I can remember just a few years back no one in this neighborhood even locked their doors at night, or when leaving the house!  People felt very safe around here.  But I’ve been hearing recently that a few houses a couple of blocks away were broken into over the past couple of weeks, and just last night by neighbor told me that someone appears to have been in their house over last weekend when they went away to visit their relatives in Ohio.

They said that it does not look like anyone stole anything, but things were rearranged and food was eaten from their pantry and refrigerator.  And beds had been slept in.  I have to wonder if it was maybe some neighborhood kids that were just taking advantage of a temporarily vacant house to have some private romance time!  I’m glad that nothing was stolen, but I’m sure that it would creep me out if I came home and found that someone had been in the house.  Who knows what they might have gone through?  How could I tell if a couple of pieces of jewelry were missing?

My hubby asked me to try and find a consumer reports article about what are the best security systems and services to use.  I think he is concerned that someone might break into our house and steal some of his NASCAR collectibles!  When I got up this morning I saw his laptop computer was on the http://www.broadviewsecurity.com/webpage.  So I guess he’s really serious about looking into a system!

These days if I want to do local search for someone or some place all I have to do is go online to sites like local.com and I can find the local restaurants, pet stores, shoe stores, auto repair, etc with just a few clicks on my keyboard, so who needs the paper version of the phone book these days. Of course if you are still in the dark ages and don’t have Internet access you would still rely on the paper version, I just hope that when you are done with them that you would have the common sense and the decency to recycle them, just like I’m planning on doing. We all need to do what we can in order to be a “green” as possible these days and recycling is a big part of becoming “green” in today’s crazy world.

She has gone online and found Avista Resort to be a perfect top notch Myrtle Beach hotel for us both to stay at, and on her dime to boot! They have a great website at http://avistaresort.com that she found by spending some time on the computer at her work during her lunch breaks. We both like the beach and we both like to play golf, so it is a perfect match. And by going after Labor Day the prices aren’t as pricey and hopefully the place won’t be as crowded either.

It sounds good to me. I can take the time off, but I don’t have a lot of cash to throw around, so if she pays for the lodging I think I can manage the rest. I’m so excited, a girls weekend at the beach, gotta love it!

She has been sharing with me some of the sites that she has been looking at for teen addiction info. There is some good information to be found online and I’m glad that she trusts me enough to share this issue with me. Lord knows I wish that she wasn’t so far away, I’d love to be able to wrap my arms around her and her kids and be there through the whole ordeal and I know that she would do the same for me, in a heart beat. We have known each other since the 2nd grade and keep in touch almost on a daily basis with emails and cell phones.

The Newport Academy has a great web site  that she has turned to for teen drug rehab information and guidance. If anyone out there needs this type of information I would certainly refer them to this Treatment Center’s web site to see if they can help with their particular situation.

With almost half of the online game playing population looking for and playing virtual girl games the demand has been heard and they have done a good job in providing females with a good variety of virtual girl games to occupy our online time. My 11 year old niece got a laptop for Christmas and spends a good amount of time online, since she is the only child she doesn’t have anyone around the house to play with and spend any of her spare time with, so the computer has turned into her best friend these days.

It is a good thing that her mother is on the ball and is constantly checking in on her and does look to see what sites she has been visiting. She isn’t allowed to have a FaceBook or a MySpace account yet, but she seems cool with that for now.

You can find plenty of nice rain barrels for sale on the Internet if you can’t find them locally. They have some wonderful styles of rain barrels to offer for today’s consumers. Not just the old wooden type of rain barrel that we grew up seeing from time to time. If we all try and harvest the precious and few rain drops that we are getting it could make a big difference all the way around for many folks.

I feel that buying the custom made for you hosiery a waste of money. I tried that once – I had to get a prescription for them and go to a pharmacy where they took my measurements. They sent away for the stockings. When they arrived they weren’t the right size, my insurance refused to pay for it, and the pharmacy said that once I opened the package that they were not returnable. So I was out over $100 for a pair of hosiery that I couldn’t ever wear!

Now I buy my compression hosiery online at Amazon.com. They have the best price, and you can buy the size you need without having to be professionally measured. And they cost a lot less than $100 a pair! With proper care, each pair can last several years, so they are worth their weight in gold to me!