Telling It Like It Is

Are parents obligated to pay college tuition for their kids to attend college? Should parents pay for college or should college students be responsible for paying college related expenses including tuition, with or without their parents help? The question of who pays for college continues to be a controversial (sometimes heated) debate between kids planning to attend college, and their parents.

Parents, are you responsible for paying your kids college education or not? If parents are supposed to pay for college, how much should parents pay towards tuition, books, housing costs, transportation, gas, insurance, food, clothing, entertainment and miscellaneous expenses for college? Where do parents draw the line between helping kids attend college and not jeopardizing their savings and retirement accounts? To say that your retirement plans are more important than your children’s college funds is putting it mildly.
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Vampire Academy is an ongoing series of six vampire-based fantasy/romance novels by USA Today and New York Times best-selling author, Richelle Mead. The Vampire Academy series of books include titles such as Vampire Academy (Book 1-2007); Frostbite (Book 2-2008); Shadow Kiss (Book 3-2008); Blood Promise (Book 4-2009); Spirit Bound (Book 5-May, 2010) and Book 6 with a to-be-determined title scheduled for release in December 2010.

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school. It’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rosemarie “Rose” Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Vasilisa “Lissa” Dragomir, a Moroi Vampire Princess.
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I have been a Skype user for a long time now, keeping in contact with friends and family living in the U.S and abroad. One of my family members lives in Spain, and having Skype to at least instant message or chat while on different time zones has been great. Email only does so much, but Skype is better. While instant messaging with Skype helps keep me closely connected with family and friends who don’t live nearby, instant messaging on Skype isn’t enough for me anymore.

I’ve known about webcams for Skype but hadn’t taken the time to learn how to use Skype with a webcam, and I needed to find out more about choosing a good webcam to use with Skype. I’ve heard there is a way to use a digital camera with Skype too, but using Skype on my home computer with a webcam is all that matters to me at this point.
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Although 72 percent of Americans have fillings, caps or crowns and one in six had a dental emergency during the past 12 months, most are not prepared to deal with dental care emergencies, according to a recent survey conducted by Majestic Drug Company, a leading provider of oral care products.

Interestingly, in the national survey of 1,000 Americans, those with a lower income (less then $35,000) were more likely to have had a dental emergency in the past 12 months (vs. 14 percent of those who make $100,000 or more).

Of those who had a dental emergency, 23 percent involved a loose crown or cap, 10 percent involved a lost filling, while 72 percent said their dental emergency involved something else.
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What are some cheap and fun things to do during family vacations to Chicago? Anyone who has been to Chicago during the winter months knows that taking a Chicago vacation requires bundling up with warm winter clothes to offset the cold, blustery, freezing temperatures and winds from the Windy City. There are a lot of fun and cheap things to do in and outside of Chicago, indoors and outdoors, including things to do in the suburbs for families, kids and adults of all ages.

Looking for fun things to do in Chicago during the summer or winter? Chicago has a lot to offer tourists and vacationers throughout the year with favorite places including museums, parks, indoor and outdoor swimming, golf courses and mini-golf courses, family entertainment centers, live theater, ice skating, comedy clubs, festivals, art galleries, restaurants, working farms and orchards, amongst thousands of other Chicago attractions.

Whether you take a vacation to Chicago in the spring, summer, fall or winter months, make sure you plan your itinerary to include the popular places in downtown Chicago and in the suburbs north, west, east and south of the city. Coupons, discount tickets and pass cards like the Go Card help a lot to reduce the overall costs of a vacation trip and tours around Chicago, or anywhere else you want to go.
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Since my husband and I are both American Idol fans and live in Texas, north of Dallas, it seems only fair to reveal which contestants made it through to the Top 24. The Dallas American Idol auditions were shown on American Idol already last week, but inquiring minds are curious to know which Texas contestants made it through the Hollywood round in hopes of becoming the next American Idol mega star. American Idol spoiler alert!

Ever since Paula Abdul left Idol, and now Simon Cowell is leaving after season nine, whether or not AI will last much longer remains to be seen. Personally, I don’t enjoy watching the audition phase, with all the singer-wannabe’s and moron’s acting like fools, but at least we’ve got a few contestants from Texas that made it to the list of Top 24 according to the leaked spoilers. Some of the auditions are funny and others are just stupid.

Then again, nearly everyone has heard about the song Pants On The Ground, fanned the page on Facebook and had the song stuck in their head for days.

As with previous seasons of American Idol, spoilers and lists of contestant names have been right and this season is no different. JoesPlaceBlog (www.joesplaceblog.com) has the complete list of American Idol’s Season 9 Top 24, including links to contestant MySpace pages, Facebook, audition videos and performance videos for those who are interested.
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Taking a vacation in Chicago is one of the best places for travel, with so many things to do during the summer and winter months, there is no chance of ever running out of fun things to do in Chicago for cheap. Chicago is by far one of my favorite vacation hot spots since my kids and grandkids live there, and since I used to live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago years ago, visiting my old stomping grounds will be a treat.

We’ve had a good time during our inexpensive Staycation vacations, but this year we decided we really needed a getaway vacation where we can fly to Chicago and enjoy the Windy City and its many attractions. Planning a cheap vacation trip to Chicago includes finding good deals on hotels, car rentals, air fare, discount event tickets and finding as many free activities as possible. When it comes to planning a vacation to Chicago or anywhere else, cheap is good, but free is better.

Deciding where to stay in Chicago, where to eat, where to park if you’re going to spend time in downtown Chicago or surrounding cities, and where all the hot spots are in or outside of the city are things that must be decided. Picking what hotels or motels we would consider for our visit to Chicago was easy with Hotels.com, and since I used to live there I know what neighborhoods are good or bad, and what areas to avoid at all cost.
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Diet books are popular for people wanting to lose weight. Whether weight loss or fitness goals are achieved by joining a gym to help lose weight or if working out at home is preferred, diet books can help motivate and inspire people to get moving and lose weight once and for all. For many people, this is the time of year for self reflection and making resolutions to lose weight and start an exercise program. Diet books are a great asset towards weight loss and healthier living, but diet books won’t do the work of losing weight and getting fit for you.

Reading some of the best diet books to help in achieving your goal to lose weight, exercise, get fit and live a healthy lifestyle includes several new diets books listed on the New York Times best seller list for weight loss. Listed below are a total of 20 diet books that are amongst the most popular, best selling and best rated diet books in the effort to lose weight.

Best Diet Books of 2009

1. Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide by David Zincenko and Matt Goulding was the best selling diet book in 2009 as is just one of the very popular diet books included in the Eat This Not That series. This diet book includes nutrition tips and advice on which aisles in the grocery store are the best and which to avoid, with focus on healthy eating habits. Advice on how to decode and understand food labels, tips on selecting and choosing the healthiest foods for you and your family to eat to help you lose weight, save money and live a healthy lifestyle. This must read diet book offers practical lists and information about the 20 Worst Foods in the Supermarket, the Ultimate Supermarket Label Decoder, 17 Secrets the Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know, Shop Once, Eat for a Week and How to Stock the Perfect Pantry.

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Are you a people pleaser? Do you care what people think about you? Should you care what other people think about you or not? Do you have the “disease to please” people in your life to the point where you feel like you have become someone’s personal doormat to wipe their dirty feet on? Do you have difficulty saying no to requests and then feel angry or resentful because you said yes, again? Who is pulling your strings?

By definition, people pleasers are people who have a disproportionate and unhealthy need in their personality to give in to the wants, whims and desires of others around them, to the point of sacrificing their own wants or needs. People pleasers, pushovers and doormats lack assertiveness skills and hold back from speaking up and saying what they really think or feel, and they hold back from asking for what they need or want because they’re worried someone will get upset about it.

Having a people pleasing personality is great…..until. Being considerate, thoughtful, gracious and willing to help others are admirable traits and characteristics, but suffering from doormat syndrome or being a people pleaser to your own detriment are not so admirable. People pleasers put other people’s needs before their own, rarely doing things for themselves and then feel guilty about it.
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Merry Christmas to you and yours! Happy Holidays, Feliz Navidad, or all the other ways of saying Merry Christmas in different languages that I don’t know. I’ll be taking the rest of the decade off and then start working on those New Year’s resolutions…(goals really) like everyone else.
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