We Caved

I had already decided that we would not buy Elmo Live for our almost two year old Granddaughter for Christmas. But we took her and her older sister to Walmart today while their oldest sister went to the Doctor. The youngest really loves Elmo but we were going to be a little bit more practical than that.

But there he was on the bottom shelf and fully accessible to toddlers. She was so thrilled with him, kept kissing him and looking up at us laughing. What were we suppose to do?? We were snared, caught in a trap, forced to do something against our will.

I've got to give credit to those who come up with these marketing techniques. He is right there in his packaging completely exposed to little hands and in working order. Placing him on the lower two shelves was just a stroke of genius. His cute little voice inviting a kiss was just too much for anyone to resist.

So, we ended up coming home completely defeated and are mustering all of our remaining resources together in a vain effort not to give him to her before Christmas. But wait, I nearly forgot, maybe all is not lost. She has a birthday before Christmas, so we can give him to her early after all.

Scams and Spams

Someone on a forum that I frequent posted the link below to the Washington Post website and noted that they were already seeing a difference in their e-mail inboxes and spam folders.

Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline - Security Fix

I read the article yesterday and noticed a big difference in my spam levels as well. This morning was the icing on the cake, only eight spam messages awaited me upon my awakening. There are normally around forty the first thing in the morning.

I haven't visited my gmail or yahoo email accounts yet but I am going there now to empty my spam folders then see how they look in a day or two. The sad part of this story is that we were led to believe that most of our spam and scams come from other counties, but now we see that it is mostly home grown.

First Day

Today is the first day of gun season and I am usually awakened by the sounds of a military invasion in our valley. There are woods all around us on the hillsides and even shots from the tops of neighboring hills reverberate through our valley.

I have often wondered if there are really that many deer that are shot at on opening day and if the people shooting are really that bad or if they get buck fever and are shaking so bad that they just can't hit anything. Because it is never just a shot or two from one direction but a volley of shots coming from first one location then a volley of shots from another location.

This morning was different, I only heard a couple of shots and they were far away. Either no one chose to hunt around here this morning or the deer have all moved away. It was raining and cold but I have never known a true deer hunter that was scared off a first day hunt by a little cold and rain. I guess it could be that hunters are getting soft. I don't know what this world is coming to.

Culture

I know that you who know me well would never guess that I am actually a cultured person. You think that I never leave the farm and that my best friend is a billy goat.

While I may be a little eccentric and prefer the outdoors, horses, dogs, goats and chickens to crowds of people and parties. I do have a artistic side. I can be thoughtful and philosophical. I love a challenging exchange of ideas and debate.

Why, just tonight I changed my clothes, washed my face, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, polished my Crocs, then went out to dinner and to the Theatre. It wasn't one of them movin' picture shows either, this was honest to goodness Theater, with a stage, curtains, actors and padded theater seats.

It weren't no Church or School program with little kids dressed up like pumpkins, snowflakes or shepherds. It was real live Theater and it was opening night and I had a front row seat in a nearly full house.

I can offer witnesses, if you don't believe me, my daughter-in-law and some other people from our Church went with us. My daughter-in-law and I left our uncultured husbands at home. She did take the time to call her uncultured husband to check on him and all he could do was gripe about the pizza that she had ordered him not arriving.

He gave her a lecture about having her cell phone shut off in an emergency situation like this. She called the offending pizza place who had written down the wrong address, they made him a new pizza and delivered it at no charge, so I don't know why he was so grumpy. It must come from his Dad's side of the family.

Milk Soak

My DH has had a problem with his hands for quite some time now. He is a part time mailman and handling paper all day is very drying to his hands. They started itching, peeling, cracking and even bleeding. He was having a real hard time sleeping and nothing that he was doing as far as creams and lotions was helping him.

I decided to take the bull by the horn and try to do a few things to help him out. I made him start using used coffee grounds when washing his hands at the end of the day. I started using the coffee grounds with soap to get the billy goat smell off of my hands, it works and after a few times of using it, your hands get soft and smooth.

I told him to avoid washing his hands during the rest of the day. This is hard for him because his hands get so dirty. I found him a bar of Ivory soap and that is all I am letting him use. No more anti-bacterial stuff.

After he washes his hands at night, I make him soak his hands in goat's milk for 10 minutes. I told him to use bag balm on his hands after that but he only did that one night. It made his hands too messy. So far so good, he is really noticing a difference. He thinks that the goat's milk is the key. So chalk up another good use for goat's milk.