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The Kirby vacuum cleaner, along with the Rainbow vacuum and the Thermax vacuum were instrumental in changing the way people in American clean their carpets. In the old days before the vacuum cleaner was invented, people had several different ways to get their rugs clean. Remember the old rug beaters?

A rug beater was very simple to use. All you had to do was take your dirty old rug outside and hang it on some suitable length of rope or wire. Generally, you would find that everyone used the clothes line. If you are under 30 years old you may be scratching your head and saying to yourself, "what's a clothes line?".

A clothes line was simply a small rope strung out between two poles or posts. It was then used to hang wet clothes on, in an orderly fashion, in the hopes that the cloudly overcast would go away and let some of the bright sunshine in on your wet clothes. Hanging wet clothes out on a clothes line was also used to control the weather in some regions of the country. If your city had been experiencing a drought, all you had to do was let the laundry get almost dry and it was a sure fire way to make it rain.

Back to the dirty rug. After hanging your diry rug on the clothes line (remember, the Kirby vacuum cleaner hadn't been invented yet) you simply take your son's old baseball bat and beat the dickens out of the rug. Seemly endless clouds of dust will appear and cover you and every thing in your back yard with black powder. At this point you need to hang some wet clothes on the clothes line so that at least you will get a shower to settle the dust. Which, now that I think about it would solve your dirty rug problem too.

One personal junk is another personal treasure. Never is that more true than when you are doing a spring clean up.

The good weather held out for Fred Dowlings 25th anniversary junk day and treasure exchange. Each year for the past 25 years, co-op residents have gathered in the spirit of reducing, reusing, recycling of their possessions. Residents trade and dispose of unwanted items; its a win-win situation, all around. This year an Antiques Road Show was added to the day. I was on-hand as residents brought their prized possessions and family heirlooms to be appraised.

Some of the riches unearthed include: a 1953 Coronation toy carriage at $350; a Queen Victoria Jubilee milk pitcher at $175;a pearl brooch for $250; an antique desk for $275. The piece de resistance was a silver and diamond necklace valued at $750.

Here are some things to keep in mind when assessing the value of your items.

Condition

Chips, cracks and breaks on crystal, glass, porcelain and ceramics reduces the value of anything to a very minimal amount. Despite that fact, any item can have sentimental value even those with damage can have value to you.

Spotting Damage

Sometimes you cant tell if a piece of porcelain is cracked. Use the ping test flicking youre your thumb and finger again the porcelain. If it gives a ping sound, there are no cracks. If it gives a thud sound, it is damaged. The same test applies to crystal.

Value

Appraised value, retail value and your selling value are all different amounts.

The appraised value, sometimes called the insurance value is the amount that you would insure an item for. It is based on the amount you would have to pay to replace the item if it made an insurance claim.

The retail value is the amount that a store would sell it for. Your selling price is the amount that you would get if you sold it.

Your selling price will always be less than the retail value because most likely, you would sell your item to a dealer who in turn marks up the price.

In this second of a two part series we're going to discuss what can be done to balance between child care and giving your child the attention he deserves.

To balance out the care your child gets between the child care center and yourself, assuming that both parents have to work or in the case of a single parent, there are several things that can be done.

This isn't always easy, but try to work out a flexible work schedule with your boss. If both parents work a day job maybe you can arrange to have one of the parents working either at night or a staggered shift, say starting at noon and working to 8 or 9. This way one parent will be home with the child most of the morning and the other parent can be home with the child all evening, leaving only a few hours each day that the child is actually in the care of a day center. This may not seem like much but every hour is something.

Another thing a parent can do is see if it is possible to take the child to work with him or her for at least a couple of days a week. Some work places actually have daycare facilities inside. While it is true that the parent will be spending most of the time working and not with the child, there is still the ride to work, lunch and break times and the ride home that they can spend together. Just this little bit of time to break up the day can make a big difference in your child's disposition, especially if he is old enough to look at the clock on the wall and know that in a short time mommy or daddy are going to be picking him up for a nice lunch together.

If neither of those are an option then there is another alternative that is actually becoming very popular especially among mothers. That option is to become a Work At Home Mom or what is commonly referred to as a WAHM. A work at home mom is just what it sounds like, a mother that does her work out of the house. Today, with the advent of the computer, this is easy to do. There are many legitimate opportunities a mother can find on the Internet that can pay her for the work she does at home, from stuffing envelopes to typing ads. Of course she has to carefully check out each opportunity before getting involved, as there are many scams out there, but once she finds something with a good reputation, usually a company that is a member of the BBBOnline, she should be able to make a decent enough income to justify her staying at home. It may not be as much as what she would make in an office but when you factor in that there are no transportation costs, no lunches to pack, etc., the income may be more than enough to get the family over the hump.

The bottom line is this. We don't have children to dump them in a daycare center. Children need their parents. There are ways to make that happen. It just takes a little effort and a little compromise.