Cheryl Beckham

One of my favorite shows to watch on TV is “How It’s Made” which comes on the Science Channel almost every day. No matter what it is that they are showing us, I learn something interesting, fascinating and/or entertaining, which I can’t say about any other show that my current satellite provider offers us.

Thanks for the guest post by Jo Levy

My husband recently got a new job and there is quite a bit of travel involved with it. He is out of town at least two weeks every month and sometimes more than that. I am glad that he got the new job because it pays more and we have better insurance. Sometimes I get to travel with him too and I really like to do that when he has to travel near the beach. However, when I am home alone for a few weeks at a time, I get a little nervous. I do not feel as safe when he is not there. Every time I hear a creak or bump at night I get worried that someone might be in the house. I even jump when I hear the ice maker start making ice. We decided to go to HOMEsecurity101.com to find info on having a home security system installed. He and I both would feel more comfortable knowing that the security system is activated when I am home alone. Although I would rather just have my husband at home, I am glad that I will feel safer when he is gone.

I was at work when I accidentally knocked over my picture of my parents. Well as I went to bend over to pick it up my pants ripped in the rear end in front of my boss! How embarrassing is that! Thank goodness that I was near a shopping mall so I could go over and pick out a new pair of pants for the rest of the day at work. My boss being the sweetheart that she is, let me take off work for an hour to go buy a pair. I was relieved when I found a pair within the first 5 minutes of being there so I didn’t have to walk around with a hole in my rear.

Now is the time of the year that I start looking at getting my hands all in the dirt and thinking more and more about Gardening. Today it was so nice outside that I was so tempted to start doing some digging and tilling, but of course that would have been a waste of my time and energy since we will most likely be dealing with “Old Man Winter” for a few more months and anything could happen with this crazy weather we have been experiencing this winter.

I’ve been finding seed and plant catalogues in the mailbox lately and I’m enjoying looking at all of the varieties of plants, trees, bushes, flowers and shrubs that you can order these days. I can’t wait to order flowers for my new window box planters which I bought at the end of the season last deal. Man did I get a sweat deal on those babies. My mother used to have some of the most beautiful window boxes that she always took such pride in. So I’ve always wanted to give them a try and now that time has come. I just hope I can do them justice by looking even half as good as my mother’s did. I’m excited.

There’s a grocery store in Europe that makes our little ’self-checkout’ lines look obsolete already.  In Germany, there’s a grocery store that you take your cell phone, scan the items with it that you put in your shopping cart and then when you get to the check out, your cell phone will display a bar code for everything you scanned total, the check out person scans that and you pay and out you go.

So it looks like we’re not only looking at advances in grocery shopping but also in cell phones.  At the check out, once you scan the payment bar code, you can pay by cash, credit card, debit card or fingerprint (after you have signed up for fingerprint shopping).  And the politicians wonder why we are falling behind the rest of the world where technology is concerned.