Looking at a banner ad for Myrtle Beach, I found that it was sponsored by the official tourism department for South Carolina. The headline of the banner was what caught my eye, “South Carolina: Made for Vacation.”

Now, I do love South Carolina and I love North Carolina. I love Myrtle Beach for family vacations to the Atlantic, (although I think the Virginia Beach area is a little cleaner and nicer now that they got serious about being a family friendly destination).

According to this tourism site, South Carolina has these activities to offer for a girls getaway weekend:

• Beaches
• Shopping
• Outdoors
• Golfing
• Historic
• Wine / Cuisine
• Theatre
• Ghost Tours
• Spas

My mom loves to tell us stories about how, back in the day, women were not allowed to play golf on a lot of the golf courses. It was the last bastion of the good old boys network and was really hard to break through.Mom was one of the “woman’s libber” pioneers, as she loved to play golf with my dad.

Now women are welcomed on almost every golf course and my mom loves to play with her girlfriends. She is in Myrtle Beach for a mid-week golf outing with my Aunt Evelyn. I hear that she used the www.48hourteetimes.com web site to get their morning golf game arranged yesterday. That was pretty cool, because I am the one who told her about the web site. Also because my mom is not the world’s biggest fan of the internet, so the fact that she actually went online to a website that I told her about to get tee times is outstanding.

To be honest, my dad is the one who told me about 48 hour tee times in the first place. He found out about it when he went to Myrtle Beach for a convention last summer. But I want to take all the credit for getting my mom to use it.

We made it home safely and without much incident. Thank goodness.

The only drag was in the New Work airport. The lines to get security were horrendous. It was an endless stream of people in every direction. It took over an hour to get through the security check and down to the gate, then we had to wait another hour to board because the flight was late arriving.

I would not have minded so much if it was just me dealing with all this garbage. I could have opened my laptop and kept busy and distracted for most of that time. But when you are traveling with two young children, the long lines and wait times are TORTURE. There needs to be a better way to handle all this. i can’t imagine wanting to fly again with the kids for YEARS. I would rather drive and let them be entertained with dvds and road trip games than subject them – or me – to that hassle at the airport again.

One of the few field trips that my son’s second grade class will be taking this year is the Cheekwood Christmas exhibit. They will be going by bus tomorrow in the morning and coming back to the school in time for the school lunch.

Cheekwood is a fabulous estate over in Belle Meade. I have been there several times and have always been completely impressed with the estate grounds, the art gallery and the exhibits. I’m glad the second graders are going to experience this as a group. I’m sure that many of the children would never otherwise have an opportunity to visit the estate.

My sister has been busy this week cleaning out the house of all her personal stuff and having someone come help her stage her home for sale. She has over 20 years of knick knacks, photographs and old furniture cluttering her house. It’s home to her and her two daughters, but it’s a mess if you are trying to sell the house.

When you really have to sell your home and have to get it sold, you need to do everything you can to impress the few buyers that are looking at homes in your neighborhood. A professional home staging can make all the difference between getting an offer and a contract or sending those buyers down the street to someone else’s house that is also for sale.

A professional is not biased with the emotional ties to the photos and hand crocheted lap blanket that you like. The home staging pro will take a critical eye to the house and de-clutter it, re-arrange the furniture and help make the house look appealing to strangers with money looking for a new home.

This afternoon we attended a special party at a friends farm down in Nolensville. The party was a chance for families with children to come have some Halloween and Fall Festival type of fun in a safe and supportive environment. Most of the children are dealing with disabilities and do not have the chance to do fun activities like a hay ride and horseback riding.

Back in the days of when we first met, there were three women whose husbands had the same disability and we became very close as we supported each other through some very hard medical issues and eventually the deaths of their husbands. It was sad, but at the same time heartwarming, to see all three of the same women today at the party.

The three women are widows now, but we all came out to the party to be supportive of the other mothers and wives who are dealing with these issues now. It was a good day.

My brother can be a lifesaver when it comes to computers and helping me out when I have computer problems. I’m not exactly a novice when it comes to computer troubleshooting and maintenance, but I am the first to admit that my brother is an Ultra-Geek.

My PC at home is only 3 years old but it’s already acting up. He told me last night to make sure I run a program to clean out my windows registry. I have done so many updates and upgrades lately that all those old files are clogging up my computer’s system.

To be honest, I have never worried about using a registry cleaner before. I have had people at work handle that for me. My brother told me how to get a free registry cleaner from a web site and that I can do the process myself.

So, following his instructions, I was able to do that and I can probably help any of my friends who need help with the same thing.

Although school has started for all the kids in this area, in some states there are still families enjoying their summer vacations until after Labor Day. This is the time of year that I like to get away for a long weekend to the beach. It’s just not as crowded in August and the hot summer days go great with long stretches of white sand and gentle surf.

My favorite family friendly beaches are in Myrtle Beach, which is about a half day’s drive from home. If you make reservations for a Myrtle Beach Resort and arrive midweek, you can have the beach almost to yourself early each morning.

It is easy to find great Myrtle Beach Resorts online. The web sites are full of good information on rates for all the different types of Myrtle Beach accomodations, especiallyfurnished condos, and all the great Myrtle Beach gold courses, the shows and attractions, and dozens of great restaurants.

It seems like forever ago that we were in grade school and learning how to do all the gmaes and puzzles of childhood. Do you remember how to take a piece of string and makes a cat’s cradle or Jacob’s Ladder? I barely remember how to do all those string tricks, yet my sister and I spent hours upon hours playing with the strings.

Another fun game of sorts was to make a “cootie catcher” and let your friends pick colors and numbers to learn their fortune. I barely remember how to make the cootie catchers, but surely someone has put that on the internet for others to learn and enjoy.

Once in a while over the years I have wondered if there might be a way to put free sheet music on the internet to share with everyone? After all, we have books, magazines and newspapers in both regular print and internet versions.So far, most of that content is free to people who can get online. So I did a little checking and found a web site called www.yokewong.net that does that for us!

When I took 4 years of piano lessons as a young child, a big part of the lessons was learning to read music and relate the printed notes to the keys on the piano. As I learned more about music and made friends with other musicians, I learned that guitar players have to read the same music sheets in a different way. But I was taught the sight reading for piano and keyboards, and that’s what this web site does.

It’s been years since I played the piano and I would love to take it up again. I have a nice keyboard stashed in a closet and now I can use this site to refresh my memory and get started playing music again! I would love to play at night to relax after work, and who knows? I might even have a couple of original songs flying around inside my head, waiting for an outlet.