Hey Noreen » Around Here

Baby Shower

Noreen — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:59:49 +0000

Everyone around me is having babies. Nothing makes you feel so old as seeing everyone else pushing baby strollers and realizing that pushing strollers was something you did over 30 years ago. I have to go to another baby shower next weekend. I might as well stock up on baby gifts and keep them at the ready.

The Fourth on the Lake

Noreen — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:04:01 +0000

This year we are celebrating the fourth of July on the Lake. We have food, swim rings, bug spray and a great spot on the beach with a view of the fireworks. I miss watching the big show in Washington DC at the monument, but this show lasts 20 minutes and we don’t have to fight the crowds of people. It’s much more peaceful and refreshing to be at the Lake.

Can He Dance?

Noreen — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:51:51 +0000

A group of women were chatting about a guy we all know. He seemed like the perfect man, by his own accounts. He claims to cook gourmet meals, has mastered housework and child care as a single parent with shared custody, has a ton of money from extensive education and a prosperous career, respects women. What more could we ask?

Well, I asked if he can dance and he reluctantly admitted that, no, he has never bothered to learn to dance.

Everyone left the discussion, bitterly disappointed. The search continues.

New Year Hopes

Noreen — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:43:54 +0000

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful New Year. I truly hope that 2009 is a year of great change and prosperity for my family and friends.

Love, good health, and peace to all.

Noreen

Happy Halloween

Noreen — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:46:10 +0000

We always get several dozen kids ringing our doorbell on Halloween night, looking for handouts. I like to pass out the fun sized candy bars. I make sure that they are all peanut free because I know that a lot of people have allergies to peanuts. I put all of the goodies in a large bowl near the door and I let the kids reach in with one hand and grab a handful. If the kid is really little I’ll let the kid take two handfuls. By nine pm the porch lights go out and I head to bed, hoping that when we get up in the morning the mailbox will still be intact and the cars un-egged and unvandalized. So far we’ve been lucky; but some of our neighbors have not been so fortunate in years past. I guess the kids didn’t like their candy!

Silk flowers

Noreen — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:41:22 +0000

I happen to like silk flowers. They are pretty, and they are very realistic looking. Better than that, they never need watering and if they get knocked over there is no mess of a pile of dirt you have to clean up! And even better, the cats don’t eat the silk flowers and then puke them up on the sofa twenty minutes later! A while ago I was watching a decorating show on HGTV and the designer was saying that no matter how pretty the silk flowers are, artificial flowers are always tacky. Well, I disagree completely! I think they are wonderful!

Mashed potatoes

Noreen — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:38:02 +0000

I love potatoes with my supper. I love them just about any way you can fix them, boiled, baked, nuked, mashed, fried. Whatever you do, don’t try to take my potatoes away from me! For several years now I’ve been relying on the instant dehydrated potato flakes to make mashed potatoes for supper. They were fine with butter and gravy. Recently I got a coupon to buy Bob Evans brand of mashed potatoes (not the instant flakes) and I gave them a try. I have to tell you that I liked them so much it will be very hard to go back to ever using the flakes again! Boy, were they yummy!

Truffles!

Noreen — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:11:56 +0000

Have you ever eaten a “real” truffle? By that I mean the fungus? I never have – I’ve just eaten the candy “truffles.” I understand the the “real” truffles are more expensive than I could ever even think of eating! So I guess that’s one of those foods I’ll probably never get to try. Oh well…..

Home made bread

Noreen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:41:55 +0000

There is almost nothing better in this world than home made bread baking in the oven. I like to buy the frozen bread dough loaves at the store, and when I have the time at home I pull them out and cook a couple of loaves.

Today is such a day. I have two loaves of bread rising in the oven, and I should have them ready to eat with supper. Home made bread makes a plain meal a lot more “comfort food”-ish. No one in my house complains about supper when there is a freshly baked loaf of home made bread on the table!

Firewood falling from a truck

Noreen — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:07:10 +0000

My neighbor told me today that his car was struck by some firewood falling from the truck that he was driving behind. It did over $800 worth of damage! I’m glad it wasn’t me!

Pay Day Loans are in the news a lot

Noreen — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:52:43 +0000

While my nephew has been visiting, we have been talking about how some of his friends have been looking for ways to get their hands on some cash to help them make ends meet while they are in college. Some of them have had credit problems in the past, largely because they are college students and it is hard to go to school and make ends meet. I told him that they might want to check out the completeloansource.com website and see if they might be able to help them. They offer a lot of different types of loans for almost any need, including High Risk Personal Loans for Bad Credit, auto loans, debt consolidation and Pay Day Loans. I’ve been hearing a lot of articles on the news about how many people are using pay day loans lately to help make ends meet.

Nephew is visiting for the weekend

Noreen — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:47:55 +0000

I’m so excited that my newphew is coming for a visit! I’m looking forward to showing him around town!

Water filters

Noreen — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:10:00 +0000

I think we need to upgrade our water filter system. The water tastes too salty, and the water softener guy says there is nothing we can do about that. I don’t believe him, so I have to do some research on the issue.

Selling arts and crafts on Ebay

Noreen — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:46:16 +0000

My sister was telling me that she was thinking about starting to sell some of her arts and crafts work on Ebay. Lots of her friends have been encouraging to try to do that, insisting that she could make a killing doing that. She has several friends that DO make a lot of money on Ebay, and they have told her that they will help her with the red-tape if she has any problems or questions. Their enthusiasm has got her all pumped up about making money selling her crafts.

Towards that end, she is going to need to buy a Shipping Scale to help her to determine the postal rates of items that she will be offering for sale. Scales are vital because she needs to know how much the item weighs (including the shipping box and stuffing) in order to calculate the shipping charges that she will have to quote on Ebay. She has already accumulated enough boxes to get her started as far as that end goes, and she has lots of old newspapers saved up for stuffing the boxes.

I suggested that she try to find one that is compact so that she can tuck it away into her cupboard when she doesn’t need to use it.

Getting a nose job

Noreen — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:19:54 +0000

My sister needs to have her deviated septum in her nose fixed. The procedure is known by several different names; rhinoplasty, nose surgery, nose job are all names for the same procedure. (I think.) She’s been putting off having the procedure done because she is concerned about the discomfort level during the healing process. But she really needs to have it done; her deviation is so severe that it is causing her to have chronic sinusitis. She has a constant sinus headache, and is sniffling all of the time.

I am trying to encourage her to have the procedure done, I am sure that once it is done she will be much more comfortable the rest of her life. At this point in time every time she catches a cold it always turns into a sinus infection and she is miserable for weeks on end. Especially since she moved to a different state and her new doctor doesn’t want to give her the antibiotics that she needs to clear up the sinus infection. Last winter she was sick for four whole months because of that! So, she really needs this nose job. I’m going to try to get my girlfriend that had the surgery done last year talk to about it and see if it might calm her nerves about it.

Mosquitoes

Noreen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:38:32 +0000

The mosquitoes have been particularly bad this season; I suspect it is a result of all of the rain we had a while back. We’ve been trying to avoid going out during the mosquito feeding hours (sunrise and sunset) but they seem to be bad all day long the past couple of weeks. One of my neighbors told me that she had heard that there was a new breed of mosquitoes that is smaller than the “usual” ones that has stripes on it that feeds around the clock! Oh, lucky us!

What to eat, what to eat

Noreen — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:27:48 +0000

I have been trying so hard to be a good calorie, health conscious person who eats only the “good for you” foods. You know, fresh fruit, veggies, yogurt. that sort of thing. Well, today I went grocery shopping and for some reason the store was out of yogurt. I don’t have any idea why. Perhaps their cooler unit broke down and they all spoiled and had to be thrown out. It was weird. Well, I need SOMETHING to snack on during the day, so I decided that this “all out of yogurt” incident was a “sign” of some kind to give myself a break and buy something sinful for snacks this week. So I bought Little Debbie Nutty Bars instead. You know, the chocolate covered peanut butter wafer bars. I was surprised to see that they have the exact same number of calories as a container of yogurt! So I won’t feel quite as wicked when I eat them!

Ants

Noreen — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:23:54 +0000

For the past month we’ve had an invasion of little black ants in the kitchen. I blame it primarily on the fact that there are certain people who share this space with me who are total slobs. The make a mess with food and leave it there for me to clean up. Sometimes that mess stays there for many hours before I even see it because I’m either in bed sleeping or gone to work. So the ants have a huge picnic party at my kitchen counter due to the extreme laziness of certain other people.

I have always asked the other people to make sure they clean up their messes, and they all swear that they do clean up their own messes, so obviously someone is breaking into the house while I’m sleeping or working and making food messes in the kitchen to benefit the ants. Thankfully, no valuables like jewelry or computers or televisions have been stolen yet; only food items. I do think it’s very gutsy of the culprits to fix their food to eat and then eat it here and leave their dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the diswasher. Maybe I should put a big sign on all of the doors and windows asking the perpetrator(s) nicely to clean up after themselves.

I bought some ant traps about two weeks ago. At first I didn’t think that they were helping because it looked to me as if the ants were avoiding them. Maybe ant season has simply stopped (though I doubt it.) But the past two days I haven’t seen any ants, so that’s a good thing.

Learning a lot about blogging and marketing a business

Noreen — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:26:43 +0000

One of my sons is running a business, primarily through online marketing out of our home. I was reading the websiteoffice.com website page he left open on our machine today and was very interested to be learning a lot of stuff about the Internet and page rank and search engine optimization. This is a good reference for using the Internet to run a small business!

Custom embroideried sweatshirts

Noreen — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:04:42 +0000

I’m going to be going on a vacation this fall with a small group of friends. We’ll be going to Bar Harbor, Maine for the Columbus Day Weekend. We’re going there because the weather will be nice and the fall foliage will be at peak and we’ll be able to get off-season rates on the hotel rooms. We’ve agreed to order matching sweatshirts with custom embroidery on the shirts to commemorate the trip. We’ll be ordering them from the bluecotton.com website. My girlfriend says her office has ordered from them before and they were very pleased with the quality of the shirts and the embroidery.