Sometimes the best things in life are free. Looking back, some of the best dates I ever went on didn’t cost anything at all.

Dating is expensive. You’ve got dinner, which can easily be $40 at the cheapest. Then, you have a movie, which can run another $40 if you buy drinks and candy. That’s an $80 evening. Before you know it, a weekend can easily cost you all of your extra money for the month.

But it doesn’t have to cost so much. The best thing is that often, romance isn’t expensive. An afternoon spent fishing. A picnic overlooking the ocean. A afternoon hike through the forest. These are wonderful dates, and they don’t cost you anything.

Here are some more ideas:

An evening spent quietly at home. Cook dinner together. You can make it an adventure and try all new recipes. Watch movies, play a board game or just gaze into a warm fire.

Visit a local festival or art fair. Many towns and communities have local events, especially in the summer. It’s a good opportunity to experience good food, entertainment and the outdoors.

Go camping. Many campgrounds offer free setups for tents. Spend the evening under the stars. Make smores and relax by the fire. Listen to the crickets.
Sometimes the best dates aren’t those that you spend a lot of money on. Some time and thought is what it really takes to wow a date. Anyone can spend money on dinner and a movie, but it is truly unique to for someone to make a date to go to the farmer’s market and pick out fresh produce for dinner.

First dates are sometimes a little tense. Dispense with the usual first-date feelings with a more relaxed atmosphere. Instead of the traditional Friday night first date, why not a Sunday afternoon stroll through the park? Or a Saturday afternoon ball game? Think about ways to take the formality out of the situation. But make sure that you look for activities where you can get to know each other — that’s what the first date is for.

The possibilities are endless. Once you get to know someone, you will find many different inexpensive date ideas. Even married couples can take advantage of frugal dating. For example, my husband and I take our baby daughter with us to the drive-in movie. She falls asleep in her carseat, we save the cost of a babysitter and we pack a picnic to eat during the movie. Sometimes we just get sodas and go drive around. We get to spend time together without spending much money or having to worry about a babysitter. It’s great.

A date isn’t just dinner, it is spending time together. When you take the time to find unique ways to spend time together, that time becomes special. Take turns planning dates. You could try something new together or do the same thing every weekend. What really matters isn’t the money you spend, it’s the time. Have fun!

Martin Lukac, represents http://www.RateEmpire.com, a finance web-company specializing in real estate/mortgage market. We specialize in daily updates, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest rates from hundreds of mortgage companies! Visit http://www.RateEmpire.com today.

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The time you will need to teach your children the essentials reading, writing, and arithmetic is much less than you think. Let me quote author and former public-school teacher John Gatto from his wonderful book, Dumbing Us Down:

“Were the colonists geniuses? [i.e., why did our colonial forefathers have literacy rates close to 90 percent?]. No, the truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about 100 hours [italics added] to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn. . . . Millions of people teach themselves these things. It really isn’t very hard. . .”

To be conservative, let’s assume that because you’re not an experienced teacher it takes you three hundred hours to teach your child these skills with the help of learn-to-read phonics workbooks and computer software. Three hundred hours, divided by the average six-hour public school day, comes out to fifty school days, which is about ten weeks or three months.

Let me emphasize this point it could take you, or a tutor you pay, as little as three months to teach your child to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. Again, to be even more conservative, most children could learn these skills in one year if you (or a tutor) concentrated your instruction on these basics. Public schools take eight to twelve years of children’s lives, yet they turn out millions of high-school graduates who can barely read their own diploma or multiply 12 x15 without a calculator.

David Colfax and his wife Micki were public-school teachers turned ranchers who taught their four sons at home in the 1970s and 1980s, and three of their sons eventually went to Harvard. They co-authored a book titled Homeschooling For Excellence, which describes their home-schooling experience. In their book, they compared the time a child wastes in public school to the time average home-schooling parents need to teach their children the basics. Here’s what they wrote:

“The numbers are straightforward and irrefutable. The child who attends public school typically spends approximately 1100 hours a year there, but only twenty percent of these220are spent, as the educators say, ‘on task.’ Nearly 900 hours, or eighty percent, are squandered on what are essentially organizational matters.”

“In contrast, the homeschooled child who spends only two hours per day, seven days a week, year-round, on basics alone, logs over three times as many hours ‘on task’ in a given year than does his public school counterpart. Moreover, unlike the public school child, whose day is largely taken up by non-task activities, the homeschooled child has ample time left each day to take part in other activities athletics, art, history, etc…”

So, according to the authors, if home-schooled children study for only two hours a day, year round, they will get three times more educational hours on academic basics like reading, writing, and arithmetic than public-school students get.

Not only does teaching your child the basics at home take far less time than you thought, but teaching these skills is even easier today because parents now have all the educational resources available to them that we’ve already noted. Also, bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders have whole sections full of books about teaching your child to read, write, and do basic math, as well as books that will interest and challenge young readers.

Once your children learn to read well, the whole world of learning opens to them. They can explore any subject that interests them, and read ever more difficult material by themselves in books or on the computer. For a small subscription fee, your children can study the entire Encyclopedia Britannica on the Internet. They can access almost every major library in the world through the Internet, including the Library of Congress. If your kids love to read and learn, the Internet provides unlimited resources.

Once your children read fluently, you can point them towards your local library or bookstore, supervise their studies, and see where their interests lie. Your job is to introduce your kids to as many different subjects and resources as possible. Have them take art classes at the local YMCA, library, or arts and crafts store. Introduce them to different kinds of music. See if they enjoy a music lesson on the piano, guitar, or drums. Give them classic novels by great authors to read.

Most home-schooling parents spend about three to four hours a day homeschooling their kids. The key point to remember is that you have many options and a vast amount of educational resource material available to help you homeschool your children and quickly teach them the basics. When you take advantage of this material, home-schooling can be fairly easy and take much less time than you think.

Joel Turtel is an education policy analyst, and author of “Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children.”

Contact Information:
Website: http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com,

Email: lbooksusa@aol.com,
Phone: 718-447-7348.

Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel
NOTE: You may post this Article on another website only if you set up a hyperlink to Joel Turtel’s email address and website URL, http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com

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Nothing slows progress like a messy garage, or excessive
storage.

I know I get frustrated when I have a job to do and head to the garage
only to have to search for the tool that I know that I have, but cannot find.

I blame the kids, the wife, and yes even the dog. When the mistake is
only mine. It is often easier (on my temper), and usually faster to just go
get another one. Now, how does this help in your production, and
gaining some of your day back.

I know this sounds pretty simple, but get organized. I am preaching to
the choir when I say that. Let me put it this way. If you take an afternoon
(or in my case, it took me a couple) and get all your tools and parts
organized, you will find that doing projects around your house will get
done faster and simpler. The best part is that you might even make a
scratch in the “Honey Do” list. Yeah Right! it is amazing how that keeps
growing.

You might be thinking that why waste that time getting it all organized,
when I could be doing more projects around the house. You will actually
save your self time. If you spend that time now, when it comes time to do
a project you will get “up and running” faster. Rather than spend that
time looking for tools and such.

Just think, if you spend 30 - 45 minutes looking for parts and tools
berfore each project. You will have that time saved after just 4-5
projects. Depending on the amount of time it took you to get organized.

Denton Lesslie is the president of greathomeimprovements.com and a consultant for Department of Energy’s Building America
Division for the last 6 years. He is responsible for all the content and
marketing for http://www.greathomeimprovements.com - Great Home Improvements Start
Here! There are many more articles about your garage.

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Hiring a professional electrician can be very expensive and is often the reason why people try doing their own basic electric wiring themselves.

I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly results of these efforts and I have come to the conclusion that basic electrical wiring is not something anyone should do without proper guidance, tools and confidence.

It is so important that before attempting any of these basic electrical wiring projects that people are aware of how dangerous electricity is and how important safety is for you and for your family and family home.

90 percent of the time I recommend hiring a licensed electrician over doing your basic electrical wiring yourself. Not doing this will usually end up costing even more money than before and increase the risk of bringing your family into danger without even knowing your doing it.

But doing your own basic electric wiring really isn’t that hard to do if you “educate” yourself on the topic.

Licensed electricians had to learn the stuff themselves too. So as a ‘do it yourself person’ this isn’t different. There is no escape possible.

You will see that the more you read about it the easier it will become and the more confidence you will get.

Just to give you an idea, here are 3 questions I recently got from people just like you who tried doing their own electric wiring:

Question 1: I installed a grounding probe in your aquarium and every time anyone in the house turns on or off the lights, the fish jump. What’s going on?

A couple of suggestions:

1. (easiest) Pull out that grounding probe and return it from whence you purchased it.

2. Check the wiring on your outlet. You may actually have ‘Neutral’ instead of ‘Ground’.

3. Check the wiring throughout the rest of the house. There are some people out there that insist on doing their own home repairs, yet don’t understand basic electrical wiring.

Outlets are easy to check by getting a $7.95 outlet tester from the hardware store. Wired-in appliances, lights, heaters, etc. are tougher.

4. Check all your electrical fixtures to make sure they aren’t leaking some voltage to Ground.

Question 2: What is the NEC? Where can I get a copy?

The NEC is a model electrical code devised and published by the National Fire Protection Association, an insurance industry group. It’s revised every three years.

The 1993 version has been released. You can buy a copy at a decent bookstore, or by calling them directly at 800-344-3555.

The code exists in several versions. There’s the full text, which is fairly incomprehensible. There’s an abridged edition, which has only the sections likely to apply to most houses.

And there’s the NEC Handbook, which contains the “authorized commentary” on the code, as well as the full text. That’s the recommended version. Unfortunately, there’s no handbook for the abridged edition. And the full handbook is expensive — US$65 plus shipping and handling.

Question 3: Can I do my own wiring? Extra pointers?

In most places, homeowners are allowed to do their own wiring. In some, they’re not. Check with your local electrical inspector. Most places won’t permit you to do wiring on other’s homes for money without a license. Nor are you permitted to do wiring in “commercial” buildings.

Multiple dwellings (eg: duplexes)are usually considered “semi-commercial” or “commercial”. However, many jurisdictions will permit you to work on semi-commercial wiring if you’re supervised by a licensed electrician - if you can find one willing to supervise.

If you do your own wiring, an important point:

Do it NEAT and WELL! What you really want to aim for is a better job than an electrician will do. After all, it’s your own home, and it’s you or your family that might get killed if you make a mistake.

An electrician has time pressures, has the skills and knows the tricks of the trade to do a fast, safe job. In this FAQ we’ve consciously given a few recommendations that are in excess of code, because we feel that it’s reasonable, and will impress the inspector.

The inspector will know that you’re an amateur. You have to earn his trust. The best way of doing this is to spend your time doing as neat a job as possible. Don’t cut corners. Exceed specifications. Otherwise, the inspector may get extremely picky and fault you on the slightest transgressions.

Don’t try to hide anything from the inspector.

Use the proper tools. Ie: don’t use a bread knife to strip wires, or twist wires with your fingers. The inspector won’t like it, and the results won’t be that safe. And it takes longer. And you’re more likely to stick a hunk of 12ga wire through your hand that way.

Don’t handle house wire when it’s very cold (eg: below -10C or 16F). Thermoplastic house wire, particularly older types become very brittle.

As you can see, getting the right answers to your questions can make the work a lot easier.

You save time by doing it “the right way” from the first time and you save money because you won’t need to hire an electrician to either do the entire job or to fix your screw-ups.

In any case, no matter what you, be very careful when working on electricity! If needed cut down the entire power of your house just to be sure.

Keep It Safe,

——————————————————–

Nico De Baere is a licensed electrician with over 10 years of experience with home and industrial electric wiring. He is the author of the ebook Basic Electric Wiring which gives answers to 77 of the most ask questions on basic electric wiring. Visit his site now at http://www.basicelectricwiring.com

—————————————————-

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Nowadays, due to the improvements of technology and the development of the Internet everyone can watch live football from a comfortable seat at home, and all this without paying expensive cable or satellite fees.

Now you can watch premiership games, champions league soccer, cup matches live, al broadcasted on the Internet, sometimes free and sometimes after paying a small fee. You can enjoy many quality football matches easier then ever. And don’t think that you have to buy some extra hardware or anything because all you need is an Internet connection, but it has to be a broadband connection if you want the live football stream to have a high quality.

How can you do this? Almost every soccer match that is taking place somewhere in the world is broadcasted through a live football stream that you can access from anywhere and furthermore most of the matches come with an English commentary.

If your Internet connection’s speed is high enough then the live transmission of the game will be uniinterupted, but this and the quality depends on how busy the server is.

There are many websites that are broadcasting live soccer streams and most of these provide high-quality streams and
they have more links to choose from because only one would make the line too busy.

You also need a player that supports live streaming if you wish to watch live football games. The most common players are RealPlayer, MediaPlayer and WinAmp.
The websites that provide soccer streams have a list with all the games taking place at the moment and all you need to do is click on the game and the player will open and you can watch it. As simple as that!

So whenever there’s a major football event you know that it’s certainly broadcasted somewhere on the Internet and you can watch everything and you only pay a few dollars!

For more information about World Cup Games Live or World Cup Matches Live we are recomending this link.

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All right, so let’s be a little realistic - there’s no such thing as perfect putting. But the good news is that you can probably putt a lot better than you do right now. Here are some useful ideas to get your started.

Your Golf Stance And Proper Grip

It’s important that your grip is correct. Keep your hands light and relaxed - there’s no need for your squeeze the club as though you’re trying to break it in half. Check the location of your pinky - it needs to be on the club, not overlapped or interlocked with your other fingers. When you close your fingers together, make sure the club is straight, not on an angle. Address the ball squarely and most importantly - RELAX!

The ball needs to be centered between your shoulders, and placed towards the front of your stance. Make sure your hands are up near the top of the grip. Keep your eyes focused directly over the ball. Your goal is to hit the ball squarely along the target line. Imagine a big line going straight through the middle of your body, and then add a second line directly perpendicular, or at a 90 degree angle. This is your target line. You need to have a relaxed pendulum stroke along the target line.

Make sure the face of the putter is perpendicular to the target line, and if you’re right handed, lock in your left hand. Reverse that if you’re left handed. When you lean over the ball, your eyes should be directly parallel with the target line.

Keep your feet at the same width as your hips, with the weight balanced slightly towards the inside of the left heel.

Golf Ball Placement

Place the ball approximately half way between your left instep and the center of your stance. It’s important to do this so that the path and club head are square prior to impact. It also means that if there’s any angle on approach, it has time to level out, resulting in a good follow through.

Your Golf Stroke

Your stroke will vary a little depending on how far you need to putt. If you only need to tap the ball, your stroke needs to be centered. For a sweeping stroke, you normally are positioned slightly left. Aim to hit the ball right on the sweet spot, or the center, unless you’re putting down a slope. In that situation, it’s better to hit slightly closer to the toe of the putter. This helps to lessen the force used, and helps to avoid overshooting the hole. Relax, and make a smooth back stroke, followed by a forward stroke in the same plane. For right-handers, the left hand holds, the right hand strokes. Reverse that if you’re left handed.

Practicing Makes Perfect

Take a close look at your golf balls, and you’ll probably find there’s a line around the middle where there’s no dimples. The ideal golf ball has equal weight on any line through the center, and so is perfectly balanced. Unfortunately not all golf balls are well constructed. A good manufacturer will ensure the core materials are of a uniform density, and the cover is the same thickness all around.

If you want to test out your golf balls, find a flat, dry and level practice green. Line up the line on the ball with the target line toward the hole. Starting around 3-6 feet from the hole, make a few putts. Then move out to 10 feet from the hole. Watch the ball to see if there’s any tendency to veer one way or the other. Be honest about whether or not your own errors in stance or stroke are contributing!

Place a bunch of markers at various distances from the hole. You could use strings or quarters, for example. Vary the distance, too, so have one foot, four feet, seven feet, 10 feet etc. Practice your putting, not by shooting for the hole, but by consistently aiming to place the ball within the markers. This helps you to gauge how hard an impact at what angle will cause the ball to roll a certain way.

Change the distances between the markers, making the gaps smaller, and keep practicing until you can put the ball wherever you chose to. Maybe you can be a perfect putter after all!

Interested in quickly and easily improving your golf putting skills? Then visit Golf-Swing-Improvement.com located at http://www.golf-swing-improvement.com for free but powerful tips on improving your golf swing and recommended top selling golf improvement ebooks.

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The conversation went something like this:

“Hey honey, when we get pregnant, how about if we name our baby Jack, if it’s a boy?” The husband responded, that no, he indeed did NOT like that name. As time went by, they acquired a cat. They were having a hard time finding a name for the male feline. Finally the husband just said, “You like the name Jack so well, let’s give that name to the cat. Because I am NOT having a son named Jack.”

So the couple went happily on their way, enjoying the newlywed life and their new cat, Jack.

After a bit of time passed, the happy couple learned they were expecting a bundle of joy to be born later that year. They began the overwhelming task of deciding on baby names. It’d be easy if the baby was a girl. They agreed upon a girl’s name long before they were ever married.

They poured over baby naming books; they shared ideas; they made lists; they tried coming up with a boy’s baby name using this method; then they tried that method. Still nothing. They could not agree on a boy’s name.

Thanks to modern technology the couple learned that they were having a baby girl. Their naming problem was solved! They proceeded with the remainder of the pregnancy preparing for the baby girl who already had a name. They even called the baby by her name as the husband read to the pregnant belly.

But then yet another ultrasound revealed that the little girl they had come to know and love was actually a little boy!

The baby was scheduled to make HIS delivery into the world in relatively short time. The parents frantically went back to the tireless task of finding a boy’s name they could both agree upon.

One night the husband announced that he liked the name Jack for his son! (This is a true story ladies can you even imagine how you’d feel if your husband announced this grand revelation?)

To the wife’s dismay she reminded her husband that he was the one who did not like that name; in fact went as far as to declare he would NOT have a son named Jack. She then jogged his memory that they had a cat named Jack. Jack the cat even responded to his name.

You may have guessed the rest of the story. The cat now has a new name. It is rather original. The feline is now known as Kitty Cat (K.C. for short). And they have a beautiful son named Jack.

What’s the moral of the story? If you are having a hard time coming up with a perfect baby name, you just might try the name you’ve given to the family pet!

Author
Soli Katir

http://www.1000-popular-baby-names.com

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Clocks can be of any type - they could be wall clocks that not only decorates the walls, but also tells time or a mantel piece resting on one’s table etc..

Wall Clocks can be of one of two types. Analog and Digital.

While digital clocks are precise, the analog clock serve the same purpose. With the increasing need to be accurate, and every microsecond accounted for Digital clocks are the way to go.

Wall Clocks are a central time telling pieces. Be it a work place, home or a visiting place, its always nice to look up and know what time it is. After all time is money.

They can also help other ways - for example a family can set a family alarm while a school can have a clock with a really loud alarm and a microphone attached to it.

Apart from serving a functional requirement, of telling the time, the Wall clocks can be used extensively as decorative pieces, collectors items and even investments.

You should see some on the large wall clocks tucked away in a mansion somewhere or an extensively decorated cuckoo clock.

Wall Clocks are about more than telling time.

They are about style.

About The Author

Mike Yeager, Publisher

http://www.a1-clocks-4u.com/

mjy610@hotmail.com

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Many people find it hard to believe, but the is a right and a wrong way to stretch, especially if you are trying to improve your golf specific flexibility/mobility by using a golf stretching program.

While there are a number of different philosophies on flexibility and ways to develop it, there are a few basic principles that hold true no matter what. Follow these basic stretching principles and watch your golf flexibility improve.

Relaxation

This is perhaps one of the most important components of your golf stretching program. If a muscle is tense and/or contracted then the muscle fibers cannot extend their range of motion beyond their current position.

It takes a while to learn how to completely relax your muscles while you stretch them, but once you do you will realize much greater results in less time.

Get Your Muscles Warm

A warm muscle is going to be much more pliable than a cold muscle. Cold, short, stiff muscles will not receive much, if any, benefit from your stretching program. A warm-up as short as 10 minutes can greatly increase your overall muscular elasticity.

Try to avoid slow jogging as a warm-up as the forces on your joints and muscles around the knee, hip and lower back are roughly 4 times that of walking, which can cause your muscles to actually tighten up instead of loosening up. Try to do walking, cycling or something similar instead. I start every workout with a 5 minute walk at 4 MPH on a 6 degree incline.

Stretch Smart

It is critical that you stretch to the point of mild tension and not past it. Stretching past this point can bring pain and inflammation. Inflammation causes swelling and can result in short, tight muscles (think of a sore muscle and how limited its range of motion is). Obviously this is not what you want from your stretching program.

Always use a minimum force on your muscles when stretching.

Focus On The Most Important Body Parts

The weight bearing muscles of the hips legs and lower back require more attention than the muscles of the upper body. Increased lower body flexibility and mobility will increase your total body power.

Stretch After Your Workout

I personally feel that it is best to do my static stretching after I am finished with my workout. While there are many reasons for this, perhaps the most important reason is that by the end of the workout my muscles are very warmed up and will be receptive to static stretching. It will also be easier to relax them which, as mentioned above, is a critical factor when stretching.

Stick with these stretching basics and you will be well on your way to improving your general and golf-specific flexibility and mobility.

As a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) by the NSCA, Jason Krantz’s focus is on significantly improving the power levels and injury resistance of all golfers. He specializes in power enhancement and all related components of improved golf performance. For more information on how Jason can help your body and game download his free golf fitness e-book at http://www.sonicboomgolf.com/proshop.

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Many people say that there are 3 stages to the golf swing sequence: the backswing, the down swing and the follow through. However, the first stage should really be the set up, because without that even if you hit the ball 500 yards, it’s no good if it’s going in the wrong direction! It’s a bit like the golf-playing gorilla joke.

In the set up, the feet should be shoulder-width apart and parallel to the target, ball opposite the left heel and, of course, the club face aiming at the target. A good way of lining up the shot is to stand behind the ball, then using your club shaft to create a straight line from the ball to the target, select a prominent piece of grass or mark on the turf to act as a marker. Then, in the set up or address position you can square up the club face to this marker, which is then in line with your target.

In the next stage of the golf swing sequence the shoulders, arms and club initially all start moving as one, in the backswing. The sole purpose of the backswing is to get the arms and club to the top of the swing arc in preparation for the down swing, so there is no speed involved here. In fact, this needs to be done slowly and carefully, with a slight pause at the top, in preparation for the downswing.

The downswing actually starts with the legs and hips turning fractionally before the arms and shoulders start moving, with the movements starting slowly and fluently to avoid any misallignment caused by trying to rush it. The weight is transferred from right to left with the legs and hips moving forwards throughout the swing. The momentum of the swing gradually gathers pace until the point of impact.

This leads into the final stage of the golf swing sequence with the follow through. An important point to note is that throughout the swing the head should remain still and focused on the ball. This is even more important during the follow through. The natural tendency is to lift your head to see where your shot went, but the problem is that there is a tendency to lift your head before impact and apart from disrupting your stance, it’s difficult to hit something that you’re not looking at! So the head should remain focused on the ball for as long as possible way after impact.

As with most things, a great deal can be learned from copying the experts. So watch your favourite player and try and mimic him.

About the author:
David Hoyles is the webmaster and publisher of several golf sites containing further great tips to improve your game. Visit http://www.golfworldguide.com, http://www.golfingdecisions.com and
http://www.golf-swing-sequence.com to learn more.

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