E IS FOR EMPTY NEST INSIDER

My theme for A to Z this year is a wildly different, but very exciting, HERE'S TO YOU all month long. 26 posts to be precise. The most difficult part was narrowing down the 26. All of you deserve your own post. What you will find here is a post by the featured blogger, with traveling music chosen by me that complements said post, and two links. One will link back to the original post and the other to the main page. This year's A to Z is all about making new friends!

Empty Nest Insider aka Julie writes one of the most humorous blogs I've ever read. Rarely do I leave her place without laughing. Sometimes until my sides hurt. She is the real deal. I promise you will LOL.

Cue the traveling music:



The Maniacal Miserable Tour by Empty Nest Insider
10/24/13

My mom (second from the right) with our dear girlfriends, and tour guide at Masada

Last week my husband's cousins from Israel came to visit. They had shown us such a wonderful time when we were out there, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing them again. This brought back memories of my first trip to Israel with my mom in 1984.

It all began when one of my mom's oldest friends and her husband asked her to join them on a tour of Israel. My mom invited me, and then another close friend decided to share a room with us. I loved her friend dearly, but sometimes they would just get too rowdy late at night when I was trying to sleep. Neither of them knew how to whisper, and I remember curling up with my pillow in the hallway one night until my mom dragged me back in. Yes, I was clearly not the fun one in the group.

Mornings were like boot camp with the three of us sharing one bathroom. My mom woke up two hours before we did to get a head start. She put on her makeup and teased her hair for an hour and a half before it was my turn. I had to take a quick shower while my mom got dressed. Next our friend moved at the speed of light. She was showered and completely ready in about seven minutes flat. Everything was precisely planned out so that there wasn't even a hint of humidity in the air while my mom ignited herself with hairspray. Between the hairspray and cigarette smoke, it was refreshing to go on a tour bus through the smoldering hot desert.

We traveled to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the resort city of Eilat. A highlight was when an eighty year old woman in our group grabbed my arm, and we climbed Masada together. I started screaming for back up when my mom came up behind me. She was sporting an off the shoulder mountain climbing number when she said through clenched teeth, "Shut up Julie. You're embarrassing yourself."

My reward was sitting in the death seat on the bus ride back to the hotel. We all took turns up front next to the fan, and everyone who sat there caught a terrible cold. Everyone that is, except my mom.

In Tel Aviv, I took a day off to go to the beach. There I met a tall, skinny young man who was quite chatty. At first I thought he was being friendly until he turned into a bit of a stalker. After he followed me to my hotel across the street, I politely sat with him by the pool. Then he asked me for a glass of water. I told him to get one at the bar, but he thought it would taste better in my room. I asked him if he thought all Americans were easy, and he said yes. Needless to say, I finally ditched him, and double bolted my door.

Another hotel had a beautiful jewelry store. The owner's son was very cute and flirty, so my mom kept nudging me to flirt back. The next day he called to ask me out. He was very busy, and could only meet at midnight. After I didn't accept his invitation, my mom was disappointed. She couldn't believe that I turned down a nice Jewish boy who was the son of a jeweler. What could possibly happen with a stranger in a foreign country at midnight when odds were good we could get a discount on jewelry cleaner?

Based on those experiences, I would've never dreamed of marrying an Israeli. Though after twenty six years of marriage, my husband would be the first to tell you his wife is a shining example that not all American women are easy.


Every day that Julie posts is one day I know that I will get a chuckle. If you want to add some hilarity to your day, follow Julie's blog. She can help you out with that.

Who I Used To Be

Recently I have been viewing my Blog Stats.  A lot.  I can go for months and not look once.  Other times, I am compulsively obsessed.  A post from July 23, 2010 is currently showing as one of my most read posts of this week.  Frankly, I always find it odd when an old blog post jumps back into my Top 5.  So, I read it.  What I realized is this: I used to be very open on this blog.  I was committed to writing daily and it sometimes led to crazy posts.  They would start in one place and end in a very different one.  My new readers don't know that person.  I am not sure where she is.  But, let me introduce you via my post called *Bang* on July 23, 2010....

I had been thinking about writing this extremely "real" blog today. Once I got on here and caught up on my own blog reading, I realized it was Blog Hop Friday. Egads. If there is anything that I have learned it is that someone new to your blog doesn't want to read anything extremely real about you on their first visit! That would have them screaming and running for their lives.


So, then I thought I could write something funny. I'm funny. I'm all kinds of funny. In fact, I had a dream last night and I was a one woman comedy act in it. I would tell you about it, but it was a strange dream. Again, I try not to freak people out on their first visit. I do know that I learned one thing from that dream. I hate my hair. I was adamant about a hair appointment that I NEEDED to make. Other things kept getting in the way and I was really snarky by the end of the dream and I was yelling things like, "But I hate my hair!" So, if there was any greater truth in that dream, I think that was it.


One of my friends left this comment on one of my recent blogs:

"Robin, at the risk of hurting you, I will tell you the truth. Sometimes you tend to ramble. Sometimes I don't know WHAT you are talking about. And then, just when I least expect it...BANG! You strike and tear out my heart.

I don't think that your blog has the best writing (sorry) objectively speaking, but it is the one I rush to read so maybe, just maybe, it does. After all, how can we judge what is good writing? Maybe it is simply what appears genuine, heartfelt and exquisitely real.

I love you.

Take care of yourself."

That is how I roll on this blog. I just ramble on and you think that I am going nowhere, and you are mildly entertained, and then *BANG* I actually come up with something that makes sense. For the record, I don't really do crafts, I am not much of a cook, I am working on a novel, I have kicka$$ migraines that tear my world apart regularly, I'm having a really tough time with my friendships, no dating life, and I am living with my parents. Never in a million years did I see my life going like this. Does it suck? Like lemons after half a bottle of tequila when you are throwing up on the bathroom floor in a bar that hasn't been cleaned in six months. (Was that metaphor too vivid? I am thinking it might have been too vivid.)

Anyway, my life right now is about doing what I can. I write when I can. I put the effort into people who are worth it. Right now, there aren't very many people in my life who are worth it. The ones who are live all the way across the country. It is just a bit far. I have a couple of friends here who are worth it, but they are busy most of the time. So, I blog and I work on my novel. And I work on me. And I spend time with my real friends when they can fit me into their crazy schedules. A big part of what I'm doing right now is working on letting things go. This is something that I have problems with, and I will give you an example:

I held on to a marriage that I should have let go of much sooner in order to save children that weren't mine. That's why I have a migraine that started in January of 2003 and hasn't stopped since. That's right. Every day since January 2003. The stress of being married and trying to save his kids was too big for me. Had I let go sooner, I think that the pain cycle of the migraine could have been put down. I didn't. I waited too long. I was determined to give his kids a solid foundation. I thought that when I left the migraines would end. I was wrong. That one choice cost me everything. Letting things go sounds easy. It's not. Sometimes knowing what to keep, how long to keep it, and when to let go are the things that can change or save your life. Sometimes both. *BANG*