School begins here in our town on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008, that is well over a month away and already the TV is full of commercials advertising their “Back to School” merchandise. All of our kids have in hands, their lengthy school supply list and the wife is planning on taking them to Wal-Mart this week-end to get all that they need, in order to get the best buys for their money. You just can’t beat Wal-Mart’s prices for their school supplies, but the kids are not crazy about buying their Fall wardrobe from there, they are begging their mother to take them to the huge Mall that is 2 hours away from here so that they will have their own “unique” wardrobes in order to start the school year in style.

This particular Mall that they want to drive all that way to has tons of stores that are no where to be find around these here parts, and most people do their “Back to School” clothes shopping here locally at this tiny poor excuse of a Mall, so no one will be wearing what they will be sporting! At least that is the plan. 

We have been having “wet basement” issues for years now, due to our french drain blockage and the wife has finally taken it upon herself in researching and educating herself on the Internet and thinks that she has found a company that goes by the name of b-dry.com that deals with the French Drains Companies faults that we the home owners have to pay to fix the situation.

French drains can be found in many basements but they have a problem that causes them to slowly clog up with sediments and the results of that can be costly to fix, such as having to fix or replace the basement walls. We certainly don’t want things to get that bad off here at our home!

I’m glad that my wife has taken the initiative and contacted b-dry. We are awaiting the appointment that has been made and verified by them, and I’ll keep you posted on our progress!

My wife never ceases to amaze me, just today, for no other reason then she felt like doing something nice for me, she went out and purchased a brand new high definition 47 inch plasma TV! Now with the new tube mounted on the wall and my fathers day lazy boy chair squarely in front of it, the Friday night fights and the UFC fight nights on TV are more like front row seats ringside. She is a darling of a woman, which makes it extremely difficult for me to try and explain to people just what she sees in an uncouth old lout like myself. So I usually just leave that up to her, and she usually just grins and makes the sign of the size of the “fish that got away” story!

Something that has become a staple in most homes these days are the outside grills, on Holidays and weekends the neighborhoods smell so good from all of the cooking going on outside, weather permitting and all. And in such a diverse neighborhood as ours, all of the different regions all cooking their own specialities, along with the all American hot dogs, hamburgers and my favorite steak, can come up with some interesting aromas being blown in the wind, ends up heading right up to your nose.

The Electric Grill is becoming more of an option due to No Open Flame Restriction Codes being passed in so many places now and my favorite quality is that they never run out of fuel! And we don’t even need to go into fuel prices these days, at this point and time. So many times we have planned a cook out only to find that we have run out of fuel and some one needs to make a mad dash out to retrieve some to get the grilling up and started.

The wife has been looking at some new and interesting recipes that she would like us to try out this summer, on our electric grill that we can make use of some of the veggies that we are growing in the garden, which would be a good healthy choice to add to the grilling menu.

Just got in from the garden and was I ever surprised at the sudden growth spurt of many of the plants. the beans are up and ready to start picking, I’ve already picked about ten or so large yellow squash,(which is the wife’s favorite), the cherry tomatoes are ripening and the large tomatoes are already of good size and should start turning anytime now. The few rows of corn are tasselling as well. We’ve also  a huge crop of thorn less blackberries bursting all over and our tiny hedge of concord grapes look to be a good showing this year too.

This has to be one of the best gardens we’ve managed to grow to date for having such a small place to garden and having to downsize the amount of each vegetable we attempt to grow for lack of space. But it’s doing well and the wife and i are quite pleased with our efforts.