What’s the worst travel experience you’ve ever had?

Bwahahahaha!! I only came on to my blog site to post how lovely cinnamon bread smells when it’s cooking in the morning, but when I saw this, I just had to answer. Although it was our worst travel experience ever, we have so much fun remembering it and recounting ting it to people, even 10 years later! At the time I cried, but now it brings lots of laughter.

It was a flight from the west coast (Seattle) to the east coast (New York). We left early, had a stop in Arizona, then straight through to NY. We were supposed to arrive in Albany before dark, check into our hotel and be well rested for an appointment at 10am.

Our flight from Seattle to Arizona was on a small hopper. We were not able to sit with each other, and I ended up in a back row, school bus bench style, stuffed between two larger gentlemen. As the plane began to take off, I felt water on my arm. I looked around, then up and saw that an AC unit was dripping on me. Greaaat. When we arrived in Phoenix, AZ, we found out our flight to Albany was delayed. We sat in the airport for three extra hours, and it was so cold, we both had to go buy sweatshirts even though it was over 100 degrees outside. Due to weather we were rerouted to Philly, then to Albany, which would be a red eye. It was going to be a long trip. Once we boarded our plane, we spent an hour on tarmac. It was hot and stuffy and smelly with the engine running.

We arrived in Philly and went to get our luggage as we were going to have to go to a different terminal for the next leg. We watched the baggage go round and round u til there wasn’t anymore, including ours. Sigh… we found out where we needed to go to get that take. Care of and made the trek to a large warehouse style space, filled with luggage, but taped off so you couldn’t go into the area. I went and spoke with the person at the desk while my husband walked around the taped off area hoping to get a glimpse of our bags. He was greeted by a woman who yelled at him to get away from the luggage, that he wasn’t allowed to look. Frustrated he came back to the desk where another worker told us we were out of luck, that they would forward our luggage to our final destination in a few days. We were then told to go to another office to work out the details. We plodded along to that office (good thing we had a good amount of time before our next flight) to be greeted by a smiley young man. We told him the story, he typed something into his computer and said “oh, we have your luggage, we’ll have it out to you in 10 minutes at the luggage carousel.” We thanked him profusely and started the lengthy walk there. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes our luggage showed up.

We headed to the new terminal to check in for the last leg of our flight. The ticket agent asked if we had any bags to check, we said yes and placed them on the scale. She then informed us that we couldn’t bring those bags on because our bags were already checked onto the plane. We were befuddled to be told our luggage was already checked through when it was in hand. It took 15 minutes and a supervisor to get things straightened out. Whew! By then it was late and dark. I was exhausted physically and emotionally. I knew I was going to have to make a two hour drive when we arrived in Albany (my honey couldn’t drive due to vertigo issues). We boarded our plane. Our seats were almost across from the bathroom, which had a light go on AND it made a ding noise every time the door opened or shut. OMGoodness! Would I get any sleep? I settled into the middle seat, buckled my seatbelt and put the sweatshirt I had bought in AZ over the front of my body and covered my face with the hood because at that point I couldn’t stop the tears.

Within minutes I was thwapped on the head three times with the edge of one of the safety brochures by a female flight attendant saying aggressively “Ma’am! Ma’am! You have to remove that sweatshirt so I can see your lap belt and face!” I should have reported her, but we were both shocked to be treated that way. I complied.

There was little sleep to be gotten that night, and we arrived even more exhausted than the night before. We were close to the last people off the plane, stopped to pee, then headed towards the luggage carousel. My honey hefted our large suitcase off the carousel, lifted the handle and pulled. The bag went thunk, thunk, thunk and wobbled. One of the wheels had been broken. Greaaat!

We wobbled our way to the rental car counter and were handed keys as well as a device the size of two decks of cards to place on the inside of our windshield to automatically pay the tolls for the roads. After the luggage was loaded into the trunk and the device places on the windshield as directed we started up the car and began our drive. We had three hours before our appointment to make the two hour drive. We didn’t make it out of the parking lot before the toll booth “device” fell off the window and cracked my husband’s phone screen.

The drive was an adventure, as we didn’t realize that there aren’t “exits” only pull offs with gas stations/convenience stores. And I did have to pull into one to catch a 20 minute power nap to finish the drive.

After that, things went considerably smoother. It definitely hasn’t traumatized me to the point of not traveling. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also had plenty of really good travel experiences. This one was the anomaly.

Do I win a prize?

Can’t wait to read some of your experiences!

What was your first ever videogame?

I wish you could see the huge smile that came over my face when I saw this prompt. there isn’t an emoji with a big enough smile to express the joy of this memory.

It was 44 years ago (yea, I’m that old). I was working in a pizza parlor and they installed Pac Man. Every night during my break, I played Pac Man. I limited myself to four quarters a day, but it wasn’t too long before one quarter would last my whole break. For quite sometime I held the high score on that game under my store nickname Spike. One of the older guys who I worked with liked the way I rolled up the short sleeves of my oversized white button up, and said that it with the required uniform hat, it made me look like a 50’s Spike. It stuck, and I loved it.

I also became pretty efficient at Centipede.

The first home video game I played was Mario World, when my children were youngsters. I never held the high score on that.

Stunning day…

The day began cold at 42 degrees. Heavy dew covered the lawns. When the sun was finally over the horizon I went for a brisk walk to soak in the sunshine and some vitamin D. The sky was a deep, brilliant blue, with scattered, wispy white clouds. One home I passed still had deep pink geraniums blooming, next to something purple, under an ash tree filled with orange red clumps of berries. As I walked the sidewalk lined with trees, the sun felt like a warm blanket as I passed between trees, whose branches created an almost magical canopy that made me think of an enchanted castle walkway. I turned a corner to find that the trees that had been covered in red and yellow leaves, now stood bare against the sky, those colorful leaves now providing a crunchy carpet for me to walk through. The sound made me giddy and I kicked and scuffed through the deep was of them with great joy! Another corner turned, different trees, this time in varied stages of turning colors and preparing to sleep for the winter. One tree had a full branch of bright red leaves next to branches of green. Trees covered in gold and red leaves stood silhouetted against a backdrop of a dark mountain which was dotted by the shadows of the clouds that stood still in the cool blue skies above it. The beanie on my head kept me warm, and the smell of the trees in the cool air, the warmth of the sun on my cold skin was almost intoxicating. I swear people passing by probably thought I was a crazy woman for the huge smile that filled my face the entire walk. I thanked GOD, our creator for the incredible beauty of each moment, for each bird chirp, for the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound of the raven’s flight overhead, for the colors, the sunshine, the sheer joy it was evoking in my soul.

I hope that you find this kind of joy in the world you live in. It’s there, you just have to silence the technology, and your mind to see it, to hear it, to feel it.

What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?

Respecting my husband. We have been married for 27 years, and I am just learning what that should look like. He feels respected, I feel loved and cherished. There is more peace in our relationship.

I have been practicing the six intimacy (NOT sexual intimacy) skills I have been learning in the book “The Empowered Wife” by Laura Doyle. I highly recommend women read this book, whether you are single, in a relationship, engaged, married recently or married for 27 years or longer. It’s never too late to transform a relationship! I love the blog posts with simple challenges that I get every few weeks. The last challenge was to simply say “thank you” when anyone does something for you. Not “Oh, you didn’t have to do that”, just “Thank you”.

Try it!

Today’s thoughts…

Some friends of ours have a bakery in a town 45 minutes outside of our metro area. Every now and then, when someone is coming into town, they will let people know, we order off the menu for the day and they bring our orders in with them and we meet in a public parking lot. Besides the hug from my friend who owns the bakery, I found a new favorite goodie. Their blueberry cheese danishes. Oh My! I devoured my half speedily, and had to restrain myself from eating the half I saved for my honey.

Blueberry cheese danish

I made the last batch of applesauce for the season today. Brought a hot jar to my bakery friend, as well as some garden goodies. We have a tree that produces super sweet apples, but small and bug bitten. It is a lot of work cutting out just the good parts. The apples were a bit larger than last year. I learned about thinning the crop, but probably a little too late on the season. I removed about a third of the apples in late July Next year, I am going to try to remove about half of the new apples once they get to be a few inches big. Not sure I’ll need to make any more apple sauce, but probably will anyway and share it with others. The good, non bug bitten apples got donated to the smaller food banks in our area. The super buggy, too small to cut up apples and all my cores went to a friend with goats and chickens. I always go for as little waste of food as I can.

It seems my winter squash plants don’t realize that it is September 2nd yet. Instead of winding down, I am getting new vine growth and new squash fruit. I’m not sure if the weather will last long enough for them to mature, but, God knows what we need for the winter. The few butternut squash we have on the vine at the moment are what I would call personal size. Kinda like the dozen cantaloupe that are ripening on the vine outside.

Personal sized butternut squash

After 27 years of marriage, I am slowly learning how to respect my husband. Shout out to author Laura Doyle and her book “The Empowered Wife”. Wish someone had given this to me as a wedding present. I plan to give this to brides in the future. Speaking of, I better order a new copy for a wedding coming up.

My dad’s memory is really disintegrating quickly now. He forgets things we talk about within the hour, can’t remember family names, mostly great grandchildren born recently. While he is 88, and some memory issues are normal, these are not so normal. Forgetting where things are in the kitchen, not being able to rectify/balance his checking account with his computer records, setting alarms for the wrong days, etc. fortunately, God has provided for us, and I am able to help with doctors appointments and keeping track of things with him. we still play scrabble each sabbath morning, but I win more often than he does now. He frequently mutters under his breath that it would help if he entered the right letters into his word finder app. Yes, we cheat and use those. But we both do, so it’s fair. But we do have a rule that you can’t play a word unless you look up the definition first. Learn new things if possible.

My eyes are getting sleepy, the litter box needs its nightly scooping, and I need to ice my ankle where a heavy drawer front hit it today (long story).

Yummy Scrapplesauce…

When we moved into our current home almost two years ago, we inherited an old apple tree that had been neglected and pruned improperly. Last summer, the apples were bug bitten, but after a lot of cutting out the bad parts, the good pieces made a sweet applesauce.

This year, I pruned back the interior of the tree, fertilized it once, and removed about half of the apples mid summer in hopes to get some better sized fruit and release some pressure on the bowing branches. I checked the fruit a couple weeks ago, but it wasn’t ready. On Sunday, I checked again, and they were ready. Crisp and juicy, although still smaller (but larger than last year) and bug bitten.

When I say the apples are ripe, I mean they ALL are ripe. I have been making 1-2 batches of scrapplesauce each day. I use a simple recipe: 1 cup water, 1 tsp vanilla bean paste, 1 cinnamon stick and fill a large pan with apple pieces. Boil until mushy, then blend. I leave the skins on for higher nutritional value, and I add one honeycrisp apple to the batch to ensure sweetness.

My first four quarts are in the freeze dryer tonight, two more quarts are already in the freezer, and a hot batch is cooling on the kitchen counter. I was able to bless a couple elderly neighbors with containers of scrapplesauce, and I will be giving some to our son and daughter in law in exchange for fresh blackberries, which I will use to make blackberry cobbler for breakfasts.

I am thankful for Gods provision for the winter, even though it means extra work for the next couple weeks. Wish I could share the sweetness with you all!

Share a photo of your pet and tell us one thing that makes them uniquely them.

Statler

This is Statler, as in Statler Hilton, the hotel magnet. But that’s not who he was named after. He and his brother were named after the two little old men in the Muppet movies who heckled the muppets from the balcony. Yes, they have names.

What makes this 18 pound boy special is his sweet temperament. He is a cuddler through and through. When his brother comes onto the bed in the middle of the night and says “hey. Give me that spot next to mom”, his response is “can’t we just cuddle together and share her?” He usually gives in and gives his brother the spot. He likes to jump up next to me on the couch and cuddle. He reads the morning paper in my arms, making it very difficult to eat anything.

Waldo

Now Waldo (think Waldorf Astoria) he’s a different story. He’s 25 pounds of pure muscle with the temperament of a toddler. Each morning he steps on me to wake me up. Then follows me around saying “Mom! Mom! Play with me!!!”

We love our boys. They love us and entertain us. Wouldn’t change them for the world!