Amy Currioman

I know that people are trying to cut corners and save money on as money things as they can, but cutting corners on home insurance is a bad idea.  Shopping for good prices on home insurance online is a smart thing to do, however.  Especially since the replacement prices on homes are changing with the economy.  Several years ago my mother-in-law had a kitchen fire that damaged a lot of her kitchen.  Thankfully her home insurance paid for the repair and replacement of everything that was damaged.  I can’t even begin to imagine how horrible it would be to have something like that happen to my house and not have the money to repair it!

My sister called me today, all excited because she got something in the mail about how her former employer has settled a class action lawsuit and that she will get a little bit of money from the settlement.  The settlement is over a lawsuit that the company was not giving their employees the breaks that they were entitled to take.  I was surprised because I had not heard of the lawsuit until now!  One of the biggest complaints that my sister had about working at that company was because her department gave her a lot of grief about wanting to take her breaks.  Whenever she asked to be allowed to take her breaks she was given a lot of grief.  That led to a lot of ill will, and I think that is what eventually led to her being fired, because she didn’t fit in with the rest of the department – the rest of them didn’t take their breaks!  So I was glad to hear that the company was sued over that exact same situation and that my sister will get a small part of the settlement.  At least now she feels a little bit validated!

A couple of weeks ago my sister and I were going through some sexy costumes that we had come across when we were helping Miss J clear out her house.  Miss J asked for our help because she is moving into an assisted living apartment and can’t take it all with her.  She has living in a five bedroom house (she had five kids!) and had lived there for over fifty years.  Naturally she has a LOT of things!  My sister and I brought all the costumes home with us; we just couldn’t bear to part with them!

She used to be in a local Lions club that held variety shows as fundraisers for their charities.  That was way back in the ’60s.  Miss J and our mother performed in those shows, dancing and singing.  They made a lot of their own costumes back then; they were great seamstresses!  I sure wish that we had videotapes of their shows, but that was before inexpensive video cameras became available to the general public.  We have a few silent home movies of their rehearsals, but that just isn’t the same.  I’m sure that they would have had a great time if the Internet had been invented back then and they could have used it to find discount sexy costumes to buy online instead of spending so many hours sewing!

When my son went back to NJ on Tuesday, he told me he was going to return on Friday for another long weekend visit.  I was supposed to pick him up at the train station late Friday night around 10pm.  Well I decided to run to the grocery store Friday morning to pick up all of the foods that he asked for during the previous visit that I didn’t have on hand – green pepper, onion, granola, plain yogurt, fresh fruit & veggies, brown mustard, peanuts, etc.  I even picked up a couple of ripe papayas and a lemon, thinking that they would be a great breakfast addition for Saturday morning.

Around 5pm I called him to ask him if he was still coming down, and he said that something had come up and he wasn’t coming down until Saturday night around 6pm.  Well, I’m pretty flexible and I was glad I didn’t have to pick him up late at night, but I was a little disappointed because I don’t know if the papayas will stay good another day (they are really ripe) and I wanted him to taste them.  I don’t think he’s ever had fresh papayas before!  And I would have liked to have him here an extra day for visiting too!

I’ve decided to give my son a Prepaid Visa MasterCard to take with him this fall when he returns to college.  I think it will make life a lot easier for him while he is away from home.  We  were having a hard time finding a bank that was convenient to both of us while he is gone, so the prepaid card seems like the best solution for him.