#1. Cake. Buttercream, whipped cream or ice cream?

We like either, buttercream icing or whipped cream icing.  And definitely ice cream with the cake!
#2. When entertaining do you use real, paper, plastic or styrofoam dishes?

Depends.   Real for dinners, plastic for larger informal get-togethers.
#3. When hosting a party do you cook, have it catered or go to a restaurant?

Also depends.   I usually fix the food myself.  But once when we had a surprise birthday party for my husband, we had it at a restaurant.  And now that I think about it, we had a surprise party for our daughter at a restaurant also.
#4. Share a recipe that you frequently serve when having a party.

Chicken Fajitas, black beans, refried beans, guacamole, queso dip, and Sopapilla Cheesecake for dessert

I have to wear reading glasses and at some point in the next year or two, I will probably need to wear eyeglasses full time. I am thinking about progressives, but they are so expensive. And I will probably have to get a new prescription every year for the next two or three years. So I hate to spend a lot of money on lenses that I will have to replace in a year.  I am seriously considering checking out discounted online progressive eyeglasses, at least for this first pair, and see how I like them.  I plan to take it a year at a time!

This is the time of year when a lot of people are looking for jobs, either recent graduates looking for a career or students looking for a summer job.  Sometimes a job search is not easy, and looking for work requires the help of an outside source.  Beyond.com is the world’s largest network of career communities with thousands of sites and thousands of channels, sorted by industry or location.  How easy it that!

With water bills usually being higher during the summer months due to watering the grass and flowers, filling up kiddie swimming pools, and kids being home from school, etc, many people are looking for ways to conserve water.

Here are a few tips:

• Install aerators in the sink faucets.  These can reduce your sink water consumption by up to 50%.
• Wash only full loads of dishes in the dishwasher.
• Wash only full loads of clothes in the clothes washer.  This not only saves water but also energy!
• Install low-flow shower heads and limit showers to 5 minutes  (I’ll be doing well if I limit mine to 15 minutes…lol)
• Turn the water off while brushing teeth.  (A lot of water is wasted here!)
• Turn the water off while shaving.
• Check out toilet leaks and repair as soon as possible.
  
• A dripping faucet can waste nearly 2 gallons of water per HOUR!  Repair immediately!

It’s true that coffee tables come in all sizes, shapes, and colors.  When our son was real little, we had a big sturdy coffee table that he could play on and we could even sit on.  We moved when he was nearly three and got rid of that coffee table.  For the longest time, we didn’t even have a coffee table, but several years ago we decided that we were ready to have a coffee table again.  This time I wanted something that was not a traditional coffee table.  I really like what we chose.  I don’t think we’ll ever go back to not having a coffee table again.  It’s too handy and convenient to have one!

We have lived in our house for 14 years now.  Wow, how fast time goes by!  I remember what all we had to do to buy our house.  We had to check out mortgage lenders to find the best one, and our realtor was very helpful.  I remember we had a mountain of paper work to sign at the closing, but it went surprisingly fast.  And what I remember most was when we first walked into our house after the closing, our realtor had left a beautifully wrapped little present to welcome us into our home.  That was sweet!

We have so many things hooked up to our main TV in the living room.  We have Tivo, a DVD player, a VHS player (yes…we still have it because we have so many movies that are VHS tapes, including lots of children’s videos that will be great for Baby J when he’s older), and also the Wii.  It’s great having a Video Switch Box to make it easy to switch from one to the other.  HDMI switches are a wonderful invention!