Our Summer Vacation

The other day, I mentioned pricing that makes no sense for some airplane tickets.

A day or so later, Amy said something like, “So, I guess your talking about the price of airplane tickets to Switzerland and Belgium means you’re going to Switzerland and Belgium?” She was right.

The Motorcycle Tour Map

Hubby and I had been contemplating this trip for a while. He’s known about a company called Edelweiss Bike Travel for quite a few years. They have organized motorcycle tours at various locations around the world.

I’m not a huge fan of marathon motorcycle rides. When he first mentioned a bike tour of Europe to me about a year ago, I said, “Okay, I’ll go. If I can ride with you for a couple of days then scoot over to Belgium to visit Annelies while you complete the trip.”

That was before he met Annelies and her boyfriend Yves.

You see Hubby is quite shy. If I’d said to him a year ago, “Okay, if WE can scoot over to Belgium to visit with Annelies,” he would’ve said, “But I don’t even know those people.”

Hubby is not very adventurous when it comes to social engagements. He’d much rather eat snails raw than interact with strangers.

But now that he’s met the two of them, and he really likes them, he’s all like, “Hey, now we can go on the tour and visit with Annelies and Yves.”

I was quite hesitant to book the trip because the tour isn’t exactly cheap. And in these economic times, there’s no guarantee I’ll still have a job tomorrow. But, like Shannon said, if we don’t do it now when we have the money put aside, we’ll always regret it. Never mind that the money we have put aside is our layoff cushion.

Plus, Annelies was anxious to submit a vacation request before the slave drivers we work for have a chance to say, “Nope, sorry. Someone else is already off that week.” (We don’t really work for slave drivers. We have wonderful bosses.)

So I finally booked the tour. Hubby didn’t even balk when I said, “By the way, when we’re in Belgium, we’re going to spend an entire evening with my other coworkers in Belgium, too.” Yep, other people he has never met.

Being a regional employee has its plusses and minuses. There are many, many people I work with on a regular basis who I have never met face-to-face. But even over the phone, I can tell whether I’d like a person socially or not. I’ve met Annelies, of course. I have also met her boss, Leo, who is not only a nice, fun, friendly guy, but he’s great at selecting the right wine to go with dinner. (We had a sales meeting in London a few years back and Leo always seemed to be in charge of selecting the wine.) And then there’s Bruni, who I have not met, but Annelies always sings her praises, so I’m sure we will get along fabulously. We may need to do a girls’ night out during this trip. 🙂

Anyway… here’s the vacation plan. There are quite a few details to work out, but so far we know this…

We will be leaving on a Friday, flying from BWI to Zurich, Switzerland. It’s an overnight flight, so we won’t arrive in Zurich until Saturday. Then we will hop on a train to Seefeld, Austria, just outside of Innsbruck, which will serve as the base for the bike tour, which begins on Sunday.

As you can see from the map, we’ll be riding in Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. The following Saturday, we’ll hop a train back to Zurich so we can visit with the lovely McDonald family and see a bit of their temporary country. On Tuesday, we’ll fly from Zurich to Brussels, Belgium, where we’ll meet up with Annelies and Yves for a whirlwind tour of their home country and surroundings. Then, on the following Saturday, we’ll fly back home.

It should be lots of fun. We’re both looking very forward to it.

There’s a lot of planning to do between now and then, but at least I’ll have help (from Annelies, not Hubby).

The People in My Computer

There’s more than one reason I spend a lot of time on the computer. It’s not because I’m doing stupid (boring!) stuff like reading the news or something else that might remotely be considered educational. It’s because there are all these people in my computer that I have to keep in touch with.

Like my oldest daughter, Shannon, who recently moved from my real world life into my computer. And the Pioneer Woman who totally made my day by providing a free download of one of her cow pics. We can’t forget all my doggy friends I connect with primarily through Facebook. (I can’t give you a link to those folks. Sorry.)

I have quite a few Flickr friends, too. A Flickr friend is someone who also uses Flickr as a photo sharing site that takes pictures I really, really enjoy looking at, commenting on, etc. There’s Nikographer Jon (great nature pics), Kuskaluna Steve (Alaska pics), Alaska Dave and Songwoman (AK Dave’s wife) who both take great Alaska pictures, which typically feature lots of wildlife. There are others I am not going to list because I don’t know if those links will even work for my readers. I hope they do, so you can see their stuff, but some people have protected their images (for good reason) by limiting access to recognized contacts like me who they know will not steal their stuff.

I have to mention Brutal Goddess, however. She takes a wide array of pics. I don’t like her just for the pictures she takes, but also for the person that she is. Don’t get me wrong, she takes great pics, too. She just isn’t easily qualified when talking to Hubby like Jon (the bird pic guy) or AK Dave (the Alaska guy). Brutal Goddess, aka Chris, has slowly been revealed to me over the years through the pictures she takes, comments she makes on my pics, comments on Facebook, etc.

BrutalGoddess and ToadMama aka Chris and Kathy

I need to shift to past tense here and say she wasn’t easily qualified, because now I can say, “You know, the one I actually met in person.”

Yep, we actually met face-to-face this past weekend. Her name is Chris. She lives in Colorado now, but she grew up in Delaware. She moved to Colorado after marrying one of the people that used to live in her computer. (Not all Internet connections are bad, folks. One just must be very discriminating and smart about who you connect with.) She comes to Delaware periodically to visit her family. During this trip, we were finally able to arrange a meet-up.

I have to say, it was quite surreal. I mean, I have been looking at this woman’s pictures for a long time. Reading all about her family, too, on Flickr and Facebook. So, before I even met her, I felt like I knew her. And I had never even heard her voice until Sunday morning. When we finally did get together, it was like seeing an old friend. The only surprise was that she’s actually taller than me, which I loved.

Old New Castle, Delaware

Anyway… we met up in Old New Castle, Delaware, which is where she grew up. We were going to go to the Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge, the place Nikographer Jon introduced to me through pictures, but it was too cold. We would have frozen walking around a wide open marsh. So we walked around Old New Castle. Does it seem as strange reading “Old New Castle” as it feels saying, “Old New Castle”?

Despite the fact that it was pretty darn cold, it was great place to explore. We were able to chat as we walked. We both stopped often to take pictures of odd little things we’d seen, which was sort of cool. I usually hang out with non-photographer types who, after a few unexpected stops are all like, “Why do you keep stopping?” And “what could you possibly be taking a picture of?”

I felt like a complete doofus later when I realized we’d spent most of the day together and I hadn’t taken a picture of her. Luckily, she did take that long-arm shot of us that is shown above.

Even if I didn’t take any pictures of Chris, I did capture quite a few other images that I like, which I’ll share below. It was a very nice little town. It felt a lot like Annapolis, Maryland, but it was a bit more spread out.

The Blue Door

Kathy Spice, I thought of you when I took this one. I even told Chris about your fascination with doors. She also has a friend who is similarly compelled to photograph doors. 🙂

The Brick Thing

There was a lot of interesting-looking brick there.

Funny Sign #1

And some funny signs.

Tree Shadows on Brick Wall

There really was a lot of interesting brick, if you’re the kind of person that finds brick interesting.

Cemetery

Even the cemetery was nice.

Interesting Headstone

Creepy Cemetery Tree (workers actually found arm bones embedded in the tree, which grew up through the grave)

All in all, we had a great day. Even if it was cold. The company was fantastic. It’s a shame she is flying back to Colorado today. We’ll just have to make sure we plan another rendezvous during her next Delaware visit.

Very Cute Town

To see the rest of my pics, visit my Flickr page.

Funny Sign #2

How can you not love a town where people are able to laugh at themselves?

The Crazy Cat Lady

So, the other day I mentioned that I’d gone to Carol’s house and taken lots of cat pictures, right? I did take a ton of them. But I was practicing, trying to get the pics without flash. It was sort of darkish when I shot many of them, so I ended up with lots of blurry pics. But that’s why I took a lot. To make sure I’d get at least a couple of good ones.

I think I succeeded, too. But I’ll let you be the judge.

This is Daisy Mae.
Meet Rocky.
Ellie was the least cooperative. I never did get a very good shot of her.
This is Wolfie. Quality-wise, this is not a great shot. I like it anyway for his expression.

Daisy, Ellie, Rocky and Wolfie are siblings. Carol found them under her shed when they were days old. Their mother was run over by a car, so she bottle-fed and raised them. Initially, the plan was to maybe keep one of them. She already had two cats, Lily and Jesse, but she fell in love with those darn babies and just could not bring herself to give them up. That’s how she became The Crazy Cat Lady.

Jesse, Carol's "baby" (he's the oldest).

Jesse is actually the second cat Carol adopted. Tabitha, the first cat, stayed with her Mom when she moved out. She rescued Tabitha from her brother and sister-in-law, who were going to have the cat euthanized because she had a really bad case of fleas.

Meet Lily.

Lily is a stray that showed up outside of Carol’s house one day. She had a brother, Grady, who was so desperately ill, he had to be euthanized.

Cats tend to gravitate toward Carol. She just saved another, Jasper, who will be going to live with Carol’s niece. There was another feral cat who she fed and tried to tame, but he was beyond taming. Sadly, he was run over by a car.

I’m sure there will be more cats in Carol’s future. Which is nice, because there are a gazillion cats in shelters, roaming the streets, etc. It’s nice to know people like Carol are out there helping them.

Wolfie and Daisy, snuggling.

I just had to share this picture of Wolfie and Daisy. They were so cute all snuggled up on the couch together. You may notice Daisy is a bit, um, voluptuous. With 6 cats, it is next to impossible to regulate what each individual eats. All of the babies (Daisy, Ellie, Rocky and Wolfie) are a bit chubby. But that just means there are more of them to love.

If you’d like to see the rest of the pictures I salvaged from the many I shot of Carol’s cats, you’ll have to visit my Flickr site.

Friends in All the Right Places

Gift-wise, this has been an interesting Christmas.

I mean that in a good way, of course.

The first gift Hubby and I received came all of the way from Alaska. And, it arrived in the middle of a blizzard, which was awesome. It, by the way, was a box of home-made goodies from Mike’s cousin, June, and her family. The box contained yummy cookies–oatmeal, pecan sandies and chocolate chip (made with pretzel stix)–trail mix (a variety of nuts and dried fruits) and some homemade soaps.

There’s nothing like homemade goodness. The oatmeal cookies served as Hubby’s fuel on Sunday as he shoveled a path down the driveway through the 23 inches of snow we had. And Joey LOVED the trail mix. We all liked it, but he loved it!

Another very nice surprise gift was this intriguing and way cool object d’art.

It is made out of super-compressed graphite. That’s the stuff they make pencils with. So, not only is it cool to look at, every surface of the object writes like a pencil. Neat, eh? I LOVE stuff like this.

The leaf is about 6 inches long and fits perfectly in my hand, for when I need to write something of course.

This bath scrubby of mine was selected and paid for by my granddaughter, Brianna (age 9).

Our oldest grandson, Gaige (age 6), shopped and paid for Hubby’s gift…

… a small, ceramic dog. It’s about 5 inches long and 3 inches tall, at its tallest point. Gaige apparently knows that Pop loves dogs.

Meg is wearing one of the gifts I got from Hubby. The big blue and white thing hanging from her collar is my new Pet’s Eye View Camera, also known as a doggie cam. We can’t wait to go to the WV place so we can see what she sees on the way to and from Buddy’s house. Hubby also got me a digital picture frame, which I have wanted for years. Oh yeah, and a teleconverter lens for my camera, among other things.

My parents really surprised me with 3 bags of Seattle’s Best Hazelnut Coffee, which Mom had shipped direct from Washington state with the help of a wonderful friend. I got some shopping money, too. And a short story book. I’m addicted to short story books, in case you didn’t already know.

A dear friend sent Hubby and I a gift, which was accompanied by this card…

…that for some reason made her think of me. LOL!

As awesome as the card is, the gift is even cooler…

… real Belgian chocolate. YUUUMMMMMMM.

Oddly enough, we received it on the same day we received this…

This is the chocolate Mrs. Mac posted about that inspired me to try, and quickly become addicted to, Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels.

According to the Lindt Web site, this stuff “will surprise your taste buds with an unexpected alliance of nicely bitter, silky dark chocolate refined with tiniest crystals of “Fleur du Sel” – the flower, or the crown of the sea salt.”

It was personally hand-delivered by Mrs. Mac, who came all the way from Switzerland just to see us, and her family, and her friends, and her former co-workers, etc.

It is quite delectable. You have to like dark chocolate, though, which I do. Hubby and I may be fighting over this one.

Speaking of chocolate… I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the Rheb’s candy, which Hubby and I gave several folks for Christmas. We bought ourselves a box, too, of course.

This image shows chocoholic Meg who is simultaneously wondering “Why, oh why, is Mama taking pictures of all of her chocolate?” and “Is she going to give me some? Is she? I like chocolate!”

This is a snowman ornament I’ve had for years. I can’t remember if it was given to me by one of my girlfriends, or if I bought it myself.

I have the same issue with this ornament. Though I am pretty sure this was a gift from a girlfriend in a previous year.

I couldn’t resist sharing this doggie picture. K and Belle were jealous that I was taking Meg’s picture. So they joined in.

Wanna know why K looks so short?

It’s because she sits on the steps with her butt on one step and her front feet on the step below that. We think it is easier for her to sit that way because of her very long forelegs.

I hope you enjoyed this little gift recap. I hope you have friends in fun places, too.

Random Thoughts from ToadMama Herself

I like this guy. I’ve never seen one of his movies. But, after seeing him recently on 60 Minutes, I really, really like him. He makes low-budget movies that are extremely popular. But “Hollywood” says he’s portraying black people in a bad light.

Even Spike Lee made some sort of disparaging comment about him. Butthead. I think Spike Lee is jealous. Tyler Perry, the guy I am talking about, has had five movies open as #1 at the box office in the last four years. Or something like that. So he must be doing something right.

And he’s now at a place where he can give $1 million dollars to the NAACP. Keep bucking the trend, Tyler. And screw Spike Lee, who should be praising you for what you do.

He’s one of Oprah’s closest friends. Oprah said that herself. Why do I care?

I don’t, really. I mean, it’s cool that both of them have friends. We all need them.

So why GIVE YOU A LINK to that Oprah video? Because in it, she does a great job explaining “friends.” Real friends. There is a difference between being friendly with a lot of people and having a lot of friends.

Being friends with someone is special. It’s not about longevity, necessarily. It’s about that connection. The bond you feel immediately, or soon thereafter, when you meet someone. The bond that never really goes away no matter how much time passes between get-togethers, or phone calls.

This isn’t something I think about often. I mean, I like people and I do have a lot of friends. But I was recently very weirded-out by a person who I saw frequently, but never felt that connection with, telling me that I was the best friend he ever had. I felt bad for feeling that way. Guilty sort of. I mean, I like the person and we do have a few things in common. And yes, we can be friendly. But the best friend ever?

Recently, a former co-worker invited me on an outing with two of her closest friends. I really like this person and always have liked this person. We were never particularly close, mainly because we never really got the chance to get to know each other. We could be friends, is what I am saying. But we haven’t made that connection. Yet. Maybe we will one day.

But I have to say, I was overjoyed to see an e-mail from said person where she introduced me as a colleague or past colleague, and introduced her two friends to me as her friends. That made me so happy. Why? Because now I know there’s someone else in the world like me that does not feel that knowing and being friendly with someone automatically makes them your friend.

There’s different degrees of friendship, too. Again, that’s not necessarily a longevity thing.

This is one of those posts that will leave Hubby scratching his head. But I understand. Most men don’t get the friend thing at all. They have friends, buddies, even pals, but they don’t have friends like women do.

I’m guessing I may leave some women thinking, “Am I her friend?”

If you are, you already know it. Remember, it’s a feeling, it’s not a title.

So, why the long diatribe about friendship?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, you know. And one of the things I am most thankful for is having a lot of good, true friends.

If Your Friends Jumped Off a Cliff…

…would you follow them?

I’m hoping you’re the kind of person that would say, “But of course.”

Because I’m about to ask something of you. You see, I am…

It’s pretty simple, really. I’d just like more people to admit that they actually read my blog. Or at least stop by periodically to see all my cool pictures, read about my wonderful Hubby, SNOOP, admire my dogs, marvel at my adorable grandchildren, follow our motorcycling trips and/or see just how boring my life really is.

Now I know there are quite a few people who read this blog. But only three have admitted to being followers. The funny thing is, I don’t know any of them. But I love, Love, LOVE them just the same. Because they’ve stepped up and admitted publicly that they read my humble little blog.

Becoming a follower is easy. If you are reading this through Facebook (or perhaps on your Crackberry), the first thing you have to do is go to my actual blog. Look for the followers gadget (shown in the following image at lower right).


It’s the little box that looks like this.
Click on the button that says Follow, and this window should pop up…


Use one of the designated account types to sign up and just follow the prompts that are presented.

It’s that simple.

I won’t know when or even if you are reading. So, you could sign up to be a follower and never come back again. If you wanted. By why would you do that? Then you’d miss out on all the fascinating and fun stuff I write about.

I ask this for a couple of reasons. One, it would just make me feel good to know I can prove the existence of more than three readers. Two, if new folks stumble across my blog and see that I only have a limited number of followers, they won’t think it’s worth hanging out to explore.

Besides, one day when I am rich and famous (as a result of what, I have yet to figure out), you can tell people, “I know ToadMama. I’ve been following her blog for years.”

Please sign up to be a follower.

Pretty please?

Pretty please with sugar, whipped cream and a cherry on top?

Tell your friends to sign up, too. And tell them to let their friends know, as well.

Won’t you please help? Click that Follow button now. Or click here.

As Oleta Adams sang, “I don’t care how you get here, just get here if you can.”

Thanks in advance!