It really bites that they can’t even afford some of the low cost insurance that is available to the general public or to even move back up this way where they could be taken care of. When will this madness end? It seems like there just isn’t even the slightest light visible at the end of this long dark tunnel that we are being forced to live in.

Out of curiosity I decided to hop in my car and drive down to the end of the road and see what was going on. The tank truck was pulled up at the end of the cul-de-sac, and the firemen had run a big black hose down to the pond. They were pumping water from the pond into the tank. I had never seen that done before, and I certainly did not realize that the fire department came to that pond to get water.

Since it had been raining all day long, and the pond looked fuller than normal, I am surmising that the firemen were killing two birds with one stone. Filling the tank truck for future use, and removing some of the excess water from the pond so it would not overflow.  I find myself wondering if there was a screen on the end of the hose to prevent little fish, frogs, and turtles from being sucked up into the tank. Just the thought of little fish, turtles, or frogs flying out of the end of the fire hose at a house fire just seems disturbing to me on some level.

PITA adopted our family by wandering into our yard, and refusing to leave.  He has been loving and entertaining us ever since!  He is a tiny thing, smaller than our cat, but has the courage of a lion!  He will protect our family from threats four times his size, defending us to the death if need be!  He loves to lick everyone’s ears until they are spic and span!  He keeps our other pets very clean, licking their ears and mouths until they cry for help!  He is partially deaf (like most guys I know) and has selective hearing.  We have managed to hand-signal train him for the basic commands.  Whenever someone comes home from being “out” – even for less than a minute, he welcomes the returnee as if they had been gone for years!  He jumps up and down, wraps himself around in a circle and grunts with delight.  No one can be in a bad mood around him!

Here are some of the best tips:

Turn clothes inside out before washing, especially those clothes that have some kind of embellishments on them – fancy T-shirts, painted clothes.  Doing this protects the design from being rubbed off by friction against other clothes in the agitation of the machines.

Empty all pockets, zip all zippers, button all buttons, snap all snaps, hook all hooks.   This reduces the amount of stress on the garments and makes them last longer.

Sort the laundry not only by color, but also by weight.  Heavy items, such as jeans and sweatshirts should not be washed with lighter items such as permanent press clothes.  The heavy weight of those clothes will reduce the longevity of the permanent press treatment on the clothes, and will cause them to wrinkle more easily.  Mixing the heavy weight with the lightweight also increases the drying time of the lightweight, wasting electricity from the dryer.

Use the coolest water possible to get the clothes clean.  You will save money by not having to heat the hot water, and hot water will set stains in the clothing.

When the washing machine has stopped the spin cycle, set it to spin again a second time.  This will remove more water and reduce the amount of time needed in the dryer.

Use lingerie/sweater bags to put delicate items in the wash.  Wash them with the permanent press clothes in cool water and line dry them.

If you can’t get the clothes out of the dryer immediately, and they start to wrinkle, just toss a damp hand towel in the dryer and let it run for a few minutes.  The wrinkles will usually come out easily.

If you have an item that you need to dry quickly, put it in the dryer with a couple of dry towels.  It will dry much more quickly.

Well, I was telling my brother about that earlier today and he told me that he had one of those stored in his storage shed, and that we could come get it and have it if we want it! So the next day that we have good weather we are going to try to drive out to his place with our little trailer and pick up the recliner to bring home. We will steam clean it with our carpet steaming machine and put it in the living room for my hubby to use. I think I’m more excited about getting it than my hubby is!

We redecorated our living room some time ago but I’ve felt that there was something missing in it. I think I finally figured out that we could use some additional seating or serving space with an ottoman. We have a coffee table but our living room is a bit big so we could use that extra piece of furniture to fill up some of the empty space.

I thought that I would challenge myself during spring break by making my own ottoman. (I’m a teacher.) I’ve seen lots of DIY ottoman projects before online, so I tried to track down some of my favorite ones and while I was doing that I saw some information on cabinet refacing. We’ve been toying with the idea of redoing our kitchen next so I think we may tackle the project fairly soon.

I finally found a DIY ottoman project that sounded easy enough so that even I could tackle it! It took a bit of work but I’m really happy with the way that it turned out. Plus, it looks like it was the last missing piece in our living room design.

My youngest son suggested that I try the new greek yogurt, telling me that he thought I would like it, as long as it wasn’t the plain flavor. I asked him to try to explain the difference and he told me that the biggest difference was the texture; the texture reminded him of sour cream. Well, the next time I went tot he store I did buy a small container of vanilla flavored greek yogurt. Much to my delight, I did enjoy it so I will go ahead and buy more of it in the future.