I feel lucky!

Friendship Garden

Friends, like flowers, come in all shapes and sizes,

They are quick to our side when the need arises.

They add variety and interest to our lives,

Without them we wonder if we could even survive.

They make a cloudy day seem sunny,

Sometimes they are serious, other times funny.

Our best interest they have at heart,

And always are sad when it is time to part!

And now... please

into this week's Spotlight

Ildiko Dalos!

Here is her interesting BIO!

... I was born and raised in Budapest, the Hungarian

capital in Europe. There are about ten million people who live in Hungary and over two million of them live in the capital city. I was born in a small family, had no brothers or sister, neither my parents have. We lived in a condominium on the third floor and the windows where looking to a real tourist attraction in Budapest, an old castle of a Hungarian king. My father was a manager for a Hungarian insurance company and my mother was an accountant for an export-import company. After 55 years of marriage, they are still together, retired and live in the country in Hungary today.

My role model was my grandmother who was a well-known illustrator in Hungary. Her name is Emy Rona. She lived 84 years and illustrated about 374 books for children. I was grown up on her books and in her fantasy world. She had many exhibitions in Hungary and other European countries. She was invited by the Walt Disney Company to work for them, starting at the New York World’s Fair in 1939-40, but my grandma said “no” because she couldn’t imagine to live without her loved family and country. She was always smiling and had a good word to everybody. People respected and loved her. I remember sitting on her side when we often went to the zoo in Budapest where she was illustrating pictures of animals for children’s books. My dear Grandma wanted if I follow her steps and become illustrator myself, but I had no patient as a child… She died almost 18 years ago and I still dreaming with her and missing her dearly.

After graduating from high school, I started working for the same insurance company where my father was working. I found it too stressful and after about half year I went to work for the export-import company where my mother worked. There I did the administrative side of export-import contracts. I worked there for 17 years and finished college. In 1987 I came to the United States. The company worked with oil products and it was an interesting job. I liked it because every buyer and seller, and every contract was different, so I always found something new and interesting when set up paperwork and had phone calls and correspondence with them. Also, I often traveled officially to the countries in Europe.

In 1986 I met my future husband. It was love for the first sight. He was a mechanic who made special tools for aircrafts. He is Hungarian American, lived in New Jersey for over 12 years in that time and was visiting his friend in Budapest. He came back to the United States, followed by long phone calls and letters between the two continents. A year later we decided to marry, so I moved to New Jersey from Hungary. There we lived about half year. I liked to live in New Jersey because I felt the little town looks like one in Hungary. In New Jersey I had my very first job in the United States. I worked part time for a small grocery store. The problem was when people asked me for a piece of cheese or meat in pounds. In that time I had no clue how big or small size I needed to cut with the machine because I was still thinking in metrics (and never worked in a grocery store). From New Jersey we often visited New York. I loved that beautiful city.

Six months later we moved to Florida where my other grandmother lived in that time. I was babysitter here for a beautiful baby boy and didn’'t speak English yet. My grandmother is almost 98 years old today and a few years ago moved back to Hungary. West Palm Beach is a friendly town and we enjoyed swimming all year long in the warm and clear water of the Atlantic Ocean and liked the white sand and the palm trees on the beach. However, Christmas time was difficult for us because it was warm and both of us were used to cold and snowy holidays. We loved Florida, but didn'’t have that “special feeling” what comes at Christmas time when you live in a place where four seasons and icy cold weather are.

After about two years in Florida, we decided to move to California. We bought a trailer and moved across the United States in about 16 days. In our way we stopped at many beautiful places. The western hats and big plate of beefs in Texas, the beautiful red cliffs in New Mexico and the unforgettable Grand Canyon in Arizona are the most memorable experiences. After this beautiful travel, we arrived to the Californian capital, Sacramento. Here I experienced snow only once in this 17 and a half years and the summers are really hot. After the Hungarian weather conditions, I feel we have only two seasons here: spring and summer. Sacramento takes up a place in a valley. If you travel for about an hour and a half, you are in the Bay area, the beautiful San Francisco and the really cold Pacific Ocean. If you travel to opposite direction for about same time, you arrive to the Sierras. There are snow parks at winter, so if we really want to experience snow and build a snowman, we make a trip there. Two years ago we went last time and had lots of fun.

In April 1991 I gave birth to my only child, Vivian. She is smart and speaks very well Hungarian, even if she was born in California. She just started 10^th grade in high school. My daughter wants to be an attorney. She made this decision when she was only ten years old. The reason: she loves to talk back and having her very own opinion. The profession she chose is really suitable for her. Vivian has her great-grandmother’s talent. She learned to love art through her great-grandmother’s pictures. She likes to illustrate too.

In the main time, my marriage ended with my daughter’s father because he was an alcoholic and I didn'’t want to be part of it.

When Vivian was very young, I went to college and have an AA Degree. There I learned the English language too. From the very beginning, I raised my child alone. I went through many hard times here in the richest country of the world and learned to be strong. Today I am working in an office and living in my own house. The house looks like a museum because it is full with my grandmother’s pictures. Last year I was a loan officer, but didn’'t like to be on commission. I learned a lot and wanted to be a real estate agent. I reached my goal and today I hold my real estate license and shortly I want to start to sell houses because I was always interested about real estate.

I love nature and animals. I love to swim and enjoy every kind of art. I am an optimistic person who likes to laugh. This helped me through many hard situations in the past. I love modern technology. Probably this is the reason for I really like my main business, BizBuzz Marketing what I am doing only a short time. I love the idea, new mobile phone technology and company. Buzzirk Mobile will be big in short time and the fun part just starts because it will be introduced to the public on August 27, 2006 on the Emmy Awards. I feel I am a lucky person because I found Adland, this great community. It is really great to find helpful and nice people on the Internet when there are so many scams and need to be so careful…In about two and a half months I have made over 500 friends. I enjoy having friends all over the world. Thank you for being my friend and good luck to your business and personal life.

Thank you for reading this far,

Warmest Regards,

Ildiko Dalos

Congratulation, and Thank you for joining our

Gallery of Special Friends!

The Spotlight Gazette Team