SheSue Experience

My third week of investment class discussed mutual funds. She likened it to pizza. They are both made up of separate ‘ingredients’ which get put together to make up the final product. While a pizza is made up of cheese, sauce and toppings; a mutual fund is made up of a selection of individual stocks, bonds or other investments that a professional money manager selects and puts together. When you buy a share of a mutual fund, you get a little piece of every stock or bond just like in a pizza, you get a little bit of cheese, sauce and toppings.

But what kind of pizza or mutual fund to you buy? That depends on your objectives, risk and time frame. If you don’t have the time, knowledge or interest to make your own pizza or mutual funds, there are thousands to choose from. Just like pizza, there are funds for everybody including: growth and income, growth, aggressive growth, international, global growth, corporate bond, money market, government bond, tax free municipal bond, balanced and sector or specialty funds.

We talked a lot about how mutual funds should be used for the long term. There are always ups and downs, just like the stock market, but in the long run, a good mutual fund will do you well. Our instructor suggested investing about 25% of your money in international funds which have historically done well.

We compared mutual funds to treasury bonds. Remember from my previous class, bonds should be used for income. They are loaned money. You put in $200,000 for 20 years and you get $200,000 back. Now you do collect interest each month during those 20 years. The example showed $464,000 total interest income at $23,000 each year. However, after 20 years, the interest rates on bonds had dropped by 7% and the value of $200,000 had been cut in half.

The same $200,000 was invested in mutual funds for the same time period. Instead of earning interest each month, a 6% withdrawal was taken out of the fund each year. The first year, only $12,000 was taken out. But by 10 years, $27,000 equaled the 6% and by 20 years, $50,000 equaled the 6%. And the fund was now valued at over $850,000 and would continue to grow.

Finally we talked about load vs. no-load funds. Basically, no-load means you make all the decisions on what to buy and sell within your fund. Bad idea if you don’t know what you’re doing. Load funds means you pay a manager to make the decisions.

Mutual funds are the way to go for me. I can deposit as little as $25 per month and have it set up automatically. And I will go for load funds. Pizza I can manage, but I will definitely be paying a manger for my mutual fund

Most people do thorough house cleaning in the spring. I do mine in the fall. When it’s nice outside, I want to be outside, not cleaning my house. That’s not to say that I enjoy it. Like most, I find house cleaning a real chore. But I make my lists and get the job done. Just think of the exercise you’re getting – you can burn 500 calories just doing cleaning. I like to do mine to music. Nothing like a good tune to make the job go quicker. With all the talk about green living, I like to find cleaning products that are easy on the environment. You can find natural cleaning products right in your kitchen.

Vinegar: You can use vinegar instead of your 409. Mix a solution of 1 part water and 1 part vinegar in a clean spray bottle and you have a solution that will clean most areas of your home. Vinegar is a great natural cleaning product as well as a disinfectant and deodorizer. Don’t worry about your home smelling like vinegar, it will go away when it dries.

Use your vinegar cleaner on counter tops, appliances, sink, floor and you can even use it to get rid of toilet bowl rings. In your washing machine, add ½ cup vinegar instead of fabric softener. It will make your clothes soft and helps get rid of laundry detergent faster.

Lemon Juice: Works great to dissolve soup scum and hard water deposits. You can also use lemon juice to clean and shine brass and copper. Mix 1 cup olive oil and ½ cup lemon juice and you have a nice smelling furniture polish for hardwood furniture. When you’re done with the lemon, put the whole rind down the garbage disposal. It freshens the drain and the whole kitchen.

Baking Soda: Instead of reaching for the Comet, use baking soda to scrub surfaces instead. Baking soda also makes an excellent deodorizer. Put it anywhere to absorb odors.

So the next time you look for cleaning products, think green and try some of the products above.

For more great cleaning tips, go to Cleaning Lifetips. Here the have a long list of tips on cleaning just about every surface in your home.

Imagine hundreds of small flags all lined up in rows. Every Veteran’s Day while my son was active in Boy Scouts, troops all came together to plant flags on all the graves at a local cemetery. After planting the flags, there was a ceremony with speeches, colorguard (presenting of flags both Scouting and American) and music. It was a touching ceremony, bringing grown men to tears.

I have three vets in my family, granddad, dad and brother. I found the following written by a Marine in honor of those who have and now serve in the military:

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a Jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel:

The soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking. So, what is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She or he is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

He is the parade – riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being – a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say “Thank You”. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
~ ~ ~Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

Over the years, I have considered participating in one of those programs where you write letters to military personnel serving overseas. This year is the year. What I found were programs that offer much more than just letters. There are many programs out there. The program I decided on is called Soldier’s Angels. They offer a long list of programs such as making blankets, canes or baked goodies; sending first aid supplies, caring for pets at home, offering support to loved ones at home, or sending holiday care packages. I have decided on the Adopt a Soldier program. I will be responsible for sending a card or letter every week plus sending a care package once or twice a month. The ‘adoption’ lasts for as long as their deployment from 6 months to a year. I’ll let you know how it goes.

When I was growing up, my mom used to have a bunch of wind chimes hanging from her front windows.  My favorite were the large bamboo wind chimes.  I used to love to sit there on summer days and listen to those wind chimes.  They had a deep resonant sound that was beautiful in the soft summer breeze, but it could get a little bit annoying when it would get really windy out.  Especially some of the metal chimes.  When there was a storm, I wouldn’t be able to sleep all night.

That is why I decided to get my own bamboo wind chimes when I finally had a place of my own.  The great thing about bamboo chimes is that they have a really gentle sound that doesn’t get particularly loud, even when the wind blows quickly.  With metal wind chimes, the stronger the breeze, the louder the chime is.  With wooden chimes, however, a stronger breeze doesn’t noticeably increase the volume.  Instead, it just makes the chimes bang together more frequently.  They aren’t massive enough to really gather up a lot of steam and clink against each other, so even when the wind is really raging outside, they stay mellow and quiet.
That doesn’t mean that it isn’t exciting to hear the bamboo wind chimes in a good storm.  It really is kind of neat to listen to how they pick up speed and clink together over and over again as the wind blows through the trees.  The current weather reminded me of this.  They don’t have to be fancy, mine aren’t.  It’s the sound I’m after.

The only disadvantage of the bamboo chimes is that they don’t weather that well.  It’s a problem with anything wooden outside, but especially with bamboo.  If you buy bamboo wind chimes, try to put them in a sheltered area where they will not be exposed to direct rain.  You might even want to take them inside during the winter and check on them to make sure they are not getting damaged.  Fortunately, they are inexpensive, so if something does happen to them they are not very hard to replace.  You can even make your own out of bamboo shoots from the local craft store.   Check out WikiHow for directions.

Estacada is a small town of around 2700 located 30 miles southeast of Portland, Oregon. The city was founded in May 1905 as a camp for workers building a hydroelectric dam on the nearby Clackamas River in order to supply Portland with electricity. At the time, the river was relatively inaccessible by road, forcing the Oregon Power Railway Company to build a railway to the vicinity of the river to transport crews to the river for the construction of the dam. After the construction of the Hotel Estacada, the town became a weekend destination on the railroad line for residents of Portland. During the week, the train carried freight and work crews to and from Portland. In the early 20th century, a trolley line connected the town with downtown Portland. The early railroad history of the city is commemorated in a mural in downtown near the town hall. The railway line has been removed; there is no longer rail service to Estacada.

After the building of the dams, the primary economy has been lumber. As this has fallen on hard times, the town has been depressed in recent years. Estacada has become more of a bedroom community with residents commuting to outside jobs. Despite these problems, the scenic beauty of the area continues to be a weekend draw for residents of Portland.

Estacada is a Spanish word and it means staked out or marked with stakes. It was first suggested by George Kelly as a name for the town site at a meeting of the Oregon Water Power Townsite Company directors on December 27, 1903. Kelly had selected the name at random from a U.S. Map which showed Llano Estacado, in Texas.

The Clackamas River runs alongside the city of Estacada providing outdoorsmen a plethora of activities. Fishing, rafting, canoing, camping, hiking and backpacking opportunities bring people from miles around. They call themselves the ‘Gateway to the Clackamas River’.

Through the years, the residents have tried to establish the city as an art community. The Spiral Gallery offers First Fridays. Every “1st Friday” of the month, the gallery showcases its new Featured Artist or Featured Group Show by inviting the community to come enjoy wine, hors d’oeuvre, music and lots of wonderful art.

It is the art community that has encouraged the murals of Estacada you see here. On a recent outing, I walked around town to capture the various murals. They are painted on various businesses about town. I hope you enjoy them here and if you can, it’s worth the visit to this small, but picturesque town.

I am always happy to hear stories of generosity during holidays, especially this year with all our financial woes. A story in the paper touched my heart. Imagine if you will, a burly biker dude decked out in full leather with tattoos and riding a Harley Davidson. Now imagine that same biker dude joining in a toy drive or raising funds to purchase wheelchairs for children.

This group was organized by a member of A.B.A.T.E., a local organization defending the rights of bikers. They have 11 chapters here in the Pacific Northwest. Every year this groups does a variety of fundraisers including several toy drives through various chapters. They also auction off a Harley to raise funds to purchase much needed wheelchairs. Last year they purchased 16 wheelchairs for Shriners Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Won’t you help them pass that goal this year.

You can find out more and even participate in the toy drive by going to www.ABATEofOregon.net.