I have always wanted a pretty smile

smile (free clip art)
smile (free clip art)
Your smile is one thing that people see first and can help or hurt your first impression. My smile is awful and that’s why I am seriously thinking about porcelain veneers. I have relatives that live near the place that does them, so it would be easy for me to go visit when the children have time off from school and come back with a beautiful smile. I wish I had known about this before school started back.

Help your local animal shelter

This time of year there are always a lot of kittens and puppies at the shelter, but there are also a lot of adult cats and dogs being surrendered by owners and many are abandoned or dropped off because of the economy. People are being evicted and having their homes foreclosed and have no way to take care of the pets any more.

This really bothers me – I just don’t see how anyone in good conscience can abandon a pet. What kind of person leaves an animal locked in an empty house and drives off? What kind of person can drive down a road and just toss kittens out of the window into a stranger’s driveway? People who do that and people who beat their dogs or otherwise abuse their animals should be arrested and put into jail.

If you have a shelter in your community, next time you have the urge to take on a pet, I hope you will go to the shelter and adopt an animal from the shelter. And if you have anything you can donate to the shelter, here’s a list of desired items that can be dropped off and will be put into good use:

  • Clean, old newspapers to be used for litter and lining cages
  • Toilet seat covers (cats love to lie on them in their cages)
  • Any type of cat or dog toy (plastic or washable)
  • Old bath towels and blankets
  • Canned cat food, any brand
  • Bagged, dry dog food (particularly desired is Science Diet but other brands accepted)
  • Laundry soap
  • Bleach
  • Heavy ceramic food and water bowls
  • Antibacterial hand soap
  • Candles – citrus or spice
  • Paper towels

Shelters also need volunteers to come and walk dogs and play with the animals for short periods to give them exercise and socialization skills. If you have a good heart, please help the animals in your local shelter.

Do you get Sirius Radio?

I grew up listening to the music of the 70’s since that’s when my mother grew up. She loved that music so that’s what we all had to listen to in the car. No I don’t have Sirius Radio in my car but I do have it on my satellite TV.

I found the Totally 70’s station and I don’t watch TV anymore, I listen to it. I especially love it when they play a selection from the ‘Juke Box from Hell’ and then play something like ‘Dead skunk in the middle of the road’. I find myself dancing around the house like I used to see my mother do when I was little. If I have to sit at the computer and accommodate the family’s request for silence so they can hear their own music, or watch a TV show, I’ll put on a pair of headphones that I bought a few weeks ago from the musiciansfriend.com website and listen to it without bothering them. One way or the other, I am going to listen to MY MUSIC! I LOVE IT!

Cooking dinner

frozen tv dinners (free clip art)
frozen tv dinners (free clip art)
Well I am being lazy today. I usually don’t really like frozen dinners, but keep them on hand for lazy days or days when we are way too busy. So tonight we are having Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. Simple and sweet with very little prep time. This day was so very bad, I just don’t have the mind set to cook more than that.

Happy 4th of July

Independence Day (free clip art)
Independence Day (free clip art)
There is a local semi-pro baseball team that has the best fireworks every year. It doesn’t cost much to go watch the game either. I love taking the kids every year to see the ball game and the fireworks. It’s almost become a tradition with us. Before the game, we go to the park for a cook out with my family. We have hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad and make home-made ice cream too.  By the time it’s time to go to the ball game, we’re all stuffed and so that helps save money at the game. Hot dogs are EXPENSIVE at ball games.

I can’t believe people still don’t have health insurance

Health insurance (free clip art)
Health insurance (free clip art)
I am very lucky – I get health insurance from the company that I work with, as a benefit. But a lot of my friends and relatives don’t have that, and they struggle to find affordable health insurance. I can’t believe that so many of them still don’t have any health insurance at all! I’m recommending to them to check out the information I found on the nc health agency web page to see if they can help them get affordable health insurance. Nobody should have to go without medical treatment!

Saving on groceries

groceries (free clip art)
groceries (free clip art)
I read an article on MSN Money central about feeding a family on $100 a week.  If I spent that much a week on food, I wouldn’t be able to pay all the other bills before now so I’m used to being tight with groceries.

There are better way to save money on food than they talk about.  I buy a lot of chicken and hamburger but we still eat well.  We have a little garden and Grandpa has a big garden so we home can and freeze a lot of vegetables so we don’t have to buy that many vegetables.  Mom is great at making different things with the same old meats.  You just have to find recipes that everyone likes and use your imagination a little.  I’ve learned to be a pretty good cook from trial and error mostly, and a lot of help from Mom.

Using coupons helps a lot, too. I have a “coupon-swapping” friend, Joann, and we try to get together at least twice a month to trade coupons. I enjoy catching up with her, and we always find we save a lot of money by swapping off the coupons that we clip from the papers.

Happy Mother’s Day

I miss my mom. She is so far away I rarely get to see her. She is happy and healthy and doing well in her retirement. But I do wish I could see her more often.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

Visiting my grandparents

I used to love to visit my grandparents house when I was a child. They had the most beautiful old grandfather clock I had ever seen. I loved to hear it chime. In fact, as a child, I would run into the sitting room where the grandfather clock was when it would start chiming just so I could hear it better. I loved that clock. My parents now have it and it will be mine to keep in my home when they are gone which I hope will be many years from now.

 

My sister loves the stars

I have a sister that is an astronomer. She loves nothing more than to spend hours looking at the stars. She loves the Catadioptric Telescopes because of their quality. I don’t know that much about things like that so I had to do a little research to find out which one to buy her for her birthday. I found all kinds of information and all kinds of telescopes at opticsplanet.net.

The good thing is that she has now gotten into bird watching too. She is an outdoor girl anyway and by accident, she was playing with her old telescope one day and found an eagles next across the water from her house. There was even a couple of babies in the nest too. She was absolutely thrilled and that’s what got her into bird watching too. The eagles return every year too.