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.

For years I have bought a variety of plants from the local hardware store to put in my garden. It is easier to get plants that already have a head start on their growth than to start them from seed.

My gardens have always done well with the plants, but this year I think I will try to start a few of them from seed. I have been saving the cardboard egg cartons and next weekend I will buy a big bag of potting soil mix from Lowes or Home Depot. The seeds should be sprouted and tall enough to transplant into the garden by mid-March.

Depending upon the weather, I’d like to get an early start with many of the vegetables and try to get a second crop of some things this year.

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching I have been thinking of something to get to give as a Valentine’s gift for me girl. I don’t think that stopping by the grocery store and picking up the typical box of chocolates will quite do the trick, although she does love chocolate. So I’ve taken to the Internet to find some kind of chocolate that isn’t an “everyday” type of chocolate.

You wouldn’t believe how many candy/chocolate companies have websites these days, but it didn’t take me too awfully long to find some See’s chocolate at sees.com that I like the looks and sound of. So good that I’ve gone ahead and ordered several varieties for her, her mom and my mother as well. Might as well make all the women in my life happy for the day!

I know that some folks go all out on Valentine’s Day and buy nice quality expensive jewelry and/or go out for a fancy dinner, but they way that the economy is these days and considering all the money that I just dished out for Christmas, I think a box of nice quality chocolates will do just fine. And of course I’ll get to nibble on some of the goodies as well!

Sprite is my favorite soft drink.  However, I’ve noticed that whenever I order it as a drink in almost any restaurant, all I ever seem to get is carbonated water.  It is really nasty.  If I send it back with a complaint, they bring the same garbage back out as a replacement.  This is very aggravating because I want something sweet to drink that is caffeine free, and I don’t like the other caffeine free soft drinks.  Since it seems to be industry-wide, and nation-wide I find it hard to believe that it is the fault of the restaurant.  I wish Sprite would do something to “take care of” this situation.  They’d probably see an increase in sales if they did! 

Teri and I belong to a local business networking group that meets every Wednesday morning at the local Country Cooking restaurant. There are about forty regular members that attend the meeting. We all take a turn standing up and giving a sixty second introduction to ourselves and our business. And every week there is a featured speaker that takes ten minutes to talk about his or her business.

Today the featured speaker was a woman who says that her business is to make people “weller.” She says she is a self-taught practitioner, and she combines a variety of techniques like acupressure and meditation along with health supplements and health drinks like Trivita, Mona Vie, and Xango. She was very enthusiastic about her health drinks. She even had samples of some of the drinks that she passed around.

We didn’t try the drinks right then, they were in little pouches and little bottles and cans.  She suggested that we take them home and put them in the refrigerator for a couple of hours because they taste better cold.  I would be very interested in some of these healthy drinks if they taste good. I have tried a variety of health drinks and found many of them to be completely unpalatable.