Monday, June 22, 2009

Facing Foreclosure? Find Help Now! Wendy Wagner is the staff editor and speechwriter for the Federal Housing Finance Agency. She has more than 20 years' experience as a professional writer and editor. A few days ago, a neighbor mentioned that another neighbor was trying to avoid losing his home. His wife had been laid off from her job in March, and the couple was afraid they would end up in foreclosure. I was glad to be able to tell my neighbor how to access programs to help them avoid foreclosure. And it occurred to me that lots of people are probably in the same boat. If you are facing foreclosure or worry that soon you might be, take these steps immediately to try to prevent losing your home: First, call the company that services your loan-the place where you send your monthly mortgage payment. Check your mortgage payment book or monthly statement to verify which bank or mortgage company it is. Call and talk to someone about your situation and find out what options you have. Believe it or not, the servicers usually want to help rather than have someone lose their home. Sometimes they can offer immediate solutions or give you a referral to find help. The sooner you begin working with the servicer, the more likely you are to avoid foreclosure in the long run. Next, find out if you are eligible for the new Making Home Affordable programs-you have to live in the mortgaged home, and the mortgage must be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, although several major loan servicing companies have signed up to participate in the program for nonFannie/Freddie loans. To find out if you are eligible, visit www.makinghomeaffordable.gov. The site is simple and set up to help you quickly find answers to your questions. Another source of information and assistance is the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD offers foreclosure avoidance counseling and has a complete list of approved counseling centers across the country. HUD also has a comprehensive information page with numerous resources and suggestions. If you have even a slight worry that you could lose your home, there are programs out there that can help you head off the trouble early. Don't wait to seek them out and get started. - Editor [Gov Gab: Your U.S. Government Blog] 11:47:15 AM     Make Natural Insect Repellent with Essential Oils [Outdoors] . If you live in a climate without many summer pests, well, lucky you. For the rest of us, these essential oil repellents will make patio life less insect-filled. Photo by mccun934. How-to-guide repository wikiHow explains the crafting of simple pest-banishing pots for your home and garden. You take a small rag or sponge, soak it with a diluted concentration of essential oils, then leave it in a small container like a glass jar. When you want to drive away mosquitoes, horse flies, and other annoying summer pests, you simply open the jar and place it near you to keep them away. If you don't have any small jars on hand, this is also a great project for the versatile Altoids tin. For details on the project, including which oils to use—mosquitoes hate peppermint apparently—check out the guide at the link below. If you find that a dose of peppermint isn't driving away the mosquitoes as quickly as you'd like, lure them away from you with a DIY mosquito trap. How to Make Natural Outdoor Fly Repellent with Essential Oils [Lifehacker] 11:44:31 AM     Legistalker. Legistalker - The latest online activity of Congress Members. Legistalker makes it easy for you to stay on top of what your elected officials say and how they vote. Legistalker was created by Forum One Communications as an entry for the Apps for America competition. The ever-growing database is updated every 20 seconds, and relies on data from Twitter, YouTube, Capitol Words, literally hundreds of different news sources, and others. [Free Government Information (FGI) blogs] 11:44:00 AM     US Office of Historian site redesign. Department of State Office of the Historian has just released the redesign of its site: www.history.state.gov. They've done a really nice job with the redesign including new and easier access to my favorite Foreign Relations of the United States. Users can now browse FRUS by themes like decolonization, instability in Latin America, US-China trade etc (though I'm surprised that there's no theme for Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, SALT etc. Perhaps they'll add those additional themes). Users can also browse by country to find history of US diplomatic relations and links to other key publications like Department of State Background Notes, Department of State Country Information, CIA World Factbook, and Library of Congress Country Studies. The new website boasts greater accessibility and searching within the Foreign Relations of the United States documentary series. It currently offers both textual and facsimile copies of Foreign Relations volumes from the Kennedy Administration through the Nixon-Ford administration. The Office plans to continue to digitize older volumes and eventually house all of the Foreign Relations volumes on its website. The website also contains updated sections on the history of the Department of State, biographies of notable diplomats, and an in-depth timeline of United States diplomatic milestones. The Office’s educational curriculum guides are also downloadable from the website. The Office hopes that through its enhanced presentation and organization, the new website will become the preeminent online resource for U.S. diplomatic history. --Source: U.S. Department of State [Thanks Resource Shelf!] [Free Government Information (FGI) blogs] 11:43:12 AM     BookSeer Tells You Which Book to Read Next [Recommendations] . BookSeer is a simple web-based application that answers the question "What should I read next?" based on what you just finished, and presumably enjoyed, reading. Joining the ranks of other book recommendation tools like previously reviewed BookArmy, WhichBook, BookLamp, and What Should I Read Next?, BookSeer offers a simple interface and answer system. If you want to do some complex digging into your literary tastes with a variety of metrics you'll want a site like BookArmy. On the other hand with BookSeer you can plug in a book you enjoyed reading and it will return the top recommendations from book sources like Amazon.com and LibraryThing to suggest a list of books you might enjoy. Each book in the recommendation list is linked back to information from the source so you can dig down and read more about the books BookSeer is recommending. Have a favorite tool or technique for finding new books? Let's hear about it in the comments below. BookSeer [via MakeUseOf] [Lifehacker] 11:42:13 AM

© Copyright 2009 Jocelyn Shaw. Last update: 7/1/2009; 10:01:31 AM. Photo curtesy of Marjorie O'Brien