Let the fun begin!!

Well today is the first day of school and I’m sure the teachers will already be looking forward to Friday.  The first week of school usually either goes smoothly or the children are complete monsters because they’re not used to sitting still unless it’s in front of a gaming system.

It won’t take them long to get back into the routine of school again.  I remember when my children were still at home and started school.  It was a great day for my wife and I but the kids left with long faces.  Usually by they had big smiles on their faces when they came home.  Either that or the same miserable look they had that morning.  Oh well, it’s like I explained to them, if you start your day with a good attitude then the day will probably go good but if you don’t, don’t expect to have a good day.

It’s the last weekend before school starts

One things for sure, I’m not going to the beach this weekend.  With it being the last weekend before school starts back, everyone will be headed for the beach for what might be their last visit.  I’m sure that Labor Day weekend will be worse but I’ll just be glad for everything to get back to normal with the children back in school.

There have been too many kids running around unsupervised because the parents have to work but can’t afford someone to watch out for their children.  Sure there are all types of activities they could get involved in like summer camps but that too takes money.  Hopefully the economy will turn around soon and people won’t have to struggle so hard.

Are you donating?

Before you know it, the kids will be back in school.  The problem is that with so many people out of work, there is a real need for ‘School Tools’ donations.  I don’t know if they do that in your area or not but maybe you need to the the one to start something like that.

I know a lot of churches collect items that children need for school and then distribute them to needy children but there is even more need than just one church or two can handle.  If nothing else, find a family you know that is struggling and offer to buy what their child needs for school.  Ask them to allow you the ‘honor’ of helping this child with his education.

This is what Memorial Day is all about

I’m sure lots of you have probably seen this in an email but I feel it is very important for everyone to see this and know what is going on.  God bless our service men and woman that have passed and those that are still with us!!!!

What’s wrong with this picture?


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If you look closely at the picture above, you will note that all the Marines pictured are bowing their heads. That’s because they’re praying. This incident took place at a recent ceremony honoring the birthday of the corps, and it has the ACLU up in arms.

“These are federal employees,” says Lucius Traveler, a spokesman for the ACLU, “on federal property and on federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and we must nip this in the bud immediately.”

When asked about the ACLU’s charges, Colonel Jack Fessender, speaking for the Commandant of the Corps said (cleaned up a bit), “Screw the ACLU.” GOD Bless Our Warriors.. Send the ACLU to France !

What’s wrong with the picture? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

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We’re putting in an ADT Alarm System

My wife decided that we needed to check on having an alarm system put in our house.  Unfortunately, just because you’re trying to help someone doesn’t mean they won’t do anything wrong to us like break in when we’re not home.  I can’t imagine anyone doing something like that but could be someone they know that has been over to visit or something too.  You just can’t be too careful and that’s why I called ADT.    In fact, I might even have an ADT Alarm put in each apartment too.  That way we don’t have to worry about anyone breaking into one of the apartments if it’s empty too.

ADT Alarm Systems have long been known as one of the best security systems there are.  Not only are they wireless but they monitor your home 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  You can’t ask for anything any better now can you?  ADT Security gives you just that, security.  Get this, you also get a digital keypad, key chain remote access, a motion detector, 3 points of protection, high decibel alarm siren to scare off most people before they even get in. Plus you also get battery backup, yard sign and window decals to make sure they know you have an alarm system and best of all, free standard installation.

Apartments coming right along

We have the floor down in the upstairs and all of the walls in except for the wiring and the drywall.  We decided to put registers in the floor for the heat to come upstairs from the downstairs and you can close them off in the summer and open the vents on the wall to let the cool air in the room.  I just hope the people will do that.  It will save a lot on the electricity.  One of the men from one of the churches is an electrician and he’s donating everything including materials and labor to wire everything.  What a great thing he is doing.

We also have the garage doors off and the walls and doors framed in.  We have already but up the outside walls and have the siding on them along with the front doors installed.   Of course everyone took the weekend off and will be back bright an early Monday morning.  I’m amazed at how fast everything is coming together.

Got a wonderful idea

As much as it has rained lately, I decided to get some rain barrels to harvest the rain water for the dry days when the garden needs watering.  I found a great selection of rain barrels at simplyrainbarrels.com.  They have some that have a faucet in the bottom of them that you can hook up a hose to so it’s easy to water the garden.  They even have some that look really nice to put at your down spouts from your gutters.  They look nice enough to put on the front of your house.  Now watch it stop raining as soon as I get them!  That would be my luck.  No not really, I am a very lucky man!

It’s going to take awhile

Well I went down to the permit office and you know how slow the government works.  They aren’t sure if I can do that or not because of the zoning and all sorts of bull like that.  All we want to do is help those less fortunate than we are.  We have been blessed an just want to pass that blessing along.

Until they figure out if I can do this or not, I’m going to get a jump start on it for when they say I can do it.  All I’m going to do is put a floor in the upstairs part and put a regular set of steps in the end.  They can’t say anything about that.  Then I’ll go ahead an make the separations for each upstairs room.  I just won’t close them in until I get the go ahead.

I have a friend that owns a saw mill that has already donated the 2×4’s I’ll need to do the framing in.  My wife is going through the house to see what we don’t need anymore that could be put in the apartments or sold in yard sales to make the money to help pay for the supplies we don’t have on hand.  I sure hope they don’t drag their feet too long.

I have a wonderful wife

My wife and I were discussing the issue of so many homeless people around here and she came up with an idea that I thought was wonderful.  We have a three car garage that is separate from the house that we don’t even use in all honesty because there’s a two car garage attached to the house that we park our cars in.  The other was built for the kids cars.  It’s tall enough to make a room upstairs in too.

What my wife wants for us to do is to close in each bay of the garage and take down the garage doors, close that in and make three small apartments for people that have become homeless.  She said that we could give them the first month free to help them get back on their feet and then just charge $100 a month to cover the extra electricity that it will cost us.  It wouldn’t take very much to do just that.  The upstairs could be the bedroom easily.  Now all I have to do is check with the county and see if I can get a permit to do what we want.  I really hope we can.  I bet I can find a lot of help with it too from our neighbors.

It’s been a busy week

I did not realize how hard it was going to be to find the seeds or plants that I wanted to put into my garden.  There seems to be a shortage of seeds and plants.  Why?  Well my guess would be that there are more people planting gardens now for the first time or for the first time in a long time anyway.

Something has to give with the economy soon or we’re going to see more and more homeless and hungry people.  It breaks my heart to think of all of the children that don’t have a warm bed to sleep in.  Some at least have their car to sleep in but some don’t have anything at all.  There are tent cities going up everywhere because the homeless shelters are too full as it is.  I will be donating some of what I grow to the local homeless shelter to help them feed the people there.  They need all of the help they can get.  Now all I have to do is find the seeds.