Saturday, August 18 - Another lazy day...

We went out to dinner last night at one of our favorite restaurants in Danville, Woody's. Once again, I had the steak -- SO good, flavorful and tender just about everywhere we go around here. It seems that this area of Kentucky has about 5 cattle to each horse -- it's like living on the range in Texas at times! Of course, with the lack of rain, pasture and hay are become severely short, so many of the growers-ranchers(?) are selling off the herds -- hence the price of beef is much cheaper here than in Maine and the quality is so much better. Now if Kentucky could just get good Maine seafood at reasonable prices ... Wal-Mart has lobsters for $11.95 a pound (down from $24.95 earlier), but I'll bet they're NOT from Maine!

Just got the electric bill. We've been cautious on the A/C, not turning it on unless we really need it, and even then, not turning it on very low. We're comfortable, thankyouverymuch, and it really isn't good to go from 102 outside (we broke the old record of 99 on Friday) to 70 indoors repeatedly. So it's about 75 inside as a rule. Anyway, the bill in Maine would have been at least $185 -- here it was $86.06! Can't wait to compare heating costs here with $3.00+ a gallon heating oil in Maine this winter! I was paying nearly $70 a month for electricity PLUS $255 a month for heat last winter. Of course, we have a fireplace and wood here, so even heat should be reasonable.

With less-costly electricity, vehicle registration ($77 in KY vs $120 in Maine), gas and food prices, I can see how people around here can easily get along on 20% less than Mainers earn, and yet they seem to have everything they need. Many jobs only pay $7 per hour, but if the cost of living is 25% less than in Maine, that would correspond to about $9 per hour in Maine.

I just figured out how to convert all our old cassette tapes to CD's -- I downloaded the necessary software, and just have to get the right cables now. What a great winter evening project. I'm still working on Casey County census and cemetery records -- a never-ending project, but it is useful and needs to be done, plus it's fun (do I need a hobby?).

Another winter evening project will be to scan in as many of the family photos as we can get done -- ONCE I find the power cord to my scanner! It's hiding somewhere, although most of the boxes are now unpacked, emptied, or otherwise occupied, and most of my clothes (at least those that still fit) are hung up. Oh, we DID finally find the kitchen knife set, but are still looking for the portable phone. Any ideas where we should look for THAT?

Barry is working on setting up the electronics in the living room -- satellite dish receiver, TV, DVD player, VCR and surround-sound stereo. So far, I have been NO help since there are just too many plug-ins all over, and I'm not sure I understand how it should be set up anyway. I'm still working on programming the VCR -- let alone learning how to record from the satellite using the DVR set-up.

For the first time in 39 years, I'm not spending the month before school preparing for school. Psychologically, that seems totally weird, but even though it's mid-August, climatologically it still feels like mid July in Maine, so physically I'm not ready to start school -- still too much sun, too much heat to be close to school opening. Schools around here had to cancel recess and outdoor marching band and sports practices, and one county actually used 2 "heat days" this past week.

OK, enough babbling -- got to get back to work on something useful -- downloading more census records.