And now Twitter too. . .

Well, I took another plunge today and signed up for Twitter. I'm sure that most of you have been on there so long you are true veterans -- it is THE place to be on the web at this particular point in time, but I was a little leary of joining. But once I launched the blog, it seemed like a logical next step -- if there is actually anything logical about the web.

My Twitter address is www.twitter.com/boom_this. Someone had already chosen the Twitter acoount using "boomthis" sans underscore, which bummed me out, but such is life for the not-so-early bird.

I hope you will join me here often and will "follow" my tweets if you are so inclined. I may not be Ashton Kutcher, but hey, I promise we will still have a good time!

Can you ever have too much chocolate?

Guest Blogger Kathleen Ganster:



“Is this edible?” I asked the helpful sales woman at the spa shop at The Hotel Hershey after I had slathered chocolate scented hand cream on my arm. “That is our most frequently asked question,” she replied.

I was in Hershey, PA -- “The Sweetest Place on Earth” -- with my daughter, Eliza, for a girl getaway and we were making the most of our time together. I love Hershey – I mean, who wouldn’t love a town built around chocolate?

I took it as a sign from God when I opened the morning paper the day of our trip and read that a daily dose of chocolate may actually help us live longer. Yippee, a license to eat chocolate! Not that I needed any encouragement.

Hershey has an amazing amount of fun things to do including the thing that Eliza and I loved best – a visit to The Spa at The Hotel Hershey. First, the Hotel was beautiful and had a very European feel to it (the intention of Hershey founder and hotel builder, Milton Hershey). We were delighted just driving up to the place! But then the spa...there is a variety of services offered many to do with chocolate. Eliza chose the chocolate fondue wrap and I had the cocoa massage. Although they weren’t edible, they were delicious!

Another fun task was the Countries of Origin chocolate tasting -- six shots of hot cocoa at the Cafe Zooka in the Hershey Museum. We couldn’t have been happier, drinking our chocolate and comparing notes. We also had the opportunity to visit Chocolate World, the gardens, the museum, and take a class at the Chocolate Lab at the museum. By the end of the two-day trip, we had to pass on a second chocolate tasting -- we did reach our limit. But we stocked up at the chocolate store at Chocolate World for the ride back home, just in case.

For more information about Hershey, visit http://www.HersheyPA.com/.

Robins at the Door

I had been hearing strange knocking sounds in the house for days. When I finally snuck around the house to learn the source, I discovered that a robin was pecking at our basement window, over and over and over again.

Hmmm. Did he want to come in and see what was on TV or did he think that the stuffed Pittsburgh Pirate Parrots sitting in the window well were long-lost relatives?

Then last night we found TWO robins pecking away at the patio door in the basement. Guess when a window doesn't open, maybe a door will?

It's hard to figure out a bird's intention, but this is a little odd, don't you think?

You won't believe this

Referring to my last blog which whined about how I couldn't access my Boom This! empire on the web, I finally discovered the problem. My newly updated Norton Security service was keeping me out of my own sites. Norton's program called "Safe Web" thought my sites were questionable -- even to me -- so I had to lay down the law and tell them to ease up and set my websites free!

Yesterday, for the first time in over six weeks, I could get on my own websites. Now I have to work at updating articles at http://www.boomthis.com/ which I haven't been able to do for so long. I also replaced a definite fall photo on the home page (a football player kicking an extra point) with a photo of hyacinths, now blooming in all their glory.

Amazing. Technology will either save us or kill us I am afraid. Not sure what the end result will be but for today, my little kingdom is OK. I will wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Computers = Frustration

I just finished sending out my Boom This! Ezine which I have been writing for eight years this month. It's a little of this and a little of that, all geared to Baby Boomers -- but not totally something others wouldn't be interested in.

I have been having tech problems sending the newsletter out and no one seems to know why. For some !#$@ reason, I can no longer access the websites that I use to post articles to my own site http://www.boomthis.com/ I can't post new photos at this site either, and this goes for the other computer in the house too.

To send out the Ezine, I have to use the OLD computer we put in an upstairs BR. and even today that didn't work very well.

None of this makes any sense to me and I have been trying to figure it out to no avail. Ithink I may have to resort to getting my computer guru out for a visit to see if he can naviagate through all of these situations that make no sense!

Sorry to vent but I am guessing that's what blogs are for, at least sometimes.

Spring has Sprung!

What odd weather we have had. After a record breaking amount of snow in February, the weather turned warm one day and it has been essentailly nice since then, for the entire month of March. The daffodils and crocuses are blooming, and the leaves on my favorites -- the lilacs -- are starting to emerge.

Some friends and I took advantage of the great weather yesterday to visit a Pamela's restaurant in the small town of Millvale. The restaurant is a throw-back to an old diner -- and the favorite spot of President and Mrs. Obama when they visit the 'Burgh. There is a bulletin board of photos showing the First Lady and the staff from the restaurant when she stopped by with her entourage for some lighter-than-air pancakes last fall.

These people know their pancakes. They are scrumptious and deserve several more visits just to make sure they are as good as I thought. If you are visiting Pittsburgh anytinme soon, or lucky enough to live here!, there are several Pamela's dotted around the city.

Rainy Days and Mondays

It's raining today, a continuation of yesterday's all dayer. It's not even April and we are getting showers. After the record-breaking amount of snow we had this past winter, we probably don't need any moisture on the ground for weeks to come, but Mother Nature doesn't work that way. And so it is raining and dreary -- again.

It surprises me how much a dark and dull day can affect my mood. Sunny days are just so much more, well -- sunny. My energy level is higher and my outlook on life much more positive. Launching a new project on a sunny day generally means that I can expect a much higher chance of success with it than for one begun in the drearies.

Knowing that, I probably shoudln't be living where I do in Pittsburgh, PA, a city I do love. The Steel City is known for a lot of things -- three rivers, the Steelers and Penguins, friendly folk -- but not for being a sunny locale. We have won lots of contests for Most Liveable City etc. based on several criteria, but having an abundance of bright and sunny days isn't one of them.

Too bad. It's a great place to live but today it's a lot harder to work up some enthusiasm to get something done.