I am 37 years old and have lived in 12 different houses and apartments. I have met, and moved away from, many different neighbors. And, I’ve had my fair share of bad ones.

When I was little, there was Ursula. She lived alone with her thick German accent and her very scary dogs. Dogs who may as well have been trained by Hitler himself. God forbid if they didn’t heel when she told them to.

I didn’t try to sell Ursula any Girl Scout cookies, and I didn’t even bother collecting paper route money. You just didn’t approach that house. Das war verboten!

In college, I had neighbors who made my apartment building smell like Thai food and feet. The odors that wafted under the hallway doors were bad enough that I trained myself to hold my breath from the parking lot to my unit on the second floor. The year I had to carry my bike up the steps was quite a challenge.

Shortly after that, I had my first experience with rotten neighborhood kids. Kids who threw eggs at my house and who put dog poop on my front porch. I’m not going to get into details, but just know that I got them back.

My husband and I have lived in our current home for over 10 years, and we have a great group of folks living around us. But, for the past eight months we’ve been feuding with our next door neighbor. Well, not so much feuding as not talking at all.

Before the silent treatment began, this was the same lady who would stop you on your way to the car, or in the middle of cutting grass, to give you a dissertation on her family life. These were not stories about her or her husband, but rather about her children, her grandchildren, her grandchildren’s barber, the barber’s sister, and the barber’s sister’s attorney’s son’s teacher’s uncle. Literally. She is a gossip to the nth degree…and if you’re going to gossip, could you at least make it about people I know?

So this not talking thing? It’s really not so bad.

Forget casseroles and picking up newspapers when we’re out of town. Turns out that her granddaughter wrecking into our car was the most neighborly thing anyone has ever done for us.

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Tomorrow is our 11th wedding anniversary. Despite our lousy vacation luck, we’re dropping the kids and the dog off with sitters, then we’re headed here.

Here is a forest, with a hillside lodge, lake, golf course, pool and many outdoor activities.

While determining our excursions, we certainly know we won’t be horseback riding. The first time we tried this, my husband’s horse firmly decided to NOT climb the hill back to the stables, so we instead traveled through thick brush that left us looking like Indiana Jones had used us for whipping practice.

The second time we rode horses (on our honeymoon), the guide took the two of us along a cliff in Hawaii…a cliff right next to a shooting range. I don’t know who was more spooked by the gunshots, me or the horses. Probably me.

Maybe I’ve watched too many westerns, but I was just waiting for my horse to rear up at the sound of a rifle, at which point I would go tumbling down the mountain. My husband would’ve heard a lot less nagging these last 11 years, that’s for sure.

We also won’t be climbing in a canoe. The last time the two of us went canoeing, we managed to tip ourselves, the entire contents of our very full cooler, wallets, phones, everything…in about two feet of water. Yes, you read that correctly…two feet. It barely covered our knees, and yet we were drenched from head to toe.

And golf? Well, I’m a hack at best, so that’s out.

Besides being with my husband, taking in the beautiful scenery and the poolside bar, I am most excited about the lodge’s treadmill. I’m pretty sure it won’t need to be uncluttered before I can use it.

I know I’m in the minority when I say I get excited about working out while on vacation. But, that’s just because of the aforementioned clutter, and because I often have to stop my treadmill in the middle of a run to get someone a snack, or fix a computer problem, or wipe a child’s butt. These kids? They’re so needy.

But, treadmill or not, I’m looking forward to some alone with my man. Leisurely strolls around the lake, good food, tasty wine, and of course…there will be me kicking his butt at Scrabble. Happy Anniversary, Honey! I’m totally going to triple-word-score on you.

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Let’s look among the items in my pantry for today’s pop quiz. What you can’t see? The organic granola, canned salmon, lentils, and prunes. That’s right. It’s a place where you can find healthy food…like Wasa Bread on which to break a tooth.

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My nine year old daughter was born ten weeks early, during an emergency c-section. I went to the hospital for a routine ultrasound and they didn’t let me leave until they had strapped me to a table, cut my stomach open, whisked my baby away to be put on a ventilator, and fed me Percocet and chicken broth for five days. Ahh. Good times, good times.

Her brother was competitive from the get-go. Although he was only seven weeks early, he came complete with four heart defects, a kidney disorder, a missing right tear duct and a stomach flap that wouldn’t close…thus allowing breastmilk to freely flow out of where it had recently gone in.

Needless to say, my husband and I spent a lot of time in the hospital when our kids were young. And, each and every time we entered that place we had to scrub our hands with a very distinctive smelling anti-bacterial soap.

Now, whenever I visit someplace that has that same soap, be it a hospital, restaurant, or gas station, I get a flood of memories when the aroma hits my brain. Usually that flood is somewhat traumatic.

The smell of ginger takes me to Hawaii, the fragrance of roses to my Grandmother’s back yard, and I can’t even buy apple cinnamon oatmeal because, when warm, I revisit some seriously nasty diapers.

I have read other blogs and comments that make mention of this phenomenon, and my best friend has a story about chopping green beans when she received a phone call from someone bearing bad news. Guess what she thinks of when she smells green beans now?

What I want to know, boys and girls…where does your mind travel when you get a whiff, and what’s that you’re smelling that sends you on your way?

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