Kolfinnas Korner

This is a Sticky Post that will stay on top until July 31 for my 1st ever Bloggey Contest.  Scroll down for the current post.

The contest runs from June 30 to July 28th. 

Winner will be posted on July 29th HERE on this sticky post. 

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Ok, maybe that isn’t a good title, but it sounds good to me!  Today the internet weather thing said it was 90 degrees around 5:00pm tonight.  Just for the record, we don’t have the AC on at home and haven’t had it on yet this summer.  I think today was one of the hotter days we’ve had so far this summer, or at least it felt like it.  I think cool cash is good because we are staying cool without spending any extra cash so far this summer.  What are we doing that’s so great?  Well……Lets see……here is what we do, have done and try to do on a daily basis.  Our yard looks like the woods….so that is a BIG help.  In the past our yard has been up to 10 degrees cooler than the actual “published” temperature.

1. since loosing part of the tree that helped shade our house I’ve completely covered  the west windows aluminum foil to block the sun, and covered the top half of one of the windows downstairs.
2. I shut all the windows except the one in the kitchen in the morning.  I reopen them around 6:00pm.
3. i have heavy blankets over the windows.  This helps keep the heat out during the day.  They get opened and held back when I reopen the windows at night.
4. we run 2 box fans downstairs 24/7.
5. in the evenings i open up the upstairs and turn on the big box fan (actually an attic fan made into a box fan) and a smaller fan in the boys room and hubby and my room.  By bedtime the upstairs is cooler than downstairs.
6. i try not to use the stove/oven.  if I do I try to keep it to a minimum and use a fan blowing towards the window to help blow the heat out.
7. we use lights as little as possible.  I do have a few nightlights that help us see our way around, and we use the light of the computer monitor as well.  We also use flashlights if needed.
8. before going to bed it helps to take a quick rinse with cool/cold water.
9. we are spending more time outside in the evenings.
10. When in dire need of cool…..we head someplace that has AC to get cooled off.  Like, to the gas station to get a cold fountain pepsi, or the grocery store for some cold snackies.  Also I rinse my hands in cold water, which helps cool me off.

That’s all I can think of right now.  If I think of more….I’ll post them later.

I thought this was interesting…..

… On this date in weather history…

In 1776… Thomas Jefferson paid for his first
thermometer… and signed the declaration of Independence.
The weather in Philadelphia at 2 PM… was cloudy and the
temperature was 76 degrees… according to his weather
memorandum book.

Have a Happy & Safe 4th of July! Today’s weather her is lookin good!

Here are some highlights from last year’s fireworks:  we’re off to shoot some water crackers down at the bridge.

Gotta get away sometime!  Hubby had a business meeting to go to this past weekend, and of course we all went!  Pictures Left to right:  1.) The boys…playing on MY computer!  2.) How far is it to the top of the will…way out there?  We lost track because we got distracted, so I can’t tell you.  3.) I LOVE the scenery of the Ozark Mountains!  4.) More ozark scenery.  5.) Waterfall created from all the rain we’ve been having lately.  6.) Visiting a new Mini Golf course.  7.) The famous “Smelly Shirts”  they got a lot of attention on our trip.  Just what we wanted. 8.) more ozark scenery.

We had a great time!  I also got some awsome pictures to add to my FREE desktop backgrounds. The new ones are the last 5 on the page.  Enjoy!

Click the banner for more menu plans at Orgjunkie.com

Orgjunkie is on vacation this week, but there is a link to the blog that is hosting Menu Plan Monday for her.

Monday:

• no breakfast
• lunch is leftovers
• supper is turkey & gravy and mashed potatoes (all heat & serve stuff since we were gone all weekend)

Tuesday:

• Cereal & Milk
• Chicken Sandwiches (leftover from last week)
• Kielbasa (from last week)

Wednesday:

• Cereal & Milk
• Sandwich & chips
• out

 Thursday:

• Cereal & Milk
• Burritos
• Spaghetti

Friday:

HOLIDAY  Not sure what we’re going to do besides hang out around the house and shoot off fireworks!

Saturday:

• Cereal & Milk
• undecided
• undecided

Sunday:

• no breakfast
• Steak & Taters (using steaks still in freezer)
• probably out

Shopping List:  All from Save A Lot (SAL)  unless marked CM , for Country Mart the other grocery store, Don’t need a lot since I obviously purchased way too much last week.  The 4th’s menu will probably be purchased by both hubby and I at CM later in the week.

 2 jars Prego Spaghetti Sauce CM  unless SAL has it

2# spaghetti

2 bags chips

lunch meat of some sort (possibly from CM if SAL doesn’t have anything that looks good)

3 loaves of bread

Tortillas for burrito’s

chicken (CM unless SAL has a reasonable priced package of frozen chicken)

tomato ?

Mrs Renfro’s salsa (CM only place to get it)

package of baby carrots (or maybe I’ll use the ones from my garden…hummmm)

cat food (probably CM as I don’t want to change brands on the kitties again)

pop tarts (possibly…depends on SAL’s price…good for the hurried mornings.

Last Wednesday we got our Save-A-Lot grocery store back!!!!!!!  I’m excited yet a little cautious as we had a nasty 3 week bout of food poisoning a few years back from some bad food we ate from there.  That caused me to stop shopping there, and then they went out of business.  It’s been about 2 years with only 1 grocery store, Country Mart, in town….and prices have gone up, up, up, up.  We went in to check them (Save-A-Lot) out last Thursday (and to get some ice cream treats) and their prices are very similar to what they were before, definatly lower than Country Mart.  We bought 2 packages of ice cream treats and a package of flour tortillas for the price of 2 packages of ice cream treats at Country Mart.  I will give them a 2nd chance……but won’t be buying any of the product that made us sick…..no one can eat it, even the name brand stuff.  I’ll be shopping either tomorrow or Tuesday and will post the details.  I normaly spend a little over $100 a week for everything, including the non food items.

We got new shirts for my incense shop, Smelly Good Stuffs.  Check them out (and you can see a picture of us too) leave a comment there and vote.  Customink.com does an excellent job on shirts.  This is the 3rd time we have used their services for business shirts.

Updated later today to note that:  Yes we do have a few shirts available for sale.  You can purchase one HERE

Click the banner for more menu plans at Orgjunkie.com

Breakfasts:  Cereal & MIlk

Lunches:  Kielbasa, Turkey & Gravy W/ MP, Chips & Dip, Chicken Sandwiches W/ Chips (2 times)

Suppers: Crockpot Chicken W/ Veggies, Spaghetti, Something with the steaks in the freezer (haven’t decided yet)

I have 1 green bean plant that is doing awesome.  the rest of them (which are very few compared to how many I planted) are doing OK.  The peas are scrawny and are slowly finding their way to the fence to climb.  I have blossoms on most of my tomato plants.  There are 23 (maybe only 22, Spaz the cat sat on one tonight while he was “helping” me pull weeds, and I propped it up with a stick) corn plants.  I have 3 watermelon and 1 cantaloupe.  Hubby’s horseradish is doing great, the lettuce is slowly getting bigger.  I picked up an apricot off the ground tonight (one of the few on the tree).  It smelled good and “squished” ok, but didn’t have any flavor so I’m guessing it wasn’t ripe.  We picked a couple of plums too that we thought were ripe, but they were wormy and flavorless.  I have a volunteer tomato plant that came up in an unplanted area of the garden.  We put a tomato cage around it.   We have some Rose of Sharon trees blooming, and my coneflower is starting to bloom.  Tonight hubby and I pulled weeds out of the garden too.  It looks much better now.  We’ve had a couple of days with sunshine and no rain, which has helped a lot.  the next good planting days I plan on putting more lettuce in the areas where the corn hasn’t come up. 

Sorry…..no pictures tonight, I didn’t bring the good camera home and I need to get batteries for the other one.

I’ve made some changes to my web stores, and of course I have to experiment here too.  I added a different chat program (it’s on the right, under the clock).  If I’m online, give me a holler!  I’d love to talk with my friends & visitors.

Since loosing part of the tree that helped shade the front of the house, the sun shines in more.  To help keep down the heat I put foil on one of the the top windows on the south side downstairs a few days ago.  It works…..it really, really works!  Give it a try on a west window and see for yourself if you just can’t imagine the difference! 

We aren’t using the AC at all, we are only using fans.  We have 2 box fans downstairs and  a Mega box fan (actually an attic fan we made into a box fan), and 3 smaller fans upstairs. 

It’s not easy to loose a friend……a “fur friend” at that.  O’Brian wasn’t even our cat.  He (we’re not sure if it was male or female, but I will use “he”) was left behind by the people who used to live next door, and he became a neighborhood cat. 

Our first experience with O’Brian was a few months back on a Sunday afternoon.  I was leaving to do grandma’s shopping an I heard a cat crying.  I finally found it….it wasn’t one of ours….way up in a tree in the yard across the street.  We didn’t know if the people were home, so I went ahead and left.  When I returned about an hour later hubby and the guy across the street had been trying to get O’Brian down, but he was scared and kept going up farther.  That is when we learned that O’Brian was blind in one eye.  We prayed for O’Brian to get down on his own that night, because there were storms…bad storms…coming through.  He must have made it down one way or another because he wasn’t in the tree the next morning.  After a few days, he always would come over to see us when we were out in the yard, You could hear the bell on his collar jingle as he came running.  He became part or our family. 

His “family” moved out about a month and a half ago leaving him behind.  It was sad to watch him run across the street to check and see if they were home yet.  Eventually we just pretty much stayed in our yard.  He became good friends with Spaz (another neighborhood cat that was dumped about 6-8 months ago by people moving out across the street).  They did everything together.

This morning when hubby was getting ready to leave he called me outside.  There was O’Brian, laying in the water running down the street, in front of hubby’s van.  It didn’t look like he had been hit, there wasn’t any visible signs of injury.  Whatever it was that happened, it happened between 11:45 last night and 8:15 this morning.  We’re thinking that a big dog, that has been running loose lately (which is against the law here) must have snuck up on him and got him. 

A, Hubby and I dug a hole for O’Brian.  Hubby had to leave, so A and I finished up, leaving O’Brian to “run” with our other fur friends in the back yard.

Later this evening we were getting home and Spaz was sitting in the street staring in the water near where we found O’Brain this morning.  When you look at Spaz’s eyes you can tell he is sad and he looks as if he has been crying.  He to misses his friend.

Unfortunatly I don’t have any pictures of O’Brian.  He was a small all black cat with a blue collar.  I’m guessing he wasn’t even a year old yet.  We love you O’Brian and we will miss you.  We look forward to seeing you again someday.

Today I spend about 4 and a half hours polishing a suit of armor!  Last night was the final night of VBS.  The theme this year was the whole armor of God.  They were using the military theme, but we offered the suit of armor (it’s a 13th century gothic style as pictured on this page.  We added a belt, sword and a shield as well.)  as a surprise for the kids on the last day.  The VBS director said when the knight (worn by A) came out on stage it was the quietest the kids had been all week!  At first they had trouble answering the questions she was asking regarding the different parts of armor that are described in Ephesians 6:13-17 (right click to open passage in a new window).  None the less it was time well spent…..it hadn’t had a good polishing since the last time it was worn…which was around July 2004, when King Arthur came out in the theatre here.

I LOVE Friday the 13th!  I always have.  Here is a list of 13’s for me:

*Number 8 was added at 1:30pm today

1. I lived in indiana for about 13 years (if you count the 9 months before I was born)
2. I moved to Kansas 5 months before my 13th birthday.
3. my address when we first moved to kansas was route 1 box 13
4. We arrived on the 13th of august (it wasn’t a friday)
5. I had 13 other classmates in 7th grade
6. I now live on 13th street
7. we have lived in our house for 13 years (this year)
8. I have 13 letters in my (first & last) name!

That’s all I can think of right now.  I may add more later if I can think of more.

  Check out this site for some interesting Friday the 13th information!

Don’t forget to watch “Freaky Friday” today!  The older version, in my opinion, is better than the newer one!