Family and Friends – Page 4

September 9, 2014

Gaining Followers on Spotify

About two years ago I signed up for one of the very first American Spotify accounts. It was available in Europe for a couple of years, but for some reason – I’m sure it had to do with money and royalties – they did not bring it to America until 2012. I found a tekkie friend who shared one of his 5 allotted invitations to join up the first day and I’ve been hooked ever since.

I don’t know what the average user does about playlists, but I made up a BUNCH of playlists. I started out with a modern country playlist because it was easy to recognize the current stars and their current hit songs. Then I went to rock and roll from when I was in high school Those songs will always have tons of memories for me – they are what I grew up listening to. The third playlist was harder and took longer, but it is my favorite: adult contemporary. I like this music because it is fresh and easy on the ears. It is the kind of music that you hear on all the different genres of radio stations, but they appeal to everyone.

I had no idea that anyone cared about my personal playlists, but a few months ago I started getting email notifications from Spotify that people were subscribing to my adult contemporary playlist. I don’t know these people and don’t know how they found my playlist, but it is kinda flattering to find out that a lot of people share the same interest in music with you. I keep adding subscribers somehow – about 1 or 2 a week. Last time I checked, I had 64 subscribers to my playlist from all over the world – and I don’t personally know a single one of them!

September 3, 2014

New Converts Can Be So Annoying

This girl who used to work with me keeps popping up around town. I have seen her at a couple of restaurants, at the YMCA, and in the grocery store. I always make an effort to go up to her and say hello, ask how she is doing, etc. But she is a new convert and last night, when I saw her at the grocery store, she started preaching a bunch of stuff about being saved and told me that I am going to Hell. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to get into a deep religious discussion in the produce section of my grocery store.

I think the annoying part was her judgment of me and attempt to convert me along with her. She asked me the most bizarre question and since I didn’t give her the answer she wanted, she started attacking my personal beliefs. I had to raise my voice and tell her to back off – in the middle of the grocery store! Good grief!

Oh, her question to me was, “How do you know that you are going to Heaven?” and it wasn’t really about her caring about me so much as an attack on my beliefs. That really pissed me off. If you want to talk about religion with me, invite me over to your place some night and we can share a glass of wine and talk about it in a constructive conversation. Don’t ambush me in the grocery store and tell me that I’m going to Hell.

August 22, 2014

Technology Changing So Quickly

Thinking back to when I was a young child, my parents had analog telephones scattered throughout the house. They started with one incoming telephone line, then when my sisters and I were teenagers and hogging the phone talking to all our friends, they got a second incoming line for us girls. Then we started getting online which tied up the phone line and no one could call us without getting a busy signal. So they got a third phone line – primarily for internet but also a backup line for us girls. After all, three teenage girls can do a whole lot of talking on the phone, between their girlfriends AND their boyfriends!

But now, we’ve grown and moved out, we all have cell phones and we get online using cable instead of the telephone line. So my parents decided to give up the home phone line and save $50 a month. I don’t blame them!

Another big technology change has been instant messaging and texting. What a great convenience that is! Especially when you just need to push a message to someone and not really talk to them or engage in a 2-way communication. I use texting all the time with my sisters and my parents, and I love the way they can get in touch with me any time, even if I am on the phone and on the internet, all through my cell phone.

I just love how technology is changing so quickly. Now if they will just start reducing the monthly charges. I don’t see how they can justify these high prices for phone service any longer – they are not spending money on expensive phone lines and cables – it’s all digital.

August 4, 2014

When words just won’t do it

Justin was trying to explain to me why he wants to buy and install a bigsby vibrato on his guitar, and I just didn’t seem to “get it.” I thought his guitar sounds just fine the way it is. He finally decided to go online to this YouTube video, which is a demonstration of a “before and after” the installation of the bigsby vibrato on a guitar. I have to say I was very surprised to hear that it really makes a big difference in sound! Amazing!

July 16, 2014

What do you mean it isn’t an end table?

When Shawn showed me the picture of the cajon drum he wants to buy at musician’s friend I thought that I was looking at a really nice end table! I was so surprised when he told me that it was something called a “pick-up” and it had a built in pre-amp and microphone in it. At that point my eyes must have glazed over because Shawn started trying to explain to me how musicians often have to use several different pieces of equipment to perform the function that this one piece of equipment does. Well after a minute or two I mumbled “that’s nice” and excused myself to go wash my hair. I’m still not sure what it is that it does, but it would look nice sitting beside my sofa!

July 4, 2014

Happy 4th of July

I sure hope you guys are having a ‘blast’ today. We have a special July 4th package deal going on where the whole house is decorated for the 4th, and we are having a huge picnic type dinner for everyone in the community too. The other local businesses like the tubing guys up river are throwing in with me and offering tubing and canoeing along with my package.

It’s kind of a bring your own fireworks type display and everyone brings a side dish too from the community. Watermelons are in the river getting good and cold and so is the beer. We always have the best time, and the house is booked solid for the whole 3 day weekend.

June 22, 2014

Got a wedding invitation

Yesterday I received an invitation to attend my best friend’s daughter’s wedding in wilmington that is being held in October. I can’t decide whether to attend or not. Somehow I get the feeling that this invitation is really a “don’t come, but please send money as a gift” request. Or maybe it was mailed to me simply as a courtesy to her mother, knowing that we are such good friends. Either way, I’m not sure that my budget will allow for me to take the time to travel there. I think I need to talk to my friend and see what it is that she really wants. I don’t want to alienate my friend, you know what I mean?

June 4, 2014

Baseball

My sister’s kids love baseball and they play every chance they get. In the back yard or on a team they do not care. So for our summer trip this year I am taking them to see a real live major league baseball game in Atlanta. I do not like the Braves, it is just the closest team with a fan friendly start time for this trip. I know the kids will have a great time and so will I; I love baseball too. This will be a very fun trip for us and I can not wait till July for the trip to be here. My husband and I went on our first date to a baseball game and it has been in a sweet spot in my heart ever since then.

May 23, 2014

Saving and Spending

So I decided that I wanted to take the family on a nice vacation this year but, realized I needed to take a look at our finances first. I’ve always had an idea of how much we spend on everything, but never really had a budget that was written down. In order to get a realistic idea of what we’re saving and spending, I thought maybe I should track everything.

I looked up free budget software online to get started. After all, I’m trying to save and I don’t want to shill out more money in all of this. At first I thought I would be overwhelmed. I watched a few video demos on how easy the software programs are to use. Some programs wanted a ton of information and others looked just like a spread sheet. I already have spread sheet software… that’s not what I was looking for.

I looked at reviews for best budgeting sites to get opinions of what other people thought worked and didn’t for them. I’ve narrowed it down to three different sites. I think just to get a good idea of what each site can do for me I’ll use them each for the next two months. At the end of the two months I should be able to tell which software will work best for me in the long run.

I can’t wait to see where our money is actually going. I wonder if I’ll find that it hasn’t been going where I thought it had been this whole time. No matter where it’s going I want to save so that we can afford a nice vacation. Budgeting here we come!

May 17, 2014

Hello new car goodbye old car

My neighbor came over yesterday and told me that they wanted to buy a new car. They’ve been looking into sedans and suvs. She wants something that has plenty of space, good gas mileage and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. She told me they are going to send their old car on an auto transport to their son in California.

I asked her why she was going to ship it instead of driving it across the country. Apparently with the price of gasoline car shipping is actually cheaper than driving it yourself. If she were to drive it she would not only have gas fees, but also fees for hotel stays and food. These additional costs can add up quickly.

I bet her son is going to be thrilled when he goes to pick up the car from the car transport pick up location only 5 miles from his house. He’s been without reliable transportation ever since he got laid off last fall. My neighbor, Karen, is happy to help him and she gets a new car out of the deal too!