I admit it

Okay, you caught me, I’m blond and sometimes it’s hard to keep me on one subject, ya know?  My mind goes from one thing to another so fast sometimes I can’t even keep up with it but I usually come back to what I started with before you know it too. See we get a lot of ‘city folk’ as we call them and they can’t leave their laptops home because they think their lives will end if their hands aren’t attached to their laptops so the local businesses provide wireless internet to make them happy. Gotta do what you can to bring the customers in and keep them happy and coming back.

Throwing a Halloween bash

My friends and I are having a Halloween bash!! The place is all decorated in spooky stuff, have a hay ride through a spook trail, bobbing for apples, and a best costume contest to boot. It all starts at dark and the whole community is invited. Well most of it anyway.

I’m Scarlet O’Hara of course, Grace is a clown, Celeste is Snow White and Little Joe is one of the seven dwarfs, Happy!! He’s always smiling so Happy fits him perfect. All the adults have to bring a big bag of candy to help with the candy we give out to the kids that come by Trick-or-Treating and other than that, the party is free.

Hey, if you’re in the mountains of North Carolina, stop by and see us. I promise you’ll have a blast. Don’t forget to come in a costume!!!

Pumpkin Patch Hunting

Today I went to the local Pumpkin Patch and hunting the most perfectly round big pumpkin I could find. I had a large one last year that was taller than it was round and it carved really nice. But I wanted something different this year.

The pumpkin patch had the pumpkins grouped by size. The really big ones were $40! Wow! I couldn’t believe that people are willing to spend $40 on a pumpkin that they don’t even eat – they just carve it and set it outside to decorate their porch.

The one I decided to buy was beautiful and I only paid $25. I think I could have found one cheaper, but this is a charity sale for the church youth group. I figured that since Halloween is supposed to be a holiday for the kids anyway, that supporting a youth group with my money was the right thing to do.

Happy Labor Day weekend

Well it looks like it’s going to be a great Labor Day weekend The weather is supposed to be warm and sunny, and we have been invited to my brother’s house to hang around his pool and enjoy some grilled burgers and chicken. We plan to bring a nice grape salad to chip in with the food.

I hope that each and every one of you has a safe and happy Labor Day. Unfortunately it’s also the sign of Autumn beginning but that’s okay. All things must change!!

Lock your car doors

Geoff was telling me that he wants to buy a new 18 subwoofer because someone stole his old one last weekend out of his car. He’s pretty upset about it, but I am having a really hard time refraining from scolding him for leaving his car unlocked overnight. He’s always been adamant about how he lives in a safe area and he never has to lock his doors. I hope now he will start locking his doors from now on!

Shop Smart

Made in USA (free clip art)
Made in USA (free clip art)
Whenever making a purchase of an item that I plan to use for a long time, I try to perform what my engineering son likes to call “due diligence.” By that, I mean I will spend quite a bit of time finding out as much as I can about the product. I want to “shop smart” so as to not waste my money on a product that will not perform the way I want it to perform. I will try to find, and Read Full Review material on the product, do some comparison shopping online for it, and even check and see if there have been any complaints or recalls on the item.

In this day and age, I also try to buy American-made products, to support our economy. If we don’t help keep our country working, our taxes will end up going up to support the unemployed! And between you and me, I’d rather not join the ranks of the unemployed, so I always try to keep that in mind as well!

Lots of Summer Vegetables Available

Guest post by Louise Stratham

I wish there was a Farmer’s Market close to my house. I don’t know of any except the one downtown, and I hate to drive downtown. I end up spending an extra $10 in gas to go all the way downtown and an extra $10 to the trip for paid parking. So the cost of fresh vegetables is already $20 before I even pick out the first one.

The last time I went to the Farmer’s Market, the price of vegetables was not any cheaper than what I can buy at Kroger grocery stores. I’m not sure there is much advantage to shopping at Nashville’s Farmer’s Market other than you are supporting local farmers and local businesses rather than a big grocery store chain like Kroger and whatever farms they decide at a corporate level to buy from.

There is a little place on the side of the road that sells fresh vegetables and fresh flowers on Lebanon Road. I don’t usually take Lebanon Road to go anywhere, but when I know I am going that way, I usually stop and buy a few things. I went by there yesterday and found lots of summer vegetables. They are a little cheaper than Kroger and the owner tells me that all the produce is grown locally. So I don’t mind supporting this guy and his wife.

I tried to grow some tomato plants on my patio, but they did not produce much. The tomatoes are so small and colored funny that I ended up throwing them out. It was nice to find a fresh picked, field grown tomato at the vegetable stand. One slice of their tomato covers the entire piece of bread! So I enjoyed a fabulous tomato and mayo sandwich last night. And I’ll have another one tonight for dinner, with a couple pieces of bacon and some lettuce on top.

Happy 4th of July

fireworks (free clip art)
fireworks (free clip art)
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. 

Where is the sax?

Saturday at the street dance and concert that my kids and I went to, the band was playing a song about how much they love the saxophone, and I could swear that I heard the saxophone playing, but darn if I could see anything that looked like a saxophone anywhere on the stage! This perturbed me greatly, as my uncle used to play a mean sax, and I was thinking about talking to him later about the concert and the song about the saxophone! It wasn’t until my brother was telling me about the cheap buy used yamaha wx5 sale at guitar center event that I realized that there are other instruments being used in this day and age that can mimic the sound of the saxophone, and the trumpet, and other wind instruments.

I felt amazed, and yet cheated, at the same time. Isn’t modern technology amazing? And how sad for the many talented musicians that are now out of jobs because machines can mimic what they took years and years to learn how to do! I think that I would prefer to see the genuine saxophone musician wailing on his sax – it provides a much better theatrical performance!

Street Musician Plays The Tuba

I saw one of the most inserting things today on my lunch break. I went out to lunch and enjoyed it outside on the patio. While I ate my lunch a man walked up near the patio, sat down and opened up a case. He pulled out a beautiful tuba and started playing some of the most peaceful music I have ever heard.

It was so interesting to see a street musician playing a tuba. It’s really not the instrument I would ever guess to see some one carry around to just start playing in a random location.  However, that made the experience all the more special because it was so unexpected.