My apologies to all subscribers getting a duplicate copy of this email. (Happy Monday, by the way.) I have two announcements I wanted to update this post to include and we all know its going to send the post out, for better or worse, again :/

• Click here for Allie's gift swap. Its going to be great!
• Click here for my latest blog chain prompt and signups. Also awesome!

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This post was originally published here on Katie R's blog, Sparkly Ambitions.

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Starting to get colder isnt it? Today I have a post from over the summer if it helps anyone to think of warmer days. 

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Over the summer, Katie and I thought it would be neat for me to share some pictures from my vacation, and Ive finally got them all together to share with you... Yay!

We went away the first week of August, leaving left our home in South Central PA for a Sunday-Sunday vacation in Gatlinburg TN. Our destination was the Westgate Resort and Spa there, a lovely place to stay. It rained a bit during the week but I still got thousands and thousands of awesome pictures. 

We stayed in the 511 building which is pretty much at the top of the mountain and it takes a while to get past all the other buildings. At the bottom of the resort is a waterpark and a hotel-like building, then you have like 52 200 buildings, then you have the 300s road, 400 units, a half a dozen 500 units, and then large buildings of the 4000s, 5000's and they are soon going to be putting up a 6000 building. There are 3 outdoor pools on site, miniature golf, and all sorts of things to do!

*** Leave me comments if you want to know more. Or, if you want to DIY it, check out this website where we can give you a friends and family discount. 

^Also you better believe it that we LOVE the shuttles. Much better than walking up the mountain, lol although my dad would go running in the mornings.  

We got off to a later start than we expected, which made VA seem absolutely endless however it was also peaceful to watch the clouds and mountains that we passed along the way. 

Right when you get into TN, there is a large guitar building and I was happy to get an image of it :)

Its actually a really easy drive there, pretty much just 500 miles down I-81 and then youre more or less there. Finally we found a bi-pass through Pigeon Forge so that was cool too, if you are familiar with the area and the traffic around all the attractions. 

It was a lot of fun to play with a new camera I got (although its not professional or anything) and I had a lot of fun trying to capture the sunsets each night. 

I am the sort of person who loves the mountains a lot so they were a great addition to the images

A lot of people when we got back were asking us "What did you do? What did you see?" but we actually didnt leave the resort too much. 

We got a huge, oversized lion stuffed animal the one day from the grocery store for $20. Another day we made Sharpie Mugs after searching forever for a Dollar Tree. Another day I just read books and chilled outside on my laptop. 

Next year when we go back I hope to hike to some waterfalls or explore Cades Cove, but that might be more stuff that Katie could post about too since she is more in the area. 

Have you ever been to Gatlinburg? 

Are you a beach person or a mountain person?

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Okay, one day down, four more to go. Yay!. 

If you haven't already, please fill out my poll here. It will help me bunches with how I do my Wednesday posts.I was considering embedding it, but I dont know how I feel about links to my Google+ all over. :/

Also.... I am going away soon. Anyone who wants to submit posts for me to schedule in advance for said week, well that would be very nice. As always, info is
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Today, just like the title suggests I have a compilation of many little things. Jokes or puns or one-liners or whatever. *shrugs*

I might have shared this first one already, but thats okay and I already know :)

Also the commentary comes and goes, but thats more of a time thing than anything. 

Please listen to the Down in the River one... its awesome!

What have you heard lately that you have liked?  

PC Life Hack: Use windows speech recognition to type for you and do commands.

Dont get me wrong, I can type. I can type even in the dark, when its 2:30 in the morning and I know I wont have time to do a blog post later that day (thats dedication, guys)

But sometimes I dont want to type.

And that is where Windows Speech Recognition comes in. <not sponsored>

If I dont know a word, it does, and if it doesnt like my pronunciation, I can teach it new words.

I'd say I get about 95% accuracy, but every now and again it just doesnt know what to do. Like when I said "Mexican" two different times it gave me two different responses, neither of which were "Mexican". But I can fix that.

And the other day when I sloppily said "...two forsakes it" it thought I said 2468. :)

Most of the time though, Its great for typing up paragraphs from handwriting without lifting a finger at all.

On any Windows computer, its free. Once you have used the set up process, just say "Start Listening" to use it and to put it in Sleeping mode, say "Stop listening". You have to have a microphone with you or as part of your laptop.

(Here are some headphone/ microphone sets on Amazon starting at about $8.)

But seriously, it is very easy to ask it to show numbers select the number of your choice say OK and complete any task you regularly do such as writing emails, or even blog posts.

Pretty easy when you pull up the program to see what I mean.

Although it will have a lit of attitude if it thinks you are stupid: Like you'll be going to save your document, and will say "Show Numbers" "3" "Okay" and it will be all like "Next time, say 'Save Document'".

Well then, be like that if you think you are better than me. 

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