Before anybody jumps to any conclusions, no I’m not pregnant (LOL. I just know that’s my first guess). I do know that my sidebars are all funky right now, but that’s part of the surprise that is on the horizon. Don’t worry — it’s a good thing. I won’t effect my my credit report or my credit rating. LOL  Well, it shouldn’t unless I forget to pay the person who’s helping do this.

I’ve seen a sneak peak so far, and it looks awesome. We are so close, and I am so excited to be able to show you all what we’ve been working on for a couple of weeks here!  (I’m pretty sure you’ve guessed at this point what the surprise is!)

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Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody
55 years old from Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.

At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform, said it was a credit to the Army?and a great surprise to her?that she would make history in a male-dominated military.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.

“It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession,” she added. “So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?’ I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.’

“There is no one more surprised than I?except, of course, my husband. You know what they say, `Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.’”

You can read the rest of Gen. Dunwoody’s story here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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Oh the joys of having a four year old (who is almost five and cries almost everyday because she is not five yet).  Madison has finally started noticing things – especially things called commercials.  Every single commercial she sees she wants whatever product their are selling be it a pancake ball maker to a baby that swims (though she said she wanted that and a towel to dry her off too so she is able to think beyond the commercial).  It has gotten to the point that she actually will take the remote and pause the TV to make sure you see what she wants (and no I am not kidding about that).  Needless to say, we have started talking about money.

I will be honest — Madison has no concept of money whatsoever.  However, we have explained to her that daddy goes to work to make money so we can buy things we want.  (Madison asks every morning where daddy is and why does he have to go to work).  This conversation is daily so hopefully one day she’ll get it.  She is too young to understand that 5 pennies is the same as a nickel.  In her head, more coins equals more money.  I am hoping that because we are starting to talk about money now already that she won’t fall into the traps so many of us have.  I don’t want her to be one of the many Americans who carry loads and loads of credit card debt (which her parents do not.  We pay off ours every single month.  If she does choose to have credit cards, I want her to be smart about it.  For example, the one credit card we have gives us 1% of purchases.  That 1% is then directed to the principal on our mortgage).  I want her to be able to live within her means and be happy (which her parents also try to do).

Capital One has stepped up to the plate and has developed a Moneywi$e eLearning tool to help us teach our kids about money.  It is more for teenagers than my little ones.  However, there are definitely some tips on there that I can start teaching my children now.  I have to thank Parent Bloggers for bringing this to my attention.

When did you start teaching your children about money? Over at Bargain Life, there’s a great article on the effects of couponing and the family.

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Many of you know that I have been having major hosting issues as of late.  From July till now, my sites have gone down daily, and Bluehost’s support has been less than helpful.  I have used them for almost two years, so it was truly sad for me to have to even think about leaving.  I have never had the problems I was having.  If you read my blog, you will notice long absences (when I couldn’t even post due to not being able to even get to the backend of my blogs!), and I wrote about a lot of my issues.  My final straw was when support finally told me to delete my old posts and put them on a static page.  Well, that kind of defeats the whole purpose of a blog.  I think I just outgrew them. I do have to say that to cancel Bluehost was super easy, super fast, and they were super nice.

I had asked around quite a bit about what other hosts were out there that people liked.  One I heard a lot of good things from was Hostgator.  Before I made my decision, I even online chatted with some of their sales people.  The other thing that impressed me was that they are green.  I personally believe that every little bit helps and that if I can help the environment with my hosting, why not. Granted, Hostgator isn’t running their own windmills in downtown Houston.  Instead, they have bought RECs for 130% of the electricity used to power and cool its shared and reseller servers. What’s a REC?

Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) are tradeable credits representing all the environmental benefits of 1 megawatt hour of renewable energy. So when HostGator purchases 4,009 Texas wind RECs, it’s basically paying a Texas windfarm to generate renewable energy on HostGator’s behalf. HostGator doesn’t own the windfarm, but for every REC purchased by HostGator, that windfarm generates 1 megawatt of Texas wind power and puts it into the grid. When HostGator draws power from the grid, it can then claim credit for that wind power generated on its behalf.

Another thing I really like is that if there is a problem with one of your sites, they don’t pull them all down. That was a big grievance of mine before.  They will also transfer your domains and your files to them for free!  That was what really got me to come over to them.  They saved me hours of time of having to move my sites!  Every step of the way, I got an email letting me know what they were up to.  The only thing you end up having to do is check to make sure that your site looks good and to change your DNS settings.  It doesn’t get easier than that!

Any issues I have had so far have been dealt with quickly.  When I didn’t get my welcome email (due to my own typo), they responded to my ticket in 15 minutes.  I ended up sending in a ticket due to a WP hiccup last night (which I think was my fault too – lol) and had a response in about 2 hours.  I love that kind of customer service!  They have been nothing but nice and helpful.  The thing I love the best is that I went from throwing errors on all my blogs to not throwing any.  I am not sure how that happens, but I’ll take it!

If you are in need of new hosting, I highly recommend checking out Hostgator.  They are very competitive in pricing, and they are everything I wanted in a host.

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Do you know what your Bills IQ is?

That is my score.  Bill and I have worked on our credit and debt ratios, so I know that is why we scored so well.  I had to laugh — the areas that we need to work on we already know.  We really need to start college funds for the kids.  Even though we know, we should do that, we just haven’t yet (which reminds me that we should call the bank).  We also need to keep more money in our savings for emergencies.  Those are our two biggest things we need to work on.

This quiz is something we should all take. It definitely gets you thinking about your financial situation and what you should be doing to make your financial situation better.  I even wrote a haiku (well, I think that it is a haiku) for you all to help remind you to check your Bills IQ:

Learn to save money

And be happy and wiser

At bills IQ’s site!

If you know you are financially secure, I think everyone is happier — you, your kids, and your spouse.  There always isn’t an underlying tension, because you are worried about how you are going to pay the next bill.  The best thing we ever did was pay off all of our credit cards and never carry a balance again.  It has allowed us to only carry debt with our cars and our mortgage.  That is it!  We still argue, but at least its not about money!

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