Shark’s Tooth Island

Every summer we used to go to my parents summer home which was right on the water, we had boats, big boats, little boats, fast boats, slow boats, fishing boats, John boats, motor boats, sailing boats, paddle boats, and a jet ski.

The folks would pack us kids up on the boat and take us for a ride and we would always end up at Shark’s Tooth Island.  We would spend hours walking up and down the coast line where you could find all kinds of cool shark’s teeth, colorful sea shells, and beautiful stones that have been washed up onto the sand, just waiting for you to pick up. We have jars and jars chocked full of shark’s teeth that we will always treasure.

We would go water skiing off of the island for hours at a time while the others were swimming and playing in the warm salty waters. There was always a good time when we went there and I miss it so much.

Sharks Teeth
Various Sharks Teeth

Breakfast for dinner

A few afternoons ago they were talking on some day time talk show about eating breakfast for dinner and although I wouldn’t even attempt to try any of their recipes or ideas I did decide that last night I switched it up and got  to cooking breakfast for dinner; blueberry pancakes, sausage links and hominy.  Hominy isn’t something that I get to fix an eat much these days so it is a nice treat as well as a wake-up call that I am perfectible capable of making it more often and promise myself that I will.  While cooking, my young son came in the see what was smelling so good. That is when I informed him that we were having breakfast for dinner, and asked him if that was O.K. with him.

He laughed and said that it was fine, but that it was a good things that he liked these types of foods, because he had already eaten breakfast foods for breakfast, and for lunch at school. I’m so glad that breakfast is his favorite meal of the day!

Go figure . . . 

Groceries

Depending upon where you live in the U.S., the store where you buy groceries can be very different from the grocery stores in other parts of the country. In some states you can buy liquor in the grocery store. In Virginia, you can buy beer and wine, but not liquor. I hear that in Tennessee you can’t even buy wine in the grocery, but you can buy beer except on Sunday mornings.

Close to my house, the best grocery store is Food Lion. We are lucky that it is one of their larger stores. The produce section is especially nice – a huge variety and all the vegetables and fruits are fresh and bruise-free. We have a large selection of meats and several aisles of frozen foods. I try to limit my shopping to once a week, but it is so convenient that I can run by there any time.

When I was growing up, the two main grocery stores were Giant and Grand Union, and if you were willing to drive all the way into Rosslyn you could shop at a Safeway store. I don’t think there are any Grand Unions anymore – they disappeared, Food Lions sprang up and now we have Wal-Marts, too.

Fundraising Is A Fact Of Life

Gone are the days in most cities and towns across America when kids were sent knocking on people’s doors trying to sell folks items for a fundraiser.  Let’s face it, schools, churches, sports and all the other non-profit groups, they all desperately need money and fundraising can be a lucrative way to get it.

Unfortunately in today’s world it isn’t necessarily safe for our children to go around the neighborhoods anymore.  Most fundraisers specifically request that the kids do not go door to door anymore, they tell you to have family, co-workers and close family friends help in supporting the organization.

With having two kids I have done my fair share of fundraising and I certainly will still participate when I can.  It was a lot easier when members of my immediate family were all living pretty close to each other, now a days everyone is spread out all over the darn country so that puts a damper on using them as a resource, for the most part.

I ran across a really cool fundraising program on the Web called Schoolpop.com and I am going to contact our elementary school and see if they would be interested in participating in this non-traditional school fundraiser opportunity.

By using Schoolpop, you can pay down your tuition and any extracurricular activity costs, it can assist in paying back student loans for college and help your school earn monies, all year round by shopping at the several hundred listed of name -brand merchants and service providers whether it be online, in stores, catalogs purchases, even with gift cards or with the Schoolpop Visa credit card.

You can apply for the Schoolpop Visa credit card right on line!  Every purchase that you make for your groceries, gas, clothing, movies, restaurants  – it contributes 1% to the student’s school.

It sounds like Schoolpop may be a way to raise money that would/should be embraced by our school and the families, we shall see when I call them this week.  I’ll also call my sister who has a son in a very nice private school and see if she would be interested in learning a cool and easy way to raise money for private schools along with us in the public school system.

Cute Recipe

I found a really cute recipe on a sister site that I am going to try, thought I would share it.  Now that I have reached the age of 50, the Red Hat Society is very interested in me, so is the AARP!

“Pink Stuff”

 From the Red Hat Society cookbook pg 276 

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 (12oz) container whipped topping, thawed

1 (20 oz) can cherry pie filling

1 (15 oz) can crushed pineapple, well drained

1 (15 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained

Red food coloring – a few drops, optional 

Stir together the condensed milk and whipped topping.  Fold in the cherry pie filling.  Fold in the pineapple and oranges.  If you want a deeper pink color, add a few drops of red food coloring.  Refrigerate at least 4 hours prior to serving.  

  Pink

A Day at the Pool

Today was the perfect day to go to the pool. Everyone slept in a little late this morning. We didn’t get back from the fireworks until nearly midnight and everyone was wired up from all of the excitement of all of the wonderful displays that our local recreation center produced this year, in celebrating the 4th of July.

Once the house started waking up and everyone had fed their face with some type of nourishment from my fully stocked kitchen. I went shopping yesterday and spent a fortune on items to take with us to the show, things like beer, wine, wine coolers, sodas, Gatorade, bottled water, chips, dips, crackers, cookies, fruits, well you get the point. So the kitchen is now over flowing with munchies that should last all week-end long, maybe.

Anyway, we decided that today was the first nice day that we have had in a while so we packed up all of our swimming pool gear and took off for a day in the sun and water fun. It was great, fun was had by all, even Hubby came along this time, which is rare these days, and now I’m totally beat and sun burned and ready for bed.

By the way, a belated Happy Independence Day to America, may God Bless us all!

Sheetz Card

If you have a Sheetz gas and convenience center around where you live and haven’t gotten your Sheetz card I would like to encourage you to go ahead and sign up for one. You save 3 cents a gallon when you use your card as well as discounts and freebies galore. With the price of everything continuing to go up and up you have to take advantage of savings when you can.

A little something for the blog

So happy to be blogging again, as you’ll soon find out I love to chit chat and talk about just anything.  I even made a category called “anything,” because there is so much of that in this world of mine.

Made a fabulous dinner tonight that would have made any 5 star chef jealous. Served lobster and T-Bones along with salad and the usual side dishes.

After dinner, hubby and I got together and played the new game system together for a couple of hours. Then I did some cleaning around the house and put the prince to bed. About an hour later, we were all counting sheep.

sheep

sheep

 

sheep

Got Milk?

This was just too funny not to post here. I love milk, but hate it when it comes out of your nose!

milk