Amy Currioman

I can remember life before the Internet.  Can you?  I even remember life before the personal computer!  Back when I was in junior high school I took typing classes on the old-fashioned manual typewriter.  The classroom only had two electric typewriters in it, and they were reserved for only occasional use!  It was such a big deal at work when we got our first word processors!  Then when the first personal computers hit the market, my hubby and I were the first family on the block to have one! 

I am constantly amazed and impressed with how the technology has advanced so quickly in this field!  Now it seems that almost everyone I know has a personal computer with Internet access!  Many of us have our own websites!  I’ve recently been made aware of how important it is to make sure that you have an up-to-date website security program on your computer to protect your website.  I was reading a blog article on the webhostinggeeks.com website about that very issue.  I like their website a lot; I use it to help me to make decisions about what web hosting service to subscribe to or recommend to my friends when I want to learn about the different options and packages on a lot of different services at once.  If any of you need to read reviews and rankings of the most popular web hosting services, this is a great place to go.

When I got up this morning I heard the very sad news that two Virginia Tech students were murdered yesterday. They were murdered off campus; both of them shot. They were together at the time. That is such very sad news. I heard that there are no suspects at this time. I hope that people come forward with information that helps the police track down who killed them and haul them off to jail for the rest of their lives! My sincere sympathies to the friends and families of these two kids. I have a kid in college myself, and I can only imagine the devastation I would feel if something bad happened to him!

A couple of months ago my sister and I were swapping ghost stories with each other. It started when she asked me if I’d ever seen a ghost before. I told her that I was sure that I had seen at least one ghost in my life. I was driving home from work one night and saw what appeared to be a woman on the side of the road dressed in a white gown. It looked like a wedding gown. The woman didn’t look to see if traffic was coming and walked across the road (I had to hit my brakes hard to avoid hitting her) and then she walked right through a guard railing and vanished!

Ever since then I’ve been fascinated with ghost stories. Last weekend my sister mailed me a new book by Christopher Ransom. It’s called “The Birthing House.” She dared me to try and read only chapter 1 and 2 and then put the book down and never read any more than that! Well, I’ve been reluctant to start on the book because I do have a habit of getting so engrossed in a book that I can’t put it down until I’ve read it all! And I’ve got things to do that need to get done that WON’T get done if I start reading a new book right now! My sister keeps taunting me about reading the book, she even sent me the link to the trailer on the book, and I’ve read an excerpt of the book online too. I have to say that the excerpt of the book that I read does confirm my fears that once I pick up the book I will not be able to put it down again.

We try very hard to pinch our pennies, and I know that Pizza Hut Pizza is expensive, but it really is our family’s favorite pizza.  So every couple of months I give in to the pleas of my family and splurge on a Pizza Hut meal.  Fortunately we have coupons from Pizza Hut that makes it a lot more affordable!  I don’t think I’d give in quite so easily if we didn’t have the coupons!

So, tonight is a Pizza Hut night.  I’ve sent the oldest son out to get the Pizza while picking up some medicines at the local pharmacy.  I guess that’s probably why I agreed to the pizza, since it was combining a trip into town.  Very rarely do I agree to buying pizza if it is a special trip just for that!  But I needed my son to pick up the medicines, and getting the pizza is a reward for helping me out.  A big bonus – I don’t have to cook, and clean-up afterwards is minimal!

I’ve been interested for a while now in making my own designer candles.  I’d like to buy some pretty bulk jars and fill them with a lightly scented soy wax.  Then after the wax has solidified I think I’d like to paint the jars.  The biggest reason that I think I’d like to do this is because I have heard so much about how cheap wax is bad for your health and also leaves a lot of soot on the furnishings of the house they are burnt in.  I’ve heard that soy wax burns clean and doesn’t have any negative health side effects.  I’ve always liked candles; I think they are very pretty. 

I tend to avoid burning them, though for a couple of reasons.  One reason is that a lot of candles make a mess with their wax dripping all over the place.  Another reason is that some candles just burn down the middle of the candle and then seem to drown themselves in a puddle of melted wax.  And still another is that a lot of the scented candles make my nose run and eyes water and give me a headache!  Not knowing exactly what is in the candles makes me suspect that if I made my own I could control all of that.