The Best Two and a Half Minutes of Your Day

Two Englishers in Amish Country

So yesterday I decided to take the day off. I did it with the intention of hanging out with Mags and maybe doing something fun because on Monday she will be returning to work. I figured we could do something, anything, so she could go into the weekend on a relaxed note.
I suggested a trip to PA. Amish country. Intercourse to be exact and this seemed to suite Mags fine. We were misinformed about the business hours of the local merchants and seemed content to run an errand before we hit the road. Right before we left I Googled the store and found the hours were very different and opened at 9, rather than 12 as we were told. So after a stop at the hospital we hit the highway.
The drive was about two hours and it wasn't all that bad. Its simply down the PA Turnpike to 76 and then onto the smaller county roads. And it does get pretty scenic once you get onto 76 and get further into the state. Lots of rolling hills and farms. nice.
Our first stop was the Kitchen Kettle Village. An assortment of little shops and restaurants. We moved quickly from store to store because it was very cold yesterday. Only about 21 degrees. Still we had a good time. We then went to the building next door, the Old Candle Barn and browsed through their for a bit. Mags picked up some little things and then it was next door to another little shop that sold 'country' type stuff and of course, Amish goods.
From there it was down the road to an Amish furniture store. We browsed through their showroom and Mags may have found a desk she wants. Let me tell you, these Amish craftsmen are freakin' good. The quality of the work is superior to most of the stuff that's sold in retail stores.
Wrapping up the day we headed to a large buffet, oops sorry, smorgasbord, style restaurant called the 'Shady-Maple'. (On the way home I suggested to Mags that maybe we could open a strip club right next door and call it the 'Shapely Maple' but that was only met with a look over the top of her glasses and the sound of crickets chirping)
Her Mom raved about it and we figured we would try it out. It wasn't bad and there was a ton of food. All you can eat for 10 bucks. They had a massive gift shop downstairs so we perused through there before hitting the highway for our trip back home.
So overall, except for the temperature it was a good day. Maybe we'll get back in the summer and spend a little more time.
Later I'll post links to the sites we saw.
Thats it from Joisey. Stay warm.

This and That

Well it's been a while. Truth is nothing too exciting is going on here. Work is busy. Lots of receives to receive and then we 'split' the bulk shipments we get down into smaller shipments to be sent to other, smaller branches. Heavy work but the day goes by faster when you're busy.

Mags desktop finally died and she replaced it with a laptop. She had always wanted one and the day after Christmas she finally got one. A week later she called me at work, very upset, she was having problems with the new 'puter. I had planned on leaving work early because I was feeling like crap so I told her when I get home I would have a quick cup of tea and then we could go back to Best Buy and return it. Which we did. With no hassle, and got an exact replacement. This one is working fine, thank goodness.

Weather here has been freakin' cold. Only yesterday, and supposedly today, will the temps get above 30 degrees and hit almost 40! Heatwave!

So I'm beginning to wonder if my new building is built on some ancient burial grounds or something. Since I've started there, several co-workers have lost family members.

In the past two weeks alone, my boss' Mom has died, two days later another supers' wife lost her Grandmother, a co-worker's father has died and his sister and mother are amongst the missing in Haiti. Seriously? Did we, as a group, piss someone off? Some spirits that inhabit our little plot of land in the new industrial park? Seriously, shouldn't the guys who bought and developed the land be getting all this? Or am I just reading too much into it? Could be....

We had a kitchen mishap last night. Mags had put together a fantastic steak dinner (with caramelized onions of course) and a salad. Half-way through the cooking process our smoke detectors went off. All of them in the house, screaming all at once. We could not figure out what the heck was going on. No smoke, but an acrid stench filled the air. I thought it was smoke. So I hurry up the stairs to see what is burning. Nothing I can see. So we sit down to eat and then suddenly Mags jumps up "I know what it is!" At Christmas I bought Mags two new cookie sheets and she simply put them into the oven for storage. She did not, however, remove the paper tags that were glued onto the sheets. So after dinner I spent over an hour trying to remove all the paper and glue that was baked onto the new cookie sheets. I did get everything so now hopefully they are salvaged. If not, I'll just have to buy new ones.

Weather should be nice today so I may wash my car and remove the inch of salt and road grime that is covering it.

I think that's all. Enjoy your weekend.