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How far ahead do you plan things such as vacations or family trips?

We tend to plan them pretty far out as we have to save up to be able to take them. Even the dog shows are planned out anywhere from a year to a month ahead. Part of the reasoning for that is because of entries closing, but mostly that’s how we are. At the beginning of the year, we block out the shows we want to attend so we can co-ordinate with our respective companies taking vacation and plan which dogs will be entered where. We often have to wait until the premium list comes out (usually about 6 weeks before the show date) to finalize those plans as if the judges don’t suit that particular dog, we have to shift around, but it usually works out OK. Sometimes we plan to attend our National Specialty which is a once a year event and is a week-long one, so that takes some extra planning and coordination.

For our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, my husband and I planned out (and paid for) much of the trip nearly a year ahead of the date. We wanted it to be the perfect celebration for a special date in our lives and it was! We had a great time in Las Vegas!

We’re already thinking about where we want to go and what we want to do for our 30th. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe, England specifically, so think we’re going to go there. While it may be five years off, there’s quite a bit of planning to do! I have to get a passport (something that in this day and age takes a bit of time to accomplish), get visas for the countries we want to visit and decide if we want to just fly over or schedule one of those European cruises. We both enjoyed the Bahamas cruise we took on our 20th anniversary and Ken would like to take another cruise, so that may be just the ticket. I would love input from you guys on things we should see and places we should visit. Right now we’re planning for at least a week long trip.

What about other major events in your life?

Most people plan their weddings, but have you planned your funeral? While we’ve certainly discussed this, we have not taken the steps to plan this event out. My mother on the other hand, has hers completely planned and paid for. I’m thinking Ken and I need to get on the stick about this, too. It’s rather comforting to know that when my mom dies, I won’t have to worry about planning and paying for her funeral and burial. It will be sad enough without all that. We need to give that same peace of mind to our kids.

We didn’t plan the birth of our kids, but I’m reading where more and more couples are. I think that’s a good thing up to a point. By planning for a child, you make sure you have the basic expenses covered, and are ready mentally and emotionally for the added responsibility.

Planning for education is pretty common, too. Usually it’s the parent planning for their children, but when you’re my age, and need or want higher education, I have to plan for myself. It’s not quite as easy as it is when you’re a teenager entering college for the first time. Something that struck me when investigating getting a second degree was the return I could expect on my “investment”. The degree course was going to cost over $30,000. I had to ask myself was I going to recoup that cost in the years left to my retirement. Was that a reasonable question to ask?

Do your plans include disaster?

While we don’t live in a part of the country that is subject to very many natural disasters such as storms, flooding or earthquakes, it still makes sense to have some plans in place in case of the worst. When I lived in Florida, we had staples stored for hurricanes and when I lived in California, having similar things available for earthquakes was taken for granted. Living in South Carolina, I have not planned for any disasters. Am I leaving myself open for trouble?

What other things do you plan for? What’s the furthermost out you planned for something? Are you like me and despite the best planning, still manage to forget something? What do you suggest I do to prevent that?

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Awhile back, I wrote about procrastination and motivation where we talked about ways to motivate yourself not to procrastinate on those tasks you just hate to do. Housecleaning is a common task that is put off by very nearly everyone at one point or another. No matter what kind of clean freak you are, there comes a time when you say “tomorrow” (ok — maybe you only say “in a minute”, but it’s the concept).

Can tools help motivate you to complete a particular task?

When writing code, having a code editor that “fills in” some of the more common mark up symbols is a handy tool to have. HTML-Kit offers some of those, and it’s become my favorite web page coding software partly because of that.

I have similar tools for blogging such as Live Writer and I would be totally lost without a calculator or cell phone.

I also use such simple things as clips to hold things together from dog exercise pens to my keys. I find the Carabiners that mountain climbers use to be very helpful in many tasks. I have also used binder clips to hold my hair back when I can’t find a more traditional hair clip.

But what about the set of tasks we lump into “housekeeping”?

I have mixed opinions on the dishwasher. I think it somewhat contributes to my procrastination of cleaning the kitchen. Since there are only the two of us, I’ll stack the dishes in the dishwasher until there is a full load as I don’t want to waste water or electricity. Sometimes getting that full load takes a couple of days. It’s probably not very healthy to leave those dirty dishes sitting in the dishwasher until a full load is attained. I might be better off not having a dishwasher and doing my dishes by hand. One of my commenters on the procrastination vs motivation post said she washes each dish as she dirties it which keeps her kitchen neat and clean at all times. I don’t think I have enough self discipline to carry it that far, but certainly washing them after each meal would be an improvement over my current slothfulness.

I purchased a front-loader washing machine a few years ago. It’s been a huge time and money-saver. It gets more moisture out of the clothes than the traditional top-loader, so it takes less time and electricity to get them dry. It also uses less detergent, bleach and softener, so saves me money on those items as well. I’ve read where the life expectancy of the machine overall is not as long as the top-loaders, but the research I’ve done on how much savings I am getting is compensation for that shorter life-span.

Another tool in my housekeeping arsenal is my vacuum cleaner. While owning one of the Miele vacuums might go a tiny bit farther in keeping my house clean and allergen free, I’m finding my Dyson to be every bit as efficient at a much more reasonable price. Not to mention the Dyson does not use bags. While vacuums that use bags may control airborne dust particles better, the simple fact of having yet another product that uses resources that are becoming more and more scarce is reason enough for me to eschew this particular brand. I also appreciate all the attachments that came with my Dyson, making it a versatile unit that cleans my car as well as it does my living room floor. It also handles the nut shells the birds like to throw out of their cage without making so much as a burp and the volume of dog hair has not stopped it’s powerful suction.

What tools have you found to be especially useful in controlling your tasks? Do you own a dishwasher? Do you feel it helps you keep your kitchen clean? Do you use a bagless or a bag vacuum? Why?

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• The digital home: Tried and tested

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It’s been coming for years. Alaska’s senior Senator, Ted Stevens was indicted today for failure to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts received from VECO Corp, an Alaskan Oil pipeline and oil company.

Stevens, the longest serving Senator in Congress, has not yet turned himself into the Justice Department, but is being given the time to arrange to do so.

“The indictment charges that, while he was sitting as a United States senator between 1999 and 2006, Sen. Stevens accepted gifts from a privately held company known as VECO, its chief executive officer and others,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich told reporters at the Justice Department.

While Stevens didn’t receive one of those Vegas vacations, he did purportedly receive improvements to his vacation home in Alaska in the form of a garage, wrap around porch, electrical and plumbing improvements to the tune of some $250,000 while using his position as Senator to support and enact legislation favoring VECO.

FBI agents photographed Senator Stevens’ home from many different angles before entering it and removing a trash bag full of unidentifiable items.

“I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome,” Stevens said. “The legal process should be allowed to proceed so that all the facts can be established and the truth determined.”

Fine words by Senator Stevens, but it’s another black eye for the Republican Party which has been plagued by scandals, indictments and convictions of members of Congress, the Justice Department and even the Oval Office for taking bribes, using political privilege where none was allowed and using the office to sway the hiring of Federal officials based on political affiliation.

And there’s no end in sight. Although Democrats have managed to lay low in recent weeks, the past has proven they are no strangers to corruptness.

It seems the entire US Government is made up of whoremongers, cheats, fraudsters and liars (and those are charitable descriptions of their characters). What happened to the high morals and standards that were once held by those who served the people of the United States? What do voters have to do in order to let Congress know that we want honesty, fair mindedness and truth to be the bywords of actions and political life in the United States? Are there any such people left in the world who can lead our proud nation?

Will the last honest man (or woman), please step forward?

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• Sen. Stevens indicted on 7 counts

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Ok — it’s a given that Google has become the household word for searching out information on the net, but it’s not the only search engine out there and often it may not be the best one for your needs.

Let’s say for example, that you’re looking for a job in Los Angeles. When I tested 3 other search engines for the search phrase “Los Angeles jobs” I get:

From Lycos.com:

1. losangeles.jobing.com
2. losangeles.bizjournals.com
3. www.latimes.com

MSN.com’s results are:

1. www.latimes.com/?classified/?jobs/??track=?topnav-jobs
2. metrolosangelesjobs.com
3. www.losangelesdiversity.com

While Dogpile gives me:

1. Sponsored by: www.kimco.com/
2. Sponsored by: www.CareerBuilder.com/Los_Angeles/
3. Sponsored by: www.Dice.com/

Wow! What a difference between these search engines! And looking through these results, I see that Dogpile really gives me the best results for finding jobs in Los Angeles than either Lycos or MSN. Those are all employment websites that have pretty comprehensive job listings and all 3 give me the ability to put my resume on line which will get prospective employers looking for me.

So what does that mean for you as a blogger/website owner? It means that you are more likely to be returned as a top result on one of these other search engines than you might be by Google since these search engines are more niche driven.

It’s not so well known that a certain number of people choose NOT to use Google as their preferred search engine, but it is a fact nonetheless. If you’re a victim of Google de-ranking your site, why not encourage your readers to use another search engine? Especially one that you’ve submitted your site to and that has been indexed by it. With so much emphasis placed on Google and page rank, it’s no wonder we can’t see the forest for the trees, but in truth, only about 16% of all websites are indexed by Google. That leaves a whole lot out there for the looking.

Some search engine sites you may not know about include:

• Widow.com
• Cuil.com
• About.com
• AltaVista.com
• MetaCrawler.com
• HotBot.com

Try my experiment and enter your keywords to see which one returns your site with the best rank.

Do you always use Google when searching the web? Do you ever see visitors coming to your site from other search engines besides Google? Now that you know about some of these other search engines, are you going to start using any of them?

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