It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas (A Little)

All my shopping is complete, however, will be going shopping today, on the weekends, and Christmas Eve. Not looking for anything particular, just enjoy having time to do it, plus people watching. Sometimes people watching can last for hours. I often wonder if some people watchers are looking at me thinking 'what is that crazy lady doing?'

Anyhow, I love the winter. Not necessarily the holiday since The reason for the season has taken on a whole new meaning in recent years. Seems too many people have forgotten it's Jesus' birthday, not seeing who can out-do each other. (That's a whole other story)

Time with family and friends, parties, reflections of those no longer with us, and just spending good quality time together makes me really love this time of year.

A tree is up!

It's not mine, but it's a picture of a tree that is up!

Wintery Blast

For over a week the meteorologists talked about the end of the week's wintery storms. From the beginning of the week they were saying we could expect 3-5 inches of snow. By the end of the week, the totals were as high as 9-12 inches of the white stuff! When the first storm was done Friday evening we ended up with around 7 inches in Crothersville.

All Jackson County schools were closed Friday, along with all Friday and weekend basketball games being canceled. Just got an update about an hour ago the school will be closed Monday as well. With the low temperatue in the single digits till mid-week, it looks like the kiddos will have some days to make up during the school year!

The following picture is from Saturday morning.

I do love the snow and the cold weather that goes along with it...however, experiencing my toes in the water and ass in the sand sounds good about now :D

Six Less Days

What am I missing? All the radio stations and commercials have everyone in a panic because they are saying there are six less shopping days for the Christmas holiday season this year. Really?

That would mean in 2013 there were only 359 days! It wasn't a Leap Year, so February had the usual 28 days, instead of 29. I don't remember a month with only 24 or 25 days this year. Where did the six days we are missing go to?

I use to decorate for the Christmas season and have my decorations up right after the Thanksgiving holiday and not take them down till after the first of the year.

Recently I have begun to resent seeing the end of the year get here, because of all the hoopla. Christmas isn't about the biggest sales and racing to see who can open first on Black Friday, or now, it's Thanksgiving Day!

What has happened to spending time with friends and family, traditions, and just good ole rest and relaxation?

Today, depending on who you listen to, we are preparing for 3-7 or 9-12 inches of snow in our region. People are out grocery shopping and running the food stores out of bread, milk, and eggs. Panic mode has set in once again.

Thank goodness there are six less days in 2013! Some people couldn't handle all three hundred and sixty five of 'em! :D

New Word?

recently, I read the new word added to the dictionary is 'selfie'

A selfie is a type of self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone, and are usually taken in a slightly tilted manner.

What's next?

Duck-face?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my followers!

Thanking A Veteran

Some of the Veterans in my family.

Top left to right are James "Ed" Scifres, my grandfather, WWI. Dwight J Sweazy, my father-in-law, WWII. Barton Riley, my dad, Air Force during the Korean War. Bottom row, left to right are Harold "Bud" Scifres, my uncle, Army during the Korean War. Guy L Riley, Navy, my oldest brother, and Larry J Riley, Navy, my younger brother.

The Crothersville FFA had a tribute to the Veterans on Novermber 11, 2013 at 11:00am. They had asked the public for pictures of Veterans and these are the ones I sent to them. I have several other Veterans in my family, but couldn't get the pictures of them in time. Even though they aren't pictured here, I still thank them for the freedoms we all share today.

I'm going to make it a point to thank the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for our freedom. Not just on Veterans Day, but everyday!

Greed

greed
noun \ˈgrēd\

: a selfish desire to have more of something (especially money)

I find it really odd that a sibling doesn't know what county their own father died in, and even stranger than that is how the same deceased father is able to sign his signature on legal documents.

I guess it's true ... wonders NEVER cease!

I won't have any trouble laying my head comfortably on my pillow tonight. Not sure if everyone else will have the same results.

Sad. Really, really sad.

Regardless, I'm sure the sun will rise tomorrow.

Phone of Tomorrow

I received an email recently that I had to chuckle about. It was simply three pictures of phones.

Today's phone of a six year old:

The phone my son had when he was a six year old:

And finally the phone I had as a six year old:

Sure has been some changes over the last several years. I think it will be interesting to see what my grand children and great-grand children will have to communicate, uh, play with when they are six years old!

Kim, Brad, Jill

Indiana University Football

Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana, also known as The Rock.

I had a chance to go there again this year on Saturday, October 5, 2013. It was the opening day of the Big Ten Conference.

It was fun to get back in the 'Hoosier' groove again. Hooo-Hooo-Hoosiers could be heard from the Stadium and I'm sure for blocks away from The Rock. The Marching Hundred band were awesome, like always.

The scoreboard was amazing to watch. The 'Kiss Cam' got some interesting people to give their loved one a smooch.

The most exciting thing that happened was the IU Hoosiers defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions for the first time in sixteen tries by a score of 44-24. Actually, they spanked them!

Even though it was a rainy day, it was worth the 1 1/2 hour drive to Bloomington and well worth the five hours we sat on the cold aluminum bleachers.

I can still hear the announcer saying, "It's third down, let's make some noise!" Or my favorite was, "First down Hoooooosiers!"

Can't wait to go back!

The Tale of Two Companies

There are two companies we order our bills, checks, etc. from about every other year. Recently, we placed an order with Company A for utility bills with our current address on them. When we received them I immediately put them to use with the August billing.

What a headache I created!

As I was looking through the bills I noticed some were tearing apart easily, but made sure to put a piece of tape on it so it wouldn't be a problem with the post office.

Little did I realize that was the small problem!

After giving them to the local post office, they sent them to Indianapolis to be sorted. The Indy post office had a terrible experience with them tearing apart, getting stuck in their sorting machine and only half of the bill being saved.

When we learned of the problem we immediately called Company A and asked if they had changed anything on their end. Of course, they denied any changes and couldn't figure out why we would be having a problem.

Before my next billing in September I went through 800 bills and taped the perforated edges to insure they would not tear apart when the post office began their sorting process. When we took the bills to the local post office to send to Indianapolis, we explained to our local postmaster what we were doing. The following day she calls me to tell me the Indy office could not run the bills because they were still tearing apart as they ran them in their sorting machines.

Again we call Company A and they advise us to send all the bills we recently purchased back to them and they would check and see if there was something wrong with the newly order bills. Within a couple days Company A calls us to say nothing is wrong! REALLY?

We have a second company we do business with also, I'll call them Company B. We make a call to them and ask if they can print our billing cards. That same day, Company B sends us a sample with quotes of the price. We explain the problem we were having with the bills tearing apart and tell them the weight of the paper. Without delay, they tell us that is the wrong paper to use because they had problems with it. Interesting!

Doing business with Company B has been an eye opener. They are working on new billing cards for me to use for the October billing. They couldn't promise the bills would be here by the end of the month, but they are doing their best to satisfy our needs.

Looks like Company A lost a good, honest, loyal customer!