So when the zipper repair kit arrived, we hunted for a while to find the sweat shirt. It had been put away in the back of a closet and was being elusive. Finally we put the zipper repair kit in her sewing basket and had given up looking for the sweat shirt. Well, surprisingly enough, when my wife was looking for a gray skirt to lend to her sister to wear at a funeral, she found that sweat shirt and pulled it out of the closet.

We tried to use the zipper repair kit, but we were unsuccessful with our attempt. We broke two of the replacement zipper heads in the attempt. Very discouraging!

He had designed the house we lived in, and although at the time I thought that it was not an attractive building from the outside, I have to admit that the interior layout was really very nicely designed. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I learned that the inspiration behind the house was from the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright. I had never even heard of the name of Frank Lloyd Wright until the album “Bridge over Troubled Waters” was released by Simon and Garfunkel. I can remember asking my father who Frank Lloyd Wright was, and he told me that he was a famous architect. I always thought it was weird for Simon and Garfunkel to be singing a farewell song to Frank Lloyd Wright…. but it did pique my interest to learn who he was. And to be honest, he really was a very good designer!

One of the scariest moments I have ever had was when I was driving to class and the hood of the car that I was driving suddenly sprang open! At the time I was driving about sixty miles per hour and all of a sudden all I can see in front of me is the solid dark blue color of the hood of my car! I could not even see any crack of a space down near the bottom of the hood for me to be able to navigate!

Well, what would YOU do if that happened to you? I was afraid to slam on the brakes, for fear of going into a skid. My mind frantically tried to remember if the stretch of road ahead was straight, or curvy, and I tried to remember if there was any oncoming traffic to worry about swerving into. I was glad that I was alone in the car because I am sure that they would have freaked out, making me a lot more nervous to boot!

After a quick glance in the rear view mirror to make sure that I would not endanger anyone behind me if I DID lose control, and seeing that there was no vehicle in sight behind me, I decided to try to steer straight ahead (praying that the road WAS straight) and to gently apply the brakes in such a manner as to not go into a skid. My guardian angel must have been on my shoulder that afternoon, because I managed to stop the car and put on my emergency flashers. I opened my car door to allow me to see a little bit and pulled off to the side of the road.

I put the car in park, and got out of the car. There were two men that had been mowing the roadside overgrowth near where this occurred and they came running over to see if I was OK. We all looked at the hood of the car and could not figure out why in the world it had flown open, but the fact that it DID fly open when I was driving so fast bent the hinges and the hood would not close all of the way. Fortunately for me, I had some rope in the trunk and the men helped me tie the hood shut so I could continue on my way. I drove straight to the car repair garage, and they gave me a loaner so I could go to class. And they fixed the hood for free, too. I wonder if this was a common problem with that kind of car; I never heard about a recall!

When we decided to buy the starter Brio train set, we had hoped that the set would stay in the family for generations to come, and so far it looks like it will, in fact, do just that. And that feels really good.

Have you seen those commercials on television for the Golden Corral restaurant where they show photographs of chocolate fountains? To be perfectly honest when I saw the commercial I thought to myself that it sounded pretty gross.

So when I found myself going to the Golden Corral myself a few days ago, and I saw the big chocolate fountain in the dessert section, and all of the plates of fresh fruits and pieces of angel food cake, marshmallows, and Rice Krispy marshmallow treat bars, all skewered with bamboo skewers I decided to pass it up. Until I saw that the chocolate fountain was actually really, really popular. I decided that I would go ahead and go up to the fountain and take one of the skewered strawberries and dip it in the chocolate and give it a try. I mean, what do I have to lose, anyway? I’d already paid for my meal, and it was all-you-can-eat buffet. Isn’t one of the biggest reasons that I go to a buffet is to be able to try new things without committing to ordering a huge plate of some unknown food and then hating it? Of course it is!

Well, to my surprise, I really DID like it. I think that the reason I thought that I would not like it was that I was expecting the chocolate to be dark chocolate, which is bitter, and I don’t like bitter. But this chocolate was delicious – I’m not sure if it was milk chocolate, or semi-sweet, or a combination. Regardless, it was delicious and I went ahead and took a lot of the different fruits and dipped them into the chocolate and filled up my plate with a lot of chocolate dipped strawberries and apples and marshmallows and pieces of angel food cake.

I think that I’m going to look into what kind of chocolate they used and see if I can get some of it to melt in the crock pot at home and just dip some fruit in it at home and see if I can get a similar taste. That would be a nice dessert to have at the next family party that I have to hold!

Using solar power to heat swimming pools, by using special floating mats that are placed on the surface of the water in the pool is a very effective and popular way to bring a swimming pool up to a comfortable temperature, especially in cooler climates where summer time is very short. Recently my sister-in-law has been talking about wanting to install an in-ground swimming pool at her house, and I’ve grown interested in learning how she plans to maintain the pool. So far she has not mentioned heating it, or putting a fence around it.