Catching up

This has been a great weekend to catch up on things. Friday night S headed over to Parents Night Out and Trinks worked a cookie booth. I ran them around, met up with hubs and ordered Chinese food for a quiet night in. Trinks decided she wanted to stay with the booth and never made it to PNO. Hubs and I enjoyed a nice evening of watching Olympics with no whining.

The kids left for Bubbe's house Saturday morning. Hubs and I went to the farmer's market and then hit Home Depot. I finally have a light in my room! S broke the light several months ago and we never seemed to have time to replace it. Our door handle to the front door is just about broken, so we'll replace that today. I hate the dryer vent tube, so we got another that will be easier to clean.

I think the best thing I did was clean out the silverware drawer. I don't think I've done that since we moved in. Hubs tends to leave the drawer open, so crumbs from the counter drop in. It was so dirty I had to vacuum the drawer. In the pile of crumbs was a pill he used to take when he was battling Ulcerative Colitis. It made me pause. For years, we couldn't plan anything without worrying about how he would feel. He would be fine for a while and then it would flare up again. Hubs was reluctant to share how he was feeling, so I never knew if it was back again. The last flare up lasted just under a year before his surgery cured him forever. He has been cured for over 5 years, and it still humbles me. We are free! I never worry about anything as we plan a vacation. I don't have to worry that he's not going to tell me if he's sick - we had a massive fight years ago that got rid of that. Plus the worst that happens these days is he gets a cold. It made me realize how truly blessed we are. Ahhhh - what a great weekend!!

Bethany day 2

After breakfast, we hit the beach. We drove down to the main square, scored a close parking spot and started towards the beach. Most of the boardwalk was an icy mess, but someone shoveled a path to the beach. We dropped all the beach toys except the shell pail. Then we started shelling. One thing I miss about where I live is how far we are from the beach. I LOVE the beach. Growing up, we were about a half hour from Manasquan and would spend a lot of summer days on the beach. We would leave the house early and by 7:30, we were on the beach. By 2 or 3, we were done and would go to Grandmom’s house to be hosed off enough to go swimming. Some nights we would pick up subs and eat on the beach. On weekends, we would drive a little farther and hit Island Beach State Park. We rarely, if ever, went to the main beach. Instead, we went to the unsupervised beaches with no flush toilets. And then in the winter, we would occasionally go to the beach. As I got older, beach badges got really expensive and we traveled more. I spent more time on beaches in Florida, Tortola, the Bahamas. So today was very nostalgic.

When I was around 11 or 12, my sister and I got a blistering sunburn - my first ever. I had blisters on my face, and pain over the rest of me. Unfortunately, it was only one of the first days. So we came up with a plan for the rest of the vacation. We would go swimming, shelling and anything out in the sun until 11. Then we would sort our shells, clean them and identify them under the shade of the picnic table canopy. I learned a lot about different shells, and we collected a lot of interesting shells and sharks teeth that week. Today, I had my NJ beach shell expectations - mussels, oysters, clam, quahog, and an occasional snail shell. Imagine my surprise when I found whole welks, lady slippers, and THREE SAND DOLLARS!! I never thought the sand dollars came this far north, but the weather has been strange, so the choppy water might have dragged in some unusual shells. After strolling down the beach, we stopped to play in the sand and snow. The kids still insisted on gathering water to make wet sand castles. We made a snowman and ran around like lunatics.







We came back to warm up before searching for lunch. Hubs wanted fajitas. When he wants a certain food, nothing else will substitute. It was amusing that we got all the way to Ocean City to find out the only open Mexican restaurant didn’t open until 5. So we set off to grab a hoagie at Wawa and tracked down Asseneteague State Park. I will pause for the inevitable “Mommy said ASS”. Assenteague is where the wild ponies live. It was an incredible experience to pull into the parking lot to find three wild ponies eating grass. There were some idiots who were feeding and petting the ponies, and yes, I was hoping they would get bitten!! I think it’s amazing that there is a place for us to observe wild animals, but people who feed animals teach the animals that humans will feed them and they will lose their natural ability to find food when the humans go home. Ok - off the soap box. We headed to the beach, but we were intimidated by the electric fence on the dunes and the four foot drop off. We observed the beach and then headed back to drive through the park to find more ponies. Two miles into the drive, we hit the National Park. We turned around because $15 was a bit steep for the privilege of driving through. If we were staying all day or at least going to get out of the car, we would have gladly paid. Instead, we returned to the really awesome visitor’s center. Trinks and I are going to get the Misty of Chiconteague books out of the library this week. We’ll be prepared for our next trip down this way.







We tried to go to the Assawoman Wildlife preserve. Unfortunately one of the roads was closed, and it was getting late. We trekked back to Ocean City, hit the Candy kitchen (yes - there is one every 2 blocks or so), and made it to the Mexican restaurant just after they opened for dinner. Trinks and I had burritos, S had chicken tenders and potato chips (but ate a ton of salsa and chips) and hubs got his fajitas.

No caption necessary

Bethany Beach adventure part 1

We didn't have wifi access at the timeshare because we were too lazy to set it up. It was a nice break. I did have my laptop with me, so I was able to document our trip.

After hitting the Dunkin Donuts for donuts and bagels (to last the whole weekend) and grocery store for supplies and Duraflame logs, we took off for slower, lower Delaware. My goal for the weekend was simple: find a Sonic. Dawn from Because I Said So raves about Sonic, their commercials are pretty funny, and cherry limeade sounds really awesome. As we hit Dover, the exit sign proudly proclaimed there was a Sonic .7 miles off the exit. We pulled in, ordered corn dogs, bubble gum slushes, and tator tots for the kids, bacon cheeseburgers with tator tots for hubs and me. I had the cherry limeade, but hubs was really boring and went for a Barqs. It was amazing! So glad the closest one to us is an hour away.




We arrived in Bethany with a squirming son who was managing to hold it in for 20 minutes when we discovered the timeshare was not where we expected it to be. Hmmmm…. what to do?? Call mom! She looked up better directions (GPS has maps from 2007 - guess this place wasn’t around then). We arrived, punched a code into the lockbox and bam! We were in! We had no expectations for this place - it was a last minute idea and we took what we could get within 2-3 hour drive from our house. So when we walked into an small entryway that looked over a patio with a grill, it was nice. We climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor to find the kitchen, dining room, living room (with fireplace), and half bathroom. The next set of stairs led to the two bedrooms and full bath. And then there was another set of stairs leading to a loft (kind of weird to have a common area that overlooks the master bedroom), another bathroom and a sauna. Yes - a sauna. Pretty cool, huh?







So we dropped our stuff, put things away, and headed out to explore. We ended up in Ocean City MD. It’s a pretty impressive city! There are HUGE hotels lining the ocean and tons of cheesy beach stores. We could have eaten in a number of seafood restaurants, but decided to return to Bethany to eat at the Cottage Café. We had a coupon for 15% off the early bird menu - are we getting old or what??? The place was packed! Trinks had fried shrimp, S had mac and cheese, hubs had fried oysters, and I had a broiled portabella stuffed with spinach, topped by a crab cake, topped by imperial sauce. Amazing!!! While we were waiting to be served, Trinks whipped out trivia cards that she made. She created several questions to test our knowledge of…. Her. It was well done and we had fun answering some interesting questions, all the while praying we got the answers right. I think we passed.

We returned back to the timeshare for a donut and hot chocolate (kids) and rum drinks for us. We lit a fire and were cozy for approximately 2 hours - darn thing was supposed to last 3.5 hours. We played Zingo, did a puzzle, and watched the Olympics. It’s nice to relax and not have to be in our house!

I want to go to work!!!

I am so sick of being in the house, that I am going to work on a scheduled day off. The good news is we have huge tubs of stuff to give away. Just this afternoon I went through 5 drawers and gave away/threw away a ton of crap. Trinks has two tubs of crap ready to go to Goodwill. Any more time in the house will result in EVERYTHING going. I think we are on target to get rid of half our things this year.

So tomorrow, S goes back to school and Trinks goes to kung fu camp. She was already scheduled to be off tomorrow, so it's not a big deal. I'm hoping for a quiet day so I can resolve tons of things before enjoying another long stretch at home. As of right now, the place we were planning to go to this weekend has no power and is still in a state of emergency. We'll at least go out for a few meals so we can feel like we went away.

candle lit dinner with wine

Doesn't it sound romantic? It wasn't really, but the kids put on a great show, dancing in the candle light. We lost power just after 10:30 AM. I only had ONE cup of coffee! Usually the power comes back up in an hour or less, so we picked up books, took naps, wrestled each other. Three hours later we realized it wasn't coming back soon and called the power company. There were several explosions, several flashes of light, but no power was restored.

I was impressed that the kids took all this in stride and kept themselves occupied. S found his DS, Trinks read, drew pictures and danced. We hung out, told stories and had fun. Hubs was cranky, but I don't think he completely hated the day. We lit the menorah for light and a little fun and called the grandparents to wish them a happy Hannukkah. We had turkey and cheese sandwiches for lunch and dinner since we couldn't cook. The kids went to bed together to keep warm, although the temperature in the house didn't get below 50. S wouldn't even keep his sweatshirt on because he was warm. As an interesting change, hubs was freezing and I was very warm. He even put on sweatpants over his shorts - amazing.

We went to bed early, so we can't pinpoint when the power officially came back on, but it looks like it was 11PM. We survived 12 hours without power. Thank goodness it wasn't summer or we would have lost everything in the fridge and freezer. I think I've used up most of my candles from all the candle parties I used to go to. The house smells like vanilla and cranberry - yum.

So now that I have confirmed the kids have no place to go, and we are still covered by the state of emergency, I can go back to bed. YAWN! A day of doing nothing really makes me sleepy.

I should never be allowed to stay home

Since I was home today, I figured I couldn't get into trouble. Trinks and I had a lovely day. We watched Kit Kittridge, went sledding, had a nice lunch, took a nice long bath in the soaking tub (Trinks, not me), and just plain enjoyed the day. Then there was a knock on the door. I usually ignore it, but Trinks went to the window and shouted, "There's a man at the door, Mommy!" Crap - can't ignore him now.

It turns out to be the local Fios dude. I wanted Fios in the worst way last year when we were having horrific problems with the Verizon's DSL. No one could tell us when Fios was coming, so we went to Comcast. Two months later they dug up the development for Fios. I hate change and time off for installations, so I never pursued Fios. Then I have a guy on my icy front step selling me Fios. Since I could always cancel the installation, I signed up. It will save us about $10 a month for the first year. I'm still in uber frugal mode, so I can appreciate the $120 in my pocket. If I can't cancel cable all together, then saving money on it is pretty good. I'll get the old desk top hardwired for Fios and the wifi will take care of the laptop. Then I can get Magic Jack and save $15/month. When hubs gets home tonight, we'll talk about it.

Right now both kids are home. Trinks didn't want to come with me to pick S up, so she stayed home alone for 20 minutes. She was so excited. S is mad that he has to go to school tomorrow and Trinks doesn't. I hope the kung fu studio opens for camp tomorrow, but both school districts they service are closed tomorrow. Heck - even Brownies is cancelled. Our development roads are pure crap, so I understand. It just pisses me off that no one plowed, but the walking path at the park is clear. WTF???

The times they are a changing!

So here I am with an unexpected day off because of the snow. Trinks has no school - SHOCKING! We don't expect her to go to school this week, since it was a short week to begin with and we are expecting another foot of snow on Wednesday. Hubs was supposed to take off today, but his coworker's house caught on fire and she's home with the insurance adjusters. Normally I would have sympathy for her, but she is a crap magnet hypochondraic and has made things difficult for hubs by her overuse of days off that she just doesn't have. So poor hubs went off to work after expecting to take it easy and I ended up taking today. We'll go sledding after we finish watching Kit Kittredge.

But the point of this post is I am anxiously awaiting news from NJ Mets fan and wife. Baby #3 is on the way, probably already here, and I am checking Facebook religiously. When Trinks was born, we didn't even have a cell phone. We borrowed our parents' phones to alert the masses. When S was born, we had a cell phone, but downloading pictures and posting them to the internet seemed like such a hassle. This is a much better time to have a baby, technologically speaking.

What I like most about this baby is the gender is unknown. In this day and age, it's almost unheard of to keep it a mystery. It just makes the arrival so much more exciting this way. I already put my bet in that it's a 10 pound, 25.5 inch boy. I am just about 100% wrong with all of my guesses, so it's probably going to be a 6 pound, 19 inch baby girl. Come on NJ Mets Fan - post already!!! With a picture!!! And a name!!!

Ask, and you shall receive

A couple of weeks ago, our toaster oven died. It just stopped toasting. I could broil toast, but my favorite method of cooking in it is the toast function. Chicken nuggets take 2 cycles, pierogies take 3. We don't use it often, but it's a comforting little appliance. I was complaining about it at work and my co-worker looked at me and mentioned that he was getting rid of his. He mentioned it is slow to toast and it's big. He brought it in the next day and I set it up today. It's HUGE! And it WORKS!

I like when things work out. I needed a new toaster, he needed to get rid of the almost knew oven his wife didn't like anymore. Now let me see if anyone is getting rid of a barely used, $200 surf rod.....

Feeling human again

Day 2 - face is less puffy, I'm not cranky and random strange aches aren't as sore. Ahhhhh - relief. I haven't completely eliminated gluten. I just have it at night and it puts me to sleep.

I did have a blast playing with this today. I am a huge fan of reflexology. It's free when you do it to yourself and I find it relieves a lot of minor issues. Maybe it just distracts you from you pain, but I can usually get rid of a headache by pushing a pressure point. Don't forget the click on the foot map. You can imagine you have rare diseases based on where you feel pain. But before you panic, recheck the map. It's really your spine, not your pancreas.