Haley McLeod

This is the plaque that I want to have made up for my office. I love the sentiment and looking at it every day will keep me inspired. It’s kinda like a modern girl’s creed.

They just announced on CBS TV with Katie Couric that they have declared Obama has won the election due to the electoral college votes. Not all the state’s votes are in yet, and I suspect we will find that McCain won the popular vote, but it was the electoral college that established the winner again in our U.S. history. So we are all looking forward to a lot of good changes over the next four years with Obama as our new President.

This weekend is the end of Daylight Savings Time and we all get to sleep an extra hour! Yahoo! I like to change the clocks before I go to bed. I have to adjust two alarm clocks, a clock on the oven, a clock on the microwave, the clock on the VCR and the undercabinet clockradio in the kitchen. I hope my computer automatically changes the time setting and will check it in the morning. I hope you are able to take advantage of the extra hour and get some rest. Sleep tight everyone!

Lately I’ve noticed that I am buying dried fruits and bypassing the fresh fruits in the grocery stores. I usually like to have a small assortment of fresh fruit on the table for snacking, but over the past several weeks I have not had a taste for any of the fresh fruit and it ends up getting over ripe or spoiled and I have to throw it away. Of course, you can use over ripe bananas for banana bread or banana muffins, but hoestly, how much banana bread can one person eat? I don’t want banana bread every day!

If I buy the small packages of dried fruits then I can take a pack with me when I leave the house and have it handy while I’m out and about town. Or I can open a small pack at night while watching TV and not fill up on the unhealthy foods like ice cream, pudding, cookies, etc.

So I’m becoming a connoisseur of the dried fruits. I especially like the little packages of Welch’s. They have a big box of assorted flavors. My favorite is the “Tropical Sensation” that has bits of mangos, pineapple and papaya. It is a nice little snack and the only ingredient that I don’t like is all the sodium in it. But I imagine that’s how they preserve the fruits to keep them from rotting in the pack.

I just love Levon Helm. He is an amazing songwriter, musician and entertainer. He has a wonderful way of telling stories with his songs. His songs make you listen to the words and go along with him to whatever southern or western town he’s singing about and care about the people in them. He used to be with the group, The Band.

Now he has his own ensemble, including his very talented daughter. His album, “Dirt Farmer” won a Grammy last year and he very much deserves it. I listen to the album often and find myself singing along.