Jeremy Herndon Blog

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.

Mother is happy with the new and improved address plaque that we gave her for her birthday last week. We have been trying to convince her to start looking at alternative address plaques to replace the one that almost cost her her life last year. She was home alone one evening and started having chest pains so thankfully she was able to get to the phone and called 911. She was in such bad shape that she was having trouble talking but with all of today’s technology the emergency operator managed to get the information out of her in order to get an ambulance out and on the road to come to her rescue. But since it was dark and raining and the address signs that are out in front of her house were so old and faded that the ambulance couldn’t read the numbers and had to take extra time, when every minute counts, to turn around and try and read the darn address plaques to find the correct house.

Thank god they found her and got her up and out of there and to the E.R. so that the doctors could tend to her condition. She did have a small minor heart attack and is now having to change her lifestyle drastically and is taking several meds that the doctors have ordered. She seems to be doing much better, as long as she keeps doing what the doctors say she should be just fine for a good long time. So for her birthday we gave her a new sign, as I stated earlier, and now we all can feel a bit more comfortable and sleep a little better at night knowing that if she calls for help again that they won’t have a problem finding her in a timely fashion.

Guest post by Jewel Cole

Amazon Prime account, things ship in two days for free! I decided to get on-line when I got home and just check to see if the prices were any better than they were at the store. I was really surprised by how much less expensive things were. You also don’t have to pay sales tax, which saves you a ton on its own. They even have a cool feature where you can put items on auto-ship. That means they will ship you whatever you need on a time schedule with out you having to do anything. It sure saves me a lot of time and a lot of trips to the store!

Bridget sent me a link to a company that sells double glazing windows as an example of a website that was probably done by someone who did not speak English as their native language. Although the reader does learn some information about the history of windows and what double glazing is, the website itself is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

Reading the website was almost painful; it made me wonder if the person who created it was an uneducated relative of the business owner and that maybe the business owner was trying to do the creator a favor by giving him a job. If that is the case, then that is all well and good but they really should have had someone who is educated proof read it.

In this highly competitive environment of the Internet, professional websites are essential if you are going to be marketing your product on the Internet. Although some people may think that a poorly done web page is better than nothing, I would have to disagree with that. My opinion is that you would be better off putting a small “under construction” sign with limited contact information up and then take the time to do the web site the right way.

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.