It seems our society is obsessed with quantity instead of quality. Less is more when it comes to eating to live. This doesn’t mean starving yourself. Eat foods that are flavorful and satisfying that don’t have processed sugar in them, and you won’t feel deprived. I used to crave ice cream before bedtime, but since I have cut out processed sugar in my diet, ice cream is just too sweet for my taste buds. Never thought I’d say that! Ice cream truly is a treat for me about every six to eight weeks instead of every night. Instead of eating…
Browsing: Commentary
As I watch the news, read posts on social media and read the Daily Business Plan, fires caused by cooking-related issues continue to occur regularly. There is not a day that goes by that a fire department somewhere in this nation is responding to a kitchen fire. Since it happens every day, it’s a problem worth talking about. The large majority of all kitchen fires are preventable, but intentional steps must be taken to do so. We continue to classify these fires as accidental, which seems to lessen the blow. The stark reality is that your kitchen fire is your…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Things are coming along in and around the house, but I am getting hit with a number of small issues that are not making me a happy camper. For example, the shed out back needs a new door handle. The current handle is just a simple latch that has a right-angle bar at the end that twists down behind the door frame to hold it shut. That right angle part had broken completely off, so I decided to take it off so I could find a match at Lowe’s.…
What do I mean by “built to burn?” There are some buildings that simply should not catch fire, for if they do, they will surely be destroyed. Some buildings were built hundreds of years ago before fire and building codes. There are buildings that were built in a location with no thought of fire extinguishment. If you live or own one of these buildings, I am sure that you are paying a lot to insure the building, if you are able to insure it. I will start with the high-rise building that has no sprinkler or standpipe system. A high-rise…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. My dishwasher and I are not on speaking terms right now. As a matter of fact, I have named my dishwasher “Nellybelle.” If you do not remember, that was the name of cantankerous Jeep owned by Pat on The Roy Rogers Show. Pat was the comic sidekick most cowboys had back in those days … Wild Bill Hickok had Jingles and the Cisco Kid had Poncho. Anyway, my dishwasher is still acting up, running when it wants to, like it just wants to aggravate me. Off to the Internet…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Are you finished with your taxes, or are you still standing in line at the post office? I am an early filer. As soon as I get my W-2, I am sending it to my CPA. Yes, I gave up trying to do my taxes a long time ago. Think they are written so an eighth-grader can do them? Don’t make me laugh. I guess they could if they were filing a W-1040 with standard deductions and can do it all on one piece of paper. But mine have…
I would like to tell you a story. This story is about the one true God; an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, unchanging and eternal God. This story will come from a book known as the Bible, written by 40 different men over about 1,500 years. God inspired the writing of His book. The Bible is true and reliable. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He created from nothing, simply by speaking them into being. He created the oceans, the mountains, the birds of the air and the fish in the sea. God also created angels to worship…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I think I made a little boo-boo with my new dishwasher. It does a great job of cleaning. That is not the issue; it’s the design. Now I admit I picked it out, but I was not really paying attention to one essential feature. After it was installed, I called my handyman and told him he made a mistake. The issue is that I have a very nice stainless-steel front on the dishwasher that matches my stove and refrigerator. That means the controls are in the top of the…
According to an old firefighters’ saying, “when the stick goes up, the building comes down.” The stick refers to the aerial ladder, which is the big ladder on the top of a ladder truck. One method of fire attack is by elevated master stream, which involves an engine supplying an aerial ladder with water unless the truck has its own pump. Last week, a fire at a Harrisonburg apartment complex required two elevated master streams in order to stop the fire in the building of origin. The cause of the fire was determined to be improperly discarded smoking materials. The…
Olivia Mullins as Margo and Ian Page as Billy Cane in ‘Bright Star,’ playing at 17401 Jefferson Davis Highway. (Photo by Robyn O’Neill) I don’t know if “Bright Star” would play well in Peoria, but I have an idea that central Illinois residents would love it. The musical – which is based on the life of William Helms, a 5-day-old baby who was tossed from a train in a small valise in 1902 and survived, a sort of a modern-day Moses – is showing on Fridays, Saturdays and select Thursdays at Swift Creek Mill Theatre through May 11. I watched…