Making Better Egg Cartons

For years man has eggs placed in styrofoam compartments so to keep the egg upright. Why can't the inventors of the egg carton make a better one?

Today while shopping at my local store I thought I would get some eggs to make S and J's b-day cakes. I pick up a carton to check if any of the eggs are broken. I was always told to do this by my mom. Because once I didn't and I had a couple of broken eggs. So I tuck the carton back together and place them in the cart ever so carefully. After paying for them, the checker put them in a lone plastic bag and I carry them out of the store. Placing them carefully on the seat of the car. I drive home and pick up my two plastic bags plus gallon of milk. I think I have everything all in two hands. Then all of a sudden SPLAT!

That's right I dropped the full carton of a dozen eggs. I don't even want to check on them. I know the result that dropping a carton of eggs on the driveway equals a mess. So I go back outside and sure enough there wasn't any to be saved. Sigh!

This is why I think they need to make a stealthy egg carton. For people like me who accidentally drops the whole carton. Granted that would up the egg prices anyway! Oh well.

Underhanded Politics Tactics

Every political party is either calling members of their respected parties to give to their cause. I get calls frequently, but screen them so I don't answer every 800 number or out of state area code that calls me. Sometimes if they can't get you they may ask by mail for a contribution. I intercepted the following letter to my MIL (we are not of the same political party).

On the outside of the letter on the envelope it said, "Past Due," and it had the name of that political party on the outside.

It reads: Dear Mrs. X: There are less than four months until Election Day 2008, and the (D) and their leftist allies and unleashing their full arsenal of smear-and fear tactics against (political canditate) and our candidates.

Let me just insert here my comments regarding this. What kind of a letter is this when THEY put past due on the envelope? Talk about smear and fear tactics!

with the help of radical groups and other left-wing billionairs the (D) have over one billion dollars to blanket America's airwaves with partisan, misleading attacks.

If our candidates are to achieve victory this November, they must get their message of commonsense conservatism and principled leadership directly to the votes who will decide our nation's future.

They need your help to do that Mrs. X (they underlined that part, so this will get the person's attention).

Comment: This IS a real letter from their national committee.

Your special 2008 campaign contribution of $50, $40, or $25 today will provide candidates with the resources they urgently need to counter (D) attacks and set the record straight.

This letter pretty much is saying for me. I don't like it. They go on and blast the (D). Then they add a PS.

Mrs. X, powerful leftist forces will spend whatever it takes to elect ( ). Help us make sure they don't succeed by sending a special 2008 campaign contribution of $50, $40, or $25.

They enclosed a yellow membership statement and it listed member status as "lapsed."

I know I will probably step on a lot of toes out there and there are some of you who know where I stand, politically. I normally do not voice my opinion here on the blog, but after reading this letter that went to my 90 year old something MIL I am voicing an opinion here.

I think it is despicable politics when they use these kind of tactics just to get a contribution. I think that ANY political party that asks for it in this way is underhanded. They just try to get people riled up to contribute and they pray upon the elderly.

I don't contribute any money to political campaigns. I figure that there are people who are richer than myself who can actually have enough bucks to give to political campaigns. I do my part and vote.

In the weeks to come I will check and see what kind of political mailings that I receive in the mail.

Can You Belive it?

Three weeks left of summer vacation! Only three weeks! I wonder will these three weeks drag or go by really fast. Last week, S and J had tennis camp and it went quick! Of course last week our a/c went out and the mornings were really s-l-o-w and HOT.

This week is the beginning of more camps: Football, Cross Country, and HS tennis, with a touch of Debate added in there somewhere.

S and J will be celebrating their b-days on Sunday (yes, they have the same birthday. And NO, it wasn't planned).

Then Monday will be the start of enrollment for the middle school/elementary school and on Thursday for the high school. I have to find the list that everyone needs to get BEFORE school starts. 7 pocket folders, one being plastic, one for music, 3 boxes of Kleenex (and of course Kleenex is always on sale this time of year), as well as notebooks and everything else for school. I love the bargains of 10 notebooks for 50 cents! Better load up on them now because the price of ONE will go up to like $1.50. Pens, erasable pens, pencils, colored pencils, crayons (if needed), erasers, rulers with centimeters marked, a special kind of notebook like 1 2" notebook for a certain class. With all this loot you might as well bring it to school BEFORE class starts IF you have a locker.

The locker situation won't be new to J. He has had one on and off since second grade. Most girls decorate their locker. But boys basically just throws the stuff in the lockers, hoping to find whatever they need before class. It doesn't matter how bad it looks when they hand in papers that the teachers want like 2 weeks later. I wonder if boys panic like girls do when they can't find stuff in their lockers?

S tries to find different shelves to put in her locker, a mirror and maybe some other decorative item. J, I can see it now, he'll just throw in stuff and have to push on it just to close it. If papers are sticking out, then it's a boy's locker!

This year new to J will be band. We have discussed which instruments he should try. He doesn't want to hear any of this. Whichever instrument he picks he will have to play it through eighth grade. He will not be allowed to quit (this is our rules).

Sometimes kids need to have that little push just to succeed and to enjoy an activity. I found this true with J and tennis. He drug his feet on it and actually enjoyed the sport. At least he went to ONE sports camp this summer.

So now that summer is winding down, I see that the gas prices are falling some too. Why couldn't this happen earlier? We could have gone to the great NW. We will have to try next summer who knows how high or low the gas prices will be then.

I can't believe that summer is nearly over with and that school will be starting in 18 days. WOW!

Shopping in Hutch

Today we went out to their mall. It was practically dead! Nothing was going on and a lot of stores have closed in the past year.

Ever since it opened in 1983 (I think it was that year) the mall in Hutch has been steadily going down hill. They used to have a lot more food places around their "food court." Now they have only 3. Also they used have movies inside the mall and now it's outside of the mall. Granted they can show a lot more movies than normal. The mall used to have a book store, B-Dalton, but that closed out several years ago. So no more bookstores in the mall. The only one in Hutch is the Hastings store on 30th. There used to be an American Greetings Store to compete with the Hallmark Store, nothing there now. The mall even used to have an Old Navy Store. Just recently they lost a jewelry store and Goody's.

This mall is turning into the old defunct Wichita Mall. Stores started leaving there and gradually it closed up. Hutchinson needs to revitalize its mall as most people do not care about shopping downtown.

When I was growing up all we had was the downtown shops. JC Penney was downtown, as was Woolworths, and Montgomery Wards. We had specialized shops like "Three Sisters," "Pegues," and "Wiley's." The old Hutch National Bank (the little limestone building on the corner) was a little shop called "The Emporium," where they sold hard candy, and unique items, like I got a plastic inflatable pillow with Archie Bunker on it once! (Ha!). They sold a lot of "interesting" stuff back in the 70's there. There was a health and beauty aid store there, a jewelry store, Meschkes (a store that sold mens suits), Longs Department store, Reffner's (where we got all of our sports equipment). There was a bookstore downtown called "Crossroads." The First National Bank Building had a nice little restaurant to eat in as did the Woolworths. Sears was located across from the Reno County Courthouse it was huge! Downtown was nice at one time in Hutch.

Now there are not very shops downtown either. There is an optical outlet, Fraese Drug Store with an old fashioned fountain in the Wiley Building. Wiley's are gone, so are Pegues, Meschkes, Longs, the Emporium, Reffners. The bowling alley in South Hutchinson is gone.

I've read in the paper that the Hutchinson Revitalization committee wants to improve downtown like Lawrence.

That would be tough at best! Lawrence is a college town with a lot of students and former students. Massachusetts street is booming with businesses. The closest mall for Lawrence residents is in Overland Park (Oak Park). Mass Street has a number of special shops that no other towns in Kansas have. For Hutch to become as "cool" as Lawrence would be next to the impossible to accomplish.

Shopping in Hutchinson should improve but the question is how will the city of Hutchinson accomplish this task. I'll be reading the papers to see what is going on over there.

Product Packaging Changing

I have noticed the past year that some products are changing their packaging. They have added "No Added Growth Hormones made with milk from cows, now treated with the growth hormone rbST. No significant difference has been shown between milk from rbST-treated and untreated cows."

So today I have been ready some information concerning this subject. rbST is recombinant bovine somatotropin another name for it is recombinant bovine growth hormone. It is a genetically engineered drug produced by the Monsanto Coporation. It is injected into dairy cows to induce them to increase milk production.

Now why would we be concerned with that? Because there has been "hundereds of studies" to an increase in breast, prostate, colon, lung and other cancer in humans.

Typically, daries have policies against rBST and they want their customers to know. So this is why to the reason of changing of packaging. It doesn't effect the taste to the product at all. It just increase awareness to the consumer about the cow hormones.

Today I just noticed the label on my "Kraft American Cheese," that I picked up from my local store.

Also when we go shopping for hamburger meat I usually pick "Laura's Lean Beef." It also has that label about their beef products. I went on to their site and they do not allow hormones to be administered to their cattle.

It's interesting to see how diets are changing. Packaging products a certain way helps consumers make the choice that they need to make.

Wipe out!

J was whipping around the corner from a friends house when he fell off his bike. It seems like neither one of my kids have had problems of crashing on the street or falling on the playground like I used to do periodically as a grade school student.

When I would fall on the playground from tripping on the jump rope or running and tripping over something onto the asphalt that REALLY HURT!!

I would hobble into the office and into the nurse's area. She and I became "great" friends because of my many trips into the office. I remember her cleaning the wound up and then she put this awful orange stuff on my knees. Talk about burning!! OWWW!! She would dab in on and I would have to blow on my wound to make the stuff cool down. It wasn't peroxide nor iodine. It was called "mecurochrome" or "merbromin."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merbromin (This link explains what it was and what it looked like). From what I read, using this antiseptic is no longer advised because it contained too much mercury.

Getting that stuff on my cut knees, elbows, or legs was just plain torture!! I know it was supposed to prevent infection but to this day my skin crawls just thinking about it.

Finally! New Central Air!

After a few days of sweating some pounds off and not being able to sleep in a hot house, we finally got a new central air unit. It still is on the hot side in the kitchen but it is starting to feel much cooler otherwise.

I felt bad for Paul the AC guy. Here he was putting in our new unit on probably the most hottest day of the year!! I think he found a little shade but not much. I think he took some needed breaks away from the heat. It's good to have a nice person whom you can rely on during times like these. Now he will be getting his "payday" from us within the next few months.
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Out at the tennis courts, I noticed that there is a sign on the fence stating "For Tennis Only." Perhaps another sign could be placed in English and in Spanish so there would be no "communication problem" with soccer and tennis players. Hopefully this conflict will not happen again.