Amy Currioman

I really like to decorate Easter eggs.  The problem, though, is that I can’t bring myself to break the shells and eat the eggs after I’ve decorated them!  They are just TOO PRETTY to break!  What a dilemma that used to be when I was a child.  It would break my heart, and besides I didn’t even LIKE to eat hard boiled eggs!  But when I got older I learned that you use hard boiled eggs to make egg salad (and I LOVE egg salad sandwiches!) and devilled eggs (also a big favorite of mine!)

So I let the kids decorate the eggs that will get eaten, and I save my decorating energy to eggs that will last much longer – ceramic or papier mache, or some other type of more-permanent surface.  I like to paint on them, or decoupage.  I really enjoy letting my creative juices flow with that sort of thing!

There has been so much talk about hackers and viruses attacking the computers around the world that it is becoming more difficult to feel secure when I turn on my computer!  I always wonder when I go to bed if my computer is going to be infected during the night and be completely useless in the morning.  There seems to be frequent news on television about how some major company or organization or government branch has announced that their computer system was somehow compromised and that a lot of sensitive information has been exposed to potentially devious people who might use it for their own personal gain, stealing people’s identities, and causing general havoc.

One way to help protect a computer from being hacked into is by purchasing a service that makes your own IP anonymous. I had never heard of a service like this before, but my sister told me about it recently and suggested that I look into it. After all, if my computer was hacked it would be a major personal disaster. Yes, I back up my files religiously, but it still would be a major disaster for me to have to deal with it. She called it a vpn service. This service keeps your own IP address blocked so that it makes it more difficult for hackers to get into your system.  So this is something I will definitely check out!

My brother-in-law runs a small business in New England.  He has a couple of employees that have become his friends, and they hang out together even when they are not working.  Yesterday when they finished working, “the guys” decided to move a small shed on the business property.  One of the guys wasn’t paying attention and the shed fell over on him.  He was badly hurt and was rushed to the hospital.  We don’t know yet how serious the injuries are, but I am so grateful that my brother had bought plenty of business insurance when he started the business!  His insurance will help keep him from losing his shirt over this accident!

I have seen so many people worried about their weight that have no reason to be worried about their weight! Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of obese people out in the general population that SHOULD be worried about their weight, but there has been so much “hype” about how people should be toothpick skinny that it really worries me. I see young girls, just barely in their teens, wearing size 2 clothes complaining to their parents that they are too fat!

So many women love to read romance novels.  It fulfills a fantasy for them about their love life.  I love to read cookbooks.  I like to fantasize about what the food would taste like, and wouldn’t it be great if my family would eat it!  I love to cook, but my family is full of fussy eaters.  There are only a handful of things that everyone in my family likes to eat.  So that drastically reduces the selection of menu items that I can prepare that everyone will enjoy.  With money being as tight as it is, I don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen cooking something that ends up having so many leftovers that the leftovers don’t get eaten up.  At least my family WILL eat leftovers if it is food they like in the first place.  I’ve heard many of my friends lament that their family refuses to eat leftovers no matter how much they liked the original meal!