Book Review

About three years ago, a couple friends and I decided that we would give E-harmony a try for a year. We weren’t meeting guys at church and we each knew a couple who had met through an online dating website.

After about three months, I had emailed back and forth with a few guys and had even talked to one guy on the phone a little bit. I had just started talking to one guy (let’s call him M) and he told me that because he had two children, it would probably be kind of tough to meet in person. I was fine with the because I am able to express myself a lot better in writing than I am on the phone or in person with new acquaintances. Plus, it was really important to me to become very good friends with someone before a relationship would go any further.

We had been emailing back and forth for about three weeks when I got an email from M and he informed me that his parents were coming to town to visit and they could watch the kids if I wanted to meet up with him. I agreed to meet because I was trying to give this whole online thing a chance and taking a step like this was good for me. He then asked me for my phone number so he could call me before we met up.

When I hung up the phone after that phone call, I knew I had made a mistake. The biggest clue was when M told me that he had been on E-harmony for two years and this is the first time he had talked to someone on the phone. BUT, I wasn’t going to stand the guy up and I wanted to still give him a chance. I mean, I am awkward on the phone when I first talk to someone.

We had agreed to meet at a restaraunt at a local mall. We were going to have dinner and then afterward, walk around the mall and chat. So, Friday night after work, I headed over to the mall with the plan that one of my co-workers was going to call me at 9:00 (when the mall closed) to make sure everything was alright.

M and I sat down to dinner and he proceeds to tell me that his parents really want him to get married and they have been paying for his E-harmony membership for the past two years (by the way, this guy was 40). And then the conversation just got weird. Because M’s parents paid for his membership, he let them see all of the pictures and read the email conversations. He told me that as he was showing his parents the pictures of me that we online, he came to the full body shot and his dad said, “Is she naked.” M. then started telling me that his parents practically had us married already and he wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to follow us around that night. (Guys, please note, these are NOT the things you want to say to a girl when you are meeting her for the first time). There was also quite a bit of conversation about money (and how he didn’t have any)

We finally made it through dinner and M. started talking about what a great cook his mother was and how she had brought these amazing cookies with her for he and his kids. And then he pulls out some cookies wrapped in plastic wrap and said that she told him he could bring some as long as he promised to share them with me. This little stunt has earned this guy the nickname of “Cookie Boy” with some of my friends.

As we were leaving the restaraunt, M. says (loud enough for several people to hear), “Dessert was the cheapest part of dinner.”

We decided to go ahead and walk around the mall a little bit. M asked me if there were any stores I wanted to look in. I said, “No, I don’t like to shop and I especially hate to window shop.”

We made one turn around the mall when he asked me if he could go into the Apple store to look at a new product. In retrospect, I don’t know why he wanted to look at this because with all of the talk at dinner, I knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it. So, we went into the apple store so he could window shop.

After this, we sat down on one of the benches and he asked what I thought. The conversation went something like this:

M: “So, what do you think?”

Me: “What do I think of what?”

M: “Do you think this could work? I thought this went really well.”

Me: “As I’ve been saying, I really want to take things slow and before anything happens, I want to develop a strong friendship.”

M: “Oh, I totally agree.”

Intercom: “The mall will be closing in ten minutes, please make your final purchases.”

We got up to leave and M asked me what I was doing the following Tuesday (which happened to be around Valentine’s Day). I actually had plans for that day. He told me that a local restaraunt was having a couples dinner thing. He then asked me if I liked Astronomy. I told him he wasn’t really into it and he proceeded to invite me to the observatory to watch a meteor shower with him and his kids. He couldn’t remember exactly what night it was so he was going to email the information.

When I got to my car, I called Shannon and told her that I had made it and proceeded to tell her all about the night I had just had. We still laugh about this night.

An hour after I got home, I had an email from M telling me that he really enjoyed our time together and he wanted to pass along the information for the meteor shower to me. He suggested I come to his church and he and his kids and I could go out from there. He then told me that he really wanted me to meet his kids and asked if I could come to his apartment for dinner and to watch a movie.

I had to tell him once again that I wanted to take things slowly and going to church with him and, especially, meeting his kids were really huge steps in a relationship that I wasn’t ready for. He told me that he was used to the one wanting to take things slowly so this was weird for him.

Nothing more ever came of this. I ended up telling him that I didn’t feel this was something I wanted to persue and I have not heard from him nor seen him since.

While one of my friends ended up marrying a guy she met on E-harmony that year, I just ended up with a couple of stories. But they are some pretty good (bad) date stories.

Most people go on vacation to relax and kick back but some are trying to escape fear and despair. In Denise Hildreth’s newest book (scheduled to be released in June 2010), four women have found themselves in Paradise Island, Bahamas. Each has secrets they are trying to either run from or hide from.

As the four women try and survive their vacation wtih a hurricane coming towards the resort, each woman uncovers and confronts her struggle with the help of the others. As the women learn more about themselves and each other, they form life-long friendships with each other.

The characters in this book were very likable and worth rooting for. Each character was struggling with big issues that were life changing. Hildreth does a wonderful job of individualizing each character and the turning point in each of their stories is powerful.

Part romance, part mystery and all heart, “Hurricanes in Paradise” is a page turner that will not disappoint.

***An advanced reader copy of this book was provided to me by Tyndale House Publishers free of charge. I am in not compensated in any way for either a favorable or poor review of this product.

Last year, I found something I viewed as a game: how much money could I save in one trip using coupons. At the beginning of 2010, I decided that I was going to start keeping track of how much money I saved using coupons, store rewards and internet earnings. So far this year (and we’re not even through April yet), my savings have been over $600.00.

Now, I admit, I’m blessed to live in an area that has stores that double coupon values and do special double and triple coupon events but there are still plenty of ways to save out there. So, I thought today I would share some of the things I’ve learned about couponing as well as opportunities to earn a little money or gift certificates that are available via the internet.

Let’s start with the coupons. I would say the first step would be to stockpile coupons for at least two months before you try and start shopping with them. There are several blogs out there that are dedicated to store sales by region. If you live in the states, you can find a blog in your region here: http://bargainbriana.com/introducing-the-frugal-map/. These blogs are helpful because very often the blogger does all of the legwork for you. She will take your local ads and go through them and then go through her coupons and give you the best deals that are to be found.

The next suggestion is to only use coupons with sales. You are not really saving any money if you are just using coupons because you have them. When you do this, you are very often buying items simply because you have the coupon and this is when you get into trouble. When you use a coupon in conjunction with a sale, this is when you really start to see your savings add up.

One other suggestion is to organize your coupons so it is easy for you to find them. You can buy coupon organizers or you can keep them in envelopes or shoeboxes. Another way to organize coupons is to get a three ring binder and keep your coupons in baseball card sleeves (this is quite a bit more time consuming and it can be challenging to get the coupons to fit in the sleeves. Coupons can be found in the Sunday paper and they can be printed at www.coupons.com, www.smartsource.com and www.redplum.com. Many manufacturer websites offer coupons as well. You may want to create a new email address for your coupons since you will get emails from manufacturers. Just don’t forget to check that email regularly.

Ok, those are several tips to begin saving money using coupons, now let’s talk about ways you can earn some extra money. We’ll start with shopping online. If you do much shopping online, there are a couple of sites that will give you a percentage of what you spend back. Simply go to the website, find the store you would like to shop at, link to the store through that website and shop normally from this point. A couple days after your have ordered, a balance will show on your account on the rebate site. I know of two of these sites: http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=6bG04P46CnVMuIDlUa0sig%3D%3D and http://www.shopathome.com/?IAFCG=QZoXL1+av5qvXjQHY64waA. Refer friends to these sites and earn even more.

Don’t feel comfortable shopping online? Well, there are other ways you can earn money online. The first is inbox dollars at http://www.inboxdollars.com/?r=ref4426883. You set the number of emails you would like a day, open the emails and choose the “click here to confirm reading email” button. Another great way to earn some extra cash is http://us.beruby.com/promocode/u5OQYJ .  Just logon to this website and continue on to yahoo, google, myspace, facebook and twitter from here and you earn half a cent every time. You earn one cent just for logging on to the site every day. Both of these websites do take a while for the earnings to add up but if you can get some referrals, things start moving quickly. I was on inbox dollars for about a year before I saw my first $30 but it seems to be adding up more quickly this year.

The final thing I will share with you out there is a site called Swagbucks. Check out http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/nashpredsfan. You earn points for putting the search toolbar on your computer (I get points every morning when I log on to the computer) and using the Swagbucks search engine. When you load the toolbar, you can also get special codes. Swagbucks also gives you points for shopping through them. You can redeem this points or “swagbucks” for several items, including electronics, e-gift certificates, music, apparel, books and magazines and more (see the swagbucks store for all available). Again, this is another site that you really start to see quick results once you have a few referrals.

I hope some of the above may be helpful to you. I am happy to answer any questions that I did not address here. Happy savings!!!

I have a coworker who is always asking me if I have any good jokes. I’ve found a couple of good ones but very often I don’t have anything to pass on to her.

Now, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of humor. My dad is crazy and I think all three of us kids have inherited that a little bit. I mean, even my nieces and nephew tend to carry things too far (this is what my dad is famous for). EVERYTIME I talk to my parents on the phone and he is the first to talk to me, he pulls one of two pranks. He either asks if I would like to talk to my mom and when I say yes, he gets on the phone and pretends to be her or he acts like he’s handing the phone to her and she doesn’t want to talk to me. He says something like, “What do you mean you don’t want to talk to her.”

When I was visiting my family in February, I was at my sister’s place and my sister, Kaitlyn (her oldest daughter) and I were playing a card game called Nerts (my family loves to play this game when we get together—hmmm, idea for my N post).  My sister’s youngest daughter, Alison, was keeping us entertained the whole time by acting like she was a television station. She did pretty well too. I think she gave us the nightly news, commercials, “Dancing with the Star” and some Disney shows. It was pretty entertaining.

The one place I would not be able to bear without an abundant amount of laughter is my work. I work fairly closely with seven other girls and we love to laugh. We give each other a hard time sometimes but it’s all in the name of humor. There are a couple of guys that work with us too who can usually add to the craziness pretty well. I don’t think there would be a sane person in my workplace if we didn’t have to laughter to even everything out.

I think e.e. cummings said it well, “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”

Every once in a while I love to create a rhyme. When I was little I used to carry around a notebook that I would write poems in (I sure wish I still had that notebook). So, I thought while we are doing this April challenge, I would flex my poetry/rhyming muscles a little as well.

Kind Words

A compliment that is thrown my way

can brighten my most dreary day.

“You look nice” or “I like your hair”

makes some tough times a little easier to bear.

Please, Thank You and My Pleasure are simple ways to be polite

and are are likely to bring sunshine to someone’s day or night.

So take a minute to think before you speak.

Build others up, don’t try to make them feel weak.

Lifting someone up is such and easy thing to do.

But sometimes our kind words are too few.

We are quick to argue and quick to defend

which makes us less likely to allow our attitudes to bend.

Make a point and set a goal

to uplift someone else’s soul.

A kind word or two will uplift someone’s mood

and can make that person feel renewed.