Do You Believe in Ghosts?

This is what 9 years of wedded bliss looks like ...

My husband and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on September 22nd, 2011. We rotate years to surprise the other spouse with an anniversary evening. This year it was my turn to woo my husband with a celebratory anniversary surprise. After weeks of thinking, and many ridiculous ideas, I finally found the perfect getaway.

Wait for it …

I took him on a trip to Gettysburg, PA, the most haunted town in the United States of America. The mission: a ghost hunting adventure with a real live paranormal team. Wait what?! I know … not exactly the norm when it comes to anniversary woo'ing, but this is right up our alley. We have been married for 9 years, the normal "dinner and a movie" thing seemed somewhat predictable. I wanted something different. Something that we had never done. Ghost hunting was the perfect combination of adrenaline rushes and fear-driven embraces.

We set out on our adventure on Friday evening. It takes about an hour and a half to reach Gettysburg from our home. Per the norm, we left our house later than we had planned. Meaning that we would be arriving in the haunted little community after dark. This worked out perfectly. We were unable to see what we were driving into. Had it been daylight, we would have seen battlefields on either side of us, decorated with memorials for the 51,000 soldiers that died in the 3 day Battle of Gettysburg. Did you hear me?  51 THOUSAND soldiers took their final breath in this quaint little town. (God bless their brave souls.) That means that thousands of spirits are still lingering here. Eeep!

We pulled into our hotel and joked about it being haunted, too. Truth be told, I didn't really want a haunted hotel. I wanted to be able to escape the terror that was going to take place later in the night. We stayed at a sweet little hotel, the Quality Inn at General Robert E Lee's Headquarters. It was pretty AND affordable, a winning combination in this gal's book.  My husband and I had to meet our Ghost Hunting teammates at 11pm. We had a couple hours before our hunt began so, we sat in our hotel room and started reading up on the battle and our hotel. What did we find out?

OUR hotel IS haunted. 

Well, crap.

OH ALISON!! … What were you thinking? Why didn't you do your homework on your hotel accommodations?  Clearly, I should have paid more attention in high school history class because, as it turns out, General Robert E Lee was a pretty huge part of The Battle of Gettysburg.  The "Quality Inn" portion of the hotel name was just a ploy to get us non-history knowing folks into the lobby. The "General Robert E Lee" portion of the name was definitely a dead giveaway (pun totally intended) that the place is crawling with ghosts of the General and his friends.

After reading that our hotel was (gulp) haunted ... we decided to get a jump start on our hunting adventure. We whipped our smart phones out of their imaginary holsters (in a "put your hands up, or I'll shoot" manner) and began snapping dozens of photos of the room. If we could photograph a ghost before our hunt, we'd surely feel a little less like amateurs when we reached the Gettysburg Paranormal Association.

As I clumsily point and shoot my camera phone in several directions, I looked down and noticed that there was a cloudy looking smudge above Tom's head in one of my photos. I stared at the photo for a minute or so, it was just a smudgy looking oval floating above his head. It could've been anything, right? I decided to show him the image. At that point, I didn't believe that the General was in our room, I was just trying to get his paranormal interests flowing. I called him over to check out my "find". Before he could get a look at my picture, it was GONE!! Actually, all of the images on my phone were gone.


C o m p l e t e l y   g o n e. 

The phone had locked up and erased every photo in my phone. Including the pictures of my children. And to that I say "bad ghost". Those memories were important to me. Just because they're on a cellular device, and not in a frame on my mantel, doesn't mean that I cherished them any less.

After about 10 minutes and 2 phone restarts … the images were back. However, they were not on my phone, instead they were saved on my memory card. They are still gone from my phone at this very moment. Actually, the only images on my phone are several pictures of Nutella (that's a whole 'nother story …  you see, Nutella makes me gag and one of my dearest friends uses this as a form of amusement).

The clock hit 10:30pm. Time to make our trek into the great unknown. We gathered our cameras and our best "I ain't scared" attitudes and hit the road. We checked in and met with the GPA (Gettysburg Paranormal Association) and the other hunters. There were about 20 of us. We were taught how to use the ghost hunting equipment. Then they handed out the fancy devices and sent us to our cars.

We followed GPA to the haunted destination. It was called the Hoffman Mansion. Man o' man did this place look creepy!!! I did NOT want to enter that mansion. Ghost hunting equipment doesn't keep you safe. It just gives you a slight heads up that there might be a spirit invading your personal space. They gave us a brief rundown of the house, its history and past paranormal experiences that had happened there. At this point, I'm thinking that dinner and a movie, though predictable, would have been a more appropriate anniversary evening. What was I thinking? Ghost Hunting? Seriously? I'm a wuss. This is ridiculous.

Anyhoo … GPA wrapped up their speeches and sent us in. I said a little prayer as 19 slightly frightened individuals and one absolutely, completely, hook line and sinker, to the nth degree, petrified 31 year old girl (you guessed it ... me) filed into the spooky abandoned house.

Dear Lord,

Keep us safe from harm (and by "us" I just mean me and Tom. I don't care about the others … they signed up for this, too. They can say their own prayer. I WILL, without hesitation, trample a little old lady to get to the nearest exit if I sense danger (Hey, it's my prayer … I'll pray it how I wanna. It's all about self preservation, y'all).

Amen.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

To be continued ... 


Dun dun duuuun ...

From My Inbox to Yours.

I know, I haven't posted a blog in how long? Too long. I'm a busy gal. Psssshhht! Yaah, that's it.

Anyhoo, I realize that my future book deal hangs in the balance. Furthermore, I owe it to m'followers. Alison, you have to post something … ANYTHING!! To my delight, I received a totally shareable e-mail in my inbox this morning. When I finished reading it, I knew that this email HAD to be made available to all of you (since clearly, I am not). 

I'm sorry that it isn't in MY own words, but it definitely falls into the "something I might do" category.  Not to mention that it is the funniest thing that I've laid eyes on all week … well, aside from the faithfully hilarious 'Friends' reruns that have been on Nickelodeon lately (and dare I say, 'bout dang time they put some quality programs on that network … I consider 'Friends'  my evening reward for having to sit through 37 episodes of 'Spongebob' and 'iCarly' all day).  

Read on and giggle.

*Oh and let me go ahead and warn you … put the beverages down, people. It's highly likely to squirt out of your nostrils if you don't. 

**And to my boy followers … I'm sorry, this will probably be completely unenjoyable to you. :o/

Hair Removal...

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal - The Epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now…the wax. Read on......... 

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner,play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in

my mind for the next few hours:

'Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet.' So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. 

It was one of those 'cold wax' kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off. 

No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!) 

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each otherstuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. 

('Cold wax,' yeah..right!) I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works! 

OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire. 

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it *was* a long strip) I inhale deeply and brace myself....RRRRIIIPPP!!!! 

I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!....OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!! 

Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out...must stay conscious...must stay conscious. 

Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe...OK, back to normal. 

I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip.There's no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX??? 

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip...it's not! I touch. I am touching wax. 

I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake...remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down 

Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut! 

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself 'Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!' What can I do to melt the wax? 

Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right??? *WRONG!!!!!!!* 

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit. 

Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax. 

So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! 

I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter 'So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!' 

There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, 'Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?' 

She's laughing out loud by now...I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. 

YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night. 

While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor . Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! 

By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'mpretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event. 

My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace…. the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GOD!!!!!!! 

The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It's sooo painful, but I really don't care. 'IT WORKS!! It works!!'

I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair....THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......ALL OF IT! 

So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point. 

Next week I'm going to try hair color...