The weather is gorgeous. I’m so glad we planned a little picnic and afternoon at the Lake today. I have a feeling that after such a horrible hot summer that this weekend is one of the very few nice weather weekends we’ll have this year. I cheated a little on the picnic – Publix had cold friend chicken on sale for just $3.99 for 8 pieces. The chicken and my homemade macaroni salad and a small seedless watermelon were GOOD EATING!

We had such a nice relaxing day – best Labor Day that I can remember!

Looking at a banner ad for Myrtle Beach, I found that it was sponsored by the official tourism department for South Carolina. The headline of the banner was what caught my eye, “South Carolina: Made for Vacation.”

Now, I do love South Carolina and I love North Carolina. I love Myrtle Beach for family vacations to the Atlantic, (although I think the Virginia Beach area is a little cleaner and nicer now that they got serious about being a family friendly destination).

According to this tourism site, South Carolina has these activities to offer for a girls getaway weekend:

• Beaches
• Shopping
• Outdoors
• Golfing
• Historic
• Wine / Cuisine
• Theatre
• Ghost Tours
• Spas

Got a great idea from my little sister. Scrubs for casual wear. Medical scrubs are so much cooler than sweat pants and they are such easy care. They are practically indestructible and most types of common stains wash right out. They wash in cold water and if you take them right out of the dryer then there are no wrinkles.

My sister bought a couple of sets of nursing scrubs. She likes the bright colors and bold patterns of the tops and the way the white pants fit with a drawstring waist. The tops can be seasonal and also reflect major holidays. She loves wearing the Halloween tops on weekends throughout October while she runs errands.

I might just order a scrub set for myself and give it a try. I feel like a slob if I wear sweat pants out of the house. I think I could wear the scrubs and not feel so conspicuous at the gas station and the grocery store.

Read a joke on Facebook that was really funny. It was not from one of my friends. He had posted it on another friend’s wall as a comment to a thread I was sharing with her.

Anyways, the joke was about a fisherman’s encounter with God and being tested by God. The story is really long, but the point of the story is that if a man lies, it is because he has good reason.

The story was funny. But the point of the story is not funny to me. I don’t thin there are very many good reasons to lie. I am trying really hard to teach my children to be honest and truthful. This is very hard in today’s world when everyone around you seems to think lying is OK. If you listen critically to most of the sitcoms on TV, the entire episodes are based on lies and liars and we are expected to accept that as entertainment.

We’ve had such a busy summer that for some reason we never got around to seeing many movies. This summer had a lot of kid-friendly and family-oriented movies. But we never got around to going to the theater. I guess we will start going again when the weather gets colder and there is not so much to do outside.

The top box office hit this summer was Toy Story 3. We enjoyed the first two Toy Story movies, so I really do want to see the 3rd one. If we get a rainy weekend with nothing else to to do, I guess I will try to find the Toy Story 3 at a local theater, if it is still playing anywhere.

After a while, just finding anything but the current top 5-6 releases playing anywhere is hard to do. If I can’t find it on the big screen, I’m sure it will be relased soon on DVD. Probably in time for Christmas.

There was a news clip tonight about the economy and investments and they mentioned the price of gold. I am sure that most people think about stocks and bonds, and maybe real estate, when you mention investing. But my daddy also taught me about the concept of a gold IRA.

It is not hard to buy gold bullion, especially now that we have the internet. I learned the old way about gold. My daddy used to take me with him to various coin shows throughout New England, back in the late 1980’s. Of course I was just a little kid, but I learned about coins and gold from hearing my daddy talk with the exhibitors and traders.

Every once in a while I still go to a coin show. But when I want to seriously buy gold bullion, I go online. Of course, I don’t keep any of the gold here in the house. I’m not dumb!

Tonight’s call from my wonderful grandmother was a nice treat. She is spending some time in Naples with a friend. Usually she only goes to Florida in the winter and early spring, but her friend is having some health issues so Nana decided to got back and help for a couple of weeks.

Nana invited the kids and me to come visit. She reminded me that we have the use of her lovely two bedroom condo any time we want to go the Gulf Coast. I think she forgot that school starts early here, so we can’t go away for a whole week any more. We do have a nice break in October for 10 days, so we might go then. Then again, maybe I’ll get away for a weekend while the kids visit their dad.

Reading over some of the fun activities on the Florida outdoor fun web site called iOutdoor.com, I’m beginning to think that an adult getaway should be in my plans. I could use a couple of days of water activities, like swimming with dolphins or snorkling.

If I go to Naples and stay at Nana’s condo, an air boat ride would be great fun. Naples is just north of the Everglades and there is a lot of fun in the Dollar Bay and Bartell Bay. It’s been years since I took a cruise through the western edge of the Everglades to look at wildlife. Maybe I’ll take my new camera and get some shots of the birds and alligators this time.

This weekend was the final days of our county fair, but the weather has been so bad that I decided to not go. The heat is too much for me and the chance of thunderstorms has been forecast every day this past week. If I had known that it really would not rain today, I might have made an attempt. But I didn’t know and I didn’t want to risk it, so we stayed home.

We had a really nice day together doing little but some housework and cooking. My son sorted out all his toys and put them into different bins and boxes. He has a bin for dinosaurs, trucks, army men, Transformers and Legos. My daughter has a huge collection of dolls and we went through that together, cleaning them off and setting them up on the shelf in little social groupings. That was fun.

I started cooking a couple of new recipes for brisket, a couple of drop cookies and a lemon icebox pie. While cooking, I listened to some new music on the iPod. It was a nice, relaxed day and actually very productive. I feel blessed.

Usually I avoid the grocery stores on Saturdays. They are too crowded and it takes too long to get through the check out lines. But I found a couple of recipes that I want to try and don’t keep all those ingredients on hand, so I went to the store for a “few things.”

Of course, it never works out to be just a few things. I ended up with a whole basket of stuff. I think taking the kids with me to the store must add an extra 10 or 20 items to my basket. I know the bill is always higher at checkout. I can afford to buy plenty of groceries, but I do have a budget that I try to keep to, and taking the kids on a Saturday just blew that budget out for the month.

When I first joined Facebook I had about 40 friends and family within the first few days. I thought that was pretty cool. But now that I have been on FB for about 6 months, my friends list has grown a lot. I have to admit that I have not even met some of the FB friends in real life. They are friends of friends and I consider them an important part of my entire network of friends.

Today I added my 500th friend. I cannot believe that I have so many friends on FB that I can reach out to and communicate with on a daily basis. How cool is that!?!?