So You’re About to Become a Grandparent – Congratulations!

I have waited years for this to happen to me. Most of my friends are grandparents already and I’ve anxiously awaited the exciting news to happen to me. We all know that this is the crowning achievement of being a parent ourselves. No matter what else our own children do, how accomplished they are, how smart they are or how funny they are, it all comes down to this. THIS, my friends, means that you finally get to stop being just a parent. You can now be a certified GRANDPARENT. This is when you can stop worrying and stop being the responsible one. You can stop advising your own kids and gently (?) reminding them of what they’re supposed to be doing and simply ENJOY.

Yep, with a grandchild, you don’t have to worry about any of that. It’s parental bliss. Somebody else can do all the heavy lifting while you sit back and enjoy the good stuff. You get to spoil them, kiss them and hug them, fill their tummies with cookies and other good things to bribe them into loving you and then send them home for their temper tantrums, sleepless nights, and the number of other fun things we had to put up with as a parent. The time is near!

Wait… is that a worry?

Now that I know I’m going to be a grandmother, it means that my own child is going to have a baby. You know this is going to change their lives completely… will they be okay? It’s a huge responsibility, it’s expensive, will they have enough patience, how will they work it out with their jobs, will the dog be good with the baby? There are so many questions and so many worries. I thought this was supposed to be the easy part. Daily, I seem to be coming up with a whole new set of things to worry about. Granted, if worrying was an Olympic sport, I would compete and win the gold medal each and every time, but I’m sure that this is normal. The difference in being a parent and being a grandparent is that, this time around, I know what’s in store for them and I can’t do anything about it. I know darn well that they’re going to be great parents, but it is not going to stop me from worrying all the same. That poor little child is going to fall down and get hurt, he’s going to get sick, and he’s going to be unhappy sometimes; that’s a fact. Now, though, not only am I going to have to worry about my grandchild during those times, but I’m also going to worry about his mom and dad having to go through it, knowing how much it hurts them, as it did me, and not be able to do anything about it. How come nobody told me about this part of being a parent or grandparent?

I think that instead of landing on parent easy street, I just realized that I am about to embark on a whole new journey as a parent. I’m certain that I’m going to have my very own special relationship with my grandchildren, but am now realizing that I am about to have a whole new relationship with my own children as well. Being a parent really is a lifelong endeavor and becoming a grandparent is just another part of the same journey, with an awesome bonus.

I’m going to try my hardest to not worry about anything. I am going to spend lots of time with my new little grandson, cuddling, spoiling, and just loving him. When I send him home, I will give my own son and daughter-in-law an extra hug for all that they have to worry about now.

Five Words That Scare College Students

When students graduate from college, they expect to begin a new job, one that will launch their careers and get them started in life. They will have worked their way through college and reached the senior year with the expectation that they are prepared to conduct their senior year job search, will take a few interviews and will receive one or more job offers. Unfortunately, things don’t always go the way we all would like them to work out. In fact, after a long, frustrating and disappointing job search effort, unprepared students and recent graduates will start the negative self-talk and think to themselves, “I can’t find a job.”

Those five words should scare every college student. That’s why it’s important for students to understand that the battle for a good job starts long before the senior year of college. Nobody can conduct an effective senior year job search, having done little or nothing to get prepared for that job search. “Getting Ready” is what students should be doing during each and every semester of college.

Since most students just don’t know what they should be doing to get ready, let’s deal with that issue here and now. There are things that students can be working on from the first day they enter college. Therefore, students who are serious about landing a good job should concentrate on things that will help them do just that. They include the following:

1. Enthusiastically pursue beneficial knowledge, activities, experiences and friendships

2. Discover and explore personal interests, directions, capabilities and limits

3. Become known for something associated with their interests and direction

4. Impress at least one influential Professor

5. Involve themselves with two or more doers and thinkers in their field

6. Get some solid work experience in their area of interest

7. Develop relationships with three or more impressive references

8. Lead a group that achieves something positive and significant

9. Develop, then demonstrate exceptional communication skills

10. Research 200+ employers that hire college grads with their capabilities

11. Create and utilize their personal Alumni network

12. Develop a comprehensive job search strategy

Each of these assignments must be started early in the college experience and should be completed before the beginning of the senior year. Because these difficult and challenging tasks will take a long time to complete, any student who waits until their senior year to get started will almost certainly have killed their chances for landing the job they have dreamed about. They won’t be prepared for the five word question that the best employers want answered, “Why should we hire you?”

When students approach their college and job search responsibilities in a systematic and businesslike manner, they will help to ensure that their search for employment ends in success. A semester-by-semester plan should be developed, written out and followed. That plan will bring clarity and a timetable to the steps required in the critical process that is overlooked by too many capable students.

We all know that not everything will go smoothly along to way. When problems and obstacles occur, students must call upon their pride, determination and creativity to push through or go around the challenges that present themselves. Employers look for those qualities that enable students to keep going, when things get rough. During interviews, students should be prepared to present and discuss their accomplishments, including a few stories about the obstacles that were overcome. Employers love students who have had to fight for success, can stand up to difficulties and still function well.

Because the best candidates are already fully prepared for their job search, they can devote their entire senior year to that effort. All of the preliminary work was completed earlier. Now it’s just a matter of executing their strategy in an exceptional manner, one that will result in them uttering five more words, “I have a great job.”

Internet Marketing and Its Evolution

Internet marketing is also called as online marketing and it can be defined as the process or promoting a product, brand and service by using the internet. Its broad scopes include electronic customer relationship management, email marketing and also many promotional activities that are done using the wireless media.It can also combine the creative as well as technical aspects of the World Wide Web such as designing advertising, sales and development. Moreover, the process of internet marketing also deals with placing advertisements, creating and this is done throughout various different stages of the customer management cycle.The different types of online marketingThe different types of online marketing have been briefly explained below.Affiliate marketingIt is a type of marketing practice in which the business pays an online retailer or an e-commerce blog or site for each and every visitor or sale that the website can make for the brand.Display advertisingThis type of online marketing process refers to the advertisement banners that are displayed on other blogs and websites to boost traffic for their very own content. This also can increase the awareness of a particular product.Email marketingAs the name suggests, this marketing process involves reaching out to prospective customers by using the facility of email.Inbound marketingSharing of free and valuable content to a target market and convincing them to become their loyal customer is done in inbound marketing. This can also be done by setting up of a business blog.Search engine marketingSearch engine marketing can be defined as a form of marketing that promotes a particular business through paid advertisements. These paid advertisements appear on search engine result pages. This also includes contextual advertising paid placement and a paid inclusion through search engine optimization.Social Media marketingBased on its name, this process of social media marketing is the process of promoting a website by using various types of social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. This is a very effective form of internet marketing as it can reach a very wide user or customer base.The internet has a unique power of connecting millions of people from around the world. Thus it has the capability to bring your business to millions of people in your target market and this is obviously done around the world. Thus internet marketing can be a very useful tool for promotion. It is one of the important things to remember.