Margret Sloan

What a great surprise to hear the doorbell ring and go to answer the door and find a deliver guy standing there with a box of fresh flowers for you! It’s amazing what a mental stimulus it can be to have such a wonderful surprise - your mind shuts out all the nagging drudgery of an ordinary day and focuses on the flowers, taking in each stem and petal in every detail, reading the card and treasuring each word, and thinking extremely benevolent thoughts of the sender.

Eventually the practical things filter back in, such as, “Do I have a vase?” to put them in, and “How can I arrange them to look florist-perfect?”

Here is the link you want to bookmark and actually watch, of a Youtube demonstration by Proflowers for arranging roses in a vase. The video is only about 2 minutes long and you learn exactly what you need to know to care for the flowers and arrange them in a vase so that you can enjoy your beautiful gift of fresh flowers for several days, sometimes even a week or longer, depending upon the type of flower.

Next time you receive a box of fresh cut flowers, this video will be so handy! And be sure to send me a photo when you’re done so I can see your lovely handiwork!

There is a new book at Sam’s in hardcover that I couldn’t resist putting in my cart called, “The Daring Book for Girls” which is basically a follow up or rip off - however you choose to look at it - of last year’s best seller called, “The Dangerous Book for Boys.”

The first book for boys is by by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, and the one for girls is by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, so I suspect this was written is a big hurry to take advantage of the first book’s success.

On the back cover was a great little convincing blurb: “For every girl with an independent spirit and a nose for trouble, here is the no-boys-allowed guide to adventure.” That’s what made me put it in the cart, and I can’t wait to start reading it tonight.

Most of the mail I get from the mailbox at the street will be bills and junk mail. As more of the places sending me bills accept online payments, I have less bills in the mail - but unfortunately not less bills. So now most of the mail is junk mail, and the worst of the junk are the so-called “pre-approved credit” offers for credit cards and car loans.

I used to toss all the junk mail into the trash, and in this area everyone hauls their big trash cans that look like dumpsters down their driveways to the street once a week and leave them there all day (sometimes all night if you put it out the night before) for the collection truck to show up and empty the cans.

The big problem with this is that the criminals have figured out that they can get into your dumpster and take out your pre approved credit offers and other trash that you’ve thrown out with personal information. Then they send in or call the credit companies pretending to be you and they take the credit in your name and start charging all kinds of purchases in your name. If they took you trash and did this to you, how would you ever know? How would you find out what they’ve done and how could you prove that it wasn’t you?

That is what identity theft is all about and why it is such a huge problem for people. This kind of problem is what companies like lifelock help stop from happening. It’s a service that protects your identity and your credit, and it helps reduce or stop the amount of pre-approved credit offers that hit your mailbox, like bait to the criminal fishermen.

If you own or run a small or medium sized business and are ready to take that business to the next level, then perhaps a business coach can help you get to that level. After all, don’t you want good advice from someone who is successful and can prove that their advice works?

Like a sports coach, a business coach can guide and encourage you to grow your business, make it more profitable, and break-through every kind of challenge.

How do you find a great business coach? By going to the website of Action Coach Business Coaching!

When you work with an ActionCOACH, he or she can help your marketing, sales, training and operations. The website has a handy “Business Health Check” that you can use to see which areas of your business would benefit from having a business coach involved. The site also has a business library and collection of YouTube videos to help you.

Let the ActionCOACH become your confidant and your mentor, and take your business to the next level.

About a year ago I saw a good price on a computer package and decided on impulse to splurge and buy it. I bought an HP Pavilion Slimline that came with all the bells and whistles, Windows Vista and a beautiful flat screen 19′ color monitor. It set up quickly and I haven’t had any trouble with it at all - knock on wood.

So I thought it would be good to buy another one just like for the home office and we can give the old PC to our grandson. He has just started school and he loves to play with letters and numbers, he can read a couple hundred “sight words” and he like to play with numbers, too. I’ve shown him how to get online to play a couple of good children’s sites games, like Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer. He can even play a couple simple card games. We are so proud of him!

So I’ve searched everywhere for this Slimline PC and can’t find it for sale anywhere!