What's it Called if You're the Opposite of a Hoarder?!?

Neat freak? Minamalist??  I think that's the condition I must have because being exposed to too much mess seems to have affected my sanity.

Ugh.  Last  Wednesday DD decided to "clean out her closet".  So for nearly a week now there has been a mess like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion covering her entire bedroom floor.  I did force her to clear a path from her bed to the doorway so at least at night I could make my way in to you know, do mom stuff like fix her blankets and ya know, check to make sure she's breathing and stuff without breaking my neck.

Well tonight while she was "working on her room" I suddenly hear a blood curdling scream of "SPIDER!!!"  I run in there trying to skim over the pile of mess to the area where the spider sighting was, and of course will all that junk all over there was NO WAY on this GREEN EARTH that I was going to be able to find a spider in all that.  Which means I knew that DD was not going to be "cleaning up the mess" with a spider hiding amongst the debris.
  
Keep in mind this happened at about 9pm tonight - my hair was still wet from showering after mowing the lawn this evening so I was already beat.

Well, I pretty much snapped and went mental.  I knew DD was not going to be "cleaning her room" anytime soon unless Mr. Spider decided to show himself - not that there was even enough floor space to smush him, even if he did.  So I spent about a half an hour pushing, shoving and throwing everything back into her closet.  It was much worse than I even imagined.  Under the top layer of folders, magazines and stuffed animals, was a layer of "parts" - parts of everything you can imagine.  Games, puzzles, decks of cards, toys, etc.  PLUS lollipop wrappers, tags from clothes, bubblegum containers and 8 million scraps of paper.  I think I even came across a map to the location of Atlantis, Captain Kidd's treasure, and the Holy Grail.  Not to mention 30 flashlights and I think I even saw a Nespresso machine I vaguley remember from two Christmases ago.

Apparently going ballistic was such an exertion I actually had to take ANOTHER shower after I was done I got so hot and sweaty.  (And if you know me AT ALL being hot and sweaty is enough on it's own to change my personality considerably for the worse.)

After by brute force I got the closet door shut, and took another shower, I was so upset, disgusted and disappointed I went downstairs and left poor DH to solve the missing-spider-how-is-DD-going-to-be-able-to-sleep-in-her-room problem (which somehow he did, I didn't ask how though).  You know what I did downstairs?  I watched Hoarders on A&E.  You'd think that would make me feel worse, but I actually felt better watching these people being forced to clean up.

I'm generally a pretty mild mannered person, but a big, disorganized heap of mess in my own house is like taking one of the pieces out of the bottom of my Jenga stack - it just tips me right off balance.  I am sitting here typing this sipping a tiny glass of Sambuca - for medicinal purposes of course - so I can calm down and fall asleep in a little while.  Funny, other people's mess don't bother me in the slightest bit.  Not one bit.  But I can only handle so much mess in my own house and this just went right over the top and headed to Mars.  I hope you all don't think I'm completely insane.

Vent over.

The end.

Wearing out our Sneakers at the Dutchess County Fair

  
Interrupting my vacation posts to tell you we have been putting in our time at the best county fair ever, the Dutchess County Fair.  We love, love, love the fair.  There is SO much to see and do we literally spend a few 10 hour days there.  This year because DD is in 4H we have been up to the fair even more than usual, in fact we have been up there twice this week before the fair even opened in the morning.  Speaking of DD, I have to do a little Mommy brag and tell you she snagged a second place ribbon for her craft entry in the Dutchess County Fair, and she scored two blue ribbons (excellent) and two red ribbons (good) for her 4H entries.

If you click the link above, you can see the brochure and all that our fair offers, but here are just some of the things we've done and seen this year - so far:

  
Cabela's Dock Dogs competition (dogs jump into water and compete for distance)
Antique Schoolhouse
4H exhibits
Cow milking exhibit
Poultry, rabbit, livestock, horse, goat, sheep and pig barns
High diving
Carnival rides
Four exhibit halls where they sell everything from new roofs to westernwear to bee pollen products to motorcycle jacks (we watched demos for the "Sweepa", a steam mop, "Perma Seal" car wax, Cutco knives, Shamwow and Health Craft cookware)
Three craft buildings
Cider mill and sugaring house
Wildlife animal exhibit
Petting Zoo
Frisbee Dogs
Dutchess County Fair entrant's exhibits
Loads of craft/merchandise tents and booths
Loads and LOADS of food vendors
Antique Machinery
Horticulture building
Agriculture building where they even have cows scheduled to give birth during the fair
Landscapers display
Antique Museum barn
...and probably way more that I'm forgetting.  There are also some amazing headliners in the grandstands this year - BlackHawk, Jason Aldean, Josh Turner, Gary Allan, Air Supply, Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin, Julianne Hough and Championship Bull Riding

  
Though we've seen and done most everything we've wanted to, we still have YET to see Rosaire's Racing pigs, which is not to be missed.  I also had the great fun of meeting someone I met on Twitter - @oblongirl - who was at the booth for the bookstore she works at, Oblong Books in Millerton and Rhinebeck, NY.  I bought a really fascinating book on the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, which in case you haven't heard, is being opened as a walkway this fall amongst much fanfare.  The bridge is so full of interesting history, I could hardly put the book down to write this post.  It's "Bridging the Hudson - The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge and It's Connecting Rail Lines" by Carleton Mabee.  It's obviously available at the Oblong Books booth or their shop, but elsewhere as well.  If you know any railroad enthusiasts, or you have any interest in the area or the upcoming opening of the "Walkway Across the Hudson", I highly recommend this book.

Not to ramble on overly long, but a highlight of the fair is the food.  However, there are so many choices, just picking something to eat can be overwhelming.  And VERY expensive.  We've brought lunch each day to save some money.  However, so far I've had pierogies, a famous 4H shake (strawberry), a gyro, a cinnamon bun from the Cinnamon Saloon, Bavarian peanuts AND almonds, and a Peanut Budder Blackout Bar from Taste Budds at the Fair. All excellent.  My mother in law keeps telling me I should try the deep fried oreos, but I'm scared.  Eh, who knows, maybe before the fair is over I'll go for it.

Do they have any over the top foods at your fair?  What's your favorite fair food?

The end.
 

The Beach at Assateague, Virginia

 

  

So after seeing the wild ponies, going to the beach is probably the next "must do" activity, so we did!  As you can see, it's a beautiful beach.  The waves were great and the water temperature was much warmer than I'm used to here in the northeast.  This beach is part of the Assateague National Park.  There was a little visitors center with some nice exhibits.  

   

The beach was not only great for swimming, but it was good for flying kites, too...

  

 

  

Something that was very noticeable to me was the absence of commercialism at the beach.  No snack bar, no restaurants, arcades - nothing.  Just beach as far as the eye could see in either direction.  It was really nice!  Another thing that was very notable was that on Chincoteague (which is the island neighboring Assateague), there were a lot of areas that had mobile homes/manufactured homes/trailers.  Certainly nothing wrong with that whatsoever, it's just that anywhere else I've ever been, once you get even remotely near the ocean, the real estate prices shoot up astronomically.  I was surprised there was such affordable housing so close to the ocean.

  
Anyway, we visited the beach a few times the week we were there.  Both DH and I lost our sunglasses in the ocean. :-(  Luckily they weren't prescription sunglasses or anything.  That was sad.  I'm sure other people lose sunglasses in the ocean too, but where do they go?  Is there a beach in the world somewhere that all the sunglasses wash up on?
 

 Most of my peeps waitin' for the next wave.

   
So after seeing the ponies and visiting the beach, which were the main things to do in Chincoteague/Assateague, we had to get a little creative to find things to do.  That's how Moo Cow ended up going to space, but I'll tell you about that another day. :-)
 
The end.
 
P.S.  Please excuse my shout out to my Syracuse friends who I hear read my blog - a big "Hi" to my best friend M, her DH G, and her kids who are awesome ---> B, C, S and Z!  Love you guys! :-)

 

The Wild Ponies of Assateague

So to continue my vacation tale, the major attraction of the Chincoteague/Assateague Island, Virginia area is to see the "wild ponies".  Maybe as a kid you read the book "Misty of Chincoteague"?  Remember that?

From the Assateague National Seashore Website:
Assateague wild ponies have roamed the beaches, pine forest, and salt marsh of Assateague Island since the 1600's. Assateague Island National Seashore has a combined total of over 300 wild ponies in Maryland and Virginia. Some people believe the horses arrived on Assateague's shores when a Spanish galleon ship (with a cargo of horses) sank offshore. Others believe the horses arrived by early colonial settlers that allowed them to graze there. A Spanish ship wreck was discovered recently in the waters off Assateague which lends credit to the first theory.
  
One of the biggest highlights of the summer is the "Pony Swim".  The volunteer fire company of Chincoteague rounds up the ponies and swims them across the channel from Assateague to Chincoteague.  In conjunction with their annual carnival, most foals are auctioned off to raise money for the fire dept., the herd is then allowed to swim back across to Assateague.  Not only does it help by raising money for the fire company, but it also controls the population of the pony herd, which is important because the area in which they live can only support so many ponies anyway.

Now that I've told you all about the pony swim, let me just say we were not there at the right time for that event (we were a week too early), however we DID see the ponies.  There are many tour boat companies that offer trips to the shoreline of Assateague to see the ponies.  (There is also plenty of other abundant wildlife to see in that area as well like bald eagles - Assateauge is a huge wildlife refuge and they also have a wonderful huge sandy beach for swimming as well.)

So on one of the first days of our vacation, my family, my father, BIL, SIL and niece decided we should take a boat trip to see the ponies.  I slathered on the sunscreen and the wrinkle creams with SPF, and grabbed my sunglasses for our trip.  It was a somewhat small boat which was nice because we could get quite close to shore and the ponies:

 

  

 

  

Shot of the Assateague Lighthouse which we visited another day:

  

Some wildlife and that's a duck blind - apparently duck hunting is very popular, but I believe that is in the fall:

 

    

Of course these photos don't really capture how beautiful it really was, but, well, you get the idea. :-D

  

The end.

 

   

Bed Bugs

Speaking of beds (in my last post I was questioning why very high beds that you need a mini staircase to get into are popular), something I didn't even think of when we arrived at our rental house was bed bugs!  And no - we didn't have any bed bugs - but apparently they are still a major problem especially for hotels, and for all I knew we could have had them at the rental house - I didn't even think to check!
 
Which would have been difficult because I don't actually even know what a bed bug looks like.  So I looked it up - here's what they look like...GROSS huh??  Bleechh!
 

  

According to the Orkin website:  "Bed bugs are flat, reddish-brown, oval insects about 3/16-inch long or the size of an apple seed. Swollen and reddish after a blood meal."

 
Apparently they can be in pillows, mattress covers, carpets - even in "clutter"!  And get this - here's a lovely clue ya might have bed bugs:  "Their excrement leaves black stains on mattresses and linens and bloodstains may be visible where bedbugs have been accidentally crushed."
  
I guess if there's any good news, you can actually call a pest control company like Orkin to help you get rid of your infestation.  We tend to generally try to be "do it yourself-type-people" when we can, but sometimes it's important to realize when it's time to call the professionals.  In our last house that we owned we had carpenter ants pretty bad at one point, and after trying traps and spraying ourselves we had exterminators come in.  They actually located the nest (in our kitchen wall, EWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!), drilled little holes, sprayed carpenter-ant-killer in there and boy did that take care of the problem.  Money well spent for a pro!
    
Well, again, luckily bed bugs were not a problem for us on our vacation, but it's something to definitely keep in mind as you travel this summer because unfortunately "Bedbugs are commonly transported within luggage, allowing them to spread anywhere humans settle."  So be warned - if you have mysteries bites on your legs and feet in the morning and notice "black stains" from bed bug poo, you might have bed bugs!   Yick!!
 
The end.
 

Our Rented House in Chincoteague, Virginia

 

  

After just barely making the ferry (see last post) and then applying some of my best wrinkle creams and plucking all the new gray hairs I had - I think I must have aged 20 years from that heart pounding adventure, we finally made our way around 3 o'clock to the house we were sharing with my Dad, brother, sister-in-law and niece for a week.  We found it through cyberrentals.com, and this is I think the third time we used that site (in previous years we've rented houses in Cape Cod, MA and Ogunquit, ME - if you're really bored you can search my archives for our Ogunquit vacation - I blogged all about it last year). We were pretty wowed by it - it was as nice as it looked in the pictures on the website, and it was like 5,000 sq feet, or something ridiculous like that.  Which is enormous on the one hand, but on the other hand, when you're doing a "family vacation", extra space to have some alone time is not a bad thing either. :-)  

  

Here is the back of the house - there was a canal in the back that is hard to see, but since we didn't have a boat, we didn't take advantage of it:

  

  

Here was the kitchen - would you believe there were TWO dishwashers??:

 

 

Here is a shot of the deck:

 

 

  

The view from the deck:

  

 
Wow, we felt like we were living the high life all week in that luxurious house!  It was apparently designed to be a vacation rental house.  We read the little guest book and someone even had a small wedding there, which I thought was pretty neat.  It was very quiet there too, not close to the main road or anything so it was very relaxing.
 

The room DH and I had had one of those "high beds" - the kind where there's a little "staircase" to get onto it (which is hard to see in the photo, but it's there on the right), which was kind of fun, but weird.  Why would someone want a bed that was so tall you have to climb stairs to get into it though?  I know it's not uncommon, the "high beds"...I just wonder....why?  After sleeping in it for a whole week I still do not know the answer to that question, but it was kinda fun anyway.
 
Coming soon - Moo Cow goes to space, and the wild ponies of Assateague....
 
The end.
  
 

Racing to Make the Ferry

So FINALLY, I am getting around to posting about our vacation to Chincoteague, Virginia.

We left on a Sunday morning. Early on a Sunday morning.  Early for two reasons. #1 - we had to stop and geocache along the way (see my other blog So You Wanna Go Geocaching if you don't know what geocaching is), AND we wanedt to get on the 10:15 Cape May (New Jersey) to Lewes (Delaware) ferry because if we missed it, we'd have to wait around for an hour, and thusly, we'd lose an hour of travel time.  (This ferry carries vehicles btw.)

DH had printed out many geocaches to find on the way down. If you read my other blog, you know it is our goal to find 365 geocaches this year, which would then bring us to our ONE THOUSANDTH find!  So, of course you understand that we could not waste opportunities to grab geocaches if we were to attain this goal.  So therefore it was only natural that we decided to leave at 5:30am the morning of our trip, to leave time for geocaching before the ferry.

(Can I say at this point that I was talking to someone recently and we decided that if you are crazy, but you know it, it's not nearly as bad as being crazy and NOT knowing it.  So just so you know, yes, we KNOW we are crazy.)

So we rolled along that morning, stopping and getting our "cache n dashes", and time was passing, and about 9:00 or so we started doing the math and realized that, "Hey, we better get moving if we're going to make that ferry....!"  So we abandoned the rest of the geocaches that we had and made a bee line for the ferry.  As the minutes ticked by we realized, wow, we'd REALLY better start making good time or we're not going to make the ferry!  DH started to weave in and out of traffic, as I began clenching the seat.  More minutes went by.  Now we started praying...because we were CUTTING IT CLOSE!   As we were getting near the port we hit a traffic circle - we frantically scanned the signs to figure out which way to go - "The Rotary Club Welcomes You", "Beaches", "moving companies San Francisco", "Eat at Joe's", Keep Off the Grass", "CAPE MAY - LEWES FERRY" - "There it is!" I shouted!  Finally, finally we reached the ticket booth for the ferry with only a minute or two to spare, but the line was moving SO SLOW!  I kept watching the guy who was waving on the cars after they paid the fare and I kept waiting and watching - when was he going to stop letting cars through??  Finally we got to the ticket booth. "Come on lady, come on lady!!!!" was screaming in my brain!  Finally she gave DH the ticket and said, "The ferry leaves at 10:15, have a nice trip."  It was 10:16 at that point.  I held my breath as I looked up at the "guy" - would he wave us on...?

YES!  WE MADE IT!  Whew!!!  And actually 8 more cars made it after us.  Here's a shot of my truck almost on the very back of the ferry!

  
Here's a shot as we were pulling away from the dock:

 

  

A shot looking up at the ferry from our truck:

   

 
The ferry was much nicer than I thought it would be.  Once we parked we climbed a staircase and the rest of the ship was like other "tour" type ships I've been on.  They had lots of seats inside and out, a gift shop and a snack bar.  The ferry ride was 80 minutes and it was quite enjoyable!  A very nice way to break up a long trip.  And since we didn't miss the ferry, we were right on schedule!

WHEW!!

More soon!

The end.
 

My First Guest Posting Gig and, What the Heck is a Podcast, Anyway?

I've mentioned before that I'm a nerd and that I rarely listen to music on my iPod - I listen to podcasts instead.  And I get asked a lot, "What is a podcast?"  Well, most podcasts are kind of like a talk radio show that you can download to your iPod or computer to listen to at your leisure.  There are podcasts on every subject you could possibly imagine - from NASCAR to the show LOST to bible study to learning a foreign language to CNN headlines to Discovery Channel shows to comedy - you name it.  There's a whole podcast section on iTunes, you should check it out.  Many podcasts are even free.
 
Two of my most favorite podcasts are put out by GSPN.tv - "Pursuing a Balanced Life" (which is basically an audio diary of the guy who runs GSPN.tv) and "The Weekly Lost Podcast".  I enjoy a lot of the other podcasts they produce as well, but those two are my faves. 
 
Anyway, I have my first guest posting gig there - if you have a minute, check it out ---> GSPN.tv.  And if you're interested in trying out a podcast or two, the GSPN.tv podcasts are a great place to start, and they're all family friendly.  Besides the two podcasts I mentioned, there are a bunch more like "Full Time Mom", "Help, iGot a Mac", "Family From the Heart" and more.  You can find them here, or you can search for GSPN on iTunes and subscribe that way.
 
If you're already hooked on podcasts like me and have any that you love, please share them with me - I'm always on the lookout for good stuff to listen to!
 
The end.
 

When "I'm Sorry" Isn't Enough...

I was browsing the jewelry at bellatrue.com yesterday and they have this section called "Tips for Guys" - I blogged about this once before when I was looking for an anniversary ring, but now they have a new picture and it's priceless.  If your guy looks like one of these guys, then the "Tips for Guys" section is definitely for him!

 

  "We're men! We eat pizza and drink beer - we don't know nothin' about jewelry!"

   

They still have my old favorite too - this guy screwed up big time and isn't sure how to fix it:

  

  

  

Well, if your man is ever in the doghouse and "I'm Sorry" isn't quite enough, send him over to that "Tips for Guys" section.  If you're the kind of gal who appreciates a nice piece of jewelry to smooth things over, that site will even help him determine what to get you depending on how bad his boo boo was.

  

How about some "Sorry I was a Jerk" earrings like this? Nice, huh?

  

   

Those earrings would make me personally forget quite a bit of jerkiness.  :-D

   

The end.

  

Winner of my Eco Store USA Giveaway!

DD drew the name for my Eco Store USA giveaway and the winner is:
 

Princess Flufferbutt

  
who also has a blog, which I read while trying to figure out how to contact her and it's a HOOT! Her latest posts are about her trip to NYC and she went to ALL the fun spots - Times Square, shops like Sephora & Macys, cupcake shops, Chinatown, Little Italy, restaurants like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse - lots of pics and fun commentary, you can totally visit NYC vicariously through her - a great blog to add to your reading list - I added it to mine.  Princess Flufferbutt
 
Even if you didn't win, don't forget they still have free shipping on orders over $25 and when I went to the website to double check and make sure that offer was still valid, I see that they have a NEW offer in addition to the free shipping on orders over $25 - get this ---> Back to School Eco Sale of the Season - Buy $50 of product and we'll match your order - buy one get one free - buy two and get four - enter 2for1 in the discount code field at the checkout.  I don't know how long the sale will be good for, but WOW!  That is a GREAT sale!
 
Thanks again to everyone who entered and congrats to Princess Flufferbutt! :-D
 
The end.
  

Weekend Recap

 

(I know I still gotta post about our vacation to Chincoteague - I will, I will, I promise! This is a shot of our seafood loving DD smashing Maryland crab claws with a hammer. Which she loved. I mean, when else are you allowed to pound your food with a hammer at the table??)

 
I just wanted to pop in and say first of all, I hope to draw the name for the Eco Store USA winner tonight, so watch your mailbox in case you're the winner.  Also, here is what I've been up to the last couple of days, because I'm sure you are just dying to know what is going on in my totally fascinating life, ha ha!

On Friday I had a meeting to go to at our library (yes folks, this is edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff here!) and I had no sitter for DD, so DD came along and helped the children's librarian with storytime, which worked out great.  Then that afternoon when we got home, DH asked us to replace one of our geocaches that had been "muggled" (found by non-geocachers and taken) that is in a park, figuring DD would enjoy the trip.  Well, halfway up it started raining (like nearly every other day this summer).  By the time we were heading back it had turned into torrential rain and we were happy to get back home before being swept away by flash floods.  That evening I had another library meeting, and then afterwards I was invited to a friend's house who just happens to have a Tiki Bar in their backyard for some snacks and drinks.  Looks like it floated right over from Gilligan's Island, I swear.

Saturday I went to all all day scrapbooking crop which ROCKED!!!  That was GREAT.  All day, out of the house, working on my scrapbook and chatting with the ladies.  It's like therapy, I SWEAR.  Got a LOT done.  Got home, DH BBQ'd steak on the grill with baked potatoes and broccoli.  Then a rare treat - we went to the corner ice cream place and got ice cream for dessert.  I got coffee ice cream (which I hardly ever get - I usually get some peanut butter or peanut butter cup type flavor) in a waffle cone.  Which I don't usually get either.  I like sugar cones.  I don't really like wafer cones - I don't like the "grid" thing at the bottom of wafer cones.

Sunday we went back to the beer brewing place to bottle and cap all the beer we had made three weeks ago.  I personally had never done the bottling part, though DH and my Dad had.  I didn't like that part as much as the "brewing" but the good part about bottling is you get to "sample" the beer you've made - for "quality control" purposes of course. :-D

Today was grocery shopping day.  I go every Monday with my Dad.  Before grocery shopping I went to the nail salon to get my nails filled plus I had BROKEN TWO NAILS that needed to be fixed.  I NEVER break these acrylic nails, yet somehow I broke TWO.  I was somewhat traumatized not only by the pain of breaking two of them, but the WORST part is you have to remove the remaining acrylic nail so they can glue a new one on, and the feeling of prying that off is....ugh! It actually nauseates me.  I'd rather hunt down a Tacoma car accident lawyer.  I'd rather do just about anything than pry off acrylic nails.  I know, I know - supposedly you are supposed to soak them in nail polish remover to "loosen" them.  I've tried that in the past and I don't know how long you have to soak those things to get them to loosen, but after an hour and they didn't seem ANY looser, I decided I had better things to do with my life than sitting with my fingers in bowls of nail polish remover. I remember a few years ago DH lost his job so I decided to remove my acrylic nails to save money.  Trust me, you do NOT want to pry off 10 acrylic nails. No, just noooooooooooooooo!

So those are my lame excuses as to why I haven't updated this blog with anything more interesting.  And yes, I realize that in the time it took me to type all of this, I could have actually posted something more interesting.  :-D

The end.