Category: General living

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Bulletproof Microphones

Since both of our parents were killed over five years ago now, my oldest sister is always stuck playing hostess for most of the major family holiday dinners and get-togethers. Since I am on my own and live the closest to her and her family it only makes sense for me to pitch in where the others really can’t manage to do for a variety of reasons, I try and help out in any way that I can.

Over Christmas it was mentioned that we should try doing some karaoke at the next family dinner, which just so happens to be Easter and that believe it or not,  is only a few short weeks away. My sister does have a karaoke machine but it’s been around the block a few times from the look of it and it doesn’t have the microphone that used to go with that particular karaoke machine. I have been looking at various microphones online in my spare time and have been totally surprised at how many microphones are really out there.

I think I finally decided on the right one, the sm57, but what freaked me out was in the description part of the add it boasts that it is bulletproof and how it stands up to road travel and abuse. Guess these are just an added bonus to the whole deal, I really don’t think anyone in my family would get that crazy during karaoke at my sisters on Easter, but in case they do I will know that the microphone will make it through all right! I can’t wait to share this story on Easter day with the family members that manage to find their way there this year.

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Paper Trade Account

This morning I am taking advantage of a nice quiet house, not that it is ever loud, to get online and learn more about the stock market. It seems to me that the huge decline in stocks these past several years or so has brought the price of many stocks down to a price point where there are good opportunities for smart investors. Four years ago if you told me to invest a couple thousand dollars into a handful of stocks, I would not have gotten much for money. The price per share would have been so high that I would not have many shares. Now that the price has dropped to what I call an adjusted level of reasonable price points, the challenge is to find the businesses that offer good value for the investment and that have a good to excellent chance of coming through this recession as a healthier, stronger company.

If you find the right companies for this investment strategy, you will be rewarded in a few years with rebounding share prices. A good friend told me about a web site that is an online stock broker and also a great learning tool. They have a great feature called a “paper trade account” so that you can play the market without risking real cash. Once you are comfortable with the results of your paper trading efforts, you can easily open a real account and manage your real shares. What a wonderful idea that I believe I am going to check out here real soon and would urge others to try out as well, just to get a good idea of how it all works before jumping in.

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The Right Kind of Bed For A Good Night’s Sleep

Sleep is such an important human condition. Sometimes I hate the way that our bodies require sleep – it is such a disruption to the day or night to have to stop and lie down for 6 hours. But a good night’s sleep is important to your health and ability to function well the next day. On a good night, I might be able lie down for 8 hours. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept longer than 8 hours uninterrupted. Most night’s I’m good with between 6 and 8 hours of good sleep.

There are several considerations to a good night’s sleep and one of the most important is a comfortable, supportive bed. This becomes even more important as our bodies grow and mature, with our skeleton and muscles needing proper support and rest. The right bed can mean the difference between a completely relaxing and sound sleep, or a night of tossing and turning with fits of wakefulness. I have had my eye on certain pieces of new furniture that I would like to replace or add to this household. In my opinion, the most important room in the house is the master bedroom. Everything else in a house can be replaced or substituted outside of the home, but the one main reason a man comes home at night is so that he can climb into his own bed.

Shopping for a new bed is worth a little time and effort to find the right bed, considering how important the bed is to a good night’s sleep. I found a web site called www.time4sleep.co.uk with all kinds of bed types – a large variety of styles and different types of beds for every home or person. My favorite beds on this site are the storage beds. There are different types of storage options and they make the bed very practical. Since the bed takes up so much space in the room, it makes total sense to me to make good use of the space under the bed to store items not used often. These beds make storage either attractive or hidden, at a cost similar to beds without the storage features.

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The New Video Chat Lights

My sister has been talking up the video chats to me, that so many people are using and enjoying, saying that I should start looking into getting on to a few video chat rooms, just to be able to socialize a bit. I have been blowing her off with every excuse that I can think of, most of them were true though. I am super busy around here taking care of everything that needs to be done all on my own. At the end of the day I’m pretty beat and not in the mood to go anywhere except to the kitchen, the living room and then to bed.

Since I do spend so much alone time, it certainly does get lonely. The holidays are always the worst so I think I just might check into some of the sites that my big sis has been telling me about. But first I want to look into the video chat lights that are out that helps make your video image look more pleasing. I need all the help that I can get. I’m just a farmer, not at all fancy like and haven’t worn anything but jeans in well over 6 years! Just stating a fact.

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Hot Apple Cider

This is fast becoming the type of day where a nice hot cup of apple cider, with a shot of some spiced rum will taste mighty good. I was all set to make myself a cup when I noticed that it wasn’t even noon yet and decided that I should wait a few more hours at least before indulging. I’m not a serious drinker what so ever, but on cold and wet days such as this, it sure would be a nice treat and certainly only one shouldn’t be an issue. Some warmth on the inside sounds like heaven at this point.

For the most part I rely on hot coffee, but some times a guy needs to switch it up and I’ve never really been into drinking hot tea, even though they have a trillion different varieties and flavors out there on the market these days.  So a hot cup of apple cider once in a while is a nice change of pace with or without the spiced rum. Of course after dinner while kicking back on the sofa watching a game or the news a nice cold beer always tastes good no matter what the weather is like outside.

 

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Burn Baby Burn

The one thing that I would really enjoy and appreciate getting for Christmas this year is a carhartt jacket. I spend so much time outside during the freezing cold winter months and my old trusty jacket really needs to be trashed, better yet burned. Besides it doesn’t have a hood, which is pretty darned important since having to wear a hat around here is just a pain in the rear especially since hats seem to not to want to stay on my head where as a hood generally stays in place. Could never figure out why though……

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Happy Birthday Sis!

Today my sister claims to have celebrated her last birthday, as she has no interest in turning 60 next year. This has been a wacky year for birthdays. A lot of turning points are being approached and I guess it is sinking in that we are all getting older and there isn’t a darned thing that we can do about it.

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Comments

I was surprised when I logged into my blog today to see that I had 118 spam comments waiting for me to approve or mark as spam.  I don’t really understand why I am getting so many spam comments, and why those folks are thinking that their comments will get approved – their comments aren’t even relevant to the posts they are commenting on!  What a crazy world we live in!  Well folks, comments are moderated, and are not approved if they are not relevant to the post.  Sorry to rain on your parade!

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The Circle of Life

Since I grew up on a farm, I learned at a young age how to hunt, and all about the “circle of life,” as they put it. It was instilled upon us all how important the treatment of animals were, along with the need to use God’s creatures as a way to keep us alive with their meat, as well as their hides and other body parts for many other necessary usages.

We grew up with many fire arms around and learned how to shoot and clean each weapon along the knowledge of which was used for what reasons. I didn’t get to do much hunting this fall, due to all of the work that is now placed on me and me alone around the farm, but I did manage to go twice and I did bring home some nice venison to eat during the winter months. It had been a while since I had gone hunting, but I enjoyed getting away from all the daily duties around the place, and was glad that the time spent away from the place was productive, and not all just entertainment.

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The Traveling Ministers

I’m not big on going to church; but I am a spiritual person.  I will say that prayer hasn’t helped me much, though.  I’ve been getting annoyed at the frequent visits by certain religious groups that come knocking on my door wanting to convert me to their own religions.  I don’t feel right pushing my religious beliefs on anyone else, and I really don’t appreciate other people trying to push their beliefs on mine.

Don’t get me wrong, the people are polite and passive enough, but just getting up to answer the door to find someone who wants to bear witness to me about their religion is a very aggravating thing.  Although not as annoying as the people wearing orange sheets selling carnations at airports used to be!  I do wish their religions would alter their ministry methods, I find their methods quite intrusive.