April Michele

There was a gospel group that had come to a local church to sing and decided to stop by here.  They had stayed here a few years ago and wanted to come by and say ‘Hi’.  They graced my patrons with a mini gospel singing.  They were even better than I remembered them being.  They sang a few of the old standards and some original songs the members had composed themselves.  The children were dancing and several of their parents were singing along with them.  It was a wonderful threat.  Most of the people even gave money to the group for them entertaining them even though there was no charge.  There are still some good people in the world, we just have to take the time to see them.

Last night, a whole herd of deer came through the back yard headed to the river.  Most of the visitors got to see them too.  That was the high light of the evening.  I was amazed at how many of the patrons had never seen a deer alive.  They had seen them dead on the road or on TV and in movies but never just walking through the yard like they did here.  I guess seeing wildlife all the time makes it trivial to me but amazing to those that don’t have the pleasure of it.  We just take too many things for granted and don’t even realize it.

Well the summer heat is here and driving more people up here in the mountains where it is still cool enough to leave your windows open through the day most days.  Sure there are times when it gets a bit warm but then you turn on the ceiling fans and all is well.

Very few places have air conditioning up here.  I do have it and will turn it on if requested but most people prefer the windows open anyway.  They love the fresh mountain air.  I do too.  It sure saves on the power bills if I don’t have to turn on the A/C, if you know what I mean.

Boy am I glad the gas prices have kept people close.  You know what I mean?  People are taking shorter vacation trips and I have been booked solid since school got out and am still booked through labor day weekend.  I even have most weekends after school goes back booked almost solid.  I really hate that gas is so high but it has helped the local economy a great deal.  The best part is that a lot of people are finding my place that didn’t even know it was here before.  Word of mouth is the best advertising there is.

Did you hear about that judge in New Zealand that has gotten sick of all the stupid names parents are putting on their children.  It seems some parents thought ‘Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii’ was a good name for their daughter.  Well it has caused this poor little girl all sorts of embarrassment and she never even told her closest friends what her real name was.  When someone asked her name, she would just say ‘K’.  The judge changed her name and it has not been released what her name was changed to so they could protect the little girls identity.

Don’t parents even consider what consiquences a stupid name like that does to a child?  I thought Frank Zappa was the only idiot that would name a child something stupid like Motorhead, Dweezle and Moon Unit.  Guess he’s not the only one.

Estelle Getties from the old show ‘Golden Girls’ died today at the age of 84.  Bless her heart she had dementia and if you have ever dealt with someone with that, it is as devastating as Alzheimer’s Disease.  Estelle played a character that I fugure I’ll end up being someday, a feisty, opinionated little old lady but the funny thing is she was actually the youngest lady on that show.  She was a great actress and will be miss.  You can read more about her passing at  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080722/ap_on_en_tv/obit_getty.   Please do check it out if nothing more than to honor her memory. Gals like her don’t come along very often.

The way gas keeps going up, you have to save any way you can.  I found a web site where you can get online coupons on just about anything you want.  The best part is that most of the things I want come with free shipping too.  Heck, I save with the coupons, I save with the free shipping and I save my own gas by not having to run all over the hills to find what I want.  I’m a happy girl!!!!

The latest “craze” are frogs and I’m talking live frogs too.  I got a ‘froggie tank’ for my kids (well the ones next door are sort of my kids too) and I know they are going to have a blast ‘growing froggies.’

Since school is out for the summer it seems fitting to get the froggies going and growing.  It should be a pretty cool thing for everyone to participate in and enjoy, while learning at the same time to boot!  I’m thinking that maybe over this weekend, while out running errands, I should stop by the closest pet store and see if we can find a some frog eggs and get this thing going.

I saved the shipping and handling charges that would have been $9, by having my new computer sent to the store, instead of being delivered to my home address.  I like that policy.  I’ll let you know how this little laptop handles when I get it all figured out.  I’m a bit nervous, I’m not the best when it comes to all these electronic gadgets and I’m sure I’ll be call my computer whiz kid friend for assistance, but I’ll give it a try and see what happens. 

I’ve been checking out laptop computers and I have found one that I think I would like to have. I ordered it online from Wal-Mart today.  It’s an Everex 7 CloudBook.  Have you seen them or heard of them?  It’s a very portable laptop that I will be able to tuck in my back pack or hand bag and take practically everywhere that I go. I hate being tied down to anything and since I already have wireless Internet, I can even take it out in the yard and surf to my hearts desire if I so desire. It only weighs a little over 2 pounds and I can’t wait to get an email telling me that it has arrived at the store so I can go pick it up and get the initialization process over with.  I just hope it’s not too complicated to getting it going since I’ve never had a ‘new’ computer before.  I always got someones hand me down computer but I’m not complaining.