One of the best safety tips I can offer you for this summer is to make sure that all of the pools in your neighborhoods have security alarm systems installed around them. I advise that you not be cautious about being an imposing neighbor when you suggest this to the pool owners around your home as it really is for the best interests of everyone on the block. If there are young children that live in the area they will always be attracted to the thought of a swimming pool. When the weather heats up and gets warm they will find out where it is and want to swim in it. Especially if the kids have been to the swimming pool before they may be unaware of the dangers of swimming alone and might attempt to get in the pool even if nobody is there. In order to prevent any possibly scary accidents from happening when the children find the unattended pools it is important to have alarms installed on a secured gate that encircles the pool. If they somehow find a way to open the locked gate an alarm will sound notifying the home owner and the police so that they can arrive before the little tot has time to dip all of their toes into the pool water.

*This guest post by Nora Grayson.

It has been a while since I last entered a blog contest.  I have only ever won one contest, a beautiful watch, and I think I am ready to enter another one!

I love handbags and I couldn’t resist this contest where I stand a chance to win a  free handbag from HandBag Planet.  I am sure there are lots of other women out there who would also love to win a free handbag, but what the heck – I won’t win if I don’t enter the contest, right?

I know Doug will complain if I add one more handbag (if I am lucky enough to win, that is) to those that are already hanging in the closet!   :lol:

A few years ago, my good friend Kathy, took a trip to Ireland with her sister. She wanted to explore her Irish roots and during the trip she took some really beautiful pictures of the places she’d visited. Just looking at her pictures made me wished I was on that trip with her too!

While there, Kathy and her sister stayed at some reasonably priced Ireland Hotels like some family run bed and breakfast.

Among the places that I must make sure I visit in Dublin, Ireland are The Cliffs of Moher, Dublin Castles and Temple Bar. Temple Bar sounds like an interesting place to visit especially with its quaint and cobbled streets and its many cafes and shops.

I would most definitely visit the Shannon region and I will not want to miss the Shannon Medieval Castle Banquet experience at Bunratty, Knappogue and Dunguaire Castles! Imagine toasting an era of great Irish taste with excellent food, wine and honeyed mead!

In Cork, Ireland, a visit to The Royal Gunpowder Mills is a must! Doug would most certainly find the complex where the manufacture of gunpowder took place from 1794 to 1903 interesting.

Fortunately with CheaperThanHotels.co.uk one can find the best priced Dublin Hotels, Cork Hotels, or Shannon Hotels. With the money saved from staying at affordable hotels, that means there will be more for spending on souvenirs!

Doug has a 16-year-old nephew and his room at his grandma’s place is decorated with Dallas Cowboy theme. I remember when he told his grandma that it was time for the floral sheets and covers to go. He wanted the bedding to be something that reflected his style. I can’t blame him for that!

For some, finding the perfect bedding for teenagers can be quite a challenge. Teens have short attention spans and what is a cool today may not be tomorrow.

A place to look for really cool teen bedding that would please any teen is www.VisionBedding.com. There are all kinds of teen styles and themes like animals, sports, cars, motorcross, hearts, teen girls and landscape.

I really like what I see at Vision Bedding and I can already see my young son liking the sports theme bedding and my young daughter choosing the Rock Star Princess bedding and graduating from the Disney Princess bedding!

What is it that they say about a man’s home being his castle? For now, our current home is our castle. But there’s nothing to stop us from building a bigger castle, right?

I am very partial to Spanish style homes but after I took a look at the custom homes built by Schumacher Homes, I am torn! The designs are just so beautiful! Just take a look at the following pictures! I would love to have that kind of windows in my living room and that kitchen and dining room! Oh my!

Schumacher Homes are not merely Ohio Home Builders. They also build custom homes in Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia.

Our current home was not custom built and the next home we move into will most definitely be a custom built one!

There was something in the business segment of the news this evening that mentioned the typical family and their two cars. Doug then responded, “Does that mean we are not typical because we have more than two cars?”

Indeed we have more than two cars and among the cars that we have is a Volkswagon 1971 Super Beetle that needs to be restored before it can be taken back on the road. Fortunately there are places where you can get the hard to find Beetle parts in order to proceed with the Beetle restoration.

We need parts for the steering link, as well as parts for fixing the carburetor. I look forward to getting that 1971 Super Beetle back on the road because being that old it doesn’t need to pass any smog test that is required by the California Department of Motor Vehicle for newer vehicles!

About two weeks ago, when we were on the road there were times we wished that we had a better sound system in our car. There were too much hissing and interference from competing stations as we began to lose reception of the station that we were listening to the farther we get from the broadcast area.

Can you imagine listening to AM radio with FM-quality sound and without losing the station along the way? That would have been what we would have heard had we installed HD radio equipment in our car. Doug and I love to listen to talk radio and when we lost the reception to the station we were listening to, we started to look for a country music station.

Now that I know what a radio broadcast in high definition is all about, I think it would be nice to have a new HD radio in our car. There will be no static, hiss or distortion, and the reception out of the radio will be crystal clear and best of all there will be no station drop-off.

For those who love to buy and download tunes from iTunes there is something called an iTunes Tagging enabled HD Radio™ receiver. With iTunes tagging you can tag the song you like while listening to the radio and the information will be saved to your iPod, and the next time you sync your iPod to iTunes you will be able to buy and download the song from iTunes! I think this is simply great!

Check out HDRadio.com to find Florida High Definition Radio stations and other HD radio stations in your state and area. I am happy to discover that KNCI, my favorite country station in the Sacramento area, is already broadcasting in HD. It’ll be great to find out what other new country music stations will be broadcasting in HD in the Sacramento area.

The best thing about HD radio is that there is no subscription in order to listen to the HD broadcasts, just the purchase of the equipment. I am really tempted to get one soon!

Do you know what Ka-Bar Knives look like? Here are some samples of Ka-Bar knives. You have a choice of fixed blade knives or folding knives.

These knives are not your every day knives. They are fighting knives mainly used for law enforcement, self-defence and in the rugged outdoor where they may come in handy for your survival.

You can also find KA-BAR® US NAVY DESERT STORM 15TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE FIGHTING KNIVES at BridgadeQm.com. These are fine collector items especially for those who are into collecting military type weapons.

Besides knives, BrigadeQm.com also carries other outdoor, law enforcement and military gear at very competitive prices, like Nite watches, pepper spray, and boots. I particularly like the NITE MX05 WATCH WITH TRITIUM TECHNOLOGY and I think it would make a good gift for Doug.

Check out BrigadeQm.com for some excellent law enforcement and military gear.

My family has a history of high blood pressure and as such sudden cardiac arrest is something we think about constantly.

Even though I hear a lot about sudden cardiac arrest I don’t know all that much about the early warning symptoms. It is good that I can educate myself about the risk factors, warning signs, and treatment of Sudden Cardiac Arrest from a website called Inside Cardiac Arrest which is a site provided by St. Jude Medical.

There is no reason for me or any of my family members to remain ignorant on the subject any longer.

I really, really like the Full Busted Swimwear that I find at BiggerBras.com.

The designs are stylish and the choices of patterns and colors are very attractive. I can see myself wearing the Tara Grinna Jane Swimsuit tankini top and the Fanstasie England Demeter Underwired Bandeau Tankini.

It is wonderful these days to find swimwear where you can choose not to show too much skin. Not only does it protect your skin from harmful sun rays but also saves you from exposing some not so attractive parts of your body!

With the wide selection of full busted swimwear at BiggerBras.com women who are more endowed than others need not worry about “spilling” out of their swim suits!

It’s almost summer and if you’re planning on spending some time on the beach or by the pool, do check out the attractive swimwear at BiggerBras.com.

Magazines are not that cheap, and one way to get around paying the full retail price of a particular magazine is to subscribe to it. I currently subscribe to two political news magazine and Doug subscribes to a farming magazine, a gun magazine and a World War II magazine.

There is a place, however, where you can get Cheap Magazines. The subscription rates you get at MagsForLess.com can be slightly lower than the usual subscription rates. You get all sorts of magazines here from the very popular to the lesser known. For example, I did not know that there was a magazine called Ministry Today classified under the Religion and Spirituality category.

There is one other magazine that I am particularly interested in. It is called Diabetic Cooking. At MagForLess.com a 1-year’s subscription of Diabetic Cooking is only $12.70. It costs $3.99 per issue retail, and naturally considering the savings, I’d rather subscribe to it than pay the retail price.

Check out MagsForLess.com if you are looking for cheap magazines.

Where do you go when you need to find topics on particular subjects? For example if you are interested in tweaking codes on the files in your web directory? Most certainly most of us would look for a tech oriented site especially sites that cover web services.

My knowledge of what is on my web directory is pretty basic and I try not to mess things up by changing things I know nothing about! I usually call tech support if I encounter problems with my web sites but if you are the kind who wants to learn and teach yourself, like how to define options on the directories or subdirectories of your site you should check out Web-Articles.info. There are some pretty impressive articles on web services there.

Besides categories on Internet and Online, there are also other categories like Electronics and Communication, Business, Computers and Technology, Health, and Home and Family. In fact, practically any subject that might be of interest to anyone can be found on Web-Articles.info.

Another interesting feature of this site, or more accurately directory, is that you too can contribute to the site by submitting your articles or tutorials that you think might be of interest to anyone.

Search the web articles directory and find thousands of resources and web archives dating back to 1997.