Don’t you like my picture? It was taken a few years ago but I don’t have anything that’s current. I returned from a trip to the Middle East in December and in three weeks of travel, I’ve not a single picture of me except one taken of all the women wearing black galabayas on our visit to Saudi Arabia. I have to admit, we all look alike in those robes.

At the beginning of that trip a fellow traveler discovered she’d forgotten the charger for her camera. Unfortunately, not one of the other forty-four sojourners had the same one. I offered to lend her my Sony point-and-shoot (I also had my Nikon D-40) but she said, no, I could take the pictures and send her a CD—but please make sure she was in some of the shots. She now has pictures of her in the Med, the Nile, at the Pyramids, and on a Bedouin horse. And I have a single shot of me in a nightgown!

However, I have wonderful pictures of the many things seen on the trip which included a cruise on the Red Sea. If there’s interest, I can share a short summary of the trip and sample photos. I’ll know there’s interest only if you let me know.

Other possibilities for the future are short-short stories, recipes, general interest pieces, plus financial and tax tips. My first and foremost financial tip is to “Buy low and sell high.” I don’t predict the market, but I have other suggestions for financial well-being and living on the lean.

My best tax tip at the time is to “Tell it like it is.” Don’t play chicken with the IRS. We can’t fail to pay over $34,000 in income and self employment taxes and say, “ These were careless mistakes, they were avoidable mistakes, but they were unintentional,” as Treasury Secretary Timothy “Turbo Tax” Geithner did about his memory loss. Joking aside, I will share some things I think may impact my readers.

There we go again—readers. You have to let me know who and where you are, other details as you prefer, but most of all, what you want to read. I look forward to sharing with you.