KHoene- You can do this!!! We are building our third house now and I can honestly say it is not rocket science. If you are well organized and have good communication skills, there is no reason you can't save yourself a big chunk of money by being your own general contractor. There are lots of great resources complete with sample contracts available on line to help you. http://www.buildahouseyourself.com/ is one that I've used myself. Don't get me wrong, contractors do make things easier for the builder. We have many friends who are contractors and my husband has worked with contractors for over 20 years with his work. But most just follow a step by step process and stay on top of things. One just this week was saying how people can save themselves a lot of money just by doing what he does for themselves. A friend of mine who is a stay at home mom was the general contractor for their home two years ago and they saved a lot of money and had NO problems. Their home is beautiful and she had never done anything like that before. She was just extremely organized and on top of things. You know what your skills are better than any of us. Time to oversee the project and make sure that everything is completed appropriately and timely will be the most difficult aspect of the process. Good luck on your adventure!!!

The name at the top comes from the TITLE value. I don't use publisher so can't help further, but look in the help for how to set the title. As for search engines, that takes time. None of them will find you right away. Google takes several months. They all look at the text in your site. Description and title are also considered and that is what is shown on the listing for some of them. Key words have been so badly abused that they are largely ignored. The "x" means that either the pictures didn't upload or they are in a different directory than you expect them to be.

The first salary response in Sandy's post is excellent and exactly appropriate for the cover letter. I worked in HR for years, and while we sometimes asked applicants for salary requirements in their initial contact with us (yes, as a way of weeding out), a lack of specificity was never an automatic "cut". If anything, it showed us that smarter candidates were more interested in first getting a fuller picture of the scope of the job and more detailed information about the company. You can get into salary details at the interview (preferably, towards the end of the interview, unless the interviewer brings it up first), but what you really want is THE INTERVIEW. That's your real chance to sell yourself. I don't agree with Gibby, as I feel the cover letter is often quite revealing. Generally the resume isn't revised for each job application so it's usually a very polished product. However, if there are typos or misspellings in the cover letter, or if it's a "canned" product that shows no relevance to the position applied for, I won't even bother reading the resume. I have a really excellent interview tip for you, especially since it's been 20 years since you've been in the interview "hot seat." Make a list of strong "action" words, like MANAGED SUPERVISED ACCOMPLISHED ACHIEVED etc., and use those words to describe yourself in the position you've had. Write down a list of all the skills and talents that you know you bring to the job. Write down your proven accomplishments. Sit yourself next to a mirror with those notes and talk to the mirror as though you were being interviewed. Do it over and over again until you feel comfortable describing yourself in a very positive way. Look online for interviewing skills or tips. Many many times interviewers ask the same questions: What is your greatest strength? What is your biggest weakness? (Never answer that question directly! Always change your weakness into a strength!) The more prepared you are, the more comfortable you'll feel and the better you'll be able to sell yourself. Good luck! Let us know how things go.

Thanks-I did do this and knew that it would look this way sealed but didn't know if I needed to enhance and seal or if just sealing would do that-perfect I am thrilled to hear that! Thanks