I have fallen from the path of virtue with a THUD. When I bought Halloween candy, I bought a package filled with miniature Mounds bars. They were dark chocolate with coconut filling, and my heart had been yearning toward them for some time. I knew when I bought the package that I was going to eat every one of them myself, and I did.

     After I finished off the Mounds (which took me three days - I felt I was being quite abstemious), I went to work on my annual ration of grape Nerds, a candy I only find at Halloween.

     The little grape Nerd pellets take me back to my childhood, 1947 to be exact. The wartime sugar rationing was well and truly over, and we children stood gazing at a plentiful supply of candy in the glass case at Moyle's drugstore. We clutched our pennies and nickels and salivated. Sometimes, instead of a nickel candy bar, we bought a nickel package of dry Kool-Aid mix: orange, lime, grape, or raspberry flavor. Grape was my favorite. The Kool-Aid girl and her close friends took the packet to a sheltered corner of the school yard and squatted in the muddy grass, as the icy Montana wind swirled around us. The owner of the Kool-Aid opened a corner of the packet with her teeth. We eagerly held out cold, red palms, each received about a teaspoon of Kool-Aid powder, and we began to lick it up.

     Now, that was before it occurred to the manufacturers of Kool-Aid to put mostly sugar into the packages. This stuff was SOUR - about as sour as biting into a raw lemon. Then came the PUNCH of super-concentrated orange, lime, grape, or raspberry flavor.

     How our tender little tastebuds stood up under that double shock I don't know. It was the gustatory equivalent of diving into a pool with chunks of ice floating about in it. But we loved it then, and I love it now when I bite into a grape Nerd that is, granted, only about one-tenth as sour as the Kool-Aid, with about one-tenth of the flavor punch. It's enough for my grownup tastebuds, and I'm as happy as I was then when I came back into the schoolroom with purple palm and tongue.

     Janette

----Table of Contents----

1. Free "Baby Shower"
2. Martha Stewart Decorates
3. The Leaves Are Turning
4. Freeware for Kids
5. Lower My Bills
6. Health Related Free Samples
7. Mental Suffering Matters
8. Neopets
9. For Puzzle Fans
10. Old Faithful, Acting Faithful
11. Italyum Recipes
12. Recipe: Italian-Style Meatloaf

1. FREE "BABY SHOWER"

     If you have a baby or are expecting one, you can sign up at the site below and get a number of free baby items, including "up to $60 in formula checks." Since this is a Mead Johnson site, obviously you're going to get ads for Mead Johnson's baby products. My McAfee Site Advisor program gives it a green light, though, which means that it's an okay site, and you won't be bombarded with spam if you sign up.

2. MARTHA STEWART DECORATES

     Yes, she's back, and in many ways she never left. Last Thanksgiving my sister-in-law Sherry Young served a turkey cooked according to Martha Stewart's directions. It created a lot of work for Sherry, but I have to say it's the best turkey I ever ate. And that's the way Martha Stewart operates: if you want to learn those little extra touches that create perfection, try her way of doing things. Here's the main entrance to her website of ideas:

http://www.marthastewart.com/

     And click below to find her "15 years of home decorating ideas" which tell you how to add the little extra touches that create home decorating perfection. And it's all free, thanks to the Internet.

home decorating ideas

3. THE LEAVES ARE TURNING

     Here in Virginia the oaks and sourwoods are turning rich, elegant colors (and also blowing off the trees in the wind - the tourist guides don't tell you that). In New England the maple leaves turn exciting! electric!! eye-zapping!!! shades, though I suppose they're down by now. And maybe where you live they're still green, and you've got the whole change of season ahead of you.

     Wherever you live, this is good walking and hiking weather. Well, okay, not if you are up to your chin in unseasonal snow, but OTHERWISE it's good hiking weather. And as you hike you can admire the colorful leaves that would have been on the trees if the wind hadn't already blown them down.

     Below is a great site I gave last year, with instructions on hiking trails near American cities and - if you look at the last item on the list - ones NOT near American cities.

http://localhikes.com/

     If you'd like to know about European, Asian, Australian hikes - and about equipment, walking tours, etc., try this one:

http://www.webwalking.com/places.shtml

4. FREEWARE FOR KIDS

     This nifty website has loads of kids' "freeware," which means, of course, that you can download it onto your computer for free. Just follow the instructions on the site. It has freeware sections for kids of all ages, and some really good sounding titles. Click below to see what they offer:

http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/pc/_agefreeware-index.html

     And there's more, lots more, on KIDS' DOMAIN. If you go to their main page, you'll see lots of stuff for parents. The site is very commercial, with lots of ads, but it's also loaded with goodies for parents and children alike.

http://www.kidsdomain.com/

5. LOWER MY BILLS

     Lowermybills.com is part of Experian, the firm that manages your credit reports. This is a very professional site that helps you consolidate your bills, refinance your home, save on insurance, and much more. If you are serious about lowering your expenses, some time spent on this site should pay off bigtime.

http://www.lowermybills.com/

     You may also find helpful ideas in Experian's special section, "200 free financial tips":

http://www.lowermybills.com/tipsadvice/home.jsp

6. HEALTH RELATED FREE SAMPLES

     If you sign up at the site below before November 16, you'll get free samples of health related products, plus a chance to join support groups, receive newsletters, and much more.

     My McAfee Site Advisor gives it a green light, which means that, while you will see ads on the site, you will NOT receive a lot of spam if you sign up.

http://www.qualityhealth.com/psp/registration.jspa?rf=11237

7. MENTAL SUFFERING MATTERS

     If you're in mental misery, for whatever reason, you can count on the people at the following site NOT to tell you to pull up your socks and whistle a happy tune. If you - or a friend or loved one - are mentally suffering (and anyone who's been there knows there's no suffering worse), please do spend some time searching this website and gathering ways to help. Sometimes it helps just to know that you're not the only person with this kind of problem.

     If things are really bad, click on the "Crisis Center" button on the right.

http://mental-health-matters.com/

8. NEOPETS

     This children's site helps a child create an animated online pet and entire virtual world, play games, and message other pet owners. My personal child development expert, Lisa Danahy, says "It is an easy to navigate, safe place for kids to play on-line." It's for about ages six to eight, so if you have a child that age, you might want to check it out and see if the site and the games on the site are right for your child.

http://neopets.com/

9. FOR PUZZLE FANS

     Frank Ross, a friend who loves to do the daily crossword puzzle, mentioned that he now does the latest thing in puzzles: sudokus. I've heard that they're tremendously difficult and frustrating, but Frank said he'd found a tutorial on sudokus that made them much easier. He was kind enough to give the online address of the tutorial to the rest of us. It's at

http://puzzles.about.com/od/sudokupuzzles/a/ExpertSudoku_2.htm

     And you can find a bunch of sudokus, ranging from easy to "impossible," at:

http://www.number-logic.com/

10. OLD FAITHFUL, ACTING FAITHFUL

     Devotees of the Old Faithful geyser webcam were devastated when it went down in July. Fortunately it has returned, and I trust y'all feel better now. In fact, I can tell you that today is a cloudy day in Yellowstone National Park, and the tourists are looking COLD as they wait for Old Faithful to erupt.

     I had thought that the webcam shot a continuous film of Old Faithful, but I guess the U.S. National Park Service, which is always having its funding cut, can't afford to run video tape all day every day. The webcam is therefore updated every 30 seconds during daylight hours in Yellowstone Park.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm

     BUT WOULDN'T YOU RATHER LOOK AT A PANDA? I would. Come to the following site during the day, when mama panda Mei Xiang and her getting-big baby panda Tai Shan, the pride and joy of the National Zoo in Washington, are out doing what comes naturally to pandas. You will need RealPlayer to watch them. The site tells you where you can download that for free.

http://animal.discovery.com/cams/pandavidr.html

     But there's more. The following site has 85 webcams operating around the world. You can poke around and see what's actually happening this minute in, say, Helsinki, Finland.

     A strong suggestion: look at Finnish webcams when it's actually daylight in Finland. I always think of doing this when it's the middle of the night in whatever country. You know what a Finnish webcam looks like when it's night in Finland? . . . You guessed it. Anyhow, dark or light, here they are.

http://www.earthcamonline.com/

11. ITALYUM RECIPES

     Italyum's recipes are beautifully illustrated. They take you step by step through an Italian recipe, with photos all the way. Really an excellent site. Just one quibble: the ads by Google are placed so that a person tends to click on them when you're really wanting to get to another part of the website. (Or maybe this guy's dumb like a fox. Google pays the site owner three cents every time someone clicks on one of those Google ads.)

http://www.italyum.com/italian_recipes.htm

12. RECIPE: ITALIAN STYLE MEATLOAF

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup Parmesan flavored dried bread crumbs
1/4 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

     In a large bowl, combine ground beef, eggs, bread crumbs, ketchup, Italian seasoning, oregano, basil, garlic salt, diced tomatoes, and cheese. Mix together. Shape into a 9x5 inch loaf pan, and cover loosely with foil.

     Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, or until done. The meat should be browned through, and the juices clear.

     The above recipe comes from still another collection of good Italian recipes at

http://www.thatsmyhome.com/venettos/

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     Have I got a solution for you! Now that we are using a frame for each issue, you can just look over to your left and find all the back issues nicely set out. Simply click on the ones you missed. That means too that if your e-mail service provider gets sticky and decides that Tour the Sites is spam (it is NOT spam), you can foil it and find the newsletter at this address.

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WARNING!

     If your e-mail box sometimes gets full, you are in danger of falling off the subscription list of Tour the Sites. Not because I want to lose you, but because, if your box is full when I send out a newsletter, you are automatically kicked off the list. I don't like that policy, but I don't have any say. If you change your e-mail address or get a new kind of spam filter, you may also fall off. So do keep an eye on your newsletters, which should arrive around the first and fifteenth of each month. If you haven't gotten one for a month, let me know and I'll be happy to put you back on the mailing list. Because I'd really hate to lose you.

Janette
Newsletter@tourthesites.com

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© Copyright 2006 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.