Memorial Day

Hit Play below, before reading any further.

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy memorial day. To all the veterans and active duty military, my thanks! We appreciate everything you do, even if there are times we forget to say it. And also, to the military families, thank you. I think war is even harder on the families than on the soliders…and they hardly ever get thanks… I was a military wife once, and I remember how difficult it was. I also have many friends that have children, and who’s husbands are abroad…I know how hard it is. So a special thanks to all the spouses, and moms, and dads, and brothers, and sisters, and grandparents,  and kids of the military…my heart goes out to you.

Book Review: Paige by Paige: A Year of Trading Spaces by Paige Davis

I was a little turned off by this book to begin with. It’s one of those books who uses all kinds of cutesy graphics…every page looks like it’s a notebook page, and it has random doodles and handwritten notes scattered through out the page. The actual book itself is typed, and not in the horribly hard to read “handwriting” fonts. So, when standing in the book aisle at the store I was debating purchasing this book. It’s not my normal type of book, but I really enjoy the Trading Spaces show, even if I’ve never been a huge Paige Davis fan. Well, I should mention, the store I was standing in was The Dollar Tree, so, that’s right it only cost me a buck. So, I figured I’d take a chance and try it. Now, if you’re not lucky enough to find this at the Dollar Tree, you’ll have to pay the cover price of $19.95 (US Dollars).

 

Is it worth 20 bucks? I’m not sure. Was it worth the dollar? Absolutely. It was a super quick read, I read it in a day. It’s not a really serious book, and she writes little short entries everyday. If you enjoy reading blogs or journals, you’ll enjoy the book. Paige Davis is quite humorous in the book, although, not overly annoying (like when she appeared on the show). It was refreshing to have an inside view of her personal life. Did you know she was a professional dancer? And her husband, is a professional actor? Paige Davis let us into her life without the annoying TV star personality, that has a tendency to come through when TV stars write books. Not in this case. If you’re looking for a serious read, skip the book, if you need something light and fun, kind of a beach type book, this is a good book. Just for the pure fact that it keeped me hooked and made me want to keep reading. I have to say I give this book .

Strawberry, Turkey Legs, and Festivals

Today I went to the 25^th annual Pungo Strawberry Festival. I happen to be a HUGE fan of strawberries…strawberry ice cream, strawberry jam, strawberry juice, strawberry shortcake, strawberry starburst, strawberry…well…you get the idea…I LOVE strawberries. I do not, however, love crowds. They annoy me, they agitate me, and they make extremely uncomfortable. The whole, people running into people, the whole general concept that “If I want to stop in the middle of the walk way to stare at something everyone else will go around me”…it very much annoys me. I do like, however, ease dropping on people’s conversations…it’s amazing how much you can learn by ease dropping…

 

America, as a whole, is fat. There is really no denying this…it’s all around us. This semester I’m taking Nutrition…pretty boring so far, but something my professor said, at our last class, really spoke to me. She said we try to do the right thing (when it comes to food) 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time we allow ourselves to do things we know we shouldn’t, yet want to…kinda like Thanksgiving you know you shouldn’t eat all of that, but you do anyways…Well, the Strawberry Festival is part of my 10%…I had a huge piece of strawberry shortcake covered with strawberries, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream (I’ll post a picture of it later)…now, I thought I was being pretty bad when I had this…Let me make a little disclaimer here, real quick, I am not by any means a health nut…I know a lot of the health nut stuff, even read some of the health nut magazines…but I have standards… I like food, I like good tasting food…I like my nightly bowl of ice cream that I probably shouldn’t have every night…but…I’m starting to realize how the extreme non-health nut half lives…

 

I am walking along at the strawberry fest and hear this woman shout out to her husband “Oh, look the turkey legs we came for!”…And by turkey leg, she really should have said a full turkey…those things are HUGE and deep fried in fat…The stand was slammed full…then there are the really fat people who are chowing down on funnel cakes that are twice the size of my head…and then the huge plate of deep fried potatoes, and nachos slathered in cheese and chili…I understand, not eating healthy all the time…but really, life, is not at all about fat-covered turkey legs…and then you get to overhear the people complaining about the LONG walk from the parking lot to the festival…seriously, it may have (and I’m being very nice here) it may have been a city block…I’m really not sure if it were that…so they complain about the long walk and then sit down and chow down 3000 calories of deep fried “food” and wonder why they’re overweight, have diabetes, high cholesterol and have to take 5 different pills a day at the age of 45…seriously America, wake up.

 

And before I get super upset emails from overweight people who are doing their best to eat right…I understand that there are overweight people who for medical reasons, can’t help it, and can’t lose weight…and I understand that a lot of overweight people are super sweet nice people who really should not be include in the above rant…I do realize that. I’m just pointing out…that America wonders why we’re overweight…you go to a strawberry festival, and there is NO line at the produce stand, but you have to weight 20 minutes at the deep fried fat booth…see the problem?

 

And then, people wonder why kids are obese?? This is what they are seeing…When I was a kid, we use to go to Stepping Out in Blacksburg every year…it was another huge street festival…but they had (and may still) this HUGE fenced in kids area, with all kinds of games and we’d run around like we were nuts and crazy and when we were done, we’d get a single scoop cone of ice cream and then go climb on the fire trucks…no super huge deep fried turkey legs, no fries, no potato curlie things…or nachos, or funnel cakes…we went for the entertainment, not the food…what happened to that??

 

Money saving tip of the day: Want a quick cheap heart attack? Go to McDonald’s not strawberry festivals…not only will you not have to pay for parking, they have a dollar menu.

 

 

Hello, 3 Day Weekend…

Ahh….Memorial day. The official (well, unofficial, I guess) start to summer…Sun’s out, the pool is open, the birds are rejoicing and me, well…I’m off work for 3 days! Wahooo. I got off at 4 today, came home and changed into some jeans and a t-shirt…knocked out a sink of dishes…have 1 more to go…been a slack this week…cleaned up around the house some, and in a little bit my little brother, John, is coming over, and J, him and I will start up the grill and get summer kicked off right…now this isn’t the first time this year that we’ve got out the grill…we’re those crazy freaks you see grilling in December…but, it’s just something about Memorial day weekend, you just have to grill…even for a vegetarian…nothing says summer like lighting up the BBQ…I’m not a summer person, actually, I hate hot weather, but, still there is something about the end of May and the first of June when the weather is hot enough in the day to go swimming or kayaking and cools down in the evening so you might just need a light sweater…but you can sleep with the windows open, and the ceiling fan going and life is good…like it use to be, before everything became so complicated…So, I’ve got a great book calling my name…the puppy has the ball all ready to go, the grill is warm, John is on his way here, and J…well is working on something (I think yard work)…as usual…so, you guys have a great night…I know I will…Hello summer, here I come.

PMS Sucks

If you’re a female, you understand the above statement. So, my period started today…or as I fondly call it “that time of the month.”…that time of the month has ALWAYS been difficult on me, ever since the very first one when I was like 12 and had to go tell my mother that it’d started…it’s been painful…physically…it’s been very painful…and so tonight, I’m going to bed early…I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.