When my husband and I were married four years ago, we did not take a honeymoon. We decided that we would use the money to buy a house instead. He surprised me at Christmas time with tickets to Las Vegas NASCAR. He said it would be the honeymoon that we never had, as we both love NASCAR and neither one of us had ever been to Vegas before.

We had heard all about the Las Vegas casinos, but we did not realize how much there was to experience, even for someone who does not gamble. Las Vegas is really an incredible city to visit and there was so much more to see there than we could have possibly fit in to our week.

The race was great and our favorite driver won. We think that we should go back every year to experience even more than we got to this time.

When my son was four years old, I took a black and white picture of him on a tire swing and everyone absolutely loved it. My sister thought that I should submit it as stock photos royalty free and try to make some money from it. I had never thought of this before and I decided to look into it.

I checked out several different stock photography companies and actually submitted the photo to eight different ones before it was accepted. The company that accepted it said that it was beautiful work and that I should send them some samples of my other work.

Imagine my surprise when I received my very first royalty check for the picture of my son. It was even more surprising to see my stock photo in print on a calendar. My son was thrilled with it and we hung it on his wall. It is now June all year long.

When I started working out of town, my wife told me that I needed to get a cell phone. She was worried about me being on the road all the time and I couldn’t say that I blamed her. We went out one Saturday to look at phones and see what we should get. I knew that I wanted a secure gsm, but beyond that, I did not know much about what kinds of phones were currently on the market.

I have heard horror stories about people who have had problems with cell phone interception and it was one of the first things I asked about when we were looking and deciding who to sign a contract with. I was assured that it wouldn’t be a problem.

They told me that if I used the encryption software properly than it would never be an issue. Once I was assured that it was safe, I signed the contract and I know my wife will sleep better knowing that I am just a phone call away.

I am feeling particularly lazy today, but I need to eat.  Ordinarily, I would just go out for lunch, but I have to wait until payday on Friday as my bank account is empty.  So, I have only one option - make something at home.

Though there are many things in my pantry, there is just not much that gets me excited.  I don’t feel like soup, or spaghetti, though the mac and cheese looks promising.

So, I guess I should go put some water on - I can hear my stomach growling.

I woke up this morning with particularly nasty breath.  Now, thank goodness that you can’t smell it online, because it is pretty nasty.

You see, before bed last night, I decided that I wanted to have some garlic toast.  Well, one piece turned into about half a loaf.

Also, I was lazy and didn’t brush my teeth.

Needless to say, after learning about bad breath causes, I realized that I made a big mistake.  Now, I have brushed my teeth, and I am chewing gum - hopefully it will go away before my big presentation in an hour, or I might just be screwed.

The one thing I like to do after work every day is unwind in front of the TV for an hour. I usually do this and then make supper and get on with my evening. This works really well for me and I was more than a little put out when my TV stopped working a few weeks ago.

I decided that if I was going to have to replace it than I wanted to get a plasma TV. I started looking around town for cheap plasma TVs, but I could not find anything that I could afford. When I had almost given up and decided to go with something cheaper than a plasma, a friend suggested that I look online.

She told me that she did discount online shopping all the time and she got particularly great deals on electronics. I looked and found a great TV at a price I could afford. It is so nice to have my unwind time back. Maybe it was a good thing that my old set quit because I am really enjoying the new one.

My brother has never really ever had good luck with women.  Though there is nothing really wrong with him, he has always dated needy girls that are just a bit too immature.  Instead of giving up though, he decided that he would try his luck at finding local singles online.

He didn’t really know where to start, but he signed up at many of the free online dating sites out there in hopes that by having his eggs in many baskets that he would find the one.  It took him some time to fill out his profile on each site, and he used different pictures of himself on each of the sites.

"Lucky" for him, he found a couple of weirdos at the first few sites he signed up for.  Not to be discouraged, he patiently waited until he found a woman that was going to be a good life partner.

After a couple of months, he finally hit gold and started to date one of those women and things were going really well for him.  They are now engaged, and will be married later on this year.  I am so happy for them.

When I found out that my baby sister was expecting, I was overjoyed. I knew that she would make a great mother and I was flattered that she thought enough of me to ask for advice on the pregnancy. She was young and she was scared and I think the whole experience brought us a lot closer together.

I wanted to give her a baby shower, as I knew that there were several things that her and her husband would not be able to afford for the baby. That being said, I knew this baby would never lack for love as they both had so much to offer.

I wanted to find her the best baby gift and I started thinking back to when I had my first baby. I tried to remember what the one thing was that I could not have survived without. The decision that I came to was, maybe not the most conventional one, but I got her a spa membership, good for a pedicure, a facial and a massage once a month for a year. I felt the best thing I could give her was the chance to relax and forget her responsibilities, even for just a couple of hours.

Today, we had the opportunity to go to some yard sales.  It is something that we try to do every week during the summer, as there is definitely a thrill in looking for a good deal.  We have bought many things over the years, and we are hoping to find some good deals this year as well.

There really wasn’t many good items on sale today - most of it was junk.  We went to many different houses, but out of all the ones that we we did visit, there was only one that had anything of value.

There we found some books that looked interesting .  There was Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and Stock Split Secrets by Darlene Nelson.  These were two books that I have been looking for a long time, and it was nice to get a good discount on them.

Hopefully, the rest of the yard sales this summer will be more fruitful - I would hate to think that there will only be junk on sale this summer.

I wouldn’t say that I am usually forgetful, but I am having an off week.  From locking my keys in the car twice, to forgetting my appointment at the dentist, I seem to have been very forgetful lately.  I’ll blame it on the lack of sleep and the overtime that I have been working, but until those things change, I won’t be able to do anything about it.

I was hit with another forgetful moment today when I was going through my pockets before putting the clothes in the dryer.  There really wasn’t much out of the ordinary, until I found a phone number in my pocket - where did I get that?

The problem was, I had no idea what it was for, but I was curious to know.  Instead of just calling the number and looking like a fool, I decided to use a reverse phone lookup and find out whose it was.

It turns out that the number wasn’t that exciting - it was the new number for my brother - I could have lived without knowing it.