Each year, our company registers a team in the annual marathon for charity. It is not mandatory for the staff to take part, but we have learned that it tends to be a lot of fun and it brings us all a lot closer as a team, both in the office and out of it.

This year, the marathon committee sent us out some business forms to fill in with our team information and to help gather donations for the charity that they were supporting this year. I posted the information on the bulletin board in the lunch room and participant interest this year is higher than it ever has been before.

All of the marathon runners were given recruitment documents to fill out and several of the staff members started walking together during their lunch breaks to try and get into shape for the marathon. I am sure proud of my staff.

When my daughter was eight years old, she was diagnosed with leukemia. It was the hardest thing that we have ever had to face and reality set in when we were contacted by the Children’s Wish Foundation, stating that they wanted to give us Disney tickets, as that is where Shayden really wanted to go.

We got our Hopper tickets delivered to our house by registered mail and even the sight of the tickets seemed to make Shay feel better. She was very excited about the trip and I was happy that she was getting the opportunity to make one of her dreams come true.

When I would tuck her in at night she would ask me to read more to her about what she could expect to see when we got there. It was a great experience and it held us all together when things were difficult with her illness. She is better now, but I will never be able be thankful enough for that trip.

As I walked into a travel agency today, I read on their wall that their mission statement was to provide a great travel destination at a great price.  I knew after reading this that I was in the right place as we were looking for one of those cheap holidays that you read about in magazines.

The catch was that we didn’t know where we wanted to go so we were counting on the travel agent to give us good suggestions as to where we should spend our holiday.

Lucky for us, they had a special on cheap flights to Turkey with our final destination being Icmeler Turkey.  According to the travel agent, Icmeler was a beach resort town and one of the best destinations in Turkey.

So we about our trip for the last weekend in August and I’m very excited to go on vacation on the other side of the world.

In my line of work, it is absolutely imperative that I be able to make a secure call from anywhere at any time. In fact, most of what I do is under such high security measures that my wife does not even know about it.

When I need to call and check in with my superiors, I use gsm encryption so that there is no way that the call can be monitored or traced. I have learned a lot about this kind of thing, as I do not want to put all of the information and research that we have done in jeopardy.

I am kept up to date on all of the latest encryption software. It is part of my job and we all need to stay on top of it. We have weekly meetings where we are briefed on new security measures and I am not willing to take a chance on letting anything leak.

I usually don’t stay up so late at the computer, but tonight is a different story.  I guess the reason that I am sitting here is that I am looking for a gift for my wife - just to say that I care.

Now, it might seem a little weird that I would be looking online, but I just recently discovered (about two hours ago) that there are sites where you can get free online coupons for just about anything.

So, I have been using the handy coupon toolbar that I found and have been going over a list of gift ideas that I had for her to see if I can get a deal on any of them.  I don’t want to sound cheap, but I have a limited budget to use to impress her, and if I can stretch it, the more smiles I see on her face.

I think that I will take advantage of some of these makeup coupons and buy her some new lipstick - it is not only something she loves, but with the discount, it will cost next to nothing.  I just hope I can pick out a good color for her - they all look pretty much the same to me.

When I asked for an iPod for my birthday, I was really disappointed when I received a Zune. I was pleasantly surprised, though, to find that I really enjoyed it. My grandma gave me a Zune dock cable to go with it and I started using it all the time.

I used my Christmas money to buy a Zune car charger, as I spent more time in my car than I spent at home. I would have never had the thing charged if I didn’t get a car charger. When it is not charging, it is playing. I love music so much and I finally have a good machine to play it on.

My dad gave me his Zune travel charger, as he said that he never used it anymore. I did not get an iPod like all of my friends have, but if you ask me, my system is a lot better.

When my husband and I decided to renovate the unfinished basement of our house, I was very excited to go out and look at shower cubicles with him. He was finally going to have his own bathroom, which meant that the one we currently share was going to be all mine.

Not that I am greedy, but I am not really into taking showers and it gets rather tiring having to clean the bathtub every time I use it. He showers every day when he gets home from work and leaves the bathtub rather disgusting.

While we were browsing through the electric showers, my mind wandered to the freedom that was going to come with us each having our own bathroom space. I did not feel too guilty about it because I know that he was excited about having his own shower, too. I didn’t even blink an eye when he chose one of the most expensive ones. After all, he deserves it.

When I was going to medical school to become an optometrist, I was very interested in learning more about LASIK surgery. I knew that it was something that I would like to do one day and I focused a lot of my education on that very fact.

When I was in school, LASIK prices were phenomenal, but the prices of the surgery have greatly decreased since then. There are more and more people having the surgery now and I love helping people get rid of their glasses once and for all.

With so many new LASIK types, anyone who has less than perfect vision would be a great candidate for surgery. I am hoping to one day own my own clinic and I think that it would be great if one day everyone would be able to have the option of a long term vision repair, rather than fixing the problem with corrective lenses.

As much as I hate it, sometimes I need to buy new insurance.  The last time that I had to get anything, I was looking for an auto insurance quote - but that was many years ago.

But when we moved to Ontario, we needed to find a home insurance company that would insure our new home.  Since we didn’t know what firm in town had the best rates, or would offer the best coverage, we turned to the Internet to see what we could find.

We had little difficulty finding companies in town by searching for home insurance Toronto online.  We were able to quickly get quotes and print them off so that we could compare them side by side.  This made it a lot easier for me as I work during the day and cannot go to each insurance company.

I was able to narrow it down to a couple of companies with whom I spoke with on the phone.  We made our decision thanks to the information we found online.

In any competition, the goal is to win or to come out on top.  At least that is the way that I was taught, and it is how I carry myself in any competition.  But I also believe that if you do win, it should be done honorably without any cheating.

So, when I entered the busby seo challenge, I knew that I would have a lot of work to do.  With over 250 people entered already, I knew that there would be some stiff competition to make it to the top.  Most people would just quit before they have started, but I decided that I cannot back down from this challenge.

I have devised a marketing plan for the new site that I have created and there are a set of SEO tasks to do each day.  I am doing everything from article marketing, blog posting, directory submission, and other link building techniques on a daily basis in hopes of getting ahead.

Speaking of that, I should get back to work.  If I just blog all day, I won’t win.