Freaky Frugalite

I like these memes. They are very quick and easy. I’m not able to devote much time to deep thought these days (pretty obvious, looking at my recent blog posts! :-p ), so quick memes are fun and filling!

I saw this meme on Vixen’s Den. Type in the first thing you think of:

1. Bangs :: Laura Ingalls Wilder (remember when she begged her mom to get bangs, and she used a rod heated in the fire to curl them?)
2. Diaper :: THANK YOU, GOD, THAT I DON’T HAVE TO CHANGE THESE ANYMORE.
3. Coffee table :: Needs refinishing. Badly.
4. Cops :: Speed traps.
5. Matches :: Soggy. (I am always leaving the box outside…)
6. 250 :: 300
7. Hurricane :: Swirly clouds (satellite images).
8. Bad :: See #4.
9. Confirmation :: Yes.
10. Fiber :: Soft.

There are also a couple of other wonderful memes I hope to do soon, when I can devote more time to them. One is at Glimpse of Beautiful, a really beautiful blog by Renee. She is a meme queen, it seems!

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Oh, don’t we all just love free money? :D And isn’t it better when that free money enables us to serve better?

Do you love to teach? Apply for the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship, and you could win a $30,000 stipend to finish your Master’s degree program in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering, or math). What a terrific opportunity!

There is a serious need for teachers in the STEM fields, and organizations are rising to meet the financial needs of qualified educators. The grant is a marvelous opportunity for college graduates and teacher “wanna bees.” A few of the requirements are that you must have an undergraduate degree in a STEM field by a certain deadline, and have at least a 3.0 average. Fellows agree to complete their master’s degree in teacher education in the STEM field, and commit to teach for at least three years. Other fellows offer intensive support and mentoring, too.

This is a marvelous opportunity! If you have desired to be a teacher, especially now when there is such a great need for teachers of mathematics and the sciences, this is a great time to check out your options. The Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship is an annual grant, so you can apply every year for the fellowship. See http://www.wwteachingfellowship.org for application information and the for the next deadline for submissions.

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Did you guys hear about this?? The city of Philadelphia is requiring bloggers to pay a business license fee, even if the bloggers do not make a profit. Unbelievable!

According to the news story, the city government is charging bloggers a $300 licensing fee, on top of a bunch of other fees: a business privilege license, a pay wage tax, a business privilege tax, and a net profits tax.

This is insane. Really. I’m flabbergasted. The justification behind this is because cities are “cash strapped.” Huh? Just because politicians spend more of OUR money than they take in does not give them license to slam us with fees. ??? I’d like to see some politicians get some fees. How about a fee to practice politics, huh? That’s a business, a pretty big business. How about a Lie Tax? If a politician had to pay a dollar every time he told a lie, the deficit would disappear in a matter of days!

What do you think? Do you think a city government is justified in charging bloggers fees? And how about blog anonymity? Some bloggers use their real identity, while others use pen names or a different identity. How could a city determine who is who?

It’s getting crazy out there, folks….

A great poster from Despair.com

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Yeah yeah.

We ALL need it. We don’t like to talk about it much, or even think about it: insurance. My Hubs was an insurance salesman for a while. What a job! It’s a lot of work for so-so pay. Some of his colleagues made a TON of money. (We did not, in case you were wondering). It’s a pretty tough job. My Hubs sold property and casualty insurance (auto, home, life), and that was hard enough. Then there’s the stuff about annuities, stocks, investing, etc etc etc. He used to have to make cold calls (soliciting people he did not know), wrangle with various rules and regulations and policies, and then hand out money to beneficiaries whose loved ones had died (that was always tough).

Despite how dull or difficult the topic of insurance seemingly is, it is definitely worth it to investigate very closely into your policy, and getting very very comprehensive quotes on your coverage. Here in New York State, insurance is mandatory for many things. Car insurance is mandatory, and so is business insurance. It’s is very important to get a well-rounded business insurance quote, no matter what state you live in. You can save (or spend) a TON of money. Yes, quotes do vary from company to company that much!

But it’s BORING to have to call up every agent in town, isn’t it? Well, you actually don’t have to– you can go online and punch in some stats, and get some very competitive quotes delivered to you! Let the insurance agents come to YOU. It’s Netquote.com. CNNMoney talked about them. It’s easy to use the site- I’ve done it already. Choose the kind of insurance you need, whether it be Alaska business insurance or home insurance or even Hawaii business insurance. Create your coverage (the website is very easy to navigate, and the questions are very simple), and submit your information. Then you wait for the agents to contact you with quotes. Netquote.com includes all the major insurance carriers: State Farm, Liberty Mutual, Allstate, and more.

Yes, insurance is boring! But it’s necessary. And you don’t want to be spending a ton of money on a policy when you could be spending much less elsewhere. Compare apples to apples and compare with Netquote.com!

Brought to you by your friends at Netquote.com.

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I live in Upstate New York. We have winter for 6 months of the year. Summers can be humid sometimes, but this year just takes the cake. Holy cow!!! What is going on with this crazy weather?!

You wanna know how humid it is here? I’m sitting at my desk, it’s 73 degrees and rising. I’m having a little problem breathing, because, well gee, I have lungs and not gills. I go to look out my window blinds and see this:

Oh my gosh– that’s WATER on my window blinds! My blinds are sweating!!!

OK that is just totally freaky!

All our fabrics here are damp. You have any idea how ikky it is to sit on the bed, and the sheets and pillowcases are sticky with moisture? It’s pretty gross. It’s even worse when I realize that my kitchen and laundry room are entirely gutted… and I have hang all clothing out on the clothesline. But it won’t dry! As a matter of fact, the clothes become ever wetter after hanging out on the line!

Give me snow. Give me blizzards. I love winter, I love snow. I can breathe again then.

And did you hear that fruits in California may not ripen because it’s been so cold over there?

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. All opinions are 100% mine.

Hey moms and dads and people with sore butts! I have some terrific news for you! Remember Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, that amazing new diaper rash ointment product I blogged about many months ago? Some of you asked about free samples and smaller packages… well, guess what! You can get them! Yes! Now you have no excuse to let your baby wail in agony when you ease his discomfort easily with Boudreaux’s Butt Paste!!

Go to the website and order a free sample– it’s easy! All you have to do is send a 6×9 self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Butt Paste dudes. Moreover, Boudreaux’s Butt Paste comes in some nifty small packages: 1 oz., 2 oz., 3 oz., and 4 oz. tubes, a big 16 oz. jar, and even in convenient single foil packs! The Butt Paste is available at retailers nationwide, and you can order from a link on their website, too. Butt Paste has been mentioned by such luminaries and butt experts as Oprah, ESPN, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, and People Magazine. So, hey, they must know something!

Besides the amazing name that inspires hilarious conversation, the Butt Paste is chock full of helpful ingredients (such as 16% zinc oxide and Peruvian Balsam) to soothe your bawling baby’s burning butt (it is also a terrific way to soothe the results of extreme equestrian or bicycling exploits, I might add). The paste was developed by a pharmacist with input from a pediatrician– these folks KNOW sore butts!

I’m going to order a free sample. I’m past the baby butt stage, but this stuff may come in handy for, uh, other things (like skin rashes!). Plus, I am totally intrigued by the name! LOL, what a conversation piece!

Check out your free sample of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. If it’s good enough for Oprah and The Tonight Show, it’s good enough for you! ;)

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