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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!Posted on: 2011-12-12I just wanted to give a Heartfelt THANK YOU to all the supporters and users of this web-site.
Please pass the word along and continue to use this site as often as you like.
Sincerely,
Sharon Chitwood -
I SWITCHED REAL ESTATE COMPANIESPosted on: 2011-08-07I would like to inform you all that I have made the move to
Remax Boone Realty from House of Brokers Realty.
Please allow me to serve you or you family and friends in ANY real estate transaction:
Sharon Chitwood
cell: 573-808-6523
office: 573-876-2826
Serving all of BOONE county North, South, East or West.
SHARON CHITWOODWebsite:sharonchitwood.com - SOBOCO NEW TEACHERS FOR 2011/2012Posted on: 2011-08-07PRIMARY SCHOOL
Jessica Starbuck, art
Carolyn Pridemore, reading support
Brandy Latchford, first grade
Jessica Reeder, first grade & part time parents as teachers
Kim Lewis, parents as teachers
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Amy James, Principal
Kelci Weter, fifth grade
Janelle Cade, fourth grade
Emily Wirts, fifth grade
Ingri Tutu, special education
Elizabeth Harlow, Physical education
Meagan Cooper, art
Kaitlin Foley, music
MIDDLE SCHOOL
Amanda Frost, sixth grade math
Chris Gares, eight grade science
Justin Griffith, eight grade communications education
Dianne Zimmerman, special education
HIGH SCHOOL
Travis Thornhill, Spanish
Suzanne Lackman, special education
Shannon Jeffrey, ISS/ health/ at risk
- Parents as TeachersPosted on: 2011-08-07You may enroll or find out more about the program by calling Kim Lewis, Kathy Gay or Jessica Reeder at 657-2146
during the school year. -
2011 - 2012 School TimesPosted on: 2011-08-071. High school 8:00 am - 3:20 pm
2. K-2 Primary school 8:00 - 3:10 p,
3. 3-4 Elementary school 8:00 am - 3:10 pm
4. 5-8 Middle school 8:10 - 3:25 pm - 5 Ways to Add Luxury to Your Regular HomePosted on: 2011-05-12Real estate eye candy is everywhere. And if you love window shopping for homes online, there's a seemingly endless influx of massive mansions listed in the tens of millions of dollars. While their trillion square feet might not tempt you, and their manicured grounds seem like an eco-nightmare requiring a lifetime of landscaping, the luxury amenities and highly customized features do make the living seem easy, right?
Whether you're buying, prepping to sell or simply trying to live the good life in your current home, here are 5 inexpensive ways to add some luxury to your regular home:
1. Spa bathroom upgrades. I’m not saying you have to have a toilet like Whoopi Goldberg’s or anything. Her flusher has been featured on the View, Oprah and all over the web - one site even made up a song about it (the ditty is a bit blue, though, so I won’t link here. The curious can find it online.) But her toilet - yes, the toilet - runs around $7,000!! (No typo, folks.)
In all seriousness, though, spas tend to have a clean, bright look and feel and luxurious stress-busting features that just flush the tension right out of you (pardon the pun) - many of which can be installed in your own home for a fraction of what the dreadlocked one paid for her porcelain potty. For example, pedestal sinks instantly - and inexpensively - open up a bathroom, especially when replacing a dark vanity and wall-to-counter mirrors. I recently put a new pedestal sink in my bathroom for less than $600 - top of the line, including faucets and installation!
Similarly, you can get more of the spa look and experience at home, with a relatively modest investment - especially compared with the lifestyle upgrade for your buck - by installing granite counters (the tiny slab most bathrooms take can run a few hundred dollars), a basic bathtub with jets or river-rock shower floors for under a thousand dollars!
2. Custom, decorative paint treaments. Sponge painting? Très 1990. Murals in your kids’ rooms, entry hall inspirational mantras that greet your guests - paint is one of the least expensive “edits” you can make to your home, and homeowners are upleveling their home’s aesthetics with custom paint in lots of luxe-ey ways.
From harlequin diamonds to chair rails, crown moldings and wainscoating, decorative paint treatments are a simple, cheap and chic method for upping the luxury in your home life.
3. Built-in anything. Part of what makes uber-luxury homes, well, uber-luxurious is the fact that it seems like living life in them would be so neat and clean and easy. One way to get that feel in your very own home is to build in some of the necessities, optimizing the way you use your space and takes great advantage of otherwise unusable areas, generally creating what the feng shui set would deem free-flowing chi.
Consider building in:•Storage systems. From shelved nooks to closet organizers to garage grids for sports equipment, storage systems eliminate clutter and make sure there’s a place for everything, and that everything has a place. If you can afford a custom cabinet installation or custom closets, they certainly offer the fancy moldings and modules that create luxury appeal. But many home improvement stores now offer much less expensive versions of these systems that look and work great.
•Desks and bookshelves. Like storage, but activity-specific, built-in office equipment maintains order and can turn a dead corner of a room into a highly useful workstation. To replicate this functionality on the cheap, find a corner or nook and put in an armoire-style workstation that closes and folds up when you’re not working. And built-in bookshelves are a time-tested selling point when your home is being sold, by the by, so, if you have an empty area from old-school built-ins which were removed, installing inexpensive shelving might be a great way to go.
•Wine storage. Dead space under the stairs can easily be transformed into a wine cellar or storage space. My own personal wine cellar is where I store my kid’s chocolate milk, my electrolyte water and a bottle or two fish sauce, but it’s a great feature to have at home, no matter what you’ll use it for!
•Recycling/compost/trash centers. Try as we might to minimize it, we all generate trash. Built-in centers with clearly marked waste receptacles make this dirty part of life less messy and more manageable.
4. Dedicated spaces for anything. There’s no need to go all Candy Spelling and dedicate multiple rooms to gift wrapping. But space is a luxury in and of itself, so dedicated space for your film-watching (a theater room), gardening materials, crafting supplies or even the kids’ homework is an extra-special, super-duper luxury, especially if it’s equipped with the right equipment for the activity to which the room, half-room or even corner or nook is dedicated.
5. Automation. Remember the Jetsons? The vision for this century was a fully automated, robotic home that did all the work of life for you, so your time would be free to shop at Mooning Dales or work for Mr. Spacely building sprockets. Most of that hasn’t happened, and that’s probably for the good. But injecting small touches of automation into your home can give it a decidedly high-end feel - for very, very little cash.
(And they're also gadget-ally delicious!)
I personally just put a couple of these automated trash cans- $60 each! - into my own kitchen. They’re hands free, so eliminate the germiness and clunkiness of opening a lid with your hands or feet, and they were the hit of a recent dinner party! (Okay, it was the food, then the trash cans that guests admired. But still.) Many hands-free or automatic household items are available at very low prices, like automatic soap pumps, paper towel dispensers and robotic vacuum cleaners.
And if you want a built-in recycling center with a techie feel, here’s one that should really float your boat - $100 bucks for in-home, eco-chic lux
Website:www.houseofbrokers.com/schitwood -
Bed Bugs!Posted on: 2010-10-19In the 1950s, after they saved the world from Hitler and before they perfected the three-martini lunch, the Greatest Generation wiped out bedbugs — or so they thought. They hit the tick-size parasites with DDT by the barrel, then mopped up with malathion.
But here's the thing about the tiny bloodsuckers: they have an amazing ability to stay on task. Years passed. DDT was banned. People grew complacent. Parents still said, 'Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite!' But their children just giggled. Meanwhile, a few critters survived. In havens around the world, they focused intently on the bedbug agenda of hiding, feeding and multiplying, which they can do at a rate of 10,000 babies in three months. (See TIME's video on bedbugs.)
And now they're back! Nimbly hitchhiking across the globalized planet, bristling with built-up resistance to insecticides, the common bedbug — Cimex lectularius — has planted its nasty little flag 'in all 50 states and around the world,' according to entomologist Jeffrey White, star of the Internet series Bed Bug TV.
New York City is being hit the hardest. Bedbugs have been found in the Empire State Building, at the United Nations, in the Time Warner Center and in the offices of the Brooklyn district attorney. They have infested cool shops like Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria's Secret and Niketown. Even tony Bergdorf Goodman has hired trained beagles to sniff the premises for the telltale odor of these stinkbug cousins.
But once they make it there, they can make it anywhere. 'New York is the handwriting on the wall,' says bedbug expert Richard Cooper. In a recent survey of 1,000 pest-control companies across the country, 95% said they have encountered bedbug problems in the past year. Anecdotal reports suggest that the bugs are quite fond of Ohio. At the same time, infestations have risen 800% in Alaska over the past five years. Bedbugs love warm, dry climates. They seem to do just fine in the northern woods of Canada too.
At a hotel near O'Hare International Airport on Sept. 21 and 22, more than 350 people gathered for the first ever bedbug summit. Interest was so high that it sold out five weeks in advance. Government officials, academics, property managers, pest-control technicians, insecticide chemists and antibug inventors thronged lectures asking where the critters are coming from and how to kill them once they arrive.
It's possible that bedbugs are simply the latest in a long string of public panics over epidemics that eventually proved to be manageable, from killer bees to bird flu. But that would not quite capture the grim mood of the Chicago summit. One scientist showed, using DNA evidence, how the bugs hop blithely from continent to continent on clothing, carry-ons, backpacks and purses. Another tracked the eruption of bedbug colonies through a single multistory apartment building. Another flashed a photograph of a robust bedbug literally glistening with drops of poison rolling off its back. 'These are tough critters,' declared Michael Potter of the University of Kentucky. Dini Miller of Virginia Tech echoed, 'It is nearly impossible to eradicate these bugs with insecticides alone.'
So — deep breath — what do we need to know about these persistent, resistant little devils? Start with the fact that, even as they are leaping up our ladder of national fears, they neither vault nor fly. But oh, how they can scurry.
The good news about bedbugs is that they don't appear to transmit diseases. This is perhaps surprising, given their otherwise disgusting nature. A bedbug's life is nasty, brutish and gross — hiding in the crevices and cracks and folds of headboards, mattress seams, box springs, baseboards and bureau drawers until it's time to wander out in search of a meal. (See how Ohio dealt with bedbugs.)
Yet despite the fact that they are less dangerous than other bloodsuckers like mosquitoes and ticks, bedbugs can do very real psychological damage. 'They're creepy,' White explains. 'They're invading your sanctuary, your bed, and suddenly you can't sleep because they're coming out of your walls, out of your box springs, to feed on you in the night. I've seen people fall apart emotionally because of an infestation.'
So much for the good news. The bad news stems from their vile mating and travel habits. Male bedbugs are as relentless as the guys on Jersey Shore; they inseminate the females by stabbing them in the abdomen with an appendage that looks like a rusty can opener. Female bedbugs may wander as a way of escaping. Talented stowaways, they can hunker down in the seam of a suitcase, say, and because they can endure long periods in cramped environments without eating or even moving, they are perfectly adapted to modern airline travel. At the other end of the journey, their new host unwittingly welcomes them home by plopping the suitcase on a bed or sofa to unpack.
Bedbugs are often associated with squalor, but according to Cooper, their resurgence was initially aided by the jet set. The earliest contemporary infestations — starting in the late 1990s — were found in upscale hotels and resorts. The bugs aren't picky about whose blood they swig, however, and now the greatest danger Cooper perceives is the growing likelihood that bedbugs will become so populous in lower-income, multifamily dwellings that they will be nearly impossible to eradicate.
See the top 10 everything of 2009.
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- Things you NEED to know to prevent getting RAPED!Posted on: 2010-09-02Through a Rapist's Eyes (No Joke)
When this was sent to me, I was told to forward it to my lady friends, but I forwarded it to most everyone in my address book. My men friends have female friends and this Information is too important to miss someone
Please pass it along and share it with your children.
A group of rapists and date rapists in prison were interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim and here are some interesting facts:
1) The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman witha ponytail, bun, braid or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed . They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair . Women with short hair are not common targets.
2) The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women who's clothing is easy to remove quickly. Many of them carry scissors around specifically to cut clothing.
3) They also look for women on their cell phone, searching through their purse, or doing other activities while walking because they are off-guard and can be easily overpowered
4) Men are most likely to attack & rape in the early morning, between 5: 00a.m. and 8:30a.m.
5) The number one place women are abducted from/attacked is grocery store parking lots. The number two:office parking lots/garages. Number three: public restrooms.
6) The thing about these men is that they are looking to grab a woman and quickly move her to another location where they don't have to worry about getting caught.
7) Only 2% said they carried weapons because rape carries a 3-5 year sentence but rape with a weapon is 15-20 years.
8) If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn't worth it because it will be time-consuming.
9) These men said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas, or other similar objects that can be used from a distance, in their hands
Keys are NOT a deterrent because you have to get really close to the attacker to use them as a weapon. So, the idea is to convince these guys you're not worth it.
10) Several defense mechanisms he taught us are: If someone is following behind you on a street or in a garage or with you in an elevator or stairwell, look them in the face and ask them a question, like what time is it?, or make general small talk: 'I can't believe it is so cold out here,' 'We're in for a bad winter.' Now you've seen their face and could identify them in a line-up; you lose appeal as a target.
11) If someone is coming toward you, hold out your hands in front of you and yell STOP! or STAY BACK! Most of the rapists this man talked to said they'd leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed that she would not be afraid to fight back. Again, they are looking for an EASY target.
12) If you carry pepper spray (this instructor was a huge advocate of it and carries it with him wherever he goes), yell I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY and holding it out will be a deterrent.
13) If someone grabs you, you can't beat them with strength but you can by outsmarting them. If you are grabbed around the waist from behind, pinch the attacker either under the Arm (between the elbow and armpit)OR in the upper inner thigh VERY VERY HARD. One woman in a class t his guy taught told him she used the underarm pinch on a guy who was trying to date rape her and was so upset she broke through the skin and tore out muscle strands - the guy needed stitches. Try pinching yourself in those places as hard as you can stand it - it hurts.
14) After the initial hit, always GO for the GROIN. I know from a particularly unfortunate experience that if you slap a guy's parts it is extremely painful. You might think that you'll anger the guy and make him want to hurt you more, but the thing these rapists told our instructor is that they want a woman who will not cause a lot of trouble. Start causing trouble and he's out of there.
15) When the guy puts his hands up to you, grab his first two fingers and bend them back as far as possible with as much pressure pushing down on them as possible. The instructor did it to me without using much pressure, and I ended up on my knees and both knuckles cracked audibly.
16) Of course the things we always hear still apply. Always be aware of your surroundings, take someone with you if you can and if you see any odd behavior, don't dismiss it, go with your instincts!!!
You may feel a little silly at the time, but you'd feel much worse if the guy really was trouble.
1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do : The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do!
2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans : If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you....chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!
3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won't see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.
4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc, and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc.) DON'T DO THIS! The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.
a. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it. As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.
5 A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot or parking garage:
A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.
B.) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.
C.) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out.
IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)
6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)
7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times. And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RU N, preferably in a zigzag pattern!
8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP! It may get you raped or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well-educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked 'for help' into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.
9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her 'Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.'
The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, 'We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do,DO NOT open the door.' He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night.
Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby --- This should be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America's Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana .
I'd like you to forward this to all the women you know. It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. I was going to send this to the ladies only, but guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it onto them, as well
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6 Quick Fixes for Your Credit ScorePosted on: 2010-09-02Q: What do you advise a financially fit homebuyer to do to increase their credit score or make themselves more attractive buyers, to qualify for the lowest mortgage rates?
A: A FICO score of 700 (FHA)/740 (Conventional) or better qualifies you for the lowest rates. In fact, it qualifies you just as well as a higher score, so if you’re at or over 700/740, there’s no loan qualification rationale for investing effort into boosting it. But these are firm breaking points. The difference between a score of 698 and a score of 700 (in an FHA loan scenario) can cost you a quarter of a point in interest, or thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage.
I’ve found that people asking about how to boost their credit to qualify for the best interest rates is similar to people asking me how to lose weight: I tell them the truth, then their eyes glaze over when I give them the straight dope, no magic bullets. No one wants to hear: eat vegetables, cut the sugar, and exercise; similarly, they don’t want to hear pay your bills on time, every time.
But I’ve been asked this question a lot recently, so here goes, anyway!
1. Pull your reports online – get them for free, no strings attached, at the government authorized website AnnualCreditReport.com. This doesn’t get you your actual FICO scores, but it does get you the content of your report. Look for errors that could be depressing your score, like accounts that don’t belong to you, balances that are actually lower than reported, old debts that are paid off that should have been removed entirely (7 years for credit cards, 10 for bankruptcies).
2. Consider reopening accounts you thought were open but have been closed because you haven’t used them in so long - it will help boost your utilization ratio, one element of your credit score that is dependent on how much available credit you have.
3. Pay down some debt. This both decreases your debt-to-income ratio (36% is the goal, including the proposed mortgage payment) and increases your credit score, if you do it right (see the next tip).
4. Don’t close any accounts. Instead, spread your debt out. The ideal utilization ratio is about 20-30% of your available credit overall, and on any given account. Closing accounts reduces the amount of credit that is available to you, so it makes it look like you’re closer to being maxed out.
So if you have one card that’s near its max and several others that have zero balances and you’re trying boost your score a bit, quickly, consider balance transfers to spread our your debt more evenly, aiming for 20-30% of the available credit on each card.
5. Use your credit regularly – and pay it on time, every time: Having a good FICO score doesn't happen because you have sound personal finances, including no debt. FICO scores are a measure that shows that you have a history of responsibly using and managing and repaying your debt on an ongoing basis.
6. Finally, check in with your mortgage broker. Have them pull your report and score, as the report they pull is the one they’ll have to go by in the final analysis. If you’re really close to a score level higher, that would empower you to qualify for a lower rate, they can actually run a credit diagnostic on your score and generate some recommendations for which actions you could take to raise your score by the needed few points. Then many of them can do what’s called a ‘Rapid Rescore’ – once you’ve paid that bill off, they can actually submit a request directly to the credit bureaus to update that information and your score in just a few days.
None of these tips will get someone with a 500 credit score to a 700 (other than a massive debt reduction program). But if you’re trying to get a little boost to get you over a credit score hump, these can be potent, and save you beaucoup bucks in interest.
Psst - you should follow Trulia and Tara on Facebook, too! -
How to keep Mosquito's from biting youPosted on: 2010-07-30Mosquito Spray...Worth a try
I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children's swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don't leave home without it.....Pass it on.
OUR FRIEND'S COMMENTS: I tried this on my deck and around all of my doors. It works - in fact, it killed them instantly. I bought my bottle from Target and it cost me $1.89. It really doesn't take much, and it is a big bottle, too; so it is not as expensive to use as the can of Bug-spray you buy that doesn't last 30 minutes. So, try this, please. It will last a couple of days. Don't spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house. - Helpful Hints using BOUNCEPosted on: 2010-07-11Bounce This Along
My mail carrier told me that the U.S. Postal service sent out a message to all letter carriers to put a sheet of Bounce in their uniform pockets to keep yellow-jackets away.
Use them all the time when playing baseball and soccer. I use it when I am working outside. It really works. The insects just veer around you.
All this time you've just been putting Bounce in the dryer!
1. It will chase ants away when you lay a sheet near them. It also repels mice.
2. Spread sheets around foundation areas, or in trailers, or cars that are sitting and it keeps mice from entering your vehicle.
3. It takes the odor out of books and photo albums that don't get opened too often.
4. It repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.
5. Eliminate static electricity from your television (or computer) screen.
6. Since Bounce is designed to help eliminate static cling, wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling..
7. Dissolve soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a sheet of Bounce.
8. To freshen the air in your home - Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang in the closet.
9. Put Bounce sheet in vacuum cleaner.
10. Prevent thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through a sheet of Bounce before beginning to sew.
11. Prevent musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.
12. To freshen the air in your car - Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.
13. Clean baked-on foods from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in a pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The anti-static agent apparently weakens the bond between the food and the pan..
14. Eliminate odors in wastebaskets. Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.
15. Collect cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the lose hairs.
16. Eliminate static electricity from Venetian blinds.. Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.
17. Wipe up sawdust from drilling or sand papering. A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.
18. Eliminate odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.
19. Deodorize shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight.
20. Golfers put a Bounce sheet in their back pocket to keep the bees away.
21. Put a Bounce sheet in your sleeping bag and tent before folding and storing them. It will keep them smelling fresh.
22. Wet a Bounce sheet, hose down your car, and wipe lovebugs off easily with the wet Bounce.
- A Few Things Your Homeowners Insurance May NOT CoverPosted on: 2008-01-17Intentional damage
If your ex sets fire to your home, you're probably covered. If the fire is started by your rebellious teenager or an estranged spouse, however, you may not be. That’s an important distinction.
Intentional damage by an insured person -- or by the person's spouse, children or relatives living in the house -- typically isn't covered by your insurance. Estranged spouses, thank goodness, often come into a gray area. Although they may not live in the home, they may be listed on the policy or the property deed and be considered to have an insurable interest in the home; insurable interest is a very important principle in insurance. Companies have, in fact, made this argument to deny or limit coverage to homeowners whose property was damaged by an estranged spouse.
Victims’ advocates complain that policies like these are unfair, since there's often no way for the insured to prevent such damage. If you're worried about the risk, however, it may motivate you to get help for a destructive teen, beef up your home's security system or reach a quicker divorce settlement.
Computer equipment
If you have a personal computer or two, your homeowners insurance may pay you enough to buy a new one -- or it may not. If you're running a home business, however, your homeowners insurance almost certainly will fall short. The business loss could fall into a different category of protection -- or lack thereof.
Here's another area where it pays to read your policy. Some insurers will give you a check only for what your computer equipment is worth now, which is probably a fraction of what you paid for it. Computers and related equipment are notorious for their quick loss of value.
Even those policies that do pay for replacements, however, typically have a cap, often about $2,500. Many require you to have supplemental coverage if you want a bigger check than that, or if you run a business from your home. Read your policy, note the limits and talk to your insurer about supplemental coverage if you need more.
Also, know that most policies won't cover the value of all that valuable digital information stored on your computer, including your music library and photo collections. That's all the more reason to invest in a good, off-site backup system and to use it frequently.
Luxury items and collectibles
If you don't own anything special, the entire contents of your home are probably covered under your homeowners’ policy. If, however, you have antiques, musical instruments, guns, jewelry, collectibles or fine furs, you may need extra coverage. The typical policy limits coverage for luxury items and collectibles. You might get as little as $200 for the coin collection you were hoping would fund Junior's college, or just $1,000 to cover all your jewelry, watches and furs. Keep sales receipts or appraisers’ valuations for your special possessions in a safe deposit box.
Once again: Check your policy, and buy supplemental insurance if you want more coverage. To make sure you have enough coverage for all your stuff, use the home inventory software available at the Insurance Information Institute.
By: Liz Pulliam Weston, www.moneycentral.msn.com
Email:www.moneycentral.msn.com -
Main Street BAnkPosted on: 2007-08-27Did you know that this big brick is in front of Main Street Bank?
Stop by and read it!
