My Favorite Blank

The temperatures go up and our air conditioners come on and stay running longer than normal. Home owners are paying more for their utilities right now due to the heat and most parts of the country could use a cool down to cut back on this. We could help out by trying to cut back on some things we use in the home to keep us cool. Just turning the lights off during the day will add up over an extended period of time. The things in the home that create more heat should really be limited right now and less use here could be a key start in driving down the monthly power bills. The stoves and dryers are working against the AC and filling the home with more heat that needs to be cooled down. A few more sandwiches could help and if we could all use the outdoor heat to dry our clothes, this could make a big impact on the energy costs we are paying. The dryers, stoves and air conditioners need a lot of juice to stay running and limiting this power some each day will make a huge dent in anyone’s power bill each month. You don’t have to shut everything off, just think a little smarter and this will equal more money in our wallets.

After a nice start to the week and stocks going up across the board, things came back to Earth when the market took a 200+ subtraction on the DOW Thursday. This was a little frustrating to see and so many hopes were for a strong week in early August. I don’t think anyone is predicting this market well right now and even a futures broker is having trouble making better selections than a New York cabbie these days. It should be interesting to see how Friday turns out and see if investors have something to celebrate this weekend. The back to school time of year is in full swing and many of the disappointing sales have been figured into the numbers already. All schools have not came back from summer vacation yet and we could still see some good numbers coming in from the retail sector before the month of August is over with. The best thing investors should do now is forget these up and down swings and ride out the storm we are in right now and hope the cold winter months have a better future than what the summer of 2008 is shaping up to be.

Do you remember when gas prices went over 2 bucks a gallon and we thought the world was coming to an end? I can remember that very clearly since it’s only been a little more than a year ago. The thought of gas prices being over 2 dollars a gallon was just not thinkable and we couldn’t wait until the price went below the 2 dollar mark again. Well we are still waiting for gas to drop below 2 and it actually went over the 3 dollar level before it ever got back close to 2 again. So now we just wanted the price to go back under 3 and this would make us feel better, but we didn’t get no luck there either. The prices just kept going up and have increased more than any other time in our history of using oil and soon we would all get use to paying over 4 dollars for a gallon of gasoline.

A few things happened recently and caused a little bit of a surplus to occur on one end of the gas market and Jim Cramer had predicted that gas would be going back down. It only took about 2 weeks and now the price has came off of its highs and now have settled well below the 4 dollar mark. I stop to get gas yesterday and paid $3.72 for the cheap stuff or the regular unleaded. For those using the higher tests of gas to run their automobiles are still in the 4 dollar neighborhood, but that’s still 50 cents cheaper than what it cost 2 weeks ago. I’m just wondering if we should be stock piling the stuff ourselves It seems everyone else has an oil reserve and is storing up the stuff and maybe if we all did this, we could fight the higher fuel costs in the future. If we can stay below 4 dollars a gallon, I think most would consider this acceptable, since we all know that the 5 dollar mark wouldn’t take long to reach in any type of shortage or hurricane damage this fall.

New Jersey is a great place to take a summer vacation and it can be one you can bring the whole family on. I’m sure your first thought on a vacation in Jersey would include making a trip to Atlantic City, but this isn’t somewhere the children will be able to go and have a good time. A fun NJ vacation that you could include the kids on would be a trip to Morey’s Piers. This is the idea vacation place that has non-stop entertainment going on through out the week. They have a different special each day of the week; Monday thru Friday is full of fun for the adults and kids too. Magical Mondays, Tues “Day” Time Special, Xtreme Ride Wednesdays, Thirty Dollar Thursdays and Friday Splashtacular are the themed-events that go on at Morey’s Piers every single day.

Be sure to pack the bathing suits and sunscreen and come out to the Piers and enjoy the New Jersey waterparks. The kids will never want to go home after they make a few splashes in the water and see just how fun some of these water parks can be. Parents can never go wrong when they choose a family beach vacation to spend the summer at and this couldn’t be more true in New Jersey at Moreys Piers. Don’t leave the parks until the kids have experienced the SkyPond Journey and adults will not want to leave until they have had a chance to relax in one of the private cabanas. New Jersey might have not been your first choice for a fun-filled vacation, but once you see just how exciting it is and the smiles on the kid’s faces, you will want to make New Jersey vacations more common on your summer trips.

A breakfast in the south might be a little different than the types of breakfast people in the north or on the west coast eat. I think the one main thing that would make it different is the grits. Grits is something that most people have never heard of or they don’t eat for breakfast. A country breakfast would have to include grits as one of the items on the plate. The first thing you need to select for a country breakfast would be the meat. You could go with some sausage or bacon or perhaps even a nice piece of country ham that would be as big as half of the plate. Every hot breakfast has to have eggs and you just have decide how you want your eggs cooked. The most common way would be scrambled eggs, but a fried egg would be fine too for a country breakfast. So now you have a meat, some eggs and your grits, what is left for a country breakfast?

The bread can be different things and toast would be the easiest to fix, but I am thinking good homemade biscuits for my country breakfast. I think you have to go with biscuits, because there is another important thing that you find on most country plates in the morning and that would be the gravy. A good sawmill gravy or sausage gravy is something that will stick to your ribs in the morning. You can’t just poor your gravy over toast and this only makes sense with biscuits, so biscuits and gravy need to be on the menu for a country breakfast. You will also want to get out a little jelly or a jam and throw a spoonful on your plate. A little jelly goes good with everything and it would be just as important has adding a little butter to your biscuits or on the grits. Pour yourself a fresh squeezed glass of Florida orange juice and now you have a breakfast that was made for a southerner! That’s a country breakfast that makes me hungry just thinking about it and don’t forget the grits!