New life for blighted Delaware Water Gap hotel

The Pocono Inn in Delaware Water Gap has been sold to Fairmount Hospitality, with the intentions of the new owners being to convert the 104-room hotel into two Choice Hotel sites.The Pocono Inn, a 52,000 square foot site with a restaurant, bar and conference areas, is the first hotel in Pennsylvania off Route 80. In a statement Friday, new owner Mihir Patel said the Choice Hotels will include a full-service restaurant and banquet hall."This should make us the prime attraction [...]

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Slow going for LVHN-Pocono merger

A year ago, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Pocono Health System announced their boards had authorized a merger.The two institutions had disclosed a letter of intent to merge six months earlier.A year and a half later, however, LVHN and PHS remain independent, their long-planned marriage apparently held up by a slow-moving regulatory approval process.In the meantime, LVHN has announced and completed a different merger — with Schuylkill Health System. [...]

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Wolf moves to eliminate unfilled state jobs

HARRISBURG (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf's administration is moving to eliminate thousands of unfilled positions in state government as Pennsylvania faces a large budget deficit, officials said Friday.The Wolf administration told cabinet agencies in a memo obtained by The Associated Press that it is effectively limiting the size of the state workforce to the number of positions now filled, and it will put money currently allocated to fill those positions into reserve. Wolf's [...]

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Deeds done, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016

Coolbaugh TownshipDE&S Properties Inc. (T/A) Classic Quality Homes to Averil and Felix Gomez, Lot 386, Section F, A Pocono Country Place, $219,900Hamilton TownshipFred J. Lipe to Waldemar and Katarzyna Juzwa, Lot 27, "Subdivision of Timber Ridge" Parcel No. 07/86701, $420,000Lisa A. Powers to Brian A. Powers, Lot 704, Buck Ridge Drive, Buck Ridge, $332,000Deborah R. and Daniel Mandella to Gary H. and Penni M. Rose, [...]

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Lackawanna Co. judge recuses himself in DeNaples landfill case

SCRANTON (TNS) — Lackawanna County Judge Carmen Minora recused himself from a zoning challenge against Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed expansion but stopped short of mandating the entire county bench withdraw from the case.Worried about conflicts between court officials and Keystone’s influential owners Louis and Dominick DeNaples, Friends of Lackawanna asked for an out-of-county judge when its appeal of the Dunmore zoning board’s decision reached [...]

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Grasshoppers a tasty, nutritious holiday treat in Uganda

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Children scamper in the bush, jumping here and there to catch grasshoppers before they fly away. On a good day, many will walk away with plastic bags filled with the insects to fry and eat as a snack.Grasshoppers, known in the local Luganda language as "nsenene," are a delicacy among many in this East African country who look forward to this time of year, when millions of the bugs hatch with the seasonal rains. People say jokingly there will be damnation [...]

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A Ton of Last-Minute Holiday Gift Ideas for $20 or Less

As many of you know, I write a weekly column for US News and World Report, and you can find the archives of this column here. With that column, I’m tied to a pretty tight word count of between 800 and 900 words – they don’t want articles longer than that.

Anyway, as I was writing my most recent column for them, I was trying to list a bunch of good last-minute gift ideas for under $20, and I found myself going over the word limit. Way over. I quadrupled the word count on my first draft, actually. (See, sometimes I get lost in a zone and lose track of time and how long my articles are getting…)

I decided right then and there that I wanted to share all of these ideas with readers, but I also had already submitted my topic to US News and World Report. With my editor, we pared the list down to a tidy 800 words and you can find the finished article here: 10 Last Minute Holiday Gift Ideas for $20 or Less.

Here on The Simple Dollar, I have no such word count limitations and I’m actually encouraged to write in-depth articles, so for you guys, I’m going to share my full list. Enjoy, and I hope it helps you find a great gift for a family member or friend this holiday season at a great price.

A humorous but thoughtful book A thoughtful book is always a nice gift, but it’s often the humorous touch that gets people to actually open the cover and enjoy the book. Here are five great books that mix a healthy dash of humor and thoughtfulness into a book that people will enjoy reading:

Little Victories: A Sportswriter’s Guide on Winning at Life by Jason Gay is one of those perfect little books that you can read in short bursts from the bedside table and get some humorous little individual stories, but they all tie together into a single big picture by the end. This one’s great for a sports fan and for fathers.

Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon is a hilarious novel about the trials and tribulations of a married couple nearing middle age and dealing with it via social media, where people often say way more than they should about their lives. It’s hilarious, but it will leave you thinking about how much you say on social media, how much others say, and what that really means about your relationships.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari is this comedian’s wonderful take on the difficulties with finding and sustaining romance in our modern world, but it goes beyond a comedic memoir and actually integrates research from NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg (among many others) to present a great thoughtful picture of modern romance with Ansari’s comedic touch.

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran is a mix of humorous memoir and manifesto mostly centered around Moran trying to figure out how to balance society’s seemingly endless pressure for women to appear externally beautiful with her own personal comfort and how she would prefer to dress. It manages to deftly mix short sections about modern feminism with funny stories about Moran trying to figure out what to wear.

The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac by Kris D’Agostino is a great novel centering around the difficulty that a 24 year old man is having finding his path in life, spreading his wings, and fully leaving the nest. It manages to dig deeply into the challenges facing millennials entering adulthood while simultaneously telling a wonderfully funny and at times poignant story about a family dealing with turbulent times.

Amazing coffee Almost every coffee lover out there will enjoy sampling a delicious new kind of coffee. As I’m not exactly an avid coffee drinker myself, I asked two people who drink coffee daily and have a bit of the “coffee snob” in them to recommend some great options. Here’s what they suggested.

Kicking Horse Three Sisters comes recommended as a smooth medium roast coffee with almost no bitterness afterwards.

Death Wish comes recommended as a very strong coffee that is packaged in a humorous way that might add an extra chuckle to the gift.

Koffee Kult Ethiopian Harrar is the preferred coffee of one of my friends, who describes it as tasting a bit sweet even without any sweetener.

A notebook and some good pens Got any writers or hyper-organized folks on your list? Get them a notebook and a high-quality pen or two.

For notebooks, the pocket-sized notebooks in the Field Notes Shenandoah special edition three-pack are classically beautiful and very functional, while the notebooks in the DIY Indispensables Military Memo pocket notebook three-pack are sturdy and very straightforward in their design. If you prefer to give a larger notebook, the Rhodia Webnotebook is an amazing choice, as is the Baron Fig Confidant hardcover and the Vanguard softcover.

As for pens, the Uni-Ball Signo 207 Ultra Micro is a great all-around pen for a low price (it’s actually my preferred pen for everyday use), and the Pilot G2 is similarly good with a bit bolder line. If you’d like to give some color variety, this mix of Pilot Juice 0.38 mm pens comes in a wide variety of colors.

A couple of bars of fancy chocolate A bar of unusual chocolate (or two… or three…) is an amazing gift for anyone with a sweet tooth. It’s often cracked open immediately and shared, as part of the experience for many chocolate lovers is sharing. Here are three great bars that are distinctive but also easy to get before the holidays.

Amano Ocumare is hands-down the best dark chocolate I have ever tasted and it is the standard by which I judge other dark chocolates. It’s incomparable in flavor, in my book.

Akesson’s Madagascar Single Plantation has won a ton of awards for its distinctive flavor which is imbued by the Criollo cacao beans used to make the chocolate. It smells amazing.

Fruition Maranon Dark Milk Chocolate was judged as the best milk chocolate in the world at the 2016 International Chocolate Awards. I haven’t tried it… but I want to.

A local food product or beverage If you’re buying a gift for someone who lives far away, a local food product or beverage offer great local flavor. A bottle of wine from a local winery or a six-pack of beer from a local craft brewer are both good gifts. Chocolates or other snacks that are made locally are thoughtful gifts, too.

For example, in the area where I live, I would strongly consider giving a bottle of Snus Hill wine (Sven Red) or a six pack of Exile beer (Beatnik Sour or Sir Moch-A-Lot). All of those options are quite local for me and quite good.

An adult coloring book and set of colored pencils Adult coloring books have caught on as a great de-stressing tool for busy adults, particularly parents. They can make for a great gift for the quirky but overworked person in your life. A Prismacolor Premier colored pencil set serves well for coloring tools as does this distinctively packaged set of Ohuhu colored pencils. As for coloring books, all of Johanna Basford’s coloring books are wonderful, particularly Secret Garden, Lost Ocean and Enchanted Forest, and Myth and Magic by Kinuko Craft is another good option.

Golf balls Although I abandoned golf many years ago as a hobby that was too expensive for my tastes, many friends and family members still regularly golf and, for them, a box of good golf balls can make their playing experience a little better and shave off a bit of the cost, too. In the under-$20 range, there are several brands of very good balls.

Wilson Titanium balls are very solid, fly nice and straight, and come at a very nice price per ball. Another option is the Callaway Supersoft, which costs a bit more per ball than the Wilsons, but they have a great reputation for flying far and still come in at a reasonable price.

Another great add-on to this gift is a bag of quality tees, like these Pride Professional tees, as most golfers tend to break several tees per round. At least I did, anyway.

A curated crossword puzzle book (or other puzzle book) If you have a puzzle lover on your list, consider giving Rainy Day Sunday Crosswords, which is a bound collection of The New York Times Sunday crosswords in a nice portable 6″ by 9″ format. If the recipient has a smartphone or tablet, a year’s subscription to the Times’ crosswords plus access to the archives is an amazing gift, though it does exceed the $20 limit by a bit.

If you know someone that loves puzzles but not necessarily crosswords, I highly recommend My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles by Martin Gardner, which is a collection of the best puzzles from Gardner’s long-running column in Scientific American. The Moscow Puzzles is another great collection in a similar vein.

A high-end version of an ordinary care product It’s a simple little gift idea that works for practically everyone. Take an ordinary care product that they use every day and buy them an upgraded version of that product, a high quality item that they might not have heard of that will really suit their needs.

For men, for example, you might consider getting a bar of Dr. Squatch’s cedar citrus soap to create that gentle manly smell, or perhaps a bar of V76 for someone very meticulous about their appearance. A Merkur long-handled safety razor is another great gift for a guy, as the cost-per-use and shave quality one gets from a good safety razor blows away that of a cartridge razor.

For women, a bar of Kahina Giving Beauty lemongrass nettle soap has an amazing aroma, while a bar of Dead Sea mineral mud soap is a really distinctive gift that’s useful for deep cleaning.

A fun game In case you haven’t been paying attention, there has been a revolution in board games and card games over the last 15 years, with the some incredibly smart designs. This is a category of gifts within which I can make suggestions all year long, but here are just five that are great fun under $20 and won’t take up a ton of space.

Red 7 is a quick card game where each card not only has a number and color, but also describes a rule. On your turn, you must be ahead of all other players with regard to the current rule at the end of your turn and you can play only one card from your hand. Will it be a new rule? Will it help you get ahead with the current rule? It plays very quickly and has a great “let’s play it again!” feeling to it.

Hanabi is a clever little card game where everyone holds their hands backwards so that everyone else can see them, but you can’t tell other players what they have in their hand. Instead, you can only give each other little clues about how many of a suit or how many of a value that they have. The goal is cooperative; you’re trying to build straights of each suit on the table. It’s amazingly thoughtful for how simple the rules are and will get the group talking afterwards.

Trick of the Rails is a trick taking card game where the tricks alternate between the winner claiming a share of stock in a train company or modifying the value of a train company (thus affecting the value of everyone’s shares). The cards themselves double as both rail cards (which increase the value of companies) and share cards (which you’re trying to collect in the most valuable companies). The choices everyone makes throughout the game ends up determining the values of the companies, so you have to be careful with every trick!

For Sale is a wonderful little auction game where you bid openly for properties during the first round and then sell those properties during the second round to the best buyer in the market. It plays quick, but still involves some great decisions.

Jungle Speed is basically a game of reflexes with cards, where players take turns revealing cards from their face down “deck” of cards until two cards match, then the first one of those two players with matching cards race to see who can grab the totem first. It’s such simple fun, yet it tends to click well with almost everyone.

A gift handmade by you If you have some extra time this weekend, why not spend it actually making a distinctive gift for someone? Sarah and I did this one holiday season, where we made tons of gifts for everyone on our list, and most years we make at least some of the gifts that we give. I’ve written many articles on handmade gifts; here are five of the coolest ones that you can easily pull off in a single weekend.

These personalized cards and stationery are probably my favorite gift to make and, honestly, to receive. This gift gives you the freedom to make a very personal gift as well as an artistically pleasing gift at the same time.

An artfully arranged bundle of homemade cookies makes for a wonderful small gift for someone on your list. It only takes an hour or two to make a tasty batch of homemade cookies, and the supplies needed for an artful presentation are simple, too.

You can make a beautiful crocheted hat and/or scarf in an afternoon while binge-watching a Netflix series, plus you have the freedom to choose exactly the color that would work best for the recipient.

Another idea is to make artfully arranged meals in a jar. A great easy-to-make soup kit in a beautiful jar with ingredients you selected yourself makes not only for a pretty gift, but for a tasty one, too.

You can also make a batch of wine jelly, which is surprisingly easy to make and offers a very distinct flavor that sets it apart from ordinary jellies.

Hopefully, somewhere on this long list of ideas, you can find something that strikes a chord and helps you discover the perfect low-cost gift for someone on your list.

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6 Genius Money-Saving Ways to Use Scotch Tape

Scholarships for Women Returning to College

No matter why you left college in the first place — to raise children, to care for aging parents, to work full-time, to figure out your goals — if you’ve decided that now’s the time to crack open the books again and head back to the classroom, you’re not alone.

About 4 million of the approximately 15.5 million undergraduate students in America were 25 years or older in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And if you’re a part of that nontraditional demographic, there’s double the likelihood that you’re a woman.

College bills can hurt no matter when you enroll, so we suggest that — in addition to seeking out financial aid and student loans when appropriate — these five scholarships for women might help take some of the sting out of the tuition and fees you’ll owe, or at least open you to opportunities you hadn’t before considered.

Jeannette Rankin Women’s Scholarship Fund

More than 900 women have received scholarships totaling more than $2.5 million from the Jeannette Rankin Fund over the past 40 years to support their educational dreams.

• Eligibility basics: Women, U.S. citizen or permanent resident, age 35 or older, low-income pursuing an undergraduate degree at an accredited college or university
• Application process: Opens Nov. 1 for the 2017-18 school year
• Selection notes: Decision makers want to know your goals, your plan for reaching your goals, and how you will use your education to give back to the community. Be prepared to complete a detailed application. Awards are typically around $2,000.
• Learn more: http://ift.tt/107etaD

Patsy Takemoto Mink Education Foundation Education Support Awards

Longtime U.S. Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color elected to the U.S House of Representatives. Her foundation continues to support issues that were of great import for her during her political career (and beyond): “educational access, opportunity, and equity for low-income women, especially mothers.”

• Eligibility basics: Low-income women, 17 or older, who are mothers with minor children. Must be enrolled in a non-profit accredited institution or program.
• Application process: Applications are typically due Aug. 1.
• Selection notes: Five awards of up to $5,000 each are given out every year to women based on 1) financial need; 2) personal circumstance; 3) educational path; 4) vocational or occupational goals; and 5) service or activist or civic goals.
• Learn more: http://ift.tt/Ot4aPD

Soroptimist Live Your Dream Awards

Soroptimist awards more than $1.6 million each year to approximately 1,200 women, and scholarships through them can be used to pay any expenses related to attaining a higher education, from tuition to books, to childcare and transportation.

• Eligibility basics: Women who provide the primary financial support for themselves and their family, already enrolled in or accepted to an undergraduate degree program or a vocational/skills training program. Applicants cannot already be Soroptimist members.
• Application process: Open through Nov. 15 for current awards cycle.
• Selection notes: There are three levels of cash awards — local, regional and international. Selection starts on the local level. Awards range from a few hundred dollars at the local level, up to $10,000 at the international level.
• Learn more: www.soroptimist.org

SR Education Group Community College Scholarship

SR Education may only award two $2,500 scholarships a year, but it’s one of the easiest applications around. And while the program has recently been opened to both women and men, a basic search of finalists and winners shows that the majority of the awards are still given to women.

• Eligibility basics: Students who are U.S. residents and enrolled at a public community college, junior college, technical college, or city college, and working toward a certificate, diploma, or degree. Applicants, however, cannot live in Rhode Island, Guam, Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.
• Application process: Applications due Nov. 5 for the 2017 cycle.
• Selection notes: Aside from some basic personal information, applicants need to write 300-500 word responses to two questions about their goals and financial need.
• Learn more: http://ift.tt/1H55voc

Women’s Independence Scholarship Program

Created in 1999, WISP focuses on helping women survivors of intimate partner violence who want to pursue education in order to provide for themselves and their children.

• Eligibility basics: Direct survivors, in “desperate financial situations,” must have been separated from their abusive partner for a minimum of one year to a maximum of five years.
• Application process: Applications accepted on an ongoing basis.
• Selection notes: Funder gives priority to those seeking education from state-supported colleges or universities and technical/vocational schools. And they note that the application is lengthy: “Do not be discouraged!” Awards are typically around $2,000.
• Learn more: www.wispinc.org

Final Thoughts

The five scholarships above are some of the most well-known and longest-running programs around, and they’re pretty general — in that you can apply no matter your area of study or where in the U.S. you reside. But let this be just a jumping-off point for your research. Many businesses, foundations, and community organizations offer smaller scholarships if you live in their ZIP code, or want to study a certain field.

The Rankin Foundation’s resources section is a great starting point for other options, including more than a dozen other scholarships for women. Seek out local women’s societies that may apply to your educational pursuits, such as the Society of Women Engineers or the Educational Foundation for Women in Accounting. And of course, don’t limit yourself to scholarships for women – apply for any and all you might qualify for; our scholarship guide can help.

Related Articles

• Ultimate Guide to Scholarships
• What I Wish I Knew Before Taking Out Student Loans
• Two-Sided Coin: Is College Worth the Cost?

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