What You See Is Not Always What You Get

Last night I decided that we really needed a night out to get a break from all the craziness going on in our lives right now.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  It really is until you remember that part of the craziness is a small cash flow problem.  Shoot, who am I kidding?  It's a fairly large cash flow problem but that's fodder for another post.  :-) 

Since it was the end of the month (can you believe January is almost gone?), I knew that I could probably find a code somewhere for Restaurant.com and get a huge discount.   Off I went to Coupon Mom and sure enough behind the restaurant coupons tab was an 80% off code.  Sweet!  Since I wanted this to be fun, I looked for places that we've not been to and picked a couple that are fairly close to the house.  We picked Ms. Judy's Buffet as our destination tonight and set out.  Their menu looked pretty good with a seafood buffet on Friday and Saturday nights.  After putting my discount code in the $25 gift certificate cost a measly $3.50.

It didn't take long to pull up in front of Ms. Judy's.  There was no problem finding a parking spot because Ms. Judy had turned off the lights and gone home!  Not only had she turned off the lights, she took all the furniture with her and there was a "For Rent" sign in the window.  Hey!  What about my $3.50???  We ended up a couple of miles down the road at the Olive Branch Catfish Company.  The food was great as was the service.  Since we didn't have a coupon the budget is blown.  But hey, we've got a nice sheet of paper we won't be using to turn over and use to figure out Plan B for the budget.  


The moral of this story is use Restaurant.com because it's a great deal but if it's somewhere you've never been, call and be sure they are still in business before you spend that $3.50.

My first year as a blogger...Sigh...

Last year around this time I decided that I was going to become a blogger for the new year.  It's probably one of the few New Year Resolutions that I've kept all year.  My goal was to ramble on at least 3 times a week for 52 weeks.  Did I reach my goal?  Nope (hanging my head in shame) but at least I did continue to run my mouth about what ever made me angry, happy, sad or just seemed worth talking about on a fairly regular basis.  It wasn't even once a week but was better than nothing.

I've learned a lot about the "how to" of blogging and I think I'm going to do better this year.  I have a plan of attack for all three of my blogs.  Three blogs??  I know you are thinking - how absolutely crazy that is given that I couldn't maintain my goal on one.  I agree with you whole heatedly, it is crazy but I will meet my goal this year if it kills me!  2011 is the year that I take my body and mind back from Fibromyaglia and do the things that I want to accomplish.

I ended up with three blogs because the things I wanted to talk about just didn't all fit into the theme of Rambling Thoughts of a Southern Lady.  Yep, they were all rambling thoughts but on three distinct subjects.

This blog has definitely been rambling.  I have talked about our goddaughter being born,  my faith, my chronic pain, crafting and my love of sewing and learning to quilt.  It's just a confused assortment of topics.  When I realized that, I decided that I needed to break my thoughts up and do this with a little more logic. So here's the game plan for 2011.

Rambling Thoughts of a Southern Lady will continue to be what I set out for it to be.  My take on the news of the day, what's going on in our lives, politics, religion and other general topics.  This is where I want to entertain you and make you think at the same time.

 My Life with Fibromyalgia Pain will focus on my life with Fibromyalgia pain.  Kinda clever title don't you think?  LOL  I'll talk about my pain levels, what helps with the pain and what makes it worse.  They'll be happy days and sad days.  If you don't suffer from this horrendous disease or have family or close friends that do, it's a good chance that it will be so depressing that you won't be back.  Who could blame you?  Those of us who have chronic pain illnesses are depressed by it. So that's why I'm separating it out.  It's a very distinct group of readers with an interest in the topic.  You are always welcome to come by and take a look, we don't bite and it's not "catching" and you may find some helpful information.

Apple Creek Cove is where you'll see what I do with my spare time and unfortunately, I have way too much of it.  This is where I'll talk about crafting, sewing, quilting and that sort of thing.  If you are a crafty person, a sewer or a quilter, Apple Creek Cove is the place to be.  I'm in the process of setting our guest room up as  my sewing room and try to sew a little every day. I want to share that time with you. They'll be tutorials for various types of projects and guest bloggers who know way more about some crafts than I could ever know.  My best friend, Karen,  over at Karen's Needlework is a published quilt designer, does amazing crocheted and knitted pieces,  pours candles that smell wonderful and makes a great bar of soap, has graciously agreed to help me muddle through this by being a guest blogger.  Come by, grab a cup of coffee or a cool refreshing drink and sit and tell me what you would like to see talked about on Apple Creek Cove.

I have been sitting for way to long and I have things to do.  I'll be posting on the other two blogs later today so stop by and see what's up in all three of my worlds!

Cynthia