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.

If you asked me to name the one thing I find most exhausting about being a parent, I would say that no matter what else I am doing I have one eye and at least half my brain on Gigi.

If I’m cooking, I am also listening to make sure I hear normal noises. A silent moment sends me into the next room to see if she is OK. If she is in the tub, I make sure whatever I am doing is either across the hall from the open bathroom door or within good hearing distance. If we are in public, it is even more taxing, as I am always completely aware of where she is and how far from me she is physically.

It’s exhausting, but it is worth it.

Tonight, right here in town, a 14-month-old boy has died after wandering onto the lanai of his home through a sliding glass door that had been left open. He fell into the family pool, which had no barrier or pool alarm.

Inside the home were several member of his family. It is estimated he was in the pool three to five minutes before he was found and pulled out.

Do some dishes or run the vacuum and see how fast three minutes will go. How about while you on the phone with someone or focusing on getting a bill paid? Time flies and all of the sudden something tragic can happen if you have a child in your home.

That is why I go to bed each night fatigued and ready to let my mind have a break from the constant multi-tasking. Keeping an eye on my daughter is something I will never stop doing at the level I do it now – no matter how much it wears me out and divides my focus.

I nursed by daughter for close to three years. I started out with an array of nursing bras, gowns, and tops. Quickly, though, I moved to sports bras and t-shirts. That was mostly because it was so hard to find decent looking nursing clothing. I got so fed up with wearing the same things over and over that I just gave up. I wish someone would have pointed me in the right direction at the time. I was way too tired to shop locally and often did not have time to spend surfing the net to find items.

I’ve since found a lot of great online resources for nursing mothers. One is NursingPJs.com. Their maternity and nursing selections have more variety than I can even describe. I see some of the more classic styles, like I was either given or was able to find in my local stores. On the other hand, there are dresses and tops on this site that I would have given my right arm to have while I was nursing.

The thing is. You cannot get by on just a few items. If you are nursing, you are going to leak – even if you wear nursing pads. Leaking means sour milk, which means frequent laundering. Clothes wear out a lot faster than you like when you are going through a couple of shirts a day. You want to be a fresh, clean mommy don’t you?

I have a friend who is nearing the end of her pregnancy and we’re putting together a little baby shower. It is her second child, so she does not need as much. She does, however, need some attractive nursing clothes, especially nursing pajamas. It can be as simple as having a nice tank top that buttons at the shoulder strap, like the one I pictured in this column. It’s all about access, baby!

Today Gap Inc. is lamenting in the press their shame and disappointment that one of its Indian vendors used an “unauthorized” subcontract who, in turn, used child labor to produce clothing for Gap clothing stores.

They say they have fired the Indian company.

Here’s an idea” make the clothes in the USA instead.

You get what you pay for, folks. If you are going to try and cut costs (and eliminate jobs for American workers) by hiring a cheapie Indian company, then you are going to risk that the work ethics of that country are going to enter into your equation. Is it really any surprise to any of the execs at The Gap that (gasp!) India has sweatshops?

What kind of numbingly brainless people are running Gap Inc.?

“It’s deeply, deeply disturbing to all of us,” Gap President Marka Hansen said.

I’ll bet.

It’s disturbing now that your cost-cutting tactics have come back to bite you in the ass.

Hansen is busing passing the proverbial buck, blaming his vendors and their sub-vendors. I don’t hear him taking any of the blame for making poor business decisions, though. If The Gap would employ American workers in American factories located IN America, the standards American consumers expect could be better regulated.

Keep in mind that The Gap also operates Banana Republic and Old Navy stores when you are out doing your shopping. This is just one more reason to seek out product Made in the USA.

I realized the other day that I do not have a single digital clock in my house, unless you count the fact that my cell phone displays the time. Otherwise, all of my clocks are the classic style with hands. In fact, most of mine are also antiques. My favorite is a mantel clock my great-grandparents owned. It’s still in perfect working condition and sitting out in the living room as I speak.

I think clocks can be art. There is no reason for your timepieces to stand out starkly in your home when they can become a part of your décor. They are also a necessary part of our lives, because while we often like to relax without a thought to the time, tempus fugit and before you know it you need to be out the door and on your way to something important. That Latin phrase, by the way, was one of the few that has stuck in my mind since I took Latin way back in 1984.

All of that aside, I actually need a couple of more clocks in the house. I don’t even have one in the bedroom. I have the ability to get up without an alarm, but it helps if I have a clock I can see from the bed. I’m looking for a classic piece to put in there. In the meantime, I’ve been contemplating buying one of the grandfather clocks I’ve been eyeing lately. I did not grow up with one in the house and come to think of it, most of my relatives did not have them either. I remember being absolutely fascinated with the grandfather clock in my childhood best friend’s house. I would just sit and watch the pendulum sometimes. That particular clock was from Greece and it was just stunning, very ornate and heavy.

I’m interested in a more contemporary style of grandfather clock, myself. I do not mean modern. I still want a classic line, like the Hermle Contemporary grandfather clock I am linking here. I want a lighter feel to the piece and less of the ornate features. I still want the design to feel timeless (heh), though.

Here is a grisly story for you, just in time for Halloween.

All around the Tampa Bay area, one of the more compelling news items this weekend has been the story of Kevin Wade Daley, a 50-year-old Citrus Springs man with something seriously wrong inside his brain.

Daley struck up an internet friendship with a St. Petersburg man and at some point he asked the man to help him kill someone for the express purpose of having sex with the corpse. In fact, Daley had already targeted a young man who did work around his neighborhood. Initially, though, he had mentioned going to St. Petersburg to commit the act.

Thank goodness the St. Petersburg man called the police and reported the impending plans to commit necrophilia. Citrus County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Daley on Friday and charged him with criminal solicitation to commit first-degree murder.

There are people out there in our world who need to be locked up indefinitely for the good of society. Daley is one such person.

Tomorrow my daughter and her class are going to see the play If You Give a Pig a Party, based on the popular children’s book. I am going to be one of the drivers. Once I start working I will not be able to do this kind of thing, so I want to be sure I am as available to her class this school year as possible.

Anyway, as a driver, I have to get a copy of my driver’s license and insurance to the school. Pulling out my insurance papers got me thinking about my current rates, especially after I came across some old papers last night that reminded me how little I was paying for my car insurance before I was married. My rates now are with the company I had while I was married and my ex has a terrible driving record, so I think part of the reason my rates are still so high might be a reflection of our old account with this company.

So, I’m newly invigorated to look for a new policy. Plus, I want to find a good enough price that I will be able to afford to put both of my car on it. Right now, I am not even driving one of my cars, because I don’t have it insured. The easiest way to begin looking for a new policy is to use an insurance comparison site.

Gocompare.com is a new comparison site that acts solely as a comparison engine, not as a broker. If an insurance company does make a sale as a result of you using this site, the insurance company pays a small one-time fee to GoCompare. That means you are not out the fees yourself and you are still working directly with the insurer. And while this particular site is a UK-based product, I’m interested in how it works because of the focus on not only showing you the cheapest price, but the actual policy that would be right for you. Some of the comparison engines only take price into consideration, while GoCompare looks at other features and extra cover as well. Do you need a rental vehicle in case of an accident? How abut what you want to pay as a deductible? All of these things need to be taken into consideration when buying a policy.

I’m glad I found the site, because it made me remember that when I am looking for a new car insurance policy, I need to look past price and look for the actual features I need.

There is something to say about a parent who goes the extra mile to back up their child. You love your kid. You don’t want people to take advantage of them. You back most anything they do. I think this is universal for most parents.

But, it can go too far. Take as an example this Florida story I just read. Joe Salter’s son, Tommy, graduated from Georgia Tech and to celebrate he went to Club 10, a nudie bar in Fort Walton Beach. According to Joe Salter, Tommy told the strip club employees he could only spend $600.

Then, Tommy went on to rack up (heh) a $53,000 bill that that. According to the club’s owner, Tommy purchased at least 19 bottles of champagne that each cost between $150 and $2,000. Sounds like Tommy likes his lap dances.

Daddy, though, is disputing the charges on the American Express card, saying employees at the bar took advantage of his son. Although Tommy signed each bill and even initialed itemized receipts, Daddy says it is not his son’s handwriting.

Of course, he is overlooking the fact that his son was probably tipsy and sexed-up, so his handwriting could certainly have taken a beating that night. Employees at the club maintain Tommy was lucid the entire evening.

And get this: American Express has already decided in Club 10’s favor. I’m sure it’s not the first time they have seen the charges that result when a young boy walks into a strop bar and starts thinking with something besides his brain.

My message to Daddy: wake up and realize that kids do not always walk on water.

My message to Tommy: try celebrating with a nice dinner and friends instead of some coke whore’s boobs next time. It’ll save more than face.

A lot of my readers come here from my website Girly Things, which is a depository for free hair bow instructions. I also have a mailing list for close 1000 member who make and sell hair bows, most on auction sites like eBay.

One question that comes up a lot is the issue of image hosting. When you run an auction online, it’s common knowledge that items with a lot of sharp, detailed pictures do better than those without. In order to include multiple images in your auction, you need to find a service for file hosting somewhere. If you do not maintain your own website, this can be an issue. There are a lot of services to choose from, but I wanted to chime in about one of the smaller, more personal options: File House.

File House is specifically for image and sound hosting. The owner of the site handles all accounts personally and offers timely, one-on-one customer support. If you’ve used any of the larger services, you’re familiar with long wait times for support tickets and the frustration of confusing site tutorials. File House works to eliminate all of that. In fact, File House feels so confident that you will like their services that they offer a month-long free trial. Just contact them for details.

One of the added features I like a lot about the File House service is the selection of free auction templates. A pre-designed auction template can take a lot of the stress out of making sure your actions are eye catching and easy to read. You can also find free software tools and html tips. Check it out. It’s a great option.

In years past, October meant it was time to “fall back”, pushing out clocks back an hour and adhering to the rules of daylight savings time here in the United States, as well as in other parts of the world. Last year, the government starting looking at some of energy issues and reevaluating the reasoning behind daylight savings time. DST in our modern times is a convention of the last century and it came into its current incarnation in 1916 as a wartime measure aimed at conserving coal.

Starting in 2007, most of the U.S. and moved the end of DST from the last weekend in October to the first Sunday in November. In the U.S. this was in part due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

So, this is all to say that our clocks will not fall back in the next hour, but rather at about this time next weekend, Saturday November 4 (which for some strange reason I have always remembered is Ralph Macchio’s birthday).

I love books. I love writing. I love reading. I love the world of the printed language and stories. One thing the internet has blown wide open is the world of book publishing and promotion. More authors than ever are finding a marketplace for their art online. I have been able to discover more new (or new to me) authors online than I ever did when I used to just haunt libraries and used book stores. It’s been bliss for me.

And thanks to the internet, I am able to introduce you to T. Lloyd Winetsky, a writer who might just be the best new author you never heard of. His novel, Grey Pine, is his first published book and represents his new path in life. A teacher by trade, Winetsky survived both a brain aneurysm and stroke, and was inspired to retire from full time teaching and begin writing fiction.

Grey Pine takes place in 1980 and in the days of the Mount Saint Helens eruption. The story follows Phillip Stark, a science teacher, as he experiences the wonderment and opportunity for scientific experimentation that comes along with ash fall from the volcano. The community around him is fraught with chaos as a result of the volcano and his own life takes on a parallel of disruptions. Its man versus nature AND man versus himself, all in one package. The story touches on youth suicide, clinical depression, racial tension, alcoholism, and an unpopular war – all social issues that are just as keenly poignant today as they were in 1980. Because of the social relevance of the story, I think Grey Pine is a novel you need to read in order to see how issues in our society do not change as much as they live on to affect new generations.

You can read free excerpts of Grey Pine today on the author’s website. You can also contact the author. I have to admit that one of the most compelling things about online marketing of books these days is the way authors are making themselves available to their readers. It brings a level of intimacy to the reading experience that cannot be matched. I relish the opportunity to directly contact an author with questions I have about a book I have enjoyed.

My sister and I took our kids to two local Halloween events tonight. Gigi dressed as Ariel the Little Mermaid and my nephew dressed as Spiderman. Very cute, those kids.

We went a very large event in Largo that was extremely well-planned and although we had to park very far away at the local high school, it was worth it. The trick-or-treating alone was amazing. We walked a giant circle along the perimeter of the park where local agencies and businesses set up booths and gave out candy. The kids filled their bags. We could have stayed and bought relatively inexpensive wrist bands that would have allowed access to all of the rides and jumper things and train rides.

Too bad we got the hair brained idea to leave and go to the Halloween event in Dunedin. We had to pay to park there, and then when we got inside we realized we would have to drop $20-$40 for the kids to play a few beanbag toss type games and maybe ride a pony. There was not a trick-or-treat path and for whatever reason, the crowd was more rowdy. Lots of the adults were smoking around the kids and marauding teens were running wild. It was a mistake to have left Largo. I think next year we will buy our wristbands in advance, go early, and stay late.

All in all, it was nice to get out with the kids and enjoy all of the costumes. I do not get to be with Gigi for actual Halloween. I was not with her last year either, because although it was my turn I had to attend classes at the college. It has not worked well for me, but these weekend events are almost more fun anyway.

Several of the local towns and communities are having big Oktoberfest celebrations this month, most of them this coming weekend. I’ve been to my fair share of festivals here in the U.S. There was one at Shepherdstown’s Bavarian Inn that I always found particularly enjoyable. It still stands, though, that I have never experienced Oktoberfest in Germany and I know I am only getting a pale shadow of the real thing. The locals can “roll out the barrel” all they want around here, but it’s still just Florida and a bunch of beer stands surrounded by a whole lot of palm trees.

Over here in the U.S., we also tend to celebrate the traditional beer-drinking festival in the wrong month. Munich, Bavaria’s world-famous fair traditionally happens during the 16 days up to and including the first Sunday in October. So, if at all possible, I would like to one day book a flight and a room in one of the many hotels in Munich so that I can join in on all the fun. I just have to figure out how to get away in what is typically our first month of school around here. Once in a lifetime is how I see this kind of event, as in I want to do it at least once in my own lifetime.

Finding cheap hotels in Germany is as easy as getting online and doing a search. For example, type in “hotels in Berlin” and you’ll immediately find a number of websites with a range of prices. It then comes down to knowing what area you want to stay in and digging up some reliable reviews about the hotels in question, so you can book one that suits your purposes. Once you have a reasonably priced slight and hotel room, you’re pretty much good to go. I like to do my vacations without much of a schedule, instead playing things by ear.

It figures that I actually have writing assignment to fulfill today and both the phone and the internet in our area are down. I have the Mac and am at the local library, but trouble still ensues. Upon attempting to submit my latest writing assignment, I am encountering an error at the other end of the system. Nothing I can do about it and it looks like by the time support gets to my ticket, my assignment will not only be overdue, but be released to the wilds and probably snapped up by another blogger. Technology is only as good as the programmers behind the software and I am not sure how I fell about said programmers just now.

I suppose I can take the Mac to a coffee house later. The library closes in about 15 minutes.

…and, I’m home and things are back online. But, as predicted my big writing job is lost and been reassigned to another blogger. What a waste of my working time today has been.

I was reading Jade’s blog again this morning and she was talking earlier this week about weight loss and what she feels like she should look like, what is a comfortable weight, how she wants to look when other people see her, all of the things that go through a girl’s mind when you consider your own body. It got me thinking about how I had made a big decision when I came back from my grandmother’s funeral in September to work on my body.

I gained a LOT of weight in my marriage and also when I was pregnant. I was in a miserable marriage. I had accepted it, but it did not change the fact that my marriage took a strong, independent woman and changed her into someone afraid to cross her husband, who was yelled at daily and blamed for his every disappointment in life. I could on forever about all of that, but the point here is that I started thinking while I was reading Jade’s post that I know what she means when she says she is just ready to be herself again.

I need to double back and begin again on my motivation. I am still staying away from fast food and eating out as often. That has helped. But, I have backed off on the exercise and I am back to snacking at night a bit. I don’t need a bowl of soup if I am not rally hungry. It just feels nice to eat it. That mindset has to stop now.

That said, I need to go get dressed. My friend’s father died and the viewing is in a little bit.