In the Madison County Herald, a small publication that accompanies the Clarion Ledger on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, there is a section they features animals from across the county. This comes out in their Saturday issue and my family enjoys it very much. The other day, I submitted Spike in hopes that one day he might be in the paper. Who knows!

Go Green

EDIT: For those of you who care, here is my latest article that came out today in the JFP.

I am not a big eco-centric person by any means. But, I like to do my part and the other day when I was in Hudson's, I stumbled onto something cool.

My new camera case:
It's made by a brand called EcoClick and 75% of the camera case is made out of recycled plastic. After doing some searching, I found that this brand is made my WalMart and the bag is made from recycled plastic bottles that are converted into flakes and made into yarn to create PET (polyethylene terephthalate) fabric. As a result, 11 empty 16-plastic bottles are saved from landfills. I was confused about the "16" part but I believe that is the "grade" of plastic. Correct me if I am wrong.

I really really like that it is sustainable. I also like my Patagonia Synchilla Marsupial jacket which is the same way. My jacket is 85% PCF (poly-carbonate fiber) made from recycled bottles and materials.

I've always had that "Life is Good" side and I think that is a really great thing that people are doing for our world.

I have alot of pictures to show you of things going on lately. Here it goes!

It is officially summer time, which means turtle mating season. Every summer these poor little turtle scuttle their ways across streets and high traffic areas.

Yesterday, we encountered a LARGE one of these creatures doing just that...
Ok, mom, sorry, bad picture. If you can't see, this thing was massive. Mom wanted to take it to the lake and drop him off. We decided he was going to be mean and hiss and do something else that rhymes with hiss all over my car (Sorry, Mom, for the reference)(My mom reads my blog now).

My second story was in the JFP this past week. That's always really exciting and encouraging.

I went to my grandmother's last Tuesday (a week ago) and she was talking about her hydrangeas. She talked about how pretty they were and how they were purple. You don't see too many purple, either pink or blue. So, I go around to the side of the house to cut some for myself. They were huge and gorgeous! Here is the one I got for myself:How gorgeous is that?
On another note, see the color in the background? I repainted my room this past weekend and I think it turned out really well. It's so much brighter now.

Hope you enjoy! More later!

Do you remember in the movie Just Married when Brittany Murphy and Ashton Kutcher get married and they show their horrible honeymoon?
Do you remember the scene when they are picking up their rental car and they pull up in a small "smart car" and Ashton Kutcher freaks out?

That, my friends, was me when they pulled my lovely rental car around to the front.

Yeah... that was my rental car. And I was so fly in it.

Have you ever had to see this face before? I hope not because it is the worst thing that ever happened an iPod.

Well... as it turns out, that face turned up on my iPod the other day. This is not good, considering the McNeil family has had some serious iPod trouble lately. My sister, MG, left all of her windows (and sunroof) down in her car and it stormed very badly. Water poured into her car and her poor iPod died from water damage (it was in a cup holder immersed in water).
ANYWAYS....
So, I have a sad face, MG has a water damaged one, and Ivy had one that had a busted screen (she had already gotten a replacement, however). After searching tutorials and videos we cracked open the iPods and tried to replace hard drives and screens in the hopes that one would work.

No such luck.

Here is the logic of what came next:
We are going to throw them in the trash, right? Right.
Why not have some fun with them before they go to the landfill, right? Right.

As you know, the McNeils also love a good beatin'.


Here is what Ivy's iPod looks like after we beat it with a baseball bat. Look, I didn't say it was going to be pretty.

So, I had the bright idea of beating them to pieces. It's not like we were going to be USING them anytime soon.

I got our trusty bat, we took the three iPod out in the backyard and we let them have it. It was a good feeling.

Not a dull moment in the McNeil house!

Wow.... Memorial Day has been eventful, hasn't it?
I guess I will start with a little pre-Memorial Day stuff.

Want to see the view from my office?

It's not much but, hey, I am easily entertained. And it really gets spicy when....

You can see kids skating at Swell. I know, I said I was easily amused.

Funny story for ya:
As you know, I have this lovely, adorable pug named Spike. He's cute as beans. I have to admit, he has a scratching, licking, drive-me-crazy-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-him problem. So the other day my mom and I were in the kitchen talking about how we wish we could put a cone on Spike so he would stop. My mom jokingly said, "Let's make it out of plates."

My mom should know better than that by now.


The sad thing is.... HE LIKES IT. Maybe even borderline loving it. Oh lord...

I have so many more stories from the weekend but I will save them for another day. We don't want to have all the fun at once.

I've been puzzling over this for the past few seconds and maybe I am one for gloating, so...

I am really excited that I just had my first article printed in the JFP.
You can read it here.

Anyways, I am proud of it. I will be having more come out in the future. I actually wrote what they call a "blurb," a small 300-350 word story, for the Summer Arts Preview issue that comes out next week. Be on the lookout!

While I was at work, avoiding doing anything the pertained to work, I took pictures of the office and the kids skating on the half pipe at Swell. Look forward to that excitement soon...