Archive for January, 2012

Wal-Mart to stop using plastic bags?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

I was shopping at my local Wal-Mart and heard some of the employees talking about how pretty soon Wal-Mart will be requiring their customers to bring their own bags!  I wonder how well the customers are going to be taking that!  Personally, I’m glad – I have several canvas shopping tote bags that I bought a long time ago that I would like to use for my weekly groceries.  Even though I bring most of my empty Wal-Mart shopping bags back to the Wal-Mart for recycling, I really would prefer to not have to deal with them.  Although they DO make good little trash can liners!

I didn’t know people were eating monkeys!

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

I was reading a BBC.com website news story today about how 48% of the world’s primate species are facing extinction.  The article explains that a large reason for that was the deforestation of the world; people are cutting down and/or burning the forests that the primates live in.  That was depressing news.  But what really surprised me was to read in the article that the extinction is being exacerbated by hunters who are hunting the primates for food!  I did not realize that people considered monkeys as edible!  I don’t know why, I just never really thought people would eat monkeys.  That makes me especially sad, since I consider primates to be so closely related to humans that it almost seems cannibalistic to eat them!

Algae turned into fuel

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

According to an article dated May 29, 2008 in the LA Times, there is a company that is planning to use algae to start producing a crude oil that can be used to make gasoline and diesel fuel.  The production of the fuel uses carbon dioxide, which would help to clean up our greenhouse gases problem.  It can be refined in existing refineries and be used by the existing cars and trucks on the road.  It plans to reach full commercial scale in five years.  The company that is planning to do this is called Sapphire Energy.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful, getting oil from algae instead of fossil fuels!

Organizing our home, starting with the playroom

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Guest post written by Cheryl Hunt

One of the things that I wanted to do before my husband went back to work after the holidays was to organize our home. Well, I think I’ve basically run out of time to get his help on that, but I’m just going to move forward and try to tackle all of this on my own. I thought a good starting place would be the kids’ playroom. That’s one area that’s always messy, so I thought it might be good to get that worst room out of the way first. Plus, my kids will get to start enjoying it more again that way.

I looked online to find some tips about that and while I was looking, I ran across some info on new doors. Our front door looks so beat up and awful that I decided to use that site to get it replaced.

I’ve already started sorting through the kids’ toys, which is kind of just where you have to start out with this. It’s going much easier than I expected and I just hope that it keeps going that smoothly!

Going to the Golden Corral

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

Tonight we are going to eat out at the Golden Corral.  We are celebrating my sister’s wedding anniversary, so we are joining several other family members there.  I like the Golden Corral; it is an all you can eat buffet with the best tasting yeast rolls I’ve ever tasted in my life!  I sneak a zipper storage bag into my oversized purse that I bring just so I can bring the leftover yeast rolls home to eat later!  They are the best!  And I really like their mashed potatoes and their macaroni and cheese, too.  Oh, and I love hush puppies!  I’d really like to eat there EVERY DAY!  Their salad bar and dessert bar is terrific, I like to eat a little taste of everything!