Marlene McKay » Home and Garden

Landline or not?

Marlene — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:32:53 +0000

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?

What is your favorite summer salad?

Marlene — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:13 +0000

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?

Countertop Dishwasher

Marlene — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:51:48 +0000

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!

Darn Fleas

Marlene — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:10:39 +0000

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.

Garden Time

Marlene — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:00:27 +0000

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.

Toxic shower curtains

Marlene — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:52:58 +0000

I was reading an article in the LA Times about how recent research has determined that some new shower curtains give off toxic chemicals for up to an entire month after they have been opened. Not all, but many shower curtains are made with PVC, a type of vinyl that has been linked to many health hazards. Some shower curtains are made from a safer ethylene vinyl acetate, and some are made from fabric.

I think that in the future, when I buy a new shower curtain (or curtain liner!) I will look carefully at the label and see what it is made from before I buy it! If it’s made from PVC, I will be putting it back on the shelf!

Too much rain!

Marlene — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:44:43 +0000

There has been so much rain around here lately that it has been hard to do any outside work. My mother had hired some people to do some remodeling of her house and they got their trucks stuck up to the axles in her back yard! They tore her back yard up very badly trying to get unstuck! They also ruined her drain field for her septic system! What a mess! We told them that they were going to have to pay to have the lawn fixed, and the drain field, and they weren’t happy to hear that at all! But they should have known better than to have driven over the lawn and drain field! Big dummies!

Thinking green

Marlene — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:49:56 +0000

My youngest son has shamed me into replacing the standard incandescent light bulbs throughout the house with CFL bulbs. The CFL bulbs use less electricity, so that makes them environmentally friendly, and it will save money on the electric bill. It took a while for me to find 3-Way CFL bulbs, finally found them at the local ACE Hardware store.

There are a few older light fixtures in the ceiling that are too small for the CFL bulbs that I bought to fit into. So, I will have to keep my eyes open for different sizes and shapes of CFL bulbs to fit into those.

Ground hog day!

Marlene — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:59:40 +0000

Well, I heard that the groundhog saw his shadow this morning! Six more weeks of winter! I’m unhappy about that, I’m tired of the cold this year. I don’t know why it has bothered me more this year than usual. Though come to think of it, it is probably because I’ve got the thermostat set lower to save energy and money. That is probably the real reason! Thank goodness for long johns and warm sweaters!

No power

Marlene — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:56:39 +0000

We lost our electricity in the middle of the night last night. I don’t know why it happened, I have to assume that the wind blew a little too hard and knocked a tree down across the lines, or maybe a car ran into a pole and knocked the pole down. All I know is that the electricity went off and it is still off. I hate when that happens!

I sleep with the white noise of a fan blowing in the bedroom, and with no electricity, there is no fan. With no fan, there is no sleep. With no sleep, there is crankiness! I could have turned the generator on, but it makes so much noise that I can’t sleep anyway, so I didn’t bother. I just laid in bed and hoped I would fall asleep. Didn’t happen. I think I’m going to buy one of those battery operated fans so that the next time it happens I can use that for the white noise!