Are You Cool Enough?

Adding a ceiling fan to a room can reduce energy costs by up to 40% for each room. When I read an article on tips about saving energy costs, I was surprised about how much a ceiling fan could impact an electric bill.

When air is moving you always feel cooler. We had already installed a fan in our downstairs office; the track lighting heated the room so much especially in July, August & September. After we read the article, we decided to add a ceiling fan to our small media room and we were thrilled with the results. It seemed that we were on a roll so we added another one in our master bath. Our master bath is large, however, as we were getting ready in the mornings it seemed to be extra warm.

Each room that we added a ceiling fan made a huge difference in how cool the room feels! We are now cool an happy and the cost was very inexpensive.

Building a New House?

If you are building a house or if you know anyone that is make sure to pass this tip along to them. After the house is framed, take your digital camera or video camera and take shots of each room especially of the window area. This is great information to have before window treatments are installed.

Another thing to consider, would to add extra wood around the window area to ensure ample support for window treatments. Or, say you are going to add a pot rack to the ceiling in the kitchen, have the builder add additional wood to give the proper support for heavy pans. Maybe you are not going to use traditional towel racks and instead use knobs or hooks to hold towels; add extra wood for additional support.

iPhone ~ It's amazing!

Jerry and I went to the Apple store last weekend and purchased an iPhone for both of us. Jerry got a black one and I got a white one. Love that we can distinguish between the two phones. Why did we both get the same phone? My thought was with two people learning the same phone the learning curve would be much less. I have been researching this phone for over a year and we were already AT&T customers and we were eligible for the upgrade price of $299. Yes, you know I had to have the best one; the one with the largest harddrive (32GB.) It's like having a mini computer.

We purchased the iPhone with lots of space. Right now, I'm in the process of adding lots of photos. First, I created a folder called iPhone photos with sub-folders see above screenshot. The Contact Images folder contains cropped headshots of my contacts. Now when a person calls me on my cell their photo appears. I even got a few headshots from Facebook. Did I say I love this!! Notice, I also have a Dandelion Portfolio folder. Now Jerry and I have our entire portfolio everywhere we go. I created these folders then gave Jerry a copy of them and now without any work on his part he has the same folder. LOVE THIS SHARING THING! In iTunes all you do is click on the Photos tab and select the folder you want your phone to always sync with.

The iPhone also doubles as my iPod. That comes under Jerry's duties. He handles all mp3s I handle the photos. We also added a mosquito repellent app; not sure it this works yet!

What I loved about the iPhone is all the apps that are available. I know other phones have apps but iPhone seems to have the most at this time. Of course, I added Bank of America since I had been seeing them advertise there app when I am doing my online banking for sometime now.

Here is a few of our favorite apps:

http://www.chefslittlehelper.com/ is an app where you can enter your favorite family recipes. Your whole family can have access to them via this website. The website version is available and free to everyone. The iPhone app is .99 cents. What I love about this app is your recipes are always with you. Say you're at the grocery if you decide to make a dish and can't remember the ingredients, just open this app. Now that I have added several of my recipes, Jerry can purchase the app and add those same recipes to his cookbook without any work on his part. It even has a grocery list function. Special Note: all recipes are viewable to everyone; so you can add any one's recipe that is listed to your iPhone app. To find the recipes I have added click the search button then click on the Users tab and type Debbie Green. I have added my meatloaf recipe, my mom's famous spaghetti & meatballs recipe and Jerry's grandmother's sugar cookie recipe. Check them out. I will be adding my Fried Apple recipe soon! I know you guys from up North have never heard of them. They are "to-die-for."

http://www.grocerygadgets.com/ is another app Jerry and I love. This app is $4.99 and both of us had to purchase it. Jerry did the research on what we wanted in a "shopping list" type app. Our requirements were it needed to have the website version as well as the iPhone app, it had to be syncable to both of us. In other words, we wanted one list for both of us. I could add items to the list and his would automatically be updated. And sure enough this one did all that. We tried it out today and Jerry was off to the store with his iPhone in hand. As you check off an item it goes to the bottom of the list. We also created a weekly grocery list that contains all the items we purchase on a regular basis.

White Noise Lite (added this app from iTunes) Jerry and I have to have noise to sleep and especially when I travel. I can't sleep at all if it's dead quite. This app is so cool. Some of the sounds include crickets, extreme rain, grandfather clock, chimes, white noise, thunder storms, oscillating fan & more and of course you can set the time to repeat for up to 24 hours. How can sleep that long?? We are using the lite version which is free!!

Around Me (added this app from iTunes) On the iPhone click on the app to view a list of banks, bars, coffee, gas stations, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, theaters, too many more to list. Click on the desired category to view results. This app is Free.

http://www.keeperapp.com/ I am always needing a password. I have a physical one on my desk, but there are many times I need a password when I am away from my office. This is the perfect solution for me. It is totally secure it has a Military-Grade encryption (128-bit AES). I can even export these to share with Jerry. This app is free.

Create an Unforgettable Photo Book for your Business!

Looking for inspiration? Browse through our online portfolio book that we created in Picaboo. If you own your own business and need a professional looking portfolio Picaboo is a perfect choice.

Create an Unforgettable Photo Book for your Children!

I just finished created photo books for my sons and their wives Owen & Casey and Lee & Leah. I used Picaboo to create these books. The books actually took several months to compile. I have over 100 years of photos that I gathered from a lot of different family members. The books are fabulous!! The time consuming part is the actual gathering of the photographs. WOW, who knew gathering photos would consume most of the time. Here are some tips when creating a photo book with a large amount of pages.

Create a file folder under Pictures or My Pictures "Picaboo Photo Album"
Decide how you want to organize. Below are the folders I created for my two books.

• Owen (my oldest son by himself)
• Lee (my youngest son by himself)
• Owen & Lee (both boys together)
• Jerry's Mother side of the family
• My side of the family
• Casey's side of the family (Owen's wife)
• Leah's side of the family (Lee's Wife)

During my photo search, I wanted to add school photos to show what how they changed through the years. They had lots of different pets so I wanted to make sure I added photos of all their pets. I took a cake decorating class when the boys were young so I wanted to add photos of some of the special cakes I made. As you can see I did several groupings of their different interests on the pages inside the book. Both books have around 300 photographs. Most of the photos had to be scanned since it was before the digital age. NOTE: For the digital photos I copied and pasted them into the appropriate files. In other words, I left the original in it's folder.

I gave my family a preview of what I was doing several months ago and they loved it. What is so great about this concept is the fact it is so compact and 300 photos are in just one photo book. The books highlight most of the events in their lives and gives them a sense of their heritage. Another thing, we all realized is that you can certainly see where certain family members get their looks. It has been a journey down memory lane. It was hard to tear myself away from the project. One thing I am sure of is I am glad I am FINISHED!!!

For you young mothers, the moral of this story is to take lots of pictures you'll be glad you did one day. It seems that the first child has lots of photographs and then the photos start to taper off for each child after that. If you have a tradition or something that is unique in your family be sure to snap those shots so they can be recorded in your family history.

Have You Seen Us Around Town?

By now you have probably spotted our company vehicle driving around town. The next time you spot us, call us a mention the time and place of your siting to receive $100 off your next job with us.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Shutters ~ Have Them Your Way!

Custom shutters can be fabricated to fit just about any application. Shutters on an eyebrow window look fabulous. This application is one of my favorites.



Notice how these shutters also allowed the bottom louvers to be closed while the upper louvers remain open.