Easter Gift Baskets have already appeared on the store’s shelves, right beside the clearance Valentine’s Day candy. I noticed that last weekend when I dropped into Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. I was walking past the seasonal section and realized that it was the perfect time to score some discount Valentine’s candy to take home and share with the family.
One of the things that I’ve tried to do in regards to holidays like Easter is to reuse and recycle a lot of the “trimmings.” For example, the plastic grass, the plastic eggs, and the baskets themselves can be reused over the years. Just the thought of buying one of those cellophane-wrapped baskets that are intended to be thrown away a week later, filling up the landfills makes me cringe.
That is one of the things that I really admire about my mother, and about my wife; they are so creative and thrifty with their talents to be able to reuse and re-purpose items in such a way that it never looks like they are being “cheap.” In fact, some of the things that they re-purpose have turned into well-loved family heirlooms that will be in the family for-ever. For example, several years ago my wife took an empty plastic cool-whip tub and covered it with batting and fabric and turned it into a beautiful basket that was an Easter Basket one year, but now holds our remote controls in the living room.
Over the past six weeks everyone at the house has been so busy that no one had the time or energy to take the decorations off of the Christmas tree and pack it all away. So today I woke up and resolved that if nothing else got done today, that Christmas tree was going to get undecorated and put in the box. Well, before I could do that I had to clear out some of the clutter that was piled up around the living room; I had to bring out the storage boxes. By the time the clutter was picked up I was exhausted!
Turned the television on in the hopes that I would be entertained somewhat while undecorating the tree. Found nothing on. How can we have over three hundred channels and find nothing interesting to watch? Something is wrong with that! Well, the tree is packed away, most of the decorations are packed away; there are a few stragglers that I need to chase down, but that can be done on a different day. At least now when people stop by the house they won’t be greeted by the fully decorated Christmas tree in the living room!
Every now and then I am reminded of an old saying about how if we ever expect world peace, then we need to learn to get along inside our own families first. Looking at the divorce rate, I am pretty sure that means we will never accomplish world peace! I love this video that popped up on my home screen a couple of days ago – a puppy and a horse really loving on each other. The more I know about people, the more I like my dog!
It has been a long time since I have put on a wetsuit and all the other gear that is necessary to enjoy the sport of scuba diving. So when I got an invite to go scuba diving on a weekend of good weather some time in the month of May with a good friend, I decided to drag out all of my scuba equipment to make sure I still had everything and that it is all in good working order. I know that I have put on some weight the last couple of years but I had not idea that I had gained more then my wetsuit could handle safely, so I either have to start dieting and losing weight or start looking around and pricing wetsuits in order to go ahead and enjoy a weekend of fun in the sun and the water with a friend that I don’t get to spend much time with these days.
I should be getting a decent amount of cash back in the next couple of weeks from doing my taxes and I could use some of that money to buy a new wetsuit, but there are so many other things that I really need and want. So I think I should start watching what I eat and get off of my butt and get some more exercise, it seems to be the best idea all the way around.
I was reading an article on the Time.com website about how high-end high alcohol beers and becoming more popular. These beers are sometimes being brewed by smaller, less well known breweries than the mainstream breweries, and are intended to compete with wine rather than the “average” run of the mill beer. These beers often have more than twice the alcohol content than “regular” beer. One of these beers was developed by the makers of Samuel Adams Beer and has been named “Utopia” beer and sells for $140 per 24 ounce bottle. The article was talking about how these beers are “richer” and because of that people would not WANT to drink more, they would drink less.
Most of the people that I know would rather drink MORE beer, not less! I can’t imagine going to a barbecue picnic and only drinking one beer, it would not seem like a party to limit oneself to only one! After that one beer is gone and you’re thirsty again, then what would you drink? I guess this is the kind of beer one would order at a restaurant where you are only going to be there a short time.