I’ve decided that I’m going to do this week’s “Question of the eeek” courtesy of Snarkland…it’s a really interesting one.

Do you think the days of our parents/grandparents, the days of working for one company for twenty-odd years and retiring with a gold watch, are over? Do you know anyone who’s worked in the same job long enough to get that kind of retirement package? When you retire, how many jobs do you think you will have had?

I have to say, this is a rather interesting question to answer. My family, for many years, has bounced around from self-owned-business to self-owned-business. For the past 20 years my grandmother has been the proud owner of a jewelry store and my grandfather ran an appliance store. When the appliance store was no longer needed (PC Richard and Sears opened up in the area) my grandmother managed to merge things together in such a unique way - it’s unreal. Consider it one-stop-shopping if you may but in that massive storefront for appliances she’s now housing a jewelry store, beauty supply store and salon. In many regards it’s a real womans store, it fills all of their personal needs. Jewelry, great hair and cosmetics. Considering she’s located in a rather ritzy part of town, business does very well for her. Customers average $600-$1000 per purchase in her stores and that’s repeat customers who come in on a weekly basis…talk about a high paycheck - eh?

My father has been working for the hospital for the last 6 years. Now, recently he went to a benefit dinner to honor those celebrating a milestone of some sort with the company. 5 years gets you a gold plated pen that says thanks for your services. 10 years gets you a few extra vacation days and some bonuses and then it goes on from there. This dinner was unique though, a woman who’d been with the hospital for over 50 years is the ONLY person in the entire hospital that’s actually been there that long. She’s been there longer than the building itself, her retirement package included a $500,000 bonus for her services. I think that’s just about as rewarding as one can get, right?

I don’t personally think I’m going to earn a retirement package, that’s mainly because I work primarily online and freelance work doesn’t offer you very much as for as company perks is concerned…heh.

For a while now I’ve been looking into Reading Tutors for a friend of mine. She has a six year old who hasn’t quite grasped the English language the way most children of the same age would. Yes, they’re basically with ABC’s and learning to put sentences together but this doesn’t mean that there can’t be a little bit of outside help to make sure she’s taken care of. I’ve been reading through a few databases and for some reason Score Learning Center seems to pop up quite a bit. I looked into them and they can basically offer a child everything they need so they can excel in anything they set their minds to. It’s good to know there are companies such as these around to help students get the most out of their education.

Sometime’s you don’t realize how fast time can just fly by. This time last year I was just getting to know Sean but I was still mourning over the death of Joe at the same time. Two days from now my father will be celebrating his 59th birthday and 5 days from now my sister will finally be turning 21. Where exactly did the time go? I’ve been living in Delaware for almost 6 months now and it doesn’t even feel as though it’s been that long. It’s been 6 months since I’ve slept in my own bed, it’s just a strange feeling when you begin to look back on things.

A friend of mine believes that the only reason my schedule is so messed up is based on the fact that I’m home sick. I was born and raised in New York and now I’m living in a state where everything is basically backwards to me. Hell, the owls talk to each other during the DAY! They’re supposed to be nocturnal! No one wants to accept a tip for anything they do for you and coming from New York you’d expect to tip someone based on their services. Naturally the UPS guy (unless he’s delivering a huge box to your front door) isn’t going to accept one but down here if you even tip a waitress more than a dollar she freaks out and asks if you’re absolutely sure about it. I’m used to 20%, so I divide any check by 5 and get the tip amount, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that - some down here will completely disagree.

So no, I can’t say I’m going through New York withdrawal, I’m just having an issue with Delaware adjustment. I admit that for the first couple of nights I was unable to sleep down here because of the fact that I’m so used to excess street noise and now I’m sitting in the middle of hear-a-pin-drop farm life. The tourists coming into the area, while they are annoying during the day, the extra cars on the road at night are helping me to sleep better. In the beginning I wouldn’t crash until about 9am but this was based on the fact that they were building a house next door and all of the machines going off put me back to my comfort zone of New York and helped me fall asleep. Once they were finished with their construction, however, I was kind of left at a stand still. Now it doesn’t matter if it’s noisy or quite if I’m tired, I crash. I just wish I could get it done earlier in the morning than I do now. Midnight should be my limit - not 6am for crying out loud! :ugh:

Last night I was feeling rather sluggish but this is based on my new schedule which has me a tad bit depressed. I go to sleep just as the sun is beginning to rise and by the time I wake up there’s only a few hours left of daylight and I love the sun so that has me down. The thing is, by the time I get up the sun is around the front of the house which makes it seem much warmer than it actually is. While I enjoy the sunlight, I don’t so much like the heat that comes with it in the summer.

I barbecued but no one was really actually hungry when I did. I was just in the state of mind to get it done and walk away from it. I also created a website for Karen because she’d like to get herself into the blogging world. She’s always floating around Sean site, as well as my own, so I threw something together and hopefully she does well with it, I’m going to have to teach her how to use Wordpress but just having her own domain name has perked her up a bit, and her being giddy about something is always amusing to watch.

The next few days are basically going to be cleaning days for us, Sean more than likely won’t help us out but either way things will be done. Vacuuming is desperately needed throughout most of the house, counter tops need to be cleaned off and organized, the tables could use a scrubbing with some windex. I’d like to clean the windows as well considering all the junk that’s building up on them - I’m unsure as to when they’ve actually been cleaned since Sean and Karen moved into this place. So far we’ve got some carpet refresher soaking on the rug because all of the urine spots thanks to the two dogs who are supposed to be wee-wee trained are really getting to our heads, we’re talking straight ammonia. Thankfully Bella does all of her business outside, which makes for a very happy me. Of course when she was first starting out she had an accident here and there, but now that she knows outside is the only place to go then it makes life just a little easier - less to clean and pooping on grass is free, wee-wee pads aren’t. I know that when I’ve got my own house I’m just going to stick with hard-wood floors this way it’s even easier clean-up in case of an accident…Sean and I do plan on getting another dog in the future.

So while Karen is vacuuming I’m getting some work done and I guess this is considered my ‘break time’ so I can just vent a little bit - it’s been a while since I’ve really done it.

A friend of mine is currently having some trouble with her daughter. She’s having some trouble concentrating in school and she believes this is based on the fact that she’s always been a little -slow - when she reads. She’s only in first or second grade and while she’s by no means a slow child, she may, by chance, have dyslexia. I know that sounds a little odd for a child of her age but it’s not impossible either. She’s been considering placing her in a Summer Program so that she doesn’t have this kind of trouble next year, I honestly wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for one. I know that a big site on the net is escore.com which helps each student grade-by-grade, even some high school programs. I know their current second grade course helps them with math, reading and even to just boost confidence which I feel is rather important to children.

So what would you suggest? I’m by no means a mother but I know the importance of proper education. Which is exactly why I’m working very hard to get myself through college. I know a lot of mothers seem to float around my site on a regular basis so I’d like to hear your take on the matter. What would you do to help your child out? Are there any programs that you would recommend? Have you ever used SCORE! before? Let me know. I’ll gladly relay the message to Diana.