A lot happened on my very first Mother’s Day. My daughter was Dedicated at church. We had a huge party with dear family and friends. We had portraits done. It was a Mother’s Day I will never forget. The only thing that was missing is that my then-husband forgot to buy me a gift. I was OK with that, but later on I stopped and bought myself a bird feeder I’d had my eye on for a long time.

We had a lot of birds in our backyard in Gainesville, and nearly as many squirrels. I bought one of those weighted birdfeeders that tipped with a squirrel sat on it, but kept the bird food safe from spilling. The feeder kept the squirrels out of the food and provided all of our gorgeous wild birds with enough tasty food to keep them coming back over and over.

When I moved out after my divorce, I somehow forgot to take that feeder with me and I when I recently asked for my ex to being it to me, he informed me that it has “disappeared”. So, I’ve been using a sort of makeshift feeder in my current backyard. It involved a hanging plant, a shepherd’s hook, and a bit of complicated rigging. Unfortunately, it’s not keeping out the squirrels.

I’ve been hunting about on Birdfeeders.com for a replacement bird feeder. I’m thinking that this time I am going to go for bigger and better – even though my old bird feeder kinda’ rocked. This Birdscapes® Squirrel-Be-Gone II™ Feeder is a lot like the one I used to have, but it is a whole lot more decorative and hold more seed. It’s squirrel-proof, adjustable, and looks pretty. It’s pretty much exactly what I had in mind.

So, the only question now is whether or not I should wait until Mother’s Day to buy it for myself. I’m tempted to just go ahead and treat myself to it now, since my birthday is in about a week.

As I teach my own daughter to write, I am focusing on helping her develop clear, tidy script. And, it is making me think about how many people I know who have handwriting that is so bad I cannot generally puzzle out what they are writing.

At school, there are kids who hate to write longhand so much that they will do just about anything to gain access to a computer to do their work. Of course, there are those students who are permitted to use a computer as an accommodation, but more often that not the student in question simply hates to write and had atrocious writing.

I had five pages of names I needed to transcribe this afternoon and when I was halfway through the first page I had a shocking realization. These names were not written by students; they were written by teachers. It was shocking how few names I could decipher. It was like trying to get through pages and pages of the worst physician handwriting you can imagine.

Where has the art of penmanship gone? Does it matter to anyone anymore? — aside from the fact that it matters to me?

I’ve talked about Dragon Naturally Speaking in this blog before. It’s that cool software that allows you hands-free typing, because it takes your voice and outputs text. It’s handy (pun, get it?) for a number of reasons, including my own favorite – a remedy for the fact that I think a whole lot faster than I accurately type.

With that in mind, I’d like to welcome an article about Dragon Naturally Speaking written by Guest Blogger, Brett Bumeter. He will tell you how you can Type at $150 Words Per Minute for $99!

The above video is not the typical Dragon NaturallySpeaking video. It was created by a blogger named Heather from British Columbia. She writes a blog called Boating in Beautiful British Columbia.

In the video that she has created, she talks about Dragon NaturallySpeaking. She talks about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. In fact in the video, she is using Dragon NaturallySpeaking while she’s talking about it but you don’t quite realize that until the video is about halfway done.

The thing that’s REALLY interesting about this video, is not the fact that Heather is using the software and it’s not the fact the software works for her so much as HOW she chooses to use it. She took Dragon NaturallySpeaking and sat down with her father who is 95 years old. She spent a few minutes with him getting the software tuned to his voice so that the computer recognizes his sentences and words. Then she’s lets her father tell some of his great stories to the computer which transcribes everything that he says.

You can tell just by watching the video and listening to her father that he really does have some interesting stories to tell. I have a feeling that I could probably listen to the stories myself quite a bit, enjoying them immensely. And that too is not really the cool thing about this video. Although I’d love to hear her father tells more stories, the COOL THING is that she’s using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to capture a piece of her family’s oral tradition.

I can think of hundreds of different stories that my family has shared with me over the years that have not been documented. Our family is slowly losing some of those great stories and unfortunately, as we are losing some of our family members. We survivors don’t know all of the stories ourselves that our parents or grandparents or our great grandparents knew. But this video shows that you can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to help capture some of those great stories that your parents and grandparents and great grandparents have probably told you dozens of times.

It’s something that we don’t always think about, but in a lot of ways those stories are some of the most cherished memories that we will walk away with from our family. And the sad thing is that our family cannot Be with us forever, but their memories can live on and this is where Dragon NaturallySpeaking really shows us its value. It’s true for $99 you can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking and you can type 150 words a minute. That’s a pretty good value for the software. It’s not too expensive and the benefit is tangible.

Now, you can get a useful tool at any computer store or Home Depot or Lowes, and if you don’t know how to use it well, then it really doesn’t matter what you pay for it. It is a waste of money.

Heather shows us a great way to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to capture some of the most valuable information and stories from her father that she might ever be able to record not only for herself but for her daughter and her grandchildren someday and great-grandchildren and many other branches of the family even.

So that’s just another great reason why they Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a pretty cool piece of software. $99 could help you capture your family history easily and even make it indexable too, so that you can search it from your computer. That’s just amazing.

My name Brett Bumeter, and I write about Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I’ve been writing reviews about it for almost 2 years now. You could say that I’m sold on the software, and I hope that this article and this video helps show you the value of using it as well.

Sincerely,
Brett Bumeter
Softduit Media
www.softduit.com

PS this article is about 630 words long and it took me five minutes to write and another minute or two to edit with Dragon Naturally Speaking 10. Even with editing time that’s close to 100 words per minute!

It’s a wacky world out there right now. Banks are failing; mortgages are tough to come by, and now in the midst of what seems like hundreds of local businesses going south, Bay Area Gymboree locations moved into Chapter 7 bankruptcy late last week.

Not to be confused with the Gymboree clothing stores, the Gymborees I speak of are those places you can take your babies and toddlers to play, for pay. I’d say that the loss of such facilities is a shame, but it should simply force parents to go back to what my mom did (and I did only 5 short years ago) and form play groups with other local parents. It shouldn’t actually mean playing a fee to have a little peer interaction for your toddler.

The locations that closed on October 24 were all franchises owned by Tot-Bot Inc. They files for Chapter 11 (restructuring) back in March.

I’m sure I have blogged in the past about how I have become a super fan of the goodie of the month club concept.

It all started when I was married and found myself all of the sudden with a couple of dozen additional friends and relatives I needed to shop for when buying Christmas gifts. My then-husband tended to hand out soulless envelopes of cash to the kids and nothing at all to the adults, all the while collecting on dozens of incoming gifts. I felt compelled to his shopping for him.

However, it changed Christmas shopping for me from a wonderful experience I looked forward to year after year to a daunting task that gave me acid indigestions.

That is when I thought back to the wine of the month club my parents used when sending gifts to many of their friends. I asked them about the club they used, ended up using the same one to choose several family gifts, and then moving on from there to discover “of-the-month” clubs that dealt in fruit, candy, books, and even naughty under-things. I was hooked. It was an easy way to choose a thoughtful gift and everyone who received a club gift from us was thrilled.

I finally splurged this summer and bought an amazing digital camera. I had a pretty great digital camera already, but I purchased it in 2000 and although it was top of the line back then there have been some any advances in technology in the past few years that it was simply outdated.

I had a rockin’ camcorder when I was married, but that ended up with my ex. Although my new digital camera will record some video clips, I really want to have a hi-def camcorder. If I am going to do something at all, I want to do it right.

It took me months to sift through reviews and specs to find the digital camera I wanted and I expect it will take me nearly as long to find the right camcorder. I actually bought one last spring and ended up returning it, because operating the thing was far too complicated in proportion to the actual quality of the video that was output. Plus, I hated the fact that the company making the cameras was using a proprietary format that was not compatible with standard editing programs. I had to use a tricky, multi-stepped hack to reformat the files.

I’m open to suggestions! Send me your opinions and personal experiences when it comes to camcorders and I will be forever in your virtual debt.

I ask this question as I also ponder my own new job. I made a decision after my divorce to reevaluation my career and make sure I was doing something that made me happy. I was working as a graphic designer before I made a break to stay home and be a wife and mother. Even during the at-home part of my life I continued to take freelance design jobs.

After my divorce I thought back to when I first entered college with the idea of becoming a teacher. I had two professors who talked me out of that particular path, which subsequently led to a career in media, publishing, PR and other exciting lines of work. Still, I kept thinking how cool it would be to work with kids.

I also thought a lot about my friend who became a Chicago accident attorney, only to abandon her high-paying job to pursue a life in the Peace Corps. She had years of expensive law school behind her, as well as a very prestigious clerking experience in Philadelphia. All that might have been what she thought she wanted, but it turns out that it did not make her happy. The Peace Corps, on the other hand, DID make her happy and it’s now the life she cheerfully leads.

So now I am working in the public school system. I am exhausted every day when I come home. There are times when the bell rings for one class or another and I find I have been emotionally drained by the students who were in there with me. However, I still feel like this is the life that will bring me happiness. Some of the kids are jaded already, but for the most part they are still in that part of their lives filled with wonderment and possibility. I love being around that.

I had head from a few friends that it was considered one of the better public elementary schools in the north end of the county. It’s not in a particularly bad neighborhood, and the stats show a lot of two-family homes feed the school. Even so, Friday was still a pretty frightening day for everyone at Leila G. Davis Elementary School in Clearwater, Florida.

A LOADED handgun was found in the backpack of a KINDERGARTEN student by a teacher’s assistant.

A loaded handgun in a kindergartner’s backpack.

Wow.

It turns out that the six-year-old found the loaded gun in his grandparents’ bedroom and brought the gun to school to show his friends.

So far, the word is that criminal charges will not be filed. Even so, the school district does have a policy that any child who possesses or exhibits a gun at school will be suspended and recommended for expulsion.

I know a lot of people might keep a loaded handgun in their bedside table, but that is one of those things you need to change once you have a child living in your home. I know when my daughter was born; guns in my hone were moved and stored differently. It seemed a like a no-brainer.

Isn’t there some sort of penalty for the grandparents who have the child living with htem? This seems like the logical thing to me.

I like to get things moving along early when it comes to Christmas gifts and the cards I will send out to family and friends. For the last five years I have used Vista Print to order my Personalized Christmas Cards. I have our family portrait done and then I upload it to the Vista Print website and choose one of their cool designs. I add a message unique to me and move a few things around in the layout – and voila, I’m all done. Vista Print always ships me my order even quicker than they promise and all that leaves is getting everything addressed and mailed out to people.

I like the feature that allows me to put a version of my photo onto the back of the card in black and white for no additional cost. It looks cool and adds some personal flair.

The reason I prefer to use Vista Print’s cards over the ones you can have made at Costco or Sam’s Club, or even Wal-Mart is that Vista Print’s cards are not printed on flimsy photo paper, but on high quality glossy card stock. They are Christmas cards in the truest sense. Best of all, I can do the entire process online, from the comfort of my home, and cross one more errand off my list.

Because the Christmas cards I have ordered from Vista Print in the past have come out looking SO good, I have gone into at least a dozen homes of my friends and family and seen the cards still displayed in the middle of summer. It’s kind of flattering.

As we close in on tonight’s World Series game, people around the Tampa Bay area are alive with the excitement that tends to unify a region. It’s funny to think about last season or even the beginning of this season and how people all over the area looked at the Tampa Bay Rays as a colossal joke. You never saw Rays t-shirts being worn. They could not even give away tickets to the game. And now…, now everyone is their biggest fan.

The irony amuses me.

At the same time, I love seeing the excitement in the kids at school. Even at my daughter’s elementary school I can find signs that say “Go Rays!” nearly everywhere I look. At the high school, the kids are more subtle, but the excitement is surely bubbling underneath the surface.

I haven’t watched any of the games, but I do wish the Rays the best of luck,. It would be thrilling to see them win the big one. This is such a young, enthusiastic team. They know they have a lot to prove and it’s been encouraging watching all that pay off for them.

I have a mailing list that is associated with one of my websites. It has nearly 3000 members and question that is asked most frequently is how to go about choosing the right webhost for both personal and small business websites.

Generally I have the time to chat back and forth with the asker to find about a little more about their needs, expectations, and level of website experience. Different hosting options are right for different people and situations.

I always tell people to stop first and think about things like how much you want to spend monthly or annually, what features you need (like a shopping cart), and the reputation of the company you eventually end up using. For the most part, you can get excellent, reliable hosting for anywhere from $5 to $10 a month. Often times, it’s one of the smallest investments of your online business monetarily speaking, but making sure you are with the right web host for your needs can make or break how profitable your venture is in the end.

In fact, just because your friend recommends a host they have done well with, that does not actually mean the same host will fit your needs. Word of mouth is indeed important, but you cannot go on personal recommendations alone.

When I do not have time to do the whole back-and-forth with someone in order to walk them through choosing the right host, I will send them to a webhosting blog or other site that has a wealth of articles discussing the very same issues I would myself point out to the person.

Web Hosting Geeks is one such site. They have a good deal of informative articles, several categories of company ratings, and more webmaster resources than you can shake a stick at – virtually speaking, of course. If you’ve got any questions at all about how to choose your web host, I urge you to check out Web Hosting Geeks, read some of their articles, get involved in discussions, and basically ensure that you are making an informed decision before you settle on a host.

I thought it might be nice to go back to my roots and just write a blog article on one of the many merits of Florida in general.

People ask me all of the time when is the best time to visit Florida. I’ve got a few answers to that question, based on what you want to get out of your trip. In general, though, I would have to say that there is pretty much nothing more pleasant and paradise-like than October in Florida.

At the beginning of this past week, the humidity all of the sudden just dropped off the map. The skies took on that deep blue color that you only find over large bodies of water. The citrus trees let forth more fragrant blossoms and the daytime temperatures cooled off just enough so that shorts are still comfortable, but a cool breeze still baths your exposed skin.

People who maintain one home in Florida and one up north are called “snowbirds”. There is a reason that most snowbirds find themselves back in Florida in October. The white hot of summer is past us, but we still have a couple of months of warm weather ahead. It’s marvelous.

Today I opened all of the windows in the house. It’s cooler than usual right now and a chill breeze is wandering through the house. I can smell orange blossoms on the breezes and in a couple of hours; the night blooming jasmine will join the symphony of fragrance.

Sometimes I miss living back up near Washington, DC. I suppose it’s the deep of summer that makes me most nostalgic, or when someone up there tells me they just had their first show of the winter. Other than that, I have no regrets about moving to Florida. You just cannot get this kind of perfect weather up north, ever.

When my sister had my nephew, part of our gift to her was getting her started with a cord blood banking system at Cryo-Cell. Initially, we chose Cyro-Cell because they are located here in our county, over in Oldsmar, FL. After the fact, we found out about their international reputation.

My point is that if you are looking for a unique gift to give someone who is expecting, a child, a gift certificate for cord blood banking is a matchless option. And, unlike a layette or a set of crib bedding, a child is not going to grow out of your gift right away.

When you bank the cord blood after the birth of a child, you are saving the stem cells that can be used to treat diseases like leukemia, anemia, lymphoma, diabetes and cerebral palsy. The cells are a perfect match, naturally, and give an extra assurance that help will be readily available in a medical emergency. There is even a very good chance that a child’s cord blood will be a good match for a sibling as well.

The collection process is simple and painless. In fact, most hospitals will be more familiar with the process of using Cryo-Cell than you are. I do urge you to take a few minutes and look at the current offers on the Cryo-Cell website, as well as some of their educational material. You can also call them and speak with an expert who can walk you through all of your questions.

Due to the circumstances at the hospital when I had my daughter, we ended up donating our cord blood. We had signed up with Cryo-Cell, though, and would have used them had my circumstances been what they were.

Since it is Star Fruit season once again, I want to start posting some new recipes. I’ve been taking bags and bags of ripe Star Fruit into the school and the students are going nuts for it. I learned my lesson, though, and now they have to come to me either at lunch or after school to get the fruit. Otherwise, they are eating it all day and it’s distracting.

Sweet Star Fruit Relish

8 cups thinly sliced star fruit
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon whole cloves
4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Wash and thinly slice star fruit. Make sure you remove all seeds and tougher skin or membrane. Cover with cider vinegar and let stand overnight.

Drain off vinegar. Combine star fruit with sugar and salt. Add cloves. Cook gently to the consistency of preserves. Let stand overnight.

Remove spice bag and reheat mixture to boiling. Pack into hot pint jars. Wipe jar mouths and adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Makes about 5 pints.

We all know what the Amber Alert. It’s the very successful child abduction alert system used when the police confirm that a child has been abducted.
We can now welcome the Silver Alert. It was enacted today in Florida and will function much like the Amber Alert broadcast system, but it is specifically intended to be used when a person age 60 or older with dementia or another cognitive impairment goes missing. It can also be used for people between the ages of 18 to 59 if they have “irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties”.

Florida has a large elderly population and I am very happy to see the Silver Alert finally be put into play. I hear about local alerts concerning missing elderly people all of the time and this system will give law enforcement the tools they need to better communicate across regions and between agencies.