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!

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?

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 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.

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!