Amy Currioman

Guest post written by my buddy Lavern Small

I went to CannonSatellite.com to look into satellite and see if it was any cheaper than cable. I also talked to the people with my lawn care company to make sure they wouldn’t mind if I cut back to twice a month instead of every week – that’s helped us save hundreds a year. I don’t know why I got on this money saving kick but for me it’s all about making sure we’re financially viable in this economy and I know that my job’s secure but I get really worried that I might lose my job or get hurt or something else terrible. I love being part of a supportive family but there’s something to be said for taking matters into your own hands and that’s what I’ve done – I’ve asked every member of my family to put their best effort forward when it comes to saving money but at the end of the day it’s an individual effort and everyone has to answer for themselves with what they’ve been able to save.

Has anyone ever explained to you the difference between curtains and draperies? No one has ever explained them to me, so I have always thought that the terms were interchangeable. Recently I went to Google and typed in “what is the difference between curtains and draperies” and several web pages popped up.

From what I understand now, curtains tend to be the unlined window treatments that are stationary on a curtain rod that does not open and close, whereas a drapery is often lined and is on a type of hardware that includes the ability to be drawn open and closed. Well, now I feel educated as all get-out! I always just called them all curtains!

Thinking about the window treatments that I currently have in my house, I realize that I only have draperies in one room at the moment, but when we moved in here the hardware that was in place were only curtain sash rods and I actually put the draperies on those instead of buying new hardware. Since they were for a spare bedroom and weren’t going to be actually used at all I just have them in the open position, and I have a valance covering the hardware so no one can see what is up there anyway.

I bought a bag of corn from the feed store to use to sew into micro-wavable heating pads.  I brought it home and opened it up to fill the bags I had sewn, and I was totally grossed out because it was full of bugs!  I ended up scattering the corn in the back yard for the deer to enjoy.  Now I don’t know where I can go to buy the corn, they don’t sell it at the health food stores anymore!

In these uncertain economic times, one way that a family needs to keep in mind that Family Insurance is something that should be considered a necessity, not a luxury. One of the things that amazes me is that most people don’t have any kind of life insurance at all! Sometimes I wonder if it is because people really believe that they won’t die for many more years so they are in no hurry to buy insurance, or if they really are so selfish that they don’t care about what happens to their loved ones after they have passed away.

Recently I took out a home equity loan and one of the first things that I looked into after closing on the mortgage was getting some Insurance Quotes to help pay for that loan if something happened to me. I would hate to burden my family with that debt if I passed away before it was paid off. There are a lot of Cheap Life Insurance policies to choose from; I am going to try to get a simplified level term level premium policy for the term of the loan. I think that will provide the best coverage for my family.

Well today I decided to buy some cornmeal to try and make english muffin bread in the bread machine. I went to the new Harris Teeter store and bought way more groceries than I intended to buy! It’s hard to resist all of the BOGO specials and the double coupon offers!

Anyway, now I’m home and am cooking the bread in the machine. I’m anxious to give it a try! I remember about 30 years ago a friend gave me some english muffin bread that she had made from scratch. It was really good!