Where have those days gone?
Posted on 07/24/2009 3:37:21 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15)
Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years.
To us, Suelo probably sounds a little extreme. Actually, he probably sounds very extreme. After all, I suspect most of you reading this are doing so under the protection of some sort of man-made shelter, and with some amount of money on your person, and probably a few needs for money, too. And who doesn’t need money unless they have completely unplugged from the grid? Still, it’s an amusing story about a guy who rejects all forms of consumerism as we know it.
The Frugal Roundup
How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Save Some Money. A fantastic introduction to home brewing, something I’ve never done myself, but always been interested in trying. (@Generation X Finance)
Contentment: A Great Financial Principle. If I had to name one required emotion for living a frugal lifestyle it would be contentment. Once you are content with your belongings and your lot in life you can ignore forces attempting to separate you from your money. (@Personal Finance by the Book)
Use Energy Star Appliances to Save On Utility Costs. I enjoyed this post because it included actual numbers, and actual total savings, from someone who upgraded to new, energy star appliances. (@The Digerati Life)
Over-Saving for Retirement? Is it possible to “over-save” for retirement? Yes, I think so. At some point I like the idea of putting some money aside in taxable investments outside of retirement funds, to be accessed prior to traditional retirement age. (@The Simple Dollar)
40 Things to Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home. A great list of both practical and philosophical lessons to teach your kids before they reach the age where they know everything. I think that now happens around 13 years-old. (@My Supercharged Life)
Index Fund Investing Overview. If you are looking for a place to invest with high diversification and relatively low fees (for broader index funds with low turnover), index funds are a great place to start. (@Money Smart Life)
5 Reasons To Line Dry Your Laundry. My wife and I may soon be installing a clothesline in our backyard. In many neighborhoods they are frowned upon - one of the reasons I don’t like living in a neighborhood. I digress. One of our neighbors recently put up a clothesline, and we might just follow his lead. (@Simple Mom)
A Few Others I Enjoyed
* 4 Quick Tips for Getting Out of a Rut * Young and Cash Rich * Embracing Simple Style * First Trading Experience With OptionsHouse * The Exponential Power of Delayed Consumption * How Much Emergency Fund is Enough? * 50 Questions that Will Free Your Mind * Save Money On Car Insurance
Hubby swears by aloe vera. We have to have an aloe plant in the house at all times. He uses it for burns, cuts, scrapes and any irritation of the skin. I find it very soothing to the skin and think it does hasten the healing process.
BlackBerry PhoneSnoop Application Used to Spy on Users
Original release date: October 27, 2009 at 11:59 am
Last revised: October 27, 2009 at 11:59 am
US-CERT is aware of public reports of a new software application
called PhoneSnoop. This software allows an attacker to call a user’s
BlackBerry and listen to personal conversations. In order to install
and setup the PhoneSnoop application, attackers must have physical
access to the user’s device or convince a user to install PhoneSnoop.
US-CERT encourages users to only download BlackBerry applications from
trusted sources and to password protect and lock BlackBerry devices.
Rag rugs fascinate me. To this day (75+ years later), I remember lying on the floor at my granmothers house and staring at her rag rugs. I would try to identify all the rags used in her rugs. There would be strips of aprons, house dresses, my play clothes, nighties and oh so many familiar clothes. Have saved directions for making rag rugs for years, but alas, have never actually saved enough material to make one.
Ever since my children were teenagers (many, many years ago), I have been diluting shampoo by at least 25%. As teenagers, they used way too much and wasted loads of hot water rinsing the shampoo out of their hair. A beautician said she bought her shampoo by the gallon and diluted it half and half with water, mixing well. I started doing this at home and still do. The shampoo spreads in the hair much more evenly and rinses out with much less water.
"Back when I was a kid, the two major fears in America revolved around polio and Communism. Because the first disease was so prevalent and so often fatal prior to the miraculous cures wrought by Dr. Albert Sabin and Dr. Jonas Salk, neither of whom managed to garner a Nobel Prize for their heroic efforts, children were kept out of public swimming pools and were discouraged from having too much physical activity. It's a wonder that our entire generation didn't grow up to be hypochondriacs because if you were even slightly fatigued or had an aching back or a stiff neck, anguished parents started measuring you for an iron lung. The second disease, Communism, created its own form of hysteria.
During the late 40s and early 50s, we had A-bomb drills in public schools. We grammar school kids were led to believe that in case the Russians hit L.A. with an atomic bomb, we would be safe so long as we dropped to the floor and huddled beneath our desks with our hands clasped tightly behind our necks. As everyone knows, there's nothing better than tiny hands to ward off the effects of atomic radiation. To this day, I wonder who came up with that particular brainstorm.
On the off-chance that the Russkies elected not to vaporize us, a lot of people were convinced that the plan to prevent tooth decay by introducing fluoride into our reservoirs was a Commie plot. The fluoride, we were warned, would turn our brains to mush and make us easy prey for the Soviet Menace. It's taken about 60 years, but I am now convinced that the scaremongers were right. How else to explain American liberals except by accepting that the Commies contaminated our water supply?" --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/ )"
Ah, yes, bacon grease. My fancy children wouldn’t think of cooking with bacon grease, so they have strict orders to save it for me. Fried potatoes, fried eggs, fried onions and mushrooms, clam puffs, haddock and added to most any greens sure improves the flavor. Even though my kids won’t fry fish in their house because of the odor, they sure love to come home for clam puffs or haddock.
>>>Fried potatoes, fried eggs, fried onions and mushrooms, clam puffs, haddock and added to most any greens sure improves the flavor.<<<
Sure are making me hungry!
>>> “Back when I was a kid, the two major fears in America revolved around polio and Communism.<<<
>>> During the late 40s and early 50s, we had A-bomb drills in public schools. <<<
I could elaborate for hours on this..In ‘62, the close proximity of Atlanta, we had drill after drill,, we didn’t have a baseball... but we had the drills.
Anyone remember being dragged outside to look up at that Communist Sputknic (sic) ??
The Country Praying for John Glenn’s Heat shield to stay intact ??
It would be necessary to live through that time period to appreciate ,,, where did the Real United States go ??
Dismantling America
Thomas Sowell - Syndicated Columnist - 10/27/2009 10:50:00 AM
(Excerpt):
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official — not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the President — could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?
Did you think that another “czar” would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers’ survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
(End Excerpt)
Link To Full Article:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=740538
Sowell Hits the Nail on the Head !
>>>Just one year ago, would you have believed<<<
Nope!
BUT - MAYBE there will be a message sent one week from today - NY 23 - New Jersey - Virginia + others... Man, I sure hope so...
Vitamin d3 is cholecalciferol.
I’ve been reading some stuff about it being associated with cancer prevention.
Where have those days gone?
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=346189&CategoryId=12393
Two Ecuadorians Arrested with Explosives at Colombian Border
BOGOTA – Two Ecuadorian women carrying a doll filled with explosives and with grenades attached to their bodies were arrested Monday by Colombian police near the border between the two countries, authorities said.
snipped
Montezuma said that the pair were carrying a total of 22 bars of pentolite – a high explosive used in military munitions – inside the doll, which they tried to pass off as a baby, and they had 22 grenades taped to their bodies.
snipped
One of the indigenous woman is a minor and was traveling with a 2-year-old boy, who was placed under the protection of the children’s authorities. EFE
Nigerian fraud fighters close down 800 scam email addresses
by Jennifer Whitehead, Brand Republic 26-Oct-09, 11:20
LONDON - Nigerian officials say that they have closed 800 scam websites and arrested members of 18 crime syndicates making money by fraudulent means.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission teamed up with Microsoft three years ago to help stop the practice of scamming foreigners out of money, usually by pretending that there was easy profits to be made by helping a victim of misfortune transfer millions of pounds out of Nigeria, Sierra Leone or another country.
continued, and it did not work, for I have had more lately than is normal for my email box....
granny
Nigerian fraud fighters close down 800 scam email addresses
by Jennifer Whitehead, Brand Republic 26-Oct-09, 11:20
LONDON - Nigerian officials say that they have closed 800 scam websites and arrested members of 18 crime syndicates making money by fraudulent means.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission teamed up with Microsoft three years ago to help stop the practice of scamming foreigners out of money, usually by pretending that there was easy profits to be made by helping a victim of misfortune transfer millions of pounds out of Nigeria, Sierra Leone or another country.
continued, and it did not work, for I have had more lately than is normal for my email box....
granny
[Coming to a town near you?]
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=346191&CategoryId=10717
Violence without Let-Up Rages in Poor Venezuela Neighborhood
By Esther Borrell
CARACAS – A 7-year-old girl is injured by a stray bullet in a shootout that leaves one dead and another three wounded: yet another weekend drama after dark in Petare, a poor, sprawling expanse in the Venezuelan capital that is regarded as one of the most violent neighborhoods in the Americas.
Little Catherine is taken to the Perez de Leon Hospital, where she is treated and released the same night at a crowded emergency room where the few doctors struggle to treat an avalanche of new patients, sometimes at the risk of their own lives.
Not far away at police headquarters in Sucre, the Caracas municipality that includes Petare, a man is confined on suspicion of starting the shootout in this district of almost a million inhabitants victimized by crime gangs, illegal arms, drugs and alcohol.
Just one more incident in the tragic reality of poor Caracas neighborhoods, in a capital where the crime index continues to rise and where violence can take more than 50 lives on any given weekend.
A score of people arrested that night are taken to police headquarters in Sucre, where the man elected mayor last year, Carlos Ocariz, tries to deactivate the violence with social programs in a district without hope.
Up to 9:00 p.m., police work concentrates on traffic. But then the violence grows hour by hour, especially with the abuse of alcohol and gangs settling their scores. Drugs and arms keep the death toll rising.
Chief Inspector Jose Alvarez and Inspector Hector Quintero begin their rounds at around 5:00 p.m., about an hour before nightfall.
In a white Jeep they patrol the streets of the suburbs that make up Sucre, where a few middle-class residential areas are surrounded by slums.
Their main job at this hour is prevention. They watch young people drinking in the street, men on motorcycles...they ask for their documents and search them for weapons.
At a bridge into one of the poor neighborhoods is a police patrol on the lookout for the motorcyclists. Criminals driving around on small motorcycles constantly attack pedestrians and motorists caught in traffic.
An agent tells Efe of the need for more resources, more patrols and complains of the hundreds of thousands of weapons in the hands of slum dwellers.
Alvarez and Quintero’s patrol heads for the narrow, labyrinthine streets of Petare, but only to part of the district. Higher up in the endless hills covered with rudimentary housing, patrols have to be done on motorcycle.
On the steep streets, one group after another, mostly made up of young people, sits in front of poor shanties swigging beer. The police greet some of them.
In the poor neighborhood at night, the streets are alive with salsa music blaring from loudspeakers, but the fun can turn into drama as the hours pass and shots ring out because of an argument or gang rivalry, as in the shootout where Catherine was wounded.
“Three people have been admitted for gunshot wounds tonight,” Dr. Julia D’Angelo, who has worked at the Perez de Leon Hospital for two years, tells Efe.
Besides Catherine, a 15-year-old girl is admitted, wounded in a leg, while a man in his early 20s lies on a cot with a gunshot wound and slashed with a razor on one side.
D’Angelo speaks calmly of the dozen who have been admitted with knife wounds tonight, but recalls how “her legs shook” when she first began at the hospital.
She tells of the day when emergency personnel had to hide from a clash between the companions of two who had been brought in and who had apparently shot each other.
There is always a cop on duty in the emergency room.
In the wee hours, a hundred people wait at door to the emergency room for news of a friend or relative, close to a police post that a group tried to burn one night in an attempt to “rescue” one of their buddies, wounded and confined in the hospital.
Another night ends on a Petare weekend. Fairly quiet. It’s worse, the police say, on paydays every two weeks or at the end of the month. EFE
Tasty, satisfying meals, cooked to my liking-any wonder I prefer eating at home. A few years ago, hubby and I frequented an “upscale” restaurant. As they were above serving “fried” foods, I settled for baked haddock and baked potato. I received the thin end of a piece of haddock cooked to a crisp and was charged $20.00. For this I could have fed my whole family two meals of haddock cooked properly.
Recently, I observed to hubby that whereas food prics had risen dramatically in the last year, I was spending no more for my food budget than I had for the last several years and in fact, I am stocking my pantry more than in the past. We are eating out much less often, and, as we age, we are eating less (and seemingly gaining more????) and our appetite for rich, expensive foods has diminished.
With a little planning, I find we can have delicious, semi-healthy meals with money left to stockpile for emergencies.
By the way, do hope your tag line comes to reality.
Well, I believe that rates for diabetes throughout this entire country skyrocketed in the late 1970s totally due to the invention High Fructose Corn Syrup by the Japanese coupled with a massive change in diet for our population.<<<
Yes, I think you are right, the lack of activity, the easy life and tv and computers, all add to the changes in lifestyles and food.
Your report is a good one, thanks for sharing it, for some of it I had forgotten and parts were new to me.
I do not recall feeding my daughter juice, she got milk and then water and real people foods off the table.
I fear....Gone are the days of old! What do you think?<<<
Yes, I do think they are gone.
As for the Lavender, in the old days, every lady kept lavender with her linens and underclothes.
Grannies smelled like lavender and they used lavender waters and bath powders.
And the kids did not grow up as insane as they are today.
I learned first that it was a skin healer and smelled good in soap, so I wanted to make lavender soap.
I read that a drop rubbed on mom’s bare skin/shoulder and laying the cranky baby on that shoulder, would stop the ‘croup’, the babies head simply resting on mom’s dress, not on the bare skin. The lavender would be too strong for a baby.
Another soapmaker that I wrote to daily, had a new very cranky grandbaby, so I sent it to her and she tried it, it worked instantly, the baby slept well and was peaceful for the first time.
Wish I had known about it, when my daughter was young, for she was the ‘cranky queen’.
Then one day I read that it would cure headaches, and as I happened to have my bottle of lavender essential oil, I thought why not try it?
Rubbed on the temples, it will cure the headache quickly, if it is a migraine, add it to the temples, under the nose and the back of the neck, where the big bump is, at the base.
I like to know why something works, have read that it increases the flow of blood. Have also read that it will relax the muscles.
I think I believe them both.
Your link, folks are beginning to wake up.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2371859/posts
uses it for burns, cuts, scrapes and any irritation of the skin.<<<
Yes, every family should have a few plants.
Aloe Vera is one of the oldest medical herbs.
I kept a plant in my real estate office, and one day one of my clients got an embarrassing ant bite and he was having a rough time of it.
I gave him a leaf and sent him to the restroom to apply it.
He came back laughing, said that it had always been a plant in his yard and he had no idea that it would work, but had just proved that it did.
I know it worked for me.
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