If you love to go camping, you need to make sure you have the best tent that money can buy. You may want to skimp when you buy family camping tents, but I can tell you from experience that this is not the way to go. When there is nothing between your family, the weather and the great outdoors, you want the very best and you should settle for nothing less. You may have to spend more, but the extra cost is well worth it. It only takes one bad camping trip to convince your family that they don’t ever want to go again.

There are many types of family camping tents, but don’t get the cheapest one you can find like I did. We went camping on a weekend that was supposed to be clear and sunny. As it turned out, it was cold and damp, and we couldn’t just pack up and leave, as my husband had an obligation he had to fulfill. Had we picked better family camping tents, we would have been a lot happier. Instead we were constantly wet and damp, and all of our clothes and equipment got wet. We ended up in a hotel, which was not part of the plan.

Good family camping tents will keep out the water. There are exceptions, as you can’t stop a river that might be coming at you, but they should keep out the worst of the storms that may arise. You want family camping tents that are totally waterproof and ones that have secure lines and stakes so that strong winds won’t tear them up from the ground if no one is inside. They should have plenty of room for everyone in your family. You should make sure there is enough room to stretch and stand up straight or everyone is going to be miserable.

The size of family camping tents that you might want to buy will depend on who many people you have in your family, and will also depend on where you plan to go camping. If you think you want to do some winter camping, you will need special family camping tents for that. Just remember that this is one time when the more you spend, more comfortable you will be. If you like to go camping, you don’t want to do anything to turn your family off from the activity.

If you are planning any sort of event outside, you might want to make sure you have some event tents ready in case of the rain or anything else that might happen. Many people have planned events outside and just hoped that it wouldn’t rain, or even snow. I was just at a wedding recently where snow, sleet and rain ruined the affair. The bride did not have any type of back up planned, even though the event was in October. There was no tent and she refused to move the ceremony. We all froze. It was a horrible scene and utterly ridiculous.

There is something beautiful about having a ceremony outside and family reunions are almost always planned to be outdoors events. There is always the unknown to deal with and event tents can help when this happens. Though tents can’t help you if it’s snowing, as it will still be freezing cold, they can help when it rains on a special day. If you don’t want to move your event indoors, at least the event tents can keep your guests dry. If you suspect that wind might be a problem, you can get tents that have sides. That way when the wind is gusting you might be able to keep things under control.

You may want to have event tents regardless of what the weather might be. Even when the sun is out all day, there can still be problems. The sun can get awfully hot and when this happens, you need a place for your guests to get out of the sun and the heat. Event tents can’t be air conditioned, but they can offer some sort of relief. If you have any guests who may be ill, or are elderly, they will most definitely need a cooler place to sit down and rest.

Event tents are available at rental shops and you can find almost any size you may need. If you can’t find one big enough, you may have to rent two. Just make sure that if you are using event tents are back up only, that you know how to put them up if you need to do so in a hurry. Spend the money to get a really good model and make sure all of the pieces are there before you take it home with you. A tent won’t help much if you can’t get it up before everyone’s day is ruined.

I have a friend who is just a knock out. There is no other way to explain it. She’s beautiful and intelligent, and quite often is the voice of reason when I feel like I’m in crisis. She has great taste in clothes and always looks great when she dresses up. Though she looks perfect she is over 40 and says that there is no way she can go without her bra. When she wears something that does not allow for a regular bra, she has to find one with clear bra straps. Though she says that is not a perfect solution, it is what works for her.

I personally don’t own anything that would necessitate the need for clear bra straps, but I think it is high time that someone invented them. I don’t know what the social code is for wearing a bra like that, but I know I would much rather see clear bra straps when someone is wearing something low cut than to see just too much. Often women wear low cut tops and they don’t wear a bra with it because the top is cut strangely. If they don’t wear a bra they hang out all over the place.

They are great for women who might need something a little better than a strapless bra can handle. If someone has a large chest, there just aren’t strapless bras strong enough to handle the problem. That is where clear bra straps are a Godsend. There is nothing worse that being a large chest women and being confronted with a strapless dress. Though there are some women who love to let it all hang out, most of us aren’t willing to share that much with the world. The next time I am in a wedding, I know I am going out to find something with clear bra straps or I’m just not going to be involved at all.

There are some times when you might not want to wear clear bra straps and it will depend on who you are and how comfortable you are. I know that even though they are clear, they are still part of a bra. I might wear one if only a small portion of it might be showing, but you won’t catch me wearing clear bra straps on a strapless dress. Of all the things that have come and gone in fashion, at least these have a good purpose.

With the current instability in oil prices, many everyday expenses become difficult to budget. The price of gasoline is unpredictable and this volatility extends to the airline industry, so if you’re shopping for cheap flight tickets, it can be a nightmare.  Finding your way around the airline industry’s pricing can make you want to tear your hair and scream, “Mercy!” Between travel agents, auction sites, reverse auction sites, consolidators and airline restrictions, you can easily be driven to distraction, spending days or weeks trying to find the elusive cheap flight tickets. When all is said and done, you find your seat mate paid half of what you figured was the rock bottom price!

One option you may not have considered is courier flights. Courier flights, in some cases, are absolutely free! True, these free flights aren’t hanging on every corner, but they do happen. At worst, you’ll pay half price. Many times, you’ll find cheap flight tickets to international destinations for as little as $100! So what’s the catch? You need to be ultra flexible, able to leave on a moment’s notice and prepared to travel with only a carry on. If you’re determined to find cheap flight tickets, courier flights are the no hassle way to go!

So just how does this work? What sounds too good to be true is, actually, true. Courier companies are bonded and legal. The company has important documents or goods that are time sensitive and must be delivered by hand within a short time frame. The company’s reputation rests on their ability to deliver on time.  Enter you, the savvy traveler, willing to take the 2 am. flight to London on short notice with your carry on, ferrying the goods or documents to their urgent destination. For these minor inconveniences, you typically receive round trip cheap flight tickets at half price or less, with a stay of anywhere from a week to three months! Once you’ve delivered your documents or goods to their destination, you’re free as a bird.

You’ll need to make your own arrangements for hotels and transportation once you arrive at your destination, but this is not difficult. Search the net or buy a book that gives you the scoop on suitable housing. Make sure your passport is in order. Cheap flight tickets make your traveling dollar go so far, you just can’t lose.  So how do you initiate a booking as a courier? Look in any major city newspaper for ads. Courier flights to world destinations are easily found leaving from New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco.

The only major restrictions you need to worry about are age and your own reliability. Almost always, you must be 21 to qualify for these cheap flight tickets and must show up on time. If you’re a no show, you may be black balled from future assignments.  These requirements are fairly easy to meet, with you the beneficiary of the elusive cheap flight tickets. Not a bad deal!

There are so many aspects to owning a home that it is hard to think through all of them when you are in the market to buy another one. My husband and I spent twelve years remodeling a five bedroom rambler on 20 acres. First we had water problems in the crawl space under the house. We raised the house and put in several more courses of blocks to make a complete basement.  This opened up many additional possibilities regarding what we could do with this additional space.

Initially we thought that we would just leave the space unfinished. We decided that we did need to have some source of heat in the area due to our harsh winters. We had a wood stove and electric base board heat on the main level. It was very expensive to heat the entire house with electricity and quite inconvenient to try to heat continually with wood. We decided that we would install an energy efficient gas furnace. As the man was installing the furnace he mentioned that he would include vents in the duct work that would accommodate central air conditioning, if we would decide to install this at a later date. He went on to tell us that we would save money having them both installed at the same time because we would not have to have them come back out and pay the labor cost. We had talked about having central air conditioning. We live in Minnesota, so we do not have that many days when we need the central air conditioning, but it is helpful to have it going to help remove the moisture from the air. We do get quite humid weather in the summer months.

Within six months of having our home exactly as we wanted it we found a lake house that was very appealing to both of us. We stumbled upon it be mistake. The house was over a hundred years old and needed some cosmetic work done to it. The couple had it listed with the understanding that they were going to replace the furnace because the existing one was not working properly. We offered them less money than they were asking for because we would buy our own furnace. We wanted to install central air conditioning at the same time. They accepted the lower offer. We placed our home up for sale and sold it within 72 hours. Everything fell into place so well.

We are glad that we had the central air conditioning installed at the lake.  Cool breezes do come off the lake, but the humidity by the water will warp the wood moldings. The air conditioned air is much more comfortable to be in. We are glad we had it installed and we are glad that we are now living on the lake.

My friend and I used to watch the show Trading Spaces together all the time. I’m not sure why this became a habit for us, but it was something that we did each weekend. One of the things I never understood about the show was why it seemed each and every one of the designers they had on the show had a deep hatred for each ceiling fan they came into contact with. I used to wonder why it was considered such a hated item and if perhaps they had all taken a class in college called, “How To Hate A Ceiling Fan 101.”

Each and every ceiling fan that they came into contact with was doomed. There was no saving any of them, no matter how practical they might be. Perhaps they have money to throw around, I don’t know, but sometimes you have to be practical above all else. It may not be the perfect look, but if it saves you from spending a lot of money on air conditioning, why on earth would you consider the ceiling fan to be something evil?

I suspect they were looking at it from the design aspect and I can understand that. I don’t think all fans are ugly though and they certainly have an important use in life. I have found that one ceiling fan set on low can keep a room cool enough in the summer that I didn’t have to turn on the air conditioning. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that running a ceiling fan is a lot cheaper than running an air conditioner. We aren’t all made of money folks! Quite frankly I felt that those designers were so bent on the perfect room that they don’t realize the perfect looking room doesn’t do much good if you can’t bear to be in there because of the heat. It just seems like common sense to me.

If you want to have a ceiling fan in your home, don’t worry about what the designers on Trading Spaces think. They are a cost efficient way to keep a room or a home cooler and they don’t really look that bad at all. In fact, if you get the right ceiling fan, you may find that you like the look of it and that I can compliment what you have done with the room. You can find them in almost any finish and you can find them to match a child’s room décor too.

The bookstore I used to work in had a bunch of buying guides for used motorcycles lying around. I had never really been interested in buying motorcycles before, or even in motorcycles themselves. I wasn’t much of a car kid, and I got around very well on my bicycle. One day I started looking through these motorcycle guides on a whim. I was pretty bored and had just finished reading a novel and didn’t want to start anything new.

I was completely stricken by the beauty of the bikes in that guide. I immediately started thinking about buying motorcycles. I am impulsive sometimes, and I thought that the desire to buy a motorcycle was something that would come and go pretty quickly. When I was still thinking about buying a motorcycle a couple weeks later, I knew that this was more than just a passing fancy. I knew that I would have to save up some money and buy myself a nice road bike.

Buying used motorcycles is usually the best approach when you are just starting. I did not know anything about buying motorcycles, so it was good that I met someone who did. One of my co-workers, it turned out, was a big motorcycle aficionado. When I told him that I was thinking about buying motorcycles, he immediately set me down and chatted me up about it. He asked me a bunch of questions about what I wanted and I quickly realized how ignorant I was. He gave me the lowdown and showed me how to pick out the right bike, even offering to accompany me to the motorcycle dealer.

At one point, he asked me if I was really serious about buying motorcycles. I was so vague about what I wanted that it seemed to him like I hadn’t really made up my mind. I sat down and thought about it one Sunday. Did I really want to ride a motorcycle if it meant having to pay for insurance and upkeep? Then I heard the sound of someone’s souped up racing bike driving past, and I felt like it was a sign.  I knew that I had to follow through with buying motorcycles, at least to try it out for myself. The very next week, I found the perfect bike to begin riding on. Soon, I had it tuned up, polished and all ready to go. I have been riding a motorcycle ever since.

My husband and I have prided ourselves in how we have raised our children. They are not perfect and at this point in their lives, they are still having financial struggles, but each of them is happy. Our youngest son has caused us the most challenges. He is the kind of person that will do something just because he can. At times this outlook has placed him in situations that risk his personal safety. He has bungee jumped, sky dived, cliff jumped and white water rafted. I have spent many hours worrying about his safety, yet I was not concerned when he said that he was going to bus travel across the country.

He was planning on going to college in our community. He had worked each summer during high school and had saved most of his money. He decided he would take the summer off and bus travel to areas that he had never seen before. He was going to do this with a friend that would go with him as far as the west coast. This friend would stay on the west coast to attend college.

We drove our son to the Grey Hound Station so he could start his bus travel. He had a cell phone, traveler’s checks and an atlas, along with his personal items and a sleeping bag. He knew that there would be nights that he would sleep on the bus getting from one place to the next. He agreed to call us at least every other day to let us know where he was. The first week he called regularly from his bus travel. He reported that the bus stopped in many small towns and that there were some strange and interesting people that bus travel. He and his friend planned to spend a few days at the Grand Canyon for hiking and rafting.

After six weeks on the bus travel adventure the boys arrived on the west coast. My son spent a week with his friend helping him to get situated and then he started working his way home. He reported that he was getting tired of his bus travel and wanted to spend a few weeks getting ready for college. We were expecting him home in a matter of days. When he did not call for two days we assumed that he was in an area where the cell phone did not work. At the end of the third day we were both worried.

We called the bus company to see if we could track him. When we would call his cell phone, he did not answer. I tried calling his cell phone again and a stranger answered. They said the phone was lying under the seat on the bus. We really started to panic, we called the local police to see if they could help. After three more days our son called. He had lost the cell phone and had missed a bus connection, which left him stranded in a small town during a bad storm. He was taken in by a family, but all the phone lines had been down from the storm.  He arrived home safely from his bus travel, filled with stories of his adventures. I truly hope he will never get the urge to do this again.

I have found that if you can count on one thing going wrong before you go on a trip, you can count on your brake pads squealing in protest.  No matter how well I plan for a trip, I should always remember to save money for unexpected and last minute things I will have to do to my car. Though I can change the brake pads a month before I go, something magical happens that makes them wear down faster. I don’t understand how it happens I just know it will.

One trip I took to Connecticut I remember for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was that one of my new brake pads snapped off halfway there. I didn’t know it because I was on the highway, but the problem became apparent when I got to my destination and had to start using my brakes. I had just put on brake pads a few weeks before and I was sure I was ok to drive the six hours there and the six hours back without having any problems.

When I pulled onto the off ramp and came to a stop at a light, I heard an unearthly crunching sound. I thought it couldn’t be my brake pads because they were just new, and I had never heard brake pads make that noise anyway. As I found my way to my hotel I realized there was something very wrong because the noise happened each time I applied the brakes. It was like metal was rubbing on metal. I didn’t know what to do, and I really didn’t have any idea where to get help.

As it turned out, the brake pads I had installed on my car were not as new as I thought they were. They didn’t have a chance to wear down, they just snapped off. They must have been old brake pads that had been sitting around for too long, though I’m not really sure why it happened. I haven’t had the same problem since. I do know that riding home from Connecticut I was ok. Had it not been highway for most of the trip I would have had to get them fixed there. They still worked, but it was a sound that signaled if I didn’t get them fixed soon I would be facing a huge repair bill. I made sure I found a new garage so hopefully I wouldn’t be sold old brake pads ever again.

It is amazing to me how things have changed in our society. When I was growing up there was no such thing as bottled drinking water. If you were going to purchase something to drink the largest selection was soda. The main decision was to purchase it in a returnable bottle or can. Now the stores are filled with a variety of bottled drinking water in many flavors.

There are many reasons why people started buying bottled drinking water. Some people do not like the taste of treated city water that comes out of their taps. There have also been many studies that caution people that the drinking water supplies in certain areas may be contaminated. People are also more aware that they should drink more water throughout the day. Some studies indicate that you should consume a minimum of eight glasses a day. In the past when you would see someone drinking this amount of water the assumption was made that they were dieting. Most diets included the eight glasses of water in their regiments long before it became popular with the general public. I do think that people are going a bit over board with the bottled drinking water.

Next time you are out in public notice how many people are carrying bottled drinking water with them. It is everywhere. At the work setting most people carry a bottle of water into meetings with them. They also have a bottle of water on their desks and in their cars. Many people in our office refill their water bottle throughout the day from the large bottled drinking water that we have in the company break room. For some people it seems that the bottle of water is a security blanket.

Walking down a side walk or in the mall the majority of people are carrying a water bottle. When I go for walks around the neighborhood I see other walkers toting a water bottle with them. Recently we had a family gathering and my sister-in-law carried bottled drinking water around with her throughout the day. As they were driving out of the driveway she had to run back to our house to retrieve her bottle. She asked if it was safe to refill it from our tap water. I explained that we had safe drinking water so she filled her bottle for the ride home, which is only a fifteen minute drive. I told my husband that I feel that our society is addicted to carrying around water bottles. It makes me wonder how many forms of bacteria are growing in the bottles that people keep refilling.