Thursday - A Guest Post!

A fellow blogger recently contacted me and asked if I had any guest-posting opportunities available.

Since I had never had a guest post on before, my only thought was, hey, if it'll relieve the pressure of having to come up with another scintillating post about colt castrations or egg-bound hens or my plans for managing another stay-at-home-Mom-of-six-kids-scheduling-week-from-hell, well then sure. Sounds like a plan to me.

What do you write about, says I?

Many things, as it turns out. Like:

New York City Real Estate
Doesn't quite apply to this l'il ol' country-bumpkin blog of mine.

Hamptons Rentals
Ditto.

home improvement and the latest architecture
All fascinating topics, to be sure, but in a Venn diagram with my blog? Zero overlap.

design, fashion and travel
Design? Fashion?
As we speak, I am wearing oversized grey sweatpants, a men's quilt-lining flannel shirt b/c I'm chilly and it's cozy, and a plain black t-shirt, adorned only with some stray dog and cat hairs, and a few splashes of the smoothies I made the kids this morning. And slippers. Brown.

But travel, hmmmmm.
Not that I travel much, but you know sometimes we have friends or family visit from out of town and when I start to notice that slightly crazed, twitchy look about their eyes and a little spittle around the corners of their mouths after being held prisoner in this House of Crazy, I think to myself it would be nice if I could point them in the direction of a daytrip.

THAT'S IT!

So I asked ever-gracious Megan if she couldn't perhaps write up a little travel piece for the Lancaster area.

And she did.....




Megan Gates is an active blogger who provides written work to the blogosphere pertaining to New York City Real Estate, Hamptons Rentals, home improvement and the latest architecture, design, fashion and travel. Follow her on twitter @MEGatesDesign.


A Guide to Family Adventures in Lancaster, Pennsylvania


Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is a perfect day-trip destination for folks living on the east coast. You may be tempted to stay overnight in one of the many motels in the area to continue exploring the attractions of the Amish countryside.

The Hands-on House in Lancaster, Pa is filled educational and interactive exhibits for young children. They can try face painting, fishing, growing corn and sorting mail in the museum's Post Office. There's an outdoor play area called Mason's Outdoor Adventure Garden that features a sand tunnel, board walks, hiding nooks and sport challenges. This Museum encourages adults and their children to play with the exhibits which are constantly being updated.

Wander through the Butterfly House where over 300 representatives of 25 butterfly species feed on flowers at Lancaster County's Hershey Gardens. Highlights of this 23 acre botanical garden include the rose garden, children's garden and arboretum. The garden was the inspiration of Milton Hershey, who, when asked to build a rosarium in Washington, D.C., decided to locate it instead in Hershey in 1937.

Older kids and their parents will get a kick out of High Sports in Lititz, Pennsylvania. This fun park features go-karts, batting cages, a driving range and miniature golf. There are over 30 waterfalls and plenty of things to see and do in this hilltop park overlooking the Amish countryside.

Take your amateur spelunkers and cavern explorers to Indian Echo Caverns where they'll marvel the intricate and lovely limestone caverns and underground lakes, and pan for gems in Gem Junction. This system of caverns in Hummelstown, PA was first opened to the public in 1929. There's a historical exhibit on the Susquehannock Indians who inhabited the area until the 1670s and the French fur trappers who discovered many caverns in their travels along the local rivers and streams.

Plan to spend several fun and education-filled hours at the Lancaster Science Factory, an interactive museum filled with hands-on engineering, technology and mathematics experiments that show just how much fun the physical sciences can be. There are over 50 exhibits that introduce the principles of electricity, magnetism, acoustics, fluid dynamics and structural engineering.

If you would like to learn more about the history and the lifestyle of the Amish , visiting Lancaster, PA is the perfect place to do this. Take a horse and buggy tour around the Amish country, and then have a family filled day trying all of the home-made treats, and making fun crafts

Whether you're there for the day or a week, you'll enjoy exploring the many attractions and unspoiled countryside that makes Lancaster the perfect get-away destination for many east coast residents.







Thanks, Megan, well-done!

Please take a minute to check her out by following the links in her bio.

But first? First just take a second to click this here l'il brown button to vote for me on TMB. Thank you!

Orbs. Orbs? Orbs!

So a few of my kids and I went on a nighttime walking ghost tour in the wickedly infamous Salem. We were told by the tour guide that we could try to get pictures of orbs.

Orbs? I had heard the word before but never really knew what they were supposed to be. But regardless of our working knowledge of the word, Rosie was snap-snap-snappin' away with my camera at the various "haunted" houses and the ancient graveyard.

Tour over, we headed home and loaded our pictures onto the computer. Rosie proceeded to point out to me the orbs she captured on film.

See that?



I squinted hard and yes, I saw a little smudge by the window of the haunted house.
[In this picture it's the little white mark by the left third floor window]

That's an orb, she explained. It's the energy of a ghost. Or something.

OK. But then in the next picture, which was essentially the same shot, it was not there. Hmmm. Had she cleaned my lens?

She went through a few more and we had fun spotting the spots. It was an entertaining game.

But I have to say, I got totally creeped out when she pulled up the cemetary shot. This graveyard is original to Salem, with many markers dating back to the 1600s.

Although you can't see it all that well when the picture is this small, they were everywhere.
[Click the picture to enlarge it and you can see them better]

When I later looked it up online, the photography experts claim orbs are simply dust particles. Which would explain why there were far more orbs in the graveyard than in the shots of the houses. But (raising hand), why then, were there none in the shots she took in the gardens of one of the homes? Dirt, flowers, pollen, dust galore, but no orbs.

Good ol' Wikipedia says "Orb artifacts are captured during low-light instances where the camera's flash is used, such as at night or underwater – or where a bright light source is near the camera. The orb artifact can result from retroreflection of light off solid particles (e.g., dust, pollen), liquid particles (water droplets, especially rain) or other foreign material within the camera lens.[1]"

But when I checked with the good people over at GhostStudy.com (ie, the first thing I pulled up in a Google search on orbs), I read that, "Orbs are believed (by many) to be ghosts in the form of balls of light. They are life forms that travel in groups and are believed to be the human soul or life force of those that once inhabited a physical body here on earth. It is said that they are those spirits that have willingly stayed behind because they feel bound to their previous life or previous location for whatever reason."

So. Dust particles? Ghost energy? Dirty lens? You be the judge.




As for this brown button here, it is not a smudge on your screen. It is the voting button. Click it to cast a vote for me!

Wordless Wednesday

Me and my gang at Watkins Glen in NY a couple weeks ago. I think the heat was getting to some of us more than others!











Don't forget to vote! (Thanks!)

Wordless Wednesday

Fabulous vacation.
But glad to be home.....
















































Click if you're glad we're home.

File Under: What Were We thinking.

Heading out of the hotel to our next planned attraction, ny husband grabbed me by the arm, turned to me, and said,
"Wait. We're about to take our children to a GLASS MUSEUM?!"

















































































Not one piece broken. Click on the brown button to show your pride!

It's Happened Again....

I've been kidnapped. Again.

I know, right?



This is one of my captors.














Babyface (Buttsky) is long gone. This is their new leader. Cheeks.


















This is the ransom money they have demanded.













I'm scared. They carry bags of body parts around with them.















They blindfolded me and walked me down a damp, dungeon-like corridor.










They throttled me and shook me like a rag-doll and threatened to throw me into the waterfall if they weren't paid soon.











But far below I spied a boat. This was my only chance! Like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive, I did a Peter Pan right off the ledge. I landed on the boat and made my get-away.



For now......





But I'm not out of the woods yet. I keep looking over my shoulder for Cheeks and his gang. Send him the ransom money to help me make a clean get-away, or you may never see me again! If you can't send money, click this brown button instead.

Escaped!

I broke free from my captors!

It was the most horrifying 36 hours of my life but I am free.






By day they were cute, almost innocent looking beachgoing children.
























By night .....

zombies.

















They were quick to let me know they had a shrink ray gun and would not hesitate to use it. They cruelly demonstrated their powers with a national landmark as I watched helplessly.





They showed no mercy as they read through their list of restrictions.















Or when they forced me to eat buckets of toxic gruel.








They tried to keep their identities secret.
But my bottle of sunblock was really a cleverly disguised camera and I took lots of pictures to be used as evidence against them.









This is their ring leader.
You guessed it.
Babyface.








aka Butsby.











Here he is sharing his evil plan with one of his maniacal minions.












But when they learned I was onto them, they tried to run.
Some tried to dig their way to China.









Some tried to swim back into the mist from whence they came.











Babyface tried to flee in his get-away car.















But his minion tossed him out and took the wheel.











It was my turn to laugh maniacally as they fled.

I was free.

FREE!









The End.











Free me from my rank in the 20s. Click on this brown button to help me climb back into the teens!

Mystery Trip

Friday I took the kids on a little "Mystery Trip".

Trying to think if I should smash that into something....
mystripy?
mystertrip?
tripstery?

Nahh. Nothing seems to work.

Anyway, Friday morning they plodded into the car for me to drive them in to school and they all sat slumped against the windows looking forlorn and depressed. But when I got to the school's driveway, instead of turning left into it, I drove straight on past it. They were all like,
"Mom! You missed the school!"

And I'm all like,
"Oh, did I?"

But then they saw my I'm-up-to-no-good grin in the rear-view mirror and knew I had something up my sleeve.

I told them they could play 20 questions to guess where I was taking them, thinking they would never get it, but Patrick guessed before we had gotten five minutes down the road. Spoil-sport.

Anyway, the big surprise was I was taking them to Luray Caverns in northern VA.

And we had a blast.

They were ANGELS the whole drive down.
We played license plate games. We played alphabet games. We played memory games. We picked a movie that everyone agreed on. It was like a 3D Norman Rockwell painting. I was kind of freaked out, truth be told.

We stopped for lunch at Golden Corral (a place I had been to before but they hadn't) and you'd think they died and went to heaven. Neither the kids nor I have very sophisticated palates and we were like pigs in mud for the pancakes and eggs and cinnamon rolls and bacon and all the other delectable brunch items and desserts. We ate till we were sick.

About an hour later my GPS was telling me,
"Arriving at your destination".

We got right in on a tour that was just starting and spent the next hour or so oohing and ahhhing over all the formations and pillars and drop-offs and of course the oh-so-famous Luray Caverns organ.



Very cool.

Then a little gift-shopping, then I sprung for a run through the hedge maze and then it was time to head home.

That's where the fun ended.

A dispute over a water bottle stopped just short of a full-on brawl in the parking lot. Voices were raised and heads were turned and it was UGLY.

Finally got into the car and got everyone settled enough to drive away but at least half of our caravan was in tears (myself included).

But we put a movie in.
Children began to breathe.
Tears began to dry.
People were both focused and dazed and things seemed OK.

For awhile.

Then we got stuck in traffic.

Lots of traffic.

Around Washington.
Around Baltimore.

What should have been a three hour return trip turned into a five hour torture tour.

Mellow dazed children turned into irritable antsy beasts. They had to pee. They picked on each other, sang loudly when others were begging them to stop, and fought over which game we should play, which movie we should watch, which direction eyes should be pointed, which direction air should be exhaled.

If I had access to a fork I would have stabbed myself in the eardrums.

All my tricks were depleted. Nice Mommy made an appearance till Mean Mommy threw her out an open window.

But even Mean Mommy couldn't quite get the beasts under control.

I have never been happier than when I backed my car into my garage at about 9:30 that night and within minutes crawled into my bed and passed out into a dark coma.

On the trip down to VA I began fantasizing about summer road trips, camping trips, maybe we should think about getting an RV.

But before I surrendered to my coma, I thought,
tomorrow I should Google where I can find dynamite or grenades so I can blow my car up.....















If you vote for me, my spirits will be lifted.




car image courtesy Google images clip art
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRxDNptllVc_i67O7kcmG7tmPMUeF0u_idpf73KTMQ10xEXkgLegj7hUUOi6w

I'mmmmm Ba-ack....!

Got home last night from our little road trip.
If you'll recall, I had taken 4 of my kids up north to Massachussets to visit friends. Even with me leaving a couple of the kids at home, there were still 9 kids in the house, all of them teens and 7 of them from adopted from the same region in Kazakhstan.

Pretty cool.

The kids had a great time playing video games, watching movies, riding bikes, playing freeze-tag and musical chairs and going for walks downtown or to the local park. Some of these things my kids, living as we do in the middle of nowhere, usually miss out on.

We also got to be personally escorted around the nearby historical area, Salem. How cool was that?


Learned a lot at the Salem Witch Museum.












Got to meet the Easter Bunny. It was particularly frigid on this day and we were all jealous of his warm suit.












Souvenir shopping. Always fun.














Did a little grave hopping.











Little tiny tombstones.
For little tiny children.
So sad.










I don't know that my soul would be comforted with this image engraved upon my tombstone.










Checking out the "Friendship".












Checking out the friendship.











Who knew a bunch of teenagers could have fun playing musical chairs?








Dee and family, we miss you guys already! Thanks for such a lovely time....






People? I leave town for a few days and you let me fall into the 20's? Very irresponsible of you, very irresponsible. Click the danged button. I hate to nag, but honestly ....