I know many people that smoke. They have either done it since they were kids or they are kids and they got the habit from parents or friends. I was talking to someone the other day about how they want to quit smoking and I think it’s a great idea. Not only is it better for his health, but it will save him a huge amount of cash in the long run.

I decided he needed a little more of a push, so I averaged out the price he paid for cigarettes over the last 10 years, the amount of time he has been a smoker. If the price of a pack is $4 and you smoke a pack a day, he sometimes smoked 2, you would have wasted $13,440. Just on cigarettes alone in 10 years. My step father has been smoking since he was 15. He’s now going to be 50 so he has spent around $40,000 on cigarettes in his life time. I took 5 years off of that estimate as I don’t have the information on how much they cost when he was younger.

It’s hard to quit smokeing, but there are many products and tricks out there to help you quit the smoking habit for good. Don’t use the excuse that you will gain weight or be moody. You health should be your main concern, but right now with the cost of everything going up, don’t you want to be able to save that extra money your thowing away?

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I was stumbling though some blogs today when I came across a favorite diabetes blog that I try to read often called ride to remedy. The post she had up at the time featured her thoughts on J.K Rowling’s speech to the Harvard class of 2008. She inspired me to read the speech for myself and now I am going to share my thoughts with you.

In this speech Rowling presses the fact that failure is hard and something we do not want to do. I agree with this as my life has consisted mostly of failures and very little of success. I found myself skeptical at first when she said that there is a benefit to failure. I stopped and thought of my life for a few minutes, wondering if there were any benefits to my failures. I can think of a few one being my failure to find work or get into school when I lived in Texas. If I had I would not have been able to spend the last few years of my fathers life with him. I would not have seen my niece grow up or met the people I have met since then. So I thought okay there is a little bit of a benefit to failure. I was surprised to find as I read on that there was more.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Taken from J.K. Rowlings speech

After reading that I realized that not only would non of the events that have happened to me since my failure happened, but I would not be who I am today if I did not fail. I am a much stronger person who has done many things that I never thought I would do. For that I am thankful. Another part of this speech that caught my attention was the following stated directly after the paragraph above:

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.

This is the hardest part for me as I always thought you had to have that check-list for your life and that it had to be done in that order. I have done nothing in the order I have thought I should do it in and I always thought that was a failure, but maybe these things have not been done or are being done later for a reason. Probably a reason I will never know.

I have found myself inspired by this speech. A good thing, but at the same time a thing I will struggle with, I have been inspired to do something I love, but I have lost my love of everything it seems. I love to write but I always get writers block when trying to write a story. Maybe again it’s being afraid of the failure that could come with it.

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I use to love to flirt, I don’t get a huge chance to do it much anymore, but that’s okay I was still very good at it once. I flirted so well, half the time I didn’t even know I was flirting. When flirting hair is a huge part of it and even though I wear a wig, it’s still is a huge part. I have found that men like women with long hair. It’s just the way it is. I have also found that women with red hair get more attention then women with another color, that is one reason I have red hair. Well that and since I seem to blend into the wall very well I may have a better chance of standing out with red hair.

Here is my question though? How do you get hair with enough style to flirt like crazy? Well you could use your shampoo or something better. Extreme Style by VO5 will give you that flirty hair that could lead you to victory hair later. Want to know what victory hair is, well after a long night with that special person you could end up with a nice mess of Victory Hair.

Do you think you have what it takes, well you can test out your prowess by playing the Ultimate Flirting Championship from VO5. Lets see if you have what it takes to get victory hair before the others do.

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You want a secret, you don’t have to look like a model for women to like you. You just have to smell good and take care of yourself. Yes, I’m talking to all my male readers. I decided that I talk about womens stuff a lot on here, but I know many men read this blog, so here is something for you curtsy of research for my little brother.

My brother is 14 so he is now worried about how he looks and smells. He takes at least 4 showers a day this may be a smelling issue it may be something else, we will not go there. The other day he asked me to find some men’s skin care products for him to use. As you all should know if you read this blog I love shopping online so of course that was the first place I looked. Anthony.com was one site I found and they have a great selection of men’s products. Actually they have more of a selection then I have seen in other stores or websites. They have anti aging and anti acne the latter being something my brother may be interested in. The best part about their products is that part of the profit goes to prostate cancer research. I also like it because Anthony was my dad’s name, yes that is a reason to like something.

I am thinking I may have found something he likes and they offer gift certificates so I can have an easy time shopping for his birthday and Christmas.

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My little brother is looking for colleges within driving distance of our home. Anything that is an hour or less away will work. One of those College’s is Kettering University. One of my friends went there and they loved it. I think a reason my little brother is thinking about that one is that my friend talks about how much fun they had all the time. My brother though still doesn’t know what he wants to do yet he’s torn between a few things. As my friend has said though Kettering offers a huge range of degrees like Biochemistry and mechanical engineering Right now my little brother is leaning toward computer science with a concentration in computer gaming.

A little while ago I had him check out the stick man videos they have. We decided the best one was the one I have put in below. He found it amusing, but informative enough to make him want to check out the campus. As I said it’s only an hour drive but we have time. He’s a freshman, but they want him to figure out what he wants to do now and go visit colleges. One thing he and I really liked about Kettering is that it is number one for US News Best Colleges in Industrial Manufacturing engineering and has the best college guide for 2008. Thats always a good clue that the college is a good one. I had thought about going there but they didn’t offer interior design I had other options in the area though so I wasn’t too upset. I’m just very happy we found a college that offers what my brother wants to do. They have many other types of programs so if your interested you should check there site out: Kettering.edu.

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I’m always looking for ways to improve myself. My big one right now is to lose weight. I lost 50 pounds a few years ago and I loved how I felt and the attention I got, even though it took a while to get use to. Unfortunately soon after that I started school and my father lost his battle with cancer. I then gained 100 pounds back.

Now that I’m losing weight again I am realizing that I need to tune up some other things in my life one is just being happy. I use to be a very happy person and it really didn’t matter what happened. Now I just pretend to be happy. I’ve gotten so good at it it’s actually scary. I’m ready though to really be happy again and the ideas behind the sedona method interest me very much. One of the new books titled Being Happy For No Reason is a book I think I will be getting. I really just love the title.  Another thing I like the the a new earth concept. Anything that brings us closer to the earth where we should be is a good thing in my book. Just last night in my class we were talking about how much more productive workers are when they have a window that looks outside. We are connected to nature and feel better when we can see, hear and touch it. I think it’s just more proof that we need to make some changes in our daily lives so that we can start to appreciate living and what little life we have.

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