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Friday's Special Surprise

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Is there any one of us who does not like to be treated specially?  I mean each of us is unique and special in our own way, but to be picked out for a special task or special honor is always a wonderful treat. Just the other day I was blessed with a very special invitation.    Let me back track a year or so. When my husband and I moved the Pocono Mountains, in town there was a building that was obviously once a medical building/doctor’s office. I was disappointed that there was no longer a town doctor in the building and I hate seeing such a nice little place being unused. However, I found out that it was going to be turned into a coffee house. I love my coffee! I was thrilled to learn that our little village was going to have one of its own.    What I didn't know at the time was all of the hard work that was already going on behind the scenes to open this amazing little gem.    We have been here for nearly 2 years, but we don't know that many peo...

May Is Here

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 ...and my heat is still coming on.  I know soon I will be complaining about how hot is outside...or maybe not.  It just seems like the cold will never end.  (And I’m not just talking about the mountains of the Poconos; it’s been cold in NJ too!) At least as I write this the sun is out. (Fingers crossed that it stays that way and will warm up things.) I so want to go outside and get some of that vitamin D. Its spring darn it!  Let’s feel that spring weather.  It’s MAY!  That’s practically summer, we need warm, sunny days!  I need warm sunny days! Also as I write this, one of the guys from the pond company is doing a cleaning.  I am so impressed with the company (especially as I realize what a small company it is and how young the owner is...which makes me feel really old, but...).  We now have an annual contract with them.  So I've already paid them for the year...no unexpected bills.  And they will come out regularly for a cle...

Good Bye April

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It's the last day of April. And I'm hoping it's the last day (or nearly the last day) of cold weather.  We keep getting hints of spring and then the temperature goes down and my heating system turns on.  With gas prices being at historic highs (you know why and you know who to thank), every time I hear it click on I start to stress.  (I also stressed when I filled my car's gas tank yesterday, other than after Hurricane Kristina in 2005, I don't think I've ever seen prices quite so high and we all know they aren't going any time soon!) It's also kind of funny that I just scheduled A/C maintenance for next week.  (Don't want a rerun of last year when we turned on the A/C on the first really hot day and nothing happened!)  Also funny is that I also need to schedule a heating tune up for the fall for the NJ house (which has no A/C system).  Yes, they want me to schedule it now...so I will.   This is also the last day of classes for my son.  J...

Nancy is 96

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 Yes she's still as spry as ever.  Clear headed.  Charming.  Eager.  Independent.  And still solving mysteries.  I'm talking about one of my favorite characters in literature (and yes, the books deserve to be called literature):  Nancy Drew. Nancy has been in my life for a LONG time.  (No, I'm not 96...not yet.)  My mother had saved some of the Nancy Drews she had as a girl.  (How I wish there had been more; how I wish she and I took better care of them.)  They were not original editions, but they were original text.  And most of them had their original dust jackets.  (Which is where I really wish I had taken better care of them.  I took them off to keep them "safe' and in hindsight, they would have been safer and in better condition if I just let them stay.)  I don't know what drew (pun intended?) my mother to the series as a girl.  She didn't have them all.  She had 1-3 (which originally were pub...

Watching Them Walk

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I am in NJ today (came back over the weekend for a party...which may be a future post) and had to run to the grocery store.  Since things can get a little crazy at the ShopRite later in the day, I decided to go relatively early in the morning.  (But not too early...although I do miss the days when I was in the store by 6 and out by 6:30).  I only needed a few things (sale items that I no will not be available at the ShopRite in PA when I go back) so I was in and back on the road home before 8.  As a result I saw something I haven't seen in a long time; kids walking to school.   All of a sudden I was filled with emotion and taken back to the days when my son was little.  From pre-school on he was a walker to school.  (Okay, when he got to high school it was less so, but I'll get to that.) As my son is about to wrap us his junior year of college (how the hell did that happen?), I couldn't help but re minisce on those days of the past. Walking w...

The Most Important Court Date EVER...

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 ...Happened 20 years ago today. There are many important dates and steps when adopting a baby/child.  I've forgotten too many of them.  The day in April 2005 that my husband called me (and I didn't answer because even though I had 2 cell phones at the time, I was in a business meeting and could get to neither) telling me that a birth mother was interested in us.  The day in May 2005, when we had our first phone call with our birth mother and spent too much time (at least for the lady at the adoption agency) talking about classic rock, Stephen King novels and Spamalot.  The weekend in June (I believe June 11th and 12th...which would have been my father's birthday weekend) when we drove 4+ hours to meet our birth mother, went out to dinner with her family and then had breakfast with her and the birth father (who was no longer in our birth mother's life.)  A day in June when my husband, mother-in-law and father-in-law went shopping for baby supplies and then ...

National Library Week

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  Last week was National Library Week and I was thinking about the topic all last week, but only got around to doing something about it until after the fact.  Does that make me like an overdue library book? Sometimes I wonder if I should have been a librarian.  I'm an avid reader.  (I think that much is obvious.)  I love books. We have a "library" in our house in PA...it's pretty much floor to ceiling shelves, purchased from Ikea, FILLED with books and the room's closet is filled with books.  In the living room I have two Barrister bookcases that house my beloved Nancy Drews as well as additional books from my youth.  I am still upset that I lost many of my favorite young adult books to basement mold and dampness.   I can remember books that I took out from my elementary school library (I was particularly fond of  No Flying in the House  by Betty Brock), as well as middle school (I took out Betty Greene's   Morning Is a Lo...