I was recently invited to a NJ larp event that is coming up in the next couple of months.  Since this is not my first time attending one of these events, I felt that I was going to be ready for it - and since I had all the equipment that I needed, I really wasn’t worried about anything.

But, little did I know that my daughter had something else planned for me.  You see, she decided to drink some Koolaid in my room and spilled her drink all over my costume armor.

I tried as hard as I could to get the stain out, but it was no use - I had a nice piece of armor with a big red blob on it (though it did smell like cherry Koolaid).

So, I guess I will have to go and see if I can find a good deal on some new armor, as I don’t want to show up with my stained set.  The hardest part will be to convince my wife - hopefully she understands my predicament.

I don’t know if you have ever had the problem where someone just keeps calling and calling and hangs up, but it is one of the most frustrating things in the world.  I mean, it is one thing to call once in awhile, but to call any time of day, well, that is just plain rude.

What ticks me off a little bit is that I called the police and they will do nothing for me.  Unless I can get the number of the caller, they told me that they are too busy to help me and I was on my own.  Same goes with the phone company - they won’t help me unless I get their number.

So, I have been waiting patiently, hoping that they will mess up at some point and let the phone ring too long or forget to block their number.  Because once I have their number, it will only take a reverse phone lookup and I’ll have them.

We have some good friends that I have known ever since I was a little kid, and we get together once a year to catch up.  Quite often, we all meet back in our hometown, as we have all left that small place on the prairies for bigger and better things.  This meeting not only gives us a chance to catch up, but we also have a chance to all visit our parents that are still in the town.

There has been a tradition in these meetings that we bring gifts for one another and this year was no different.  I brought some pies for them from my favorite bakery from home, and they were thankful for such a yummy treat.

But what I had not expected was the gift that Bruce had brought - he brought us all a copy of the book that had changed his life.  It was Stock Split Secrets, a book by Darlene Nelson, that showed how to trade on the stock market and become financially free.  He had used the same book to amass the wealth that he has today, and he thought that we should be given the same opportunity.

I now have some reading ahead of me with a purpose in mind - to become financially free.

Some people are good at art. Others excel at athletics. Personally, I’m a singer, actress and writer. I’m also a frustrated artist — frustrated because I neither have the time nor the setup to do the painting and quilting that did in the past. Other priorities have taken hold — namely building a business.

In the past I searched art stores for cobalt blue and titanium white oil paints, and searched  quilting and fabric shops for fat quarters and the latest nifty gadgets. Now I do research online for free PHP hosting, keyword tools and clipart.

Considering how much I loved doing decorative painting (when we lived in Puerto Rico for three years, PBS art, sewing, quilting and cooking shows (and “General Hospital” that my daughter-in-law watched daily), were about all the TV I watched. At least that’s all I remember from that period of my life. My goodness, it was going on 30 years ago!

I do miss those days of PBS personalities and programs. But they’re no longer on TV, and I’ve moved beyond hobbies to running a business. Maybe when I retire, I’ll get back to those things again. It’s all a matter of priorities. I hope so. It’s a part of my life I prefer not to lose entirely.

I have never been much of a girly-girl. I have never been to a salon, as I have always cut my own hair. I do not wear frilly clothes and I try to stay away from pink altogether. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would be taking monthly trips to a spa, I would have laughed in their face.

This all changed on my birthday. I received a spa basket from my new sister-in-law, who obviously did not know what kind of person I was. In the basket, there was a certificate for a free spa pedicure. Not wanting her to have wasted her money, I decided to use it.

That changed my life. I have never felt so pampered before. I loved the feeling of it and I decided that, since I rarely do anything for myself, I was going to go and do this once a month. I have stuck with it and it is the one thing that I look forward to more than anything.

Last year, my brother suddenly found himself with nowhere to live, when his apartment was sold as a condo. He asked if he could come and stay with us until he could get himself back on his feet. After several long discussions, my husband and I decided that we could certainly not abandon him without a home.

We decided to convert the basement into a suite for him. In order to do this, we had to replace the bedroom window, with one that was much larger, as the one that was in there would not be safe if there was a fire.

We put in a sash window and wired the larger room for a fridge and a stove. He has been down there for several months now and he said that it feels more like home than any place he has ever lived before. The kids love having Uncle Brodie around and he helps us around the yard. It has certainly worked out well for everyone.

My friend was in New Jersey recently and swears she saw JLo in an SUV Diplomat every day that she was there. She thinks she even was staying the in same hotel and was just using a limo service.

My friend was there for a convention and trade show and she says that every morning when she was waiting outside the hotel for a taxi, she would see a woman with a couple men beside her (that looked like body guards) come out and get into a Dodge Diplomat with darkened windows. It had a driver too and she swears it was the singer.

I suppose it would be possible that the star was in town filming a video or new movie but I’m not sure my friend would really know a celebrity if one hit her on the face! It could have been almost anyone. Heck, maybe it was just some rich lady with her own Diplomat and some friends or a hubby and brother?

As I was growing up, I never lacked for anything. I always had more than what I needed and I was quite young when I realized that my parents were both very successful people. I was healthy and happy and I had everything a girl my age could ever want. I had the best Barbie dolls and the trendiest clothes and I had parents who loved me and gave me everything I ever wanted.

That all ended on day when the plane that they were on was hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center. I was numb as my life came crashing in around me. For days, I stayed locked in my room, not wanting to deal with the reality that life would never be the same again.

I was told that all of their money had been put in a child trust fund for me and I was sent to live with my grandmother, who did not believe in spoiling a child. I could not wait until I was old enough to take care of myself, and the day I was able to claim my money, I bought a house and moved out. I started spoiling myself with everything that I had been missing for the past six years and I started living again.

I know that this is what they would have wanted and I still think about them all the time.

My mother is getting quite old and is no longer able to completely care for herself anymore. My brother and I decided tat we should move her to an assisted living facility, as she does not want to live with either one of us. It is important to her to still be able to exude a little bit of independence and we want to respect her wishes.

She is still able to make many decisions for herself and we want her to have the dignity to be able to make any major choices for herself. She agreed to go to assisted living and she thanked us for treating her like an adult, unlike a lot of her friends’ children do.

We decided that she was still able bodied enough to live on her own, as long as she had some help. She took the steps to find hip and knee replacements in Orange County a month ago when she needed them and that alone told me that she knew when there was a problem and would admit it when she needed something.

June is the traditional month for weddings here in the US, but we have some friends who are going to Australia for a wedding next winter. They thought it might be nice to get their friends and family out of the cold country during some of our coldest winter months here and many of us agree.

They are having the ceremony in Yengo National Park, a national park that is about an hour north of Sydney so we plan to stay several days. One day will be at the park  and then we will stay in Sydney so that we can shop and be able to see the sights in Sydney also while we are there.

The trip will be part of their honeymoon and they asked their parents to fly the wedding party over instead of gifting them with any money so that is pretty nice also. Our trip is paid for except for spending and fun money!