that if he was single that he would have more time to help me get used to the area.

I started chatting with Max and a few weeks later, we decided to meet. We hit it off right away and we started hanging out all the time. About three months into it, the relationship changed from friendship to romance. He is everything I ever wanted and I am so thankful that he helped me to be able to call this place my home.

One thing that I have always hated about the weekends during summer is that there seems to be too much work to do.  Whether it is staining the deck, mowing the lawn, or weeding, we always have something to do around home.  Couple that with working five days per week, and it never seems like we get a break.

But something wonderful happened today - I woke up to rain.  Now, I am sure you know that you can’t really do any of those chores in the yard when it is wet, so it looks like I will have the day off.  Sure, I should get some other stuff done, but I have decided that it is time that I take a day off for a change.

So, I have curled up in the sun room, and I am reading my new book, Stock Split Secrets, by Darlene Nelson.  Sure, it isn’t a story book by any means, but I am learning how I can increase my returns on the stock market by following what the professionals do.

I think I will read for most of the afternoon - I am so happy it rained.

There are some moments in life that require a phone call no matter what time of the day it is.  Some examples of this would be calling to announce the death of a parent, an accident where someone is in the hospital and the birth of a baby.  The latter was what we found ourselves needing to do as both of our parents wanted a phone call as soon as possible.

We were not allowed to use our cell phones in the hospital, so we had purchased some calling cards that we could use instead.  This way, I would be able to call from the payphone no matter what time of day it was - during the day wouldn’t be a problem, but at night, there is no one around that will activate the phone.

We also had to buy a couple of international calling cards to call her family - they live all overseas.  We found some with the best rate possible, so we picked up a couple - that way we can call her siblings as well.

So, we are all ready for the baby - we just have to wait for it to come now.

A few years ago, I thought that I knew it all. I was going to use the Internet to make myself rich. This was not necessarily bad thinking, but I was going about it all the wrong way. I was arrogant and would not admit that I needed help from anyone. Back then, I knew it all and no one could tell me any different.

Obviously, I did not become rich and when, after two years, I was still living paycheck to paycheck at my job, I decided that I needed to go about this in a whole new way. Maybe, I thought, I could look for advice on what to do to make it better.

One of the best investments I have made so far is in some Internet marketing software. It has helped me tremendously and I know that I never would have thought about it two years ago. I am still at my job, but I am starting to make some money, so hopefully I can quit real soon.

It sure seems like there is someone looking out for our family. My husband lost his job several months ago and he decided that he was going to start his own computer repair business. It was really scary at first, as we knew that it would take a little bit of time to build up enough clientele so that we could support the family.

I will admit that it has been a long road, but we have always had enough to pay the mortgage and we always have plenty of food to eat. The only time that it seemed like it was not going to work was when my husband’s laptop quit. He knew he could not run the business without it and there was no money to go and buy a new one.

The day that he decided to look for a job, he called in to a radio contest and he won a free Macbook Air. We knew that there were angels watching over our family and that everything was going to be alright.

When we lived at our old house my ex husband was hit by a drunk driver who hit him and then fled the scene. It was a Sunday morning and he was on his way to the gas station where we always bought the Sunday paper and chocolate milk and donuts. For some reason he was driving my mom’s car, probably because ours wasn’t working.

Thank goodness she had great car insurance! He had the right of way and as he was crossing the intersection, the drunk ran her red light and smashed into the side of mom’s car. It was a good thing that mom had full coverage auto insurance on that car since the other driver left the scene.

Mom was able to get another car pretty quickly after the accident and the agent gave her several new auto insurance quotes in order to find one that fit her needs.

We took a vacation and noticed that the shower seemed extra slippery compared to home. At first we thought it was just the difference in atmosphere or something but when I mentioned it to my friend she said it was probably because the hotel didn’t have hard water and we do.

I wasn’t aware that there could be that big of a difference. The water at the hotel felt silky and slippery compared to our water at home feels like. I know we have build up on our shower heads and faucet rims but I hadn’t realized how big of a difference it made.

Hard water is caused by minerals in the water that aren’t fully removed by the purifying plants that clean our water supply. This makes the water heavy and cloudy and even causes friction which would be why the hotel’s water felt slippery in comparison.

Guess we’ll be looking into a water filtration system soon.