Today is Black Friday, but I cannot bring myself to go out and brave the crowds at the stores. Being pushed and shoved by the throngs of women desperate to get the best deal lost its appeal to me long ago! But at the table last night Mom hinted to me that Dad needs a new pair of golf shoes for their vacation coming up in a few months. She thinks that they would make a fine Christmas gift for Dad this year. Mom is always asking me to buy Dad’s shoes for her because we wear the exact same size shoes.
Sometimes that is a convenience, sometimes it is an inconvenience. It’s really convenient when I need a pair of dress shoes and don’t want to go buy a pair because I know that Dad has several pairs just sitting in his closet. On the other hand, however, there have been several times when Dad has asked me to lend him my best sneakers for a weekend and when they get returned they are completely ruined! I try to be very respectful and careful of his shoes when I borrow them; I am beginning to think that he doesn’t realize just how expensive casual shoes are nowadays!
My niece and her fiance have been looking at a apartment. They haven’t signed the lease yet, but they are pretty sure which apartment they are going to be taking, and now they need some furniture to put in it! They’ve been asking other family members for hand-me-down home furnishings to help them out, and they are getting quite a bit of luck with that, but there are still a few items that they are going to be needing!
I’ve also suggested that they check out the local thrift stores and freecycle, but there are a few items that they want to get brand new. I’ve suggested that they go to some local furniture stores and see what they like before buying something online. I’d like to make sure that the brand that they get is going to be comfortable and well-made. I’d hate for them to buy something sight unseen and then be upset because it is not the quality or comfort level that they want to have!
My family has always invested in several different ways. In addition to stocks and bonds, they have always put some money aside in silver bullion and gold bullion. We’ve always felt that by spreading the money around a little bit we don’t run the risk of losing all of our money. Don’t get me wrong, we are not wealthy people by any means. We just try to have a nest egg in case we need it! And by putting some of our nest egg money in gold and silver, we think that is a good way to ensure that if and when we need money we can cash in whichever makes the most sense at the time!
I also think that gold coins are a good investment. Bullion is fine, but I also like the coins. My father got me started in investing in the precious metals on my 18th birthday by giving me a gold coin as one of my birthday gifts. And he gave each of our kids a gold coin on the day they were born, too. Naturally I keep all of those in a safe deposit box! Although pretty to look at, I don’t want to risk losing them!
We’ve had a lot of wet weather the past couple of days due to the hurricane. I kept hearing on the television news about a lot of the lowlands and roads flooding. I had to go out a few times to run some errands and totally expected a few of the roads that I use to be flooded out and that I’d have to take some serious detours to get to and from my destinations. So I was quite pleasantly surprised that there didn’t seem to be any flooding at all! It is nice to see the sun come out again today, though. Rainy days make so many people cranky! As I get older I find that the low pressure systems tend to give me a sinus headache! So I’m always much happier when the skies are clear simply because I feel better physically!
Bill loves the rodeo, and he has been encouraging me to go to a rodeo with him. But not just any rodeo – he wants to go to the Houston Rodeo next March. Naturally he wants to tie it into a family vacation so we all go down for several days and include the rodeo as part of the vacation. He says he can get the best Action RodeoHouston tickets online for all of us. He explained to me that the Action seats are the ones where the audience get the closest possible to the ringside action without actually becoming part of the show themselves!
I’ve always marvelled at the skills of the rodeo participants. It’s hard to tell which event is my favorite. I enjoy watching the skills of the contestants in the roping contests; I’ve always wanted to learn how to rope! But I think that the bull riding contest has to be the most exciting because I just cannot even imagine being in the right frame of mind to climb on top of a bull who is intent on getting you off of him as fast as possible!
I’d also really enjoy going to see one of the concerts after the rodeo. I went online to see what concerts are lined up, and I guess it is too early right now to make that decision because there are a lot of performances still to be announced.
Ealier today I noticed a couple of very large wasps nests in a stand of trees about forty feet away from our back yard deck! These seem to be at least as large as a football! My wife asked me if a wasp spray would reach them to kill the wasps. I told her that I just wanted to shoot them down with a shotgun! My wife thought that might not be a very smart idea, thinking that would rile them up and I’d get stung. I assured her that the wasps had all vacated the nest for the winter. She asked me where do they go? I have to admit that I don’t know! That would be an interesting thing to google and learn about!
With my wife’s hours at work being cut back, I’m going to have to help her figure out how to cut back on our expenses I told her that I’d start looking for a better auto insurance quote than the insurance we have now. I’ve been telling her for years that we could probably get lower rates, but she hasn’t wanted to do the leg work. So I’ll be taking that on myself.
We weren’t expecting many trick-or-treaters last night, but we didn’t get any at all. It rained almost all day and into the night, so I would imagine most parents took their kids out to the shopping malls to let them do their trick-or-treating under the safety of lights and under the dry roof.
I think that letting the kids trick-or-treat at the malls is a good idea. You don’t have to worry quite so much about the safety of the children running around in the dark streets, and the likelihood of getting some candy that was tampered with is slimmer.
I can remember in years past that local hospitals used to offer free x-ray screening of Halloween candy to make sure that there were no metal foreing objects in the candy! How sad is that? I haven’t heard of that being done in more recent years, though. Maybe they decided that bombarding candy with X-rays isn’t such a good idea!
I was reading an article about the health benefits of white tea recently. I’ve never tried it before. I’ve tried green tea and didn’t like it, but I think that the next time I’m in a restaurant that offers white tea I’ll give it a try!
General life, Relationships, Shopping | Dean | 
November 27, 2009 2:44 pm | 
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