First perk from having a blog

If you don’t know it I made no money from this blog.  I know – shocking 🙂

I do it since it is fun and I hope useful to someone.  That being said I am getting my first perk from having it – Free books to review!

Have you ever heard of BookSneeze.com?  Bloggers (with over 30 followers) get free books for agreeing to do a review.

The first book I requested is

It’s A God Thing: When Miracles Happen to Everyday People

I had heard about this book from K-Love and was hoping it would (someday) be available at the library.  When I was just accepted by BookSneeze.com and was able to see the current list of books available I jumped at the chance of reading (and reviewing) this book. It has been requested and now I am waiting for the physical book to arrive (BookSneeze.com said it takes usually takes 6-10 days to arrive).

So, look for my book review after I have finished reading it.  Oh, and I guess I need to figure out how to add the BookSneeze.com badge to my blog.  That will be one of the next things I need to learn.

Later – H

First hikes of the season

I hope everyone had a great New Year!  The family (including Pepper the Golden Retriever) went for the first two hikes of the year and these didn’t even require a long drive from our house.  The first one was on New Years Day.  We went for a hike in the hills behind our neighborhood.  We forgot to keep track of exactly how long we were gone, but it was about an hour.  Next time I will wear the pedometer / look at a clock before we leave the house.

The second one was a short drive away.  In a normal January we would not have been able to do these hikes without snowshoes or dealing with mud.

The worst part of these hikes was realizing how badly California and Nevada need some rain / snow.  I heard the other day that one of the Cross Country Ski areas near Lake Tahoe closed due to a lack of snow.  Right now they think it is similar to the droughts in the mid-1970s.  In California, we had  a large trash can in our bathroom to collect the water that was run to warm the bathwater so we could flush the toilet, etc.  I have no idea what it was like in Nevada back then, but I know at least a lot of the houses around here did not exist.

Sierra Nevada Mountains in early January 2014

I can’t believe that we are so warm and dry and back East is getting so much snow.

Want to trade?  Later – H

 

Poll – What do you want to see?

I figured it was time for a poll.  I have 30+ draft posts all needing a photo or something and new ones in my head.  So, I am trying to decide what topics you are most interested in (I will always have a little bit of a lot of topics, but trying to figure out which ones to finish first).

So, please vote for the top topics you want to see or add your own topic.  The poll will be open for a week.

Thanks in advance!  – H

Consignment store and Maui

Have you ever thought of going to a Consignment (or Thrift) Store on vacation?  Well, daughter forgot to take a belt with us on vacation so we looked up the local thrift stores.  There was a Goodwill (farther away) and a consignment store a few blocks from the condo we had rented.

Before we went I realized the long sleeve denim shirt I had brought for a cover up was making me too hot so I was hoping to find a dress type item that would work as a cover up (then I would not need to wear the denim shorts either).

So we went to Rainbow Attic in Kihei, Maui.

Daughter found a belt for $6.00 (decent price considering we were in Hawaii and not in a big town) and I looked at the dress type items.  There was a few sleeveless dresses in the $10 to $20 range that I tried on.  One was huge, another was too long (to the ground) and the one priced $20 fit nicely (over my swimsuit) and came to just below my knees.  I had to debate if I wanted to spend $20 for, but finally decided it was better than everything else so it left with us.

What I didn’t know until later was the dress brand ‘Tommy Bahama’ was a NAME brand since there was a store in the Shops at Wailea (expensive shopping center).  And, I didn’t know until now that their dress start at $88 on their website.

So, we have multiple photos of me in my ‘bargain’ dress, I spent about 5 days wearing the dress over my swimsuits and I was definitely cooler walking around in it (the last day I had to wear a shirt and short as a cover up since the dress went lower in the back and my upper back was starting to get toasted from snorkeling).

Now, I have a fun dress to wear around home in the summer also.

What bargain have you found lately?      – H

Do you see this?

I am having weird problems with my blog.  I have had at least two posts that I received an email that it was posted, but it isn’t showing up!  And, when I just checked they aren’t in the list of posted, schedule or private posts.  Weird!!!

So, if you see this post please comment (even a ‘yes’ would help me figure out how many people are actually getting this).

I guess I will see if there is anyway to contact WordPress otherwise I will rewrite the posts and post them again.

Later – H