With Your Family in Mind

As an insurance agent, we’re too often saddened by client losses that could have been prevented.  Over the past two months, I discussed 40 actions you can take to prevent serious injuries, robberies or fires.  I would like to share another 20 things that you can do to help prevent accidents and disasters in your home.  Keep in mind that each one of these preventative measures could have prevented claims our insurance company has received.

Many educators claim that what happens prior to kindergarten sets the stage for later learning once children enter public school.  Providing young children with opportunities to learn movement, art and cognitive skills during the important developmental stages they grow through from age two-and-a-half to nine is a must for parents.  Following is the format of one successful Half-Day Camp in the Santa Clarita Valley that costs as little as $7 per hour.

“Bitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them.  Deep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them.  Sharp is the grief of a child: Take it from him.  Soft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it,” Pamela Glenconner

Inner Circle Foster Care & Adoption Services is the premier foster care and adoption provider to the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, and Antelope Valleys.  We provide both temporary and permanent homes for children who have been abused or neglected by carefully assuring that their medical, social, emotional, and educational needs are met.  Children placed through Inner Circle are of all ethnicities and range in age from newborn to 18 years.  Since our inception in 1991, we have provided such care to over 1,350 children.

Death and taxes — yes, there are things that are simply unavoidable.  Although you can sometimes cheat death, if you cheat on your taxes you may wish you were dead.  Taxes are an extremely important part of settling an estate and a basic knowledge of it is critical.

What do you do if you, or someone you know and love, has a drinking or drug problem?  Dealing with addiction is a complicated matter, even for a trained professional.  Too often, family members and individuals feel they can contain or control the situation, but the inevitable result is that the behavior only spins further out of control.  This is why there are over 15 million addicts in America today.

Santa Clarita Magazine readers continue to send in pertinent questions about the voice-acting business.  This is the fourth part of my answer regarding voice-over demos:

Q:  I’ve voiced a number of commercials and think I’m ready to make a demo, but do I really need to?  Any suggestions as to how to go about it? — Roberta K., Santa Clarita

Few things are more stressful than finding a nursing home for a loved one.  Everyone has heard nursing home horror stories and no one wants that to happen to their loved ones.  While there is no way to guarantee that nothing will go wrong, some careful research and planning can help reassure you.  Following are some criteria to consider when looking for a nursing home.

If it’s not possible to pay all the bills as they become due, then a decision has to be made: which ones to pay first?  This requires categorizing and prioritizing debt.  Not all debt is created equal.  Following are some general guidelines as to how to categorize debt and prioritize.

Have you set goals for 2008?  Are you following through with them or do you fall in to a familiar pattern of breaking or giving up on these goals?  This pattern can become tiresome and after twenty-five years of making goals and breaking them, I have freed myself of this cycle.  I am now achieving my dreams.

With nearly 85,000 children in California removed from their parents’ homes due to abuse or neglect and 9,000 foster children in California waiting for adoptive homes, there is a great need for caring adults to provide loving, nurturing homes as either foster or adoptive parents. 

As an insurance agent, we’re too often saddened by client losses that could have been prevented.  Last month, I discussed twenty actions you can take to prevent serious injuries and fires.  I would like to share another twenty things that you can do to help prevent accidents and disasters in your home.

Estate planning can be very intimidating for some people.  In fact, most people don’t know very much about the fundamentals of estate planning.  However, with a little education, you will be well on your way to understanding how estate planning can help you and your family.

At Valencia Christian Center, our mission is to provide encouragement and hope through the comfort and love of God’s Word.

With housing foreclosures and consumer debt at all time highs, there may be someone close to you who needs financial help.  So what do you do?  This is not an easy decision to make.  Perhaps that person has had a spotless credit record and has been hit by a storm of events — a lost job or sudden medical bills.  It could also be someone you love who has not had the best financial record and a jump in their monthly payment has sent them over the edge.

In the adolescent brain, amazing re-organization and sculpting is taking place!  Old, unused nerve pathways are disappearing and others are being formed and strengthened.  Many of these spectacular events occur in the front part of the brain, which lies behind the eyes and forehead area.  This part of the brain is often called the Executive; it organizes and controls many different thinking functions.  These functions include goal setting, organization, attention, working memory, judgment, and control of emotions and impulses.

If your spouse turns out to be a different person than you expected as you walked down the aisle on your wedding day, can you have the marriage annulled based on fraud?  More than one client, tired of the whole divorce process and hoping to just have the whole marriage deemed void, has inquired about trying to get an annulment on the basis of fraud.

In January 2008, Los Angeles County had 23,368 children in placement because their parents abused or neglected them.  Until recent years, it was believed that foster homes could adequately meet the needs of children who were unable to safely return to the homes of their birth families.