Beer Rebates and Free Money

I call myself "The Accidental Homesteader" because I feel like I came upon this homesteading thing quite accidentally.  What first motivated me was saving money.  My family struggles a lot with a seemingly never ending stream of bad luck and financial difficulties, much like may American families these days. I started many of my homesteading projects solely out of the need to save money. It was after I started doing these things that I fell in love with being more self sufficient, making things with my own two hands, and just finding a better way to do things. So in the spirit of saving money, I am sharing a tip that I recently learned from my aunt.

I am always seeing elaborate displays in my local grocery stores that advertise various brands of beer. Most of the time those displays hold rebate cards that offer things like "Get up to 10$ by mail" and similar rebate offers. I have always just walked on by, but as I recently learned I was walking right on by free money! I live in New York State, and in this state you do NOT have to buy the beer in order to get the rebate. One of the rebates I recently got offered up to a 10 dollar rebate on Halloween supplies. This includes decorations, costumes, pumpkins, etc. Things I am already buying anyway!

Now, this does not apply in all states. Here is a list of the states that do not require a beer purchase for the offered rebates:
Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia

Cheap and Easy Crock Pot Chicken

I call my blog "The Accidental Homesteader" because I have never been much of a hippie, crafter, cook, gardener etc.  I found myself suddenly getting into these things earlier this year without realizing I was becoming a homesteader. When I started getting into this stuff last spring, it was a way for me to keep busy.  Now here, at the end of the summer homesteading has become a necessity. 

Thanks to the changes in our government, my family has lost our health insurance.  I guess as the story goes we will supposedly have more options available to us after the first of the year, but that still leaves us for about 6 months without any form of affordable health insurance.  This is alarming to me because my 4 year old daughter suffers from mild asthma which gives her bronchial spasms in cold weather.  She coughs like a 90 year old man who smokes two packs a day.  She does not sleep because she coughs so much.  This often leads us to multiple doctors appointments where she can receive up to 5 nebulizer treatments in one visit.  The doctors prescribed her inhalers that are 75 to 100 dollars a pop, and she desperately needs them. What are we going to do?  I have no idea.  But saving money has become a huge motivating factor in my continued study of homesteading and survivalism.  Since I anticipate many very expensive doctor's visits and prescriptions this fall and winter, I need to start saving as much money as I can. 

But enough of my sob story.  I know I am not the only one out there struggling with these things, and this is what motivates me to share my information with all of you.  I have recently found a simple and cheap recipe for chicken that I tried today that I would really like to share.  I found it somewhere on the internets, but I don't remember where.  I didn't have to save the page because the recipe is that easy. 

You will need:

One whole chicken
Seasoning of your choice (I use either seasoning salt, or just some sea salt and ground pepper)
A crock pot
Cooking spray

This is a crock pot recipe that does not take any water.  All you do is season your chicken, spray the inside of the crock pot with the cooking spray, stick the chicken in there and turn it on.  That's it!  It's that easy!  Cook for 6 hours on high, or 8 hours on low.  The chicken cooks in it's own juices and the result is tender, fall off the bone chicken that tastes just as good as it smells.

When I tried this today I used sea salt, ground pepper and a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary.  Since in my area I can get a small whole chicken for under 5 dollars, I have a feeling my family will be eating this often.

Mosquitos Don't Like Rosemary

This summer has been pretty rainy in my corner of the world.  And with a lot of rain come a lot of mosquitos.  In my yard they have been so bad that my kids have had to be confined to the house after dusk since my daughter seems to be a favorite meal for blood sucking little fiends.  To make matters worse, mosquitos infected with West Nile Virus have been found in the county I live in this year for the first time. 

I usually resign myself to coating myself and my children with DEET and other chemicals to keep us from becoming a moquito meal but I don't like to.  So this weekend I thought I would give a new solution a try.  As we sat on the front porch, as we often do the mosquitos started to swarm as the sun dipped below the horizon.  So I pulled out our mini charcoal bbq grill and set it up with some wood to make a little campfire.  I got out some dried rosemary and threw some on the fire and the mosquitos disappeared!

We eventually moved to the back yard where our big fire pit is, and it did not work as well.  This solution works best on a small open fire.  Fresh rosemary is better to use because it will take longer to burn and will smoke for a longer period of time but if all you have on hand is dried rosemary that will work too.  The dried rosemary needs to be reapplied often because it burns up very quickly, but it still works really well. 

Lemon Fresh Fleas

Recently I saw an article about flea control. Unfortunately this year my home has had it's first outright flea attack and as anyone who has dealt with this knows, it is very difficult to eradicate the problem once it has taken hold.  I am always searching for ways to combat things like this while using as few harmful chemicals as possible, and most mainstream flea control products contain large amounts of potentially dangerous chemicals.  So I tried a supposed solution which called for citrus, and claimed that the citrus would instantly kill fleas.
So I took some lemon rind and I infused it in some water.  I concentrated the citrus oil and used it on my dog.  It did nothing.  It did not kill the fleas.  It did not repel the fleas.  All it did was make my dog smell lemony fresh. 

Perhaps I infused the citrus incorrectly.  Perhaps I applied it to the dog incorrectly, but whatever the case, this solution was proven to be ineffective.

If you have an experience that is different, or if you have your own homeopathic flea remedy please do share!

Some Words for My Readers

Homesteading has become quite popular in the past couple of years.  It seems like blogs like this are a dime a dozen, and all they seem to do is pass around the same information.  I admit that these websites are where I get a lot of my ideas from. So what makes this blog any different?

Well, you might have noticed that I do not publish every day.  Sometimes I go quite some time between posts.  There is a reason for this.  I try every almost every recipe or idea here myself before I post it.  If I post something I have not personally tried, I will inform you if that and ask you to give feedback if you try it.  But my intention here is not to be just another information spewing source of homeopathic and natural items that may or may not work.  I aim to pass on the information about the items that do work, and to inform you of the ones that don't. 

My blog is plain and simple.  Partly because I know very little about how to build web sites and blogs that look like the more mainstream ones.  But this is also because I do not advertise on my blog.  The only advertising you will see is for my Esty shop: Curiouser and Curiouser.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Things you will see in coming entries:
Posts which discuss "homeopathic remedies" which I have found to be ineffective.

Things you won't see:
Shameless self promotion
Mainstream advertisements

I hope you are enjoying my blog thus far.  I am happy you have chosen to join me during this learning process as I discover the world of homesteading! 

Home Made Fabric Refresher/Air Freshener

I recently found this recipe and I am in LOVE with it!  With pets, kids, etc. I find myself having to "refresh" my furniture often.  I have always used Febreeze or some kind of similar product for this purpose, but you can make your own fabric refresher that smells better and works better than any store bought product that I have ever tried.  Here's what you need:

A spray bottle
Essential oil (any scent you like)- 20-30 drops according to preference
Distilled water- 10 oz
Vodka- 2oz

Yes, vodka...

At first glance you might think that this recipe would make your furniture smell like it came from the local bar, but you can not smell the vodka at all when it's all done!  And the essential oil lasts much longer than any commercial product.

Simply take the ingredients, put the in the spray bottle and shake.  The vodka will cause the ingredients to stay mixed together, however you can choose to omit the vodka.  Doing so will cause the ingredients to separate. After all, essential oil and water don't mix just like any other oil.  But without the vodka you just have to make sure you shake the bottle well before you spray.  I do not recommend substituting rubbing alcohol for the vodka.  It will leave that funky alcohol smell that you would expect from the vodka.  The alcohol in the vodka also helps the solution to dry faster.

DIY Cleaners: A Better Way

Every homesteader knows the natural cleaning supply recipes of citrus and vinegar.  Both of these things are powerful cleaner and degreasers but the drawback?  When you clean your house with vinegar it makes you feel like you are living inside a pickle jar.  Some people don't mind the smell, some people even like it, but a lot of people refrain from using natural "DIY" cleaning products because because they can't stand that strong and lasting vinegar scent.

Lately I have been more concerned about the chemicals in cleaning products because we got a very tiny dog, and we have 3 cats.  I read a story (I can't remember where it was now) that told of a family who's cat died from liver failure from overuse of cleaning products.  As people, these things don't affect us as much as they do our furry roommates.  We are on two legs, high up from the floor and other surfaces where these cleaning products fall when they are sprayed in the air and stay.  Think of the corners in your house that inadvertently get sprayed with the chemicals that never wiped away.  They just accumulate over time.  However, our furry friends, with their sensitive noses pick up all of these things as they adventure around our houses.  They get them on their paws as they walk across surfaces that we don't even touch.  This can be especially dangerous for indoor cats because they never get an escape from it. And over their lifetimes their little bodies ingest and store concentrated amounts of these chemicals that we think nothing of using every day.  This is what eventually killed the cat in the story I read.  Long term accumulated concentrations of chemicals found in the owner's kitchen cabinet.

So through some experimentation I came up with this method of heat infusing a citrus concentrate with vinegar for a unique DIY recipe for cleaning products.

What you need:
White vinegar
The citrus fruit of your liking
 A jar
A pot of water
and a spray bottle for when it's done

I have tried this with lemons, lemons and limes, oranges, and grapefruit.  Each turned out equally as effective.  To make the concentrate, you take the jar and fill it (fill it to the top and pack it in there as much as you can) with cut up chunks of the rind of fruit you choose  and pour in as much vinegar as you can.  You can leave some of the flesh of the fruit on for a stronger scent, but the more flesh you leave the more your chances that the cleaner will actually leave a sticky residue.  Take the jar and put it in the pot of water to make a kind of double boiler.  What you want to do is heat the contents of the jar through the water in indirect heat.  Turn your stove low and let the water in the pot heat up. 

Let the fruit break down in the heated vinegar for about 2 hours.  Remove the jar from the stove and put the cap back on the jar.  Put it in a cabinet or another dark cool place for about a day.  Strain the fruit out of this and you have your concentrate.  Pour this concentrate in your spray bottle and fill it the rest of the way with vinegar.

Since everyone uses different sizes of jars, spray bottles, etc you will have to experiment with the amounts that work for you.  I use a regular sized 16 oz. spaghetti sauce jar and a 20 oz spray bottle.  Since the fruit takes up so much room in the jar, you end up with a lot less vinegar than you would think when it's all done.

I have had a lot of success with these cleaners.  They work just as well as any store bought product that I have tried.  Even though when you use them, they will smell like vinegar, the citrus makes the smell a little weaker and the smell does not stick around as long as with conventional citrus and vinegar cleaners.  When I use the ones I have made, the vinegar scent is gone within 5 minutes.

If you do make the mistake of leaving too much flesh on the fruit rinds or infuse the vinegar too long you may end up with a sticky residue caused by the cleaner.  In this case, it's really not a big deal. You just wipe down the area you cleaned with a wet paper towel real quick before you are done.  Yeah, it may be an extra step in your cleaning routine, but I'd take it over harming my beloved pets any day! 

The specific recipe I use is as follows:

3 lemons
3 limes
24 oz spaghetti sauce jar
20 oz spray bottle

Trap Cockroaches by Getting Them Drunk!

I know here up north, roaches are not as big of a problem than they are in the south.  I (thank goodness) have only had the displeasure of living with roaches once in my life, but that was enough for me to have sympathy for anyone who has the misfortune of battling for living space with this dirty and resilient pest. 
Here's a way to trap them that I heard from a friend recently that I figured I would share here:

Ingredients:
A couple of pieces of bread
Beer
A coffee can or other container with a lid

All you do is take the bread and put it in the can.  Pour enough beer in there just to get the bread wet.  The roaches will go after the bread, get drunk and either die from alcohol exposure or become incapacitated enough not to be able to get out of the can.  So check this trap frequently.  Once you have caught the roaches put the top back on the container and dispose of it.

DIY Fly Paper

This recipe is a simple way to make your own fly paper.  It's a good weekend project and something even the kids can get involved with!

All you need is:
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1 brown paper bag cut into strips (8 in x 2 in)

Mix the ingredients together and coat the paper strips evenly and thoroughly with it.  Leave the strips on a cookie sheet or some wax paper until they are dry.  You can come up with many ways to hang them.  Try using a clothes pin to grasp the paper and some string to hang it from.  Hang them where they are needed. Use these right away, or store them in an air tight container because they will also attract ants! 

My New Shop!

I am proud to announce the Grand Opening of my new Etsy shop.  Here I will be selling my hand crafted scented and cooking oils among other products as they come along.  It's a tiny shop right now, but everyone's gotta start somewhere, right?  It will be improving by the day. Follow this link to check it out!

Curiouser and Curiouser: An Etsy HannonShop

Simple Recipe of the Day

I love strawberries, but often times I buy too many of them.  As anyone who has bought a package of strawberries knows, they don't last very long and once they start to turn no one wants to eat them.  So what do you do with them?  Don't throw them out!  Instead cut them up and put them in some fresh lemonade for a couple of hours.  Make sure you look at them thoroughly.  You want them at that soft stage where no one wants to eat them, but you don't want them so far gone that they are changing color or molding.  Leave them in for about an hour for a light strawberry flavor or longer based on your preference, but make sure you take them out at some point or you will end up with soggy gross strawberries that no one will want to eat in a pitcher of lemonade that no one will want to drink.

Vinegar Fruit Fly Trap

This is one I used frequently in the last apartment I lived in.  We had a dishwasher with a garbage disposer.  Yeah, it sounded great when we signed ourselves up for the place but little did I know that the dishwasher and garbage disposer were attached to each other in a righteous cluster fuck of plumbing that was broken when we moved into the place.  For the entire 4 years that I lived there the damn thing never worked right, which lead to massive infestations of fruit flies in my kitchen.  At first I went to the local garden store and bought some fruit fly traps.  They were cute and inconspicuous, but they were about $7 a piece and they didn't last very long.  So, of course I discovered a cheaper and renewable option that is very simple. 

All you need are 3 things:

A container.  (I use a jar, but you can use pretty much whatever you want which makes this recipe easy to hide in plain sight.)

Apple Cider Vinegar

Dish Soap

Take the container, and leave it open.  Some versions of this recipe call for covering the container with plastic wrap and poking little holes in it, with the same idea as the bee trap.  They can get in, but can't get out.  Not only is this step unnecessary, but it makes the trap less effective because the fruit flies are not as likely to get to enter the trap and get to the mixture inside. 

Here's how it works:

The fruit flies will be attracted to the apple cider vinegar and will attempt to land on it's surface expecting to be able to walk across the surface as they usually can.  But the dish soap disrupts this and causes them to fall into the vinegar and drown. 

Of course the best way to eliminate and prevent fruit flies is to keep your kitchen clean.  If they are originating from the drain, some bleach poured down it will help.  And this trap will take care of the remainder of them that are still hanging about.

DIY Wasp Traps: A More Attractive Alternative

Bees.  More specifically, wasps.  Yellow jackets.  Those nasty little assholes of the insect world.  Aggressive, in your face, with a painful sting.  I happen to be one of those lucky bastards who is allergic to them.  And I can't escape them.  In my house it's a constant battle because yellow jackets have made quite a home in my neighbor's shed.  In the place where I lived before this home, it was a nightmare when they bored their way into my apartment and enacted an all out assault on my family. 

Last year it was so bad that there were many days that my potted garden went dry because I could not water it amongst the swarming wasps.  Last year I found a recipe for a homemade wasp trap and I went to town with it.  It was the old plastic bottle trick, which I will be detailing in a different blog entry.  Like a crazy woman, I started to hang plastic bottles filled with simple syrup around the outside of my house.  I painted some of them in an effort to make them look somewhat decorative, but at the end of the day, they were plastic bottles.  The positive side was that I could make a million of them because I had a million plastic bottles.  (ok, maybe not a million, but you get the gist) The negative side, they are ugly. So this year I discovered an updated version of the plastic bottle bee trap.  This one involves jars.

Take one jar.  In case you live under a rock, here's the homesteader blog obligatory picture of a jar:

I painted the outside of the jar with some acrylic paint.  I researched which colors would attract bees and got conflicting results.  Some claimed that white and yellow repelled bees, and some claimed that those colors attracted bees.  I figured I would give light colors a try and see what happens. 

I filled the jar part way with simple syrup.  Simple syrup is just that.  Simple.  The ingredients are:


A cup or two of water, depending on your need
A buttload of sugar

For this wasp trap I used brown sugar because that's all I had in the house.  I don't know if this will change the result at all.  All you do is boil the water and sugar until it has a thick syrupy consistency. 
Then I took the lid of the jar and poked a hole about the size of my pinky.  You want the bees to be able to get in but have a hard time getting back out. 

The added step in this wasp trap is to take some jelly and spread it on the under side of the lid.  Leave it out and let it dry a little so it sticks to the lid.  When the wasps enter the trap they will walk on the jelly and get their feet all sticky. This will cause more of them to fumble and end up helplessly drowning in the simple syrup. 

Place this trap away from gathering points in your yard to not only kill the wasps, but to attract them to something other than you and your family.
Please keep in mind that these wasps traps are most effective after they have been sitting in the sun for a few days. So don't be discouraged if there is not much action in your traps for the first day or so.

Homeopathic Flea Collar (for dogs only)

Homeopathic Flea Collar

 

 

 

This one I have not tried.  The flea repellent is found in the pyrethrums in oregano and rosemary and should not be used on cats.  Up until about 3 weeks ago I have only owned cats, so I have not had the opportunity to test it out.  If you try it feel free to let me know how it works.

 

All you do is take a piece of cloth and fashion a hollow collar out of it.  Fill the collar with a 50/50 mix of oregano and rosemary put it on the dog like you would a store bought collar.  Just as with a regular flea collar, it is not recommended for young puppies.  This is an excellent idea for families with young children who are concerned about exposure to the pesticides in traditional flea collars.

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Another chemical free way to eliminate fleas could be to get a monkey! :)

Stake Your Claim with Human Hair

One of my major issues with pest control in my garden is that I grow a lot of edible food.  Just like I don't want chemicals and pesticides on my family's food, some of the more organic options are nothing I would want to do with plants I will eventually be putting in my mouth.  For example, I'm sure most of us have heard the old advice that if you put your own urine around your plants, it will keep animals away.  That doesn't seem like it would make my plants very appetizing, and never mind the smell!  There are also a number of home made sprays which usually use things like cayenne pepper (I will be sharing those recipes with you throughout this blog) which are not recommended for use on plants you plan to eat. 

So when you have a yard full of woodland creatures, how can you keep them off your plants without hurting them or having to resort to methods which make your edible plants nothing you would want to eat?  The answer is in your hair.

Hair retains oils which hold our unique scent quite well.  Evidence of this can be found when we do not wash our hair.  It becomes oily.  That oil is a product of our bodies that holds our scent.  A scent that will repel animals.  So take the discarded hair from you brush and sprinkle it around your garden.  If you are..."folically challenged", asking a barber shop or hair salon for their discarded clippings is an option.  Although asking your friends might get you fewer strange looks. 

In nature, ownership is claimed by smell.  It's your garden, and putting your scent on it declares that to your back yard animal world.

Deer Resistant Plant List

Deer Resistant Plants

 

 

• Ageratum
• Ash
• Astilbe
• Black-Eyed Susan
• Daffodil
• Daphne
• Daylily
• Devil's Poker
• Myrtle
• Narcissus
• Nightshade
• Oleander
• Black Locust
• Bleeding Heart
• Blue Lily of the Nile
• Bottle Bush
• Calla Lily
• Canterberry Bells
• Carolina Cherry Laurel
• Chives
• Clematis
• Columbine
• Coreopsis
• Cransebill Gernaium
• Dogwood
• Dusty Miller
• English Ivy
• English Lavender
• Foxglove
• Giant Reed
• Hazelnut
• Holly
• Iceland Poppy
• Iris
• Japanese Rose
• Jasmine
• Lamb's Ear
• Larkspur
• Pampas Grass
• Peony
• Persimmon
• Pine
• Peppermint
• Red Elderberry
• Rosemary
• Scotch Broom
• Solomon's Seal
• Silvery Aremesia
• Spearmint
• Spruce
• Tulip
• Yarrow

No Rotten Eggs Here!

One of those mystery foods in my fridge always seems to be eggs.  We eat them sometimes, and sometimes we don't.  Often a carton of eggs will go unnoticed until I am not sure how long they have been sitting there. Thank goodness for the freshness date on the carton!  Somehow no matter how hard I try to prevent it, eggs are one of the foods that go to waste a lot of the time in my household. 

But one of the best things I learned on the first season of National Geographic's Doomsday Preppers is how to preserve eggs.  One of the best things about preserving eggs is that you don't need to go out and buy a secondary fridge for your egg storage needs.  When you preserve eggs, you can store them unrefrigerated with the rest of your dry goods! I have heard that preserved eggs can last up to a year, but I only keep them around for about 9 months just to be safe. 

When a chicken lays an egg it is not exactly as you see it from the carton in your fridge.  There is a coating on it called bloom.  This coating keeps bacteria and other harmful environmental elements out, but it also keeps air out.  Basic food storage skills tell us that air is our enemy.  Once eggs are processed and washed at the factory, they no longer have the bloom on them and thus are vulnerable to spoilage through air getting into them. 

So how do you replace this coating naturally found on eggs?  Mineral oil!  Heat up some mineral oil for a few seconds in the microwave (10 seconds or so should be good) and give the eggs a good coating of it.  This will mimic the bloom and protect your eggs as if they just came out of the chicken. 

If you want to store them for a few weeks, on the kitchen counter out of extreme heat or direct sunlight is fine.  To store them for extended periods, it is best to put them in a cool place, at 68 degrees or lower. 

A little more information on eggs:
Did you know that there is no nutritional difference between white and brown eggs?  In our health conscious society which is currently obsessed with whole grain products, we are trained to believe that if it is brown it is healthier.  This might hold true for bread, but it does not for eggs.  The only difference between white and brown eggs is the chicken they came from.  Despite their color and higher price, brown eggs are not nutritionally different than white eggs. 

The Ants Go Marching...

It's springtime, or so they keep saying anyway.  If you live in the Northeast it might be difficult to believe, but the days of ant infestations are upon us. 

There are over 12,000 species of ants across the world.  Most of them live between 45-60 days.  Ants have tiny brains and perform most of their actions based on pheromone scent cues.  It would take the brains of 40,000 ants to have the same brain capacity as a human being. 

As you may have personally observed, ants surface and breed less when it is rainy and multiply in larger numbers when it is dry.  Something as simple as keeping the weather in mind can help you get ahead of a problem.  Did you know that ants are very close cousins to wasps and bees?

A natural irritant to ants is mint.  Just leave some fresh mint leaves in areas where you see ants congregating, and they will leave in a hurry.  Putting them as close to the nest as possible is most effective. 

If you have found the nest, sealing it is a good no chemical way of eliminating the problem. 

Remember being a kid and trying to kill ants with water from the garden hose?  We had a heavy infestation under our front porch stairs that my kids used to constantly try to kill with that cold water, to no avail.  The key is to use boiling water.  Ants can survive for a long time under cold water, but boiling water will drown them. 

You can also bait the ants without having to use harsh pesticides.  You can feed them Cream of Wheat!  Put it where they can easily access it.  When they eat it, it will expand in their stomachs and they will explode!

A good way to get rid of an ant hill is to take 1/4 cup of liquid hand soap and 1 gallon of cool tap water.  Mix well and pour half of the gallon into the ant hill.  Wait some time and pour the rest in there to make sure you get all those little tunnels. 

Ants are a nuisance.  But with a little effort and some patience it is possible to get rid of them without having to resort to harsh chemicals and pesticides. 

A Spread of Information

For as long as I can remember I have had certain interests.  I think we all have those things, those interests that are just kind of bred into us.  Nature, in general has always been of interest to me.  I prefer to paint things found in nature, I prefer to take landscape photos.  In the second year of my latest venture, I am becoming a self taught gardener.  I have always been fascinated with using natural items for different values other than cooking, or looking at.  This weekend I am getting my first lesson in making soaps with essential oils and natural ingredients.  I have never been much of a hippie, but these things have just always interested me.  Then the thought occurred to me that I am just a homesteader.  Like many women before me, I do not work outside the home, so I find natural and inexpensive ways to solve problems and enhance life within the home. 

I have accumulated quite a bit of knowledge over the years, so I figured with the recent mainstream popularity of homesteading, I could create yet another blog in the internet universe with all those handy little tips that make me look like some kind of apocalyptic 2013 version of Donna Reed.  But the internet needs one of those like it needs another cat picture.  So what's my twist?  I'm not some kind of survivalist out to tell you how to keep your hair clean and shiny during the end of the world. I'm not some super hippie who utilizes every inch of my yard for everything from sustainable food sources to big stinky compost piles.  I am your average American stay at home mom who likes to learn stuff.  My information is simple, cheap, and realistic.  I hope you enjoy it and find something useful during your visit. :)