Dear Baby Andrew:

You are six months old! The time is going so fast. And you are getting so big. I was thinking this morning that your no. 3 diapers are kind of small on you. Trying to feed you in bed at night is a wrestling match.

Your smile continues to light up your whole face, including your eyes. And you smile so readily as soon as you see Momma or Dadda or even brother Daniel. Brother Daniel doesn't always pay as much attention to you as you do to him, but that may change soon.

You are a strong boy and can sit up for a little bit of time on your own. You will grab any toy or object that looks interesting and sort of in your reach. You love to manipulate toys such as rattles and your Fisher Price lights and music toy.

After a brief period where you didn't poop for eight days, Dadda realized that you were fussing because you were ready for some real food again. You are eating sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears and rice cereal. We've stopped making the rice cereal with formula because we think it might be irritating your stomach.

You've been kind of fussy lately and are also waking up a couple of time a night. Dadda tries to get you back to sleep without having to eat, but you aren't always very happy about that, so many times you end of eating anyway. We think you are teething because you are gnawing on everything that gets near you. You have a wooden rattle that you especially like to chew on. It's a rattle that Mamma bought in a book store in Martha's Vineyard for your cousin Henry. Henry out grew it and passed it along. We're glad he did!

Teething may be making you crabby, but it might also be stomach issues. We haven't quite figured it out yet.

You had your first bad virus this past month. I say "bad" because you were running a high fever and you had lots of snot and were having a hard time eating. Mamma and Dadda were a little worried. It finally subsided after a couple of days and you are pretty much back to normal. You still have a runny nose but we think that it might be because we need to change the filters in the return air vents. Because of said runny nose, Mommy's picking your nose all the time. We don't think you really like that.

You love taking a bath. Mommy usually gives it to you in the kitchen sink. You sit in the water and kick and kick and kick.

We still aren't sure what color your eyes are going to be. They are kind of a greenish-brown color, maybe a dark hazel? Who knows.

Bedtime horrors.

Bedtime has become a nightmare around here. We are not sure what the deal is. Andrew wakes up about five minutes after he goes down. And he does this two or three times before he finally falls completely asleep. He does this for naps, too. I am so tired of rocking that child to sleep only to have him up and crying again several minutes later. It's either teething or something like reflux. I am so hoping that the pediatrician will have the secret decoder ring when we go for Andrew's 6 month check-up on Tuesday morning.

And Daniel. Daniel goes through his usual bedtime routine just fine. No protests. He gets in the crib. Door closes. Music on. Several minutes later, he starts crying and calling franticly, for J usually. It's like he gets almost to sleep and then something freaks him out. So J or I go back in and rock him a bit and talk to him. Then, back in the crib. Tonight, that was sufficient, but sometimes we have to do this a couple of times. He never used to be like this. Never. He was a piece of cake to put down for naps.

Ack. It's not like the rest of the night has been going smoothly either. A 20+ pound baby just doesn't need to be waking up twice a night to eat. Especially when he wasn't doing that a couple of months ago.

Observation.

Just watching this Dancing with the Stars show. Joey McIntyre ain't really cutting it, is he?

Ridiculousness.

This sht shouldn't happen here. . .

So, some idiots decided to burn three crosses in Durham a couple of weeks ago. After reading more about it lately, I realized that one of them was actually at the other end of our subdivision.

During the summer between my junior and senior year, I lived in the town where I went to college. The tiny town in rural North Carolina. It was known that the KKK was around that area. There was a bar up in the next town called the Korner Pub or something like that.

The summer that I lived there, I was dating a Ugandan exchange student (bet that was something that you didn't know about me.). I heard one day that there was going to be a Klan march through town. I remember being kind of scared. Like I thought the KKK was going to come and hunt down any people of color in town or something. I was afraid for Antony's safety. I went to warn him not to go near Main Street anytime that afternoon.

Honestly, I don't remember whether they came through or not. I think they did, but it wasn't a very big group and they were moving pretty quickly. I was disgusted and sickened by my brush with the KKK. How dare these people, these ignorant hateful people, be allowed to ride around spreading intimidation and fear.

When I heard about the cross burnings in Durham a few weeks ago, I thought, "What a stupid prank." In Durham, which is quite a bit larger than the tiny town where I went to college and much more progressive, did the KKK really think anybody would be intimidated by this? The KKK claims that they aren't responsible for them. Maybe just some stupid, misguided kids. We have a pretty vibrant gay community here in the Triangle, and some members think that the crosses were more directed at them. We also have many Hispanic people here and some think that the crosses were directed at them.

There was lots of public outcry and candlelight vigils held. Much of this outcry was expressed by the white liberal contingent of this area. It seemed a little over the top to me. Only because, I still figured it was some stupid prank and better handled by not paying attention to it, the same way that you ignore some idiotic person who's making ignorant comments, that everybody knows to be ignorant.

That's not to say at all that I think that problems of racism or any of the other -isms should be ignored and not talked about. And certainly, if this is more than an isolated incident and begins to escalate, then it should definitely not ignored.

I heard the author of a great book called Blood Done Sign My Name speak last Sunday. Actually, I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my list, and he was a riveting speaker. He tells the story of growing up in a small town in NC when a black man was murdered by a white guy in the community and the resulting trial in which the white guy was acquitted. Tim Tyson was a professor in Afro-American studies at the University of Madision, but is coming back to Duke University to work for a reconciliation center that they are setting up. He's got great insight into race relations in America.

OK, gotta go. Rescue Me is on.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

"Deal with them abroad before they attack us at home . . . "

Wonder when they are going to tell him that Saddam didn't have anything to do with September 11th. Maybe they should do that before the U.S. spends lots of money and loses a bunch of troops. Oops.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm living in an alternate parallel universe. Maybe what he says makes sense in the other universe.

Do you think W has a speech impediment?

". . . shpeshal forshesh. . " I always get the feeling that he has to practice his pronunciation before a speech. He gets this look on his face like he's so proud of himself when he utters a particularly long or difficult phrase.

Oh boy!

The Pres is right down the road tonight. Oops, gotta go. He's gonna speak. Can't wait to hear what erudite things he's going to say.

Like our rattan chair?

We have two of them. They belonged to my grandmother.

I always feel like somebody's watching me.

Things I'm excited about.

It doesn't take much really.

Rescue Me is back on.

These mean that I don't actually have to wash my face at night. Just wipe and go.

Cruise Gets Confrontational - Yahoo! News

Cruise Gets Confrontational - Yahoo! News

Said it before and I'll say it again. Tool.

The Grandma Barb Su*ze Beautification Project, however, was somewhat less successful. Like my new shirt? 

Grandma Barb's Yard Beautification Project

Cascading Geranium on the Porch
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

As I mentioned before, Grandma Barb was visiting with us for a few days. She planted some beds in our front yard. My attempts at beautifying our yard have been limited mostly to pruning bushes down to mere nubs and planting things that rabbits like to eat, so flowers are a nice addition.

This is the planting she did around the mailbox. The white-leaved plant (dusty miller) was something that survived from last year's landscaping efforts.

This is are Impatiens.

A lovely potted geranium by the garage.

Daniel received a lesson in watering the pretty flowers.

Again, I love my mother-in-law very much. It's just been a long couple of days.

As I mentioned, she planted a couple of beds for us in our front yard. I was trying to get some stuff done inside the house (bills, bills, bills) while D was at Parent's Morning Out and also tend to A who was fussing. I had wanted to do some errands, but A was fussy and then fell asleep.

I'm so appreciative of what she was doing in the yard (will post some pics soon), but I didn't want to stay out there with her and keep her company while she worked. I had stuff I wanted to get done and wanted to make sure the baby was happy. I don't know if she was a little put-upon that she was doing all this work and I wasn't helping or out there with her.

This is a common theme with her actually. And I think it's more a conflict within herself. She wants to be helpful and do things for us, but in her zeal to be "helpful", she overdoes it to the point where maybe she gets a little resentful. We've all done that before, right? Where you just overextend yourself.

I get caught up with her in this every time. She says that she would "love" to put in some plants for us. "Love, love, love." She's the "master gardener," after all. And I don't dissuade her at all, because she seems so excited and seems to love gardening so much. She does like to garden, but she worked her butt off. Probably more than she bargained for.

But what can I do? You can't tell her to slow down or not do too much. I didn't know that she would require an audience when she did this for us. I should know this by now, though. The same thing happened last time she was here after Andrew was born. She came to help and did tons of cooking and cleaning. I don't know what she wanted from me (and yes, it's something from me, not her son), but I sensed resentment then, too. I think it's difficult to work hard when those around you aren't. At that time, I was still recovering from childbirth and lack of sleep and wasn't going to be doing much of anything whether she was there or not. And when she's getting a bit put-upon, she goes into overdrive. Which is totally aggravating. By the end of that visit, she was practically removing the clothes we were wearing at that very moment in order to wash them. She had washed every speck of cloth in the house, some several times.

It's like she has to prove she's the best grandmother when she's here -- the most helpful, the best advice-giver, the best houseguest. I just want her to be Barb, not the "best." We'd still love her and enjoy her company even if she didn't do half the stuff she does for us. Well, mostly. Heh. I'm kidding.

Oh my gosh. I love my MIL. I really do. She's great with the boys. She cooks and cleans while she's here. Yes, it's true. She bought us Chinese take-out for dinner last night since it's impossible to take us out for a meal with the boys. She's an avid gardener and planted the bed by our mailbox and another bed in our front yard today, and she paid for half of the stuff to do it. She's awesome!

But, she's. driving. me. crazy. She gets so wound up about things. Something's not right with Andrew at the moment. Could be teeth, belly, butt, nose, ears, growth spurt. Who the f#ck knows? But he screamed for two hours last night right after we had put him to bed. It's pretty nerve-wracking for J and I, because, we don't really know what demon has possessed our baby. All we can do is rock him and walk him and give him baby Tylenol and feed him.

The MIL was all freaked out. "What's wrong with him?"

Then, today, he did the same thing for a couple of hours. She get really rattled because he was doing it part of the time I was gone to pick up D from parents morning out, so she was trying to soothe the screaming A. I took him when I got back and nursed him. He and I fell asleep. She went outside to do more gardening and I thought that would help her relax.

An hour or so later when I went outside to talk to her, she was still all wound up about his crying spell. She just keeps asking what I think is wrong. And I go down the list, but then she'll ask me again two seconds later. She can't stand not having the cause nailed down, having to exist in that space of not really knowing. I know she's probably worried, but argh. I'm worried too, but I don't want to have to hold her hand. I want someone to hold mine and tell me it's going to be OK.

She finally said tonight that she's determined that he's teething. That's what's troubling him. OK Barb, you've figured it out. Whew.

Organizationally challenged.

In case you haven't noticed, I've added some to budget/personal finance-minded blogs to my blogroll. I'm on a kick to get our budget straightened out once and for all. No more overspending. And more prioritizing of where our money is going.

Organizing and prioritizing. Two things I so totally suck at. I so want to be a good organizer. I buy lots of containers and crates and baskets to put stuff in. If I just had the right containers, I'm sure everything would just fit perfectly. Right?

Well, getting back to the budget blogs, there are some really good ones out there, and I'm gleaning all the right info. If I just get all the right info, you know, I'll have the perfect budget and never go out of it again. Right? Right.

I knew that I had bookmarked some of these blogs the other night, but I couldn't remember where. Are they in Lek*tora, my RSS reader? No. Are they in My*Yahoo? No, not there. Are they in my bookmarks file? No, not there either. Where in the frickity-frack are they? Oh yeah, I blogrolled them. Duh.

That's right, folks. I have four places that I have saved bookmarks. Not very efficient. Not very organized. I want to be organized, but that would mean choosing one place above all others, another thing I'm bad at -- making a decision. Then, it would invovling transferring everything over, which would involve lots of "Should I save this one or not?" "You don't ever look at that." "But I might want to go back there sometime. I'll save it." Ten minutes later, "Tell me again why I saved that one." And then there's the categorizing that must be done. Should this go under mom stuff or nursing stuff or baby health stuff? Should this go under homemaking or decorating or crafts or budgeting? Another exercise in losing the forest for the trees.

I think I would have stuck with something like My*Yahoo for everything, but it bugged me that I couldn't put the blog list in the wide column as opposed to the narrow one. Idiots. Who are they to tell me how wide my blog-list column should or shouldn't be?

Lek*tora, I really like, but a bunch of the blogger, heh, I just typed "blooger", sites and others don't have feeds. Or else, I just haven't figured out how to get them yet.

So, while I could be figuring all this out, like an organized person would be doing right now, I'm writing about it. Much better.

I'm changing my name.

My New nickname is Lieutenant Sneezey E. Stupidsen.
Take The Third Grade Insult Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Note to self: don't give cough suppressant to the toddler if we want him to sleep.

The mini bub-bub is on the mend, thank goodness, after a nice trip to the kind pediatrician yesterday afternoon, a script for some nose-clearing stuff and another script for an antibiotic in case the fever didn't go away. One ear was still pink, but didn't look too bad. It seems there's some virus going around. He's mostly fever free today.

I keep thinking Daniel is coming down with it, as well. He's had a runny nose and when he lays down to sleep, he coughs and coughs, but he hasn't had the fever. This afternoon, he couldn't get to sleep for his nap, so I gave him some cough suppressant, the dextra-- one. Yeah, that one. Well, guess what? He didn't sleep. at all. Not because of the coughing though - the coughing went away, but Daniel was replaced by Cornholio (not sure I spelled that right, so don't hate me.)

We did all sorts of fun things this afternoon. We looked at cars and trucks and trucks and cars and cars and trucks and trucks and cars on the internet. We ran around the backyard naked (not me, just him -- wouldn't want to scare anyone.) We ran around in the Elmo sprinkler and then got totally doused when mom decided to clean off the dirty spider, cobwebs off the windows on the back of the house. Then, we dried off and went out front and pulled the wagon around, played with the dried grass clippings left on the lawnmower and other fun stuff. He was bouncing off the walls. But at least, he was in a good mood.

He peed twice in the backyard, sans diaper. The first time, I had my back to him and I heard him start saying, "Oh no! Penis!" Then, he said some more jibber jabber, the only part of which I could understand was something about, "Penis." Very funny. In case you are wondering, I'm hoping that letting him run around the backyard naked this summer is going to be my fail-safe potty-training method. Either that are the fastest way to get a nasty case of poison ivy. Eek.

Congrats to Christi who welcomed baby Taryn into the world about 45 minutes ago!

frazzled.

Baby A is still sick. He was up at 1:00 a.m. screaming. He went back down eventually after drugs and some milk. Then, his brother was up at 4:00 a.m. crying and yelling for "mama." I'm not sure what's going on with him. It's the second night in a row that he's gotten up around then. Last night, it was hard to get him back down and J ended up sleeping with him in the guest bedroom after both of us had tried to get him back down. Then, baby A woke up again at 6:00 a.m., feverish and crying. And Daniel woke up at about 6:30 whining. I was ready to put my ear plugs in, turn Baby Einstein on repeat play, and hook up a vodka IV at around 7:00 this morning.

It's now 3:00 and we are making it thanks to Baby Einstein, motrin & Tylenol. I'm taking baby A back to the pediatrician in a few minutes. I always worry about being one of those moms who takes their kid into the doctor for every little thing. I think Daniel is sick with the same thing, but since he's bigger and we've been through this with him before (and he doesn't seem to have the high fever), I just gave him some Tylen*ol cold medicine. But this is Baby A's first real illness and it's kind of scary when the little guys have a fever of 103.2. So, whatever.

I should probably wait one more day to take Andrew back in just to see if things clear up on their own, but it doesn't seem like he's getting any better, plus with two sick kids and lack of sleep, I'm not feeling very patient. It's funny how another part of your brain takes over when your kids are sick. I can tell myself all day long that baby A is fine, but when his fever goes up, any remnants of my rational self are out the window.

Ouch.

Yahoo! News Photo

a Walmart cookie?

Wal*mart is evil. I'm sure of it.

The trial period on my anti-virus software ran out, so I had to update it.

I opted not to automatically accept cookies, although I'm wondering now if somebody *ahem* reset this because I'm not seeing any cookie requests since I've been on tonight.

Anyway, as I was surfing last night, I was notified that walma*rt.com wanted to send me a cookie. And I wasn't on any site that had a wal*mart ad or anything remotely like that.

Maybe it was because I was on the Sam's Club website a couple of weeks ago? I don't know.

Doesn't it kind of wig you out, though? It's bad enough that Microsoft appears to be monitoring every little thing we do on our computers. It wouldn't surprise me if Bill Gates and W*almart were in cahoots to take over the world. It's like Big Brother from 1984.

It bothers me that companies or whomever can monitor where I'm going and what I'm doing on my computer without me really being aware of what kind of info is being communicated and to whom.

So, no, I didn't go to the christening.

As it turns out, Andrew was sick.

But I still did go to our church. And I'm glad I did.

It's really an important part of my week. I'm not an evangelical, "born-again" type Christian, but my faith runs deep.

I grew up going to church most Sundays with my parents, going to Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, singing in the choir. At home, though, we did not talk about religion at all or pray or say grace before meals. I don't think I've ever heard my mother say "God" or "Jesus".

If there was conversation about church, it was about how the minister was a jerk or some gripe about the service, how the sermon was too long or the organ piece wasn't very good.

I wouldn't say that I learned what it really means to be a Christian or to follow one's faith, whatever that may be.

Like most people, I didn't really go to church while in college. Sunday mornings were for sleeping off the previous night's excesses. Although, I did start going on my own during my last semester there.

Anyway, during the second half of my senior year of high school, I began having problems with anxiety, panic attacks and depression at times. I sought counseling off and on through college, but never really got anywhere.

After college, I was still struggling with issues of depression and anxiety and started looking for a good shrink to hopefully get to the root of whatever was going on, if possible. I saw somebody for a while, but wasn't getting anywhere and decided to switch.

At the same time, there was this dynamic, young, smart, amazing minister at my parents church where I had grown up, and J and I started going to the worship service. He ended up marrying J and I, in fact.

One day, I went to see a new pscyhiatrist. When she welcomed me into her office, I noticed that she was wearing a large wooden cross around her neck on a piece of yarn or or something. I was really taken aback. How often do you see doctors or professionals wearing a huge cross, making it pretty, darn clear what their religious views are. Especially shrinks, just by nature of their line of work. They don't want to risk offending any of their patients.

We hit it off, not because of her religious views, but just generally, and I stayed with her for a couple of years. But more importantly, I knew that that cross around her neck was about as clear of a sign as I could get that being back in the church and exploring my faith was exactly where I needed to be. I am not really a person who looks for signs or messages in things around me, but I couldn't really ignore that one.

Since then, I've tried to learn more about faith and becoming authentically involved in the life of a church. I have a long way to go and find that I really have a hunger for this knowledge. I love talking to people who know more about theology or the Bible than I do, so I can ask lots of questions. I have so many.

OK, so this is probably not where you thought this post was going at all, but I hope that it was a little enlightening.

Going to our church on Sunday is a very centering, grounding thing for me, and I need all the help I can get right now.

So that is why I'm glad that I went.

Katie Takes Up Scientology

Katie Takes Up Scientology - Yahoo! News

What a big surprise! I never would have thought!

I saw the lovely duo on the MTV Movie awards today. What a freak show. Tom Cruise was trying to be all cool and hip in front of his MTV audience, many of whom were probably like "Who's that old guy? Is he somebody's dad?"

Guess what, Tom. You aren't cool or hip and you never were. You are a freak.

Why is it that if you are cute, have a nice smile and wear leather give you the benefit of the cool-doubt. He's hot, so he must be really down-to-earth and awesome. Um, nope, not in this case, at least.

OK, I'm just blathering on. I know. But still. What a jerk. Really.

It will be really nice when the babes don't wake up crying in Daniel's case or screaming in Andrew's case. I think Daniel's just going through some phase where he wakes up kinda crabby.

Andrew, however, has a cold and probably a nascent ear infection. I took him in tonight to have him checked out. The doctor said his ears looked a little pink, but not too bad yet. We'll ride it out and see what happens. Poor little guy. You know something is hurting when he wakes up with a blood-curdling scream. The kind of scream that just rattles your bones. You feel like you've done something horribly wrong.

My baby's growing, growing, growing.

I've been feeling a bit wistful lately.

Andrew is almost 6 months old. I can't believe it. He's growing so fast. He's bigger than my friend's 10 month old.

He's trying to sit up. He'll grab anything near him. He's starting to try to pull his knees up under him in preparation for crawling.

He's starting to be a restless nurser, more interested in whatever else is going on around him, especially if his brother is being entertaining. It's like a wrestling match.

We're pretty sure he's teething. I'll miss that toothy grin.

We've started him on solids. The feeding thing becomes a bit more complicated then and less intimate.

Slow down, my sweet boy, slow down.

My DH told me that I've been bitching too much about being a mom, that it "gets old." He's probably right, but whatever.

He should try having a baby attached to his boob every couple of hours, especially one that is ostensibly teething and prefers the boob as his teething toy. And then he could also have a two year old climbing on him all. the. damn. time and constantly pointing out cars and trucks and trucks and cars and trucks and cars and cars and cars and trucks. Plus, the bony elbows in the aforementioned boobs.

There I go, bitching again.

I can't really complain about the amount of help DH gives with the bambinos. He's really good and he knows what's up. It's a good thing, too, because I would truly be in an asylum if I had to do all of it on my own. But here's the thing. DH runs sprints, not marathons. Sprints to his nice, cool, ant-free office where he can complete a thought, sit down and eat lunch and not get up until he's done, talk on the phone without a two-year-old screaming in the background, and more. But then of course, he has to manage/coddle/placate the eccentric personalities in his lab, endure the torturous grant-writing process, agonize over getting funding. No shortage of stress, for sure.

But, then, I bet he doesn't have a little entropy machine, going behind him, undoing or messing up whatever he has just done. And I bet he gets to go to the bathroom when he wants and for as long as he wants, and . . .

Oops, there I go again. OK,OK, maybe a little less bitching. Maybe. Just a little less.

I'm not a very good friend, I think.

A friend of mine's daughter is getting christened tomorrow at their church during the Mass. It's a 10:00 service and normally, I'd be at Sunday School class and then the service at my church. I totally don't want to go.

Andrew's been superfussy, like screaming every so often, today. I'm thinking about not going and using that as my excuse. We think he's teething, but he may also have a cold.

Is that lame? Not to go?

I'm having a tizzy.

Sometimes, I'm just so sick of things, I could scream.

I'm sick of never being able to have a frickin' minute to myself.

I'm totally sick of never being able to finish whatever I'm working on.

I'm sick of the frickin' ants in our house. I'm sick of finding them on me.

I'm sick of our stupid kitchen, with its stupid moldy, caulk around the sink and the huge gap where the counter is coming away from the wall and the stupid faucet that gushes water out the back every time you turn it on and the stupid chipped ceramic (or whatever) sink that's too small and constantly gets food bits caked on the sides.

I'm sick of empyting the dishwasher, only to fill it back up again with more sippy cups and plates and cups caked with crap and chewed up, spit-out food.

I'm sick of our stupid garbage disposal which scares the living dead when you run it and backs up the sink in the blink of an eye.

If I could just board up the kitchen, that would be nice. No crap to clean. We'll just eat PowerBars and drink water or something. Do ants like Power*Bars? I'll get a big plastic ant-proof container to keep them in. Oh, and we'll keep the coffeemaker out, too.

Dammit, I'm so frickin' fed up at the moment. And guess what? My babysitter for tomorrow cancelled. Over e-mail. Like 20 minutes ago. Yeah. Great.

And there's a huge pile of white clothes on the couch that need to be folded. I hate folding whites. I don't see those getting folded tonight or maybe not even tomorrow.

Cooperation.

Ta-da.
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

I've been trying to get Daniel to play with blocks for several months now, mostly because I like building stuff with blocks. He really hasn't been interested, but I noticed him watching one of his little buddies building a block tower yesterday. I pulled them out today and said that we could build a tower together. I've also been trying to introduce the oh-so-foreign concepts of "sharing" and "taking turns." He's mostly been interested in the concepts of "mine" and "no."

But anyway, taking turns (sort of), we built this tower. I was thrilled because maybe he's into building stuff now and because it's the first thing that we've kind of done together. Pretty cool.

Of course, he then went and knocked it down. But that's OK.

Pretty fly for a white guy.

Pretty fly for a white guy.
Originally uploaded by Suze3000.

His Royal Chubby Cheeks.

I have a confession.

This is more a confession to my dear spouse than to the internet. But you guys are free to listen.

I want an RV.

Yes, it's true.

Not now, obviously. I'd settle for a pop-up camper when the boys are a little older. I grew up camping with my parents in a pop-up. Loved it.

We camped a lot when we lived in New England, a great area of the country for camping. Loved it. Mostly. It was my first experience with tent camping and that took some getting used to. We joined the inflatable mattress crowd pretty quick. Can't say that I'm a big fan of pit toilets, either. So needless to say, I'm not a hard-core camper-type. I like a comfortable bed and a bathhouse with hot showers and flush toilets close by.

But, when we're old and retired, or maybe even before then, I'd love to toodle around the country in a motorhome.

I don't want one of those supersized luxury RVs that has rooms and canopies that shoot out and dwarf everything close by. Just maybe a medium-sized one that would be comfy enough for us and maybe a couple of grandkids. And my little toy poodle, Chi-Chi. Ha-ha. Just kidding. Gotcha there. No toy poodle.

Imagine all the stuff we could see. All the people we'd meet. We could go wherever/whenever we want.

Yes, I'm serious.