Re-Doing our House
We are now re-doing everything in our house a little at a time. The bedrooms used to be full of kids furniture and bunk beds and now that we are older and grownup, it is time to make some necessary adjustments.
Of course as we got older our rooms changed too slightly. Obviously I don't still have my little mermaid decorations but it still wasn't transformed as much as I would have wanted. My brothers room is baseball and he still likes it that way, but some changes are being made a long with my younger sister's (she's only ten now). We are repainting their rooms and changing the kids beds to bigger, full size beds so that they can grow into them. Also in my room and my other sisters room (she is 18 and also away at school), we are picking more neutral colors and changing the furniture to a more grownup look and feel.
Now that we are older also, we are changing out play room that was full of toys and games to more of a rec room. We will still have the games there, but now instead of the play house and toys we are putting in a big screen TV and a wii and pool table so that we can have friends over and entertain at a more appropriate age level. Even though my sister is still younger, she likes to do a lot of the things that we do and in her room we are making a little play room section for the toys that she still loves to play with.
We are also making our pool bigger and deeper. We first got it when my sister and I were really young and now that we are older and can all swim and know pool safety, we are taking it from 4 feet to 8 feet (well it'll be a gradual pool so it is still 4 feet on one end and then goes down slowly ending in 8 at the other end). This way we can actually do laps and have friends over and be able to actually swim and not just stand there.
I'm really excited about the change because even though friends are always over and have been for years, we will have more things to do that we like and can entertain more.
ONLINE HELP TO FIND SOLICITOR
Hopefully you won't ever need to find solicitor, but if you do then there are some important things that you should be aware of. Whether looking for a solicitor uk or a solicitor london, there are some online resources that can give you all the information that you need about solicitors that specialize in different areas of the law.
I found out this information from a friend of mine here at school, who had a back injury from a car accident and found herself in need of an attorney. She struggled just to find someone to take her case, and it seemed that every website that she went on to to look for a lawyer, produced no results. Many of these sites that she encountered, wanted to sell her case, and she said that just didn't seem right. Then she came across a site that not only had a good selection of solicitors but ones that specialized in every area of the law. When she came across this site, she was amazed to see that they had a comprehensive list of courts in London as well as all throughout the UK. She contacted them looking for a solicitor to help her with her auto accident case, and she was able to get set up with a solicitor in her area right away. She said that at first she wasn't sure about the person she was meeting with, but she knew that the site had said that they would gladly help her find someone else if things didn't work out, and sure enough the second one she met with was a very straight forward guy who was willing to take her case and help her get compensated for her medical bills and lost wages.
The lesson here is that there are a lot of great resources online for finding a solicitor like QualitySolicitors that offer you excellent resources and one of the largest databases on the web. With this many excellent solicitors there is no need to look any further than this one great site. I know that they were able to help my friend find a solicitor quickly and easily even when all the others failed to help her. That is why if I ever find myself in need of a solicitor for any legal matter, I will begin at their site. Once you find the best there is no reason to go anywhere else.
Credit Cards in College
I was reading an article the other day about how college students with credit cards often have really high interest rates. So student balance transfers are a way to provide assistance to students with debts (and let's face it, most students do have some debt).
In college, there are so many ways to waste money. Your friends go out to eat and even though you just ate at your house, you go with them “just to hang out” and then end up buying a full meal and drinks. Or you buy alcohol for a group and people randomly pay you back or don't at all. And don't even mention books (last semester my books were well over 1200 dollars). So when they see an ad for a credit card offer and a free pizza for signing up, a lot of students fall for it.
Then, a few months later they have spent more on their card (nights out to eat, bar tab, shopping sprees, books, groceries and gas) and they can't afford to pay it back and usually the interest rate is insanely high. So Smart Balance Transfers can really come in handy. Unfortunately, a lot of these students also weren't educated about credit cards enough to know what to do in this situation. Some get out of it and others tend to ignore it and fall into a deeper hole.
Thankfully when I was in high school I got a credit card and my dad taught me all about paying it on time and what you should charge and what you shouldn't. So by the time I got to college, I got the excitement out of me of having my very own credit card and had already built up a good credit background.
College is the time where we need to be setting a strong background for ourselves and building up good credit. However, this isn't usually the case. We need to educate students at a younger age about credit and even what to do if you get into a rough spot and are falling into debt. You can recover, but you have to nip it in the butt immediately and a lot of people don't know enough or maybe they just refuse to know, but it is becoming a huge problem in our country and definitely needs to be addressed.
Designing Homes
My roommate is an interior design major so she constantly has to do projects that the rest of us think are tedious and boring, but she absolutely loves. One time she stayed up all night working on these tiny model pendant lamps for a project. She basically had to do the layout of a room and then she had to decorate it.
There is this room (it is more like a warehouse) at the school for these kinds of majors and classes where students can go and pick out samples of carpet, counters, even furniture for their projects. So for every new room that she designs, she has to make a trip to the warehouse and dig through all of their materials and come up with every single pattern and texture that will be involved in the design.
They even have pictures of furniture and things like designer lamps so when they have a mock project that have to come up with everything in the room down to the woodwork, lamps and even remote controls to the TV's sometimes. So we constantly have these tiny model homes (and even sometimes tiny dolls that she uses to put in there) laying everywhere in our house. One time I even found a ‘couch' in the kitchen sink because she was eating while she was working on her project and she was rinsing off her dishes and it fell in the sink and we looked everywhere for this tiny couch ha.
My roommates and I think she is crazy for having a major like this. She doesn't have any tests, which is nice, but she always has a project to do and they take so much time and detail and precision that it would drive anyone nuts (except her). She seems to love it a lot. She is even doing a job shadow in Indy where she follows around an actual interior designer and she gets to see what an everyday work day is like and also see what kind of direction she wants to take her major in (I guess there are a lot of options in that field). But I guess the point though is that even though we think it is tedious and crazy and somewhat boring and we would never want to spend the whole night cutting out paper and gluing, she loves it and in the end, she'll probably be the one with the great job and decorating our homes later on in life ha.
DEBT CONSOLIDATION AT 20?
Recently a friend and I decided to take a night out and go to dinner. It was kind of a reward for making it through mid terms and we both had the same night off and decided that we deserved a night out. We went to a local place, it wasn't fancy, but the food was good and a lot of people on campus had talked about how much they liked it so we thought we would give it a try. We talked and laughed about stuff at school, and this and that. I really thought I knew Kara well, but then she started telling me about all the financial troubles she was having. I think it came up when she said that it had been a while since she had been able to afford the luxury of going out to dinner. She then began telling me that she got her first credit card while she was still in high school, and that after that the offers just started pouring in. She said that all she had to do was fill them out and send them in and another card would come in the mail. Simple she thought, to keep up with it all. Anyway, gradually the balances on the cards grew and she just kept making the minimum payments realizing that they were having no effect on the hefty balances that she had run up. Finally, she realized that she had no other choice, she had to do something, so she put away all her cards and got into a debt consolidation program. She said that it feels really good finally to be paying off her debt and that she now loves paying cash for everything. At first it was difficult learning to pay cash, but now that she has gotten used to it, she says it is the best way to avoid debt. I told her that it was hard to believe that at 20 she already had to seek out debt consolidation. But she said it was better to do it early on, then to let things get further out of control. It makes sense, but I always thought it was only older people who got themselves in trouble with credit.
Electronic cigarettes
When I was browsing online the other day I came across this ad about electronic cigarettes which obviously caught my attention so I clicked on it (seriously, who wouldn't want to see what's up with that?).
When you open to the website it says, “Smoking Everywhere Electronic Cigarette looks like a traditional cigarette, feels like a traditional cigarette, taste like a traditional cigarette, but it isn't a traditional cigarette. It's just a tar-free way to enjoy smoking!” And it even has a video clip that goes with it that is about two and a half minutes long.
Obviously I wanted to learn more about this “electronic cigarette” so I kept on reading. It is basically (according to the website) a way for smokers to experience smoking without the smell, tar, nicotine and harmful side effects (I'm not exactly sure how that is the same experience though ha). I guess it is just a way for smokers to still feel the emotions that they have when they are smoking.
There are several reasons that people use electronic cigarettes. It is tar free as well as nicotine free and you are able to smoke anywhere because although regular smoking is against the law in most (if not all) public establishment's electronic smoking is clearly allowed. Also, there is no second hand smoke so you don't have to worry about harming others (especially if you are a smoker and you have children). And it doesn't have the smell that sticks to your clothes and stays in your furniture and people can smell for years (even if you stop smoking) and you don't have to worry about ashes or butts. And it is less expensive than buying regular cigarettes.
This seems like such an odd concept to me. I haven't seen any pictures online and I would think that it would be weird. I guess since I'm not a smoker and have never smoked in my life, I can't understand how someone can be so addicted to something that they would still need a fake stand in to still be satisfied. But I guess I can applaud people who are trying anything and everything to get over their addiction. And if this ends up being a cute to smoking habits in millions of people (actually even if it just helps 5 people) I guess it really is a success.
Credit as a College Student
Thankfully my dad taught me about credit throughout high school. I had a credit card that was attached to his account and although I didn't have to pay any of the bill until I got to college, I still had to sit down every month and look at what I spent and the interest rates and what should have been charged on the card and what could (and should) have been paid with by cash. So by the time I got to college I was over the ‘coolness' I guess of having a credit card and I already understood the responsibility that came with it.
Other people however did not. There were people all over giving out free pizza to students who opened a card. People viewed it as free money and by the end of the year I knew a few people who were way over their heads in debt and they were only 18 or 19 years old. Some of them worked on fixing credit that had gone down the drain, but others ignored it and dug themselves into a deeper hole.
A friend of mine came to me sophomore year (crying “help me fix my credit”) and she had about 2,000 dollars in credit card debt. I am definitely no financial genius, but I have done great with my own credit so I think that I set her on the right track. We first called the credit card company and asked for them to lower the minimum payment (which they actually did). And we got on track and found her a campus job (that was really actually easy) and talked about cutting up the card. Then I talked to my dad and he said that actually she should keep the card, pay it off and then continue to use it (sparingly) and pay it off right away so that she can slowly build her credit back up.
Then we found this book my dad gave me called Inside Bad Credit recommends Lexington Law - that you only spend not perishables and things that outlast the payment (so not going out to a movie or dinner with friends). So what she did was buy a few of her books for the next semester on the card and she paid it off. This way the company will see that she has gotten her act together and that she has become responsible.
There are some problems though that cannot be fixed by me (ha surprising right?). But I have heard of places like Lexington Law that can help with credit issues. With the economy the way it is right now, you need to do anything and everything that you can to keep your credit score high!
So Sick of Classrooms!
Ah, it's been an eternity, sitting in the classroom that is. While I highly value my education and the value of learning and gaining education, insight and analytical methods, sitting in classes get so banal sometimes. I know a lot of opportunities online are coming into existence giving people the freedom to do elearning. It is great for people with busy lives or who have odd working hours. It provides a unique experience to be able to get education but not have to be inside a classroom. A lot of these online programs are geared towards some occupation and provide online training courses for those possible careers. There are various methods I guess they employ in order to allow the student to succeed. While I am sure part of the programs entail reading, worksheets, exams and writing assignments, I know another method used are by using online training videos. These videos will be especially helpful. Since a classroom experience can be beneficial especially for vocational training, these videos allow students to watch training as a supplement to the other resources. I have contemplated doing something like a Paralegal program online. Since I will soon have my B.A I figure it may be a good way to get a certification versus going to a community college to get certified. It would allow me to work and be able to study and prepare to become a certified paralegal with ease and convenience to me. Electronic learning is becoming more and more popular especially among those who may not have originally gone to school and wish to gain a higher education or improve and continue education past where they had studied originally. While some universities and colleges offer online classes, there are many institutions which work solely online. Sometimes I appreciate being in lecture and having the professor there teaching me, but on the other hand, there are some things I wish I could just do online since I feel I can grasp the concepts and point of the class without being in class. With today's globalized and mobile society, having online learning is so important. People can do their work from anywhere in the world with these programs since the internet, perhaps one of the key features of globalization, allows this to occur. If given the chance to do all elearning I am not sure if I would go for it but it would be something I would heavily contemplate.
SHOPPING AROUND FOR AUTO PERFORMANCE PARTS
A few weeks ago I purchased an older car and decided that I want a hot rod, so I have been deciding what work I need to do first. I don't have a ton of money saved, and so I will have to take it a little at a time, but I want to get the best parts for my car without spending a lot of money. I have gone online, at the suggestion of my dad, who has worked on cars his whole life, and in fact is my inspiration. He has taught me a lot about car care, car maintenance, and how to do most things myself including rebuilding the engine of car, which quite honestly will probably be the first step in re-doing this car. I have found some great sites that offer auto performance parts, and my father suggested to me some other sites that I could go to for wholesale parts and discount parts, but honestly, in this case, I found that a site offering auto aftermarket parts, was actually the best one for the model car that I have. I found some good deals on parts, some people suggested going to the auto wrecker, but honestly, I want good parts and I find that buying the parts online is a much more reliable method. After all, there is nothing worse than getting about half way through the job that you are doing, when you realize that you have a bad part. Even worse than that is finding out that you have a bad part after you get the whole thing put together. I have seen my father have this happen, and frankly it can be a nightmare. I know that I will be able to get this car in mint condition within about a year's time, and my father has offered to help, which of course is a really nice gesture, but this is something that I really want to do on my own, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I know that I won't be buying those vellano wheels any time in the immediate future, however, a year is not too long to wait for the perfect hot rod...is it?
Easter Thoughts
This weekend is easter and so it is a time for religious observances of all kinds. This week was Passover as well so there has been plenty for people out there to celebrate. Because of the holidays this week sort of emptied out in terms of all of my class and I am sure that this is a similar story all over the country as kids got a head start on their weekend off and went home early to make it worth the trip.
Besides being a time of religious observance, it is also a time when those who are religious or not do one big thing in common. In the same way that many secular people still buy Christmas trees because that is the tradition in our country for everyone, this Sunday is the holiday of candy. Not nearly as scandalous as Halloween, this Sunday is a big excuse for people to go out and spend some of their hard earned dough on bulk candy to give out to their kids or relatives. This tradition has never really made sense to me in the same way that the hopeful and green Christmas tree is meant to bring warmth, light, and community to the middle of the harshest parts of the year. This holiday on the other hand is centered around resurrection and apparently there is no way to celebrate that better than with some haribo candy. Now don't get me wrong, I do love candy myself as much as the next person, I just like to know what it is that I am celebrating before I actually go through with it. I mean I wouldn't join in a riot celebrating animal cruelty, but I would if it were about health care or something like that.
Maybe I am looking in to this too much here but I mean you have to admit that the easter bunny is something none of us really understands. It is possibly a simple of simple and beautiful life, but that might just be stretching it a little bit far. Even if I don't understand it though I will still be gorging myself on huge amounts of candy this weekend and the subsequent weeks till finals and so I can't really complain. All I can do is raise the question and let you all out there think about it.