Glen Brammell Journal

With the summer months coming on, we have been doing a lot of planning for our garden. I have the grounds laid out and tilled and we are deciding what plants will go where. It’s a fun project for my wife and I and I think the kids will be glad to help out now and then as well. We have some great plans for this year’s harvest.

One idea I am interested in is called rain harvesting. That’s when you harvest the rain that runs off your roof into what is called a rain barrel. The water is stored there until you need to use it. I thought it would be the perfect way to save on our water bill. Instead of paying for water from the tap to water the plants, we can use the water that is captured in the barrels.

I went online in order to investigate the situation and I found a great site where they have rain barrels for sale. Although there is an initial investment, it will save me in the long run as well as being environmentally friendly. I believe we will have on heck of a garden this year and I am very excited about that. We will be able to put our own produce on our dinner table. Now that’s a good feeling.

The Japanese have been well known for their love of fish. This is especially true when it comes to the taste of tuna. They have proven their love of tuna when a Japanese businessman paid a record price of $ 750,000 dollars for a prized blue fin tuna. He plans to sell the fish to the customers at his restaurant.

The tuna weighed in at a weight of 592 pounds. The owner of the fish says it is perfect with just the right amount of fat and that the color is very good. I guess time will tell and we will see whether or not the tuna pays off.

Some days I want a candy or something sweet, and other days I want something salty or crunchy. I wonder what makes us crave one thing over the the other? The time of day for me to crave candy seems to be after dinner. Did the invention of dessert have anything to do with appeasing a sweet tooth after a big meal?

I know that I used to love chocolate as a kid, and the Halloween and Easter holidays were two of my favorites because they are both big days for candies. I couldn’t wait to go trick or treating and bring home a huge bag of candy to sort through and eat as much as I could before my mom got alarmed and cut me off.

Nowadays I try to hold out for good candy, not just grocery store checkout impulse purchases. I like a quality chocolate and try to measure the good ones against the taste of the famous Sees candies that I used to have as a kid. If its not as good as Sees candies, then I don’t want it.

When my grandparents retired and moved to Arizona, they started mailing a box of Sees candies to my mom and dad for holidays and gift occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries. Since they lived out West, they could buy Sees candies anywhere, but back East we couldn’t buy them anywhere. Of course, now we can order Sees candies online have them delivered. But getting them as a gift from my grandparents was always a big part of the special occasion. Any time I see a box of Sees, it makes me think of my grandparents and their little adobe house out in Arizona.

My niece and her husband are tightening their belts since she is pregnant again and isn’t going to be able to work for awhile. So thinks that they will be OK with bills if hey cut back on a few things and if she takes advantage of coupons and free samples by searching online for deals.

We talked about the real math of what she was earning after expenses and she was really shocked to see how little real money she was bringing home in her paycheck. She took 30% off the top for taxes, then had to take off child care, her car payment/car insurance/gas, oil, tires and then a lot more things she hadn’t thought of. Like the true cost of lunch away from home, the cost of convenience foods for dinners when she was too tired or too rushed to cook, the cost of nice clothes, dry cleaning and pantyhose. The actual net cash she was seeing was less than $50 a week.

We all believe that she could save that same net amount by looking for Free Stuff online and using coupons, and being more budget conscious if she stayed home with the kids instead of working outside of the home.  Finding Freebies is even fun – it is like a treasure hunt. She gets online in the living room while her daughter plays and finds ways to save money. I wish it were that easy for the rest of us!

This morning I kicked myself for being so stupid. I totally missed the Kentucky Derby yesterday. I got busy outside and forgot about the time. I was cutting the grass and started hacking away at the shrubbery and I pulled up some morning glory vines that were taking over the whole side of the garage. The next thing I knew, it was time for dinner, so I washed up and drove down to KFC and picked up some chicken.

Never even turned on the TV yesterday until the 11:00 news came on and I fell asleep before the sports report. It didn’t even come to mind until I picked up the Sunday paper and read about it in the paper. Duh!