When I went through my teaching program last year, fully half of the people in the program were from Canada. Apparently, it is really hard to get into teaching school there and it is common for people to obtain alternate degrees and then come to the U.S. to become certified alternatively.

Anyway, I got to know some of the other students quite well and as I plan a winter trip to see one of my best friends up in Buffalo, I’m planning a little side-trip into Toronto and some of the surrounding suburbs.

Now, I am traveler who likes to plan, but not in your typical ways. I will get my transportation taken care of and make sure I have a place to stay, but I tend to go with the flow when it comes to deciding what attractions to visit. I let the mood move me, so to speak. Not so when it comes to finding places to eat, though. I rarely have good luck when I leave choosing a restaurant to chance. I like to look at reviews and menus first.

I like it when a town or a general area has a website that allows me to look at local businesses, including restaurants. Brampton.com is a great example. The site is a powerhouse when it comes to info on the locale. In fact, it is connected to an entire website dedicated to Brampton, Ontario’s restaurants. You can also pick up that local news, upcoming events, best places to shop, and so on. It’s perfect for the way I like to prepare to visit somewhere I’ve never been before. Of course, it’s also the kind of site the locals love. I use a similar site for my area here in Florida almost daily, because I can find business reviews and free classifieds and pretty much anything else I am looking for on a given day.

It’s been clear that retailers are starting to target consumers earlier and earlier for years. When I was a child, Christmas décor and items did not make an appearance in store until after Thanksgiving. In recent years, Christmas items came out as soon as Halloween items came down. This year, though, most of the stores around here set up their Halloween and Christmas displays side-by-side the very same week.

Tonight we watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and it was chock full of ads pimping the new Christmas toys. It was nearly unwatchable, because my daughter is very susceptible to commercials right now. There is a reason that her general TV viewing includes only Noggin, PBS, Disney and the pre-school On Demand channel.

So, as we slowly enter a depression, as people have less and less in savings, the retail world is bleeding us dry earlier than ever.

One of my teeth started to hurt this past weekend. It’s not a sharp pain. But I don’t want to ignore it, wither. It feels like it is one of the teeth I had worked on last fall. At the time, I had a small cavity and put off the dental appointment to get it fixed for three months while my insurance issues after my divorce were worked out and running smooth. That was a mistake. In those three months, the cavity just happened to get into the soft part of my tooth and narrowly missed the root. The dentist was able to save my tooth, but only with heavy reconstruction.

And, it took a LONG time to pay off the bill, despite the fact that I have dental insurance. My insurance just did not cover much and I was expected to pay a very large part of the bill. I am a little concerned that when I go back I will be looking at yet another large bill.

Now, like I mentioned, I have dental insurance. It can be a hassle, because I have to use a doctor who accepts the plan, they have to file forms, my insurance company can deny claims and there are limits on what procedures are allowed.

A different option, which I am now looking into, is a dental plan. A Plan will differ from Insurance in that the Plan is network of dentists and services I can use to receive up-front discounts. DentalPlans.com, for example, partners with over 30 regional and national discount plans and more and 100,000 providers in combined networks. As an alternative to insurance, any dental plan I choose would have an annual membership fee and then grant me access to dental services with discounts anywhere from 10% to 80%, most typically in the 50% range.

My dental insurance costs me about $216 annually just for the premium. I changed to a less expensive plan this past enrollment period. It was costing about $450 annually. Keep in mind that is just the premium. I still needed to pay deductibles and non-covered services and procedures.

I’m going to do some more research on discount dental plans. There are a lot of choose from and they all have slightly different benefits. All in all, though, it might be a better option for me.

…instead of spookier and spookier.

I used to give out great, big chocolate bars for Halloween. I believe in skipping right over the cheapie Sweet Tarts and weird little peanut butter taffy wrapped in orange and black wax.

Last year, though, I moved to little packages of Goldfish, Teddy Grahams and pretzels. This year I am talking it one step further and passing out the little coupons you can buy 12 for $1 at McDonalds. Kids can redeem them for apple dippers, drinks, cookies, and fries. It one more way I am not contributing to that first night of over-consumption of food. ?

The chain of how precious heirlooms are handed down is an interesting thing. I have some items that belonged to my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and even my great-great-grandparents. I have clocks and vases and bonnets and aprons. I have Bibles and books and diaries. I imagine passing these along to my own daughter, along with some of my favorite things from my life. I imagine her passing them along to her children and so on.

But, sometimes the chain misses a link. Then what?

I have a jewelry bag full of amazing pieces that belonged to my step-father and his family. I have a pocket watch and class rings and cameos and cufflinks. My step-father did have one son and a one grandchild and one great-grandchild, but somehow these items came to me when he realized how little they wanted to do with him even in his dying days. I did not know the people who gave the items to him. I did not know his mother or his grandmother. The jewelry means something to me, but my daughter was only 9 months when my step-father died and she has no emotional connection to him.

Is the magic in these items lost? Will they live on to mean nothing to anyone? I feel a sort of guilt over it. I feel a responsibility to make them matter. So, I went to my mother and we talked about it and I asked if it would be alright to send these things to my step-father’s niece, who loved him dearly and still writes my mother and who is named after her grandmother whose cameo I have in my jewelry box.

I think this is the way I am going to go and it takes a great burden off my heart.

If you and your child loved If You Give a Pig a Pancake and all of the other books in the series, you’ll love If You Give a Pig a Party. This time, the little pig from the pancake book, along with her human friend, is back and she is bringing all of her friends. The cast is fleshed out with the stars of the other If You Give… books. Moose is there with his Muffin. Mouse I there with the cookie. You’ll also meet Dog, Cat, and Snake.

We loved the book and today Gigi and I had the pleasure to see a live-action version of the story at one of our local theaters. Gigi’s pre-school class went on their first field trip to see the play. The Hall was chock full of thousands of cheering children. It was a blast, to say the least. Seeing something on a massive stage makes me miss my home theater system just a little less.

I’m even more tired than usual!

I am on the fence about Halloween. When Gigi was born, I vowed not to even expose it to her. In the end, she ended up figuring out all about Halloween from other family members, school, friends and the TV. So, I do allow her to pick a princess character to dress as each year and we go to one of the big, local celebrations so she can collect candy. I let her have one night where she can ingest as much sugar as she likes, even if it does make her almost literally bounce off the walls.

Gigi wore an Ariel the Little Mermaid costume this past weekend. Her little seashell bikini top was actually quite a demure undertaking, since her entire top half was neck to wrist fabric in a flesh tone. She did not have a shoulder or belly button in sight. I cannot say the same for some of the other kids her age I spotted on Saturday night.

I saw a sexy witch and some belly-ringed “rock stars”. There were belly dancers and nurses in high heels. The odd part is that not one of the costumes I just named was on a little girl over the age of 6. I kid you not.

I saw pre-teens in French maid outfits and at least one girl who was barely in puberty, dressed in a Playboy bunny outfit. There were latex-looking dresses and other “sexy” stuff.

I was listening to an article on one of the cable news stations and the designers and retailers in the Halloween costume industry are BLAMING the parents, say we drive the sales, we buy them for own children and actually demand the styles.

Huh?

I’m a parent and I would never demand a sexy costume for my daughter. Once she turns 18, it will be her choice, but I won’t be walking into a store and shouting that I want a sexy costume for my girl.

Yikes. Who ARE these parents they are talking about??

Banks are tightening up mortgage-lending standards and as a direct result, credit-repair companies are seeing a rise in business coming from people who need to clean up their credit reports so they can obtain a mortgage. If you watch TV commercials, you might be apt to believe that these companies are your only chance at redemption.

But, credit repair companies don’t actually offer everything you need in order to repair your scores. You need to tackle the issue from multiple angles, become educated in the industry, and above all else – persevere. In the end, you can do it yourself.

There is no quick fix. Instead, one of your best bets is to find lenders willing to work with people who have bad credit, make payments on the new accounts in a timely and responsible manner and then slowly watch your credit score repair itself. Sites like BadCreditOffers.com are basically a clearinghouse for finding products that are appropriate for your needs. Home loans, personal loans, car loans – you name it and there are companies you can go to and find programs that allow you to borrow, despite your current credit rating.

Take the initiative and you will find that with a little work, you can raise your own credit score.