Multi-purpose
I really admire people who can multi-purpose items. For example, my cousin spent a lot of time and money baby proofing her house when she started having kids. She bought several baby gates to keep the kids out of places where they didn’t want them to go, and put child safety locks on their kitchen cabinets and appliances. I used to tease her about how much her house had changed from her “pre-baby” times to her “after-baby” times. There was a major change!
I figured that once her children had grown up enough that she no longer needed to use most of those things, I found that she still used many of the safety items to keep her pets out of trouble. I thought that was pretty clever of her to multi-purpose those things. For example, the baby gates now confine the dogs to the kitchen area when she goes out, so they don’t tear up the rest of the house and get into trouble. She sure knows how to get the most bang for her buck!
Substandard newspaper delivery
Several years ago I asked the local newspaper to put a newspaper box at the end of my driveway. I did that because I was tired of finding the newspaper tossed in the ditch, lying in standing water. So they came out and attached a newspaper box to my mailbox post and all was well. Until about a month ago, when all of a sudden the newspaper started being tossed in the ditch again. I don’t know if the regular delivery person was sick and there was a substitute delivering the paper, but if this continues for much longer I am going to call and complain about it. A wet newspaper is of no value to me!
Green thumbs
I find it very interesting that almost all of my friends enjoy gardening in some shape or form. Those that have houses of their own have flower gardens; many have vegetable patches as well. Because of their limited time, however, I find that many of them try to do a lot of their gardening in containers. They say that it reduces the amount of time that they need to weed. I do know that it makes it a lot easier for me to pick out a gift for them if I need to come up with one – all I have to do is buy them a planter or two.
Most of them have patios or decks, and it does not take a lot of effort on my part to pick up some outdoor planters and plant a few nice plants in them. Garden planters come in a lot of different sizes, styles and colors so it is not difficult to find some that look nice in any setting.
More recalls
Every day it seems that I hear about more products being recalled. Doesn’t anybody make ANYTHING safe anymore? Along with cars being recalled, and toys being recalled, baby formula, Rolaids, even lemon flavored Girl Scout Cookies! I’m beginning to think that the nothing is safe anymore! And the experts wonder why so many people are suffering from depression! I think that it totally makes sense – there is so much bad news that is dumped on us from every twist and turn that we are overwhelmed with bad news! Staying happy is a difficult process when all you hear is bad news!
One of the things that we need to re-learn is how to be happy in spite of all the bad news. The simple adage “Count your blessings” is a good start, but a lot of people just don’t even realize that they HAVE any blessings to count! And I blame a lot of that on the commercialism and materialism that our society has focused on for so many years. One thing is for sure, it will be interesting to see how this all works out over the next few years. Tightening belts and biting bullets only works for so long before people lose their patience with a difficult status quo.
Don’t get caught
One of the saddest things that can happen to a person is to get into a car accident and be injured. What makes matters worse is if the parties involved don’t have good car insurance to help with the expenses for the repairs to the cars involved. And worse still, is if their auto insurance limits are too low to actually cover the medical expenses.
My poor uncle was involved in an accident where the accident was not his fault, but the lady who caused the accident had such cheap car insurance with low limits that they won’t even cover a quarter of his medical bills! People who under-insure their vehicles frustrate me! Even though my uncle has under-insurance on his own policy, even that is not enough to cover his medical bills. It has been over two years since the accident and the insurance companies still haven’t settled the case. My poor uncle is unable to work and in jeopardy of losing everything he ever worked for because somebody didn’t bother to get good insurance on their car.
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