Brantley School District is located in one of the poorest counties of Georgia. This means the school and the students struggle with the shortage of finances and resources for proper functioning. The school motto ‘Reach every student, every day’ is tightly connected to the school’s difficult situation.
The message of the school reached Ashlyn and Brent, a married local couple. They live near the school and that allows them to do something for the kids and the school itself. She travels to the school on regular basis and tries to make a difference for the children.
The poor living condition of the kids is a major problem and it motivated Ashlyn’s actions. Furthermore, the insufficient funding of the school is a major problem for proper functioning of the institution and achieving the desirable results. Luckily, besides Ashlyn and her husband, Ellen’s done something that may help the school to widespread their message across the nation.
Materialism is not the only thing that the students need. The goal or the plan is to make every student feel special. Furthermore, promoting the students’ values and their capabilities and skills is another thing this couple is fighting for. They need to know that someone does care for them. The teachers of the school add that they want to follow Angel Scwindt’s quote:
“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”
Many people dream of luxurious big houses, with several bedrooms and grand expensive bathrooms. However, there are people who just love simple and small houses, avoiding huge expenses. Furthermore, having a big house means lots of money for maintenance, while simple houses do no require expensive repairing and fixing. What’s even better, simple houses can be afforded by almost anyone, without any major impact over the family budget.
The Lillevilla Escape
Lillevilla Escape is the name of a single-room small house. This simple house is made of one big room and it is sold on Amazon for just $4,200. Lillevilla manufacturer’s 113 square feet plan of the house is very simple and it’s all in one. Another positive side, besides its low price and simplicity, is the relatively short time period for installation of the house itself.
The order is placed on-line and it takes less than a month to be shipped and transported to the desired location. The house weighs some 3,000 pounds and it provides a comfortable place for those who will purchase it. In order to cut down the expenses on heating or cooling, the manufacturer recommends adding insulation.
Assembling is easy!
You get everything with the purchase, except tools. The assembling is very easy and it only takes two people to do the job. Of course, you will need the tools, but once you supply them, the house can be assembled relatively quickly.
Inside the house
The house has all elements of any other house. The big room provides comfortable and lovely living space. The arrangements of the elements are up to the owner, but anyhow, the room is big enough to place sofa, armchairs and a table. Adding decoration on the walls makes this room even more pleasant for the eyes.
You can always remodel, add or remove elements. Using decor, night tables and lamps may improve the room’s comfort. Personal elements, pictures or souvenirs, add ‘soul’ to the room and make the house warm. Changing elements is up to the owner and the inside of the house reflects the owner’s vision of comfort.
One beautiful and very useful feature of the house is the accessibility to the outdoors. The main room opens directly outside, no halls or passages, directly into the yard. This house may be very useful for those people who enjoy being in direct contact with the nature.
The porch is unavoidable!
You can’t skip the porch. People who purchase these types of houses enjoy installing the porch since it’s one of the house’s best feature. Having a porch in front of the house with a direct view of the nature is just great. Adding to this few chairs and a table, the comfort and the joy are guaranteed.
Additional options
With $4,200 you can purchase the basic plan or design of the house. However, if you do have the money and the desire to buy something extra, Lillevilla offers extra elements. Whenever you feel like you need extra windows, shutters, flower boxes or doors, you just make the purchase. The installation of these extra elements is also easy and very fast.
These houses are eco-friendly. This house is just perfect for those people who do not want to have a major impact on the environment. The materials are not hazardous and the impact on the nature is minimal. Lillevilla House is the perfect house for nature lovers and nature activist. This small house offers huge comfort and environment-friendly shelter.
Parenthood means lots of responsibilities, duties and busy schedule. It is not easy to be a parent. The family problems, in addition to the jobs we do and the pressure we feel from third parties, may result with having a very stressful and frustrating life.
A recent study has shown that large number of married women find their husbands as bigger source of stress than the kids themselves.
The main reason for such opinion is the husbands’ behaviour. In other words, the wives believe that their husbands act like children even though they are grown up men. Jokingly, some of the participants of the study say that there is not even a difference between the husband and the kids. There may be some truth in it, according to other similar studies conducted in the recent period.
One British study that has been published recently shows that men mature emotionally later than women. The study also shows that men reach their ’emotional maturity’ in their 40s, while women reach it in their 30s. There are some participants’ claims that state men actually never stop being immature.
Every person understands emotional maturity differently. Usually this immaturity includes playing video games, eating a lot of fast food, burping and showing off. Some researchers call this type of behaviour as ‘Peter Pan syndrome’.
Different study – similar results. The source of wives’ stress is pinpointed once again.
Similar to the other studies of this type, half of the women stated that their husbands are the main source of stress. These results may surprise many, since the general opinion is that children are the source of parents’ stress.
One participant said:
“A 7-year-old is going to be a 7-year-old. But a 35-year-old acting like a 7-year-old is more stressful, because they should know better.”
Another participant added:
“Often times it seems like I am the only adult in my house. My husband and daughter compete with me for my attention.”
Besides the sources of stress, the study also focuses on the relationship between the parents and the kids. The results have shown that the fathers usually have a ‘friendly relationship’ with their kids. The fathers usually do not hesitate playing with their kids and engaging in various leisure activities.
On the other hand, the mothers are concerned with more serious activities. The health, education and behaviour are usually the mother’s duties. It is up to her to deal with these crucial aspects of the child’s life. Having this in mind, it is expected women to be more stressed than the men.
Regarding this, one woman says:
“My husband is a really great dad, but I do find marriage to be stressful. I’ve had to put so much energy into my marriage,” one of the responders said.
Communication may be the solution.
The crucial thing in overcoming these stress-related problems is communication. Wife-husband communication and mutual understanding may fix this unbalance and hopefully lower the stress level in the family.
Communication between both parents is very important in solving everyday problems. That way, the duties may be divided and the responsibilities will be taken equally by both of them. If only one parent takes the majority of the responsibilities then the stress in unavoidable.
In addition to that, an attention is paid to the cohesion of the family. In other words, the stress is higher in families where one parent usually forbids everything, while the other allows all of it. Acting in the same way reduces the stress that affects the parents.
Chores – another source of stress.
So far the immature behaviour of the husband has been pointed out as a major source of stress. However, the studies have shown that the unequal split of the chores may also result with some significant stress and frustration.
Unbalanced split of the chores and household tasks usually affects the harmony of the family, especially the husband-wife relationship. This is an additional source of stress, besides the already mentioned, and as such may have some serious consequences. Therefore, having an equal share of responsibilities, duties and chores is the crucial element of the family’s success.
The third factor – ‘time stress’!
Doing things on time, beating the clock and following schedule of duties very often make us stressed and desperate. The time pressure makes us feel frustrated and that may lead to blaming ourselves, or the people around us, for the possible failures. This is a very unpleasant situation for every person and unhealthy environment for the family.
One of the
participants, regarding this, adds:
“I feel like I am figuring out a lot about parenting on my own without the input of my husband. This stresses me out because when something goes wrong, it is all my fault,” one of the moms in the research told.
Once again, communicating with your partner may be the key to the success. We all struggle to have the perfect marriage, and this may be the crucial thing in achieving that.
The tragedy in Santa Fe deeply touched the nation. 10 innocent people lost their lives and 13 were injured. That was a devastating news that shattered the nation.
The students, the employees of the High School and the first responders were invited to the Game 5 of the Rockets Western Conference Finals.
A group of nine girls were supposed to sing during this event. Prior to the singing, the girls observed a moment of silence, a situation that caused people react in totally different way.
Many pictures were taken of this moment, but one sparked a major controversy.
The photo that caused such a controversy features all girls holding hand, except one. The one who isn’t holding hands is the African-American girl. People immediately applied racism to this act and they started thinking the white girls are discriminating the black girl.
One comment said:
“Who the white girls?? Yeah, they did have one job and refused to hold the black chicks hand…their racisms showing BIG TIME.”
Another person wrote:
“Y’all see 2nd girl from the right smirking while not holding her hand.. yeah OK”
A third one said:
“But why is nobody holding the black girl’s hand?”
Such kind of comments were not acceptable by the girl’s mother.
The mother wanted to make the things clear, so she wrote:
“The ‘black girl’ is my daughter. It’s people like you that keep the race crap stirred up. You just look for ways to make things about race. These girls are her friends. You have no idea what you are talking about so you just need to shut up.”
Her idea was to point out that people tend to see negative things where there are none.
“My daughter didn’t want to cry before she had to sing and holding hands would have caused her to start crying that’s the story nothing about race”, she said.
However, the mother’s efforts gave no results. People even asked Lynda to provide evidence that she is the girl’s mother. Having in mind the fact that the girl’s parents are white, the situation got even worse. Lynda indeed had the birth certificate of the girl, but she didn’t want to share such a personal thing. Instead, Lynda posted some photos of the family. Nicole is between her father and her mother.
Lynda wrote:
“I have a birth certificate which you will not be seeing. This is us at senior parent night for the band.”
Because the situation developed into something unwanted, the Nicole and Lynda spoke together in an interview in order to settle the things out.
Nicole Janice told:
“It’s very disappointing that people are going to take a race issue out of a picture with nine grieving girls in it. I grieve in my own different way. I don’t like to be touched. When we had that moment of silence, I didn’t want to grab anyone’s hands because I didn’t want to break down before we sang [the National Anthem].”
Nicole was shocked and couldn’t believe her eyes when she read the comments. She adds that people invented a problem out of nothing.
“When Nicole came out of her room Saturday morning, she was upset that they had turned this into a race thing because she knew what was real. To make something so simple into a race issue was just absolutely ludicrous.” – says her mother.
Lynda and Nicole are happy to settle the things out. Racism is not the thing that people should play around with. The terrible outcome of such experimenting can be very serious.
Nevertheless, the family was criticized for nothing. Later, it was concluded that the photo was photoshopped and Nicole was not the only girl who wasn’t holding hands.
While discussing racism, one person asked Lynda :
“I wonder how you explain racism to her in all your privilege?”
Lynda replied:
“I let her read these posts. Y’all are doing a damn good job.”
If you were lucky enough to grow up with your grandparents by your side, you know the meaning of the purest form of love. There is really nothing these people wouldn’t do for the well-being of their grandchildren. From spoiling them rotten while they are little kids, to taking them to the park, and being supportive all the way, grandmas and grandpas are simply the best.
Actually, this is something everyone is pretty much aware of, even fraudsters and conmen who would do anything to take advantage of the affection these loving people feel for their grandkids.
The so-called ‘grandparents scams’ are becoming popular among criminals who trick the vulnerable individuals into thinking how their granddaughter or grandson are done for and in need of urgent financial aid.
They do this scam by pretending to be lawyers, doctors, and even police officers. The grandparents fall for this easily believing they are getting their loved ones out of trouble.
The first thing the criminals do is come up with excuses of why would they need the money for. Sometimes it’s a sudden surgery, costs for lawyers, or paying for a driving ticket. After they present this well-planned stories, they ask the grandparents to send them the money, which most are willing to do.
This operation isn’t as simple as it sounds. The scammers spend certain amount of time learning about both the victim and their family members. They usually do this by going through the grandchildren’s social networking sites accounts trying to exploit the relationship they have with their grandparents.
Since the fictional situations and problems the scammers present the victims with are sort of embarrassing and personal, the grandparents don’t share them with the rest of the family members or their friends. They believe they’ve been loyal, without being aware they are not actually helping anyone.
The latest victim of this sort of scam was an 87-year-old lady from Quincy.
The lady was already tricked into spending around $4,000 on gift cards that she sent to the criminals. They, however, realized she was an easy target and decided they wanted more money. She agreed on sending them Walmart gift cards that would cost additional $2,000. As she headed to the store, she shared this story with the taxi driver who suspected this elderly woman had been set up.
Richard Spencer, the yellow cab driver, didn’t fall for this strange story and knew the lady had been scammed.
“I said excuse me ma’am, but that is not your grandson,” the cab driver said. “It’s someone posing.”
She told Spencer how someone called her earlier that day saying how her grandson was involved in a car accident that he caused and now he needed gift cards he would use to pay in order to be spared jail time.
“I don’t think so lady,” Richard said to her. “I think you’re getting scammed. I heard this before, you know.”
The trip to Walmart turned into one to the nearest police station.
“I said, no, no we’re not going to Walmart. I’m calling the Quincy Police,” he later said to WBZ-TV. “I said I believe your being scammed and we’re going to try to save you some money.”
It turned out Spencer was right. This grandma was a victim of a scam.
The police, however, says catching these criminals is not easy since they usually operate out of the U.S.
If it wasn’t for this quick-thinking taxi driver, the lady would lose even more money.
“I think it’s one of the scummiest crimes you can do,” the cab driver concluded. “It just goes to show what scumbags they are, they’re too lazy to go out and steal like a real criminal, they go scam people on the phone.”
Everyone praises Spencer’s action. He knew something was wrong and trusted his intuition.
“Thank you Mr. Spencer for caring. You could have chosen to remain silent and ignore the signs. But you didn’t. And for that we say THANK YOU” the police department wrote on their Facebook page.
While Spencer was helping his passenger that day, he got a traffic ticket. But we hope the officers would let him out of the hook because of his kind deed.
February 2 marked the beginning of the second season of Ireland’s Got a Talent. With the same format, Virgin Media One once again began entertaining the audience and the loyal fans. As expected, the judges remain the same. Louis Walsh, Michelle Visage, Denise van Outen and Jason Byrne will try to find out the future most talented Irish performer.
Ireland’s Got a Talent keeps the same format as last year. The first steps that are done are the open auditions held in the major cities across Ireland. If the contestants meet the criteria of the show, they move on to the Judge’s Auditions. This second part of the auditions includes singing in front of a big audience. The major part of the show are the live rounds. In order to move on and be part of the semi-finals, the contestants have to win the majority of the judges.
Tara Jamieson, born in Canada, was one of the contestants in the show. She stepped on the stage and in front of the crowd and the judges she started singing ‘One and Only’ by Adele. The amazed and pleasantly shocked faces of the judges say it all.
Tara is a medical student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. Her passion for the medicine, particularly paediatrics, is not the only passion she has. Her love for the music is equally the same and because of that she is an alumnus of Berklee College of Music. These two totally different areas are reason for the jokes that are told during her performance. To this, Michelle Visage adds: “[she will] sing to kids while she gives them a shot”.
She gave us an impression of a very relaxed girl who loves being on stage. And she knows how to perform on stage very well. The Judges and Tara’s jokes about the herself prove that the girl is not that stressed, which is a good sign. These jokes were just the introduction to her performance, and man, she performed amazingly.
The semi-final rounds are what all contestant dream about. To be part of that, one has to pass through a process of selection, done in two ways: phone votes and judges’ votes. Each semi-final round selects two winners, ready to face each other in the final round.
The public voting is the only factor that determines Ireland’s Got a Talent winner. Besides the nation-wide fame, the winner also gets € 50.000. The winner even gets her/ his own prime-time Christmas TV special. No wonder why so many contestants try to win the show.
Play the video and enjoy with this beautiful performance!
Steve Harvey – you just can’t miss that man on TV. His dedication to entertain us and keep us laughing resulted with numerous shows. Whether it is on the Internet or on TV, it is always easy to find Steve’s shows. For years he has been making the nation laugh and he still continues doing the great job.
Steve Harvey’s career started in 1985. During this time, he has been acting and performing as a stand-up comedian in several local club. That experience helped him to master his skills, especially acting. As a result of that he made it to the finals of the Second Annual Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search.
That was just the beginning. Soon afterwards, he ended up hosting Showtime at Apollo. The nation-wide success was guaranteed with his The Steve Harvey Show. Nowadays, his Hey Steve is amusing the audience like never before. This talented comedian and host never fails our expectations.
Hey Steve prepared us another pleasant surprise. This time, the show’s star was accompanied by an elderly lady. Since Steve Harvey is well-known for his interaction with the audience, he almost never refuses a proposal given by the crowd. The lady proposed a challenge and of course Steve accepted it.
The lady asked Steve if he can show some of his moves on the dance floor. Steve was more than glad to accept it. Their dance began slowly. They took their positions and started amusing the crowd. Even though they have never planned anything prior the show, they looked like a perfect dancing match. As the music was speeding up, so these two dancers started dancing more energetically. The fun they had is obvious and the crowd enjoyed in this lovely act.
Nevertheless, in his professional career Steve Harvey proved that he is not good only in acting. In 2009 Steve became a best-selling author with his relationship advice books. His thinking and pieces of advice are appreciated by millions of readers. In 2010 he even took over Family Feud. He indeed amazes us whenever a project is undertaken by him.
Steve’s special characteristics is that he knows how regular people think and feel. His life prior becoming a famous host helped him a lot in understanding people. People indeed feel that Steve is part of them, not considering him as those untouchable celebrities.
The common understanding that the family is strong and compact only if the its members share the same genes and physical characteristics is slowly losing its popularity among people. We have witnessed that families that do have related DNA or genes fall apart and lives are being destroyed. There is, however, something totally different that keeps the families together.
Jessica Satterfiled and her husband proved just that. Families can be happy and they can enjoy the life no matter what’s the DNA code of its members. They are showing the world that being physically similar does not guarantee a stable and happy family.
Jessica and her husband are parents of three healthy, happy and beautiful kids. They have adopted them when they were younger and now they try to raise them up into independent adults. They share everything and talk about various different topics. Like every family out there, they enjoy the life.
However, this family differs from the rest in one thing. The kids have different skin color than the parents. During the years, this skin color difference has caused many people to stare at them and wonder what’s going on. From time to time strangers will give them surprised looks and that sometimes puts the family in an awkward position. One such situation occurred while the family was out in a restaurant having their lunch.
All five members of the family decided to eat some burgers in a restaurant. While they were having a good time and enjoying each other’s company, Jessica noticed an old man staring at them. She began feeling even more uncomfortable when she saw the old man approaching them. To her surprise, the man said something very unexpected.
The old man shook her husband’s hand and said:
“I just wanted to tell you that you have such a beautiful family.”
This stunned them. They were left speechless when they saw the man, with tears in his eyes, saying such a good thing. Jessica nor her husband chased the old man, they didn’t get his name, but this line of words shook their emotions. They will remember him for the rest of their lives.
The family is accustomed to hearing words of surprise and in all these years they have been stared at very often. This man’s compliment was something totally different. Unexpectedly, the man’s acknowledge of their success as a family made them very happy and proud.
Regarding her family, Jessica says:
“Families don’t have to match to be a family. What makes a family is their love.”
Jessica’s words are true. Love is the thing that bonds us and keeps us strong and united. The moment we lose it, is the moment when we realise that we are alone with no one besides us. That sucks!
