Posted by Spaycial on June 30, 2009
It’s wedding season, and so many people that I know are getting married this summer. The woman who nannies the kids I babysit for on the weekends got married just last weekend; my sister and my best friend are both getting married this summer too. The result is tons of Michigan weddings to go to, tons of wedding and shower presents to buy, not to mention all of the responsibilities of being a bridesmaid in one of these weddings.
I can’t help but feel a little sorry for all these brides. I remember how difficult it was to plan our wedding two years ago, when my husband and I got married. And we had a small wedding! My sister is having something like 130 or 140 guests, and I think my best friend is having around a hundred.
How on earth do you plan for that size wedding all by yourself? Planning our 30-person wedding was difficult enough. You have to find a wedding venue (such as these Northern Michigan gardens) that allow for your size group, have to plan catering for all those people and worry about food likes, dislikes, and allergies, have to make that many more invitations, etc. Yikes!
Good thing weddings only (usually) happen once, isn’t it?
Technorati Tags: bridesmaid, Michigan weddings, Northern Michigan gardens
Posted by SpecialBuzzr on June 24, 2009
Your business website tells the world a lot about what you do. The design of the website, the information that you share there and the ease of maneuvering around the site will all lead people to make certain assumptions about you. If you want to make sure that you have control over those assumptions then you want to go beyond the basics with your website.
The best way to go beyond the basics is to look at what additions are available for any web program that you might be using. These extra features are typically what will give you more control over your website’s appearance.
A great example of this is the use of Wordpress plugins for people who have Wordpress blogs on their sites. You can certainly have a blog with just the basic Wordpress program. However, Wordpress plugins let you do a whole lot more with your blog. You can create and share RSS feeds, add rotating images to your site and promote affiliate links in your sidebar using these plugins.
Another similar example is the use of dreamweaver extensions to improve your use of dreamweaver. The program is fine on its own. But it’s just fine. Using extensions lets you get more functionality out of it. You have more options for your web pages this way. That’s what you want to look for when you’re working on your website.
Technorati Tags: dreamweaver extensions
Posted by Spaycial on June 23, 2009
When I was in middle school I got braces, and I remember my orthodontist had before and after pictures of his patients’ smiles on his wall. Being 12, I didn’t exactly understand the brilliant advertising power in it, but I get it now.
For any services you offer that can be shown visually better than they can be described, before and after pictures are, literally, priceless. For example, if you run an interior design business, you could show pictures from before and after an impressive transformation. Likewise, if you are a hair transplant surgeon, you can show pictures of your clients before and after the surgery to demonstrate how effective hair replacement for men is and how natural the final results look.
Likewise, as a potential client seeing before and after pictures can be very reassuring. It shows you that the service provider really does know what they are doing, even more than written or spoken references, which are fairly subjective in nature. While your reaction to the photographs is still subjective, at least you are the one drawing the conclusions — after all, it is your opinion that will count most, as the client.
What other businesses can you think of that would benefit from before and after photos? As a potential customers, when do you like to see before and after photos?
Technorati Tags: hair replacement for men, hair transplant, orthodontist
Posted by special buzzer on
You know, I’m pretty happy in my second marriage, but there was a kind of rocky beginning, though I don’t entirely blame my husband for it. He told me he was divorced, but after awhile as it turned out, he wasn’t. He was legally separated and his wife was long gone, but he sort of dreaded the legal proceedings. I sort of figured this out as he stammered about it, and then claimed he “thought” it was all done. But he HAD seen a lawyer-it just all wasn’t completed. So, under the guise of “I’d better follow up with this guy; I haven’t heard anything,” he contacted the guy again, and the man finally mailed the papers to Michelle for her to sign.
Well, supposedly at the advice of her new lawyer, she wanted half of the house. But the initial agreement as it was submitted and approved by the courts had her giving up her half in exchange for Dave paying all the bills. Since his lawyer was old, slow, and unresponsive, he got advice and found he needed a lawyer in HER state, in a little town outside of Pittsburgh.
Well, after sifting through all the Pittsburgh personal injury attorneys and Pittsburgh wrongful death attorneys, he finally found one there willing to have her formally served under threat of a warrant for her arrest for contempt of a court ordered settlement or failure to appear or something. Guess what? She signed it finally.
Technorati Tags: Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh personal injury attorneys, Pittsburgh wrongful death attorneys
Posted by special buzzer on
When I first learned that I was going to be an uncle and my sister was going to have a baby, I was excited. It was the day that I had always dreamed of and the day that I always feared - it meant that all of a sudden I was in a competition to be the best uncle and I wanted to win.
But being a guy, I just had no idea as to what would be the perfect baby gift. If I would have had a girlfriend at the time, I might have been able to depend on her for advice, but sadly I was single at the time. I decided just to get in the car and go down to the toy store, and buy whatever jumped out at me.
Once I walked into the toy store, I was a little overwhelmed and confused. Instead of just having a couple of selections, I was faced with aisle upon aisle of decisions - not a good prospect for a new baby toy shopper.
After about thirty minutes, I ended up in the section of European toys, and came across a good selection of HABA toys. I picked out a set of wooden blocks and proceeded home. All-in-all the shopping trip took an hour.
But as it turned out, I did end up getting the favorite baby toy and started out as the favorite uncle - which is exactly what I wanted.
Technorati Tags: European toys, HABA toys
Posted by SpecialBuzzr on June 19, 2009
A large percentage of Americans want to lose weight. Why don’t they? Most of them don’t have everything that they actually need to truly lose weight.
Here are some of the things that you have to have for weight loss:
- A good diet. First and foremost, you need a nutritious diet plan that is going to work for you over a long period of time.
- Exercise that you enjoy. You won’t stick with an exercise plan if you aren’t enjoying it so you need to work to find some type of activity that you truly like to do.
- A positive attitude. Those people who are optimistic about weight loss are more likely to experience success.
- Weight loss goals. People who fail to set goals for weight loss will give up on losing weight because they don’t really know what they’re trying to achieve.
- Will power. The single biggest reason that people fail at losing weight is because they lack the will power to stick with their diet and exercise plans in order to meet their weight loss goals.
These five things are really the only things that you need in order to be successful at losing weight. Do you have them?
Technorati Tags: diet, weight loss
Posted by special buzzer on June 17, 2009
When I was going through college, I got a job for the summer selling pride lift chairs. This may seem like an odd job for a young adult to have, but it was actually perfect for me. One of the things that made me an excellent candidate for the job is the many years of experience I had with these chairs. We have had one in our home for as long as I can remember. You see, my father suffered from Friedreich’s Ataxia, a disease that left him crippled in his teens.
When I was a teenager myself, the disease got the best of him, but he had lived a good life and left a great legacy. Not long after he passed away, however, we found out that my sister also had this crippling disease. It was a hard blow on the family, but she was a real trooper and even made jokes about how great it was that we already had the ramps, lifts and the walk-in bath.
Through my three summers of working for the lift company, it was quite rewarding seeing how happy people were to have their lifts installed. I know it gives them a sense of freedom. My sister is now completely confined to a wheelchair, but because of the lifts and because of her attitude, she does not let it slow her down. She can be found on a Friday night with her friends at the movies, visiting me at my apartment or shopping at the mall. Freedom is the one thing that can keep these people going and I was glad to have a small part in that.
Technorati Tags: Friedreich's ataxia, pride lift chairs, walk-in bath
Posted by BuzzSpecialist on June 14, 2009
When I was laid off from my job a few years ago, one of the first things I did was start to rely heavily on using my credit card to make the ends meet. I was doing everything else the way I should be; signing up for Unemployment Insurance, cutting back on things that were clear luxuries, going out for entertainment far, far less.
Even with all of that I was still sensing myself falling into a deep financial pit of despair. Many months went by before I was finally able to come across a job that both fit my talents and abilities, but also paid what I considered a fair wage. Of course, just because I had started working did not mean that my money worries had gone away.
As is the case with most new jobs, there was a period of time where I was working, but was not receiving any actual pay. In this case, almost 12 days went by and I was not seeing any income from the new job. What made it really tough is that I was required by the state to divulge any work done, whether paid for it or not. My benefits stopped.
The only option I could come up with was to seek out a payday loan. Given that I knew I had a decent first check coming, I was extremely pleased that this service exists. It really got me over a hard spot, financially.
Technorati Tags: credit card, payday loan
Posted by Buzz on June 13, 2009
When I decided that I was going to be a Scout leader, I decided that I wanted to be able to give the kids that I would be leading the same structured and fun type of program that I experienced in my youth. It was one of those memories that I have kept for my lifetime, and I hoped that the kids under my supervision would have a similar experience.
But the one thing that has changed since I was a kid is technology. In fact, with the Internet being available to us now, I was really looking forward to the opportunity that it presented for us to interact with the kids and parents and to have a central place for them to know the times and locations of all of our meetings and outings.
After a bit of searching, we found an article about Scout troop management software that would work perfectly for us. One of our leaders was a little hesitant (since she was not very computer savvy), but after all of us leaders sitting down for an evening, we were able to sort things out.
I would like to think that the scout software has provided us a better way to keep our scout troop organized and keep the parents informed. Besides, it also follows the principles of Scouting because it is friendlier to the environment.
Technorati Tags: scout leader, scout software, scout troop management software
