Thomas Kinkade Christmas puzzle

Guest post written by Lawrence Myers

Since we retired, me and my wife took up puzzles together. We had never really had the time to work on any together before that, but thought that it would be a nice relaxing activity that we could do indoors away from the TV. When I went into retirement, I told myself that I wouldn't just spend the rest of my life watching TV and I've been working hard to keep that promise to myself.

But i think that we've bought just about every puzzle that our local Walmart has and now we have to look elsewhere for puzzles. I wanted to find one for us to do here around Christmas and went searching online for the perfect holiday puzzle. When I was doing that I saw the website clearwirelessinternet.net and decided to change over our home internet service to it because our old service just hadn't been cutting it here lately.

I found a Thomas Kinkade Christmas puzzle that I thought would even be nice to use some puzzle glue with and preserve to put up with our Chirstmas decorations.

My Black Friday Shopping Adventure

This guest post from Margaret Mills

So I finally did it. I decided to wake up at 4 am, survive the freezing temperatures, and battle the crowds for my own Black Friday shopping adventure. It was a frigid, long, rewarding day. I decided to go to an early morning farmer's market this year to find some things for coworkers and could not have been happier with my choice.

Before the sun had even come up I drove by our local mall down the street. Cars were honking and lines were forming hours before the doors were open. Shoppers were battling one another for discount electronics and the newest hit movies, I decided to take a different route. While the farmer's market was fairly busy, everyone seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere and the season. There was no pushing or shoving, just friendly people selling some great products. I found a woman who made custom gift-baskets with homemade treats, drinks, and trinkets. I found a basket that was not only perfect for everyone on my list, but at a great price.

Warm and comfortable back at home, I plopped in front of my direct star tv and began thinking. This season I wasn't going to be about standing in lines and stressing myself out. This is the holiday season where I am going to slow things down and enjoy my family and friends. I am going to remember that the more time I am standing in lines means I will have that much less time in my own home.

Hello, How's My English?

I often get the compliment that my English is very good, even when i just barely got here. Most of them told me are Americans. They were quite surprised that i speak English very good for they probably expecting me to have hard time to speak the most known international language. It was so funny to remember that my husband told me once that he was being asked to some of his co workers before i got here if i speak good English, and he just answered them that we just do the sign language so we can understand each other, lol! Silly guy!

I don't consider myself that i speak English very fluent, because i only knew some basic conversation kind of grammar. I even admire some of my fellowmen for speaking really excellent grammar, which i can't do but have been trying to learn though. I won't feel embarrassed to tell the whole world that i only graduated high school. I was not able to continue my studies to college for my mother was the only one who did her best to raised all of us even when my father was still alive. So since my mother doesn't have a stable source of income, she told me that she cannot send me to college which i understand then and went to look for a job myself instead of being idle.

Well anyway, i noticed that my grammar is gradually getting a lot better since i got here in this English speaking country. It's so funny to think that every time i talk to someone, especially the Caucasians, they never fail to comment about my English, they always tell me that i speak good English as if i am American like them. But still, even if i already am getting those good comments from people about my English, i would want to learn more still, enable for me to interact to those not just ordinary people, meaning, they are somebody kind of people.

Reading news and some other things here in the internet really helped me a whole lot, but i am thinking that going to school learning more about speaking English will be a good idea. I am happy that i am learning everyday just by having conversation with my husband and talking to my five year old son which i often get an accent correction from him lol! So anyway, how's my English grammar so far???

Go Auburn, Go!

Thanks for the post, Arthur Lawrence

Finally, the Auburn Tigers have made it back to the SEC Championship game. Also, I don't care what people say about South Carolina getting an upset victory; there is no way that Auburn loses this game. I will be watching this game on my Satalite TV Offers and witnessing the Tigers destroy the Gamecocks. The first game between these two teams may have been close, but nothing will stop the Tigers from making it to the national championship. Hopefully, it will be against Oregon.

Speaking of Oregon, I really hope they can beat the Oregon State Beavers. If so, they will make it to the national championship against the Auburn Tigers. It will be a better game than if Oregon loses and TCU jumps to number two in the nation. I know the Tigers can beat TCU, but I'd rather Oregon make it to the title game so that Auburn can beat them instead of taking on a weaker TCU team.

So, when it's all said and done, the Auburn Tigers should walk out of the South Carolina game as champions of the SEC. After that, it's onto the national championship where they will soon be crowned champions of college football.

A Fun Surprise

Guest post written by Jenn Milne

The cutest thing happened the other day as Bill and I were sitting down for the night and I was on the comptuer looking up El Paso sears cabinet refacing deals, I heard the faint sounds of Christmas carols coming out from behind the front door. I got up to look out the window to see what it was and sure enough, there was a group of 12 young, bundled-up and rosy-cheeked carolers singing there. They'd come from a local youth activity group up the street.

I've gotta tell you, that one little thing just made my night. Living out here in rural Texas, you don't really get a lot of that...you know, people mostly keep to themselves. But for some reason, this group of little ones who just came to spread some holiday cheer really touched me. It brought me back to the days when my mom used to take me caroling for our neighbors...just one more thing that makes this time of year so magical.

The Smell of Christmas

This guest post from Rafael Hodge

My kids and I love to make Christmas ornaments and decorations. Our favorite decoration to make is gingerbread houses! Instead of buying a gingerbread kit, we buy graham crackers, icing, sprinkles, Christmas chocolates, and candies. We get a holiday tray and start putting the house together, using the icing to keep the graham crackers together. Once the house is built and sturdy, we put icing on the roof, then cover it with sprinkles. And we make a Christmas scene with the candy. When everyone is done, I put them on the dining room table as decorations. The kids are always proud of their work!

We also like to make ornaments that make the whole house smell good. We do this by taking a bowl and mixing half apple sauce and half cinnamon. After it is mixed together, you can use a cookies cutter to cut them into Christmas designs. Then, you need to make sure to leave a whole at the top, so you can put a string through it so it can hang on the tree. Then, you just put it in the oven for about 10 minutes until it looks done. They make the house smell amazing with the warm scent of cinnamon.

Doing these Christmas projects bring my family together. We usually end the night watching Christmas movies on our Direct TV satellite TV deals!

Nativity blocks for my kids

Guest post written by Judy Bowers

I think that when kids are as young as my kids are, the best way to teach them important lessons is to play with them. So I wanted come up with some way that would teach my kids and help remind them the true meaning of Christmas.

I thought about finding a fun craft that they could make and play with, so I went online to get some inspiration for that. When I was looking that up, I came across the website www.clearwirelessinternetservice.com and ended up ordering an internet package from it for our home internet access.

I found an even better idea for what do to though. I decided to make some DIY nativity blocks that they could play around with. It sounded like an easy enough little craft for me to finish in one day and my husband happily cut the wooden blocks for me in the garage. I didn't trust myself to do that part. I think that my kids have been having a lot of fun with the blocks. I'm just glad that I made something that's too big for my 2 year old to put in his mouth.

Saturday's Christmas Party

So i did went to the party last Saturday. It was an okay party but i promised myself not to attend that group anymore. There were things i observed that i really don't want to be with that group, i just simply don't belong there and the ambiance is not really a friendly kind. Soon as we entered the main entrance with my friends, i can just almost see every eyes doing the "HEAD TO FOOT" stare at us. Honestly we were the ones that are well dressed to that party. It was a friend who invited us told us that we should wear something really formal like a cocktail dress. But we are all surprised when we got there that some aren't wearing formal dress. Very few of them are just wearing dresses and most of them wearing just like an ordinary days outfit, jeans and shirts.

So anyway, they wanted us to join the association but i did not sign up because i can just feel through my instinct that i don't want to be in there again for there are envious kind of people out there. They cannot just be happy for their fellowmen, instead, they try to pull others down. I saw some people in the party smirking like they did not welcome our presence as new faces to the party. So that made me decide that i am not going to attend to that association party anymore.

But aside from all that, we enjoyed our bonding with my friends, we took a lot of pictures when the party was over. I guess my friends thought of the same thing as i do, since we felt like we are not welcome to be in their group, lol! Anyway, this is what i wore in the party, not so fancy but yet elegant kind of dress. This picture was taken in our house before we left heading to the party with my friends. I bought this dress in Philippines during my vacation there, not a very expensive kind of dress but i look good at it don't i? lol! Just kidding...

Silhouette ornaments

Guest post written by Eliza Collins

We have several different picture ornaments on our Christmas tree, but I thought that maybe I could do something that would be kind of like pictures but represent all my kids just the same.

I went online to try and get some inspiration for some personalized ornaments that weren't just picture ones. But I wanted to do something a little bit more than just an ornament with a name on it though. While I was searching for this, I found the website Cleartvbundle.com and read through it. As a result, I ordered a home internet package.

Then I found this really great idea for a silhouette ornament. I had my kids sit for silhouette portraits back a few years ago and just created mini versions of them for the ornaments. They looked really nice on the tree and are a little more formal than most picture ornaments, which is kind of what I was going for anyway. My kids thought that they were pretty neat once I hung them up on the tree and told them what they were.

A Black Friday of Books

Guest written by our friend Jan Petersen

Books! That's what this Black Friday meant for me. While other people were fighting over video games and flat screen TVs, I hit up about six bookstores and found some really great deals. There were dramatically reduced prices, "two for one" deals, buying one and getting others free, and clearance products marked down even further than usual. I found entire sales bins of perfectly good books that just hadn't been selling well, so they slashed prices and threw them together for anyone to dig through. I braved the piles and made a killing!

My absolute favorite deals, though, were the boxed sets. Boxed sets are a series of books all grouped together for a good price (rather than buying each book individually). So they were already cheaper than average, but certain Black Friday sales meant I was buying sets up to 70% off! I was buying brand new books that came out, after tax, to two and three dollars apiece!

I was so pleased with myself that when I got home, I grabbed some brownies and watched cable tv. They're usually indulgences for me, but I felt I deserved it.

Let other people have their expensive clothes and fancy electronics. I'm happy finding good deals on my books.