Great Time in the Garden and a Great Stuff Giveaway!

I absolutely love summer and working in the yard.

 

 We built this pond four summers ago.  The fish are getting huge and the plants are thriving.

 

Several birds are making their homes in my birdhouses.

 

There are three different birds checking out this house.  It looks like the one on the bottom right has already moved in!

 

 

 

There are several babies in this house.  The parent sitting here is very, very attentive and goes crazy if anything or anyone gets close.

 

I found this ladder last year for $2.  We built the flower boxes and added drippers for water.  The daylilies and coneflowers are some of my favorites.  The rose of Sharon to the right of the ladder hasn't started blooming yet.

 

 

What are your favorite flowers?

 

 

Now on to the giveaway!

 

The people at GREAT STUFF^TM have offered to give FIVE of my readers three cans of their products. 

 

Each winner will receive one can of each of the following:

 

GREAT STUFF^TM Pest Block

GREAT STUFF™ Gaps & Cracks

 GREAT STUFF^TM Work Wipes

 

I've tried all three products and love them! 

 

It's easy to enter!

 

You must be a follower of my blog to enter.

In your comment, let me know how you would use the GREAT STUFF^TM products! 

That's it!  Easy as can be!

 

 

 

 

I will be choosing the five winners using Random Number Generator on Thursday, July 25, 2013.  Be sure to leave an email address in your comments if yours doesn't automatically come through.

 Thank you to everyone who entered.  The winners have been notified by email.

 

Thanks for your visit!

 

Pam

 

I am linking to the following parties:

 

 

 

 

 

How to Find a Low Home Loan Rate

Buying a new house can be an exciting prospect... unfortunately, it also tends to be very expensive. If you're like most people then you're going to have to borrow the money to purchase your new home, and you're going to want to find the loan that has the lowest home loan rate that you can get.

Luckily, finding your lowest home loan rate doesn't have to be difficult; you simply need to have patience and be willing to shop around and compare the various rate offers that you receive. Here are a few tips to assist you in your search, as well as a few things that you should keep in mind to save yourself as much money as you can with your home loan rate.

Interest Rates Fluctuate

It has been said that nothing is certain except for death and taxes... the fluctuation of interest rates should also be added to that list. Some rates are intentionally raised or lowered at a local, national, or international level in an effort to combat inflation or to stimulate the economy. Other rates manage to creep up or down on their own, adjusting to the supply and demand of the market.

It's important to know whether rates are up or down if you're wanting to get the best home loan rate that you can; this information can usually be found out rather easily from the financial section of newspapers or tabloids, or can be found by utilizing your preferred internet search engine online.

Fixed and Variable Rates

Just because the interest rates across the nation and around the world are constantly in a state of flux doesn't mean that your home loan rate will be constantly shifting as well. Depending upon the specifics of your loan agreement, you might end up with either a fixed interest rate for the term of your loan or a variable interest rate for the loan term.

Fixed interest rates are those loan rates that are locked in once the loan is approved and all of the paperwork has been signed and processed. Regardless of how interest rates rise or fall, individuals who have fixed interest rates on their loans pay the same interest month after month.

Variable interest rates, on the other hand, modify themselves as interest rates rise and fall. This allows individuals to roll with the changes in the financial world, though a sudden increase in rates can have people who have variable interest rate loans paying a lot more for their loans. Sudden decreases have the opposite effect.

Remember Additional Costs

Before you commit to any home loan rate, it's important that you keep in mind that there may be additional fees and charges associated with your loan. Take the time to make sure you know exactly what portion of the cost you're borrowing and what portion you're having to pay out-of-pocket... you don't want to end up with additional financial problems because you weren't expecting to have to pay additional fees.

Searching for a Lender

When searching for a lender to offer you a good home loan rate, make sure that you take the time to explore a variety of different options both in your local area and online. A number of different types of lenders can be found in different areas, and many of these lenders are able to offer fairly good loans... you should always compare the offers that you receive to each other, though, just to make sure that you end up with the best loan that you can get.

The Adventure That Is Life

I was one time the oldest of boys, and after our sister died, sister supported us by taking in sewing. They were poor. I got an afterschool job as the caretaker in a factory; it was the only way I'd have any money.

After a couple of years I got bored with that, so I beat the pavement to every business in our small Ontario town. I found a job hammering nails. The cut in pay from $.40 per hour to $.30 per hour was worth it for the new experience. Regrettably, this was to be a short-lived adventure; my new boss revealed I was one time only 13, and kid labor laws kicked in. I returned to my afterschool sweeping and toilets and kept a low profile...

My sister had always wanted me to go to university, but he died in a automobile crash when I was one time 16. Nevertheless, the janitoring and summer jobs financed my huge adventure of going off to university. I was one time the first from my mother's side to do so.

I had come to recognize by the time I was one time 12 that I could pick to look at my life as a series of crises: drowning and resuscitation, abduction and torture, abduction and sexual abuse, sister dying, poverty, my teacher labeling me "slow." Alternatively, I could pick to look at my life as a series of adventures: solo hiking and exploring, hitchhiking to Toronto to spend a week each year at the CNE, long bicycling adventures, building a boat and riding the spring floodwaters amidst the ice jams on the local river, learning to hunt with a 12-gauge shotgun. I selected adventure over crisis.

When you are confronted with a life event, you are given a choice as to the way you interpret it. And let's face it; life has its ups and downs.

A "down" could be a catastrophe like a wedding failure... or the opening for the adventure of remarriage. I have been lucky with that adventure two times.

Another not unusual catastrophe is a job loss or business failure that leads to the loss of your hard-earned material possessions. However, losing our business, our house and our vehicles cut our material ties to the east and led to the adventure of beginning over on the west coast. Without the business crash decades ago, my adventures in writing might seldom have begun.

Relatives is of life's huge adventures, and of my adult children dying in the last years have been tragic. However, the time before each died was of deep mutual reconnection and re-bonding as they said our goodbyes... and that has been another blessing.

The nature of adventure changes with the lifecycle. I gave up motorbike adventure touring a couple of years ago (downgraded to wheels) and am now much more focused on my healing work and web outreach work.

How Best To Use Promotional Codes For Home Depot

In case you are looking for promotional codes for Home Depot, then you are in the right place. And although it is not my objective to outline the current coupons in this particular editorial, I would like to state a few things so that you can learn how to make use of them to your advantage. For those individuals who have handled online discounts before, I am positive that you already know plenty of things concerning the same, and you are not going to think of everything as new.

In case you need to save the most, it is advisable that you look to save with those items which will help you to save the largest amount in dollar terms. From the simple economics that you might have learnt in school, resources are scarce and I do think that your income is limited. Therefore, in case you are going to buy a lot of things in bits, it is advisable that you first start with those items which will let you save the most. For example, if the list cost of item is $70 and that of another is $500, and there is a 10% discount on both, it is advisable that you start with the which costs you $500 because it will let you save $50 compared to the other which will permit you a discount of $7.

Target Those With The Most Discounts

Plan Ahead

You also need to plan ahead in case you need to enjoy the best rates when it comes to dealing with promotional codes for Home Depot. In case you fail to plan, you will basically be planning to fail. In planning, you need to make positive that despite the fact that you need to make the highest amounts of savings by purchasing the items which will permit you the highest amounts of discounts, it is also necessary that you focus on purchasing what you had budgeted for in lieu of buying what is obtainable on discount. The main essence of this is to help you avoid the temptations of getting in to impulse purchasing.

Irrespective of what others might say about the promotional codes for Home Depot, I do think that you will get the greatest satisfaction from them if at all you try to see how they will benefit you, than basing all of your decisions on the way it benefited other people. This is because each of us operates under different circumstances and with different needs.

Save your funds on products you buy from Home Depot online stores by making use of the best promotional codes for Home Depot around you.

Holy Toledo! Another Scale Redo

   

  

 Several months ago I purchased this grey Toledo scale on eBay.  I should've looked closer at the listing, as I was shocked when it arrived and was HUGE!  I put it in the closet and was going to list it back on eBay this summer. 
 

Then it hit me that if it wasn't SO industrial looking, I might really like it. So into the garage for a redo!











 

 
 

The face is still a bit rusty, but it did clean up pretty good using steel wool.  (This is the 'before' shot of the face.)  The problem with removing rust on the face is that it eventually the scrubbing will remove all of the paint too, so I had to stop and accept that it's still a bit rugged looking.   

I love it in our downstairs kitchen/game room. 



Thank you for your visit!

Pam


I am linking to the following parties:

Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage
Pinterest Blitz Party by Debbiedoos and On Sutton Place