We have a franchise that we started a couple of years ago that has just taken off.  We started our first bubble tea shop about ten years ago now, and we have never looked back.  We offer something unique and with little competition, interest in our brand has soared.

The interest has become so high that we are looking to open about twenty five locations over the next six months, and we are looking to squeeze a little extra money out of each location.  You see, we have added a clause that each store owner must get their payment processor through us, so we have been looking for one with an affiliate program.

The company with the most potential so far is a company that offers high risk merchant accounts.  Their payout rate is very good as well as due to the nature of their business, none of the new franchisees should have any problems qualifying.

It definitely looks like a lucrative partnership to me.

My husband was recently laid off from his job and it has put our family into a tailspin. We realize that we took many things for granted while we had them. We all of a sudden found ourselves with no health insurance.

A few weeks afterwards, my son came home from school with an awful toothache. Before, we would have took him in right away, but now we had to think it through.

We spent some time looking into discount dental plans that would help us out right away, so that we could get his tooth fixed.

I felt bad, as I know how awful it is to have to live with a toothache, but I also knew if we took him in, we would not have enough money left to pay our mortgage.

In the end, we got a good deal through Ameriplan and he got his tooth fixed. My husband has also found a new job and we can all smile again.

A very exciting thing happened to me last week. I won fifty thousand dollars in a hospital lottery. People have been asking me what I was going to do with the money and I think many of them assume I am crazy when I tell them that I am going to buy web domain names.

Most people do not look at the Internet from the same point of view as I do. I look at it as my greatest resource for making money. The more web domain names that I own, the more web pages I will have that could potentially be making me a profit.

To me, it is an investment and I think that this money will go a long way in making my business a success. So, if you do not understand, that is alright. I decided that it was my money and I was going to put it to good use.

There’s something about weddings that brings out the romantic in almost every woman. Even the most die-hard, emancipated (unmarried) women, deep down inside, long to meet and spend the rest of their lives with the perfect mate. On some level.

Personally I can’t envision a man in my life right now. But that doesn’t keep me from dreaming that someday I’ll find someone who can fit into my life and I can fit into his. As I’m rapidly approaching 60, those somedays are dwindling just as speedily. It often feels as though time is running out and my hopes dim.

But at a marriage ceremony, with all the flowers and decorations, the bride’s maids and groom’s men, the music, the ever lovely bride, the adoring groom, anything seems possible. And then there’s the throwing of the bouquet, that ritual that most people expect is for the young. I’ve seen 50-year-olds elbow their way into the fray.

My first love in writing is creating mystery or romantic intrigue fiction. I’ve trained myself to find story ideas from some of the most unexpected places. Take this classified ad I came across recently. All it said was, “Limo New Jersey, danger, mystery, magic,” plus it listed a phone number and a web site. I was intrigued.

When I checked out the website I was disappointed. It turns out the company specialized in taking people to interactive mystery events where the participants get to solve a staged murder. That was much more prosaic that my imagination had hoped for.

And that imagination wouldn’t let the idea go. Before the night was through, I’d plotted a tidy little fantasy story about a limousine service that transported its customers to another realm where magic reigned and getting back home to the “real” world was harder and more dangerous than they ever imagined. Now, of course, I have to sit down and write this story. But that’s another … well … story.

I found out the coolest thing the other day. I am probably the last person on the planet to find out about this, but I thought I would pass the information on anyway, just in case there are a few other people out there like me who have never heard about ticket presale codes.

I can remember when big concert or theatre events were sold out because scalpers bought up the tickets and sold them outside the event at exorbitant prices. Now, if you know where to look, you can buy tickets – at a discount – before they go on sale to the general public. This is just about the best idea I have ever heard of.

If wanted to take my daughter to see, for example,  the Broadway stage version of Disney’s “A Little Mermaid,” I couldn’t afford it. But if I am able to get a code through a service, we can get seats way below retail. Cool!

Quite often, when I find myself traveling, I feel disconnected with the world.  I guess it could be because I don’t have a laptop to stay in touch online.  In that respect, I feel like I am missing out on the lives of my friends.

But the one thing that does keep me in touch is my cell phone.  I made sure that when I bought it that it had wireless web connectivity.  Sure, I pay for it on my monthly cell phone bill but it lets me stay connected whether I am at work, or just away from my home.

I have been experimenting with this for awhile, and it seems to work okay.  The thing is I just need to find mobile websites that will display properly on my phone.  So far most of the sites that I like to visit offer some sort of mobile community on them.

I just love keeping up on the go.

One of my newest hobbies that I like to do on the weekend is going to the racetrack.  I have a friend that gave me some horse racing tips at one of the races he took me to and I ended up winning a lot of money.  That was when I realized that this could be an enjoyable hobby and it was also really good for my social life.

I do not pretend to be a professional when it comes to choosing a winner but I have a lot of friends now that are more than happy to give me racing tips when I have a question.  I don’t win every weekend and in fact, I have probably lost more than I have ever won, but I don’t spend scads of money and I have a good time getting out with friends.

So for now, until I find a new hobby, I think I will hang out at the track a little longer.  I am sure that I will never be a horse racing tipster but I am happy just to get out of the house and do something besides sit in front of my computer for at least a little bit of my weekend. 

I did not know what I was going to do when I found out that my ex-husband had been killed in a workplace accident. I counted on him for child support money and I knew that I was not going to be able to make ends meet without it. We could survive on what I would make, but I knew that I would never be able to send the kids to college, which is something I had always promised that they would never have to worry about.

A few months after the funeral, I got a call from his lawyer. Apparently he had started a child trust fund for each one of our children and had never told me about it. There was more than enough money put away for each one of them to put them through four or more years of college. It was such a burden that was taken off my shoulders.

In that instance, I had more respect for him than I ever had while he was a live. I am so grateful for doing this for the kids and am so glad that I no longer have to worry about their futures. He really was a wonderful dad and I will never again say that he always put himself before his children.

I remember the time that I was hopefully lost. It was the first time in my life that I wished I had a GPS. I was unfamiliar with the city and I was trying to find my friend’s house, which I had never been to before. I drove around for three hours until I was so lost that I did not even know how to get out of the area I was in.

I was pretty sure that she did not live in the warehouse storage Philadelphia district and I could not even find a place that had a payphone so that I could call her. I just kept driving and getting even more hopelessly lost than I was before, if that was even possible.

I finally decided to stop and see if there was someone in one of the warehouses that could help me out. I did eventually find somebody and he informed me that I was on the completely wrong side of the city. He was nice enough to help me get back to the main thoroughfare and I promptly found a gas station and called my friend, who came and met me and let me follow her back to her house.