Housewife, 54

I loved my mother-in-law.  She was a wonderful (and very forgiving) lady and I was so pleased that we shared so many interests in common.  Maybe that old song "I want a gal just like the gal that married dear ol' Dad" has a lot of truth to it. One of the best qualities of my mother-in law was her cooking.  Nothing fancy, just plain, wholesome, tasty, old-fashioned cooking.  I had adopted many of her recipes over the years, but there was ONE thing that she made that I always meant to try to make with her, but never did.... her absolutely delicious Sweet Pickles.  Every time she opened a jar and we were there, we usually finished the jar... and sometimes wanted to open another jar the next meal... greedy devils, weren't we ('we' means the kids and I, her son doesn't really like them!)  Several years ago, I had the best intentions and asked her for the recipe and dutifully wrote it down.... but when I realized it took 15 DAYS and 7#s of small, similarly siz...

I must admit that I sometimes have a bit of a panic.  Usually in the middle of the night.  Usually about something that seems much less panic-inducing in the light of day. Twice in the past week or so, I have awakened at night and thought of aspects of our trip that I had not yet made reservations for.  As usual, when daylight rolled around, I forgot all about making those panic-inducing reservations and... thus the additional nights of restless sleep.  TODAY I made those last reservations that I deemed most necessary to do in advance. To Date I have accomplished: Airline tickets Hotel for location #1, first 4 days Bus Tour Train tickets Hotel reservation for location #2 Car rental Guest house reservation for location #3 Hotel reservation for stopover on the way home Reservation for bus trip at stopover location. I have 2 locations after #3 where we will need hotels for 1 or 2 nights in 2 cities, but those can be booked after we get there.  I ...