Mary Anne Carter » Opinion

Thoughtless

Mary Anne — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:13:13 +0000

Maybe it IS illegal, I don’t know, but I have noticed that many residents that mow their properties are mowing it such that the grass clippings are being blown onto the road pavement, where it turns into a dangerous slippery mess that could wipe out any unsuspected hapless motorcycle rider that is unfortunate enough to be having to drive on that road! I can’t believe that so many people are doing that! Every day when I drive down the road I see grass clippings on the road, and it bothers me a lot; especially now that my hubby owns a motorcycle!

Crazy

Mary Anne — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:58:01 +0000

SCARY!!!! …. New Trend In Prison: Inmates Getting Tattoos On Their Eyes!- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Still sick

Mary Anne — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:38:48 +0000

Well my doctor has been on vacation and the jerk that is filling in for him won’t give me anything to make this sinus infection go away. There are notes in my file that say that I should be given antibiotics when I get sick, but he is refusing to honor the note. When my regular doctor returns from vacation I am going to have to ask him to give me antibiotics to have on hand for when I get sick and he can’t be reached. This is awful!

Junk mail

Mary Anne — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:33:14 +0000

During the past couple of weeks our junk mail index has risen sharply. It seems that the vast majority of the mail we have been getting is sales circulars, catalogs for Christmas items, or promotions for political campaigns. What a waste of paper this is! It all goes into the trash, mostly not even looked at. There isn’t anyplace near where I live that I can take stuff like this to recycle, and it is sad to think of it all going to the dump.

Life is too short

Mary Anne — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:21:53 +0000

I was shocked to receive a phone call last night that the hubby of a very dear friend passed away unexpectedly in his sleep two days ago. He was only fifty three years old, and he left behind a wife and several daughters; one being only the tender age of twelve years of age. This man had no life insurance or death benefits of any kind and was the family breadwinner. Chances are that the family will lose their house in a few months because they do not have the resources to hold on to that.

This is a very sad situation and I would like to strongly encourage anyone out there that is reading this that they should buy enough life insurance to at least pay off their house should they die.

Time for more regulation

Mary Anne — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:32:59 +0000

Over the past thirty years, the government has made huge efforts to de-regulate everything that they could possibly de-regulate. They de-regulated the airline industry, transportation, and the telephone company. They thought that by doing this it would increase growth and be good for business.

Well, I have not seen any positive results from deregulating anything, and I think it is time for the government to reconsider it’s stance on regulation and deregulation. The consumers need more protection from the evil people who sell us tainted foods, and need more protection from price-gouging. Time to start reining in the big corporations that make obscene profits at our expense!

Tried a new dinner entree last night

Mary Anne — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:40:32 +0000

I had a coupon for a Smithfield’s seasoned pork roast, so I decided to buy one last week and we tried it out last night. It was the one that is seasoned with herbs and stuffed with Wild Rice. It took longer to cook than it was supposed to, which I guess is normal for most roasts – it is aggravating when the directions say 22 minutes per pound and you have 1 1/2 pounds and it takes an hour to cook! I know the temperature on my oven is good, I bought TWO oven thermometers and they say it is right on. Anyway, it took longer to cook than it was supposed to, which is aggravating.

I guess my entire family is not a big fan of heavily seasoned items, we found this to be way too spicy hot with black pepper and way too heavy on the garlic. We would have liked it much better if the seasoning was cut in half. I might buy it again and then wipe off half of the seasoning before cooking it!

I was hoping for grilled burgers tonight

Mary Anne — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:34:43 +0000

When I got home this evening I was hoping that my hubby was going to cook burgers on the grill outside. I love it when he cooks burgers on the grill outside. Let’s face it, I love it when he cooks ANYTHING outside! Probably largely due to the fact that leaves me with one less pot or pan to clean up from cooking inside! But also I like it during the summer because it helps to keep the house from getting overheated from cooking inside. During the summertime, cooking outside is definitely the way to keep a house cooler!

But my hubby was asleep when I got home, and he stayed asleep so I had to fend for myself. I don’t like cooking on the grill outside. I don’t know why the propane grill makes me nervous, I guess it’s because I have to make sure to turn the propane on and off again and I’m afraid I’ll forget. Or maybe it’s the open flame, but I rather doubt that because I cook with propane inside! I think I’d really like to buy one of the Outdoor Electric Grills for me to cook on, I would not be as nervous about that. I’d probably keep it in the garage, though, and leave the garage door open.

Curtains add so much to a room

Mary Anne — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:53:50 +0000

I used to work with a woman who had bare naked windows. She lived out in the woods, with no neighbors in sight, and she loved having no window coverings at all. She showed me pictures of the different rooms, she was very proud of the fact that her windows were bare. Although she DID have some hanging plants in front of the windows and some shelves with plants in front of some windows, for the most part I thought that the windows looked too sterile; I feel that curtains add a lot of personality and warmth to a room. I also feel that insulated curtains are a good idea to help save energy and reduce heating and cooling costs. I’m always all about saving energy and heating and cooling costs!

Udderly nuts

Mary Anne — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:46:23 +0000

The local newspaper ran a short story, contributed by some readers about a couple from Maryland who go to the grand openings of Chik-Fil-A restaurants around the country. (For those of you who may not know what Chik-Fil-A is, it is a fast food restaurant that sells chicken products, no beef products. Their advertising campaigns involve cows encouraging people to eat chicken.) Their chicken sandwiches and nuggets, and their fries are very tasty, and I can understand people wanting to get free food from the restaurant, but this couple has gone to extremes!

They camp out in the parking lot the night before so they can be one of the first 100 customers. Chik-Fil-A gives out “free Chik-Fil-A for a year” coupons to their first 100 customers. This couple has gone to eighteen of these grand openings in the past year, and have decided that they can’t use all the coupons, so now they just go for the fun of it and give the coupons away.

I don’t understand what is so much fun about camping out in a parking lot to be one of the first 100 customers to get free food if you then give away the free food! I’m udderly confused.

The economy worries me to no end

Mary Anne — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:12:06 +0000

The economy worries me more than I’d like to admit. According to the news programs that I watch and the Internet news sites that I read, the ever increasing gasoline prices, the increasing food prices, the floods in Iowa are going to result in HIGHER food prices, the price of milk will be going up to $6.00 gallon soon and the higher unemployment rates all spell bad times ahead. We’re already in bad times; I hate to think of them getting much worse. I hope that when the Presidential election is over and done with the economy will recover.

Shopping local

Mary Anne — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:18:40 +0000

As the economy worsens and people tighten their belts even more, it becomes more important for people to support their own communities by shopping local. I know that there is a tendency for people to shop near where they work, and that often means that they are not shopping local to where they live. That is one of the problems in today’s work world, so many people commute such a long distance that they find it almost impossible to shop in the communities in which they live; their home base truly is simply a bedroom community – a place to sleep. One of the reasons for that is that often the local businesses don’t pay decent wages so most of the residents drive further to get higher pay. However, with the price of commuting going up because of the skyrocketing fuels prices, it may soon be the case that commuting is no longer paying the benefit because the higher pay is being negated by the cost of commuting.

If more people shopped local to where they lived, perhaps that would give the businesses more income to invest in the community and give them they ability to increase their wage scale. Shopping local is a good idea if it prevents you from driving long distances just to save a dollar or two on the price of an item.

Trying to help my son find a job

Mary Anne — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:48:24 +0000

My oldest son wants to be a reporter, and he has the credentials and skills to do that. I don’t understand why he is having such a tough time landing a reporter job! We see ads on the Internet, and in the local papers and he replies to the ads, and he never even gets an interview! The process is very frustrating to both of us because I want him to have a job, ANY job, and he won’t take ANY job. He will take a reporter job or stay unemployed. Period. He has gotten so discouraged that I think he has stopped looking, which is not a good thing!

My sister suggested that I look on an employment website called The Career Network to find out if there are any reporter jobs in our area currently being advertised. And if I found any, then I could show the openings to my son and he could apply for them. The website is very easy to use, when you type in the URL http://careernetworkjobs.com/ you are taken to a simple page where you type in the job title you want to look for and the location that you want to work. So I typed in “reporter” and ”Virginia” and came up with no results at all. Very discouraging!

Just to test the website’s functionality then I typed in ”receptionist” and “Virginia” and came up with lots of job openings, so it appears that the website works. So, what can I say, I am discouraged that my son is having such a hard time landing the job of his dreams!

What a schmuck

Mary Anne — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:30:15 +0000

What do you call an elitist calling someone else an elitist? I don’t know about you, but I’d call him a schmuck. I think it is so very funny that David Brooks, the New York Times columnist went on MSNBC Live and said that Barack Obama wouldn’t fit in at an Applebee’s salad bar. When I heard that he said that I roared with laughter. Applebee’s happens to be one of my favorite restaurants, and I’ve never seen a salad bar in it! And to be honest, I would not be surprised to see Barack Obama in an Applebee’s restaurant! I haven’t read yesterday’s paper yet, but my son told me that he read an article in it that Barack Obama has in fact had meetings in Applebees! What a riot! I think David Brooks should take a closer look at just how elitist he himself is before he starts “insulting” people with that term!

I can’t believe it’s May already

Mary Anne — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:15:47 +0000

Geez the year is flying by so quickly! It’s May Day, May 1st. I was telling my hubby yesterday that I can remember as a little girl we had big May Day celebrations at school. We’d spend the whole day partying. The schools would set up a “carnival” type scene with games to play. Parents were invited to attend and we’d learn a flagpole dance that we’d perform for them. We’d make up May Day baskets full of flowers and leave them on the door step of a friend, ring the doorbell and run away. Then all of a sudden one year it stopped because our government discovered that Russia celebrated May Day with big parades and we didn’t want Russia to think we were supporting them by celebrating May Day too! What a crock of bologna that was! I loved May Day celebrations and think we should continue to celebrate! It was a celebration of spring!