Every once in a while, a deal comes around that is just too good to pass up. I'm a bargain hunter at heart and I couldn't help but do a double-take when I saw an advertisement in the Sunday newspaper a week ago for a 6-day stay on a Disney Resort -- complete with a meal plan and "Park Hopper" tickets for $455 for adults and $198 for children.

Too good to be true, right?

So, I set about reading all the fine print and I found it -- the hitch -- you have to go between Aug. 26 and Sept. 22.

That was, initially a huge turnoff since daughter A is starting Kindergarten this year, but... I just couldn't get over the price and the fact that we were definitely planning to take them to Disney this year or early next year (so why not take advantage of a killer deal and go when attendance is at its lowest).

Called the travel agency (Carlson Wagonlit -- thank you Jan!) and ended up booking a week at the All-Star Movies resort in September (and resigned myself to the fact that it won't kill Kelly to miss a week of Kindergarten at the beginning of the year).

For $3,000 (with taxes and vacation insurance) for all four of us we got:
* 6 nights at the All-Star Movies Disney Value Resort
* 4 "Park Hopper" passes for 6 days -- including the water parks
* Round-trip air, from Erie
* Transportation from airport to hotel and hotel to airport
* Disney dining plan: 2 meals and one snack a day for each of us on every day of our visit

That's worth missing a week of Kindergarten (and one of Preschool for Lauren), don't you think?

I'm so excited (as are the girls!)

And, yes, I've already been on line and ordered books - both the unofficial guide and the official guide to Disney.

Got any Disney trip tips to share? Did you learn something you wish you'd known before you went? Tell me about your trip! Post a response below.

A couple of sites my Aunt told me to be sure to check out (which I still haven't had time to do, but will...) are mousesavers & allearsnet.

In doing research on some recent articles, I've stumbled upon a couple of books that I'm adding to my reading list.

I share with you, ladies, in case you want to add them to your list. And, I share with you, guys, in case you want to pick one of these up for the mom(s) in your life (Mother's Day is next Sunday!).

"Hidden Messages: What Our Words and Actions are Telling Our Children" is a book by author Elizabeth Pantley (author of "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and "Kid Cooperation" -- a book we recently reviewed in Her Times, April 15, 2007 issue). I loved every one of Pantley's books that I've read before and find her advice to be solid and down-to-earth without being preachy or too touchy-feely (does that make sense?). It's practical parenting advice for real-life mothers. I couldn't wait for Mother's Day -- I ordered this one for myself.

"If Women Ran the World, S*** Would Get Done" is a book title that, obviously, caught my eye because, well, this is something that my girlfriends and I have actually said more than a few times. Reading the description made the book all the more intriguing because it's not just a book -- it's call to action -- encouraging women to "dream about the kind of world you'd run. And use the questions and pages in this book to write them down. Make your own dreams come true!" I ordered a review copy that we hope to feature in our Aug. 12 issue of Her Times (theme is "Dreaming Big").

"This is Not The Life I Ordered:50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down" is a book that came about from four freinds who would get together for "kitchen-table coaching sessions" who realized their great advice could help other women. Advice from other women -- I can never get enough of that....

Which leads me to my next "find"...

"Everything I Need to Know, I Learned From Other Women" this book's title speaks for itself.

May 8 is a date that lives forever in my memory. Every year when this date rolls around, I can't help but think about two classmates who died in 1985. I couldn't make sense of it then, and -- 22 years later -- I can't make sense of it now.

The girls -- Denise and Dawn -- went to the same Jr. High school that I did and we belonged to the same clique of kids (namely, the bad ones). I knew of them and had talked to them, but they weren't my good friends or anything. And, yet, their death was monumental in my life.

All this time has gone by and I have lost all my grandparents, a cousin, some friends, my sister-in-law -- all people I was much closer to and, yet, I don't remember the date of any of their deaths.

But, the date of Denise and Dawn's death is forever etched into my memory. Maybe it's because we feel things so much more deeply when we're that young. I was 13.

They were, reportedly, walking home from detention after school. Traveling along the train tracks and were both struck and killed by a train. The rumors, and gory details, instantly began to circulate. How could they have not heard the train? How could they have not felt the train? Did the driver blow the horn? Was it suicide? Was it a terrible game of guts gone very bad?

We'll never know. And, I suppose that's why every May 8 I wonder about them. What they might have become. Who they might have been. If they'd have had a family. If they meant to die that day.

There's just no closure.

Just a couple of pine trees planted near the place they died. The once tiny pine trees have grown tall and wide. They've grown so large they are touching each other now, crowding out the boulder below them that holds the plaque that explains why they are there.

... but can't possibly explain why Denise and Dawn are gone.

but I can still relate to this article. I found it a worthy read and thought it might provide insight into what it's like to work in the news business.

We are loved and loathed. We are called right-wing gun-lovers and left-wing tree-huggers. I've been told that I'm an idiot and I've been told that I'm a genius. Some wrote to tell me that they hate what I write, others wrote to tell me they love what I write.

My skin has grown thicker. I am more willing to listen to (and learn from) critcism without launching into an immediate defense. I will stand my ground when I believe I'm right. I've learned that most angry callers just want to be heard and that, provided it stays on a respectful level, I owe them that courtesy.

Though I'm not on the front lines -- or on the front pages -- I know the struggles those who are face. I have tremendous respect for them. I'm proud to work among them.

Summertime means bonfires in our family. My in-laws have one almost every Friday night (weather-providing) and we all sit around the fire, telling stories, roasting marshmallows and drinking beer (or, in my case, Diet Pepsi). My husband comes from a family of five -- all but one brother live in the area. All of his sibs have spouses and kids and we all go to Grandpa & Grandma's on Friday nights (Ok..sometimes I go to the mall, or go out with my friends or stay home and clean.....). It's sort of like a twist on the old-fashioned Sunday dinner -- only we do it on Friday with beer and bonfires. Sound like a bad combination? Normally it's fine, but...

Last Friday, I got together with some friends, so Dan took the kids by himself. Somebody (I'm not naming names) threw something stupid into the fire (an inhaler) which exploded (of course) and my little Lauren caught an ember in the hand.

It blistered immediately.

On Monday, it popped -- at the playground at Presque Isle (talk about an invitation to infection). Stopped at the drug store on the way home and found these new tatoos -- waterproof bandages that stay on in water and keep water out.

I was skeptical, but I bought them because:
a.) my daughter was sold on the "Disney Princess" designs
and
b.) she was crying in pain from the open blister.

The bottom line: They work -- worth every penny of the $3-something I paid for them.

And, yes...i'll be accompanying the husband and kids to the bonfire tonight.

Now is the time to start prevention treatments to guard your cats and dogs against fleas and heartworm. I had forgotten all about it until I received a mailing from Pet Shed -- a Web site I've found has some of the best prices on Revolution (fleas and heartworms) and Advantage (fleas & ticks).

Also, if you feed the hummingbirds and orioles -- get the feeders out because they are BACK! If you don't feed them, you should...they're some of the coolest birds you can attract to your back yard and all it requires is a some sugar water.

Oriole's also like grape jelly and oranges. I have a feeder I bought at Wild Birds Unlimited that dispenses all three. The pair of birds living in my yard clear it out every day (you can get cheap oranges -- and grape jelly -- at Aldi's).

And, don't forget this spring to stop and smell all the blooming trees and lilacs! God, I love this time of year.

I don't have cable (by choice), so we are limited to three channels (two if the wind is blowing so that WJET is not watchable) -- this leaves us with the Law & Order Network (formerly known at NBC) and the CSI network (formerly known as CBS).

Throw in "Criminal Minds," "Cold Case," and the one about the missing persons and every night is crime night -- all night.

I also can't stand 99 percent of "reality" TV. I get all the inside stories and reality I need from my own life, thank you very much.

I may be the only person on earth who has never seen "American Idol" (Fox rarely comes in), "Dancing With the Stars," or "America's Got (no) Talent."

I'd rather watch a good special on Inca Indians or Dinors Across American on PBS any night (if only that channel came in better). Yes, we really need a better antennea.

What ever happened to the good old sitcom, anyway?

Of all the shows, I hate Law & Order the most -- here are my top ten reasons why:

1. That stupid music -- dumb, dumb (how appropriate)
2. It's on every single night -- sometimes more than once.
3. It always involves a woman or child being raped and/or tortured and usually murdered.
4. I'm pretty sure it's giving wackos new ideas for how to rape, torture and kill women and children.
5. It's ruined my morning runs in the dark because I am convinced every rustle in the woods is a psycho prepared to lock me in his underground basement torture chamber (when it's usually just a doe looking for breakfast).
6. Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio -- This quirky jerk needs to shot in the line of duty. I can't even stand to watch him. What's WRONG with him anyway?
7. Story plots are blatant rip-offs from real life crime cases -- I hate these the most of all. Didn't they used to call these "fictional dramatizations?" Good Lord, hire a few writers and quit scouring the New York Times for next week's episode.
8. It gives NYC a bad name.
9. Law & Order SVU -- an entire spinoff dedicated to the most heinous crimes -- cause the regular stuff is just not entertaining enough.
10. It's replaced the evening news shows -- like Dateline and 20/20 and Primetime -- in which viewers could actually learn something (besides new ways to rape, torture and kill women and children).

P.S. I know what you're thinking...for a girl who hates this show, I seem to know a lot about it. That's because I am usually in the living room doing paperwork, reading, working on a column or blogging while the husband watches these stupid shows. And, like a train wreck, I just have to look.

Life is sweet today -- I've got a mason jar full of blooming lilacs on my desk. I clipped them fresh from the bush in my front yard this morning.

I love lilacs. Nothing says spring, to me, like lilacs. It was a major selling point when we bought our house ("OMG, honey..that's a lilac bush!").

Just a whiff of lilacs takes me back to childhood May days -- when school was winding down, summer was winding up and there were lots and lots of lazy days to come. The house I grew up in had a gigantic lilac bush just ouside the kitchen window. In the spring, when it was warm enough to open the windows, the scent of those lilacs would fill the house -- blowing through the kitchen curtains billowing in the breeze.

I imagine it's what my Heaven will smell like some day. By the way...if you've never read "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" -- you should add it to your summer reading list (and you'll know what I mean about "my" Heaven).

Here are a few tips for keeping cut lilacs hydrated
(from Martha Stewart Living Magazine):

1. Smash the last few inches of each cut lilac's stem with a hammer and it will be easier for the lilac to draw water up.
2. Keep them out of direct sunlight
3. Change the water every three days

I got pulled over today. I turned right on red in an insection that was clearly marked "no turn on red." I know it was. I drive that road all the time and I never turn on red, but yesterday morning was not going well.

I was sore from running a marathon on Sunday, I hadn't had time to get my morning coffe and I'd just dropped the kids off at preschool in sundresses and sandals only to find out that they were having an outside play day (and it was way too cold for sundresses and sandals), so I was distracted when I made a last-second decision to just run home and get the play clothes. I don't know if I ever even looked at the light, I just looked for traffic and turned. As soon as I turned, I decided to turn around and go to my mom's & see if she had play clothes.

Thank God I didn't do the u-turn I was contemplating or Mr Officer would've been really mad. When I pulled up a road and turned into a driveway to turn around, he was behind me.

I unclicked my seatbelt to reach down and get my purse on the floor on the passenger's side.

He walks up and asks me why I had just turned on red when it was clearly marked "no turn on red." I said I didn't realize it was red. He scoffed and said "c'mon, now." Then he asked me why my seatbelt wasn't buckled. I said "no, no...really, it was...I unbuckled so I could reach up to the passenger's side floor & get my purse. I ALWAYS buckle up (and I do). He gave me a look like "sure, they all say that."

So, then I let him have it -- I told him that I was distracted and that I had just dropped my kids off for preschool and they were not dressed properly and that the teachers must think I'm a terrible mother and that I was tired from the marathon where I did not even qualify for Boston and that I couldn't decide if I should drive all the way home and get clothes or should I just go to K-mart and get cheap sweatsuits, but then they didn't have any sneakers and gas is now $3.10 a gallon and if I drive all the way home and back I will have no time to do the housework I didn't do all weekend and ... .

He must've been sorry right then that he pulled me over. In retrospect, it's kind of funny. But, at the time, I was completely serious and I, of course, (cliche as it is) started crying.

I figured he'd let me off with a warning (not because of the tears but because I have a squeaky clean driving record) -- and he did.

But, one thing he told me is that you might not have realized is that you should NEVER unbuckle your seatbelt before the officer comes up to your car. He said he could ticket me for not wearing a seat belt, but he was going to give me the benefit of the doubt and believe that what I said was true (which is good because ... well, it was true).

When I held a friend's newborn baby a couple weeks ago, I expected to get the urge to want another tiny bundle of my own.

But, that urge never came. Instead, I was grateful that I wasn't going to be the one suffering through sleepless nights, dirty diapers and toilet training.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed holding the little guy. I breathed in that wonderful baby smell. I fingered his tiny toes. I let his itty bitty fingers curl around my index finger. And, I'll be the first one to take him out of Jen's hands whenever I see them, but I now know, for certain, that my baby days are behind me.

Two is enough. My husband had long said that -- since the LDR with daughter #2 if I remember correctly, but...I wasn't so sure.

Now I am.

At 35, I know that I should never say never. We might decide at 39 that we want another child. I highly doubt that though. Older children mean more freedom. With the girls becoming less dependent on us already, my husband and I have gotten glimpses of our life before kids. Back when we had free time, personal hobbies and a lot more disposable income.

But, on days like yesterday -- when the girls graduated from preschool -- I can't help but miss my baby girls. Next year, Kelly will be off to Kindergarten and I hear time travels even faster there.

Much as I enjoy the freedoms that come with my kids getting older, I long to hold my babies again. But, not so much that I want to have another.

Two kids are enough. I just wish they'd stop growing up so fast.

In honor of our long Memorial Day weekend....

Ever wonder what the longest anything is? You have to go to the site with the longest name (thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlongatlonglast).

You may not realize that you want to know this stuff, but you do.

Here you can find out how long the longest dog tongue is (with photo), how long the longest arm hair is (ick!) and how long the longest living insect lives (ick, ick!).

Enjoy your long weekend.

The girls and I had a weird incident on Sunday evening that led me to wonder just how to teach my kids to be wary of strangers without being rude to people they don't know.

We had went for a late evening walk. My younger daughter was in the wagon, the older one walking alongside me. She had gotten too close to the middle of the road & I was steering her back to the side when a navy blue truck turned down the road and slowed to talk to us.

I thought maybe he was going to ask for directions or he was going to just say a friendly "hey, great weekend, eh?" (it's not uncommon in our neck of the woods).

I got weird vibes the minute he started talking. He was obviously stoned or drunk or high on something. The scary woman with him looked to be even more far gone -- and had fewer teeth.

And, he was talking to the girls...not to me. And, they, were, of course, answering him because my daughters are NOT shy and will talk to anyone who will listen to them -- they were talking OVER each other to tell him things -- like their names. All the while, I'm thinking "shut up, shut up....shut up!" Meanwhile, Scary Man is leering and weaving down the road (cause I’m still walking) and Scary Woman is staring (possibly drooling) and weaving in the passengers seat.

I'm thinking of all those episodes of Law and Order - SVU and Criminal Minds and Cold Case and Missing Persons ....

My daughter was carrying a stuffed bunny (we've always got a few animals in tow) and Scary Man said "oh...I thought that was a bear, that's why I turned around."

HE TURNED AROUND? To talk to my kids?

OK...now I was spooked -- and we were a mile from home.

He tried to make conversation for what seemed like 10 minutes, but it was probably no more than a minute or two. Still, too long. He eventually drove off -- I'm not sure what I said or did to get rid of him. I memorized his license plate number (N.Y. plates) as he drove off down my road (away from Rt. 8 and I-90).

I knew he needed to turn around to get back on a main road. And, if he did that, I planned to turn into the driveway of the next house. And, trust me, I had no qualms about walking right into any one of my neighbor's houses like it's my own because I was in fear for our safety. I know 90 percent of the people on my street anyway — if not by name, certainly by face as I’m forever running or walking up and down our road.

Scary Man didn't turn around (God only knows where he may have ended up, unless he was familiar with the area). and we got home quickly and safely (after I physically forced my older daughter back into the wagon so I could walk faster). As soon as we got home, I took every visible kid toy and bike and put it in the garage and shut the door (because I remember reading somewhere that pedophiles will sometimes cruise neighborhoods looking for yards with toys in them).

Then, I got down on my knees, looked the kids in the eye and said "we should not have talked to that man -- he was a stranger and I don't want you to talk to strange men like that again."

And, yet, I remembered that just hours earlier I had chastised my younger daughter for refusing to tell a family friend her name at a picnic we were at. I had said "Hey, now...don't be rude....tell her your name!"

Now, how the heck do I explain to them how to know the difference? How can they know when it's rude not to talk to someone and when it's self-preserving not to talk to someone?

How do you teach gut instinct?

I nearly choked on my salad at lunch yesterday when I read the "breaking news" on www.goerie.com about the young girls -- 18 mos. & 2 years -- who drown in a Waterford pond yesterday. (You do know you can check goerie.com throughout the day for the latest breaking news, right?). If you haven't read the story, you can do so here.

As a mother -- of two little girls no less -- I was instantly heartsick -- for the girls, their families, the neighbor who owned the pond and the poor 18-year-old babysitter who will probably be scarred for life.

There's plenty of hurt to go around in this tragic incident.

Drowning stories are always especially frightening to me since we have an in-ground pool, 12-mile creek in our backyard and a neighbor with a "pond" -- usually it's dry, but sometimes it's filled with thick swampy water.

The neighbor on the other side of us had a big, unfenced water garden in their backyard. Last night, I learned they are filling it in. They have two young children living there and the water garden was a hazard they decided they just didn't need. Whether they made the choice to do that before or after yesterday's tragic news, I don't know. But, I'm glad they did because my kids are forever running over there to play with their kids. And, I have always had visions of them slipping while trying to see the fish and tumbling into that rock-filled water garden pond.

Our swimming pool is completely fenced and has gates that lock securely (so much so that adults have trouble opening them). But, I still worry -- about my kids, the neighbor kids, our cats, the neighbor's cats, chipmunks ... heck, I fish beetles and frogs out of there because I don't want them to drown.

Fortunately, my kids are now strong swimmers. Both have been taking swim lessons since they were in diapers. Both have advanced swimming skills and are capable of swimming -- in deep water -- efficiently and effectively.

Does it mean they're safe from drowning? Absolutely not. I am fully aware of that.

Tragedy can happen in minutes, seconds -- when you least expect it -- as yesterday's horrible incident illustrated.