04-26-2013   2 comments

It appears that I’m finally on the mend from this damn virus that’s been kicking my ass for the last week. I still sound like someone’s gravely voiced uncle but I can live with that for a few more days. Being sick is a triple curse for me.  First your sick as a dog, second your stuck in the house usually in bed, and thirdly you can’t stop coughing.  You can only read so much before you’re forced to watch television and there’s the rub. It’s like being shot and then hung.

These last few days have convinced me to consider canceling our TV service when the current contract expires.  I can’t take the endless commercials and the low caliber of programming that has slowly been turning my mind and everyone else’s to mush. I’ve had it with all of the “redneck” programs that make all of us look like effing hicks to the rest of the world.  It’s ironic that the program that supplied me with the information needed to cancel my subscription,  I saw on TV. 

I remember back in the day when cable TV was a new novelty.  The way it was initially sold was an ad campaign that was total and absolute BS.  It was called "Pay TV" then and we were all assured for a small monthly fee we would be commercial free forever.  Then slowly but surely the fees began to grow, the commercials returned in a big way, and all of a sudden it’s costing me upwards of one hundred and fifty dollars a month for viewing programming that is almost fifty percent commercials.

When I began approaching retirement I decided to simplify by life.  I got rid of my old land-line telephone, all of my premium channels, and returned to just a basic cable package.  The cable company then added surcharges and taxes which brought my monthly figure almost back where it started before I cancelled the premium channels.

Then I moved in with my better-half who was burdened with an almost $200.00 a month bill of her own.  We immediately took steps to reduce our combined bill but Time Warner is a devious enemy.  We reduced everything back to basic cable but with our Internet charges we were still paying over a hundred dollars a month.  The cable companies claim it’s impossible to offer a menu type system where you order the channels you really want and aren’t forced to pay for thirty or forty you never watch.  How convenient.

We cancelled a large portion of our package but since it changed our "bundling" (the newest word used to screw all of us) they couldn’t lower our costs all that much.  After it was all said and done we were still paying $110.00 a month after the surcharges and BS fees were added.  We were both unhappy with the results of our efforts so we cancelled all of our Time Warner’s services except for the broadband Internet.  We then subscribed to the Dish network for two years and were initially charged an introductory price of $38.00 a month for one year.  They told me that after the first year the monthly price would be increased somewhat.  The first year passed and the price increased with fees and surcharges to $68.00 per month.  I’d call that more than substantial.

Arguing with cable companies is useless.  They have their own agenda which is to get as much money from us as they possibly can and believe me, nothing else matters.  I think a reasonable price for Internet and basic cable should be no more than $85.00 a month with fees and surcharges.  Any more than that is just highway robbery.

We’ve reached the point where desperate times call for desperate measures.  At the end of our current contract with Dish we’ll be canceling the satellite cable package and retaining only the Internet service from Time Warner.  We’ve decided to then subscribe to Netflix ($9.99 a month) for an endless selection of movies and Hulu Plus ($7.99 a month) for almost any TV programming we’d like to see.  Our total cost at that point will be approximately $57.97 a month, well within what we consider a reasonable cost.  Another added plus is that almost all commercials programming will disappear from our life.

This is a trend that seems to be happening everywhere by many of us.  It gives the old saying “vote with your feet” new meaning.  If enough people walk away from these cable monopolies then changes will occur and prices will begin dropping.

04-25-2013   2 comments

You are disgusting!  I wish I had a dollar for ever time someone has said that to me.  Normally it’s a women who has been raised and brainwashed into believing that all men are the most crude and disgusting animals on the planet. I understand their feelings to a point but I hate people who broad brush groups with facts that may or may not be true.

I don’t find myself any more or any less disgusting than most women.  As human beings our entire everyday existence is disgusting.  I’m about to lay some facts on you that you’ve probably never heard.  You women out there who insist that men are more disgusting than women, pay attention. We get out of bed every morning just like you and go about our life doing all the little normal things that you do.  We brush our hair, we sleep in a bed, we go to the bathroom, and a thousand other things that all of us humans pay little or no attention to.  If you’re one of those obsessive/compulsive folks with issues about germs and dirt you might want to stop reading now.  This is sure to upset you more than just a little.  And ladies, after reading the following list you may have to rethink calling us men disgusting.  All human beings are disgusting in one way or another including yourselves.

  • An average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 pubic hairs.
  • Most of the dust underneath your bed is actually your own dead skin.
  • A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day.
  • A toothbrush within 6 feet of a toilet can get airborne bacteria from flushing.
  • According to U.S. FDA standards, 1 cup of orange juice is allowed to contain 10 fruit fly eggs, but only 2 maggots.
  • An average adult produces about half a liter of flatulent gas per day, resulting in an average of about fourteen occurrences of flatulence a day.
  • Every day, the average person swallows about a quart of mucous.
  • More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a typical French kiss.
  • One in three motorists pick their nose while driving.
  • The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
  • There are more bacteria in your mouth than there are people in the world.
  • You inhale about 700,000 of your own skin flakes each day.
  • On a daily average you will inhale 1 liter of others anal gasses.
  • An average person will consume 12 pubic hairs in their fast food annually.
  • If you swim one hour in a public pool you will intake 1/12 liters of urine.
  • Diarrhea induced E.Coli was found on 10% of coffee mugs in the U.S.
  • Annually you will shake hands with 6 men who have recently masturbated and did not wash their hands.
  • Through contact with door knobs, counter tops, and other daily objects your hand will come in contact with 15 penises a day.

I think I’ve made my point in as a disgusting way as I can.  Everyone now stand up near your computer, laptop, tablet, or smart phone and repeat after me.  WE ARE ALL DISGUSTING!  Thank you for your attention.

04-25-2013   Leave a comment

Just as a common courtesy I thought I’d let everyone know that as I ended yesterday’s posting I was hoping and praying for a really sexy massage but a little worried about a threatened enema.  I received neither and on one hand I’m happy and the other hand not so much.  It was an all or nothing deal and I had to turn it down because I’m chicken.

It’s always been that way for me.  it’s never someone just offering me a nice kiss on the cheek but someone promising that kiss then kicking me in the balls as well.  Carrot and stick all at the same time.  If you can avoid that situation I would highly recommend it.

Since I’m still under the weather I’ll spend my day today on the computer continuing the sorting and cataloging of my photographs.  I’ve almost completed the job which has taken just about forever but ever time I return home with my camera I have another hundred or so photo’s to review and sort. And no I don’t keep everything.  If I take a hundred photos from my camera I may keep twenty-five.  A quick skim through them usually reveals very quickly which ones just suck and have no real value.

My standard routine is to take at least four shots of every photograph.  It still amazes me how much difference takes place in just a second or two from the last one.  As a general rule the very first snap usually is the keeper.  Not always but more often than not.  It just goes to show that my first thoughts and actions  in that specific moment were correct, most of the time.

I may spend a little time today playing with my Photoshop program.  I normally don’t edit my photographs because I want them exactly as they were when taken.  I’ll on occasion edit a few as a novelty and print them up for friends and family but in my opinion untouched photo’s are always the way to go. I’m still something of a novice with Photoshop but it’s fun to play around with which can only increase my proficiency.

I’m hoping by tomorrow I’ll be permitted  to leave the house.  Just between you and me, regardless of the warden’s wishes, I’ll be getting out of here for a few hours.  A little fresh air can only help and even if it doesn’t, so what. I have to admit that I’m a terrible patient and even though my better-half is trying to help I still can occasionally be a  pain in the ass.  Hard to believe I know.

Well, tomorrow is another day with the promise of sunny weather, a quick and undetected escape from this house, and freedom, freedom, freedom.

04-23-2013   2 comments

This has been a slow news day for me.  I was so excited to complete my room remodel that I celebrated a little too much and got stupid a whole lot. The sun was shining, the temperature was in the high sixties, and I was on the deck catching some rays and loving life.  Portions of our deck are protected from the wind so I was hot and sweaty  in the sun but then when the wind shifted the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees.  I didn’t let it phase me or so I thought.

Last night at nine I started feeling a bit flushed and then a little clammy.  Right as I was going to bed I felt that well known indicator of bad things to come, a scratchy throat.  I hoped and prayed I was wrong but I knew I wasn’t. At three in the morning I woke up coughing and with a light fever.  At four I was awakened because I was having difficulty breathing from congestion in my head and chest.  It was quickly becoming a really bad day.

I seem to have lost the good health battle to a rather fast moving virus of some sort. I honestly don’t think it’s the flu because of the speed at which it’s progressing.  I’ve been low on energy all day today and been doing all of the normal run-of-the-mill remedies to help myself through this.  Lots of liquids, rest, an occasional throat lozenge, and a few Tylenol.  It’s now four in the afternoon and things are status quo.

I hate being sick and confined to bed but my better-half (the female warden of this prison) has laid down the law.  I’m in freaking jail with no chance of parole at least until the fever breaks.  I’ll only be allowed out to play with the other kids after I start feeling better and when I stop being a whinny baby (her choice of words, not mine).

So this posting will lack my normal sarcastic bent because my head hurts and I’m in dire need of a lengthy but loving back rub. The warden says if I’m good I can watch some TV and she’ll make me some chicken soup.  Screw the soup, I want a really detailed and thorough sponge bath with all the trimmings.  It would lower my rising temperature, clean my filthy body, and give me a cheap thrill or two if she does it just right.

So that’s it for today.  I can see the warden heading my way with that Nurse Ratched look on her face.  I hope she’s not going to try that enema thing again. LOL

04-22-2013   2 comments

Well today is the day when the ever-so-lame Earth Day is celebrated. I’ve never celebrated this day the same way I don’t recognize or celebrate Kwanza.  All you "Greenies" out there can get as excited as you like today but not me or mine. 

Her are a few facts about how Earth Day was started and by the POS who was responsible.  Read and learn all you Green fools about one of your demi-gods who cared more for the planet than the life of an innocent women.

I’ve been around since the inception of Earth Day by Ira Einhorn and his half-assed hippy movement and while some of the initial ideas were valid concerning abuses of the environment it has now evolved into a semi-religious movement with goals and political aims that go way too far and are harming the country. Everything green becomes more important than life itself.  The movement has no respect about another persons property rights, their jobs, or the devastating effect many of the stupid EPA laws have had on unsuspecting citizens and businesses.

As in any movement you must look at the leader for his ideas and credibility.  Einhorn to me is just a stone-cold killer who thinks the laws of society don’t apply to him.

Ira Samuel Einhorn, a.k.a. “The Unicorn Killer” (born May 15, 1940), is a convicted murderer, and American activist of the 1960s and 1970s. He is now serving a life sentence for the 1977 murder of Holly Maddux.

How many Earth Days has “Holly Maddux” missed since she was beaten to death by Einhorn, stuffed into a trunk, and stuck in a closet.  It took more than twenty years to find, arrest, return him to this country, and convict him.

To quote the murderer: “Underlying the themes of Earth Day is a call for mankind to align itself with nature, and against itself, enlisting human beings to take part in a battle that seeks to place humanity under the control of an enlightened elite, one that values the interests of nature above that of people.

If your interested click here to learn more about the case:

IRA EINHORN’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

04-21-2013   2 comments

This is the day to celebrate.  My remodeled room is for all intents and purposes completed.  I’ll be adding all the pretty little bells and whistles over the next few weeks like a new fan, outlet covers, a closet organizer, and a new heater cover but the tough stuff is done.  It’s been a long winter working on this room but I succeeded in getting it done on time and within budget.  All of you will also be glad to know that I won’t be boring you with any further bitching and complaining about it,  a Win/Win for us all.

In order to celebrate this accomplishment my better-half came up with a perfect solution. She felt it was necessary to make the rounds of area antique shops to look for a few things to put in the new room.  Since this room was remodeled primarily for her use she desperately needed one large piece of furniture and a number of smaller decorative items. Who was I to argue?

We didn’t go very far from home for our first stop and while I’m not a big shopping fan I entered the building with the best of intentions.  It was filled to the brim with just about everything you could think of making it a long drawn out effort to see everything in one short visit.  I may not be a career shopper like my better-half but I can still spot a good item from a distance.  I saw a small desk that must have been close to eighty years old being used to display many other smaller items.  Since we both decided we would be decorating the room a little more eclectically, I thought it would make an excellent vanity for all her lotions, jewelry, and the ton of other female accessories she owns.  Normally when I make these kinds of suggestions, she will just smile, pat me on the head, and tell me it’s just not her style.

She stood there for five minutes checking it out.  Without saying a word she walked around it, touched it, smelled it, and then told me to measure it.  She walked away to another area of the store to look at something and said nothing further.   I measured the desk, she nodded, but continued her shopping. I figured that was an unspoken "No thank you".

Then I was dragged nearby to look at a 1955 era dinette set.  It had an oval table, four chairs and a leaf to extend the length of the table.  I love Retro but I didn’t think she’d be all that interested in that sort of thing.  This dinette set was in almost new condition and would fit perfectly in our kitchen’s breakfast nook.  She had me measure the table size and when I was finished we walked to the main checkout area to talk with the store’s owner.  In five minutes she talked the owner into dropping the price of the dinette set fifty bucks and then told the women we were going home to do a few room measurements but would return shortly.

We drove to our house, took the required measurements, and immediately returned to the store.  We bought both items without any further discussion and after a couple of trips later had everything back at our home.  To say I was stunned is a huge understatement.  I’ve known her for more years than I like to admit but this was the very first time she made this kind of decision in such short order.  Her usual decision making process is to not make a decision.  Over the years on a number of occasions we missed out on really good buys because she wanted to wait and think about it for a while.  We’d return the next day and find the items purchased and gone.

In my opinion any progress made in these matters is a good thing.  It was a huge shock to see her so taken with something that she could deny her urge to wait. It’s nice to know that no matter how well or how long you know someone, they can still surprise you.

It was a great day, we made two excellent purchases, and we’ll be enjoying them for years to come.  Good for us.

04-20-2013   Leave a comment

Everyday seems like an adventure to me and not always in a good way. I constantly people watch like everyone else but most things that make me the craziest occur in retail stores, specifically at the checkouts.  I worked for retail companies for almost twenty years and hated every minute of it. Companies are always preaching "Good Customer Service" but it never seems to happen.  The reason is simple.  You need good people as customers to start with.  Here’s a partial list of recent things that make me want to scream and run from the building.

  • Store Checkout Lines – Just once I’d love to get into a checkout line and be rung out immediately and leave smiling and happy.  I’ve been waiting for that for decades but it never seems to occur.   It’s always the wrong lane for me.  I could have one guy in front of me with six items and as soon as I line up behind him the cashier has to page for a price check or has to send an employee back into the store for a price because no one responded to the damn page. If it’s like this for everyone else then we have an even a bigger problem than I first thought.
  • Express Lanes – Don’t even get me started.  Fourteen items or twenty items, it doesn’t matter how many. I guarantee the person in front of me will have fifty freaking items.  If you say something then you’re the asshole.  If you don’t then you end up being pissed off all day and taking it out on someone else either in another store or at home.
  • Line Jumpers – The store opens a new register when your third in line at a busy one.  Before you can react, the people five places behind you in your line dash to the new register. I have a new term for you to mull over, "Store Rage".  It’s these little things that begin to accumulate over the months and result in bigger and more interesting arguments at the most inopportune times.
  • English Speaking Cashiers – I love diversity as much as the next guy but you can’t hire people who don’t know the language of the customers they’re taking care of.  Simple right?  I guess not. Part of the problem is that out of every five cashiers hired, four either fail the background check or the drug test.
  • Chatty Cashiers – I hate to say this but they’re normally a chubby women in her fifties who wants to be everyone’s best friend and confidant.  She spends more time yakking about stupid stuff than checking your purchases out. Please, shut the hell up, smile, and get me the hell out of the store.
  • Stupid Customers- Don’t show up at the registers with a bunch of products that are either missing bar codes or price tags.  Don’t ask the cashiers to do price checks for you while there are twenty people in line behind you. Could someone be any more  ignorant?  It happens all the time.
  • Coupon Freaks – I love nothing better than being behind a women with forty items in her cart and a stack of thirty coupons that must be checked individually.  The only thing worse is when the cashier discovers that more than half of the coupons are outdated or the customer is trying to scam her using incorrect products.  Do your freaking shopping at three in the morning for God’s sake where you take all the time you like sorting through your bag full of coupons and the women with Food Stamps behind you can just wait. She’s probably just buying booze and cigarettes anyway.

I could continue this rant for another thirty paragraphs but I hope you’re getting my point.  This posting was prompted by my last twenty visits to Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, and a host of others.  I actually feel a lot better after venting like this but it’ll start building again as soon as I go shopping the next time.  I really don’ t anticipate any improvement so expect another posting just like this in September.  It’ll take that long to really piss me off again.

The straw that broke my back this time came to my attention from my better-half who still works for a major retailer.  She’s front-end manager who’s required to babysit a large group of girls (not women) in their late teens and early twenties who really don’t want to work.  They apparently live for drinking, partying, and screwing everyone they can get their hands on. The turnover is high as you’d expect but hiring really good employees is difficult when they pay slave wages.  They recently  hired a cashier who barely spoke English and who didn’t understand our monetary system.  And they wonder why their customers are outraged when a cashier can’t make the correct change even after the register tells her how much it is.

I won’t even start with my experiences with the bastards using cell phones and texting while I wait impatiently in line behind them.  Kill me I’m begging you. 

Thank God for Amazon, Ebay, and Internet shopping.

04-19-2013   2 comments

Another sunny and warm day here in Maine.  I’m already getting spoiled by all this good weather and it isn’t even May yet.  I wasn’t all that motivated today but after a couple of cups of good coffee I was raring to go. I had a few errands to run and decided to get them out of the way early.

I first made my way to my favorite book store to return a few paperbacks and to buy a few more.  When you read as much as I do it can get very expensive very quickly so a cute little store like this is a god send.  I returned five novels and repurchased six new ones for a grand total of $13.00.  As always I also get fifteen or twenty minutes of excellent and intelligent conversation at no cost.  It’s nice to find a person who is well read and can speak on almost any subject and keep it interesting.

After returning home with my bag of guilt, that once-a-month fast food sin I permit myself, I sat on the deck and ate a thick, greasy, juicy, luscious, and heartwarming hamburger. I can’t even explain what an evil pleasure it gives me along with some salty, oily, and scrumptious french fries.  You know when the slop your eating and clogging your arteries with is good when you‘re required to wipe your hands and arms to remove the excess salt and oil. Soooooo effing good!

After partaking of my weaknesses for bad food the guilt was almost unbearable (I did say almost). I decided as penance that I needed to do something worthwhile today which led me to the workshop for primer and painting supplies.  I primed a section of my remodeled room, got paint all over me, and then said the hell with it.  I cleaned up, took a shower, and settled into the living room with my X-Box. Nothing like a couple of hours of roaming through the world of Harry Potter to relax a person.  It was great as always.

My better-half came home from work and surprise, surprise, neither of us felt much like cooking.  Into the car and off to our favorite sports bar, The Strike Zone.  It just so happened to be “all you can eat” haddock night.  So in the spirit of the moment we sat there with a couple of good drinks and stuffed ourselves with all the haddock we could eat and it was incredible.  There was one low point to the evening which will require me to drop a note to the chef on my next visit.  They have the absolute worst coleslaw I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.  Any person serving coleslaw that tastes that bad should be beaten and then arrested and then have his ass kicked again.

I wish I could be a kinder and gentler person but but when someone screws up my coleslaw it really pisses me off. I think I may need some food style anger management.

04-18-2013   2 comments

For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by death.  While in the service and during my years as a police officer I was forced to see a great deal of it.  I’m unshockable by death itself but not in the ways in which  some people exit this reality.

I’ve been a big fan of the annual Darwin Awards for decades because they highlight the funny and odd ways people die.  It’s not really macabre because humor makes dealing with almost anything easier.  The Darwin Awards pick out a few selected incidents each year and give a fairly graphic description of their stupid, funny, and sometimes ironic deaths.  I guess my one wish would be to die in any fashion that keeps me off their list.  Dying in a stupid or embarrassing manner is just not acceptable.

I always knew there were many deaths that the Darwin people chose not to publicize so I decided to do some research of my own.  Here are a few that caught my attention even though they didn’t make the cut for Darwin. They are from many countries and cover many decades of time.

  • In New Orleans in 1985 a guest at a party for lifeguards celebrating their first drowning-free swimming season in memory drowned Tuesday, the director of the New Orleans Recreation Department said today. Madlyn Richard, the department director, said the body of Jerome Moody was found on the bottom at the deep end of a department pool as the party ended. She said Mr. Moody, who was 31 years old, was not a lifeguard, but four lifeguards were on duty at the party.
  • Jim Fixx died in 1984 (ironically his arteries were plugged with too much cholesterol). He left a legacy of thousands of joggers and runners that he introduced to the pleasures and benefits of jogging and the sport of running. His book, The Complete Book of Running, became a best seller among running books. When Jim first took up running in the 1960’s, he weighed 220 lbs. By the time his book was published, he had trimmed down to 159 lbs, and was an accomplished runner.
  • An ice cream truck driver in Thailand died while laughing in his sleep. Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes yesterday and then stopped breathing, the Nation newspaper reported. Damnoen’s wife tried to wake him but he kept laughing. An autopsy suggested that he might have had a heart attack. "I have never seen a case like this. But it is possible that a person could have heart seizure while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep," said Dr. Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director-general of the Mental Health Department.
  • A 38-year-old lawyer with the Toronto law firm of Holden Day Wilson, did indeed plunge to his death from the 24th floor of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower in front of several horrified witnesses. The firm’s spokesperson said “He was testing the strength of the window. There was a lot of joking about how the window wouldn’t open on a hot day. Apparently, it was the second attempt [at testing the window] that one of them popped out and he went through."
  • A church organist was found dead at his Teesside home naked inside a giant plastic bag. Ian Kemp, 48, from Stockton, was found alone in his house bound by his wrists and shins, an inquest heard. A vacuum cleaner was also connected to the bag and it is believed Mr Kemp died after the machine had sucked all the air out of the bag.  Teesside Coroner Michael Sheffield said such incidents were sometimes connected to sexual gratification.
  • "Escape artist The Amazing Joe Burrus, a recovering drug addict, wanted to give back to society by performing a Houdini-like stunt for a rehab-clinic benefit in 1990. For the act, he was covered under six feet of dirt and wet cement in a locked coffin while bound in chains and handcuffs. After the nine tons of glop were poured on, the coffin collapsed and Burrus was buried alive."
  • Brent Tyler and Chelsea Tumbleston (both 21) worked together as waiters at the Wild Wing Café in Columbia, South Carolina. Now this is the Deep South: You must understand that here, lovebirds follow strict courtship rituals. Brent told Chelsea she was pretty as a picture. Her heart a-pitter-patter, Chelsea told Brent he was a most worthy gentleman caller. Then they went for a midnight fuck on the roof. We know they waited to get naked until reaching the building’s metallic pyramid-shaped roof because their clothes were found there. Their nude bodies were not so lucky, discovered lifeless on the street 50 feet below.

I recently had someone tell me in conversation that death by fire was a “terrible way to go”.  I think he was full of it because in my humble opinion there is no good way to go. I’ve had people tell me they’d prefer to die while making love. Sorry, I’ll pass on that one too.  I never want to die no matter what the circumstances.  I plan on going kicking and screaming all the way.

04-17-2013   Leave a comment

My drywall frustration continued again today shortly after I started priming the ceiling.  I’m enough of a realist to understand that no matter how hard you try it’s almost impossible to do a remodeling  project in an old house that is just perfect.  I accepted that fact and decided early on I would deal with those problems as they occurred. Well, they did.

I purposely made the decision to for this to be a winter project and to take as much time as necessary to do it right.  From the first that freaking ceiling was a problem.  It wasn’t level and the room wasn’t square but I fixed each issue as best I could and proceeded on. In my heart I knew that no matter what there would be certain areas I could never get perfect.

As soon as I began painting today I discovered a new drywall rule of thumb.  Everything good is really bad and everything bad is really good. Every area that I was concerned with turned out perfect and the two areas I was worried the least about became the biggest problems. One area couldn’t be  properly fixed and will require additional repair work once the remainder of the room is completed. It’s just so damn frustrating.

Enough with the damn remodel.  I finally made my way outside and it was the most gorgeous day so far this month.  I managed to complete some of the yard cleanup, chatted with a neighbor or two, and cleared my head of remodeling issues.  After my better-half arrived home from work we sat down and began to plan the garden.  What and where we should plant, buying additional soil to fill the frames, and a possible expansion of the garden to allow her to plant thirty of forty of the larger species of sunflowers.  It was an hour well spent that will make this year’s garden preparation less of a challenge.

One of our neighbors stopped by and he really has a bad case of garden/spring fever.  Over the past few summers he and his wife created a basic home garden and discovered how much they enjoyed it. This year their two young daughters, ages five and seven, are becoming more involved.  The girls are are ready to jump into things immediately and  have already started a few seeds and can’t wait to get a little dirty with their mom and dad in the garden.   It should a great summer for all of us exchanging gardening tips and canning techniques.  I’m looking forward to my first visit from his girls to talk about our gardens.  They’re too cute to be believed.

My book reading goal was reached last night when I completed both my sci-fi and non-fiction novels.  I read well into the night and had a great time in the process.  Now I can finish the third book at my leisure and take a little time to properly enjoy it. 

Slowly but surely I’m making progress.

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