Review of Noxen Country Dreams B&B

I stayed at the Noxen Country Dreams Bed and Breakfast in Noxen, Pennsylvania on the night of April 11, the night before Easter. This was my big getaway trip, the first night on my own since my kids were born. I read about this B&B on the Internet (their webpage is www.noxencountrydreamsbnb.com) and decided it was just the place I was looking for - a peaceful retreat with a no children allowed policy, a big tub and close enough to Wilkes Barre that I could meet my Mom for church the next morning.

After meeting my Mom at her apartment I set up my GPS and hit the road for Noxen. Traveling up route 309 north I was relieved to see that there were mountains, rolling pastures and not much else once I got past Dallas. I arrived in Noxen well within 30 minutes and found the B&B easily. Seeing as how it was the only business other than a convenient store and a couple of churches it wasn't hard to miss!

I rang the doorbell and was immediately greeted by Wilma, the owner of the B&B. She gave me a tour of the house, my room and also showed me the other rooms since I was the only guest that evening. We returned to my room where she showed me how to operate the gas fireplace and jacuzzi. She also pointed out that she had a bottle of sparkling apple cider chilling in some ice on the kitchenette's counter. She put on some quiet classical music and then left me to settle in. I brought my bags up to my room (all rooms are on the second floor) and decided to relax for a couple of hours before meeting my Mom for supper.

This is what my comfortable bed looked like:



The reading chair next to the gas fireplace (very comfy):

The kitchenette with microwave oven, coffee maker and mini fridge.









Bathroom.









I couldn't wait to test out the jacuzzi tub that evening. I brought my own lavender bath salts and enjoyed soaking, uninterrupted for half an hour. The towels were unbelievably plush and were a real treat.

My morning breakfast.









Since I am avoiding wheat and eggs I was pleasantly surprised by what my host came up with - yogurt, fresh fruit, coffee and orange juice.

Overall, my stay was extraordinarily pleasant and my host went out of her way to make it special. When I returned from dinner that night she had left a bag of jellybeans for me and a note checking to see what time I'd like my breakfast. That breakfast was brought up at my requested time and left outside my bedroom door so I was able to enjoy it while getting dressed. My privacy and time to myself were respected and I was truly able to relax. I spent my time reading, sketching, doing yoga and sleeping. The only thing I had a problem with was the microwave oven kept blowing a fuse when I was making some popcorn. It was plugged into a surge protector strip so I just kept resetting it every 30-45 seconds until my popcorn was done. Not the safest thing but I wanted my popcorn!

Anyway, I can see what a nice place this would be for couples or singles looking to get away from it all when staying in the Wilkes Barre, PA area. I highly recommend it for the service, amenities and the comfort. I should also mention that the owners have done a wonderful job with decorating the rooms. Everything seemed very well planned and contributed to each room's theme.

I'm Back...

It's been awhile since I've posted. I've been so busy reading other people's blogs and lurking on Facebook that I didn't have time to work on this. Many apologies to my loyal fans (which I think is all of one).

I'm excited about what's happening this coming weekend so it seemed like a great time to post a note here.

I'm going on my own (no kids, no husband) to visit my Mom for Easter. That in itself would be all fine and well but the part that really has me excited is that I'm staying in a bed and breakfast for my one night and it's going to be a REALLY nice B&B. I will have a big old room to myself with a humongous bed, a little kitchenette, fireplace, AND a jacuzzi tub. Yup. I am treating myself to a $145 a night room. Crazy but I need it. I will be posting a review of this B&B after I return. They just opened in March so everything will be new and I should get some royal treatment.
This is what my bed is going to look like:

The only draw back is it's about half an hour past my Mom's so I will have to do more driving than I'd like. However, I'm focusing on a long soak in that tub, reading a book uninterrupted and lots of rest on Saturday night. This B&B is in the middle of nowhere (town population is 900 something souls) so it should be quiet and peaceful. Ahhhhhh.

Of course, I'm having all sorts of second thoughts about it as I've been researching a number of B&Bs in the area before choosing this one. Hopefully, my concerns will be alleviated after Saturday night. I'll let you know!

Craptastic

The past few days have just been shitty. It started on Wednesday night when I smacked the side of my head on a wall shelf hard enough to knock me on the ground. Then, yesterday, I cut my palm pretty deeply with a steak knife trying to pry frozen pancakes apart. I know that wasn't the smartest thing to do in the world but I was distracted by two kids yelling two different demands at me and I hadn't had any coffee yet. I ended up going to the doctor's office yesterday to get a tetanus shot, bandaged up and antibiotics. Despite her bandaging my wound keeps reopening and bleeding. Joy. Then, today things were going all right. I did some cleaning and a whole bunch of laundry and managed to keep a positive attitude despite the pain radiating off of my palm. Yay me. I finally got some coffee into a cup this afternoon and I hear that sound I hate - the dog's body thumping on the floor. Yup, she's having a seizure. My son is oblivious to it (thank God) because he's so involved with Go Diego Go. This was a bad seizure for Molly. It lasted over a couple of minutes and then she just laid there not responding or moving. She blinked and panted but that was about it. She stayed like that for several minutes. I called my husband and he said just get her onto some hardwood so she's off the carpet. I'd already taken care of that. The next step was to get her outside in case she has to pee/poop. Got her outside in the rain and she's miserable. She's winding herself around my legs and whimpering. I had a lot of pity for her but I was afraid she'd knock me on my ass so I backed away but made sure she could still hear my voice. I'm not sure if she lost her sight like she usually does. She decides she wants to go back inside and I'm more than happy to accomodate her. I get inside, look at my hand, which is throbbing, and notice to my horror that my bandage is now dirty and damp from all this. I'm not supposed to get it wet until tomorrow and I'm relatively sure that dirt and grime are a no no as well. On top of all this my son is freaking because Diego was over and he was ready for a new one. This day better improve or I'm going to snap. I did briefly consider adding Bailey's or Kahlua to my coffee but figured that wouldn't really help anything. Would it?

Oh, I forgot to mention my phone call with my Mom this a.m. That's always good fodder for a post. We're driving up to Pennsylvania on Sunday to celebrate my Nana's 95th birthday with my mom, aunt, uncle and cousins and Nana, of course. My Mom sounded kind of funny on the phone like something was bothering her but I chose to ignore it with everything else filling up my mind. Finally, I hear her say "I know my saying this might bother you..." Oh goody, this should be fun. "But I'd appreciate it if you could refer to your aunt as Aunt Rose Ann rather than just Rose Ann." Um, ok. In my defense I only started calling her Rose Ann because she teased me several times for still calling her and her husband my Aunt Rose Ann and Uncle Jim. Whatever. Finally, my Mom got to what was really bothering her. Apparently, she thinks that because I dropped the "aunt" title when talking to my aunt, my cousin Jennifer has started calling my mom Joyce instead of Aunt Joyce. This really bothers my Mom. Anyway, I was so irritated by her approach to all this I didn't bother mentioning my knife trick to her. I figure that would just send her into a tizzy. We can hold off on tizzies until Sunday. Lord knows, there will be enough of them given the way my relatives are.

Procrastination... what else is new?

My husband's Aunt and Uncle are dropping in for a visit on Saturday morning. So, I have the ambitious plan to get the whole downstairs spic and span over the next couple of days. I'm going to clean the living room, family room, dining room, kitchen and powder room (half bath). Which one should I address this afternoon? Dust and vacuum the three easier rooms or address some of the scrubbing that needs to be done in the bathroom or kitchen? How about none of the above? I'm so not in the mood to clean and I can't motivate myself to get moving. I know these rooms aren't going to clean themselves and I will be horribly embarrassed if these people show up on Saturday and the house is in its current scuzzy state. My butt remains planted in my office chair. Sigh.

My grandmother (I call her Nana) turns 95 tomorrow. I guess I have a bit of good genes in my blood. We'll be celebrating with her on Sunday. So, yesterday I got my haircut. It's much shorter than I'd wanted but I think it's actually kind of nice. Check out my new profile pic. It's not looking as nice as the stylist had it yesterday but it's not too bad for not using a hairdryer or any styling tools, eh?

Fatigue Sucks

This was going to be a post about chronic fatigue syndrome and how it's affected my life. By the way, if you're a mom with CFS or fibromyalgia please check out my group on cafemom.com at http://www.cafemom.com/group/12347. We have a great bunch of women there offering information and support.

Anywho, this post is going to be a vent about my husband instead. I'm very angry right now so this may come out kind of harsh. We're both very tired (thus the title fatigue sucks) so I suppose I should give him a little leeway but I'm feeling cranky so he gets nothing.

This afternoon I sent my son into my daughter's room ahead of me after she woke up from her nap. He gets a kick out of being the first one in there and getting to play with her toys while she's still in her crib. She doesn't complain and I'm usually in there within a few minutes so it's not a problem. Today I took the time to go pee first and take my thyroid medicine so he was alone with her a little longer than usual. When I got in there he had managed to snag her butterfly mobile from pottery barn kids with a toy and had pulled a butterfly off of it. Here's PBKs pic of it.



I got very upset and started yelling at Joshua. My husband, who had been working outside all day and didn't have to deal with the kids at all, came in to see what was going on. When I explained how upset I was (with big tears rolling down my face as I struggled to fix the mobile) he began to lecture me on how it really wasn't that important if it was broken and to basically get over it. I know it was just a mobile and not worth the tears but I didn't need to be told that. I needed some sympathy. So, after trying to explain why this meant something to me and how expensive it was and blah, blah, blah he kept interrupting me. Finally I blurted out "stop talking to me like I'm a mental patient!" I then tried to explain more why this was such a big deal but he grabbed my daughter and stomped out of her room leaving me stunned and alone with my son who kept asking me what was wrong. When I finally yelled "don't walk away from me" he told me he couldn't talk to me right now in a very pissed off tone. So, I got my son out of my daughter's room, got him downstairs and grabbed the car keys. Then, I left the house and all this crap and went for a little drive to the post office. I wish it could've been something more exciting than that but I did have a package to mail for Ebay.

Real mature, eh? I just couldn't believe that my husband had walked out on me during a discussion. I used to get yelled at him for doing that very same thing in the beginning of our relationship and now here he was doing the same thing. Why is that acceptable all of a sudden?

Now he's acting like everything's peachy keen and back to normal but I'm still pissed. I don't want to just pretend that everything is ok when it's not. However, I feel like that's kind of immature. However, I know he's not going to bring this up or bother trying to apologize and frankly I'm too irritated and tired to try to work this out.

How can he just let something like this drop without trying to resolve the discord? He must know I'm still pissed.

Anyway, I managed to fix the mobile and warned my son never to touch it again.

I sooooo need to get a good night's sleep tonight.