Mario's Halloween Party

Mario is sponsoring a Halloween Party on October 31st. Mario is trying to be a strong member of this community, come out and support him and his family. I for one am grateful for his business.

Dean will be passing out candy on Halloween, stop by our house on Robin Lane!

Community Council Bonfire!

Back to "The Green Thing"

As some of you know and some who don't know I have been using Shaklee products since the early 1970's. Shaklee was green before the term became popular and we live in a home that is about as chemical free as I can make it. We use everything from the shampoos, to laundry detergent, to deodorant, to soy products, to food supplements. While both of us are not completely issue free, I can honestly say that I do not use any medications.

Shaklee has some honest to goodness, down right decent products and two newest products in their line of supplements are "Mindworks" and "Blood Pressure". All Shaklee products go through rigorous testing, the products are organic, and you can find a list of studies on the Shaklee website. Supplements are cold processed, which means the good stuff is still intact, and the ingredients for the supplements are grown certified organic. (I am blessed to have the Internet for my reading and research. Organic foods contain more vitamins and no chemicals which essentially is better for us, There are those who are now asking why labeling products organic causes the cost to go up, why can't we charge more for the products that are chemically enhanced? It is a puzzlement to me.)

Anyway I do have a website, I do have customers and I have used the products for over 43 years. If anyone is interested give me a call. 208-683-1980 or use my website http://njknowles.myshaklee.com/.

Give me call!

Norma Jean

Disappearing!

I pulled my famous disappearing act again and have neglected my BlogSpot. I think I should be shot!
I have been wondering if I need to close this site down because at one point it seemed the only postings I managed were announcements for coming events. Naw, I am not ready to abandon ship yet.

Summer seems to have so many activities going on at once, there are times I am not so sure I have enough time in a day.. but then there is always tomorrow.

I don't have any political pratting to do, my life is farily sane, the dogs are fine, the cats ornery, all kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids healthy and happy, so Life is Good!

Bayview Scenic had a decent year, the Apartments filled up at the end of summer, all RV-ers are coming back next summer. The property was beautiful this year and I have probably the best renters ever.

Coming up on the activities calendar of course is the Chamber Meeting on October 14th at 7:00 pm, please come, all are welcome. We need you as much as you need us.

The Community Council is having their annual Bonfire gathering at the Community Center Gardens on Thursday October 23rd at 5:30 pm. Bring your lawn chair, there will be hot dogs, hot chocolate, s'mores, and hot cider. Enjoy the last of the crisp fall weather with great companionship!

Don't forget about Mario's, he is doing an all you can eat spaghetti night for $7.49 on Mondays. Mario is quickly becoming a real asset to our community, as is Tim and Debby at the Merc.

I am still working on my stained glass project, the big one of course right now is for my daughter and I have also picked up another project that I will actually get money for completing. Woo, Woo. It seems each project I do I learn something new and the window for my daughter has been a real learning curve.

Have a blessed Sunday and a wonderful week.

Norma Jean

"The Green Thing"

I have seen this article before. I grew up saving paper bags, newspapers, having glass bottle jars. I remember outhouses simply because my grandparents had one, and I had a friend that lived on a farm in rural Maryland. I remember chamber pots too. I was thinking the other day just how much plastic we use today, pretty amazing. I also used cloth diapers, mainly because my children were allergic to disposable, that should have told us something then. And when babies were out of diapers we had amazing cleaning cloths.  Plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic bottle caps, plastic for our diary, plastic bags, clothes made out of recycled plastic. I saved my Dad's old razor, wish I still had his lathering brush.

Maybe this not be termed "the green thing" but instead going back to our roots! Thought I would share.


Steven Krueger with Molly Day

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief(remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to really piss us off... especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smart-ass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.