While shopping for groceries I sometimes find a neighbor in the aisle and we stop to chat for a few minutes. But today I stopped at a grocery across town and I was completely surprised to find Alexa Wallace in the store. I went to the Trader Joe’s to pick up a few things and while shopping the produce section, Alexa tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Boo!” What a laugh!
My girlfriend and co-worker, Wendy Carlyle, had a death in the family last month and had to travel to New York for the funeral.
Evidently both of her parents have brothers who are ill. I’m not sure which one passed away, but the office decided to send flowers to the funeral to offer our condolences to Wendy and her family.My secretary took care of it.
It made me realize that I have not had a reason to order or send flowers to anyone for a long time. That is unusual for me, as I used to work for florists when I was much younger, and I have always been eager to send or receive flowers. I’m sorry to say that might be one more social convention that is slowly disappearing.
Friends, I like potato chips. I especially like real chips as opposed to Pringles. I like dip. I make my own dips and I like Dean’s dips.I don’t buy or eat chips very often, but sometimes potato chips and dip are a great snack or side item for a hot dog or sandwich.
Some people like the convenience of flavored chips, such as barbeque or green onion. But I had no idea that flavored chips were such a big business for Frito-Lay. And evidently, the popular flavors vary according to what part of the world they are furnishing their salted snack items. Here is a very popular flavored chip in the Asian markets:
For those of you who don’t speak or read that Asian language, look closely at the illustration on the bag. Yes, it really is turkey and gravy flavored potato chips. Turkey. Oh – and let’s not forget to garnish that turkey platter with some green beans and sushi rolls. And yes, they do have clam flavored chips, and other seafood based flavors, too. I had no idea. I’m not mocking them, I am just surprised at the variety flavors not on the market here in my local grocery!
I happened across an interesting recipe for an Italian dish and thought I would give it a try tonight. There were a lot of ingredients that I don’t normally keep on hand, so I made a shopping list and went to the grocery store on my lunch break. The main thing I needed was fresh Basil and Panko bread crumbs. The recipe called for fresh parsley, but the store did not have any and I have some dried parsley in my spice rack, so I used that.
The recipe called for chicken breasts and a fresh tomato basil sauce. It was a little bit more effort than I like for a week night dinner, but it turned out great! I was surprised at the intensity of some of the flavors from using fresh herbs and vegetables as opposed to canned or dried ingredients. It would be worth making again, with some nice side dishes and a glass of red wine.
This afternoon my son was eating a burger and evidently bit down on something like a little piece of bone or grizzel and ended up cracking his back tooth. He says he felt it crack and when he got home, he showed me his tooth and it was most certainly cracked – all the way down to or below the gum line. He says it hurts really bad, but here it is a Saturday and there’s no way to get him to a dentist today or tomorrow.
I wonder if there is any emergency dental care available anywhere in Nashville? You would think that a large city like Nashville would have some basic services available on weekends and late at night, to help the people who have problems outside of normal office hours.
For the time being, we went to Walgreens and bought some Oragel. I think we have a couple of pain pills stashed in the closet from an old prescription. I’ll have to dig through the dozens of bottles and see what I can find to help him until Monday when we can hopefully get into our dentist’s office.
Found this video in my Care2 email newsletter. The idea is pretty cool and the video is really cute. Gave me a fresh eye on my own stray gloves. Kind of an “Annie Hall” approach to wardrobes and accessories.
Most of my girlfriends are big fans of massage. They love going to a spa and spending hours being pampered in many ways. I think that is great for them if they have the extra money in hand to pay for all those pampering treatments and if they have plenty of time to devote to themselves. But for me, I am always busy and n the go, and I really can’t imagine spending 4 hours in a spa on myself. I don’t think I could relax and enjoy myself even if I did find a time slot available to go and do that.
But relaxation is an important part of taking care of oneself and a big part of the equation when you think about the quality of your life. I would love to relax for a couple of hours. But I would rather spend that time in my own home and not in a spa. It is not that hard and not that expensive to find good things, like massage chairs, bath oils and candles to create a spa atmosphere in your own home. You have the privacy of your home and the convenience of all the items right at your fingertips to enjoy at will and for as long as you want. A great massage chair can make all the difference in your relaxation – if you’ve never tried one, you are in for a treat when you do.
My very clever neighbor has decided to get some help with body sculpting from a physician and has figured out a way to combine the work with a great European vacation. She told me that the savings from the procedure being performed overseas rather than here in the United States will actually pay for the 2 week’s hotel fees plus airfare.
There are top notch hospitals and physicians all over the world if you check carefully. In fact, some places are earning top notch ratings as alternative locations to surgeries in the United States. Of course, the driving factor of going outside of the U. S. is the cost savings. But my neighbor also realized that she could combine the surgery and short recovery time with an exotic vacation.
One of the things that sparked my interest was her comparison chart for Liposuction cost in Eastern Europe. You can go to the Czech Republic, Germany or Poland for liposuction and this web site gives you a chart of the typical fees by doctor. I was amazed! It even converts the local currency on the chart to your preferred currency. There are links to the physicians and everything you need to make all the arrangements, starting at the www.cosmetic-plastic-surgery.info web site.
Sam’s Club was incredibly crowded. I think it was full of families that don’t normally shop on Sundays because of football. There seemed to be a lot of pouting or dejected husbands being dragged along by shopping carts full of groceries.
There are several aisles of Christmas decorations and toys being put on display. I really don’t want to buy Christmas things this early in the season. But the problem with shopping at Sam’s is that you never know how long something they have on the floor is going to be available.
the only way you can buy what you need or want at Sam’s Club is to buy it as soon as it comes out on the floor. Especially if you wear a popular size of clothing or shoes. There is a high probability that if you don’t buy it now and wait until your next shopping trip, what you wanted to buy this week will be sold out or no longer carried when you come back.
So the Christmas items are not what I want to buy right now, but I had to take a look at them and if there was anything that was a great deal or met a need perfectly, I was going to have to spend the unplanned money today and buy it.
The state at the top of my list for where I would like to live if I had to move away from here is North Carolina. It is very similar to Tennessee in so many ways. We share the same type of mountains and climate zone, we have a handful of major cities and a lot of beautiful rural areas. And North Carolina has some wonderful Atlantic beaches – the one thing that I miss the most being in landlocked Tennessee.
Another attraction of North Carolina is the opportunity to buy furniture direct from the factory. Thanks to the internet, you don’t have to live in North Carolina to be able to shop at www.furnitureoutletworld.com and save money on North Carolina Furniture.