Tony Brewer

My father was a firm believer in using what ever he could that the good lord provided us with. We were taught at an early age how important the land, the water and the air were and we were avid recyclers as well from day one. We always had a fruit and vegetable garden in the back yard that we spent a huge amount of time working in all spring, summer and fall, but we learned a lot from the experiences and I’m grateful for all the time and effort that they put into teaching us the ways of reaping what we sowed.

We always had plenty of rain barrels around the yard that my father taught us how to utilize for rain harvesting to help keep the gardens watered. Each kid had one rain barrel that we were in charge of keeping clean and in good working order. I’m so glad to see more rain barrels for sale for people to use. A good rain water barrel can make a difference in your water bill and it’s another way for use to become as “green” as we can in these wacky days that being “green” is the way to go.

Thinking about Myrtle Beach and my upcoming golf outing brings up a memory. Years ago, we went to the beach for just the weekend. With our excitement, it was hard to sleep. We ended up waking up extremely early in the morning, so we headed out. The sun was just barely coming up and the beach plows were not out yet. So there were a lot of seashells to be collected from the sand. We picked up an entire bucket of interesting shells. The early morning is truly the best time to look for shells, before the plows and all the other tourists strip the beach clean.

We took our bucket of shells to the car and left them in the trunk while we went to have breakfast. Then we went to the beach and enjoyed our day.

The downside of the story is that evidently one or more of the shells actually had sealife living in them when we picked them out. So in the high heat of the day, locked in our trunk, the critters died and began stinking to high heaven. When we went to the car the next morning with our luggage and opened the trunk, the smell about knocked us out! It stunk up the entire car and everything in it. I think it took over a month for that smell to eventually be cleaned and repeatedly sprayed with air freshener before it was not gaggingly noticeable.

Moral of the story – don’t leave seashells locked in the trunk unless you are 100% sure that there is no sealife hidden in the shells.

Hard to believe that autumn soltice is here.  This solstice is always sad for me, as it means the official end of summer.  For a lot of Mid-Atlantic areas it also means that the weather turns cooler and everyone gets too busy to go to the beach.

My answer to that is to head a little further south for Myrtle Beach golf courses, where the weather is warmer longer in the year and the fall is an excellent time to play golf. In fact, September and October are fantastic weather months in South Carolina. There is less high heat during the day and always a nice cool breeze, so your optimum window of playing time is expanded.

There are great Myrtle Beach golf packages available online, and I like to book my whole trip before I leave home. I like to choose the golf course first and the hotel or resort second. Maybe that’s backwards from what other people do, but it works for me. Just have to go to http://www.myrtlebeachgolf.net and see what is available. In a few clicks I can have the whole outing arranged, including the tee times, and it gives me something really nice to look forward to.

There are various reasons that people are looking for and turning to some type of Debt Relief. With that in mind there are numerous Debt Negotiation and Debt Settlement and Debt Counseling companies out there that are busy assisting more and more people facing financial hardship. Between people loosing their jobs, divorcing, failed businesses along with an every growing unemployment issue that is destroying people’s lives. God forbid a medical emergency comes around (what with so many people being uninsured right now) something like that can wipe a person out real quick like.

I’m hearing more folks looking into Debt Counseling as the last resort before filing for bankruptcy. And they have been happy with what these specialized Debt Relief companies have done for them, I’m happy to say. Bankruptcy is no fun, is costly and it stays with you for a very long time. Not something I’d want to have to go through if there were other favorable options available.

I’m sure that all the retail merchants are nervous about this up and coming Christmas holiday shopping season, If I remember correctly Wal-Mart was the only business that made any money last year.

Yesterday was the perfect day to spend a few hours at the flea market and I wasn’t the only person with that thought in mind. There was the largest crowd there (vendors and customers alike) then I’ve ever seen before and every one was in a cheerful mood while I witnessed a good amount of money exchanging hands.

I didn’t find anything that I couldn’t live without for the moment. But came away with a good attitude and got my exercise and some sun in for the day.