Thoughts of a Southernbelle

So this past weekend we went to the Harmony Park Safari. My husband posted about it a few days ago.  I grew up in Huntsville and did not even know the place it existed.   Of course you probably would not want to go in a luxury vehicle since the animals do have a tendency to bump up against your vehicle.   It was a fun experience and my best friends kids seemed to enjoy it.   They had a blast.   If you live in the Huntsville area it is worth the drive to the south end of town to check it out.

I am trying something new over at my recipe and food related blog.    As I was sitting here thinking of something to post on my personal blog I came up with the idea of posting some of my favorite cooking websites and having the readers send in their favorite recipes and or websites  and I will post them on the recipe blog.

Has it really been that long since I posted something.  I guess i really have not had that much to say lately.  Hopefully that will change soon.  Summer is here and it is hot already.  Guess I will try harder to keep this thing updated.   Just recently had my 20th High School Reunion.  It was a lot of fun.   I still have a hard time believing it has been that long.

I may have said this before but my husband and I enjoy eating out.  We also enjoy trying new places.  Recently Sakura opened up.   You have a choice of a regular table or a hibachi table where they cook right in front of you.  We opted for the hibachi table and we were very pleased with the food and the service.  We are adding this to our list of regular places to eat.  They have a wide variety of dishes to choose from.   Unfortunately with it being a new restaurant they do not yet have a website so I am linking to a picture of the menu that my husband scanned.

Recently I ordered pictures from Wal Mart.com.  I had done this on many occasions before and never had a problem.  As a favor to my mother I uploaded her pictures for her and paid for them and requested that they be shipped to her.  10 days passed and she did not receive the pictures so when I checked I found out that there was a problem with the website and my order had been canceled.  I was told it was a problem with the ordering software on the site.  My problem with them canceling the order is that I was never notified that the order was canceled.  They did refund me my money.  However, I had a problem with them just canceling my order and not notifying me.   When I found out what the issue was I emailed them and get a response of sorry for the inconvenience no reason for why I was never contacted about the cancellation of my order which was the same day I placed the order.  Of course I sent them another email stating my dissatisfaction with the way they handled my order and that I would not be ordering from them again.  I also let them know I would be sharing my experience with all my friends and family.  Again all I get from them is a canned response of we are sorry for the inconvenience.  Their handling of my order was nothing but a problem and cannot even give me the courtesy of notifying me when something was wrong.  Wal Mart you really screwed up with this former customer.

Well as you all know about 2 months ago I posted about having asthma.  Anyway, to update you after this post I went back to the Dr as I was still having attacks after initial diagnosis.  I was put on singulair and have been taking that for a month and a half and recently had yet another attack.  I went to the Dr on Wednesday because I was coughing no wheezing this time just coughing and congested.  I also found out that I had a sinus infection on top of everything else.  So of course $56 dollars later for drugs I was out of there.  It has been a rough spring.  I had asthma and allergies as a child but do not ever remember spring being this rough on me.  I have to go back next week and more than likely they will be adjusting my asthma meds yet again.  

I have posted a few times about the new yahoo site called Shine.  Well, after reading a young lady’s blog post it compelled me to write this little piece.  I titled it Life of a Former Navy wife since my husband spent 9 years in the navy.  I have always publicly had  on my profile that my husband was in the Navy. I never blogged about it until today. Even though I have been blogging in some form since 2002 it was after my husband was out of the Navy.  I wish that I had the chance to write about this stuff when he was in.  It would have been something I think that I could have kept up with.  Sometimes, I find it hard to come up with content that I think is worthy to post on here.  Lately though I have been posting kind of regularly or as regularly as I can.

This morning I was watching the Today Show.   They had a segment about the 16 worst places to stash your stuff.  It was in interesting segment about where not to place certain items.  The segment had a wide range of issues from where not to sit on a plane to where not to put your toothbrush.  Anyway, one of the tips was not to keep your toothbrush out on the sink as it is in close proximity to your toilet.  The suggestion was to put your toothbrush in the medicine cabinet and relocate the medicines to another place in either your kitchen or bathroom.  I thought this was a great tip until, I walked into my bathroom and realized neither of my bathrooms have a medicine cabinet in it.  My master bath has double sinks and mirrors but no medicine cabinet.   My spare bathroom has one sink and no medicine cabinet. The tip in the article says in medicine cabinet or behind closed doors. So I was thinking where do I store my toothbrush if I do not have a medicine cabinet? Should I place my toothbrush in a drawer? Both of my cabinets in my bathrooms have a hidden compartment that looks like a drawer but pulls down and has a ring holder built into the cabinet.  So I am just wondering if using this hidden compartment in my bathroom is a good idea or not?   Yes, I know I have lived in my house for almost two years and it never really bothered me not having a medicine cabinet. I have lived in apartments as recently as 7 years ago where the bathroom had absolutely no storage in it at all.  We had a shower, toilet and pedestal sink.  We wound up buying something to use as storage to keep toiletries stored which worked until we moved into our first house 5 years ago.  Granted the apartments that we lived in were old but, they were convenient to where we both worked at the time.  I think if I had to do it over again I would have taken more time to shop for that particular apartment.  We were transferred quickly and did not have much time to search for housing.  Anyway, just wondering what peoples thoughts are on an alternative place to store the old toothbrush?

The other day I posted about a new web portal for women called Shine.  It was launched by yahoo.  I like the site and will continue to use it.  It is a nice alternative to Ivillage where I have been a member for years. I know that the rest of this post may piss off people who may read this but, I feel that it is worthy of getting out there. I have spent some time there and have increasingly noticed that the youner people will blog like they are texting or instant messaging their best friend.  Granted sometimes when I post something I will ocassionally let something slip through spellcheck but my blog posts do not look like i am texting or using instant messaging.   How many of you think that people on sites who blog should at least use proper english when blogging or the proper etiquette when posting? To me that would encompass not screaming or typing in caps.  The one thing I did notice about a recent post I read over at shine the individual who posted some YouTube Videos did not use proper english and also used upper and lower case in the title of the post.  I have no problem that they posted something or the fact it was a YouTube video as I love YouTube and can waste hours on the site.  I do not have a problem with them making a short post it does not have to be a novel.  What I do have the problem with is that the person chooses to blog like they are texting or instant messaging.  I tend to notice these things the more time I spend on places like shine or myspace or insert whatever social networking site you are a member of.  Am I wrong to want places like these to look nice?  I know I am rambling here but, this has bothered me today.  I know the alternative is not to read everything I see but, with new sites like shine or myspace popping up I like to see what peoples thoughts are and what kind of content that they put out there.

About a month ago I posted about having Asthma.     I am a month out and still do not feel that the Asthma is under control.   The dr just gave me albuterol for attacks nothing to control the Asthma.    She also said to give it till April 1st and here it is and I still am having issues with it.  I guess I will be going back to the DR to look into this some more.  It is kind of funny the more I read up on Asthma the more I am convinced that it is worse than we originally thought it was.  I am still waking up at night coughing and wheezing,  It has happened about 3 times this week. The coughing really never went away.  If it I start laughing really hard I go into a coughing fit and eventually start to wheeze.