I need a vacation!

Well the upcoming vacation to Amish country is becoming more and more fast paced. I will arrive on a Friday at the BWI airport. Mom has agreed to drive the 1 hour and pick me up. The rest of the agenda looks something like this:

Friday evening
Visit with cousins

Saturday morning
Drive 1 hour to pick up brother and nephew at BWI (his flight arrives at 6:30 am)
Drive 1 hour back to my Uncle's.
Be at a park by 8:00 am for family photos.

Saturday noon
Luncheon in honor of my Aunt & Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary

Saturday afternoon and evening
A get-together at my cousin's house (the one with 9 kids). I hope I can find a chair.

Sunday morning
The church will be having a special ceremony for my Aunt & Uncle. Everyone but my step-father will be going. (He's not a big church goer)

Sunday afternoon
My brother, my nephew and I will drive 1 1/2 hours to Baltimore to see our father/grand-father. This will be the first time in 7 years we've seen him. I just hope my brother doesn't go off on dear old dad....

Monday
Spend the day visiting Dad, our stepmother, and our half-brother. I'm sure we will have a cook-out. I look forward to receiving the lecture about not eating meat..seems no one in my family accepts my vegetarianism.

Tuesday morning
Drive my brother and nephew to BWI (during rush hour!) for their trip to Orlando. Then I will make my way back up to Amish country.

Now here's where the trip gets sketchy....Below are the following items still left to do.....

* Go to the cemetery to put flowers on grandparents graves.
Wednesday - Stepfather's birthday...spend it with stepsisters and their families
* Drive to Virginia with mom. I want to see the Mimslyn Inn (this hotel was started by my great-grandparents in 1931.) For more information check out the link - www.mimslyninn.com
We'll spend the night in the hotel and visit Mom's cousins and friends.
* Drive back to Pennsylvania, drop mom off
* Drive to New Jersey to spend time with my friend Steve.
* Steve wants to take me to Cape May and to Atlantic City.
* I'll meet his mother.
* Fly out of Philadelphia.

* I must remember to schedule my next vacation!

This was sooo bad that I just had to share it...

THREE OLD LADIES


Three old ladies named Gertrude, Maude and Wilma were sitting on a park bench having a quiet conversation when a flasher approached from across the park.

The flasher came up to the ladies, stood right in front of them and opened his trench coat.


Gertrude immediately had a stroke.


Then Maude also had a stroke.


But Wilma, being older and more feeble, couldn't reach that far.

If we are what we eat, does that make me melted cheese?

I went to the cafe at work to get a small salad today for lunch. I've been eating nothing but carbs for the last two days and my body was craving vegetables. The salads are pre-made, consisting of approximately 1 cup of iceberg lettuce, 1 slice of cucumber, 1 TBSP of diced tomato, a few chopped olives and some grated cheese. These salads are kept on ice and are just waiting for the dressing. I put 1 scoop of low-fat Italian dressing on my salad and brought it back to my desk for lunch.

Now for some unknown reason the cheese appears to have begun dissolving in the bottom of the container. I'm not even sure it's real cheese anyway. I think it may be "Velveeta". What exactly is Velveeta? If I wasn't so cheap I might consider eating only organic foods. I'm already a vegetarian so I'm thinking that is the next logical step.

Being the world's only fat vegetarian I want Water Pig to know that my lunch was 3 points today! I need some water and a moon pie.

The saga continues

Late last night the phone rings..it's mom. After informing me that she has single handedly located approximately $2000.00 for family and friends, she proceeded to ask for my assistance. She wanted me to get out the Dallas phonebook. Mind you, she lives in Seattle. She wanted me to look up a name. She wasn't sure of the name but thought it was Whipple or Whittle or something like that. Now you have to know that every year for Christmas, mom gives us a Christmas list. It ALWAYS includes books. The lists look something like this...

1) Something about Uncle Ben's Funeral...like the Best Time I Ever Had Was At Uncle Ben's Funeral or A Funeral for Uncle Ben...I don't remember the author but I saw it on Oprah.

2) I saw a book at Barnes & Nobles with a picture of a Bear on it. It has a green background and the bear is looking right at you...

3) I don't know the name of the book but the author's name is Jay either Smith or Hernandez...something like that... it's about a girl and her dog...I read about it in Parade Magazine back in February.

Now you have never lived life to it's fullest until you have gone into Barnes & Nobels and asked for one of these books. After a thorough search of their databases you can never fully describe the look of anguish on their face. I just thank them for their time and explain that my mother has a chemical imbalance and I just was going on what she told me...

Soooo back to the saga...after reading all the "WH" last names in the Dallas phonebook, we decided that Mom should contact her old friends former co-worker to help in the search. After all, there is all that money left to be claimed.

Mom, you used to enjoy knitting...I could use a new afghan!

I need to find another hobby for my mother

My wonderful mother, God bless her!! Two of the things she enjoys doing is watching News programs (60 mins. or Dateline) if the story is something that interests her. Another hobby is her access to the internet and all she can do.

Recently, she saw a program on Dateline about unclaimed property and funds that are just sitting out there. They gave instructions on how to go online and see if you have property just waiting to be claimed. Low and behold! She found that I had $53.53 sitting at the state controllers office just waiting for me.

She proceeded to tell me that she not only checked my name but has checked every other family member she could think of, including her ex-in-laws (my deceased paternal grandparents). To her credit, they had funds out there too!!

Her searches did not just stayed confined to family. NOOOOO, now she's going down her address book looking up all her friends. Now normally, I would think that's not bad. She's not hurting anyone. She's actually helping her friends. Heck, she's even got me looking for my friends.

Tonight I received the following email.....

I know you won't do this but you really should - especially after all my
effort. Today I found $125 for Ricki B. (an old friend of hers), if I only knew how to reach her. I have written Ken (Ricki's ex-husband). AND, I found money for a man named Gill (real name has been changed) who lives, or lived, at (address has been removed to protect the innocent but it is on the same street as me...just two blocks down). Would you please go
knock on his door and tell him and be sure he knows your dear old mother is responsible and tell him that he has unclaimed wealth? Please. Maybe you could leave him an anonymous note. But he'll need instructions. If he's cute, young, and single, you could offer to help him. Thank you.
Love, Mom

I'll have to scope out the house first...but until I do it (or at least tell her I did) I won't hear the end of it. Gotta love her!

What I wanna be when I grow up

This morning on the radio they were talking about what kids want to be when they grow up. It got me to thinking. Where had I deviated from my dreams growing up?

I remember early on wanting to be a veterinarian. My love of animals led me to that decision. I would be the James Herriot of the U.S., saving all the sick animals and delivering puppies. This dream remained with me until I found out how much college was involved.

Floating along indecisively, I turned to the T.V. for inspiration. Low and behold, there it was, I could be like Jacques Cousteau and take pictures of dolphins, whales, and beautiful blue and yellow fish. I would go to school in Hawaii to become an oceanographer.

Then one summer we went to the Gulf for vacation. I got in the water and played in the surf. All of the sudden I felt a sting. Then another sting. I immediately got out of the water to find welps on my legs. It seems that there are these horrible creatures, known as jellyfish that take some sort of morbid pleasure in bursting a little girl's dream of grandeur in the sea.

Back to the drawing board...

Besides the odd, being a Navy nurse (thanks to that Ester Williams movie I saw-you know the one where she swims all the time) or being a television star, I had to come up with another idea.

Finally, a decision I could act on...I would be a Forest Ranger. I could interact with animals (wildlife) and live in the woods on some elevated platform of a house, surveying the woods for forest fires. My senior year, I even went so far as to travel to Stephen F. Austin University to look into their forestry program.

So what derailed me? Take one guess...a MAN.

Would my life have been so different had I pursued my dreams? Yes. Do I have regrets? No. I probably would of ended up at some obscure park anyway...hunting for litterbugs and the drunk college kids majoring in veterinary medicine. Besides, khaki is not my best color.