The Fairy Tale Life

I wrote a little something for Squidoo about my favorite girls who play piano. I couldn’t find all of their music on PlayList, though I did find a few. Here’s a sample to enjoy. Introducing Vanessa Carlton, Marie Digby, Vienna Teng and Jenny Dalton.

My Squidoo page will be posted soon. You can find it at Mistresses of Piano Music.

1. Find a new chat room.

Explore the internet, find a new group of people to talk to. This can expand friendships and give you new things to look forward to.

2. Find a new passion or hobby.

Have you been wanting to try your hand at painting? What about learning how to surf? Take a lesson. Just start with one.

3. Step outside.

Just for a moment. Just stand there. Take in the fresh air. Walk around the place you live. Discover something new about where you live.

4. Dig through old photographs.

Scan some old photos and post them online to share with friends and family. If you have a pile you’ve been meaning to go through, now is a good time to do it.

5. Give your time to someone else.

Volunteer.  It doesn’t have to be building a house, or giving away money you might not have. Take time out to share tips and suggestions to others. Share what you know, or lend a sympathetic ear to others.

How to pack in the shortest amount of time possible.

1. Dream your house was on fire, what items could you not live with out?

2. Collect those items, put them in a suitcase.

3. Get rid of everything else.

Simple, isn’t it? Okay, it isn’t practical, but sometimes it’s a good way to think. If you were running out of the house, would you really grab that stack of old magazines? Toss them.   you were going to move to another country for a year, only a year, what would you bring with you? Probably just a suitcase filled with clothes, books, a laptop…

What else do you need? Note I said need.

The less you have, the less you have to worry about. Learn to let it go, and keep only the stuff that really means something to you or things you need. Makes it easier to travel.

Unfortunately, my local grocery store doesn’t sell grapes and strawberries by the pound any more. Nope, they sell them in containers or bags, already prepped and ready to go. You have to buy the entire bag. For someone like me, unless I want to spend every meal eating grapes for the week, I generally have to skip them, which is a shame, because I love grapes. The big, thick ones with seeds still in them, sweet and juicy.

So I generally have to stick with buying fruits that I can purchase by the pound. This can be pretty tedious with a lot of local grocery stores only carrying the more common fruits. Bananas, oranges, five or six different kinds of apples, that sort of thing. Sure, they have kiwi and mango… but give me something else, something more exotic.

I was surprised to find there were Asian pears available at my local grocery store the past few months. I skipped them over, didn’t notice they were sitting there. I think I dismissed them as yellow apples at first, because they kept this plastic mesh bag surrounding each pear and I just didn’t look any closer.

Finally, I read the sign before I looked closer. Asian pears? They can’t be talking about these apples. Oh wait, they don’t look like apples after you take off the wrapper.

So I bought one. Only one, because the thing is a monster. I mean these Asian pears are bigger than any apple I’ve ever seen. Big, round fruits with a tan/yellow skin. It sure looks like something like an apple. Maybe it’s like a Grapple?

(I haven’t tried one of those yet. They only come in a group of four and I’ve been waiting for a few mates to come by and try them out with me. Looks interesting though, an apple that tastes like a grape?)

Come to find out, the Asian Pear was huge, I was barely able to eat half of it, and had to save the other half for the next day. I never liked doing that. Saving it meant putting it in the fridge, and I dislike fruits that are chilled.

The flavor of an Asian pear is very sweet, and a lot like a mix between a pear and an apple. I’m still wondering if I ate it like I was suppose to. It was rather crisp, and now I wonder if I should have let it sit like you do a pear and let it ripen until it softens. I might get another one and experiment.

While the crispness reminded me of an apple, it still had some pear-like taste to it.

It was unique, although you have to admit, finding a fruit that tastes and compares to other common fruit… not so exotic as I was thinking. Why not just eat a pear and an apple?

Oh well, maybe next time I might actually find something really unique at the grocery store. Until then, I’ll be munching down on bananas and plums. Well there’s an idea, why hasn’t anyone made a plum that tastes like a banana?

Despite being used to traveling like I do, for some reason this time I’m really tired. I find it rather odd. Is it because I’m getting older?

This time, I don’t think so. I realized today that while on the road, my eating habits are terrible, and I had to give up my exercise program I just started.  So my muscles are probably getting lazy and my body is feeling sluggish thanks to road food.

So this has me wondering, how do other travelers eat on the road to stay energized. I’ll probably ask a few people and see what happens.

I spent a lot of time on the road the past few days. I left Sunday for Louisiana on a crash run. My sister and I traveled from Indiana all the way down to Lafayette in a single day. We spend three days there and then back up on Thursday.

 Road trips can be fun. My sister and I, as well as the rest of my family, are rather used to spending long periods of time in a car. You might be cramped for hours at a time, fighting for position between semis and hoping the cops you pass weren’t pointing their speedometers at your car. Still, the feel of the road at your feet, knowing that within a few hours, you’ll be passing by some of the most popular cities, seeing new places, and be in a completely different part of the country when your ride is over… it gives you a thrill. I imagine many travelers feel that way. As much as you like being in your own space, there’s something about being on the road, getting there really is half the fun.

While the road travel was long, Louisiana was the same. Lots of swamp, everywhere. Everything was green. The traffic was terrible.

We didn’t stop anywhere special to eat this time. The only place we went out to was Coyote Blues, a Mexican chain restaurant. The service was slow, but the food wasn’t too spicey for me. Nothing really stood out to me though, which made it less appealing to stop by again. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll try it again and order something more exotic than fajitas.

It was a good trip, with only a little bit of rain. There was a great thunderstorm as we were driving into Louisiana. Made for an excellent way to stay awake while working on driving that final stretch in.

I’ll try to post pictures later if I can get some. They’re all on my sister’s camera. I really should fix my own up or get a new one.

I’m trying to think of a new name for ‘myself’ for this blog. Fairy Godmother is interesting, but a little outdated. I’m sure I’ll think of something.

I added a Twitter spot to this blog. Kind of interesting and might be fun to use. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Here’s a quick tip.

If you’re going to travel by plane, try for once to trust the airlines to do their job and take your luggage for you. If you need to keep an eye on it, put a homing device on your luggage or something so you can find out where it’s at.

When I travel, I only take on the plane with me a book and my purse. Sometimes I wish I could just skip the purse and take my ID, cash and a credit card. In fact, next time I might just do that.

It saves SO much trouble when trying to manipulate through the airport. Getting on and off the plane is a breeze.

If you think about it, there’s at least 30,000 commercial flights in the air in the United States every day.

That’s a lot of people traveling.

I don’t get into flying as much, perhaps because of the cabin pressure that usually makes my ears hurt. It usually forces me to take a few aspirin in mid-flight, because I know of how bad it will hurt when we’re about to land.

Still, the advantage of getting to somewhere I want to be quicker than driving is very nice.

I actually like airports. In a sense that usually when I’m in them, I’m going somewhere and can appreciate the fun of just going somewhere that wasn’t home. Of course if I’m on the flight home, I appreciate where I’ve been and the enjoyment of knowing soon I’ll be back in my own bed.

There’s also the fun of being able to get a glimpse at the thousands of people coming and going in an airport. What stories they might have about why they are flying. What happened on their trip? How long have they been away from home? Where are they going next?

I’m a little shy, so I tend not to ask too many questions, I just watch and make wild guesses.

So… anyone out there ever had anything interesting happen to them while at an airport? Or on a plane?

Long time, no see, eh? I have updates to make to this, but in the mean time, sorry for the absence. We’ll see how things roll.