Zoliad!

Eileen Amy Politano, of North Fort Myers, Fla., was charged with felony child neglect Friday after leaving an 11-month-old girl in a car while she went into a grocery store.

Store employees said they saw the girl crying in the car and were able to rescue her before police arrived. Outside temperature were upward of 85 degrees.

Politano told police she intended to run into the store for a few minutes to buy some meat for dinner, but said there were too many specials to pass up.

When medical personnel asked Politano to give the child something to drink, she reportedly reached into her car and grabbed a bottle of spoiled formula.

Politano was released on $1,500 bond.

[via AP]

While Wal-Mart is known for dropping its prices, one West Monroe man took the ad campaign seriously when he dropped the price of a plasma television from $984 to $4.88. Police arrested Chandon L. Simms, 23, on Tuesday at the retail store on a charge of felony theft.

According to police reports, Simms carried a 42-inch Sanyo Plasma TV to a self-checkout aisle after switching the original price tag of $984 with one for only $4.88. Wal-Mart Loss Prevention officers witnessed the alleged transaction and called police.

When the store officers stopped Simms on his way out the door, he produced a receipt for a television purchased at the West Monroe Wal-Mart, authorities said.

Simms told officers that he purchased a TV from the West Monroe store and planned to returrn that one and keep the one he purchased for only $4.88 from the Monroe store. He was then arrested and booked into the Ouachita Correctional Center.

[via AP]

In the old days, a fake Christmas tree did a good job in living up to its name. There were thousands of them, but not a single Prelit Artificial Christmas Tree looked the part at all, and that is no joke. I do not know if plastic technology has gone a bit farther since that point, or if they have just gotten better at designing lifelike Prelit Christmas Trees, but whatever the reason, there is almost no comparison between the old ones and the new ones. A new Prelit Christmas Tree actually looks like a real tree in this day and age, and seeing is believing. With all that is going for it, it only makes sense to leave the real Christmas trees in the tree farm and get a nice Prelit Christmas Tree that will last you for years and years to come.

Of course, there are some drawbacks to a Prelit Christmas Tree. In the first place, they can cost a pretty penny – 2 or even 3 times as much as a real tree. But think about how fast that difference gets paid for. In two or three years, you will be ahead and not behind, since you will not have to drive out to get a tree, will not have to buy one or haul it inside. Not only will you save money with a  Prelit Christmas Tree, but you will save time too, which is even more important around that time of year. If you get a nice Prelit Christmas Tree, you only have to find a place to store it and the rest takes care of itself. The tree even has built in Christmas lights, for Gods sake!

Of course, when you switch to a Prelit Christmas Tree, there are some things that you will probably miss. The Prelit Christmas Tree does no have that wonderful smell of a fresh cut pine, and that is a smell that we have all grown to associate with the Christmas season. And another thing that is nice about the real trees is that you get a different one each year. And, lets face it, although they look better than every before, a Prelit Christmas Tree does simply not look quite as good as a real one. But with all that aside, I still think that the Prelit Christmas Tree is the smarter buy. Unless you are a purist, go for it.

My favorite time of the year is Christmas time. I love everything about the season. I live in Minnesota so this is the time of year when we begin to have snow on the ground and ice on the lakes. It is a beautiful time to begin with, then as people begin adding outdoor Christmas decorations the neighborhoods become magical. I love to take walks at dusk and watch the lights come on creating a winter wonderland before my eyes.

Although I love Christmas I am very particular about outdoor Christmas decorations. My favorite decorations are the use of lights in trees and bushes in the yards. I am not a fan of the huge blow up snowmen and Santa’s or the cartoon characters that are dressed to look like Santa Claus. When I was growing up the neighbor across the road from us had a huge pine tree. Each year he would use extension ladders to place the strands of large colored bulbs in the tree. The project would take him and his sons several hours to complete and the end result was a lit tree that could be seen a half mile away. He did not believe in leaving the outdoor Christmas decorations on the tree over the summer. He would put them on the day after Thanksgiving and remove them a few days after the beginning of the New Year. This was a great deal of work, compared to plugging in a ten foot snowman, but the lit tree was awesome for others to enjoy. It was very touching to everyone the year that the neighbor’s wife died. He placed all blue lights on the tree that year to let us know he would be having a blue Christmas. He told my mother that it was helpful to him and a remembrance to his wife.

One of my neighbors knows that I dislike the gaudy outdoor Christmas decorations. He is always looking for practical jokes to play. Last year when he knew that my husband and I were going to be gone for the day he decorated our yard with several lit Christmas lawn ornaments. He had purchased several old outdoor Christmas decorations throughout the summer at garage sales. He had extension cords running from one end of our yard to the other to get all the decorations lit. There was a full scene of the peanut characters, several Disney characters and a huge lit palm tree with lit pink flamingoes with Christmas lei’s around their necks. We could see the display a block before we arrived at our yard. Several neighbors were gathering in front of our house to look at the elaborate display. My neighbor sat at his living room window watching the scene. My husband and I are now plotting how we are going to out do his practical joke. The neighbor has a second home in Florida so we are trying to coordinate getting the outdoor Christmas decorations sent there. His brother-in-law has agreed to set them up in the yard.