Reach out and touch someone...

Today while I was grocery shopping, my cell phone rang. It was my little sister in California calling on her way to work. She does this every so often, just to chat and it's such a wonderful thing.

You see, Lil' Sis and I went for 15 yrs. without talking to one another. If you asked us why we would go so long without communication, I doubt either of us would have an adequate answer for that question. So I guess you could say it's beside the point. The real triumph is, we now relish phone conversations about everything from our family, our jobs and everything from home decorating to topics as mundane as what we cooked for dinner the other night. As Martha Stewart would say, "It's a Good thing!"

As I was driving home from the grocery store, I began to marvel at this technology which provides me the opportunity to stay in close contact with my sisters far away in California. For the price of my monthly cell phone bill, I can talk to them whenever and for as long as I wish. I remembered when this wasn't always the case, that the cost of a phone call could impact your phone bill to the point it could make a serious dent in your checkbook. So a lot of times connections, important connections, we're never made.

When I was 10 yrs. old my mother moved to Chicago with my Step-Dad and Step-Sisters. I moved back in with my dad, step-mother and little brother and sister. Over the course of the 6 yrs. my mother lived back East, I saw her twice. Once when I went to visit for the summer and once when she came out to California and took me shopping and out to dinner. Communication during those 6 yrs. was severely limited. She wrote letters every one in a while and I wrote even less. She would call me on my birthday and maybe Christmas, but I can't really remember. Milestones which were important to a young girl going through Jr. High and High School went by without regard. I'm not complaining, just explaining... It just 'Is, what it Is.' Or, in this case, 'Was, what it was.'

So here's what got me wondering... How different might life have been if I'd grown up in the era of cell phones? I wonder if the accessibility would have made us closer. My relationship with my mother has always been strained and it may be in part to our lack of communication over the years. On the other hand, I'm curious if to know if teens today, faced with a similar situation, might find the convenience of a cell-phone relationship with a far-away parent less of a connection and more of an intrusion... Not that it makes a difference but it just got me pondering.

Excellent Weight Loss Routine

For those of you who are searching for a NO FAIL weight loss routine... The answer is RIGHT HERE at The Paper Treehouse (whodathunk?)

This is all you need:

• A full length mirror - A large mirror will do. I don't happen to have a full length mirror but I DO have a mirror that covers nearly an entire wall over the counter in my bathroom.

• A chair - Place the chair in front of the mirror. I didn't need a chair, I used the bathroom counter.

• Strip down to your birthday suit - Yes, this means 'Get Naked'

• Now lean against the chair or the counter, allowing all manner of gut and girth to hang loosely. Once you've assumed this position, look into the mirror.

Trust me, you'll never want to eat again!

Addendum: If you do feel the urge to succumb to any fat or calorie laden food, simply use your powers of recollection to bring to mind the above exercise.

P.S. That money you were going to waste at the gym? Just send it to me.

Grin and Drive

Did you ever notice people when they drive... Typically, if they aren't talking on their cell phone (which admittedly is rare), they're scowling... Not even a blank face... Actively scowling. Is driving really so difficult, so utterly terrible, people have to make it appear to be such a chore?

As for me, I LOVE to drive. It's always been a sense of freedom for me. When I had reached the magical age of 16 and was legally able to obtain a liscence, my parents lowered the old 'Catch 22'... "You can get your liscence when you are able to afford your own car and own insurance." Now tell me this, how was I to afford these things without the means of getting to a job which would pay me enough to do so? Sure I had a job, a nowhere job at a shoe store, but once I paid for my own school clothes, toiletries, dinners when I worked evenings and rent to live in my parents house, there wasn't much left over for even the down payment on a used car, let alone insurance. There were a multitude of reasons for me wanting to 'escape' from my parents home.

I started driving after I left home at the age 18. My fiance (now husband) put me on his insurance and lent me his car while he carpooled to work. I eventually got that job 30 miles from my home, which paid enough for me to afford things like a car and insurance. I just had to leave home to do it.

Anyway, back to my original point. Do any of you remember that day you first held a set of car keys in your hand? The keys to the car which YOU were going to drive? Do you remember that thrill? Weren't you just wishing you'd run into (not literally, c'mon guys work with me here) someone you knew? I remember, I remember it SO clearly. It still makes me smile and sometimes, every once in awhile, I clutch my car keys in my hand and am reminded of that sweet taste of freedom and I climb behind the wheel and I smile.