Bad News

Contribution by Saul Martin

It seems like you can’t turn on the television or open a newspaper these days without reading more bad news. The housing market has imploded, the stock market is completely unpredictable, and the people we normally look to for answers don’t have any answers to give us. It’s a little bit overwhelming at times, but we all have to do our best to just muddle through and hope to come out on the other side at some point. My family is making a concerted effort to save money wherever we can. We are living much more frugally than we were before the downturn, and in a lot of ways it’s been very good for us. We are instilling the value of saving money in our children, and we’re hopeful that they’ll carry this value with them as they get older. We’re teaching them to buy generic options when they’re available, and to buy things on sale, and to cut costs by bringing their lunch, etc. We’ve also started examining ways to save money on the necessities such as energy. We have to heat our home, obviously, but we can do it as cheaply as possible. We called texas electric service and were able to switch to a lower cost natural gas provider, and we started saving money immediately. It was the easiest change we’ve made so far.

The oversized clutch is the bag of the season

Guest post written by Margie Dennis

When it comes to accessories, my favorite things are all oversized. I think that there's just no use in wearing an accessory if you're the only person that's going to notice them. Or at least that's just the way that I feel. It's always fun to see people's reactions to some of my pieces of jewelry, especially my cocktail rings. I tend to wear some pretty big rings. So I was really excited when I found out that oversized clutches are in fashion right now. I'd never seen such big clutches that I've seen on fashion blogs over the past few weeks. So I knew that I needed to have one for myself.

I looked online to try and find some cute oversized clutches for myself. While I was online, I ran across some info on wireless internet providers. I showed it to my husband and after that we decided to change over our internet service to one of the providers that I found.

I found this adorable brown leather oversized clutch that is just perfect. I think that i'm going to be carrying it non stop this fall.

You haven't seen television until you have seen Firefly

Thanks for the article from Quinton Wynn

Most women I know automatically dismiss science fiction television shows solely because they feature things like space and laser guns and aliens. However, they are missing out! That is the only way to say it. Some of the best television of the past decade has been science fiction. Today I felt like watching one of my long-time favorites ; Firefly.

Firefly is what is known as a space-western. Featuring spaceships and guns with a cowboy aesthetic. When they aren't flying around in ships visiting other planets they are riding on horseback brandishing old school rifles and revolvers. This is exactly my cup of tea. They call fans of the show "browncoats" thanks to the iconic brown coats worn by the members of the Firefly crew.

The show is about a group of bandits who take on missions for money. Think of it similar to Robin Hood set in space. You get really into the characters lives, and the Firefly ship is constantly getting strange passengers on board. Think of things like preachers, prostitutes, and escaped government projects.

I watch all of this Tuesday nights on my http://www.tvbydirect.com. It's my favorite moment of the week. Watching the crew work together just makes my heart warm. There will never be another show that I connect with like Firefly. It is everything I'm looking for in a television show.

Hoarders

Written by my friend Ian Cruz.

Ever since I have gotten direct star TV I have been watching all the episodes of Hoarders that I have missed. This show is so addicting! People's stuff is more important to them than their families, health, basically everything! I am the exact opposite of a hoarder so maybe that is why I am so intrigued. I keep only the bare minimum and am not sentimental by any means. My favorite episode to date is the food hoarder. It is this elderly woman that literally, could not throw away food. No matter how rancid, or molded or expired it was she could not bring her self to get rid of it. She would only throw something away if the packaging started to bloat, and sometimes even then! she would try to keep it. During her episode her living room was full of rotten food. There were squash, and vegetables and a rotten pumpkin on the floor that had turned into an orange mush. It was so rotten that they had to use a shovel to pick it up and even as they are dumping it into the trashcan the woman is picking seeds out of it to eat. She kept saying what a beautiful pumpkin it once was and she just wanted a few of the seeds to eat or maybe try to grow another one. Her son eventually had to come help her and convinced her to throw away some of the food. By then end she had made very little progress.