Category: miscellaneous

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Bucking the Trend

I’ve come to the conclusion that not many people do Blog posts on the weekends. Not the bloggers on my “most read” list anyway.

I guess they have lives.

I usually do, too. Most weekends are spent at the WV place. But this weekend is different. Hubby is off to a business convention in Long Beach, California for a few days. And here I am, in Maryland, with not much to do…

So I am bucking the trend of no weekend blog posting and telling you, and showing you, how I spent my last summer Friday.

I did not pick apples. But isn’t this a neat shot?

Um, I didn’t pick a bunch of tiny little pumpkins to line up on a fence either. I just couldn’t resist the lure of a roadside produce market.

I didn’t buy a goat. Or even pet a goat. I just took pictures of a goat. Mainly because he was kind enough to pose for me.

Tired of trying to guess?

I drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for the day. I did a little shopping, but mostly I stalked Amish people who don’t like to get their pictures taken, and took some pictures. Rude, I know. But I enjoyed it. And that’s what matters in my world.

I did it from sort of far away, which is why you don’t see crisp, clear focus. But with a little tweaking, I think some of the images are sort of cool.

Here’s one of the shots I got of a family working the field. I used “plow” in the picture title, but I don’t think they are plowing.

If I knew anything at all about farming, I might be able to guess. But I don’t. So I can’t explain why they need this big-ass wagon of hay. They didn’t appear to be baling the hay…

This is just a barn shot. I liked the contrast of the green grass, brown corn and white barn. Too bad the sky was so overcast.

This is the last shot I’ll post here. It was getting dark, so I had to boost the light a bit. To me, it is obviously Photoshopped. But I still like the effect. If you want the see the other images, go to my Flickr page for the day.

Enjoy your Sunday!

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It Isn’t All About Money. But…

I have a bit of a quandary.

I really like my dogs’ veterinarian. One of the reasons I started using this particular vet is because he helps American Brittany Rescue (ABR) by discounting services significantly. Which is huge. Quite a few ABR dogs have been helped by this particular vet.

I’ve known for some time their drug prices are higher than prices on the Internet. But they match prices, so it never really mattered that much. Besides, I’d rather the extra money go to this vet who helps ABR all the time than some other vet.

That changed today when I realized just how much said vet is marking-up the prices of some drugs.

Drugs like Frontline and Heartgard are usually a bit cheaper on-line than at the vet. But these are popular drugs, so the vet has to be competitive. It is the cost of the lesser-known drugs that are the real issue.

C, our oldest dog (she’s 12 1/2), has been suffering with chronic diarrhea for some time. We can’t figure out what is wrong. After quite a few expensive diagnostic procedures and several different drugs (yes, we tried different food, too) we’re at a loss. So we’ve decided to try a long-term course of an antibiotic known generically as metronidazole (brand-name Flagyl).

We decided this during our last visit. It is a drug that requires a prescription, which the office filled. For 20 pills, it cost $23 or $1.15/pill.

It seems to be working so I called in for a 100-pill refill today. Not until after I checked Internet prices, of course. I was amazed to learn that prices for this pill ranged from $0.10/pill to $0.26/pill. My feelings went quickly from amazement, to confusion, to pissed off.

I called the vet’s office thinking no way they’d match that price. They did, no questions asked. I just had to show them a printout.

The matching is nice and all, but I feel robbed. What if I’d bought 100 pills last week instead of only 20?

So, do I stay pissed off at the vet? Maybe change vets? That was my first inclination. Until I thought about it some more. I’d be willing to bet the practice is pretty common. Prices are not usually determined by considering cost alone. Prices are established based on what people will pay, or what the market will bear. And the vet is running a business.

I think I just learn to adjust. I’ll have the vet write an actual prescription, not sell me some pills. Maybe that will work. Time will tell I guess.

In the meantime, if you have pets and buy your drugs from the vet, do yourself a favor and check Internet prices. This is not the only drug I have saved significantly on.

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The Candidate for a Real Change

I usually try to avoid discussing politics with people I know. I mean, I’ve got this nice, pleasant, laid-back persona to uphold, right? I’m not argumentative by nature. I’m not the jump-on-a-bandwagon type either.

Of course, there was this post, but it wasn’t about politics really. It was just a cute kid in a t-shirt.

But times are changing. That means I need to change. We all need to change. We need to be honest, smart.

You REALLY need to think about who you want in office. Democrats? Republicans? Or an independent candidate like this one? (UPDATE: this link should take you to a page where a video, which is a joke by the way, loads quickly. It currently is not working. I suspect this thing got way more traffic than expected and the server admin probably disabled it. I have a feeling it was posted on said server without the admin’s permission anyway. Sorry you missed it. It was funny! Or so I thought.)

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Approaching Normalcy

Things are slowly but surely getting back to normal for me. That was quite a road trip I took!

Know how I can tell things are almost normal? I don’t have anything specific or special to write about. So I’ll just share a couple of things…

Our Youngest Grandson…

Joey, age 15 months, got to spend the night with us on Saturday. He’s cute as a button and sure kept us laughing.

In this picture, Joey and I were out in our backyard. Hubby, aka Pop, was in the house. Joey was waving to Pop.

My Most Frivolous Purchase

I didn’t spend much time shopping while I was in Maine. I did hit the grocery store a couple of times for snacks, which is where I discovered Wicked Whoopies. Whoopie pies, which I always thought were a Pennsylvania Dutch thing, are desserts consisting of some sweet, creamy icing sandwiched between two small, round, chocolate cakes. They’re usually 3 1/2 to 4 inches across.

Wicked Whoopies are slightly larger. They come in a bunch of different flavors, too. But what’s best, and what I found totally hysterical, is that they come in a jumbo size.


Here I am with my jumbo Wicked Whoopie. You can’t really appreciate the size while it is wrapped.


You can sort of appreciate the size of it in the above picture. But I think the close-up below gives you the best appreciation as to the size of this monster.

According to the label, it was 72 ounces. It was quite tasty, too. So tasty, in fact, I’m going to go have a hunk right now.

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I Can’t Imagine How Long This Took

Today’s bit of weirdness was submitted by Hubby. I don’t know how he finds this stuff, but he does. Usually by accident.

I mean, he doesn’t spend hours combing the Internet for oddball things like this to entertain my fans. I hope. Though it is nice of him to keep us entertained.

So here’s today’s BIT OF WEIRDNESS. Courtesy of that awesome Hubby of mine.

After you click on the link, you’ll see a gray screen. Be patient. Soon, a girl will appear. Move your mouse around the screen and watch what happens.

Don’t get too excited. It really is just plain weird.

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Frog Number 4

This is the fourth and final frog image I’ll be posting. Well, final for now. I mean, I am the ToadMama. I’m bound to run across an interesting frog or toad that just cries out to be photographed and shared with the world.


That Photoshop framing technique I blogged about previously works pretty good with this image, don’t you think?

Just so you know, Frog Number 4 is sort of irrelevant. The other frogs I posted are much more colorful. But since I knew my fans would be glued to their computers waiting to see a fourth frog, I thought I’d be nice and come through for them. There’s nothing like a bunch of disappointed fans.

Wait. Come to think of it, a few disappointed fans is potentially worse when you’re a blogger like me that only has a few fans.

You should know, fans, that I appreciate each and every one of you. Really, I do. Thanks for being my audience.