Category Archives: Travel and Destinations

Itchy feet

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I received some luggage as a gift from my hubby. He asked his sister to help him find a good deal on luggage and she told him to look into buying Tumi Luggage. To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of Tumi Luggage before, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

The biggest point of the gift, however, was the fact that inside the luggage was a travel brochure to Orlando, along with a couple of fake airplane tickets. I have to say that they were fake because he didn’t dare book a real trip without checking with me to see when I would be available to go on vacation with him. And we have to make arrangements for someone to look after his customers and our pets, and our gardens while we are gone. Anyway, it was a nice surprise, and now we need to buckle down and figure out the dates and work out the logistics of it all!

On The Move

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People just don’t stay in one place anymore

The world is getting smaller every day it seems. The friends that I grew up with have all scattered around the globe. I am so glad that we have email and texting to keep in touch! I miss them all very much and love to hear from them and hear how they are doing, how their families are, who they are working for (or who is working for them!) and how life is treating them in general. Pictures are always a plus.

I do find myself nostalgic from time to time, wishing that we all still lived close together. I miss the great times we had together, the parties we had, the great group dates we went on. Oh dear, I’m depressing myself!

And don’t even get me started on all the wonderful things that Facebook and the other social networking sites. You won’t catch me anywhere near all that drama that is responsible for ruining so many relationships in so many ways and on so many levels. Thanks but no thanks, real life is difficult enough to handle just the way it is without everyone, everywhere knowing your business and everyone elses.

 

A retirement plan to move to Orchid Island Golf and Beach Club

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It is most interesting to me that my aunt and uncle are looking into retiring and heading south in the next few years and are seriously considering Orchid Island Golf and Beach Club at Vero Beach’s in Florida as their final landing spot. You see my aunt and uncle have been very vocal over the years about various friends and family relocating to gated communities all across the country. My uncle’s main grip is that he feels that residents get a false sense of security while living behind the gates and or walls that keep the properties in the community protected.

My uncle comes from the “old school” brimming over with Irish blood this one is. Most of us have all learned that it is pointless to argue with him and the older he gets the more stubborn and argumentative he becomes. Of course there are some folks that seem to enjoy just egging him on and thoroughly enjoy a good debate now and then. Myself, I tend to just kick back and be a good listener, while keeping a smile on my face, my chin up and looking him straight in the eye.

It will be so different once they really do relocate. They have lived in that same house since they were married and I can’t imagine anyone else living in there as well as not seeing them on all the family get-togethers throughout the year.  Although these get together will be a lot more on the mellow side than in the past without my Irish uncle around to stir things up.

Island Properties Bahamas rentals

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When Jim introduced me to his new girl-friend Brianna I had to admit that even though I didn’t want to like her, she really is a very sweet and smart young lady. After all, if Jim likes a young lady well enough to be dating her and calling her “my girlfriend”, then chances are pretty good that there are some pretty special qualities in her!

I first met her over lunch at a local restaurant, near Jim’s apartment. I arrived there before them, and was seated at a table in such a way that I would be able to see them when they walked into the door. I felt a sharp pang of loss/jealousy when I saw them walking towards me, holding hands and smiling. A young couple in love. The wedding song about how a man leaves his mother leapt into my brain and stayed there like an ear worm from Hades.

I stood up to greet them, and wrapped my arms around both of them at once, encircling them into a group hug, and kissed them both on their cheeks. Then Jim said “Mom, I’d like to you meet my girl-friend, Brianna.” Then he explained that Brianna was the reason that he was not my Valentine anymore on February 14th. I jokingly scolded him that a son is ALWAYS his mother’s Valentine, and there was nothing he could do to stop that! We all laughed, and sat down at the table, alternating between conversation and looking at the menu.

I tried not to be too overbearing with the visit, not wanting to sound like I was interrogating a prisoner of war, but I did have a natural curiosity about where she came from originally. I was quite surprised when she told me that she was from the Bahamas. I asked her how it happened that she ended up over here in the US Mainland, and she told me that her parents were in the Island Properties Bahamas rental business and that they had managed to pay for her tuition to come to the US Mainland to go to college.

Then she was telling me about how small her school back home was and how she managed to get several scholarships and grants to come over here to go to school. I was really quite impressed with the whole story!

Tie Dye Fashions and Bongos For Sale

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At the latest monthly meeting for the civic organization that I belong to, much of the talk was about the yearly “Yard Sale” that has given them such trouble in the past with making any profit from. Since I am still pretty much a new member of this wonderful organization I seem to always be raising my hand with questions, ideas, concerns, thoughts and suggestions, which I think a lot of the older members grow tiresome of my intrusions of their time each month. But that was the whole idea of me joining this community organization, which was to bring some much needed new blood and there is no holding me back!

The “Yard Sale” is going to be held on the Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend. We are going to try some different advertising, as well as some new vendors with some colorful and unique items to have displayed out front outside. I have convinced the Milky Way Tie Dye Store to set up there and they certainly have a great selection of bright colors that I think will attract a ton of people that would normally just drive on by. I am thinking of putting a sign with bongos for sale, with my old set of bongos that if some body really wants could take it home for a few bucks. Tie Dye and Bongos. I think it’s almost perfect. I’ve got a few things that I wouldn’t mind putting out on a table for the day.