Ed Icionsub

My sister is still trying to get her life together after the sudden and unexpected death of her husband last year. I know it must be incredibly hard to lose your spouse after 30 years of marriage, and he was only 52 when he passed away. Now she is trying to not only grieve but create a new life and identity for herself and her daughters.

She has been looking into working for an online nursing degree by taking classes at night after work. She can still work full time at her secretarial job and then at night while her daughters do their homework she can get online to take her classes.

Her best friend, Hattie, has been working toward her online phd as a career backup plan. She feels that years of experience do count toward something positive but the credentials of college degrees and certification courses are even better to ensure a successful career.

They both are good candidates for a distance learning degree, as they have serious career goals and are willing to put in the time at night to further their educations. Surely this recession will start turning around soon and people who want to advance their careers or perhaps change jobs will have a much better chance at finding their dream jobs, especially if they have taken the time to prepare with additional diplomas or new skills.

Just heard that tomorrow night the Dateline show on NBC will be a special feature about the murder of Steve McNair.

The death of Steve McNair and his girlfriend on July 4 was a shock to this whole city. There are so many unanswered questions and things about the circumstances of their deaths that just do not make any sense.

The Redskins game was closer than I thought it would be. The Redskins scored first, then kept it tied until close to the end. The Patriots did win, though. And even though it was “just preeason,” a loss is a loss in the minds of the players and the fans.

The same holds true for the Titans. Although the Titans scored first, they allowed the Browns to come back. And, to add insult to injury, the Browns scored off an interception thrown by Vince Young. The Titans lost by one touchdown.

If VY had not been in the game, I have no doubt that Collins would have led the team to victory. I don’t know why Jeff Fisher is even playing VY. The boy is not good enough to quarterback this team.

Sometimes an easy way to get more money is to make the money you have work harder for you. I’ve been reading up on ways to be smarter about my money. There are lots of ways to make the most of what you earn, and most of the suggestions are actually just smart money management. For example, avoid late payment fees. Do not write checks on accounts that don’t have that much money already deposited and cleared by your bank. Pay off the accounts that charge the highest interest rates. Keep track of all your debits and cash card transactions so that you do not accidentally overdraw your account.

These sound simple but you would be surprised how many people ignore them or get careless and end up paying out a lot of money in unnecessary fees.

Another good idea is payoff your mortgage as quickly as possible. If your home mortgage allows you to make extra payments, you can pay your mortgage payments twice a month instead of just once a month and save a lot of money over the term of your mortgage. Making payments twice a month pays down the principal amount faster than once a month, and faster means that you save money. Check with your mortgage company and ask about early mortgage payoff methods that meet the terms of your mortgage agreement.

The schoolkids have been sent out into the neighborhoods to sell cookie dough as a fund raiser. Evidently the school needs to buy more projectors so that each classroom will have their own projector. I don’t know if the teachers really have the need for that many projectors, but that’s not up to me to decide.

The cookie dough flavors include white chocolate macadamia nut, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin. I’m thinking we’ll one of each and then bake up a bunch and take them into the office on Fridays as a treat for everyone. I shouldn’t be eating all those sweets and packing on more pounds, so I’ll buy the cookie dough and share the calories.