Mark Your House

There are certain things I think a house should have as part of being a responsible home owner. One of these things are house plaques. There are multiple reasons why I can think a home owner should invest in a house plaque. One of these main reasons is for emergency purposes. When a home owner has a medical emergency or some other type of emergency the personnel from the responding agencies must be able to find the home. This becomes a huge challenge when there is no mail box or numbers on the house. When emergency personnel cannot find the house with the emergency lives can be compromised and may even parish. This is why putting a house plaque on your home is so important.

Other options exist if the homeowner does not want to put a fancy house plaque on their home. Address numbers are much less expensive and still have the ability to save lives.  Address signs are another option. Either way this is a subject that should be given the time of day in order to prepare for any worse case scenario.

Tetris

The very best home video game ever is with out a doubt Tetris, we can sit and play it for hours at a time and have so much fun doing just that. We bought the game many years ago for our Playstation 2 and we still play it from time to time and even our 5 year Grandson plays it with us.

We have tried to find a game like it for the WII and have not found what we are looking for yet, but we will keep looking and I think we will find something close if they do not make a Tetris game for the WII.

Nice Quality Teak Furniture For Mother’s Porch

As I promised my mother I would, I have been spending some time looking at various outside wood furniture that she is seriously considering purchasing when she gets her tax refund that is expected to be direct deposited into her checking out any day now. My mother has always been the first person to file her taxes each year, while I tend to put if off as long as I possibly can. Each year I promise myself that I will be more organized with all of the paperwork that we all accumulate throughout the year that we need for filing our Federal and State taxes with Uncle Sam.

With all of the options of filing online these past couple of years has been a great opportunity for people to tackle this yearly task. But try as you might to deal with less paperwork there will always be papers and a decent filing system can make or break a person, sigh….

Mother has always wanted some good quality teak wood front and side porch furniture. But with the winters being so long and hard where we live it is a commitment when purchasing outside furniture. You can’t just stick it outside and ignore some type of maintenance every now and then. Nothing can withstand Mother Nature 24/7, 365, year after year. It only makes sense to take care of something that you have spent a chunk of change on, so that you can enjoy it for as long as possible. It seems a good cleaning for teak furniture tip is that a nice sealer can work wonders and teak wood is known for requiring less maintenance than most of the other wood types that are used for this type of outside furniture.

Fighting Kids

Oh today has been one of those days where the kids just cannot seems to get along. They are flat driving me up a wall. I have tried everything to get them to stop, but even sending them outside to play has not helped. The smallest one is very whiny and the older ones just keep antagonizing him. It is enough to drive a sane person completely nuts.

I am going to have to separate them soon, if for no other reason then to get some peace and quiet. I am even thinking of sending them to bed a little early. They are definitely not going to like that, as the weekends are when I allow them to stay up late. I do that for two reasons. The first reason is so that we can watch movies together and have our movie night. The second reason is so that they will sleep in a little longer and then I can sleep in longer as well. There is a method to my madness. Believe it. Now to go separate them again.

Merry Christmas

This time of year is very special to me and my family. We have a lot of fun with the tree and decorations on the tree and the house. This year we plan on staying home to celebrate the holiday.

I will miss seeing my family and friends but with the way the economy is we just think it would be better to stay at home this year, we will still have a lot of fun and maybe next year we can do some traveling next year.

Love and Marriage

Last night the news had an interesting segment about love and marriage in terms of the percentage of baby boomers who are now happily divorced.  The statistics did surprise me slightly.

The news report stated that 39% of people believe in not getting married.  The average age of men getting married currently is 28, while females average is 26.  Nearly 51% of marriages will end in divorce.  That is why most couples currently are waiting at least four years before walking down the aisle.

I was surprised most by the percentage of people not believing in marriage.  This must have multiple reasons behind it.  Like I mentioned earlier baby boomers, the oldest this year turning 65, most have already been married have decided that now all they want in a relationship is more of a friendship with no strings attached.  they are discovering that they are much happier not getting remarried.  In a way this is a shame.  Marriage traditionally was meant to be a good thing but unfortunately, with the state of the economy among other factors, marriage has transformed into another hassle/ complication that people are realizing they do not need in their lives.

Music in the family

My oldest son has decided to take up music as his life’s ambition. I will support this dream because I love my son and I love music. I have bought him a Reason Drum kit and it seems that Reason drum kits are the top of the line and that is what he wants to fill his dream.

All of the musicians that I know here in music city are talking about the royalty free music sites and this has gotten my son to talking about royalty free music and I am not sure if he know a lot about it or not, I love the music sites here in Nashville and I hope to see my son playing there someday soon.

Medicare for Mom

As I have mentioned briefly, I care for my 74 year old mother. She came to live with me almost three years ago after taking a bad fall. I love her to death but honestly with her doctor appointments, and prescription refills all the time, it can feel like a part time job. She sees her regular doctor every two months, her cardiologist every three months, and then there are the quarterly appointments to have her pacemaker checked. Luckily, I have a job that allows me to leave and take her to her appointments without any trouble.

We are fortunate that she has good health insurance, including medicare part d. Most of her prescriptions are very inexpensive and very affordable. One, new prescription is $80 per month which is steep! We are fortunate that she is actually on very few prescriptions considering her heart problems.

She is worth it though and has always been there for me, throughout my entire life. I am happy that I am able to have her live with me and care for her. I will never be able to repay her for everything she has done for me in my life, but this feels like a small step towards that.

Flower Care

This year was pretty much a disaster as far as my back yard. Usually I would be reaping the rewards of a small backyard garden and giving extra produce to friends, neighbors, family and co workers. Between the weather being crazy and my lack of interest and energy this year, it just didn’t work out.

I did manage to get a few tomato plants that are producing although usually there are plenty of red ones on the vine by now. But they are taking their time in ripening. It is actually a bit better for me because I can only use and give so many tomatoes in the first week of August.

This year’s month August is being call Autumn in August, even some of the bushes and trees are totally confused at to what time of the year it is. There has been several mornings that I have gone outside, the wind is blowing and it’s overcast, that I have witnessed a good amount of leaves on the ground as well a a bunch of leaves being tossed around in the cool breeze.

I think I will back off on some of the food items in the garden next year. A nice break from this yearly chore. I would love to start planting some nicer plants and buses around the yard.

I have all winter to learn what I need to know and do for caring for orchids and all the other beautiful and colorful flowers that I am looking forward to tend to next spring and summer. I can’t wait to start getting all the seeds and flower catalogs that I always find in my mailbox right before the up and coming spring plantings.

In the mean time I’ll be looking around online to do a bit of research which will make all the decisions as an educated consumer.

 

 

 

Back To School

Right now we are being over loaded with commercials about Back To School. All the supplies are on sale in an effort to make sure all of the little kiddies will have everything they need to wear and use while in school for the 2014-2015 school year.

It is hard to believe that in just a few short years we will be watching our daughter climb up the stairs that lead into the big yellow school bus. That bus will be taking her to school and away from our 24/7 watch. It will be exciting but scary for all of us, not something that I’m looking forward to at all.

school supply and school bus
Time For The School Buses