Opting for Land Insurance - Good Choice We Say

We would advise you if you are a landlord to get insurance at the earliest, WHY? Please read on and you would get answers to the WHY, what, where, how and when!!

The advantages that come along with landlord insurance are a plenty for you as a landlord to benefit from. Though as a landlord you may think of other issues to be more important to face, but mind you don't forget your insurance. Myth of the insurance policy taking time for you to get should be shattered, it is not that tough to obtain such an insurance policy for you. today if you check online, there would be numerous insurance quotations with added benefits for you to choose from, all you have to do is compare them individually and see which one suits your needs before opting for the ONE.

Cheaper insurance is a reality and you don't have to pay a high amount on premiums these days. Such insurance would be yours to keep for a price competitive and above the rest in the market. Make life simple and get all your property insurance needs under one umbrella, and avail huge discounts on the package as well. If you scourge through the net for landlord insurance packages and deals, you would find favorable deals to suit your needs. Many companies provide cheaper premiums and want to get your attention as well.

As a landlord you should know that landlord insurance would differ from one policy to another, which mean you now have to read the policy fine print and understand it well, before you go shopping and signing on the dotted lines of the fine print. Landlord insurance packages would cover disasters such as lightening, fire, subsidence, earthquakes and even liabilities of the property owner as well.

There are various covers for the landlord insurance packages and here are some of them for you as a landlord to know of. The policies include, "Landlord Building Insurance", "Property owners liability", "Landlord Contents", "Landlord Insurance", "Let property insurance" and "Buy to let Insurance". These are the schemes that are very popular in the market amongst landlords and we suggest you speak to the insurance company or agent and learn more about their features before buying them. Policies for landlord insurance would also cover against situations such as malicious property damage, theft and even fire in some cases, you would have to check if the policy you are looking for covers such situations or not. There is no use of getting a policy for landlord insurance which WOULDN'T cover what you need, even if it is cheap for premium wise.

Finally, we would like to say to all landlords reading this, don't ignore the fact that landlords insurance is important if you have rented your property out or plan to do so. It could be that you are looking for a new policy with regard to this insurance or wanting to buy a brand new one, since you haven't had landlords insurance before, whatever the case maybe as a landlord please get a package for your needs, you never know when disaster comes knocking.

Are You Relationship Ready?

So, you want to fall in love? You are certainly old enough and moving well along your chosen career path. Many of your friends are either married or in committed relationships. You have grown weary of the singles scene

and the solitary life. Therefore, you must be ready, right?

Not necessarily.

So what is relationship readiness anyway? Exactly what it says. You are adequately capable of handling the commitment and challenges that a healthy, intimate relationship requires.

How do you know if you are ready? What are the characteristics you need to have or acquire in order to be ready for true love?

There are four primary areas that you should explore in order to assess your present state of readiness.

1. Take an inventory of past traumas and related major issues.

You should mentally review these and honestly look at how well you have already addressed and resolved them.

As you work through each, ask yourself, "Is this impacting me negatively in my present life." Also explore with yourself the possibility that the issue could become problematic once you have entered into an intimate relationship.

If you believe that there are things you have not yet adequately dealt with, you need to go to work on these. If you are unsure, then they bear closer examination. Consider utilizing resources such as therapy or joining a support group.

An example of such issues can include, but not be limited to; emotional, physical or sexual abuse in childhood, parents' divorce, loss of a parent or other loved one, or a past abusive or dysfunctional love relationship.

2. How's your self-awareness and self-esteem?

If you do not possess adequate self knowledge and a positive sense of self; an intimate relationship will be difficult or impossible to sustain.

For instance, do you know yourself well enough to answer the following?

Can you state your most deeply held values?

Do you know what you can't live with or without in a relationship?

Do you have a good grasp of your life goals?

Do you know your own strengths and weaknesses?

Now, do a quick assessment of your self-esteem.

How do you see yourself?

How do others see you?

Remember you present different selves:

at work

with family

with friends

in gatherings with acquaintances

If your answers tell you that you have difficulty accepting and liking yourself, or if others frequently respond negatively to you in your interactions with them, then this is an area you should begin work on. Self-love is at the foundation of all healthy relationships.

3. Are your past relationships really in the past?

If we don't get adequate closure on painful experiences/issues from past relationships, we are at risk of bringing them into present and future relationships in order to relive and resolve them.

Therefore, it's important to know that you have dealt adequately with any significant hurt or loss and have learned from any dysfunctional dynamics you may have contributed to.

If you find yourself slipping into unhealthy patterns in your thoughts or Behaviors as they relate to others; stop, identify, and then deal with that leftover issue.

4. Do you know what you want from a relationship?

We enter into relationships for many different reasons and with many different expectations. Knowing what yours are will help you to determine if this is the right relationship for you.

Too often we "choose" someone using an unconscious level of thought as our primary input. It is there that we hold our deepest unmet needs, fears and desires. Unfortunately, there is often a chasm between our conscious and unconscious selves that keeps this information "hidden" from our rational and thinking side.

Therefore, it is very important to examine all of your feeling and needs regarding any future relationship. Honestly look at what you must have and cannot live without.

You must know what you want and need from a future partner in order to choose the right one for you.

Now, spend some time exploring these four important areas before you enter into a serious romantic relationship. By doing so, you will be helping to ensure that your new relationship will be a healthy and lasting one.

Why You Have the Right to Choose to Think

Sexuality is a fundamental part of being human and alive. It is powerful, even in its distortion it carves our lives in the same way that flowing water engraves the planet. As we struggle to harness hydropower for its best use, so it is with our sexuality (in the best cases). This is not a result of some philosophical hiatus; it is the effect of day-to-day choices. So is it really so arduous to accept that thinking humans should view their choices around sexuality in a larger context?

Take honor for instance. Honor and its sister Integrity are issues normally presented as side dishes on the buffet of religious dogma, untimely asides to the cornucopia associated with sexual bliss. I often wonder why this happens. Am I the only one who feels these issues are essential to an individual really being attractive enough to be considered sexy? To me, this means going beyond the (dehumanizing) objectification of persons towards (humanizing) evaluation, to place "sexiness" in a holistic framework. How can the presence or absence of the substances which make us really human be regarded as "irrelevant"?

In my own experience with human services, I have witnessed levels of denial that boggle the mind. For me, the cold water in the face has been to see actions, even among health educators specializing in STD/HIV prevention, that totally contradict the prevention-based behaviors they advocate publicly. If love is what you do not what you say, then I hold that the same applies to who you are...and who you will be. Who we are is the result of accumulated choices. The right to choose for women, however, is usually thought of in terms of termination of pregnancy. Yet, the power of freedom to choose can serve us as women, but only if we view it in extended terms. The right to choose needs to begin with a number of fundamental issues that we really think about. This should mean thinking in searching ways about partner selection and thinking about consequences, irrespective of the socially hyped up emphasis on sexuality as being only about "feeling", an emphasis that makes us ignore the effects of sexual stimulation and feeling with regard to, for example, integrity, procreation, or STD transmission.

The right to choose in the sexual arena begins with partner selection, and whether there will be one at all. The reality that between 34-46 million people are living with HIV/AIDS indicates the truth about people's choices, despite what many would claim about how they live and who they are. Globally there were between 4.2-5.8 million people newly infected in 2003, so there are definitely some people to whom what I am discussing here is very relevant.

Among my friends, one of the consistent patterns I have witnessed in their relationships is the total lack of thinking about partner selection, even when offspring was the result. It seems that time and again people settle for less and then wonder why they don't get more. The extreme consequences of disconnecting judgment from sexuality seem so obvious that I am amazed that the patriarchal myths still have so much influence. I blame this largely on the trend of making thinking "unsexy". Commercials, mainstream movies, television, music, and the deluge of input from the Internet are all mission-driven to titillate by employing the most superficial elucidation which, combined with the passive acceptance of the audience, almost invites the spoon feeding of skewed truths. It is an attempt to package sexuality in terms of everything that is superficial, involving only surface seeing, feeling, and experiences.

Ironically, many of the purveyors of pleasure and everything that's supposed to be hedonistic and liberating end up echoing the usual divisions between the "serious" and the non-serious, between thinking and feeling, between thought and pleasure. One of the most obvious manifestations of this has been the elevation of celebrities to demi-gods. Would everyone cease knowing how to dress themselves, without celebrity wardrobes to mimic? Would we stop knowing what it means to have fun, to find and achieve sexual pleasure, without advertising? Would we have no idea of how to relate to each other, or how to choose not to relate, if that is where our sense and instincts lead us? I for one, think we'd all manage just fine. Think how many emotional calamities (romantic and otherwise) could be avoided if issues that are so often defined as "non-sexual" (integrity, honor, political judgment) were a part of the sexual evaluation criteria.

It may seem like an unfashionable thing to talk about, but I will continue to point to this truth...Thinking is sexy. Which makes issues like honor, integrity, and politics sexy, too. All those repressive ideas that pigeonhole human experiences into what is fun and what is staid are actually the heart of the idea that thinking is "unsexy". Waking up to that may make us realize just how much the dominant myths about "pure feeling and pleasure" are based on distortions and disconnects that are far from fashionable.

Create Your E-Commerce Store on WordPress

When I decided I was going to open an e-commerce site, my first step was to choose the platform I would create it on. I had experience with WordPress from a blogging standpoint, but both searches and chatting with internet savvy friends led me to believe WordPress was not ideal for my endeaver. The thing I heard most was:

"WordPress was not built for e-commerce. People become familiar with it and try to hack it to force it to do something it shouldn't rather than learn how to do it correctly, in a platform meant for it. Those do a much better job."

The general gist was that people were trying to fit a square peg into a round whole simply to stay with what was familiar. That seemed to make some sense to me so I began researching other alternatives.

I watched tutorials on using Jamal and Drupal with Magento, PrestaShop and Zen Cart. Many of them are open source or allow for free trials. So, I tried them all. I found them unresponsive, not user-friendly and generally difficult. That said, I could see the benefit if I was more into coding and launching a giant retail site for which I wanted full and absolute control of every detail.

I was discouraged. These were the "best" options and they had all frustrated me. Hours of work yielded little and unsatisfactory results.

I decided to buck the well-intentioned advice and see what I could do with WordPress.

I was delighted! Using a free and general theme and a simple plug-in, I had a working store in an under an hour. I couldn't believe I had wasted so much time and energy elsewhere.

Now, this was just a trial run to see if it was a viable option. It did take me longer to find a theme I really liked and customize the site as a whole, as well as adding the products and other information. However, I was able to fairly quickly discern that it would absolutely meet my needs in a much more straight forward way.

My Trials and Decisions The rest of this article will detail the theme and plug-ins I ended up using, and how I reached those decisions.

Finding a Theme Firstly, I did not want to pay for a theme at this point. I needed to first make 100% sure I was indeed going to use WordPress and exactly what features I required before I was willing to fork out money for a theme.

Finding a free e-commerce theme to play with that I liked actually took me a good amount of time, trial and error. I finally found Mio by Splashing Pixels. It includes a featured product slider and most of the customization I was looking for. I do plan on upgrading to a paid theme with more functionality and customization at some point, but it gave me everything I needed to get a site I was happy with up and running. Also, the support at Splashing Pixels for the free theme combined with the clean code persuaded me that, when I was ready, I would purchase a theme from them.

Finding a free theme took me way longer than it maybe should have, but I learned some things along the way: Know what you're looking for before you start. This can only really be accomplished by grabbing a couple free themes and attempting to set up your site with them. It's only through doing that you realize what you really want and what is not as important. When doing this, make sure you have one of the e-commerce plug-ins enabled with some products loaded - otherwise you're not going to get a good feel for the theme and how it integrates with e-commerce.

The thing that became most apparent to me during this process was how well integrated the theme functions were with the e-commerce plug-ins I liked. I didn't want to have to do a bunch of back end coding to make my site look whole and professional. Stay away from themes that, while maybe attractive, end up looking like a really nice blog site that you just threw a shopping cart onto.

Also very important is if it's easy to set-up the payment options you require. Some things are optional, this one really isn't. Payment options are typically covered in the actual e-commerce plug-in (I'll speak about them shortly), however, I found it super important that my customer's checkout experience be seamless. Again, wanting to avoid the unprofessional look of an obviously separate add-on. Right before a sell is the last place you want your customer to doubt the security and professionalism of your site.

A few other things that may or may not be important to you include:

Is the header customizable? Can I change the text? How many menus does the theme support and how customizable are they? Is it compatible with the newest version of WordPress? Is there a support forum and, if so, are they active and responsive? Can I customize the layout of pages and, if not, do I like the pre-formatted option?

E-Commerce Plug-Ins In the interest of full disclosure, I only tried two: WP E-Commerce and WooCommerce. They are the two I found to have the most supportive tertiary add-ons and be most supported and integrated with WordPress.

I can honestly say, they both work very well.

I started with WP E-Commerce and was incredibly pleased with how easy it was to enter my product categories and products (complete with variations that was overly complicated in the other open source programs I'd tried.) It took a little work to get the checkout exactly how I wanted it, but it wasn't very difficult.

I did run into a problem with thumbnail images not being shown correctly, regardless of any settings I used. I struggled with this for some time before I found documentation that this was a known issue at the time for the current version. I'm confident this issue has been or will be resolved, but I found it too important to launch with and didn't want to wait.

This led me to WooCommerce, which was also fully supported by the theme I chose. It is very similar to WP E-Commerce and shared the ease of use I mentioned, without any image display issues.

Both allowed me the payment, product, category and widget integration I was looking for. In the end, there were some minor things I preferred with one over the other but nothing that was a deal breaker.

If you're not an advanced programmer looking to launch a giant retail site like Amazon or Best Buy, WordPress can get you up and running, fully functional, in half the time and a quarter of the frustration as the other options I found.

Here is my site made in WordPress with the free Mio theme and WooCommerce plug in if you'd like to see it in action.

Why You Have the Right to Choose to Think

Sexuality is a fundamental part of being human and alive. It is powerful, even in its distortion it carves our lives in the same way that flowing water engraves the planet. As we struggle to harness hydropower for its best use, so it is with our sexuality (in the best cases). This is not a result of some philosophical hiatus; it is the effect of day-to-day choices. So is it really so arduous to accept that thinking humans should view their choices around sexuality in a larger context?

Take honor for instance. Honor and its sister Integrity are issues normally presented as side dishes on the buffet of religious dogma, untimely asides to the cornucopia associated with sexual bliss. I often wonder why this happens. Am I the only one who feels these issues are essential to an individual really being attractive enough to be considered sexy? To me, this means going beyond the (dehumanizing) objectification of persons towards (humanizing) evaluation, to place "sexiness" in a holistic framework. How can the presence or absence of the substances which make us really human be regarded as "irrelevant"?

In my own experience with human services, I have witnessed levels of denial that boggle the mind. For me, the cold water in the face has been to see actions, even among health educators specializing in STD/HIV prevention, that totally contradict the prevention-based behaviors they advocate publicly. If love is what you do not what you say, then I hold that the same applies to who you are...and who you will be. Who we are is the result of accumulated choices. The right to choose for women, however, is usually thought of in terms of termination of pregnancy. Yet, the power of freedom to choose can serve us as women, but only if we view it in extended terms. The right to choose needs to begin with a number of fundamental issues that we really think about. This should mean thinking in searching ways about partner selection and thinking about consequences, irrespective of the socially hyped up emphasis on sexuality as being only about "feeling", an emphasis that makes us ignore the effects of sexual stimulation and feeling with regard to, for example, integrity, procreation, or STD transmission.

The right to choose in the sexual arena begins with partner selection, and whether there will be one at all. The reality that between 34-46 million people are living with HIV/AIDS indicates the truth about people's choices, despite what many would claim about how they live and who they are. Globally there were between 4.2-5.8 million people newly infected in 2003, so there are definitely some people to whom what I am discussing here is very relevant.

Among my friends, one of the consistent patterns I have witnessed in their relationships is the total lack of thinking about partner selection, even when offspring was the result. It seems that time and again people settle for less and then wonder why they don't get more. The extreme consequences of disconnecting judgment from sexuality seem so obvious that I am amazed that the patriarchal myths still have so much influence. I blame this largely on the trend of making thinking "unsexy". Commercials, mainstream movies, television, music, and the deluge of input from the Internet are all mission-driven to titillate by employing the most superficial elucidation which, combined with the passive acceptance of the audience, almost invites the spoon feeding of skewed truths. It is an attempt to package sexuality in terms of everything that is superficial, involving only surface seeing, feeling, and experiences.

Ironically, many of the purveyors of pleasure and everything that's supposed to be hedonistic and liberating end up echoing the usual divisions between the "serious" and the non-serious, between thinking and feeling, between thought and pleasure. One of the most obvious manifestations of this has been the elevation of celebrities to demi-gods. Would everyone cease knowing how to dress themselves, without celebrity wardrobes to mimic? Would we stop knowing what it means to have fun, to find and achieve sexual pleasure, without advertising? Would we have no idea of how to relate to each other, or how to choose not to relate, if that is where our sense and instincts lead us? I for one, think we'd all manage just fine. Think how many emotional calamities (romantic and otherwise) could be avoided if issues that are so often defined as "non-sexual" (integrity, honor, political judgment) were a part of the sexual evaluation criteria.

It may seem like an unfashionable thing to talk about, but I will continue to point to this truth...Thinking is sexy. Which makes issues like honor, integrity, and politics sexy, too. All those repressive ideas that pigeonhole human experiences into what is fun and what is staid are actually the heart of the idea that thinking is "unsexy". Waking up to that may make us realize just how much the dominant myths about "pure feeling and pleasure" are based on distortions and disconnects that are far from fashionable.

How to Obtain a Voluntary Departure From the United States: An Immigration Law Explanation

There is a little-known yet highly advisable form of relief available for noncitizens who are found to be "removable" from the United States. This form of relief is called "Voluntary Departure." The advantage of Voluntary Departure is that in many cases, there is not a bar to return to the United States if the noncitizen is otherwise eligible to return to the United States as an immigrant or nonimmigrant. That is, a noncitizen can come back to the United States without having a formal removal on his or her record. Of course, there is the obvious disadvantage, and that is that the noncitizen must actually and timely depart from the United States. Severe consequences result if a noncitizen fails to leave the United States: the noncitizen becomes ineligible for future Voluntary Departure, also becomes ineligible for other forms of relief from removal, and may incur thousands of dollars in penalties.

There are various stages at which a noncitizen may request Voluntary Departure. First, the noncitizen may request it before removal proceedings have been initiated. At this stage, the noncitizen's request will be made to the District Director of the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS"). Immigration & Customs Enforcement ("ICE"), an agency within DHS, may accept such a request at any of its field offices. Second, the noncitizen may request it after removal proceedings have been initiated, but prior to the removal proceedings' conclusion. At this stage, the noncitizen must appear at the Master Calendar Hearing ("MCH") and expressly request Voluntary Departure from the IJ. The IJ may grant Voluntary Departure within 30 days after the MCH or beyond that time if stipulated to by DHS. Third, the noncitizen may request Voluntary Departure at the conclusion of the removal proceedings. This third stage is more complicated than the first two; because at this stage, the noncitizen must show that he is ready, willing, and able to leave the U.S. at his own expense, that he is an has been a good person of moral character for the previous five years, has been physically present in the U.S. for a period of at least one year immediately preceding the service of the Notice to Appear, is not removable under certain sections of the Immigration & Nationality Act ("INA") because of having committed certain aggravated or security-related crimes, was not previously granted Voluntary Departure, and that he merits the favorable exercise of discretion. In addition, the noncitizen must show by clear and convincing evidence that he has the financial ability to depart the U.S. and that he intends to depart. In stages one and two, proving good moral character is not required.

Once you have been granted Voluntary Departure and you depart the U.S., there may be time limits on when you are eligible to legally return to the U.S. If you have lived illegally in the U.S. for more than 180 days but less than one year and you are granted Voluntary Departure by DHS (Stage 1, above) or leave on your own, you will be barred from returning to the U.S. for three years. If, with the same facts as above, you request Voluntary Departure from the IJ, you will not be subject to the three-year bar. If, on the other hand, you have lived illegally in the U.S. for over a year (continuously) and you are granted Voluntary Departure by DHS or the IJ, or you leave on your own, you will be barred from returning to the U.S. for ten years. In either the three-year or ten-year bar, there may be "hardship waivers" you may request to overcome the bar from returning.

This article is meant to be a primer only and does not constitute legal advice.