Eleni

I'm a fashion model who has held the position for four years, but now I'm trying to transition into a mainstream position. How should I work my resume to make me seem appealing for an event planning job?

I've had waitressing jobs, part-time retail, etc. but those were college jobs.

If so, who presents them? When? Where?

Thanks!

I am a (currently) healthy, young woman who is a non smoker, etc. and I am unable to buy insurance because I had cervical cancer.

I am able to pay any amount that they would ask from me; I was paying nearly $700/mo in insurance just for me until Aetna dropped me because I had another abnormal test (brought me out of remission).

I don't care how much I have to pay, I just want health insurance. I need to go to the doctor for routine things, like back pain or a sinus infection.

How do I get coverage?

My children are 13 months apart and I would like to purchase a double stroller.

I will not buy a new car to accomidate a bulky stroller that will not fit into my 4-door mid-sized sedan's trunk.

What have you found that works very well?

So, I was rather excited when my bank came back after my family and I had put in our mortgage pre-approval forms and they gave us a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for 5.0%.

I asked around with the people I loved and they told me their interest rates. My mother and sister both had in the 6% range and my father was at 4.75%.

Then came my mother-in-law. She and her husband got a 4.25% rate and told us we were stupid for taking anything over 4.5.

I thought 5% was awesome. Am I actually right?

Our daughter's name is Katherine Virginia (we call her Kat).

Hubby and I really like the name Dane, but I'm not sure if its a bad name or not. We like it and that is supposed to be all that matters, but...

Other names we've considered:

Graham

Liam

Ian

James

Colin

These names are indicative of the fact that we like traditional. Don't give me your Aiden/Jaden/Kaden/Raiden crap.

When we had our first child, I considered us young. My husband's parents already had three kids by the time they were our age when we had #1, so I thought they would be our biggest supporters. And in the beginning they were.

But now that I'm pregnant with #2, we've felt a huge difference in the way they treat us. Suddenly, we're very 'young' and 'kids' although we have five years on them (my age with #2 v. her age w/ #2) and nothing we do is right. They're disparaging and downright unkind about our parenting now.

I had a lot of complications with #1 and the same complications (pre-term labor xAlot) have already started. We called FIL for assistance because I was admitted to the hospital and we needed someone to pick up #1. He claimed being too busy to help his youngest son and wife while she was in the hospital.

I don't want to be around them any more and we used to go over to their house on weekends for fun. What would you do? Let the ties fade for a while or confront the hurtful behaviour?

If I were to want to buy 5 items of apparel (shoes, watches, dresses, scarves, etc) that are 'status' items, ie things that would set me apart to a stranger as wealthy, what would you recognize best?

I'm not wealthy. I'm not actually going to buy these things. I was just curious what makes a person think that a stranger, on first look, is wealthy.

What are your favorite literary names?

We are toying with using one as a middle name. As of now, we have:

GIRLS:

Talia Irulan (Irulan from 'Dune')

Alia Eponine (E from 'Les Miserables')

Talia Esme (E from a JD Salinger short story)

BOYS:

Joel Edward (E from Sense and Sensibility)

Colin Rhett (From Gone with the Wind)

What are your faves?

So, we will be bringing a second child into the world at the end of January. I work full time at an independent company. There are four of us that work day to day.

I tried reading the FMLA information at a government website, but I'm not trained in legalese. I think I might not be eligible because of the small number of people with the company.

Enlighten me?

My husband and I have a fair chunk of money that we want out of the stock market and into a tangible investment. I am not really sure what else is good to invest in. We are seeing a financial advisor next week but I want to go in looking like I know something and am not just an idiot with $80,000.

Would buying a fixer-uper home in a good neighbourhood and rehabbing classify as an investment?

Thanks in advance, gurus.

I don't understand the fascination with 'unique' names, ie:

Ai-

Jay-

Brae-

Bray-

Cai-

Cae-

Lan- DON/DEN/DYN

What possesses people to think that if they spell their child's name as differently as possible that they'll be 'unique'?

Just give me a little insight:

What would make you, as a parent, choose one of those names?

So, way back when, when you were eighteen, you were expected to not mooch off your parents and start to have a life of your own. Then it went to 21, which meant out of college. I can see that.

Now there are people living at home or having their parents pay their rent at 25.

My question is two-fold: What is the age of responsibility and why is it growing ever higher?

So I have a 15lb. air tank which has three spiky things that air comes out of or goes into and a pressure gague and a release lever. I need to make it into an air compressor to fire a cannon (theatre thing). I don't have any idea how to power this. There are no plugs or cords or anything!

Help, I'm feeling like an idiot.

So, I have two cats, Ros and Violet. They are sisters, as in litter mates. My husband and I got them from the pound together when they were kittens. They are now two years old and spayed.

One of our cats, Ros, has been peeing on our couch. If we cover up the part she peed on with a garbage bag, she won't pee there again, she'll just go to another part of the sectional (very large couch; fits 6 comfortably) to do it. She stopped doing it for a while this summer when we put her on kitty prozac, basically.

The big problem is this: I just gave birth to our first child on the fourth of December and when we came home, Ros started doing it again. She probably marks it once a day, maybe twice on special occasions. I have tried everything, keeping them off the couch, spraying it with orange, putting bags over it...Her box is clean, she doesn't have an infection.

My delima: I love the cats, but with a new baby... Do I take her to a shelter? Is there a better medication? Help!

Here's the scenario:

You've just lost all of your clothes. All of them. You are currently wearing a bath robe. You're sitting in front of a computer with a credit card. You are allowed to buy ten items and ten items only.

What do you buy?

I just wanted to know how people feel about affirmative action. Do you think that it's really helping minorities, or just giving them an unfair advantage?

Personally, I believe in equal rights, not special rights. If I, as an anglo-saxon female, get a 3.5 GPA and a woman of African descent gets a 2.8, she will get the scholarship before I do, based on her race.

Any thoughts?

So, I have a gateway laptop that I bought three years ago or so with a centrino (I believe) processor. It has Windows XP.

My problem is this: I use up very, very little of the hard drive with about 400 mp3s and about 500 Word documents. I have no games or any applications downloaded, except Photoshop and Internet Explorer/Mozilla Firefox. But my laptop is performing at a terrible speed and it 'freezes' at least twice a day and I have to turn it off by holding on the power button because I can't click on anything.

Do I buy a new laptop or try to get this one re-formated?

Ok, so I've been in the hospital for several stays over night and I have realized that I absolutely abhor hospital gowns. I'm very small, so I swim in the gown. And the neck rides up when I have to get out of bed to use the ladies. Have any of you Moms used your own nightgown during labor? Is it more complicated than using the hospital gown for shots and the like? I think I would like to use my own, for physical comfort and for mental comfort.

So, I'm 34 weeks pregnant and my feet, calves and ankles have just absolutely ballooned today. I mean, my hands and feet have swollen in weeks past, but now, I look like a 300 pound person and before baby I was 100 (now 130). They're really red and squishy.

Any relief suggestions?