COME TREASURE HUNTING WITH US!

----Table of Contents----

1. Sales at Your Local Stores -- Online
2. Sales Online or Off
3. Dear Webby's Humor Letter
4. Good Things for Writers
5. Want To Make Big Money Online? Have I Got a Story for You!
6. The Carrot Stick/Christmas Cookie Diet
7. Blogs by the Million
8. Bernhard's Austrian Food from the Heart
9. Recipe: Hungarian Goulash from the Heart

1. SALES AT YOUR LOCAL STORES -- ONLINE

     Cairo. These sites are purely amazing! I tried Cairo.com first. Put in my zip code, told them what type of merchandise -- chose from electronics, apparel, automotive, groceries, and more -- and they found sale items in my local stores. You can make a printout of these sale items and take it shopping. And they'll do more! They've got a "Price Match Tracker" that will tell you which local stores have the best prices on the items you want. "Hot Deals" gives you news of astonishing sale prices on everything from diapers to computers. You can even arrange for Cairo to alert you by e-mail when an item you've got your eye on goes on sale locally!

     (I must add that I found a lot more sales in my own urban area than when I put in the zip code of a small town in Montana. However, Cairo was in there trying all the way.)

     Step Up does similar things but doesn't seem to have the same range as Cairo, nor the same bells and whistles. But give it a try and see which you like best. Here's its address:

2. SALES ONLINE OR OFF LINE

     Computer Moneymakers lists bargains in all the major stores, and you shop online or off. Among many other things, it lets you "click here for the most up-to-date coupon codes for your favorite stores," or find "stores with buy now pay later options," or find "free gift with purchase offers," or find "clearance sales." You get the picture. There's about twenty more things you can check.

     You can apparently buy the things online, or take this great information you've gotten about, say, Macy's free gifts and clearance sales, and drive to Macy's to shop. Either way. Click below to see what they have from your favorite stores:

3. DEAR WEBBY'S HUMOR LETTER

     Laughter is good for your health, they say. So improve your health by subscribing to Dear Webby's Humor Letter, which says it is "widely read, forwarded, copied and imitated daily since 1994." Hope you're impressed that it started in 1994, when the Internet was so very young. The concept of the Internet was invented in 1991; it first went online in 1992. Google didn't start until 1998. Amazing!

     Webby will deposit a newsletter filled with CLEAN jokes in your e-mail five days a week. The newsletter also has a techie tip and a thrifty tip. All of that, plus the improvement to your health, at no charge. Subscribe here:

4. GOOD THINGS FOR WRITERS

     Here are two wonderful newsletters for writers. The first, Storytime Tapestry, gives you a place to publish your stories online, and the second, Writers Weekly, tells you about pitfalls and jobs:

     Storytime Tapestry newsletter, put together by author Carol Roach, is a mosaic of stories and poems by writers from all over the world. This daily newsletter will make you laugh and cry, and inspire you to great heights. A must read newsletter for the writer and reader alike. Subscribe at

     Writers Weekly is aimed at freelance writers and published and unpublished authors. I've subscribed to their fre*e newsletter for years. It lists writing jobs newly available, gives helpful hints for getting writing jobs, and tells about scam publishers and scam agents. The site belongs to Booklocker, one of the best "print on demand" publishers. (Though do remember that book stores and book agents will not look favorably on your print-on-demand book.) You'll find a lot of good information for writers of all kinds on the Writers Weekly site and in their newsletters. To learn more, click on

5. WANT TO MAKE BIG MONEY ONLINE? HAVE I GOT A STORY FOR YOU!

     Speaking of pitfalls: Here is the first in a series of articles on the pitfalls of trying to make money online. Well, actually the first pitfall was encountered, by Yours Truly, before she got online. Go to:

And find the story under "Read It And Weep."

6. THE CARROT STICK/CHRISTMAS COOKIE DIET

     When I was in Weight Watchers, our group's total pounds lost per week went from around 27 pounds down to 2 pounds. The 2-pound total loss for the whole group of us was racked up the week after Christmas. We were a dedicated group of losers, but no one's THAT dedicated.

     Studies show that people at a healthy weight average a gain of one pound over the holidays, while overweight or obese people gain an average of five pounds, and don't take it off come spring. Which is a lot of extra pounds to be lugging around indefinitely.

     And that's why the Lean Plate Club is giving us a challenge: forget about losing weight. Just try not to GAIN anything during this holiday season. (Okay, maybe you've already gained something. Let the challenge be not gaining any more.) Find out more about this Holiday Challege by joining the Washington Post's Lean Plate Club. You can find it by going to http://www.washingtonpost.com/ and putting "Lean Plate Club" into the search box at the top of the entrance page. Or go here:

     And while you're at the Lean Plate Club, why not join its newsletter? It's a great newsletter -- one of the very best, full of imaginative suggestions and the latest scientific discoveries -- and it's free.

     Incidentally, I'm not joking about the carrot stick/Christmas cookie holiday diet. Works for me!

7. BLOGS BY THE MILLION

     Several million are out there, I guess, because anyone can become a blogster if they have access to a computer and are literate though maybe not a great speller. You can find a blog (which is short for weB LOG) on most any subject. Just go to good old Google.com, put into the subject box the topic that interests you, followed by the word "blog," and hit Enter. You might put in such things as "golf blog," "red hat blog," "vegetarian blog," "wheelie blog," or "remodeling kitchen blog." Whatever interests you. (For best results, leave off the quotation marks.) I think you'll be amazed at the results.

     Just for fun, I entered "raising hogs blog" (without the quotation marks) into Google. Got 43,200 results. None of the blogs was actually about raising hogs -- that would have been too much to ask, I suppose -- but hogs do get mentioned on the Internet. Click below to put Google to work for you:

     While poking about, I found a surprisingly popular blog: Billie's Red River County Gazette: "Ketchup on the antics of America's favo-rite backwater community. Slogan: If I owned both Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell." -William Tecumseh Sherman

     Billie is a farm wife who tells what the simple life is REALLY like, and after you've read a little you get fond of her. A sample entry: "I did the usual laundry and housework. I fried chicken, dressing, gravy, peas, and a salad. Charlie is still working on the house at Reno. The guy, with the lung cancer, may die of heart problems first. He was dreadfully ill on Tuesday. He called another neighbor to come sit with him. They called his daughter and she refused to come."

     Billie's blog reminds me of growing up on a farm in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. People think that such a life is placid and boring, but in reality there was a rather constant level of excitement, because we knew all sorts of stuff about our neighbors and they about us -- in large part because of the telephone party lines, which we mostly hated but appreciated when people brought in casseroles two hours after we'd heard of the death of a loved one.

     If you want to REALLY have a quiet, boring existence, live in the city or suburbs, don't get to know your neighbors, and don't join a church or other local organization. You will be one of the loneliest people on earth.

     To visit Billie's non-lonely farm life, click on

8. AUSTRIAN FOOD FROM THE HEART

     Bernhard first left a message through my Delightful Food Directory -- http://delightfulfood.com/main.html. He wanted me to list his site. Now, I don't list sites in that directory unless I think they are exceptionally good. So I visited his site . . . and loved it.

     Some food is so close to the heart that a person can tear up just thinking about it. That's the kind of food Bernhard presents to us in his website. He's gone to a lot of trouble for you and me. He's translated the text from his native German into English in order to reach a wider audience. He's beautifully illustrated the recipes, including a detailed recipe for cooking roast goose, in case you'd like that for Christmas. And if you'd like to learn about Christmas in Vienna, he's got that too. Visit him at

     One of Bernhard's recipes is for Hungarian goulash "that makes you want to eat more than you can." Thinking you might be tired of turkey, and knowing each Austrian and Hungarian family has its own recipe, just for fun I looked for another family recipe for goulash. And found . . .

9. RECIPE: HUNGARIAN GOULASH FROM THE HEART

     June Meyer has many wonderful Hungarian family recipes online and in her cookbook, including the following one for Hungarian goulash. She says, "There is something spiritual and comforting about cooking and baking foods that your ancestors loved and thrived on." You can visit her and find more wonderful Hungarian recipes at

AUTHENTIC HUNGARIAN GOULASH (Gulyasleves)

     June Meyer says, "Here is a recipe for authentic Hungarian Goulash I learned to make from my grandmother and mother who were from Austria-Hungary. Every family has its own version of Goulash. My family would NEVER consider tomatoes or green peppers or other spices in Goulash. Some other dishes would have tomato or green pepper, but not Goulash. Slow cooking is the secret and you can never use too much paprika. I like to use 3 tablespoons. Hope you enjoy this dish; I have been raised on it."

2 lb. beef chuck
1 tsp. salt
2 onions, white or yellow
2 Tbsp. lard or shortening
2 Tbsp. imported sweet paprika (most important to use real Hungarian paprika for ultimate flavor)
2 bay leaves
1 qt. water
4 peeled and diced potatoes
1/4 tsp. black pepper

     Cut beef into 1 inch squares, add 1/2 tsp. salt. Chop onions and brown in shortening, add beef and paprika. Let beef simmer in its own juice along with salt and paprika for 1 hr. on low heat. Add water, diced potatoes and remaining salt. Cover and simmer until potatoes are done and meat is tender. Prepare egg dumpling batter:

1 egg
6 Tbsp. flour
1/8 tsp. salt

     Add flour to unbeaten egg and salt. Mix well. Let stand for 1/2 hour for flour to mellow. Drop by teaspoonful into Goulash. Cover and simmer 5 minutes after dumplings rise to surface.

     Serve hot with dollops of sour cream.

Serves 6.

© Copyright 2005 Janette G. Blackwell. All rights reserved. You may copy and use portions of this newsletter for noncommercial, personal use only. You may forward a copy to someone else as long as the copyright notice is included. Any other use of the materials in this newsletter without prior written permission is prohibited.

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     Janette Blackwell