Marlene McKay » Shopping

This seems to happen frequently

Marlene — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:17:35 +0000

I’ve noticed that credit card companies from time to time decide to change my credit card number. They say it is for security reasons, and I can understand them trying to be “secure” and all of that, but it is a huge aggravation on two levels. OK, maybe three levels. First of all, I’ve memorized my credit card numbers, and it is hard to “forget” the numbers I’ve memorized and learn new ones. Second of all, I have the credit card number listed for automatic charges on a lot of accounts, and now I have to notify them all of the change. On the third account, every single time that they do this to me, the very first billing cycle after the account number changes, there are fraudulent charges on my new account number! How is that being more “secure?” So I have to challenge the charges, which is a royal pain in the neck!

Fuel from salt water?

Marlene — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:51:27 +0000

A friend of mine sent me a link to a blog that was talking about how someone has found a way to burn salt water, and that the possibility was there to further develop that to actually be able to run cars with that technology.

So I was just googling “fuel from salt water” and was reading the different links about it.

From what I can tell, right now it takes more energy to create the fuel than the fuel itself would generate, which makes it impractical. Perhaps someone can refine the process, but I also read that when the salt water DOES burn, it releases a deadly form of chlorine gas, which probably would not be a good thing!

So, I think that quite a bit of “tweaking” needs to be done for that technology to hit the mainstream use of running our cars on saltwater!

Wireless dead zones

Marlene — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:54:31 +0000

For all of the television commercials that I see on television about how great Verizon Wireless is, and for all of our neighbors insisting that Verizon is the company with the best cell phone reception is around here, I have to say that I’m quite disappointed in the dead zone problems that I have with my Verizon cell phone. I cannot use my Verizon cell phone in my house at all – the entire house is a dead zone. And whenever I drive from the house to “town” to run errands, the vast majority of the trip to “town” is a dead zone – even if I pull off the road and stand on top of my car. So, I have to say that I am quite disappointed in the Verizon cell phone service.

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?

Christmas fruits

Marlene — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:31:01 +0000

The past couple of days we’ve been getting gift boxes in the mail from my hubby’s relatives. Seems as if they all decided to buy fruit from Harry & David this year! We love their pears, so we are glad to get the gifts. One of the boxes arrived with no message as to who the gift is from, it just said in the message part for my son to keep his hands off of the fruit! I am thinking it is from my sister-in-law, but I’m not sure of that.

Today we got another box, this time from my hubby’s aunt – it had pears and candies and nuts and smoked salmon and baklava and all kinds of great goodies in it! That box cost a bundle, I am sure! The last time I remember eating smoked salmon was right around 1999, and I really enjoyed it, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy that treat, assuming that my hubby doesn’t eat it all before I get any of it!

The shoes arrived

Marlene — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:45:09 +0000

Well the clogging shoes that I bought off of EBay arrived. They are a little bit snug on my feet, but I think that they are made of leather and that they will stretch. Besides, I only wear them for an hour a week, so it really won’t be a big hardship for me to wear them for that period of time. What is really weird about them, though, is that there seems to be some kind of lining that bunched up in the toe box, and that is a little bit uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know if I’ll get used to it, or if frequent wear will soften it up. What do you think I should do to make them more comfortable?

Clogging shoes from Ebay

Marlene — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:38:45 +0000

Since we went to clogging class we realized that we need to wear special clogging dance shoes. The new ones cost around $70, which is way above my budget. Especially since we’re new at clogging and don’t know how long we will be able to continue taking the classes. So I checked Ebay and found a pair of beat-up-used shoes that might be in my size for sale for only $5.00. I went ahead and bid on them, and to my surprise I won the auction! So I’m looking forward to getting my clogging shoes in a couple of days. It will be good to wear them to classes instead of dancing in my socks! I love Ebay!

My friend want to buy a van

Marlene — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:27:02 +0000

My best friend wants to buy a van. She wants to use it to take crafts she makes to local craft fairs, hoping to make some money off of her favorite hobby. She wants me to join her in her “weekend” business by helping her load the van at her house and going to the fairs with her, unloading the van at the fair and setting up her display and then help her man her table at the fair. She’s offered to pay me a percentage of the money that she takes in. I’m not sure that she will really make any money doing this, but I told her I’d help her for one season.

I’m really concerned that the cost of gas is going so high that she’s not going to be able to drive it out of her driveway! But, she is pretty insistent, and she is telling me that right now the prices of vans are getting lower because of the gas crisis. I’ve told her that if she is so insistent on buying a van I will help her try to find the best insurance by doing some Internet research on the coverage and prices that are available from the many different insurance providers.

Meeting new friends

Marlene — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:48:16 +0000

My family lives in a fairly rural area, which I really like. We are close enough to the city to go into the city for special occasion shopping trips and special occasion meals, but I would not want to live in such a congested area.

Living in such a rural area, however, can get kind of lonely, and we’ve found ourselves thinking about how to meet new people beyond our neighbors and work on finding friends on our local area. We’ve heard that there is a community center supper next weekend, trying to raise money for the Community Center. I think we should go to it!

Went to Home Depot today

Marlene — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:09:01 +0000

Today my DH asked me to go with him to Home Depot to help him bring some sheets of plywood home. I thought this was going to be a quick trip into town and back again, so I said yes. Much to my chagrin, the trip was not just to Home Depot, it was also to Auto Advance. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes, honey, I just need to buy some oil and a filter.” So I waited in the car, reading the Sunday paper, for forty-five minutes! Finally I decided I’d better go inside and find him and drag him out of there. I found him standing in line at the check-out counter, with much more than some oil and a filter in his hands!

The cashier was incredibly slow in processing the order, and I was getting tired and cranky, anxious to get home before even getting to Home Depot! We headed off to Home Depot, where once inside he met an old friend that he hadn’t seen in months and so he had to chat with him for a half hour before even getting through the door! So I went into Home Depot and started shopping from the list we had made up, to get things going.

Lesson learned, next time DH says “would you come with me to…….” if I want to get home within the same four hour period of time, the answer should be NO!