If We Get to Myrtle Beach

Jeffrey really wants to go to Myrtle Beach someday.  Apparently, there are lots of great golf courses there.  To tell you the truth, I don't understand the game or why anyone would want to hit a ball around with some sticks trying to get it into some tiny little hole that he can't even see.  But, he likes it, and he would love to play on some of those Myrtle Beach golf courses.

That leaves me wondering what I would do while he's chasing that little ball around, but since Beach is in the name of the place, I think I could survive.  I like the beach, he likes the golf courses - and neither one of us understands the other one.  Still, if we booked one of these Myrtle Beach golf packages, we could both get something we enjoy.  We might not spend a lot of time together, but we might just manage to have a good time.  I do like spending time with him, though.  Really.  I do.

If/when we decided to book our vacation to Myrtle Beach, I'm going to have to check out http://www.myrtlebeachgolf.net because they make it easy to book everything together - tee times and accommodations at the same time.  They also have information about other things to do, like night life and restaurants.  We'll just have to see each other at night - after the golf and the beach!

It's Been a Long Day

Summer's about over, and that means the days are getting shorter, right?  Maybe that's why today seemed so long - trying to cram too much stuff into a day that wasn't long enough.  If we could keep summer around, we'd have enough hours in the day to do what we need to do.  OK, maybe not, but it sounds like a reasonable theory.

I never did get around to mopping my floor, but I did pick peppers (insert tongue twister here) and chard today. And washed towels, and ironed, and went to the library, and baked bread, and washed a ton of dishes, and....  I'm sure there was more, but now that I sit down and try to list everything, I'm having trouble recalling.

I'm thinking that means I've had enough.  Time to go to bed, get some sleep, secrete some melatonin, and get ready for another day.  Then again, there are plenty of times that Jeffrey will call me during the day and ask me what I've been doing and, even though I've been plenty busy, I have trouble remembering what exactly I've been doing.  I have to stop and think.  It might be that there are so many little things I'm doing.  None of them seems all that important of and by itself, but a whole lot of little things add up to a lot.

It can't be that I'm losing my memory (or my mind) - surely not.

I Need to Mop

Did you know that dropping plastic containers full of food from the top of the refrigerator onto the tile floor is not a good idea?  Who knew plastic could break like that?  And spew food all over the floor.

Beth came over this evening, and I was sending some applesauce and Veggie Kablooie home with her.  She set the containers on top of the refrigerator, kind of half on the top of the refrigerator and half on the freezer door, so she wouldn't forget to take them with her.  It was all good, until I opened the freezer to put something in.  Next thing I knew I heard a loud crash, and there was a mess all over the place.  I didn't know she put them up there! 

We wiped up as best we could, but now I really need to mop.  I don't care if I use a cleaner or salicylic acid wash. Just a wet mop will be fine.  I gave Beth a hard time about breaking my containers because, even though I was the one who opened the freezer, she was the one who put the containers up there.  I still love her anyway.
 

Summer's Holding On

It's been feeling a bit like Fall recently - until today, the last full day of Summer.  Today the heat is back, and it seems that summer won't be giving up without a fight.  I'm pretty sure the fight is futile, though.  I've seen trees that are already starting to change, and my garden definitely believes summer is over.  All the tomato plants are dried up and dead.  They gave me lots of tomatoes first, though!  I've been getting quite a few green beans, but they're all about done, too, and the zucchini gave up a while back.  I've still got some peppers on the plants, and the chard is growing like crazy.  Chard doesn't seem to mind the end of summer, and keeps on growing through the Fall.

It really is amazing to see how tiny seeds and little plants can grow so much and produce food.  All in the space of one summer.  Really.  Amazing.  All the wrinkle creams mentioned at http://www.consumerpricewatch.org may claim to be amazing, but they've got nothing on my garden.  It does have me wondering - fight the natural order of things with wrinkle creams and anti-aging lotions, or age gracefully like the garden?

The Stars are Dancing Again

Dancing with the Stars kicked off again tonight.  I think there is quite a bit of potential in this year's group of stars.  Dirty Dancing is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I'm especially interested in seeing how Jennifer Grey does. If tonight was any indication, she's going to do great. 

I also especially enjoyed watching Kyle Massey from Disney Channel's Cory in the House.  I'm not at all familiar with him, but I think he's going to be one of my favorites.  He was just so much fun to watch, and he may be the youngest competitor, but he's not afraid to work hard and put everything into his performance.  I must admit that while I was watching him and his partner (the very blond) Lacy Shwimmer dance, I was thinking that it will be fun to watch him slim down and get in shape throughout the course of the season.  It just seems to happen on Dancing with the Stars.  They don't have to worry about finding natural appetite suppressants that work. All that dancing means they can practically eat anything they want and still slim down.

One of these days I think I'd like to be on DWTS too.  I mean, take some kind of ballroom dancing lessons or something.  It's come a long way since those days we had dancing in PE, and everybody hated it.  Now it looks like fun.

Happy Birthday, Beth!

I am now the mom of only 1 teenager.  My beautiful daughter, Beth is 20!  How in the world did that happen?

Then again, her teen years seemed to last forever.  When she was 3 she already had that teenage girl attitude!  Or maybe it's just girls in general and has nothing to do with being teenagers.  They've got way more attitude than the boys do.

Attitude or no attitude, she made it through her teenage years without a case of acne that called for epiduo and without having her parents strangle her, so it's all good, right?  And she's turned out pretty good, despite the horrible home life she thought she had.

Dear, sweet, precious Beth - you've grown into a lovely young lady, and we love you very much!!  You are smart and beautiful, and you can do anything you put your mind to.  Enjoy your twenties.

Protect the Table

It's starting to feel a lot like Fall, even though it doesn't officially start until next week. Before we know it, we'll be putting the Thanksgiving Tablecloths on the tables and cooking our turkeys.  How does time go by so fast?  It seems just yesterday we were celebrating our first Thanksgiving with family in our own house, and a little bitty boy banged his spoon on my brand-new table and made a bunch of marks in it.  That was before I had any kind of tablecloth on the table, and it hadn't even occurred to me that I might want Table Pads & Tablecloth Protectors to protect it from over-excited little guys.  Since then, I've mostly kept a table cloth on the table at all time, and we always used to use placemats, too, for extra protection.

Now that my little guy is all grown up and off to college, and I don't have any little kids around the house anymore, I suppose I could take the tablecloths off so we could enjoy the beauty of the table.  Except those spoon gouges aren't the only thing that happened through the years.  There was the time the bag of water Beth brought her goldfish home in leaked all over the table.  We wiped up the top of the tablecloth, but no-one thought to check underneath, where the water had seeped.  So my beautiful table has water damage, too.

I'm just going to have to think positively and say all those marks just show how much the table was used and loved.  They bring back memories.  Now, if you have little kids in your house, you might want to check into the table cloths and table protectors, before the damage happens.  You can collect memories some other way.

Bed Bath Store has a large selection of  tablecloths and protectors as well as home decor, bath towels, curtains, comforters, and things to help you get organized like these Over the Door Bathroom Racks.  Shipping is free when you spend $89 or more, and you get 6% from UPromise if you're a member.  Considering how fast time goes and how fast these kids grow up, it's always a good idea to save money for college any way you can.

Does Your Student Need Help with His Homework?

I know I learned the things I was supposed to learn in school. I got straight A's after all! But, by the time my kids got to 5th grade math, I was struggling to remember how it all worked.

Seriously, how many parents actually remember Adding fractions or what the Formula for volume is?  How about Graphing linear equations?  Did I ever even learn to graph them?  It makes it really hard to help with the homework, that's for sure.  Chime in here if you remember all the stuff you learned in school.  For the rest, thankfully there's online tutoring.

TutorVista is the leading online tutoring company in the world.  For $99.99/month you can get an unlimited tutoring package.  That includes all subjects, not just math.  Students can get personalized one on one tutoring any time they want, 24 hours a day.  I've never checked into actual in-person tutoring, but I'm pretty sure it costs more, and it's not available any time your student needs help with his Algebra 2 homework.  They offer a free first time trial, so you can check it out before you decide to use it.  Tutoring is available for students K-12 and college.

Get Ready for Fall with the TiVo Premiere

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of TiVo. All opinions are 100% mine.

Summer is almost over, and that means no more re-runs.  All the new Fall TV shows will be starting.  There are some brand-new ones that look pretty good as well as returning favorites.  I'm particularly looking forward to Hawaii Five-O because I remember watching the original series.  It will be fun to see how they do this new one.  And, of course, I'm looking forward to the new season of Glee.  I will probably have to DVR it, though, because Jeffrey doesn't like it so much, and Cory isn't here to watch it with.

Speaking of the DVR, I always thought that TiVo was just a brand name for a DVR.  I didn't realize all the things it can do - way beyond just recording shows to be watched later.  The TiVo Premiere, along with the new TiVo Slide remote, makes discovering this fall TV season’s best entertainment (web video, TV, and movies) easier than ever.  You can use the exclusive TiVo Search and TiVo Collections features to catch up on shows you've missed. Also, find upcoming episodes and entire previous seasons on Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand or Blockbuster On Demand.  TiVo Premiere also lets you check out everything your favorite actors have done – and then watch it right there via YouTube, Amazon VOD, Blockbuster, Netflix or your cable lineup.  It sounds like this thing can practically do it all, making it a very handy gadget for hard-core TV fans.

The TiVo Slide remote is cool all on its own.  It has an ergonomic peanut-shaped design, and a fully retractable QWERTY keyboard for quick and easy text entry.  Seriously, how cool is that?  How would you like to win one?  Enter to Win here, and you could.  TiVo is giving away 30 Slides in 30 Days.  Unfortunately, we've missed some of those 30 days, but the sweepstakes runs through 9/22, so there are still some Slides to be given away.  Become a Facebook Fan or follow TiVo on twitter to be eligible to win.  Being a facebook fan also gives you access to special deals, giveaways, TiVo news and more.

This Tivo Premiere is making my plain old DVR look pretty boring.

Do the Reuse Challenge

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Aladdin. All opinions are 100% mine.

Aladdin has a challenge for you. - Make a 30-day commitment to give up disposable paper cups, water bottles, or food containers.  By making small, easy changes in our everyday routine and using reusable products, we can make a big impact in our lives, our community, and the world.  Think you can do it?  Need some good reasons why you should do it?

• Seven million barrels of oil are used to produce the disposable bottles Americans go through in one year.
• In the United States, 50 billion disposable water bottles are consumed per year; 137,000 per day; 1,585 per second.
• It costs about $165 a year to make drip coffee at home versus $636 to buy drip coffee at your local café.
• Unless we change our habits, 23 billion paper coffee cups will be thrown out in 2010.
• Nine dollars will generally cover a decent lunch out. If you buy rather than pack a lunch five days a week, you shell out about $2,350 a year.

I would think that last one would be reason enough - but then I'm just cheap!  Same with the coffee.  And disposable water bottles?  I am WAY too cheap for that.  I know I'm saving a ton of money by using a water filter on my kitchen faucet and refilling my own re-usable water bottle, not to mention not having my recycle bin uneccesarily overflowing with empty plastic bottles.

This challenge sounds pretty much like my everyday life, doesn't it? But there are a lot of people out there throwing away a lot of things and filling up our landfills.  I have often wondered what people are throwing away when I see their overflowing toters on trash day.  We rarely get ours even close to full!

Even though I'm already pretty good at avoiding disposable items, there are always things I can improve.  For instance, while I got Jeffrey to start taking his lunch to work instead of going out for lunch shortly after we were married, I am still packing his sandwiches and carrot sticks in plastic sandwich bags.

Anyway, enough about me.  Do you think you're ready to accept the Do The Reuse Challenge?  There are several challenges you can get involved in.  Accept one or accept them all and see how making one small change can save you some cash, save our planet, and lead to a healthier you.  Everyone’s welcome to participate (the more, the better!), and 9 families will be blogging about their experience on the Aladdin website.  Won't you join in?

In addition, when you accept one of the Do the Reuse Challenges you’ll be able to get discounts and free shipping on selected Aladdin products through their website, www.shopaladdin-pmi.com - which means you can save even more money!  Oh yes, I'm all about the saving of the money.  (*grin)  Also be sure to Like Aladdin on Facebook to keep up with the Challenge, interact with others who are participating, get some great ideas, and some savings codes just for fans.

Sittin' in the Cheap Seats

Image via Wikipedia

When you think of the cheap seats, you probably think you'll be up in the nosebleed section, about as far away from the action as possible, right?  That's how it usually works.  The more you pay, the closer you get, and if you can't afford to pay a lot, you just hope they'll have some big screens so you can see what's going on - either that, or you better take the binoculars.

Then again, you could check for a deal at acheapseat.com where they negotiate great prices on tickets for events around the country and then pass the savings on to their customers.  They have tickets for concerts, sports events, and theater.  Whether you're looking for Radio City Christmas Spectacular Tickets for your trip to New York City or Boston Celtics Tickets, it's worth checking - to see if your cheap seats can be down there with the people who paid the big bucks.

It's also a good site to check if other ticket sites are sold out.  I wish I had known about it when I was checking on tickets to see Wicked when it came to Milwaukee.  Perhaps there would have been some tickets available in my price range.  As it is, I didn't pursue the matter, and we didn't end up seeing the show.  Right now I can find Jersey Boys Tickets for next summer - Orchestra level and still not cheap enough for me, but at least they're available.  I checked another site, and the Milwaukee shows aren't even listed yet.

Anyway, I'm going to be checking this site when there's an event I want to attend.  We saw Lion King in Vegas, and I'd really like to see some more Broadway productions.  Also, there are a few people I'd really like to see in concert, and if we can get some good tickets, that would be great.

Venetian Carnival Masks

If I asked you where to buy Venetian carnival masks, would you know?  You know the type of masks I'm talking about, beautiful masks once worn in Venice society by noblemen and servants - to keep their identities and activities hidden.  When you think about it, I'm surprised more celebrities don't wear these.  The paparazzi might still be able to take their pictures, but it would be hard to prove who's actually behind that mask.

OK, just a thought.  Maybe nobody still wears these masks while going about their daily business, but they are recognized for their beauty and craftsmanship and are collected for use and display by people who appreciate fine art the world over. And they are still worn during the world famous Carnivale in Venice.

Whatever style of  Venetian Face Masks you're interested in - Bauta, Columbine, Medico Della Peste, or Moretta - you can find them all at 1001 Venetian Masks. Each mask is hand selected and made by Master Artisans and is 100% authentic – no imitations.  1001 Venetian Masks is a family owned business, providing a great selection of Venetian masks and exceptional customer service.  Please be sure to check them out.  These masks are gorgeous!

Decisions, Decisions

We're getting a little closer to picking our colors for the house.  We've got all the samples, and we keep looking at them and putting them together in different combinations and looking at the houses in the neighborhood, and... We're going back and forth between staying relatively close to the color we have now and making a rather drastic change.  So hard!  It might be easier to shop for the right term life insurance.

When we originally built the house, there weren't that many choices.  I think that was easier.  Now there are all kinds of choices and options - colors and textures and designs.  And, like I said before, these are decisions we're going to have to live with, because once you put the shingles and siding on the house, you don't just change it when you feel like looking at something different.  Or, at least, our neighbors are going to have to live with it.  They're the ones who have to look at the outside of the house.  Mostly.

We have ruled out blue, gray, yellow, white and brown for the siding, so we're getting closer, right?

Wipe Out!

What is there about that show? I'm sure somebody's going to get hurt one of these days, but I just can't stop watching it whenever it's on. Is it the sound effects or just the fact that people are bouncing off stuff and getting into the oddest positions? Whatever it is, it's hard to turn away once the show comes on.

Sometimes I think I might be able to do better than the contestants on the show, but I know I'm fooling myself. I think I'll stick to watching on my Samsung HDTV - and letting those people make fools of themselves.  Of course, at least one of those fools comes out with $50,000 every week, which just might be worth a few bruises.

Microwave or Fridge?

I bought Cory a microwave for his dorm room last week, since his roommate already had a refrigerator.  I thought it might come in handy, but he's decided that he really doesn't need one, so I'm taking it back. He says the coffee maker will be good enough, because mostly he just needs hot water - for his tea and ramen.

He said what they really needed was a bigger refrigerator.  Now, they obviously can't have full-size kitchen appliances in the dorm room, and no-one would want to carry them up the stairs anyway, but the tiny little refrigerator his roommate brought just doesn't hold much of anything.  They've already filled it up in the first couple days of college.

So, we looked for a good deal on compact refrigerators and found one that looked like a good deal - and went and bought that yesterday.   Yes, it cost more than the microwave, but I'd rather spend the money on something that he actually needs and will use. He can keep some drinks in there, milk for some cereal, leftover pizza, whatever. If he really needs to heat something up, there is a kitchen somewhere in the dorm. He can use an oven.

Now, his roommate will either have to take his home next time he goes, or they'll just have two.  They won't take up much more room than having a microwave and refrigerator.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The basics of moving the kids to college (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Anniversary Gifts

Jeffrey and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary next summer, hopefully in a better way than we celebrated our 24th this summer. For those of you who don't know, we had a tornado come through our neighborhood on the evening of our anniversary. We certainly won't forget that particular anniversary anytime soon. When looking through a list of anniversary gifts by year, you do not see tornado listed next to 24th anniversary.  Actually, they don't list 24th anniversary, so maybe that can be added!? 

Seriously, I really don't recommend a tornado as a great way to celebrate. The dinner and glass of wine on the deck beforehand was rather nice, though.

Speaking of that list of anniversary gifts, I'd heard that the 25th anniversary is silver and 50th is gold, but I didn't know what the traditional gifts were for other years. For instance, did you know that 3rd year anniversary gifts are supposed to be leather? And 9th anniversary gifts should be pottery?  Or what about just being totally untraditional and giving Anniversary Toilet Paper? (seriously)  Or I suppose 1st anniversary is paper, so that would be appropriate.

The list is rather fun and a good way to get some ideas for anniversary gifts. There's something for every year 1-20, then it skips to 25 and then to 50. I guess they figure once you've been married for at least 20 years you should be pretty good at coming up with anniversary presents on your own.

So here's my question for you: What kind of traditional or NONtraditional anniversary presents have you gotten or given? And what were your favorites? Anybody get that toilet paper?

One Week Down

Cory's home for the weekend! It's nice to be able to talk to him and see how he's been enjoying college this first week. It sounds like he's been keeping busy, making new friends, and enjoying his classes. What he still needs to do is find a job! But he hasn't had much time

At least one of his friends got and email about work study before she even got to campus, and they helped her get set up with a job. Cory never got any such email, and he hasn't been able to figure out the online job site that is supposed to list available jobs and help students get hooked up with jobs. It's kind of like searching for certified diamonds in a field of dirt. None of them are jumping out and sparkling for him. In fact, the only list of jobs he found looked like they were for graduates. They weren't even in the same town.

It sounds like he'll be doing some emailing and filling out applications when he gets back to campus on Tuesday.

I'm a Pro at Procrastination

So, I'm sitting here with this keyword and this link, waiting for some inspiration to fill up the rest of the post. I'm having no luck, though, so I figured I'd just start typing. The news is on, and it's almost bedtime - so I don't have a lot of time to figure it out.

Are y'all tired of reading my posts today? It would help if I didn't wait until the last possible day to do stuff - but I do. It's not like I want to. It's just that there are always other things that need done. Or maybe it's just that the things that actually get done are the things that absolutely have to get done - and the other stuff can wait, until it absolutely has to get done. And until I have time to do it right.

Unfortunately, I can't really come up with the right way to mention apidexin - or even a good way for that matter. So I'm just going to do it and hope I can do a better job tomorrow - in between cleaning bathrooms, fixing food, and maybe picking up my son the college student. I'm only saying maybe about that last one because I haven't actually talked to him about that, but it is a long weekend, and he probably has more stuff he wants to pack up and take back to college with him - and probably has some laundry he wants done, too.

Looking at the Sky on Friday - 67

I’m so glad there’s a meme like Looking at the Sky on Friday, because it means all the time I spend looking at the sky, and taking pictures of it, has a purpose! Click the badge for more info.
A huge mass of dark clouds rolled over our house this evening.  I went out to the driveway and watched them and took pictures, until some big fat raindrops started falling and chased me back inside.  I didn’t want to get my camera wet!

Right before I came in, some of the clouds were picking up some red highlights from the sunset behind me.  And look at the texture of those clouds!

It was definitely not a night to be out using the gas grill on the deck, but it was a very interesting night for cloud-watching. 

If you enjoy skies as much as I do, be sure to check out Looking at the Sky on Friday.

Tape This to Your Mirror

Now that Cory's away at college, he's going to have to learn to tie his own ties. He won't have his dad there to do it for him. Thankfully the Sunday comics had just the thing a couple weeks ago. Someone asked, "How do you tie a necktie?" and the comic showed exactly how to do it.
I just cut it out so he can tape it to his mirror, as suggested. Hopefully it will help.

Cory's plan, in the absence of his dad, was to find a girl (or girls) to help him with his ties. I'm not sure where these girls learned to tie ties, maybe from the Sunday comics? I don't doubt he could find plenty who would be more than willing to help him, but it wouldn't hurt for him to know how to tie his own ties. Ties are a guy thing, and guys should know how to tie them, even if they don't wear them every day.

Never having worn mens ties, I don't know how to tie one, but this makes it look fairly simple - simple enough even a character in a comic can do it! Maybe I should tape this to my mirror first and try it?

What about you - can you tie a necktie? How did you learn?