Should we meet?

When I was a young girl, I had a penpal from France. Jean-Paul lived in Ussel. He would only write in French so it always took me a long time to translate his letters. But what a thrill to get something from a foreign land. The stamps were so colorful and his handwriting was so, well French! I really loved learning all about his life and family.

After writing to Jean-Paul for a few years, I acquired more penpals. Miriam and Ann from Ireland, Andrezj from Poland, Rick and Karen from Australia and Clive from England.

I always dreamed of visiting them in their countries. I actually did meet Andrezj in Poland in 1986 and Ann in Ireland in 1996. Those vacations were highlights of my life. From a young age, I learned so much about the rest of the world.

You may wonder why I am telling you about this. Well, I have been thinking of doing a meetup with some of my blogging friends. In a way, you are all modern day penpals to me. I write something and you comment. You write a post and I comment. All the while, I am wondering what you look like and how fun it would be to actually meet and have a real in-person conversation.

It makes me think of the movie, "You've Got Mail". NY52 asks Shopgirl if they should meet. And well, you all know the story. And if you don't I posted a clip of the movie for you.

So I'd like to know if anyone out there is interested in a blogger meetup. I have never met any of you in person but I feel like I know you from reading your blogs. We could do lunch or go somewhere to take photos, I'm up for anything really. Of course, you would have to live reasonably close to the Greater Boston area although I am willing to travel north, south, or west.

Those of you who can't make it or choose not to, I would love to know if you ever met up with fellow bloggers. What did you do and how did it go?

If you are interested you can either leave a comment or email me. I do hope some of you will consider it. I am thinking March or April might be a good time.

I know I'll be watching my mailbox

According to CBS News, 1800 invitations to the Royal Wedding have been mailed to the lucky recipients. Depending on who you are, you may receive one, two, or three invitations.

The first invitation is to the church ceremony at Westminster Abbey, the second to the Queen's reception and the third invite is to Prince Charles's evening reception. Only 300 invitations were sent for the third party.

So I am renewing my passport and anxiously watching my mailbox! How about you? How will you prepare for the Royal Wedding?

Memories of past romances

Thanks to all of you who left such great comments on my last post. It's always nice to have your support. Wish I had known you all earlier in my life!

Tonight's post is about memories of past romances.

The first one is about a boyfriend I had in my teens. For our first date, he asked me if I wanted to go to the Red Sox home opener. Wow, I was very impressed! I asked him where our seats were located, thinking we would probably be in the bleachers. He said, "Oh, I don't have tickets! I thought we would climb the billboard and watch it from there. You can really see everything from up there". I politely declined but we did go out after that.

You might remember the subway guy from my Sweet Romance post from last February. We both worked at the movie theater. He was an usher and I was a candy girl. So on the first night we went out, he showed up at my house with masking tape down the sides of his jeans. He said he thought I might not recognize him without his usher's uniform. I cracked up, a great start to the evening. I love a man who makes me laugh!

Then there was the guy who only took me out to lunch. You guessed it! He was engaged, the snake!

Anything my readers would like to share? I'm listening!

I'm falling for you- Crazy Love Part 2

Those of you who were readers of my blog for some time may remember my crazy love post from last year. I wrote about the hunt or chase when trying to attract a guy. This time Crazy Love is about the crazy things that happen in a relationship.

One night, early in a relationship with this one guy, I had gone to his parents house to meet up with him. His parents were home. We had planned to go to a rather nice restaurant and I wore an ivory silk dress and high heels and a faux fur coat that looked like arctic fox. It was white and I thought the coat was really stunning.

Anyway, after we went to dinner we watched a little TV with his parents at their home. As the mother was saying good night to me, she turned and said to my boyfriend, "Don't forget to take the movie star home"! I was really insulted, it was not meant as a compliment. If you had heard her tone you would know it wasn't nice. She didn't know I had driven myself there.

I left shortly thereafter and I must admit I had an attitude towards my boyfriend after hearing his mother's comment.

As I was leaving, I expected my boyfriend to at least walk me to the car but no.
He said goodnight inside the house and I left to go home.

Well it had rained and gotten really cold while we were inside watching TV. I stepped onto the first step in my heels and did not realize the steps, and driveway were encased in ice. I slipped off the step and went sailing down the first set of stairs. I was airborne and missed several steps altogether and then when my feet hit the bottom of the stairs, of course I slid again. This time down a second set of stairs. I was sliding on my butt at such a fast pace that I slid under my car which was parked in the driveway. Really, I ended up under the car! I had to duck so I didn't smack my head on the bumper of the car.

Luckily, I escaped serious injury. Actually the only thing injured was my pride. I had plenty of bruises but no broken bones. I think the thickness of the coat saved me! And maybe the fact that I had taken figure skating lessons years earlier. Gosh I loved that coat!

I turned back to see if the beau was watching but the door was shut and the outside light was turned off. What a snake! Actually I would have been totally embarrassed if he had seen me, but still, my ego was bruised.

We did go out after that but I let him know that I was not impressed by his actions. As for his mother, we tolerated each other in those early days.

So, who's got some juicy or funny crazy love stories to share?

Gift ideas for Romeo

Ok Romeo, if you're out there, I know you are probably stumped on what to get me for Valentine's Day. So I created a blog post with a few little suggestions.

First, I love this necklace from Jen Parrish of Parrish Relics. I already own 3 of her designs but don't let that stop you. All her pieces are so unique and beautiful.



This scatter rug from Ballard Designs would look absolutely fabulous in my french inspired kitchen.




Well it looks like we're in for more snow and cold weather here in the Boston area so these boots will get a lot of use! And if you are the frugal type, these boots are on clearance at Eddie Bauer. Size 7 1/2 please.

What are you hoping for this Valentine's Day?

Valentine's, Snow and Followers

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. You know what that means? More posts about crazy love and sweet romance. Those of you who were with me last year said you enjoyed reading my posts on love and romance so let's do it again. I'll write and you can read.

Oscar and Percy are in the photo above and they are showing us some real brotherly love.

Anyway, I would really like to get off the subject of snow and shoveling and brutally cold weather. But it's hard to think of anything but the snow and weather when it snows all the time. And 2 more storms are headed this way. At least this time we'll have company and you know misery loves company! So anyone who lives in the Midwest or the East will be affected by the monster storm (the weatherman's word not mine). Maybe there are more areas in the snow zone, I wasn't totally listening to the forecast. It was so disheartening I tuned out after hearing that we could get another 18-24 inches.

Lastly, I lost a follower today. Some of you probably don't even know if you lose one because you have so many. All I know is I had 120 followers yesterday and 119 today. So it makes me wonder, did I offend someone? Or bore them death? Am I supposed to visit every follower's blog every day? Surely, I can't do that. Personally, I follow a number of blogs and many of them have never visited my blog. Anyway, I won't dwell on it too much. It's just a mystery to me.

Snow Fatigue

Photograph from Twitter

You can’t get too much winter in the winter.
- Robert Frost


I love the poetry of Robert Frost but he's wrong. We have already had too much Winter in this Winter. We are getting more snow overnight tonight, could be another 10 inches. I think we are all suffering from snow fatigue.

Thinking warm thoughts of past Summers, dining on seafood by the ocean in Maine, watching the sunset in Rockport, shopping on the Vineyard last August.

Seems like Summer is just a distant memory.