Scenic Drive Photos, Krispy Kreme, Sam’s Club, & Promo Review Blogging with RTT

This morning, I visited From Dominique’s Desk. Her post idea title Top 10 Flashback of September inspired me. Why not take a look for future blog post ideas. I think I may consider doing this!

Weekends are my down time to spend with my darling husband and son.  We were fortunate to drive to the mountains for the day last Friday. It was a gorgeous day! Our plan was to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway(BRP) in Boone, North Carolina.

Here are a few highlights from our outing:

• Got donuts at Daylight Donuts in Johnson City, Tennessee
• Abandoned usual route to BRP
• Took scenic back roads from Johnson City over to Boone
• Snapped a few fall photos
• Conditions: Crystal blue skies, cold, and windy (At Mt. Mitchell the temperature was 38 at 6:30 pm)

Saturday, we woke up and decided to do something a little different. We went out for breakfast.  Our destination Krispy Kreme Donuts. Have you heard of them?

We bought a dozen hot glazed and a dozen assorted donuts. The hot glazed were out of this world delicious! With each bite of fluffy, sweetness the pastries melted in our mouth.  Honestly, I believe there will be Krispy Kreme hot glazed donuts in heaven.

The second dozen consisted of:

• cinnamon cake
• blueberry cake
• pumpkin spice
• raspberry filled
• old fashion
• maple frosted

Right away, my darling husband said, “I ordered 4 cinnamon cake, but we only got 2.  I don’t know what the other 2 are.” That should have been a warning sign.

Very much to our disappointment, we found the cinnamon cake, pumpkin spice, blueberry cake, and apple spice (which we had not asked for) to ALL be stale.  Also, they lacked enough flavor to suit us, especially the apple spice.  If we had not gone into the shop and noticed the apple spice on display, then we wouldn’t have known what it was.

The upside is, the other donuts were superb and while we enjoyed our donuts overall, we couldn’t help but feel a bit of a letdown.  Quality control was not up to Krispy Kreme’s usual standards on these cake style donuts. Note: I did send an email to corporate and I am going to call the local facility today to tell them of this terrible injustice to some of their biggest fans.

We bought an annual club ($35) membership at Sam’s Club, after using a free day pass.  We went to Sam’s to get some Jarlsberg cheese which we tried at our good friends home in September.  The savings at Sam’s Club is phenomenal at $5 per/pound!  Just so you’ll have a clearer picture. We bought got some of the Jarlsberg at Fresh Market a few weeks ago. It averaged $12 per/pound and the most expensive place was $20 per/pound.  Isn’t the savings amazing?

Speaking of Sam’s Club…Saturdays are not the time to go shopping there. Yeah, I know Saturdays are usually a mad house at most places but this was ridiculously crazy. People clamored over morsels of pizza, cheese, and other finger foods jamming the aisles. This does not appeal to me but if you taste-testing free foods, Sam’s is the happening spot to try samples!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I can do to contribute to our family’s finances with the empty nest syndrome looming over us.  Austin will graduate next spring, if all goes well he’ll start college next fall.  This chapter in my life will close, but how will the next open?

There seems to be a lot of blogs geared toward blog designs, giveaways, product reviews, and coupons. Of course, there are others who creatively showcase their talents – beautiful artwork, jewelry, cooking, knitting, crocheting, and writing.

These goals came to mind…

1. Continue to perfect my craft as a children’s author – time and tenacity are on my side for future success.
2. Create a blog to test market my story ideas to get critiquing and feedback.
3. Set up photography blog to showcase my personal best.
4. Get educated on designing web pages and creating a blog for product reviews for pay.

Goals 1-3 require little energy to work into my plans, but the last one has me a bit stumped.  These unanswered questions came to mind…

How does one launch a blog for the sole purpose of promotional activity for pay? Do you need a college course or seminar to learn blog design? Can you earn substantial money doing these sorts of things?

Do you have experience with this? If so, what advice would you offer someone like myself?

Thanks Stacy for keeping the randomness alive while Keely @ UnMom is on break! Go ahead, slip into the ranting mood with the rest of us. I know you’ll feel right at home. You won’t run into any oddball looks here because anything goes. C’mon on, join the weekly fun with this cool meme and tell Stacy, “Cathy sent ya!”

What’s on your mind this Tuesday morning?

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