Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Free Meme About Being an Individual



Feel free to use this wherever you want just do not change anything on it. Easy to do just right click and hit save then you can upload to any other site you want.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Sizzling Summer

And it's hot. Today not so bad as others but it still hot. I was so looking forward to yesterday because we were supposed to have thunderstorms some of them severe. I really wanted to use my new LED lantern but the storms never came and my tomatoes can use the rain. The haze is thick like someone plastered a fine coat of white all over the world and I live in the mountains. Down by Philly in Lancaster County was a lot worse.

Last Monday was my birthday. After much discussion I decided on going to eat at the Good and Plenty Restaurant. Honestly, I would have eaten at the Plain and Fancy but I got a free meal at the Good and Plenty (which saved like 20 bucks). We left after my husband got done work and slept over night at the Sleep Inn in Mountville because I had a coupon and it had an indoor pool open till 10. With traffic we didn't get there until 9:30 so we had  half hour for swimming. We threw on our swimsuits and into a heated pool. Afterwards we drove down to Lancaster and stopped at Jennie's diner. It was open 24 hours it was posted on the sign but I didn't see the sign and I asked the crazy waitress anyway. She was a little nuts and according to my husband she was going to stab out his eye with a fork because he wasn't paying attention when she brought coffee. Besides her, the food is cheap and good. Hell unlimited coffee was only $1.35 and my pancakes were huge. Our bill came to 20 bucks you can't find places like that too much anymore.

On Monday, I got a free game of mini golf from the place right next to the hotel we stayed in. We made sure to wake up early so we can enjoy more swimming and take more showers. We checked out about 10 am and played golf. It was already sweltering. I knew I should've  bought a case of water at Sam's. I brought the cooler along because we wanted Amish baked goods. By the time we left golf, I looked like I was just in the shower- with my clothes on.  We had a brief reprieve driving on 30 toward places like Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse. Our next stop was a buggy ride.

I have been to Lancaster many times. My grandmother on my dad's side has lived there forever so the Amish are always interesting but we didn't do the tourist stuff when I was growing up. I always wanted to go on a buggy ride. I chose Aaron and Jessicas at the Plain and Fancy because I had a coupon to save $2. Our driver wasn't Amish which would be okay but he didn't really talk about the Amish. In fact, he said about three things. It was nice to ride through Amish farmlands, it was quiet and beautiful. Corn stretched high into the sky. The driver's horse was plain tired but he kept tapping on her hind quarters to keep her going. It was over 90 and the sun was hot. He tried to say his horse was fine but we thought otherwise. Even the other family said about the horse being tired. I may not have lived on a farm but I know when an animal was tired. If I was a horse, I wouldn't want to be outside pulling a buggy full of people. On the ride, we didn't see any of the Amish working the fields maybe it was too hot for man and beast.  The highlight was stopping at a home and we bought homemade rootbeer and cookies.

After the buggy ride, we drove to Intercourse for Kitchen Kettle for jams and such. I really love jams and jellies.  After that we went to the Amish Village where the guide who is not Amish but actually had Amish friends growing up offered a lot of information and knew a lot of stuff. Finally it was dinner time.  Thank god for air conditioning. I am not a big fan of air conditioning but there are days where AC is heaven. Since it was Monday, it wasn't busy. We were seated with folks from New York and New Jersey. The folks from Jersey must be close to New York City because they had the accent where as the folks from New York didn't have the city accent. I felt like a stranger in my own state since most of the people at the restaurant were from another state.  We found another motel for the night that didn't have a pool but had a deal with another place up the road to use their indoor pool. After swimming, a stop at WAWA for coffee. MMMMM WAWA coffee.

It looked like it was going to storm in Lancaster, the sky grew dark and fearsome but soon the fading sun shone again. It was a great birthday adventure!

Speaking of heat, if I had a damn pool at my house, I would be in it all the time. I have three neighbors who have pools.  And no one is in it. Maybe you will see the kids in the one pool for like an hour and that is it. The rest of the time they are running the streets. Why spend money on chemicals if you aren't going to use it. I want to a pool to be in it, not for a status symbol.

Oh yeah, I just got over a 24 hour virus which made me nap all freaking day long and my tonsils swelled and I had a fever. It was just so much fun.


Monday, July 1, 2013

July Thoughts

Yeah, it is July! Okay, I know its been two weeks since I wrote. Honestly, I have no idea where the time went. Really I don't believe how this summer is flying by and I still did not get my pool put up. With the weather anymore, I probably won't ever get the damn thing up.

So I've had some random thoughts lately of things I wanted to write about so why not just shove them all in one blog post because I know everyone loves my random thoughts, it makes me special.

Thursday is July 4th which is one of my favorite holidays right up there with Christmas, Halloween and my birthday. I am really looking forward to drinking beer and setting off fireworks. Unfortunately, PA doesn't allow the fireworks that go into the sky so we get shoot off fountains and sparklers and things like that. Of course July 4th is much more than beer and fireworks, it is the day America celebrates it's Independence from England. Now as many of you know that are American, England was BAD. America didn't want to be ruled by England but wanted to rule themselves. Now I wonder, when British children start to learn about the war in America in 1770's what is learned? Who are the heroes? Maybe it is taught with a slant that the colonists were NAUGHTY because they started it, threw tea in the harbor and just bad children that should be spanked. I would love to know how British teaches the American revolution. If you are British tell me all about the American Revolution from your point of view.  There are always two points of view to everything.

It is also 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. I am not interested in the Civil War as much as the American Revolution but we went to Old Bedford Village and there was a Civil War re-enactment and that was cool because they shot guns and canons. I wouldn't mind going to Gettysburg because it is supposed to be incredibly haunted and I am still looking for evidence that ghosts are real. Oh yeah and I want to hear more canons. Even though I piss my pants (I jump thirty feet in the air when the canons fire) every time, I think they are pretty aweseome.

I've been thinking a lot about my grandparents lately and I miss them. One of the highlights of my summer was spending a week or two at my grandparent's house.  I don't know how to explain those good times because maybe to someone else it might seem boring but for me, it was different. No matter how far away I lived my grandparents were always there in my life some way or another. I was very lucky to have grandparents like that and it sucks for kids who don't get to have that kind of relationship with their grandparents. One of the last emails, I got from my grandmother before she passed away, she told me to keep writing, no matter what. I know one thing is for sure when my child has children in the future, I am going to be the kind of grandma I had. I will remember their birthdays and I won't favor one grandchild over another one. And when they are old enough for email, I will write them often (or I guess Facebook them often since that seems to be the way of the world.)

I am working on my ebook. Thanks a lot to my husband who says he needs a new project to work on (he works on the book cover) and that I should get writing. I don't know if I mentioned this before but maybe I did, who cares anyway. The story is called "The Wolf's Red Rose" and it is a retelling of the old fairy tale, "Little Red Riding Hood." Now we will all know WHY the wolf ate Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood. Although this is a retelling of a fairy tale not made for children but more teens and adults.

So I emptied my head and this is where we part for the time being. May the fireworks boom and your heart flutter