Marketing

It is interesting to me how we can be drawn in by the marketing ploys of advertisers.  If they say it is good for us, it must be.  If they say I will lose "x" amount of weight; I'm sure I will.  If they say my hair will be shiner; I'm sure it will.  The list goes on and on.  So who do you believe?  Sometimes they make it so confusing, because sometimes they don't even know what their product will do.  Case in point.  I buy baking soda and keep a box in my fridge to keep it smelling fresh; because they tell me it will do that.  See.

They are even kind enough to tell me that for best results I should change out the box, every 3 months and provide me with a little spot to write in the date when I need to replace it.  These people are so helpful that way.  But wait.  It is time to replace the box, so I buy a new box.

Hello, what happened to 3 months, now you are telling me to change it out every 30 days.  Really people.  What we weren't buying your soda fast enough.  So what the next time I buy a new box are you going to tell me I need to change it weekly.  Seriously people, who are you trying to kid.

So I did some homework on the soda subject and this is what I found out:

First, a bit of background on the stuff. Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is about four times stronger that baking powder and is used in recipes with an acidic ingredient like sour cream, buttermilk, and chocolate. Baking soda neutralizes the acids in the recipe and gives you a tender crumb, along with some leavening. This is why, you should whisk your dry ingredients together so that your baking soda is evenly distributed throughout, or you can end up with large holes.

Generally, baking soda does have an indefinite shelf live, but it does lose it's effectiveness over time. A way to check that is to mix 1/4 tsp baking soda with 2 tsp of vinegar, and see if it bubbles immediately. If it does, you are good to go!

The best way to store your baking soda is in a sealed container. An open box on the shelf allows it to absorb all the lovely odors around it, which might not be what you want.  So if you are using it in your refrigerator and you have a peculiarly smelly refrigerator you may need to change out the box more frequently or just toss out the smelly stuff.  Either way I think I will stick with the 3 month plan.  It has always worked for me in the past!  

Double Duty

I love watching baseball with Mr. Man and have been happily doing a lot of it lately.  However, I can't just sit and watch, I have to be doing something besides the occasional screaming in excitement or otherwise at the game.  So what do I do............blog surf and text (a lot of texting going one).  In the process I find good stuff like this!  Free is always good. Not sure how long it will last but it is worth checking out!

I don't want to see this

So last night when I went upstairs and started up the laptop.  That's the routine, that's what I do each and most every night. Last night was no different.  Except for this message:

"Your computer was unable to start. 

Start-up repair is checking your system for problems."

Excuse me what did you say and why did you say that?  Well it goes through "its process" and for better or worse it started up without any more messages.

Computers they have a mind of their own.

Work the Plan and the Plan will Work

I love when a plan works.  For weeks now I've needed to take control of the "so-ing" room. Way back in January when Pandora came to visit I did some reorganizing of rooms and “stuff.” And the "so" room had become the "toss it in there room."  So Saturday I worked until the work was completed. I love when a plans works.

Nasty

So So much better!

Next stop the "rat room" for all visiting rug-rats...........those wonderful grans! Who will start to arrive in 32 days........but who's counting?

A Million

I’ve always wanted to have a million of something, well mostly a million dollars. Once there was a time a million was a big number. And I suppose now it still can be, because once you have the million it can somehow reproduce itself or so they say. It has to do with all that investing stuff that is light-years over my head. And I suppose if I never spent any of the money I’ve earned in my lifetime (which includes the ten cents an hour I use to make babysitting) I would have a million by now. But who can do that? So since accumulating a million bucks at this point in my life is probably not going to happen (sorry kids) I’ve decided I’ll have to get a million of something else.

After a little snafu with my camera Sunday (I deleted all my pictures on my camera accidently) I decided I needed storage totally dedicated to pictures. So in my search for storage I found that the newest affordable “number” in the computer world is a terabyte. I was just getting use to gigabytes and now we are on to terabytes. So what can I do with one tb (that’s short for terabyte)? Well, one tb will storage up to 4,000,000 photos. Four million are you kidding me. So that is my goal to fill up my terabyte before I die. I’m not really a picture taking person although it seems like I do (for me) have a lot of pictures spread between my three computers, not to mention CDs and 3 ½ floppy disks (hello I’m dating myself a whole 10 or 15 years).

Guess I better get started, the journey of a million pictures starts with me!

We have a visitor........

Her name is Pandora.  She has come with many many boxes.  I hope she leaves soon!

Our Stuff is Home

Saturday with the help of the missionaries Val moved all our "stuff" out of storage. It feels like we are finally all together........reunited with our "garage stuff." We have epoxy coated both garage floors and now begin the fun task of arranging and re-arranging all the "stuff." And yes, Amy we are doing some tossing and yes, Kimberly we are doing some saving. In fact we have started an area of "review" which we will have Amy go through when she is here in July. Of course nothing will be tossed without my finally blessing............sorry Amy! We also found boxes of Justin "stuff" and some of Grant's "stuff" as well as a barrel of Kimberly "stuff!" Some of the things up for review are stuffed animals from another life and Halloween costumes! Here is a picture of our lovely "stuff" and a picture of the empty garage. Tonight we spent two hours moving and rearranging and things are looking pretty good........we make a great team!

It is not so empty anymore!