News - Monday, May 21, 2012

When Jackie Twillie was searching for something to do after raising her children, her sign came in the form of an advertising slogan for athletic apparel.

Twillie had decided, she said, that it was “time to do something for Jackie.” She had home-schooled her three children and now had time to work outside of the home. She began looking at jobs in the newspaper.

Ted Mullenix of Mullenix & Associates LLC of Hot Springs speaks at the North Little Rock Board of Realtors luncheon held recently at Verizon Arena. Looking on is local RPAC Chair Drew Crawford. (Photo by Kyle Mooty)

Now that another school year is drawing to a close, your young children are a step closer to the day when they’ll be heading off to college. Of course, as you’re probably aware, higher education doesn’t come cheap – and the costs seem to continuously climb. You can help your children – or even your grandchildren – meet these expenses by investing in a 529 plan. And this college savings vehicle offers estate-planning benefits.

Back in November, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced new guidelines for the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP).

Why? The original HARP program – which was set up close to three years ago to help home owners refinance their mortgages – wasn’t as effective as hoped. Less than 1 million home owners benefitted from the original HARP and that had a lot to do with declining property values in a lot of markets. The original program required home owners wanting to refinance to owe no more than 125 percent of what their homes were worth – a guideline that people who took out risky loans found hard to meet, especially in markets where values continued to fall.

Last fall my neighbors alerted my friend Michelle that they were seeing bees on the far side of her home. They had small children playing in the area and wanted her to be aware so that I might have it investigated. Sure enough, there were LOTS of bees. Michelle called around and found a local pest control company that specialized in bees. They came to her house and watched over several days and decided that they should try to “dust” them out. The company applied this dusting process in the late fall, hoping that it would remove them. Winter came and Michelle crossed her fingers that they had either moved on or found a new home.

His name was Jeremiah Johnson, and they say he wanted to be a mountain man. The story goes that he was a man of proper wit and adventurous spirit, suited to the mountains. Nobody knows whereabouts he come from and don’t seem to matter much. Bought him a good horse, and traps and said good-bye to whatever life was down there below. – Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

Little Rock’s Drew Smyly won his first Major League game on April 28, at of all places, Yankee Stadium, smack dab in the middle of the Bronx. A New York taxi driver once told me, after I had asked about driving by Yankee Stadium for a glance, “Sir, you don’t want to go there at this time of year.” I figured if the cabbie didn’t care much for traveling in that neighborhood, there was no need for a follow-up question.

Governor Beebe recently participated in the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery at Birdeye Dedication. Birdeye will become the burial site for 41,000 veterans within the next 125 years.

I suppose it’s time to take stock of my situation, now that I’ve graduated. I’ve taken the required classes, walked across the stage in my oversized gown and received my diploma. Everything seems in order, except finding the next step.

If “The Avengers” is the first must-see movie of the summer, then “Dark Shadows” is the season’s first must-miss movie. As one would expect from director Tim Burton, the visuals are top notch and Johnny Depp delivers an entertaining performance as Barnabas Collins, a 200-year old vampire. But Burton bounces aimlessly between campy humor and creepy gothic horror without striking a consistent tone, and the story appears to have been drained of life before it ever reached the screen.

My daughter has three children, and the youngest two are a 21-month old daughter and a 5-month old son. Generally, she has no problems with any of her children until… the dreaded bedtime.

I don’t know what it is specifically, but bedtime is very traumatic to most toddlers. If you have one that has not been a problem of some kind at bedtime, consider yourself extremely lucky!

For the past few weeks, our family has been celebrating graduations: Kindergarten graduations, high school graduations, and this past Saturday evening, a college graduation.

Along with these graduations come the typical family get-together eating episodes. We have no problems with those! We have tasted a lot of tasty things: some new and some of the old standbys.