Almost Heaven, West Virginia

Several years ago my cousin's young son asked if he could marry me. I told him he couldn't because we were family and you could only marry your family member if you lived in West Virginia. A few minutes later when John's dad came into the room I overheard him asking his dad if they could move to West Virginia.

West Virginia, I'm sorry I made jokes about you especially since I had never visited your lovely state. Actually while I can now say I've slept in your state for a couple nights, I still don't feel like I know you that well,see you just happened to be a central location for 4 friends coming from NY, VA, SC and MI. And while I still don't know you that well I did appreciate your hospitality. My friends and I had an amazing weekend together.

We stayed in your state's capital and while I seem to recall seeing the gold dome of your capital building as I drove into town, the remainder of our time was spent in a hotel room and then in a hotel lobby and then in a local cafe chatting, laughing and reminiscing with friends.



The four of us have not all been together for about 9 years, some of us have seen each other for short visits from time to time but for the 4 of us to be together for a weekend, I can only describe this feeling of complete contentment. I am inspired by my friends creativity, their love for their families and their passion for their friends and their faith. The only way this weekend could have been better is if we didn't require sleep, I know each of us wanted to eek out as many hours together as possible.

When we did venture of of the hotel we did find the coolest little bookstore, which included tin ceilings and exposed brick. While it was small it included all the best books you would ever want to read, each title that my friends and I came up with we were able to find. Along with some amazing greeting cards, I could have bought about 12 of them, but I settled on two. We all hope to return their next year for a book signing when our friend Eileen's book comes out.



And then as if God was smiling on us, across from the bookstore was the sweetest little cafe that had the best sundae I have ever had, a pumpkin sundae. Pumpkin ice cream, caramel, chocolate chunks, nuts and whip cream. The only thing sweeter than the ice cream was this precious time I was able to spend with my dear friends.

As I ventured home from this weekend, I kept thinking of things I forgot to share or to ask and was wishing the weekend could have lasted just a little longer. I'm already looking forward to next year and what I hope will be a new tradition in each of our lives.

The one where I brag about my niece

My niece Q. is one of my most favorite people on the planet. She lives an hour from here so I do not get to see her very often, but today she and my brother decided to come by for dinner and to celebrate his birthday. It's been over a month since I've seen her and during that time, she has started Pre-K. Not pre-school she informed me Pre-K, apparently there is a difference? She also had her hair cut and is sporting bangs, "Like you aunt Mary."

I was talking to my mom on the phone a couple weeks ago, Q was visiting them and my mom asked her if she wanted to talk to me on the phone. She took the phone and I began asking her questions. Silence. I asked her something else, nothing. Finally my mom took the phone back "Mary did you hang up?" "No, I'm here." "Q why aren't you talking to Mary?" my mom asked. "I was playing the silent game." Nice.

Q knows that I am a career counselor, and she likes to inform me from time to time of her plans for when she grows up. Her latest occupational dreams? Ballerina, Baker, Sharp Shooter. Yes, that's right Sharp Shooter.

Mixing It Up!

My friend Beka is on a 3 month road trip, volunteering her time at various farms throughout the country. She's blogging about here experiences here http://mygreenorchard.wordpress.com/ you should read her blog.

Beka has done many blog entries about "Mixing it up" you know trying something new and different to get out of that rut we tend to find ourselves in. I was thinking about Beka today for many reasons one because it just so happens her favorite football team and my favorite football team were playing against other today, and no surprise but her team CRUSHED my team. And secondly because today I decided to mix things up a bit.

Now my six faithful blog readers may want to sit down for what I am about to say will shock you. Ready? Today I baked. Yes that's right I baked, and along with baking I also cooked. I'm sensing some shouting and the words What? Are you kidding me coming from a particular friend I have living down south. Yeah, you know who you are. Okay now I'm not exactly sure if you all consider browning ground beef for taco salad cooking but here in my house, well that's about as close to cooking as I get.

Now let's get on to the baking. First of all it's been rather fall like around here and I've been craving apple crisp. This morning I decided I would make apple crisp, so here I am mixing it up. But let me take this even one step further. I live in NY State, the number 2 producer of apples in the United States, yet I am not a fan of her apples. My favorite apple by far is produced in Washington State, the Granny Smith apple. There is nothing like it. But today I decided perhaps I have been to harsh regarding my states apples surely there is something comparable to the Granny Smith? So I mixed it up, wandered the produce section of Wegmans as I read the descriptions of the various apples. Now my first hang up with NYS apples is that most of them are red. For some reason I like my apples to be green. I finally settled on the Paula red. It promised to be tart (Very Important) and crisp (also important) no one likes a mealy apple.

So this afternoon, I peeled my apples, and gave Ms. Paula Red her shot at winning my favor. And the result? Well Paula, I'm sorry but you just don't measure up to my granny, but you were still good and so was the apple crisp.

For those of you who are NYS apple lovers I'm curious to hear from you what your favorite apple is. I'm willing to give others a try.

Confession Time - I own pink crocs.

Two years ago at Christmas, my younger brother Matt gave me a pair of pink crocs. I was surprised by this very strange gift. Matt is what I would call a snob (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). He's a golf professional, who cares more about the way he looks than anyone else I have ever met. He works out, he is very careful about what he eats, he buys designer clothes and grooming products. He is what some would call a metro sexual, although I'm not sure many people use that terminology any more. So I was a bit confused as to why he would give me such an ugly pair of shoes. "These are great" he exclaimed "we got them in the pro shop awhile back and you would not believe how comfortable they are." He then acknowledged to us that he had his own pair (not pink) back home. "Careful Matt" my brother Mike warned "don't let too many people know that or they may take away your man card."

At any rate, Matt explained since they were closing the pro shop for the season and they had a lot of crocs left, mostly kid sizes (did I mention I have ridiculously small feet) he thought he'd grab me a pair. This same Christmas season, my 11 year old cousin was sporting her brand new Coach boots. She promised I could have them when she outgrew them, since at age 11 she and I had the same foot size. I'm not sure I'm cool enough to wear Coach boots though.

So for about 18 months these crocs sat in my shoe cupboard. Another sad fact about me, I keep all my shoes in a bottom kitchen cupboard by the door where I immediately kick them off as soon as I enter the house. Finally this summer I pulled them out and thought they would be good to use as garden shoes, if they got muddy I could just hose them down. I'm afraid to admit this, these are the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned, why haven't I worn them before? Uh because they are pink and they are ugly. This morning I wore my crocs to work, well actually I walked out of the house and then got in the car realizing what I had on my feet. I ran back in and put on my not so comfortable black loafers.

The blog about nothing

Seinfeld is probably one of my favorite sitcoms it aired for 9 seasons, it was called the show about nothing. It still airs on various cable stations as well as on Fox at 11:00 pm on week nights. It is one of the reasons I am usually tired when my alarm goes off in the morning. It doesn't help that my second favorite sitcom Friends airs after Seinfeld.

Last week The Father's House a mega church here in the area had its "Service about nothing" I don't attend The Father's House but I was able to catch their late service online, and their service about nothing, was actually a very powerful, worshipful service.

I thought today I would write a blog about nothing. I'm still new to this blogging thing and quite frankly I'm not sure if I am very good at it. I find myself blogging a lot at night when I'm tired and then if I look at my blog the next day I find all sorts of errors that I have made. So I'm writing a blog about nothing that is hopefully error free. How did I do?

I Like Doughnuts on Sunday

I like doughnuts on Sunday; I blame my aunt (and of course my lack of self control). Growing up my aunt would often take my brothers, cousins and I to what we affectionately called the doughnut mass. Really it was just Sunday mass at Canisius College followed by doughnuts, and refreshments in a large hall. There really is only one doughnut that I truly like the ones with white cream and chocolate icing. Not to be confused with Bavarian cream which quite frankly reminds me of phlegm. .

There is a Tim Horton's located between my church and my home so it is a very tempting for me when I have my Sunday craving. Now I will say that Tim's probably would not be my first choice however it is convenient. Tim Horton was actually a hockey player who played for both the Toronto Maple Leafs and my favorite team the Buffalo Sabres. Unfortunately Tim died tragically in a horrific car accident, I think it was poor choice for them to name their doughnut holes Tim Bits considering the way he was killed.

A small coffee and a doughnut at Tim's cost $2.09. I typically hand the cashier $2.10, and he or she then hands me my order and then I wait. Typically after a few awkward seconds the cashier says "oh did you want your penny?" Umm, yes I'd like my penny, it is after all still my money and when did it become okay for businesses to assume that you really don't want your change, even if it is only a penny. I have an old glass bottle just inside my kitchen door. I dump my spare change in the bottle on a pretty regular basis. Spare change adds up quickly, I probably cash my change in 4 times a year and typically end up having between $65 and $85. That is a lot of pennies, of course I realize it would be a lot more if I didn't spend that $2.09.

Stream of Consciousness

I was actually dreading the start of a new semester and if I am being a 100% honest (which I do try to be) I was really, really dreading teaching my freshmen course this fall. The main reason for that is last fall when I taught the class the group dynamics were absolutely terrible, the students didn't seem to click with each other and quite frankly I felt several of them were not academically ready for college work. It was a very long semester for me and when it was over I didn't care if I never taught this class again. Fast forward 12 months, here I am teaching the same class and I after only 2 days I am absolutely flabbergasted by the difference between the two groups. During this past Thursday's class one student raised her hand and said "this is so embarrassing, but I really have to use the rest room but this discussion we are all having is so great I don't want to miss any of it can we pause for two minutes?" WHAT? I literally laughed out loud and was happy to grant her request.

Today I went to the mall, I hate the mall but I needed some new bras, this was not a task I was overly excited about. Apparently 80% of woman are wearing the wrong bra size and I believe now that I am probably one of them. I tried on multiple bras in what I thought was my size but they all felt wrong. So after about a 35 minutes I gave up on the bra buying business and instead bought myself some new yoga pants, a long sleeve t-shirt and a new blouse for work.

I was going to spend a good part of my day today getting my note cards ready to sell at our homecoming bazaar in a couple weeks, instead I've done three loads of laundry and baked chocolate chip cookies. Oh yeah and I still need some new bras.