Category: General living

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North Carolina Furniture

One of the things that I am determined to keep around this place is the north carolina furniture that my mother worked so hard to find and to purchase. Back in the day when there wasn’t the Internet to find and order items from, a person would have to travel a long way to find some things that you just could find locally.

My parents took several trips down to North Carolina to pick out the perfect living room furniture for mother to decorate this old house with. At least it wasn’t too long of a drive for them to handle and sometimes that would incorporate a visit with some distant relatives that lived down around that area as well.

Mother was looking forward to taking another trip down south to pick up some new furniture for the dining before they both passed on. One day I’ll get around to replacing the very old and well used and worn furniture in there myself. But right now I have other things to deal with and besides that old dining room table holds a lot of memories that I’m just not ready to part with.

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Firewood

In this heat it really sucks getting firewood ready to burn for the cold winter months that are ahead us shortly. With the price of electricity who the heck can afford to heat their homes with the rising costs involved. So I’m trying to be a bit pro active and getting what I can get done while I can.

cutting wood
Being pro active by chopping wood in July
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A Good Friend Gone Bad

I got a phone call last night from an old friend who called to tell me that a good friend of ours from back in the good old days had just passed away behind bars in the prison that he was serving time in for kidnapping. I had no idea that this guy was doing time and I certainly didn’t know that he was into kidnapping. I did know that he had done some time in the 90’s for robbing a bank, but I had thought that he had turned his life around, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

As much as this guy turned into a total waste of a human being, I still hate the thought that he died in prison. Plus his two children, who are adults at this point, will have to live not only with the thought of their father spending so much of their life doing time but his life ending alone and behind bars.

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Bugs Everywhere

As much as I try to handle pest control naturally, I am having a heck of a time dealing with bugs is year. The mosquitoes are particularly thick and ferocious. I cannot step off my porch after 4:00 in the afternoon without being attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.

Today I found a bunch of Japanese beetles all over the roses. I picked off most them but will have to check the roses every day now so they don’t get eaten up by the beetles.

The spiders have become very prolific, too. There were spider webs in all the shrubs and I even saw one big Black Widow crawling through the grass toward a tree. I had to kill that one – they are poisonous and hard to get rid of.

Times like these I wish we had more birds and snakes around the house to  eat and help eliminate all these bugs.

pests all the way around
Pests, Pests and More Pests
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Affordable Bass Tabs

Good that that the bass tabs aren’t as pricey as I first thought they would be. You see my sister’s youngest son, my nephew Jeff, is going to be celebrating his 16th birthday in the second week of July. We are throwing him a good sized party to celebrate the birthday of all birthdays.

Sixteen, old enough to be behind the wheel. Hopefully close to being out of high school and most guys start shaving and trying to deal with what to do with all the facial that is sprouting all over their face. LOL!

Two more years and you will be legal,  you can vote and join the military if that is your choice. Five more years you can legally drink. And it’s all down hill from there!

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Expensive Flat Tire

This morning started badly when I found that my tractor had a flat tire. So I had to take the flat off and take it into town and buy a new tire. I thought the tire was going to cost about $250, but I ended up having to also buy a new tube to put inside it, plus they charged to remove the old tire from the rim, and put the new tire on the rim.

When all was said and done, it ended up costing me $514.  And you thought farming was cheap! This is one crappy April Fools joke.

Tires for the tractor
Tractor Tire
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Trash Pick Up Changes

Even though I live out in a remote area we are lucky enough to have trash pick up provided to us each week. For as long as I can remember the trash was picked up on Monday morning. So each Sunday evening the trash goes out to the end of the long drive way.

This week there has been a change, instead of the usual Monday morning pick up, we have been notified that it will now be a Tuesday afternoon pick up. No big deal but it’s something that I have to adjust to after all these years.

It will be nice when they start offering the recycling items as well. They have been talking about this for several years. The wheels of justice turn so darned slow. Right now if you want to recycle items we have to take them to the recycling center that is over 45 minutes away from this place. What a pain, but if you want to recycle that is the only way to do it around here, for now.

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My Dream – A Gibson Les Paul

As much as I would like to think that on one of these Christmas mornings that I would wake up and find the awesome Gibson guitar that I have been drooling over for some time now, I don’t think that it will happen. First of all it is only me here at the farm, second is I don’t put up a Christmas tree anymore since it is only me here and third – no one has a clue that I would love to be able to play the guitar.

I have always wanted to play the guitar. I used to beg my parents to buy me a guitar, telling them that I didn’t need for them to pay for guitar lessons, that I would learn to play it on my own, it never came to be, which I never really understand. I come from a very musical family and if I couldn’t figure out how to play it on my own I would like to think that one or more of my relatives would certainly take the time to teach me a few things. Alas it never happened and most likely it never will as there really isn’t a lot of extra money for such luxuries these days and it doesn’t look like that will be changing anytime soon due to our lovely government and the election that just took place. But that is a subject for another time.

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The Issue of Surveys

Professional Quest is now offering software, with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and a 30 day free trial, that will help with many types of surveys. They are and “out of the box” solution for surveys that are such a valuable marketing tool for companies with their survey designs, distribution and analysis. Even offering an effective employee evaluation program as well as much needed and wanted market research.

There is a lot of competition out there and conducting the appropriate surveys have become a necessity in today’s market place. You can go to their website, Professionalquest.com and view a demonstration video to see what they are all about and what they have to offer.

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Looking Into Health Insurance

Now that Brandon is turning twenty four he has started looking for health insurance in nc. As most of us know, the health care system has turned into a huge nightmare all across the country. It seems like every month we are being told that there are cliches in the Affordable Heath Care act and their website, which isn’t helping the general population one bit.

One has to wonder when this will all be straightened out. As hard as it is on people looking for health insurance, I have to imagine how hard it is to be in the health insurance business. I have a good friend that is in the life/home/auto and health insurance business that I just might have to call and see how he is fairing throughout this whole mess.

He is a good guy, who opened his agency in 2008, right when the economy went south. He has two young kids, a new house with a mortgage and a business that he sunk everything he had into, that is just barely hanging on. It would be good to hear his voice again.