A walmart giveaway!

Check out $5 Dinner Mom - she has just gotten her Walmart Gift Cards that she won recently. I love her recipes too. Anyway as part of her post she has a fantastic giveaway for 2 $25 Walmart Gift Cards. Now who couldn't use a gift card to get whatever you want from Walmart? We have a few in the area here (sometimes I think they grew up like weeds), one of which has a great pantry area. Obviously food costs are unbelievably high right now - so I'd use it for that, but you could use it for anything.

Jump on over and see if you could be one of those lucky two ..... come on jump here - walmart giveaway

Oh Mr. Electric, where did you go?

Well, hopefully I am back again. I can't believe how much we rely on electricity. Well I can, but it really hit home yesterday.

When I left for work, we had electricity. I had put dinner in the crock pot so it would be waiting for us when I got home. (I love my crock pot this time of year) I got home around 5, since there wasn't too much to do yet (tax season always starts out slow) thinking I would have everything ready when the "troops" came walking in the door. Well I was in for a bit of a surprise, the house was dark! I mean really dark.

As I walked into the house, out of habit more than anything else, I flipped on the lights - nothing happened. Silly me thinks oh the bulbs must have burned out. WRONG. Then I thought ok we must have had an quick flash of outage and back on. WRONG again. The microwave had no time, the coffee pot had no time, the crock pot was NOT on warm.

So I call the electric company - and go through their long idiotic process of confirming who I was and that I had a total loss of power - and THEN they tell me there is an outage in my area. Now it use to be that the outage in your area was played first and that it was "already reported" so you didn't need to go through all the hoops to report your outage. They tell me that they "hope" to have the electric back by 8PM but it could go until 10AM tomorrow. Then I finally got a representative so that I could ask questions. I'm told that the first report "in the area" was at 10:55AM YESTERDAY ....... so of course I knew they had stupid information to give, and then they repeated the hope to have it back by ......... dissertation.

So I'm texting my son who had a class at 7 last night to see what he wanted to do. Dinner was "done" but wasn't overly hot, but was still hot. I said I could probably heat it on the stove (I use propane to cook, even inside) He says to me - I'll eat when I get home, and heat it up in the microwave. So I text him back "electric??". Then I get "uh yeah forgot".

We're still no sure what happened - but 2 days ago the winds were just so bad that it knocked down a tree about a half mile from us (but still basically on our road) that took out 4 (yes 4) electric poles. Now is this what they say was the cause - of course not - but I'm sure it had something to do with it.

So this morning I do have electric again (came back on last night) so I can check back at all the blogs I follow......and maybe post one of two here as well. At least that's the plan for today - as well as getting my "roots covered" and my hair cut, and getting some laundry done and vaccuming the downstairs ..... Oh please Mr. Electric don't go out again - I have too much to do today.

Quote of the Day

Since this is my 100th post I wanted something that would be "deep". Yeah I know "what is she thinking"? Or even " where's the 100th post giveaway"? Well that one needs to wait until AFTER tax season since my blogging time will be limited. BUT this is a wonderful quote that when we think about it - tells us to STOP worrying about tomorrow, it will be here before we know it.

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday

Now WHAT were you worried about ?? Did all your worrying change anything or just make you more anxious? Hopefully today turned out to be pretty darned good no matter how long you worried about it. Is it the best it could be? Probably not. Is it the worst it could be? Lets not ask that - because you KNOW what that could bring.

Embrace today for what it was. Thank God for giving you one more day. I hope you made the most of it. If not ........ well there is still time in today to change that. When you get up tomorrow - remember this saying ....... and make the most of each breath.

14 LESSONS TO KEEP IN MIND

Read Each One Carefully &
Think About It a Second or Two

1. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you..

2. No man or woman is worth your tears, & the one who is, won't make you cry.

3. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

4. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand & touches your heart.

5. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can' t have them

6. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

7. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

8. Don't waste your time on someone, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.

9. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.

10. Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

11. There's always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting & just be more careful about who you trust next time around..

12.. Make yourself a better person & know who you are before you try & know someone else & expect them to know you.

13. Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.

REMEMBER:
WHATEVER HAPPENS,
HAPPENS FOR A REASON.

Links for some free stuff.

I found these links when I was reading my email this morning.

I believe the Dr Pepper has already been posted on some blogs - but just in case you missed it I've reposted it here.

www.quakertruedelights.com/

www.drpepper.com/

If I find anymore I'll post them quickly.

I'm so sorry

I really have no excuse. I can't believe its been almost a week since I posted here. I did try - for some reason it kept giving me an error when I tried to publish the post. After 3 tries, I gave up. I'm sorry. I should have kept trying - or tried on a different day - but somehow the days just seemed to get away from me.

I was reading the blogs I follow and found a post by Yaya that listed me as one of her blogs to check out daily or almost daily. celebrity-bloggers No, I'm nowhere near a Celebrity Blogger - maybe one day I could be "better known" but somehow I don't think I could get to that status. BUT seeing my blog listed there, made me feel so terrible about not showing a posting here - well I had to come in to say I'm sorry.

Here's a "Just Because" - it's a picture of the snow and ice from our "latest" winter event, on Tuesday, I'm so very glad we were only suppose to have 1-3 max. This one is looking out my deck door - at the oldest tree on our property, an apple tree that has to be at least 80 years old. And yes it does still produce apples, sort of.


This one, is looking out my front door. Yes the street was plowed (surprisingly) and it is still clear (even more surprising) - it's just my driveway that is the "snow and ice slick". Our project for this year (among others) will be to have it paved. I am so tired of cracked stone ....
Between the huge evergreen (another 80 year old tree) and the rhododendron (full of snow on right) run my electric/phone/cable lines, that are lined in ice. Winter wonderland.


Now since we haven't had any more "events" since Tuesday - you would like to think that everything would be done. Well I'm hoping that it will be gone next week. We have had temperatures in the 20s or below since Tuesday - so melting has been at a minimum, unless its in direct sun. Next week (or this week as the case may be) we could actually have a day in the high 40s or maybe even low 50s before it starts getting cold again.

This years weather makes absolutely NO sense to me at all. Its been bitter cold for days and then a 40 or 50 degree day sneaks in. No rhyme or reason. I'm not surprised when I hear of so many people being sick. Its the weather - I'm convinced of it.

Coffee filters ..who knew!

And you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Tree for almost nothing. They're Not just for making coffee...

1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.

2. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they'll leave windows sparkling.

3. Protect China. Separate your good dishes by putting a coffee filter between each dish.

4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.

5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.

6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.

7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.

8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.

9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.

10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.

11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.

12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters.

13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. Soaks out all the grease.

14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers."