Mary Anne Carter
Mary Anne has her own blog now
Category Archives: Opinion
Feb 5 2012

Pest control

by Mary Anne

One of the things that has bothered me ever since we moved down here is how many ticks there seem to be. Almost every time my family spends more than a couple of minutes outdoors, they seem to be coming inside and finding a tick or two trying to make itself at home. I’ve never been very good at removing ticks, it seems that even though I try really hard to remove them correctly the head seems to stay in the bite and then there is a swelling around the bite that takes a very long time to fade away.

The folks on the Yahoo groups that I belong to are frequently writing about how they keep a small flock of backyard chickens to help keep the ticks at bay. In addition they say that they enjoy all of the fresh eggs that they could possibly want. From time to time they offer up some chickens for sale and my hubby and I discuss the ins and outs of owning chickens. My biggest concerns involve predators and who would care for them if we went on vacation. I really don’t think we just dump a bunch of chicken feed in a trough and leave them for a week.

Categories: Around the House, Family, Garden, Life, Local, Opinion, Pets | No Comments »

Feb 4 2012

Wouldn’t you know it

by Mary Anne

When I was younger I saw a really pretty spice rack for sale that just “spoke to me.” Now, you might think that is rather weird, that I am a person that speaks to spice racks, but what I really mean is that for some crazy reason I simply fell in love with it. It was a wall spice rack, and it had a country look to it that just made me feel “at home” for some reason. I don’t know, maybe it reminded me of the spice rack in my grandmother’s kitchen and I never realized it. But the thing is I bought it on a crazy impulse and brought it home with me. Wouldn’t you know it my hubby hated it and told me that he did not want it in our kitchen. So it was relegated to the basement for a very long time.

When my hubby and I split up and I moved out i brought that spice rack with me, intended to mount it on the wall of my new kitchen. Wouldn’t you know it, all of the kitchen walls were completely filled up with cupboards so there was no space to put that rack on the wall! I did find space for it on the counter, though, beside the stove and there is where it stayed for a good number of years.

Eventually all of the original bottles from the spice rack broke and I could not find replacement bottles that fit, so the little rack got “freecycled” away when I moved again. Now I store my spices in my pantry, and have tried various methods of storing them, but I really have not found a suitable system for the spices. I miss that rack!

Categories: Around the House, Cooking, Family, Home Improvement, Life, Memories, Opinion, Shopping | No Comments »

Feb 2 2012

This crazy family needs to learn to communicate better

by Mary Anne

For several years now my younger sister has had an ADT Home Security that she signed a two year contract for, and although she has been happy with the Home Alarm System she has been trying to get someone else to take over the contract for her because ever since her hubby died she has been struggling financially. So she has talked to everyone in the family several times about how she is trying to do that, and if someone in the family decides that they are interested in Home Security Systems of some sort to please consider taking over her contract.

Apparently the company told her that even if she moved out of her house that she would still be responsible to pay the remainder of the contract. Her house is currently for sale because she cannot afford the mortgage payments anymore and she is trying to get out from under it. So when we found out that our own mother went out and bought herself a security system instead of taking over my sisters, we were really upset. This crazy family needs to learn to communicate better – my mother could have taken over the contract and had a perfectly wonderful system!

Categories: Around the House, Family, Life, Opinion, Shopping, Technology | No Comments »

Feb 2 2012

Reducing the costs

by Mary Anne

When I keep hearing that the United States Post Office is struggling financially and is looking for ways to reduce the cost of running the organization, I immediately think about how much money they could save if the stopped individual home delivery six days a week and instead delivered to cluster mailboxes five days a week.

The reason that I think this would help them save money is because if they only delivered mail to a neighborhood centralized clustered mailbox then they would reduce the amount of time that the delivery person had to actually go to deliver the mail. In addition, if they used commercial cluster mailboxes that had a lock and key to them, the mail would be very secure.

And delivering the mail only five days a week instead of six days a week would reduce costs tremendously, don’t you agree? I know I wouldn’t mind not getting the mail delivered on a Saturday – sometimes I don’t even like to leave the house on a Saturday to go down to the mailbox and get the mail!

Categories: Around the House, Business, Life, Opinion | No Comments »

Feb 1 2012

Gift baskets

by Mary Anne

One of the many gifts that I like to give is a gift basket. Sometimes I like to make them up myself of lots of little things that I’ve made, either crafting or cooking, or a combination of the two. Doing that pretty much ensures that they are not getting a duplicate gift that someone else has given them.

Sometimes life gets hectic, and an unexpected gift giving occasion arrives and time doesn’t allow the luxury of making the gifts. That’s when buying a gourmet gift basket comes to the rescue. There are so many gourmet gift baskets on the market, it is pretty easy to find one that will suit almost any occasion and please any recipient.

Categories: Cooking, Family, Finances, Life, Opinion, Shopping | No Comments »

«Older Entries
 
Scrappy Theme by Caroline Moore | Copyright 2012 Mary Anne Carter | Powered by WordPress