Tony Brewer

Thanks to Lemuel Craft

Last month my boss announced to the office that we would all be getting a 10% pay cut across the board. I was already stretched to the limit financially, so I had to find a way to cut my costs. I am grateful that I still have a job, but I knew I was in trouble. I don’t make very much as it is, and every month I get deeper and deeper into credit card debt. My worst fear was that I would fall behind on bills and have to move back in with my mom and dad. I’ve been out on my own for over ten years now, so that would be a tough pill to swallow. The good thing is that cutting 10% wouldn’t be that difficult. I figured that I could do that by not eating out so many times each week and looking into my clear bundle pricing. Hopefully with these small changes I can make things work. I guess I’m just going to have to be more conscious of my spending if I don’t want to have to go back and live with mom and dad.

My brothers, sister and I grew up in a wonderful house in a great neighborhood, my parents still live at the house that all of us kids all grew up in and one day I’ll most likely be living there myself. My Dad has put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the place and I’d be proud to take over where he leaves off. The backyard is spectacular, my parents and their friends and neighbors still enjoy spending time back there all most all year round.

My father and the neighbor next door took a lot of time looking into wooden garden arbors back in the day and they both decided that they could build bigger and better wood gazebos then what was available for sale at that time back then. My dad’s gazebo is still standing strong, while the neighbor’s has been long gone, a vegetable garden taking up the room that once held one of the nicer gazebos in the whole darn neighborhood. Both of the beautiful arbors are still in place though. Those wonderful wooden arbors will always have a soft spot in my heart for as long as I live.

I’m told that our long time neighbor has just placed a “For Sale” sign on his house. They are heading south to Florida, looking for better weather to live their golden years out in. We will miss our long time friends and neighbors and we can only hope that our new neighbors are friendly people that we can get to know. It makes such a big difference if you can get along with your neighbors, we have always been lucky in that way at the old homestead.

Every time I turn around I’m hearing Teri talk about the nomorerack bargains she has been buying online. At first I was a little bit worried that she was spending too much money, but after reading a few nomorerack reviews and checking out the website for myself I decided that she was probably not going to get herself in too deep.

The website is set up so that one time a day they post eight different products for sale, all at very low bargain prices. At different times of the day they offer up a couple of extreme savings that they call insanity deals. I’ve bookmarked their site as a place to keep my eye on for future gifts – they seem to have a nice variety of things that most people would like to have. I wonder how many other websites like this are out there yet to be brought to our attention!

One of the ways that Teri and I like to be creative in our house is to use flower boxes in different ways than other “normal” people would use them. For example, we hung a couple of used window boxes that we found in an antique store on the wall in the mud room/laundry room in between the washing machine and the back door.

One of them holds various things like dog leashes, shopping bags, slippers, mittens and hats. On the outside of it we put some cup hooks to hang our keys. The second windowbox holds the bottle of laundry detergent, a gallon size jug of white vinegar, pre-treatment products, window cleaner, furniture polish, and dust rags.

I’d love to hear ideas from you how you would repurpose things like that!

Do you remember ever seeing a sign that says “Wet Paint” and touching it, to see if it really IS wet? I did, once, as a kid, and in my case I guess I was lucky because the paint had dried by the time I had touched it! But I might not have been so lucky if I had happened by a few hours earlier!

Isn’t it curious how inquisitive we, as a species, tend to be! Always trying to find out as much as we can about any subject that interests us. I know that when I start to get interested in a subject I spend many hours reading books, magazines, newspapers, and browsing the Internet for as much information as I can possibly get on the subject. Sometimes I would get frustrated trying to find the information that I was trying to find. Well, all of that just might be in the past, thanks to a website called wetpaint.com.

The wetpaint.com website allows users to create Wikis to share information about a common interest. Do you know what a wiki is? I didn’t know what Wikis are so I looked it up. To paraphrase Wikipedia, (where else would YOU go to get a definition of a wiki?) a wiki is a collection of web pages or one web page that is designed to be modified by or contributed to by the users.

So if you want to see (or share) Wiki Information about a topic that interests YOU, try out the wetpaint.com website! Chances are pretty good you’ll find some good information there, or can start your OWN page!