Home is where....the work is

We just got in from Vermont last night. The seven hour trip took almost 9 and 1/2 thanks to

traffic and I drove the whole thing due to throwing out my back a few days ago. I fidget and slouch like crazy in the passenger seat so driving kept me sitting up straight the whole

trip. New Hampshire was terrific and is my new favorite state. I love Vermont but it is a very poor state with little work

and not a ton to do especially if you are in the northern section where my out-laws and sister

have vaca homes. New Hampshire has a lot more metropolitan areas and much more to offer,

and breathtaking beauty everywhere you look. We went to a Shaker village,

the Anhauser-Busch brewery, and toured around the capitol city of Concord. We were able to

get in a few more family-style events before Tim got violently ill on Tuesday night. I think he

got food poisoning but then Olivia woke up Wednesday and hurled too. I know they did not eat the same thing and I doubted they

had a virus and Olivia has been having some GI issues but then I started to suspect that maybe the water they may have swallowed on a bumper boats ride may have done something.
It looked pretty gross now that I think of it.

Who knows? We were leaving NH and heading to VT that day so I packed the truck while they were both in bed. Tim took some tylenol for his

wicked headache and they both made a miraculous recovery by the time we were ready to check out.

We cancelled hiking a gorge that day and just high-tailed it to Vermont to let them rest up. We stayed at Tim's folks' house and got to spend some time with his sis and brother-in-law and their kids which was nice. They live 10 minutes away from home here but we don't see them that often with everyone's busy schedules. Tim's P's are still fighting like the Hatfields and McCoys up there but me managed to avoid front row seats to most of it. So much for their golden years though they have always fought like crazy so I guess it's just what they settle for in a relationship. Not my idea of happily ever after. I never got out on the golf course. I carried all sorts of luggage down multiple staircases at the inn and hoisted it into the bed of Tim's truck with no problem('cept some huffing and puffing) and then threw out my back sitting cock-eyed in a lawn chair the next day. We took Olivia for another horseback riding lesson and we just adore this family up in Vermont where she takes lessons. They have 60 acres and horses, cows, sheep, chickens, etc. We talked with the couple for over an hour after the lesson. I'm jealous in a way 'cause I always wanted that life as a kid but I think now, it would be way too alienating for me. They have no cell phone service and coyotes and if something happened here at my house, I could run outside and scream and a whole lot of people would hear it. In the country, you are really on your own. She told me we should

move up there(she lived in Jersey as a teen) but I said it's not that easy. I told her about Tim's MM and said the only way we could move to New England was if we stayed close to Dana Farber in Boston. Southern New Hampshire would fit that bill and after being cut off by multiple NY and NJ drivers yesterday(I knew I was getting close to home when that started)

including a Jeep full of young kids who almost hit us and then threw trash out on the street right in the middle of an intersection a block from my home, I'm tempted to sell everything and move

there tomorrow. People are just so different when you get out of this rat race in the NYC metro
area. Don't get me wrong. NJ has a lot to offer and that's why we are so darned overcrowded but
there is just too much money in this area. People are too "keep up with the Joneses" and self-ab-
sorbed. There are plenty of good folks too but we have such a reputation in this area that sometimes I'm embaressed to say where I'm from when people ask when we're travelling. Lately though, I have been purposely looking at what we have all around us in NJ and trying to remember times when I have met people who moved and then realized they didn't know how
good they had it. One couple I met, moved out of a suburb of Washington DC, realized they had
taken a whole lot for granted and when they tried to move back, they could no longer afford to live there because of the housing prices. This could certainly be true of where I live so I try to remember all that's positive about this state everytime I get cut off or see its downfalls. So today the new list of "to-do's" was started. It will be neverending as always. By tonight, I'll have 5 loads of laundry done plus a whole lot of other errands and be exhausted I'm sure but it's always nice to be sleeping in your own bed and home where the heart is(kinda). I was actually planning 2 more weekend trips but Liv says she's had it travelling and wants to hang at the pool with her
friends. I guess it's time for the lazy, hazy days of summer, though by the looks of my to-do list,
it doesn't look like I'll be the one doing the lazy thing. It's back to work for me, as if it ever stopped.