GEICO Commercial - Did the little piggy cry wee wee wee all the way home?

This is the cutest commercial! I normally hate commercials and very rarely ever watch one, I accidentally saw this one and it cracked me up. Full disclosure...no, I do not work for Geico, in fact they were our competition when I worked at USAA, but it's still a very cute commerical.

Grass, Grass, Grass

Our dry spell ended due to a tropical depression sitting in the Gulf, and we've been having rain every day.  It hasn't rained much, but several times a day it either rains or looks like it's going to.  The grass has stayed too damp to mow and it's growing!

Yesterday, we finally got a dry day and Al and I decided to get busy on the mowing.  We took turns on the mower and between the two of us, got the yard pretty much mowed.  That's not counting the pasture, but we figured we mowed 5 or 6 acres of grass.  We were tired when we went to bed!  You wouldn't think sitting on a riding mower would tire you out, but the constant bouncing gets to you after a while.  I have been trying to remember to put on my Joint Flex a couple times a day and I had no problem with my sciatic nerve pain until right at the end of my mowing session.  I can't believe how well that stuff works.  I never dreamed it would work for Sciatica, but it sure seems to have helped mine.  I highly recommend it for any type of pain.  It's really helped Al's knee that he hurt last week as well.  We used to get it at Walmart, but can't find it there anymore.  Al got some in Tampa at Publix grocery store.  I'll order it online if I have to.  It's inexpensive.

We painted the living room today but Al is out working on mowing the pasture.  That's a big job and usually takes us both a few days to get it done.  It gets done once a month in the summer, whether it needs it or not!

We're still having very hot and humid weather, but after 105 degrees, this 97 doesn't feel so bad!  We're hoping September will bring us some 80's!

Pizza and a VERY Bad Movie

Al came back from Tampa today, so I decided to make him a home made pizza. We were both starving and it takes an hour for the dough to rise. I mixed up the yeast, flower and water, covered it up and set it outside to rise. We waited patiently and after an hour I went to check it.  It was as flat as it was when I started.  ???   I couldn't figure out what the problem was.

 I finally decided that I may have lost track of the number of cups of flour I put in and that may  be my problem.  It's supposed to be 4 cups but I kind of lost track on  my count.  At least I think that's what happened.  I didn't know how to fix the first batch and didn't want to ruin a perfectly good pizza, so I had to make another batch.  Of course I had to wait an hour again for the dough to rise.  In the meantime, we were still starving.

I decided to cheat, warm up the oven a little and then put the yeast in there. That worked and it  was ready to go after only about 40 minutes.  So we finally got our pizza.

Al had picked up  The Bad Lieutenant from Redbox and we decided to watch it while having our pizza.  I have to say that was probably the worst movie I have ever seen.  It was so poorly made that nothing made sense.  The acting was fine but the storyline was so bad, I decided to not waste any more of my time.  Al stuck it out till the end, but confirmed it
Al came back from Tampa today, so I decided to make him a home made pizza. We were both starving and it takes an hour for the dough to rise. I mixed up the yeast, flower and water, covered it up and set it outside to rise.

When I went to check on it, nothing had changed. It was just as flat as when I put it out.    I finally decided that I may have lost track of the number of cups of flour I put in and that may  be my problem.  It's supposed to be 4 but I kind of lost track and was the worst movie of all time.


If anyone wants to make home made pizza, here is the recipe.  My mother made pizza every Saturday night when I was growing up.  It was our family ritual.  She makes the best pizza and I am still trying to get the knack.  I'm improving (at least when I add the correct ingredients)

Homemade pizza dough


1 package Fleishmans dry yeast
1 1/2 cups hot water

mix the yeast and hot water together

2 tbls oil
mix in the yeast water

add 4 cups of flour, mix and set aside covered for about an hour until the yeast has doubled.

top with favorite ingredients and bake @ 450 for 20-25 minutes. 

Like I said, there is a knack to it, but it also seems to have a mind of it's own.  Sometimes my Mom's pizza is incredible, crispy and crunchy, and sometimes it's just good.  You never quite know how it will turn out, but it's always good.

Bluebirds

Our last little Bluebird baby flew the coop.  : (

It's kind of sad to open the box and find it empty, except for one little blue egg.  It will be nice not to have anything to worry about though.  We've had so many nests this year in our 5 Bluebird boxes. 

We still have a bunny to worry about, I guess.  He's getting big though. I saw him again tonight.  I wish I knew what he liked to eat (other than tender new sprouted broccoli plants).  

I may plant some pumpkins.  If I get them into the ground now, I may have some for Halloween.  I don't know why, but I just always wanted to grow some of them.  A lot of people around here, use them for yard decorations with a few bales of hay. I had some last year but we didn't get them  planted early enough and they got frost before they got big, or turned orange.  I mentioned it to Al and he said, "knock your self out."  I guess that meant, he wasn't going to plant anything for me. :)

Empty Nest Syndrome

Well two out of the 3 Bluebird nest boxes are empty.  One just has one baby left in it. I expect he'll fledge any day now.  We hope they all made it out successfully and are thriving.  We did all we could to to protect them, but once they are out of the box, it's out of our hand.  I think this will probably be the end of the nests this year.  I think they hatched around July 22nd, so they were due to fledge.

Al was pretty upset a few days ago.  He saw the Red Shouldered Hawk sitting right on top of the nest box in the pasture.  I had horrors of the hawk reaching in there and pulling the babies out.  Al scared him off and checked the box. It was empty, so we think they may have fledged.  I just hope the Hawk wasn't there when that occurred.

Al saw the baby fox one time only and hasn't seen it again.  In fact until yesterday we hadn't seen any foxes at all.  We're still feeding them every day, but it seems now the only one that is getting the food is the raccoons.  We don't really want to feed them and encourage them to hang around but we want to keep the foxes fed so that they won't raid the chicken coops and end up getting shot.  I hope that's not what happened to them.

We still see our baby bunny frequently. He's growing up.  He hangs around close to the shed, so he's pretty well protected.  We try to watch out for him when we're mowing.

The lawn mowing has been slowing down due to the heat and drought.  We have had a little rain the past few days, so I suppose it'll start growing again.  It's time to mow the pasture again.  There is always grass to mow somewhere!

Well the temperature is under 100, but not by much.  It's 97 degrees.  I have been messing around inside today, not getting much accomplished. :)

Here is a little program I found on someone else's blog.  It's a good time waster...like I need another one.

Puzzle

I have been working on my old laptop (it's Al's new computer now).  It's driving me crazy, constantly running....something!  It always seems to be busy and I can't get it to run what I want it to. I'm trying to get it back in order because Al likes to look around on the computer sometimes.  I tried to run Malwarebytes, but it kept quitting on me.  I finally installed the updated version of Mozilla Firefox and then tried to scan it with Essentials, but that gave me a problem too.  I finally did a shutdown and am going to try again.  I think some of the problem is that I haven't used it much since I got my new one and some of the programs need updating.  At least that's my guess. 

Hopefully it will cool down a little and I can go out and mow for a while tonight. I'm getting tired of being inside.

Out Sourced

Al and I watched an interesting movie on Netflix the other night, called   “Outsourced.”  I would recommend it.  It really made me re-think a few things.

The movie was about a guy in the United States that worked as a manager at a call center.  The company decided to outsource the call center to India and he would be out of a job just as soon as he trained his Indian replacement.  He had to live in India for a few months while he was training his replacment.  Of course he went there with a very bad attitude. 

I have to say that when I call an American company and end up talking to someone who is obviously not n this country, I get a bit of a bad attitude.  I try not to do business with companies that use foreign companies for their service, and I think a lot of us feel that way.  I don’t like the fact that they don’t speak English the same way I do and also that they are taking American jobs.

However, I had an epiphany after watching this movie.  It  really made me think.  The people there are poor and struggling to survive in a country with too many people.  Why shouldn’t they accept these jobs if offered?    They are eager and willing to learn.

When he went to train these people, he tried to explain that they needed to sound more American, and to learn our customs and way of speaking so no one would know they were Indian.  They asked  him why  American’s  had such a problem with outsourcing and why we were rude to them.  He explained that Americans were concerned that their jobs were being taken away.  That was hard for the Indian people to understand, since most of the products they were selling were mostly made in China!  It made me think.  I have no problem going to Wal-Mart and  looking for the best prices, which is frequently not something made in America. 

This was an interesting and funny movie and I would recommend it.  It was entertaining.
 
It’s available from Netflix streaming.  We really enjoyed it and like I said….it made me think.

Let me know if it doesn’t change your attitude towards outsourcing and the people of India.

Cooler Weather

We've had a slight break in the weather, so I've been able to get a little mowing done and Al is doing some trimming of a very dried out Hydrangea bush.

I had heard about a recipe for making laundry soap.  A friend of mine tried it and thought it worked well.  The problem was, I couldn't find the 3 ingredients, until recently.  It's a LOT cheaper.  I'll let you know how it works.

Here is the recipe


Hot water
1 cup Washing Soda (Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda)  not  A & H detergent
1/2 cup Borax
1 Soap bar (Fels Naptha Soap)  It is found by the detergents. Can be used as a stain remover also.

• Grate the bar soap and add to a large saucepan with hot water. Stir over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
• Fill a 10 gallon pail half full of hot water. Add the melted soap, Borax and Washing soda, stir well until all powder is dissolved. Top the pail up with more hot water.
• Use 1 cup per load, stirring soap before each use (will gel).

It will gel overnight.
It needs to be stirred before using.
You can pour it in an old detergent jug and use it from there.

 
There are some other recipes online, but this is the one I used.  I'm washing a load right now.
 

Rain

Yesterday we got up to 104.7 degrees!  Whew!  It didn't stay that hot very long, but it didn't cool down very much either.  We finally got some rain last night though.  Very much needed rain.

I have been real worried about the baby Bluebirds that are trapped inside the wooden boxes. They seem to be okay so far, but this heat is unusual and I am worried about them.

I never remember seeing the temperature get up to 100 degrees during the 30 years we lived in Tampa, Florida, but I hear they have gotten over 100 as well. Today it didn't get up to 100 and we got rain again, for the 2nd day.  We really need that rain.

Al is fighting another case of poison ivy.  He was mowing the pasture last week and thinks that's where he got it.  He is extremely sensitive to it and if he gets anywhere near it, he'll get it.  He never knows exactly where he gets it.  It seems to grow on the edge of the woods.  I have told him not to mow up to the edge of the woods, that I'll do that part, but  I don't think he listened!  He  noticed a few bumps on his legs and now he's complaining that he has the "heebie Jeebies."  That's code for I have poison ivy and I feel like hell inside and outside!  I've been giving him Benedryl but he hates to take it during the day because it makes him so drowsy.  The first summer we were here in Georgia, Al got it at least 5-6 times.  He was miserable most of the summer.  He didn't realize that weed-eating, mowing, changing the mower blades, or changing the string on the weed eater was exposing him to it.  He thought he could dress in long sleeves and not get it.  He didn't realize that the oil sticks to everything and since he's so sensitive to it, it doesn't take much.  I have often thought when he already has some of it, if he just walks near it, he'll get more.