Even if you’re the life of the party, making friends who share your enthusiasm for your hobbies is not always easy. Especially for those of us who have unusual interests. Baton twirling anybody?
    While not all hobbies will easily win you friends like joining a sports team or forming a band, there are many new and old tools to help hook you up with like-minded people, no matter how obscure your interests are:

   If you’re planning a romantic dinner at home for you and your Valentine, you’ll want it to have an extra special quality. There are many great ways
to set a romantic mood at your table.

   No matter if your finances are a source of anxiety or if you live within your means, it’s always a good idea to periodically reevaluate the way you spend money.
While credit cards give consumers the purchasing power they need to lead comfortable lives, they can also make irresponsible spending all too easy.

   I want to wish all our readers a Happy Valentine’s Day. Where is the time going? It seems just like Christmas was just here. I can’t wait until the spring is here because we have so many fun, exciting things going on at the newspaper. I also would like to say “Thank You” to everyone who gave us so much support last week.

There are many cruise lines that are set up to help raise money for non- profit organizations and will even provide a donation using a cruise as a fundraiser. Here are some of the benefits…

• The organization raises needed funds with a unique and exciting event.
• Participants enjoy a vacation and feel great about supporting a worthwhile cause.

Wow, what a winter we are having, so far so good. Green grass, green weeds, it looks like spring. And yes it is blending in with income tax season. Here is some information you may need for efiling your return. The IRS has processed more than 1 billion individual tax returns safely and securely since the nationwide debut of electronic filing in 1990. In fact, last year, 112 million people – 78 percent of all individual taxpayers – used IRS e-file to electronically transmit their tax returns to the IRS. The number of people who use a paper tax return or who mail a tax return dwindles each year – and for good reason.

“It takes a room full of morons to believe that the world’s problems are small enough for them to fix.” – The Comedian, from Alan Moore’s The Watchmen. While perusing Facebook I came upon a video that purports to demonstrate the dangers of normal food and the superiority of “organic” foods. In it a little girl performs an experiment with a potato bought at a traditional market and one purchased from an organic market. The video shows how the store-bought potato that has been exposed to a chemical called “Bud Nip” will not sprout, while the truly “organic” potato grows like a tree. But what this little girl fails to realize is: sprouted potatoes are toxic. Domesticated from the nightshade family of plants, our favorite tubers become toxic when they grow eyes and begin to green. Though potato poisoning is rare, it tends to occur in impoverished areas where potato shipments take longer to arrive. Farmers created Bud Nip to prevent these poisonings. The fundamental flaw in the little girl’s reasoning is the idea that nature is always good; and while you can forgive the little girl her naïveté, what bothers me is that this same naïveté actually forms the philosophical foundation for modern liberalism.

We want to say “Congratulations” to the Man and Woman of the year Rick Jaynes and Dotti Pennebaker and all the other winners at the Duncanville State of the City and Duncanville Chamber of Commerce awards banquet.

Hello again, this is ACT Home Security with another safety tip. It’s that time of year again folks, yes you guessed it, time to check the batteries in all smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your home. Also keep in mind, if your detectors are not tied in with a monitored alarm company, you actually have to be there to hear them. Or wait on a neighbor to see the flames so that they can call the Fire department. And well if your not home and have indoor pets, unless you have properly trained them to dial 911 in the event of a fire, well let's just say it's just not your home that went up in flames.