The Rules: I’m going to ask FOUR QUESTIONS that everyone can answer and then you have the option to add a fifth question of your own for those who are visiting your blog to answer in the comment section, along with commenting on the four standard questions you answered!

1. May is National Asparagus Month – do you like it? Haves a favorite recipe?
I did not know it was National Asparagus month. I’ll eat it if offered. I have no idea how to cook it though.

2. May is also National Salad month… what’s your favorite salad?
National Salad month too? I love all sorts of salads. My go to’s are lettuce, tomoatoes and tuna fish or lettuce, cucumbers, tomoatoes, cheese, ham/chicken/tuna steak, thousand island, egg, pickles.

3. Laundry Question: Fabric Softener yea or nay? How do you keep your clothes soft and static free?
I still have no idea what fabric softener is for. I use Bounce dryer sheets for that special smell and static free.

4. Do you speak more than one language? What language would you love to learn?
Fluently? No, but I have learned German and French. I’d love to go back and relearn French to be able to speak that fluently.

And my question is: Are you going to watch any of the summer movies coming out?
I most certainly am. I LOVE summer movie time.

Tags: General, Monday Quiz About Me

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1. Do you have a doppelgänger?
I suppose so since I have a twin.

2. Do you keep your car cleaned up?
Not as much as I used to. I used to wash the outside all the time, now I don’t. You won’t find trash inside though and my drivers mat needs cleaned more often too.

3. What is a current fashion that drives you crazy.
I’m not into fashion, but for the life of me I still to this day, cannot figure out why the hell women would want to wear high effin heels.

4. How often do you go grocery shopping?
Couple times a week if I have money because I like buying fresh veggies and fruits.

5. What has been the best surprise of your life?
Probably that I finally got my 2 degrees.

Tags: Five Question Friday, General

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1. What’s the one personal hygiene thing you will not do in front of your spouse?
N/A.

2. What’s your favorite thing about a newborn?
Their playfulness and how everything they see is new to them.

3. When is “too young” to have a Facebook account?
Pre high school age. Just like I think cell phones shouldn’t be given to children before they hit high school. But then again, why does one even need a facebook account? I don’t have one and don’t want one either.

4. What are your hoping for for Mother’s Day?
It will be just me and the dogs so quiet comes to mind.

5. What was the best field trip you ever took in school?
I honestly cannot remember if we even had any field trips in school. Maybe they are more liberal with them now.

Tags: Five Question Friday, General

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1. What is your next home improvement goal?
Well since I rent I try to make minimal improvements because it’s my money and I don’t know how long I am going to be here. But that’s gone out the window since it’s been over 10 years. I think I will rip out the carpet and put in fake wood floors on the first floor only. I hate carpet.

2. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be? No religious texts (ie Bible, Quran, Torah, etc, etc)…
I don’t think there is any book anywhere that I would want to read over and over again because once I read a book and start to read it again because I think I may not have it I remember exactly what happens.

3. What is on top of your refrigerator?
Dustpan with small brush. A box that holds a couple mouse traps, a couple of empty jars and a box of straws.

4. What are your favorite or most used phone apps?
Way too many to count but I’ll try. These are all Blackberry related since that is the phone I have.

BEBuzz: Changes LED lights for every single email, phone, app, and contacts.
BEReader: Google reader
Fightin’ Words: Scrabble
Quicklaunch: One button access to apps
BEWeather: Weather app
Ubertwitter: Twitter app
Email++: Added features to all my emailing
Foursquare
Pandora
Pageonce Pro: Keep up with my bank accounts and bills to be paid
Wordpress

5. What’s the one thing you hate most about your spouses job?
N/A/

Tags: Five Question Friday, General

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Post tags: Five Question Friday, General

I would, however, love to take one had I have the money. Most students aren’t fortunate enough to have excess money though unless you have a benefactor which I do not. I did plan ahead a couple years back as I WAS planning on going to the Bahamas and got another passport made. I have no idea where my last one went as I would have loved to have kept it from when I went overseas.

Sitting on a beach just like this one sipping a strawberry daiquiri is my idea of a vacation. I would have my Nook with me to read the plethora of books I have loaded so I would not need to buy any, which you cannot, while outside of the states. Abaco Real Estate has properties for sale and for rent. Abaco Island has many attractions aside from the beaches themselves including museums and gardens. At this point I think I would just love the peace and quiet of any place.

Tags: Abaco Real Estate, bahamas, General

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Post tags: Abaco Real Estate, bahamas, General

Summer is fast approaching and the time is coming to plan vacations, try new restaurants, and see the summer’s blockbusters in movie theaters. As the season approaches to make more consumer choices, there is no better time to explore the online resources created to help us make those choices better. User review websites are great tools in helping us decide which restaurants and movie theaters to frequent or avoid.

Crowd-sourced reviews have become even broader in their applications, and we can now use peer reviews to pick the right doctor, professor, or computer software. From as seen on TV products to the new appetizer at your local dive bar, user reviews are cropping up all over the online consumer landscape. Let’s look at some of the available peer review tools and their uses.

Food
Yelp is a well-known user review website devoted to restaurants and other businesses. But few people realize they can use food-centric social networks such as Foodspotting to gauge a restaurant’s food quality by their customers’ reviews. Users upload actual pictures of their ordered dishes along with their opinions of the food. Most reviews focus on the entire restaurant while social networks for foodies are based on specific dishes at restaurants.

People
The people we ask to deliver value for our money are some of the most influential people in our lives. Our professors, our teachers, and our doctors are all people we trust as a result of very important consumer choices. RateMyProfessors is an online collection of college and university instructor profiles searchable by school.

Each profile has a section for students who have taken classes by these instructors to leave thorough reviews of the instructor and their educational experience. Similarly, RateMDs is a service for medical professionals. Unlike RateMyProfessors, RateMDs does require membership fees to access the majority of the site’s review functions.

Education
In addition to helping you find the right professors for your learning style, user reviews can be helpful in other areas of your education all the way down to the notes you use to study. Notehall is an online database of notes students have taken during classes in schools across the country. Students upload, review, buy, and sell notes based on the notes’ quality. Each set of notes has user reviews from other students who have previously bought and used those notes.

The service is 100% legal and professor approved. The notes are not used to get answers for a test but instead to help students better understand the material or catch up on a day of class they may have missed.

Movies
Movie reviews can be helpful when going to the theater becomes more and more of an investment of time and money. Fflick was founded to provide a platform for crowd-sourced movie reviews based on users’ twitter feeds. Google has since acquired Fflick.

While the service appears to be temporarily down as a result of the acquisition, Google seems to have bigger plans for the consumer tool. An insider tech blog speculated that the deal “could enable the search giant to incorporate sentiment analysis and social considerations into its content discovery process.” In the meantime, you can find user movie reviews on Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon.

Image source: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2007/08/22/iphone460.jpg

Tags: Foodspotting, General

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The Rules: I’m going to ask FOUR QUESTIONS that everyone can answer and then you have the option to add a fifth question of your own for those who are visiting your blog to answer in the comment section, along with commenting on the four standard questions you answered!

1. Do spelling and grammar mistakes annoy you?
Yes, and it annoys me even more when I make them and miss them.

2. If you could witness any event past, present or future, what would it be?
I’d like to be able to view Atlantis.

3. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Any job related to computers. I’m finally doing that now after 2 degrees.

4. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
Would they understand being a newborn? Anywhoo, don’t lend money or help any family relative buy anything. You will get burned.

And your question is:
Do pronunciation mistakes annoy you? They sure do me. It actually drives me bonkers and I will cringe and hold my tongue trying not to correct them.

Tags: General, Monday Quiz About Me

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Post tags: General, Monday Quiz About Me

At least at my house it has.  It's been a bit rainy off and on these past few weeks but I can deal with it up to a point.  The college actually has a horticulture section and luckily enough they have plant sales every spring  and summer.  lt just so happened they had herbs and hydrangeas for sale this month.  I wasn't to thrilled about the herb selection for what I like so I did not purchase any of those but I did end up getting two hydrangeas.  I screwed up when I chose them though because they had an all beige one and a pink one.  I wanted one of each and ended up with both pink somehow.  I really wish they had had the blue hydrangea's though because those are my favorite color.

Initially the whole idea was to replace the dying banana plant that was in front with two hydrangea plants.  My next obstacle was that the only gardening supplies I have consist of a dilapidated rake and this hoe type thing that have prongs.  I'm not even really sure why I bought that in the first place to tell you the truth.  I think it had something to do with the fact that I planned on digging up this triangle side yard of mine that's just outside of the fence line.  I ended up mowing most of that down except where there are tomato plant wires still attached to the fence and I don't have wire cutters for that choir.  I ought to buy a pair of those and get rid of it so I can get rid of the plant that's been growing in and around it as well. 

I finally got a chance to plant the hydrangeas last night after mowing both the lawns.  It just so happens that my neighbor has a few more gardening tools that I, in which she owns a couple shovels.  She has a vegetable garden growing on her side for which I was allowed to partake in some of the vegetables once they grow.  Hopefully she will have better luck in sustainable gardening than I do.  Back to the banana plant though, digging up the banana plant was HORRENDOUS.  That thing has a very large root system, not to mention the tough roots.  I actually had to go grab this saw type thing to cut through some of it so I could dig deeper and plant the hydrangeas.  I ended up pulling roots farther away from where I digging just because I wanted to get it out. 

We usually place Scotts Nature Scapes mulch around the trees and plants in Sierra Red to make a little bed around the plants and trees.  I will definitely have to place some mulch around the hydrangeas since I ended up digging up more of the yard than I had intended.  I could also actually use Scotts Florida Select Natural Eucalyptus Mulch instead should I desire.  The Eucalyptus Mulch is 100% Florida-grown.  Using mulch around the base of the flowers just makes it look more pretty and you can put it in any shape you want.  Initially the shape was an oval and has somehow become some weird shape with points everywhere.  Covering it with the mulch will hopefully hide that fact until the grass grows back. 

If you have never used mulch before, it will help in deterring weeds so long as you have it up to 3 inches deep, and boy do I need that help as well.  You should not put it around the edge of your house or on wood though.  I  just wish it would help getting rid of the moles too.  I can't seem to shake them and it's infuriating me.  I'm almost to the point of trying home remedies.  The one people keep telling me about is using Juicy Fruit gum.  Without touching the gum you place it in one of the mole holes.  I'm assuming it will bind up their digestive system.  

Using mulch also helps the plant in general as it will keep the roots cool during our very hot and humid summers and warm during the winters.  Most of the time our winters are pretty cool to us southern folk but mild to the northern folk.

Tags: General, Scotts Nature Scapes mulch

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Post tags: General, Scotts Nature Scapes mulch

1. Who drives when your family is together, you or your spouse?
I drive myself everywhere. I’m not usually too keen on riding with others because they never go fast enough or leave when I want to.

2. Are you an introvert or extrovert?
Definitely an introvert.

3. Are you married to an introvert or extrovert?
Not married.

4. What’s your favorite type of social media?
I love Twitter. I get all my news and follow a few people on there. It is super fast.

5. What’s your favorite way to “recharge”?
Just being holed up in my place for a day with no interaction with anyone is good.

Tags: Five Question Friday, General

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Whether you’re planning on having friends over for a barbeque, hosting your out-of-state relatives, or inviting your boss over for drinks, you want to make sure your backyard is ready for your guests. Whoever is visiting, you need to make sure everyone has fun, is comfortable and enjoys the food and drink.

Food and drink
When you are visiting someone else’s house, it’s easy to feel awkward about helping yourself. To get around this, put out drinks on the table and encourage people to help themselves. The first time someone takes a drink, don’t give it to him or her. Force them to pick it up themselves – this is a subtle way to get guests comfortable with helping themselves, and overcoming the barrier that frequently gets in the way. Leave out drinks on the table, and consider bringing out a cooler with cold beers and soda.

If you’re stuck for snack ideas, consider salsa. Alton Brown has a fantastic recipe on the Food Network. You need tomatoes, garlic, jalapenos, peppers, onions, chilies, oil, lime and parsley. “In a bowl, combine all ingredients. Place in refrigerator for up to 12 hours for flavor infusion,” says Brown. And don’t forget to “serve with tortilla chips,” or even French fries if you want the snack to be a bit more filling.

Provide a cool seating area
During scorching heat, your guests will appreciate being able to sit in a cool area that is out of the way of direct sunlight. The simplest way to achieve this is simply to get yourself a patio umbrella, but you should also consider where you position your patio dining set. Look for an area with good tree cover, or possibly where your home protects you from the sun coming from certain angles.

If your garden is treeless at the moment, look to place tall and leafy trees around the perimeter of your garden. Large conifers do a great job of blocking out sunlight, and they grow relatively fast, so they work well to cool down your garden. You then want to have smaller, broader trees near to your patio area, protecting from sunlight coming from high above.

Choosing a dining table set
All Backyard Fun’s Blog contains recommendations for selecting the right table. One of the options highlighted is the Melrose 48″ Square Dining Table Set from North Cape International. The table is square and 48 inches long on each side. The chairs are very comfortable, and it’s easy to imagine your guests spending countless hours chatting away and sipping on their drinks.

If you need something a bit bigger, consider the Melrose 72″ Dining Table Set. It’s 42 inches in width, and 72 inches in length, and it very comfortably sits six people. One thing I like about the 72″ Melrose is the way the side seats allow two people to sit on the same double chair. You can imagine helping your child with homework, or holding hands with your partner, as you sit right by their side.

If you happen to be in an area where you might still get a chilly night during spring up north you may want to invest in a fire pit or outdoor heater. All Backyard Fun’s Blog has some great ideas for warming up including fire tables, fire pits, and fire glass.

Image source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IgufhwnrgMU/UF4VwG9GBnI/AAAAAAAAD3g/M9yQt3T6BVM/s1600/IMG_3202.JPG

Tags: fire glass, fire pits, Food Network, General

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Post tags: fire glass, fire pits, Food Network, General