One Last Month to Make it Count!

Can you believe it, summer is almost over. Did you get to accomplish everything you planned? Did life sneak up on you, such as unexpected bills, a loss of a job or did your situation change? Well, the busiest 2 months of summer are over, with literally weeks until school starts up again. There's a lot of juggling finances as you finish off your summer trips, buy school clothes and rush to the store to buy up all the school supplies you can get your hands on. For the kids the hustle and bustle has just begun, but for the single parent this is just a normal month. How often do we have a busy month like this and we don't think twice about it. It's a regular routine for us, we work, we buy, and we're broke. There's no "ifs", "ands" or "buts" about it. We work hard, play less and fall into an eternal cycle of Single Parenting. Half the time we don't know which end is up, just as long as those kids are fed, the bills are paid and we can get to work on time.

Now, stop for a minute and consider something here. In the last month and a half, how many hours did you actually spend doing something that was enriching your mind? By that, I mean doing something in your life that allows you to gain more knowledge, more insight in your life or meditate on the surroundings in which you dwell. This summer I had a very interesting class through the University of Phoenix online. It was more stimulating than anything and it allowed me to sit back in my own life and see how things are run. Although suggesting school for everyone is not feasible, there are many different ways to enrich your mind while taking care of the kids and maintaining your busy life. Here are a few that I came up with that may be fun to try!

If you are web savvy at all, do some research on a subject that you've always had an interest in but never found time to go to the library to investigate. With the internet so friendly these days, log onto www.google.com and type your subject and within seconds the world is at your disposal. Even if you spend 15 minutes a night searching for something that you wouldn't normally search for, you are opening your mind to something new.

Check out a movie that may be out of the ordinary for you to see. So it's not the usual sappy romance movie, or the typical action thriller. If you go check out a movie with some type of a theme that you wouldn't normally see, it may lead your mind in a direction you never thought of going. You never know, "Legally Blonde" movie might open up an interest you've always had in politics...

Start a simple website about a hobby that you enjoy. Even if your main purpose is to get information out there to others, you might surprise yourself when you run into information pertaining to your favorite pastime that you never knew about.

Read an interesting book. Even a fiction book that is made up, may have a subject that you might be interested in. Many people get stimulated by books that have a more fictional story line. You can learn new and interesting facts from even the silliest books now a days.

There are so many different things one can do to increase your brainpower. I encourage you to seek out fun and exciting ways of enhancing your intellect while maintaining your Single Parent way of life.

About The Author

Marta Dodd is a Single mom and Webmaster of www.navygirl.com and www.onemilitaryparent.com. She has been a single mom for 12 years and is also serving in the United States Naval Reserve. Balancing Single Parenthood and the military is a challenging task which she shares with the world. Stop by her website and see what this ambitious lady is up to!

In The News:

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Google News Updated : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:06:59 GMT Federal Highway Fund About to Run Out of Money - New York Times ABC News Federal Highway Fund About to Run Out of Money New York Times - 18 hours ago By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON - An important account in the federal Highway Trust Fund will run out of money this month, which could hamper completion of road and bridge construction projects across the country, Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said ... Highway Trust Fund Is Nearly Out of Gas Washington Post Bush reverses course, backs road fund bailout Houston Chronicle Seattle Times - Detroit Free Press - Arizona Republic - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com all 479 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:04:00 GMT Ready, set, go! Real race gets underway - Minneapolis Star Tribune Times Online Ready, set, go! Real race gets underway Minneapolis Star Tribune - 49 minutes ago By NEWS SERVICES, Washington Post McCain has turned this election into a soap opera about Sarah Palin and her family. Is this what we need to be talking about during these … read more critical times when people are losing their jobs, their homes, ... Palin intrigues Chinese public Financial Times Annette John-Hall: Pit bull of a hockey mom leading war on diversity Philadelphia Inquirer Seattle Post Intelligencer - Telegraph.co.uk - Bloomington Pantagraph - Wall Street Journal all 785 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:17:06 GMT Seinfeld ads only part of Microsoft push - United Press International Scientific American Seinfeld ads only part of Microsoft push United Press International - 1 hour ago REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) says it's banking on a new US marketing campaign to fix the image problems of its Vista Windows operating system and connect with customers. Windows Vista: The OS About Nothing InformationWeek Microsoft Works to Perfect Windows Vista New York Times eFluxMedia - Macworld - CNET News - CRN all 476 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:01:13 GMT Electronic Arts spawns Spore -- which may be a benevolent god - Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Electronic Arts spawns Spore -- which may be a benevolent god Los Angeles Times - 7 hours ago Spore is one of the most-talked-about video games in years, and it was masterminded by Will Wright, the same game developer who was behind the blockbuster Sims franchise. Spore reviewed Total Gaming EA's 'Spore' Set For Earthwide Launch InformationWeek CRN - Macworld - Washington Post - BusinessWeek all 209 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:01:47 GMT 'True Blood': Undead On Arrival - Washington Post Boston Globe 'True Blood': Undead On Arrival Washington Post - 10 hours ago By Tom Shales You need a very good excuse to dig up the subject of vampires yet again, and filmmaker Alan Ball seems to have one. His "True Blood" is an audacious, outrageous, playfully grisly comic drama (or dramatic comedy) in which vampirism is ... Vampire tale deserves chance to suck us in Columbus Dispatch 'Blood' lacks that dramatic HBO bite San Diego Union Tribune E! Online - The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com - eFluxMedia - Hartford Courant all 185 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:49:55 GMT Machinists Go on Strike Against Boeing - New York Times BBC News Machinists Go on Strike Against Boeing New York Times - 38 minutes ago By MICHELINE MAYNARD The union that represents machinists struck the Boeing Company early Saturday, crippling its aircraft production in the United States and potentially delaying the development of an important new plane, the Dreamliner. Contract talks fail; machinists strike Boeing Co. The Associated Press Boeing machinists walk off the job as talks fail Reuters Bloomberg - Washington Post - Monsters and Critics.com - guardian.co.uk all 2,421 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:28:42 GMT SanDisk Shares Soar on Samsung Interest - BusinessWeek Siliconrepublic.com SanDisk Shares Soar on Samsung Interest BusinessWeek - 11 hours ago by Arik Hesseldahl Battered by a year of flagging prices for flash-memory chips and by an inability to get traction in sales of digital media devices, SanDisk (SNDK) may soon get scooped up by South Korean electronics giant Samsung Group. Samsung Weighs Buying SanDisk New York Times SanDisk Shares Surge as Samsung Considers Acquisition (Update3) Bloomberg Forbes - Financial Times - San Jose Mercury News - InternetNews.com all 385 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:28:25 GMT RSS Parser Increase Traffic

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