My sister’s best friend got married in Hawaii in the summer of 2007, and my sister was one of her bridesmaids. While it turned out to be an expensive venture for my sister — paying for a Hawaii vacation, as well as her bridesmaid outfit — she enjoyed it all quite a bit.
One thing she decided to do was to stay in Hawaii for a week or so after the wedding was over. After all, she figured, if she was going to be paying for the flight over there she might as well enjoy it and turn it into a vacation for herself. So when she and the rest of the bridal party were looking at Hawaii hotels, she made sure she booked her room for extra time.
Of course, as happens with many weddings some things went badly, which was disappointing for my sister. However, I think she had a lot of fun in Hawaii. Yet another thing she’s done that I haven’t! I guess I’ll have to look into a Maui vacation sooner or later — not that my sister and I are extremely competitive, but now that she’s been to Hawaii and has all her stories to share, I am starting to want to go, too!
Every bride should be treated as a princess on her day — which is why castle weddings are such a good idea. Having an authentic-seeming castle as the backdrop for your wedding can add a sense of romance to any wedding — it can even be used to make certain theme weddings, such as those with Renaissance or medieval wedding themes, seem more realistic.
For instance, I recently saw pictures of a Renaissance wedding. A potential client sent me the pictures when he saw my blog about the 1920s theme wedding my husband and I had. The costumes were all very authentic feeling. It also helped that the wedding took place on a lawn with a castle as a backdrop.
And no, you don’t have to go to Europe in order to have an authentic castle wedding! For instance, even if you are having a Michigan wedding, there is castle nearby where you can have your wedding — in Michigan, of all places, but there is!
As the bride, your wedding is your special day. This is a chance for you to bask in everyone’s attentions for a day, to be treated like a princess, and to tie the knot with the man of your dreams. And just like any princess, you need a castle… even if you don’t get to keep it afterward!
A few years ago, I worked for a company that discriminated against me because of my type 1 diabetes. They didn’t have a group health insurance plan, and because I am diabetic, it is virtually impossible for me to get health insurance without one — health insurance companies are perfectly within their legal rights to refuse to cover me under an individual plan because of my diabetes. (I’ll rant more about that another time, but it’s one of the worst ills of the health insurance industry.) I did ultimately find health insurance, but it cost an arm and a leg, and about four months into it my employer refused to pay the full amount anymore (even though he still did for all of my coworkers).
Anyway, my doctor told me a little bit about when he has his own practice. He said all that you need in order to get a group health insurance plan is two people. He had one just for himself and the other doctor who shared his practice, so there was no reason why my employer, who had at least six employees at any one time, couldn’t get a group health insurance plan.
He also said that part of having your own practice — or business, in my boss’s case — is taking care of this kind of stuff. You also have to provide things like life insurance, and as a doctor you have to think about things like own occupation disability insurance. Basically, this is a disability insurance policy that pays out full benefits any time you are unable to do your “own occupation,” i.e., your work as a doctor. However, not all disability insurance companies offer own-occ clauses with their disability insurance for physician, which can mean a lot of tedious shopping around.
To make a long story short, my doctor was appalled that my employer would discriminate against me because of my diabetes, especially because — as he pointed out — there was no reason to. He could have simply gotten a group plan, and called it good.
This whole Disney Princess thing has gotten rather out of control, as you can tell around Halloween, where virtually every little girl is dressed up as a Disney princess or other character! For example, a girl I babysit for is wearing a mermaid costume, and I’m willing to bet I’ll see plenty of Belles, Auroras, and Cinderellas that night too.
I think it’s good to encourage girls to dress up as non-stereotypical, non-girly characters for Halloween. There are plenty of good girls’ Halloween costumes that aren’t helpless Disney princesses. For example, how about dressing your daughter in a Wonder Woman costume? Talk about teaching girls to be strong and self-reliant! Jessie from Toy Story and one of the female characters from X-Men are other good choices for breaking the damsel-in-distress stereotype to pieces this Halloween.
Just because you have a little girl doesn’t mean Disney Princess is your only choice on Halloween. There are plenty of other strong, creative costume choices available — from stores and online, as well as wherever your imagination will take you!
For about 8 years now, my mom and I have been collecting hard plastic dolls from the 1950s era. Of course, every collector ends up with items they don’t want, so to get rid of those — and also to try to make a little extra cash — we decided to try starting an eBay business.
We had some success with this, but not a whole lot. Because our main idea was to get rid of our castoffs, we didn’t have a whole lot of success business-wise — but we did accomplish what we wanted, which was to downsize our collections and focus on our better quality dolls. It’s not easy to start your own eBay store, though, and we did encounter some bumps and bruises along the way: It is time consuming to write item descriptions, answer questions, and pack and ship items, and there are of course always the malcontents who make selling a pain in the you-know-what.
For aspiring small business owners, thogh, eBay is a great way to start your own business. Although the fees are annoying, they aren’t as a high as the overhead you would face if you leased a brick-and-mortar store or even ran your own ecommerce website. But the biggest advantage to eBay is how high traffic it is — you’d never get that many potential customers looking at your own small online shopping site!
Yes, eBay has its down sides — but overall, I think it can provide some really great opportunities for entrepreneurs!
