The year-end holidays have been left behind us on an old calendar and we face the new year with challenges of all degrees from how to stay warm or cool, depending on where we live, to how to get or hold on to our sources of income.

We’ve scouted the major women’s magazines in the United States and found them chock full of standard new year articles about weight loss, decluttering your surroundings, and boosting a positive attitude to keep stress at bay.

No need to repeat those themes here. The magazines and e-zines are readily available, so where do we go from here? What do you need to know or do or talk about?

We are searching for topics for future blogs and are soliciting your input. Here are 21 topics we’re considering. Please tell us what you think. Better yet, if you are an expert on these or any other topic, please submit an article or product review to us or post a comment on our blog.

1.    How to make a saucy Brunswick stew
2.    How to plan a child’s birthday at home to keep costs down
3.    What to do with an old collection; perhaps you’ve inherited someone’s trophies, bells, spoons, plates, dolls, stamps
4.    How to have more fun at work
5.    Questions to ask on your next job interview
6.    What skills are most needed to run an online business
7.    How can you spend a day off from work or school without wasting time or spending money
8.    How can you stay in touch with people between New Year’s and Christmas
9.    Is an online business for you? What’s involved? How much time do you need to devote to it?
10.    Is it really safe to order online? What security measures are typical to protect one’s identity?
11.    Fun things to do with leftover popcorn
12.    Creative cooking ideas with Tortuga Rum sauces
13.    What are all those rare spices on I-ShopTheWorld.com, like Boesenbergia Rotunda or Krachaidum used for anyhow?
14.    What are the ingredients in our Tom Yam/Tom Yum Real Thai Soup mix?
15.    What’s a good recipe using India Long Pepper spice?
16.    How many recipes are in the Tortuga  Rum Fever Cook Book, and what other kinds of cook books should we offer?
17.    More detailed histories and stories behind our gemstones
18.    How much work goes into a handcrafted shell jewelry box?
19.    Is that Thai wooden jewelry really handcrafted?
20.    What kind of assurance do I get that your gemstone jewelry is real?
21.    If I order a custom piece of art from a photo, what sizes can I pick from?

We like to think of this as your blog so we propose this list of topics in hopes of inspiring a response from you. Tell us what you like, what sounds absurd, what tone you’d like to read (funny or serious), what might get you to post a comment, which articles you’ve read here that you like best.

And, by all means, please tell us what kinds of products you’d like to see us offer. We are taking an inventory now and assessing what has and hasn’t sold. If we see a solid report in our findings, we’ll share them with you. We will particularly alert you when a product is going away just in case you’ve been contemplating buying it and want to take advantage of a last-chance offering.

Do you like special sales, limited promotional offerings, and online shopping gimmicks or do you prefer what so far has been our straight-forward approach to marketing products from around the world to you?

We eagerly await your answers as we develop our blog plan for 2009.

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