If you are like our family and many other Americans, your dogs are part of the family. My daughter loves her little Yorkie so much that she wants to take her everywhere with her. Although I didn’t have a problem with it, I hated returning with a mess in my car because he can’t always hold it during our long shopping trips.

As an unexpected present I bought her a dog purse, which is the perfect size to bring her best friend along. Plus it has a removable, washable bottom, which makes it easy for me to clean. She’s now the latest fashion queen at her school.

I’m so glad that the weather outside is cooling down for my favorite season, fall. Although I love summer tans and vacations, I’m also ready to be done with burning hot days, sunburns, and putting on mosquito protection to ward off irritating bugs while sitting on the porch or hiking in the mountains.

I have officially packed up all my summer gear and am getting ready for winter with my warm coats and soft scarves. Let me know of your plans for fall and winter!

As mentioned before on the blog, it’s difficult to lose weight! I have been back and forth with my weight over the last few years and it has been very frustrating.

I again started on another plan to lose weight, only this time I’m focusing on the whole package, rather than just a fad diet. I’m trying to eat healthy food on a daily basis, and reserve pizza, soda, and ice cream for the weekends.

I’m doing okay so far, and have been religiously taking my weight loss pill and multivitamin in the morning with breakfast. I’ve had more energy and concentration than usual. Unfortunately, I still need to get myself going to the gym regularly.

Any ideas on how to get motivated to go to the gym?

With an increase in my salary not too long ago, my husband and I were able to save enough money to pay 20% down payment on our own house. Yet, even amongst our excitement I must say that we weren’t prepared for all the work involved in looking for a home, not to mention all the paperwork associated with a mortgage loan.

With a very helpful buyer’s agent and bank, we were able to sign all the paperwork and move into our new place. I learned a lot about mortgages, and also that our county was one of the first to implement county filing, a fast way for lenders to send the deed and other legal documents to the county recorder’s office. The county, along with the government are also trying to implement an e-mortgage solution.

Hopefully by the time we sell this house and move into a bigger home, e-recording and e-mortgages will allow us to sign all those papers from the comfort of our home computer.

My family recently came together to celebrate my Grandpa’s 89th birthday party. It was fun to see everyone and talk about everything that’s changed since we last saw each other–new babies, jobs, getting older, you know the fun stuff.

Since this was such a rare occurrence to get everyone together, and since my Grandpa has Alzheimer’s and we’re not sure how much longer he has left, we decided to commemorate the event by hiring a professional photographer to take a big family photo. Since the pictures turned out great, we couldn’t be happier with the Utah photographer that we chose.

I’m so grateful we had a chance to get together as a family. Those memories really are priceless, particularly as we get older.

My sister is a very active, outdoorsy person. She has always been adverturous, and loves to mountain bike, rock climb, run marathons, and do plenty of other things I don’t think I could ever do. Until now that is.

She finally convinced me that I should go out with her and she would take it easy on me. Last winter we went snow biking in the mountains. This year I decided to try out Utah mountain biking with her before the weather turned cold.

Although I was very nervous at first, once I calmed down, I had a blast! It was so exhilirating to be going so fast with the air rushing at your face (better than a sports car)! I think the rush is addictive because I’m going out again next week!

College students across the nation are really starting to feel the monetary pain and stress of astronomical tuition costs.  With shrinking federal, state, and university financial aid resources, frustrated students are finding that paying for school without racking up colossal debt, is becoming a much more difficult and impervious task.

Enter the Get a Mentor program.  A specialized mentorship program, Get a Mentor connects students (who can range anywhere in age from 16 to 70) with professionals in the field the students wishes to begin a career in.   Now why would anyone want to complete a mentorship program over esteemed higher education?  Well, you may be surprised to find out there are perhaps a number of reasons. 

First, the program only costs a one-time fee of $6,000 (a great deal less than most schools charge for one semester of tuition).  Second, the training is done completely one-on-one providing first hand experiences and the utmost attention.  Third, the training can be done around the student’s schedule so it does not interfere with work or other obligations.  Last but certainly not least, the program allows students to obtain relevant work experience in the field they want to pursue a career in.  It helps them establish contacts and begin networking.  Not to mention, there is 100% job placement for students who fully complete the program. 

Get a Mentor currently offers mentorships within the “glamour” businesses, or media industries, similar to a film, radio, sound engineering, or broadcasting internship. 

Sound interesting?  Visit the official Get a Mentor website for further information and more details. 

Searching for property to buy or sell can be a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating task. There are plenty of realtors helping out people to sell their home, but what about help for the buyers? Although you can research different listings and compare the best price, consider also using a professional buyer’s agent. This agent represents you as the buyer, looking out for your best interest.

Besides helping you buy your home, you can also create a personalized search that has matching properties sent to your email. You can search by town, property type, minimum to maximum price, square footage, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, and even by street name and subdivision. You can also find community information and helpful buying guides on the buyer’s agent website.

If you are looking for Northwest Arkansas real estate, check out this great resource of over 6,000 property listings.

Over the past few years, I have felt like my body and I have not been working in unison. As many times as my husband and I tried to conceive a child, the more my body rejected the idea. After three miscarriages and four IVF attempts, I was ready to give up the idea of ever raising my own baby. Depression began to take over me.

However, our infertility doctor presented the final option available to us, which was surrogacy. Initially I had rejected this option because I wanted to experience pregnancy. Since pregnancy didn’t seem possible, we decided to try surrogacy.

We found a surrogacy agency that screened surrogates (just like they do with egg donors) to ensure that they were healthy, had been pregnant before, had the same views and values about pregnancy as us, and were emotionally and physically ready to carry a baby for another couple.

We choose a surrogate and began the nerve-racking wait to see if she conceived. After an initial success, I was overjoyed to know that both my husband and I had managed to conceive our own child–even if the baby wasn’t growing inside of me.

Over the next nine months of waiting, we bonded with our surrogate and considered her a close friend. Our darling little girl was born 6 lbs 7 oz one month ago. Parenting is better than I imagined. Best of all, our little girl has her Daddy’s eyes.

Yet another piece of china from my rare, antique set has been broken by the hands of one of my offspring.  I would have been irate had my daughter not been so devastated.  I think she knew how much I loved the china set, so I knew she felt absolutely horrible (evident in the flood of tears that ensued). 

Oh well.  This now being the third piece broken recently – I just hope I find this china replacement piece as easily as the last one.  Geez, I’m sure edish (my replacement service of choice) will welcome me back with open arms; a regular customer they know will be back again…and again…and again.