Amy Currioman

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.

Today I am feeling the empty nest feeling. After having the house full of company over the long Thanksgiving weekend, having bid them all good bye, the house is now feeling very empty. I love having my family around me, and when they are gone I miss them a lot. Sometimes I feel like I am being very selfish when I start thinking about how much I miss them, and I try to keep busy to keep my mind off of it, but there are many things that I can do around the house while on automatic pilot and I find that even though my hands are keeping busy my mind is still missing them.

When I start to feel that way I realize that the pain and sorrow other families must be feeling when their loved ones have passed away and will never be there again for the holidays would truly be unbearable, and I count my blessings that my loved ones are alive and well “out there” doing what they want and love to do. Yes, I miss them, but I am so happy that they are pursuing their dreams instead of being shot at in some war zone. Thank you God.

Although I try to support local small businesses as much as possible, I like to surf the Internet to see what is new and trendy in the world. My son helps me keep up to date by sending me links to a variety of websites that he thinks that I’ll find interesting. One link that he sent me was for Geek News and Promotional Coupons so that I could see a variety of interesting gadgets. I thought that website was awesome – that was the first place I’d ever seen the new gloves that are designed specifically for people who want to use their electronics while they are out in the cold. Personally I don’t text, but I sure could use a pair of those gloves to wear in the car when I’m trying to program my GPS when I first get in the cold car in the winter time! Definitely put a pair of those on my Christmas wish list!

And then he sent me the website uncommongoods.com, along with the link to Uncommon Goods source codes which is actually a page that leads you to discount codes for the uncommon goods website. I still haven’t figured out why the discount code is being called a source code. Could someone explain that one to me please?

And, knowing how much of a comic hero fan my hubby is, he sent me the link to SuperheroStuff promo codes which is a coupon page for the superherostuff.com website. I used to think my hubby was difficult to shop for, but with this superherostuff website, I think I could just close my eyes and play “pin the donkey” with that website and my hubby would be thrilled with anything I picked out!

Thanks for the help Jonny Boy!

I know that there were many days and nights that I was worried about something one of my kids had done (or not done) and that I suspected they were doing (or not doing,) that I wondered if I would survive their teenage years. They were all basically good kids, but parents worry and kids do make mistakes. But that’s how they learn, after all.

I had an older woman working with me at the time and she used to tell me to just hang in there and keep telling them that I loved them. She would tell me stories of her own sons and how she was frantic for almost a year that one son who was fighting depression might try to kill himself. She made a tremendous effort to spend as much time with him as she could, often going for long drives at night, just the two of them in the car. She kept talking to him about the future and how he had so much to look forward to, and that she loved him. And eventually he developed some new interests and friends ,and he gradually came out of the depression. Now he is a healthy and vital young man with a family of his own.

I often think back on how much those conversations with her meant to me and inspired me to help my kids get through their bad times. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.

Well, it’s Pizza night!  We like to eat pizza on Friday nights.  If we can afford to buy take-out pizza we do that.  Our favorite take-out pizza is Pizza Hut’s pan pizza; we like to order the meat-lover’s pizza and an order of their cheese bread sticks.  If someone is working in town, or has to go into town for some other reason, we’ll consider doing Pizza Hut for pizza night. 

If not, then we go to the freezer and take out a DiGiorno’s Rising dough three meant pizza and cook it at home.  It’s almost as good as Pizza Hut, and it’s more economical, so we’ve been doing that a lot more often lately.  And it’s faster to cook one of those than it is to send someone into town to get a take-out pizza.  I make sure to line the pizza pan with aluminum foil before cooking the pizza so that afterwards I just throw the foil away and have no pan to cook, so that makes it easy to clean-up afterwards too!

Tonight is a DiGiorno’s night – it’s cooking right now as I’m typing.  It sure smells yummy!