I’ve been hearing and reading more cases of families giving up their hard-wired landline in their homes in favor of simply using cell phones.  I can understand the logic, the cell phones are small and they carry them with them at all times, the landline phone is usually larger and more cumbersome.  Yet I question the wisdom of this strategy.  I like having a landline phone, one that is completely hardwired, and corded.  Yes, we have cordless phones, but if and when the electricity goes out (and it DOES go out!) and the cell phones are useless because our house is a dead zone, we depend on the hardwired, corded landline to call the electric company to report the power outage!  And we use it to keep in touch with friends and family during the power outage!  In 1998 we had a huge ice storm that knocked the electricity out for nineteen days, but we had the telephone service every minute!  We could not have maintained cell phones in that case because we could not have kept them charged!

So, in OUR house, anyway, I expect the landline is here to stay.  What about you?

It seems that when the heat is high outside, my kitchen becomes the hottest room in the house. I will do anything to avoid having to spend an hour in the kitchen cooking with the hot stove and oven making the room heat up. So I’ve become a great fan of cold summer salads.

Do you have a favorite salad?

My girlfriend just got a new apartment.  She’s very excited about it, but has complained that she doesn’t have a dishwasher!  I suggested that she look into buying one of those counter top dishwashers that are about the same size as a large microwave oven.  It just sits on your counter top beside your sink and washes up to four place settings at a time!  They only run about $235.  I know that’s what I’d do – I would hate to live someplace that did not have a dishwasher!

I have several house hold pets and this time of the year the darn fleas really become a pain in the rear. You would think that will all of the products that are available these days that I could find something that really worked and was worth the time and money spent on. Hard to be an animal lover some times.

It is usually warmer by this time in April. I am getting antsy about getting my hands in the dirt and getting the garden planted and the yard in order. This was an unusually hard winter, one that we really deserve some nice weather to follow. I just wish I knew when that was going to be.