Stylish Blogger Award

I came home from work today (Saturday) to find a message  from the Coupon Queen  that she was passing on the Stylish Blogger Award to me!  I'm thrilled to get this!  Check out Coupon Queen's blog!  This gal doesn't pay full price for anything!  We could probably all learn to save money from her!  Thanks Coupon Queen!!


Wow!  When it rains, it pours! Marie at  XMas Dolly also gave me this award today!  Marie (along with 3 other folks) hosts a really fun meme on Mondays called Monday's Music Moves Me.  They give us a theme and we post music videos that relate.  It's quite often a real blast from the past!!  Check it out!!!And thanks a bunch, Marie!!!


Now what I have to do are these 4 things:


1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award 
2. Share 7 things about yourself 
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!



Seven things you may or may not know about me:


1. I joined Nutrisystem some months ago, did well for about a month, got lazy, stopped Nutrisystem and gained all my weight back, plus 5 pounds.  sigh.


2. My car, a 2003 Pontiac Vibe, was 8 years old on December 31.  I have 129,000+ miles on it.  I love my Vibe!  I hope we have many more happy years together.  Guess I should get that oil changed!


3. I used to own a restaurant with my then-husband.  It was alleged to be haunted by the daughter of the original owner, who built the place in 1740.  I may or may not have seen her from time to time.


4. I used to be a hair stylist, back in the 1970s and 1980s.  My license lapsed at some point.  


5. I finally agreed to meet my ex's trophy wife (after 6 years) when our son graduated from college this past May.  I actually hugged her and did not  do anything nasty to her (although fantasizing about it was fun!).  I even shocked myself!! ( to explain, my ex left me for her and she's considerably  younger than me)


6.  I would move to a warm climate in a heartbeat!   I am so over cold weather and , oil bills and snow!   I envy my childhood friend who lives in the British Virgin Islands!


7.  I didn't learn how to drive until just before my 28th birthday!  Now I'll drive anywhere but Manhattan!


I would like to pass this award onto the following:


FibromyWHAT?  Ann Again... and again  From "The Acres of Misfits"   Socrates Book Review  The Beckers   The Shewbridges of Central Florida  Yaya's Home   Beatrice Banks   Jillsy Girl   It's A Dog's Life   Keenly Kristin   Never Growing Old   Jingle  The Book Vixen
Mrs. Claus 

Six Word Saturday

I am so tired of winter!!!

Want to try your own Six Word Saturday? Go see Cate at Show My Face and link up!

Look at all this cool loot!!

This story actually begins way back in March 2010.  One of my favorite authors, Jennifer Weiner recommended a book by a new author.  The book was The Opposite Of Me and the author was Sarah Pekkanen.  I was looking for something new to download to my Kindle that I had just gotten for Christmas. So I bought the book.  I started reading The Opposite Of Me on May 1, 2010.  I finished it on May 3, 2010.  I have to tell you that I have not read a book that fast in nearly 20 years.  I. Could. Not. Put. This. Book. Down!!  I even wrote a blog post about it the next day.  You can read it here, if you'd like.


OK, fast forward to the week before Christmas 2010.  Sarah is a friend of mine on Facebook now (along with about 1500 of her closest friends).  She had a new short story (All Is Bright) coming out for eREaders for only 99 cents.  As an incentive for people to buy it, she was doing a 5 day give away where each day she was adding another prize to the pile. All you had to do was buy her short story  to your Kindle, Nook, eREader and forward a copy of the receipt as proof of purchase to her email account. So I did!  Sarah also reminded everyone that Jennifer Weiner also has a short story (The Half Life) coming out the same day.  (Do these ladies look out for each other or what!!)   Day one prize was her new book, Skipping a Beat (that will be in stores at the end of February 2011) , Day 2 prize was Skipping and Jennifer Weiner's latest book, Fly Away Home.  Day 3 add The Opposite Of Me, Day 4 add Godiva Chocolates and a $50 donation to a shelter of your choice  to the mix and Day 5, all of the above and an eREader!  


Everyone was hoping they'd win, especially Day 5!!  I already have a Kindle, so I said to my daughter, Dani, who was turning 20 on December 26, "If I win the big prize, do you want the Kindle?"  Of course, she said YEAH!!!  I never ever dreamed I'd win, but I did!!!  Sarah left me a message on Facebook, telling me to look at her homepage.  And there was my name!!!  Woo hoo!!!!


We emailed back and forth, so I could send her my address and which charity I wanted the donation to go to, and which eREader  I wanted.  A few days later, I get a package in the mail from Sarah with Sarah's 2 books, The Opposite Of Me (which I'm sending to my daughter in Delaware because she's a reading machine! but I want it back because it's signed! ), a signed copy of Skipping A Beat (an advanced copy!  you can't even buy it until February!) and a box of Godiva Chocolates.  You can't see the candy because I ate it!  I saved the box so I could take a picture of everything together!


Yesterday the package from Amazon arrived with a copy of Jennifer Weiner's newest book, Fly Away Home (which I have on Kindle, so this is also going to my daughter in Delaware) and the newest generation of Kindle!  


I activated the Kindle, charged it up and put The Opposite Of Me on it and will be mailing it tomorrow to Dani at school!  She's excited to get it!  I hope this will get her to read more.  I bought my son a Kindle for Christmas and he's been reading like crazy!  Gina, my reading machine daughter in Delaware has a Nook that she loves too!


So,all in all, it was a pretty good week!  If you're a reader and you haven't done it yet, give Sarah's book, The Opposite Of Me a try.  It's truly wonderful!!  Then get Skipping A Beat when it comes out next month!  Trust me.  You won't be sorry you did.  And I'm not saying that because I won all this cool stuff!!  She really is a great writer!  And she answers your comments on Facebook!

Germs, they're everywhere!

I read something yesterday and it got me thinking. Yeah, that happens to me every now and then.  I was thinking how germaphobic people are getting any more.


I work in a restaurant.  We have public bathrooms, that get cleaned, with sanitizer, several time a day, and again overnight by the cleaning crew.  The health department in our county inspects us on a regular basis, and by regular, I mean monthly. And if we have any violations, they're here weekly.  We try our damnedest to keep it monthly.  


All of our cooks wear disposable gloves all the time when they are cooking.  Our dish machine sanitizes everything it washes with a soap product, a bleach product and a rinse product.  The servers and bus people wear gloves to wrap the silverwear in the napkins.  Everything, and I do mean everything, that is opened and is perishable is date and time labeled and changed within the time period indicated (i.e. iced tea every 4 hours, milk 2 days, cut lemons every 5 hours, sanitizer in buckets every 4 hours, etc.)  


Sorry, going off on most likely not the only tangent of this post.


I can bet you at least once a week, one of these germaphobic people who are so afraid to sit on a toilet seat, will squat over the bowl to do their business.  Now ladies, squat if you want.  Hold your kids over the toilet to pee if you want.  But when you pee all over the seat, CLEAN IT UP!!!!  It's YOUR pee!!  Guess what?  Urine is sterile when it leaves your body!  It's more sanitary than you are!  Look here, I checked.  And guess who gets to clean up your piss that are too good to clean up?  Most likely, me, because our bus people are too grossed out to do it, even though they are the ones who clean up the bathrooms after you pigs. 


Would it kill you to use the trashcan for your paper towels??  One of these days, I'm going to catch the a toilet pisser  in the ladies room and I'm going to say something to you.  Pig.  


New mothers, usually the early 30s models, are the worst offenders.  They bring their own sanitizer with them and scrub the table, the chairs, the high chairs down like it's a surgical suite.  They bring disposable placemats to stick to the table (even though each table and chair and high chair is cleaned, with sanitizer after each use).  Though you should see the mess these wonder moms and their perfect children leave behind for us to clean up!  Makes me want to go to their house, and pee all over their toilets.


On Tuesday, I had the couple who took it to the next level.  They had me bring several styrofoam cups of water hot enough to brew tea so they could sanitize their precious bundle's eating utensils that they brought from home!!!  Frankly, I'm not sure how they managed to have sex to produce this baby.  Maybe it was done in a  lab. (with no disrespect for anyone who had children via in vitro fertilization)  


I feel sorry for these kids who are brought up by parents who are so afraid of germs that, when those kids go to day care and/or school, they pick up every bug that comes down the pike!  They have no chance to build up immunities to these germs.  And the parents are dumb-founded (good word for them... dumb  hehehe) when their kids are always sick!!!  AND they are most-likely the same ones who send their kids to school SICK!!


People, we had germs growing up.  We survived.  Let your kids get dirty.  It most likely won't kill them.


OK, I gotta go.  I have to wash my hands.

                                                          

One Word Wednesday: Soar

SOAR

As if you all didn't know, this word is a no brainer for me.  Just look at my header!   

This actually all began 29 years ago, on my honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico.  My then-new husband (now my ex-husband) and I had never even seen parasailing before.  We thought about it, then both chickened out.  We did, however, try to convince friends of ours, who got married 3 weeks after we did and also went to Acapulco on their honeymoon (copycats!!) that we did go parasailing and they should try it!  They didn't bite.

Fast forward to 2007, Ocean City, MD.  My 16 year old daughter and her friend go parasailing and again, I chicken out!  I tell John, maybe the next time we come to Ocean City!  He's a retired paratrooper with the US Army's 82nd Airborne, and he's dying to go!  

So finally on September 22, 2010 (a date which will live in infamy... at least in my mind), the day after I turned 55, I did it!!! I soared!!!  We went up 800 feet, as high as we could go! I figured what the hell.  If I go up 400 feet, I may as well go 800 feet.  And I'm with an experienced paratrooper, if we happen to get free of the harness.  And I'm wearing a life jacket.  And I don't see any sharks down below. 

It's amazing how quiet it is up there, except for the wind noises.  It was rather blustery up there.  This was not long after Hurricane Whatever, and the ocean was somewhat choppy and the breezes were generous.

The ride lasted about 15 minutes, although we were in the boat for nearly 2 hours.  There were 5 other couples going parasailing too.

 Lift off!!!

Look at my face!!  Oh my!!!

 Up we go!

 800 feet in the air!  Everything looks so small from up there!

 Splashdown!

Coming in for our landing

That really was quite fun!  And I plan to soar again!  

I did take a little bit of pleasure, texting my ex to let him know I did it.  He said he'd have had a heart attack!  wimp.

Jill, at Jillsy Girl is the host of One Word Wednesday.  Every week, she gives us a word to blog.  We can write a story, post a picture, a poem, a song.  Whatever we want!  Check her out!!  You can also see what everyone else is blogging about too.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

It's Tuesday!!  Let's get ready to Random!!!!


We're expecting Mother Nature to dump some white stuff on us today, a lot of it from what the newscasters are terrorizing us with.  I just really really really hope it doesn't start until , like, dinnertime.  I am terrified to drive in the snow!  We have the snowstorm that's moving up the east coast and we have the snowstorm moving eastward across from the Midwest.  They plan to rendezvous right smack in the mid-Atlantic states aka Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.  Expected snowfall?  Anywhere from 4 to 12 inches.  


Today is my first day back to work since my staycation.  I'm sad.  I want to still be on vacation or staycation.  Especially with this storm approaching.  I wouldn't have minded if it dumped a bunch of stuff while I was off work for the week.  I wasn't going anywhere anyway!


I'm hooked on my Keurig!  I've been scanning the grocery stores in search of teas for the Keurig to no avail.  I need to place an order with the company.  I've got lots and lots of coffee.  They're easy to find in the stores.
The order will have to wait though, because, like I said, I'm broke! 


Sometimes not being rich sucks.  I'm not really poor, but there ain't a lotta bucks left over at the end of the month.  That's what I miss about being married.  I had money when I was married.  Don't miss him... just the perks.


I'm all caught up on the seasons of NCIS.  Just waiting for Season 8 to be available on Netflix.  In the meantime, I'll be watching Northern Exposure.  


Thanks to Rene@ Not The Rockefellers and  Mary @ Unmitigated Me for the advice on the potassium for my restless legs!  Got the pills, got bananas.  


I just realized half of what I had on this post I said last Tuesday, so I deleted it.  So now I'm out of random.

Keely  is the host for Random Tuesday Thoughts.  Go check her out at The Un Mom for lots more fun Randomness!! 

Nicholas Sparks Reading Challenge 2011

This is where I'll be keeping track of the books I've read on the Nicolas Sparks Reading Challenge.  I'll be crossing them off the list as I finish them.  I'm hoping to read or listen to all of them before the year is out.   Believe it or not, I've never read any of his books, but I have seen a few of the movies.

List of Nicholas Sparks novels:

     The Notebook
     Message in a Bottle
     A Walk to Remember
     The Rescue
     A Bend in the Road
     Nights in Rodanthe
     The Wedding
     The Guardian
     Three Weeks With My Brother
     True Believer (read this first, before At First Sight)
     At First Sight (read this after True Believer)
     The Choice
     Dear John
     The Lucky One
     The Last Song
     Safe Haven

Musical Monday's Music Moves Me: Freebie!!

Lorie at The Shrewbridges of Celebration, FL told me about Monday's Music Moves Me, so here's another cool music blog meme to do

Amanda at Bloggin’ with Amanda hosts Musical Monday – What Move’s You?. You can get the instructions by clicking here.

This week, we could post whatever song we wanted.  This song, Cowboy, Take Me Away by the Dixie Chicks is probably my favorite country song.  The Dixie Chicks are probably my favorite female country singers ever!  Tim McGraw is my favorite male country singer.    I love this whole album!  I saw the Dixie Chicks at Lilith Fair in Hershey, PA in the summer of 1999, just as Fly was hitting the airwaves.  I like to close my eyes and listen to this song, really loud.  It makes me calm.





Since I love so many of the songs on this album,  I also wanted to post Sin Wagon.  In my mind,  this is about a woman going crazy after her husband leaves her.  I can identify with this song!  I really really love the music in this song!!!  The banjo and violin solos are incredible!
  


Congratulations to Rosidah and Six In The Nest for the Spotlight Dance!!

Life Is Good Award!

Carol at Facing 50 With Humor honored me with the Life Is Good Award!!  And life IS good for me these days!  Granted, I don't have a lot of money, but I have a roof over my head, enough money to buy food, pay my bills and few extras.  I have 3 great kids who have managed to grow to adulthood with no real problems.  I have man who I am crazy about and is crazy about me in return.  Winning the lottery would be cool, but I'm doing OK without it.  


I have fun blogging and it's a real thrill  to know people actually read my blog!  I'm not trying to become a writer like so many people do with their blog.  I think, for me, it was more of a journal, a diary to help me get through my divorce and learn to get on with my life.  It was a place for me to vent when, not long after meeting a terrific guy, he gets diagnosed with cancer!  This blog helped me to deal with that. Today John is cancer-free and I get to celebrate that wonderful news here!  It also allows me to brag about my kids!


 I'm passing the award on to bloggers who I feel are genuinely worth visiting. Go and see them. They always make me smile and are often very humorous so definitely worthy of the 'Life is Good' Award.

Here are the things you have to do when you get this award:
1. First, thank and link back to the person that gave the award.
2. Answer the 10 survey questions
3. Pass the award along to other bloggers whom you think are fantastic.
4. Contact the bloggers you have chosen to let them know about the award.




1.  If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this?  If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?
I don't blog anonymously, nor do I comment on other blogs anonymously.  I've learned to watch what I write about my family.  If I want someone to remain anonymous, I don't use his or her name.

2.  Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.
I don't think I'm all that stubborn.  If my daughter reads this and can think of something, please feel free to share it!

3.  What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?
I see my older sister and my mother!  I am the image of them.  If I didn't color my hair, my sister and I would almost look like twins!
.
4.  What is your favourite summer cold drink?
My favorite alcoholic drink would be frozen margaritas.  Non-alcoholic is iced tea with lots of lemon and 1 packet of sweet and low..

5.  When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
Read, read, read.  Oh! and Facebook and my blog

6.  Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?
I want to get back to a healthy weight, but frankly, I'm too lazy to do it.

7.  When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?
I was pretty anonymous in school.  I was one of nearly 1000 students in my class (Catholic baby boomer!!)  Teachers may or may not remember me.

8.  If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?
My kids going off to college.  My husband walking out the door to be with someone else.  Finding out that John's transplant worked and he was cancer-free.  My parents' deaths.  Oh damn!  I just might cry!

9.  Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?
I'm okay with writing about myself.  I do write about other people in my life and events too.
  
10.  If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?Read a book. I love to read and have 3 books going at once, all the time.   It's funny, with texting, sometimes it's easier to do that than talk.  I guess it depends on who I am talking to!  

I would like to pass this award on to:


Martha at The Daily Grind 
http://thedailygrindbymak.blogspot.com/


Sue Ann at 
http://wwwsueann.blogspot.com/

Amy at The 4th Frog Blog
http://4thfrog.blogspot.com/


Ina at Ina in Alaska
http://ina-offret.blogspot.com/


Liz at Eternal Lizdom
http://eternallizdom.blogspot.com/

My James Patterson Challenge Book List

This Challenge comes to us by Yvonne at Socrates Book Review Blog!


I've chosen to read Level 3 (10+ books).  I'm crossing books out as I read them.


 1. Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan) 
 2. Cross Fire 
 3. The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard)
 4. Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro) 
 5. Tick Tock (with Michael Ledwidge) 
 6. You've Been Warned (with Howard Roughan)
 7. The Quickie (with Michael Ledwidge)
 8. Sail  (with Howard Roughan)
 9. Don't Blink (with Howard Roughan)
10. 10th Anniversary (with Maxine Paetro)



I may add more if time allows


Possibly these new ones!! 



11. Judge and Jury (with Andrew Gross)
12. The Lake House 
13. When The Wind Blows
14. The Postcard Killers (with Eliza Marklund)