Pencil Thin

Over the holidays we invited our neighbors from down the street over for evening. It was a really lovely evening to say the least. I decided this was a great opportunity to try the wines I had received as part of the wine of the month club from Gold Medal Wine. We had been saving the wines for a special occasion and were excited to see how they tasted. Included in the selection were a white and red wine. Our neighbors mention they preferred red wine so we chose to have the Zinfandel wine. This selection was really lovely and went perfectly with the Hor’ dourves that the neighbors brought along to share. In the course of our discussion that evening I showed them the packaging that the selection had arrived in and discussed the price for the selection. Our guests could not believe how affordable the wine of the month club is considering the high quality of the wines we received and the beautiful packaging the selection arrived in. Until receiving wines from Gold Medal Wine I would have never have guessed that this type of product was so affordable. We all agreed that Gold Medal Wine of the month would make a wonderful gift for so many different occasions. Having received the product myself I would not have a single worry about this gift disappointing anyone I would choose to send a wine of the month selection to. In fact I think having an ongoing membership to Gold Medal Wine of the month club would be a fun way to have monthly get together with our neighbors and enjoy sampling new wines together!

My husband has a room in the basement that he has appropriately named his “Man Room”. What makes it a man room is the amount of tools and “projects” he has laying around. What keeps him from tripping over everything is that my husband has a huge amount of tool storage as he has a place for everything and believe me everything is in its place. Now if I could just get him to feel the same way about his laundry.

I now have a beef with the magazine industry. I bought a subscription to what I thought was going to be a very interesting magazine and it turns out to be nothing but ads. I ripped out page after page of ads and found that out of 156 pages only 39 where ad free. Ads for Foot Locker, Sketchers sneakers and skinceuticals littered the floor. I gave all of them to my son who made some very creative paper mache’ ornaments for our Christmas tree.

My father worked in construction for over 20 years and was exposed to a great deal of asbestos. Thus far he hasn’t had any long term effects that we are aware of. He has been approached by a mesothelioma lawyer to join a class action lawsuit. I don’t know what he is going to do about this at this point. What is weird though is how some of the people he worked with during those 20 years have been seriously impacted by their exposure and he has not been. I am not wishing that he was but you have to wonder what it is that makes one person with equal exposure come through it fine and someone else to become very ill?

Last weekend we went away and stayed in one of those Condo Hotels that everyone is talking about. It was amazing to get away. As much as I loved sharing in our son experiencing Niagara Falls for the first time I really didn’t want to leave the hotel. We were lucky enough to have a jacuzzi in our room that was wonderful. In fact it was so relaxing my husband has agree we should have one in our next house. I think in the three days were away my family of four took three baths a day each. The nice thing was not having to be the one to pay the hot water bill! My older son now wants to live in a hotel rather than move to the country because he loved the jacuzzi that much.

Someone must be trying to tell the people of my town a few things. The message seems to be that we need to workout, buy property, and bank more often. Literally on every street corner they seem to be building a new bank, gym, or a real estate franchise. Considering how economically depressed this area is I really is going to be patronizing these businesses. To counterbalance the gyms we also seem to be getting more and more Starbuck’s and donut shops. Maybe Starbuck’s and Tim Horton’s drives what is driving the fitness industry? The banks are probably being kept really busy by people who need money to pay for their gym memberships and trips to Starbuck’s.

Why is it when people want to loose weight they will do and try anything? Their isn’t a person alive who doesn’t know or hasn’t been told that diet and exercise are the only sure fire ways to loose weight. Somehow most people continue to look for that magic solution. Pills, lotions, and potions promising miracles cause us to part with billions of dollars a year. If they announced on Good Morning America that plasma cutting was the newest technique for weight loss people would line up around the block. Trying to get those same people to go for a walk around that same block and they refuse to budge. What does that say about us?

I am always interested to know what kind of profession people have. I would like to think that there is some connection between what people do for a living and their attention to their health and well being. As someone who has spent over a decade working in health care I have noticed that this isn’t always true. I have seen as many nurses and doctors who live risky lifestyles as bar tenders. After seeing my fathers cardiologist smoking outside his office nothing really surprises me anymore. So tell me, are you a real estate agent who is training for a marathon or maybe a disc jockey that is scaling the highest mountains? Tell the truth maybe you are a dietitian considering gastric bypass?

You might remember a post I made a while back about my out of control neighbor. She is the one that moved her teenage daughters into the house next door and then disappeared. Well, she made the news this weekend by getting herself arrested for burglary. As far as I can tell she decided to go into someones home and destroy everything she came across and was caught in the act by the police. I would love to see her get herself straightened out and maybe enter any one of our local drug treatment centers but I don’t think this is going to happen. The best I can hope for is that she and her out of control children take their problems somewhere else to live. Right now I am just not very keen on living next to a criminal.

About two years ago my husband’s aunt was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She is a relatively young person and at first the disease seemed only to be impacting her life on a small scale. In the time since the diagnosis she has rapidly deteriorated and had to be placed in residential care. It is so sad that she no longer remembers even her own children. While promising therapies seem to be coming along for treatment of the disease they aren’t happening quick enough to help her. I wish fixing the problem were as easy as getting a computer memory upgrade is for my computer. Being the same age as her children I can only imagine how I would feel if my own mother were to forget who I was.