American Heart Assn. Raffle

Wouldn't you love to start off 2011 with a new Mercedes while helping out the American Heart Association?
The Mercedes-Benz Dealership of Columbus, GA is holding a raffle to win a free 2011 C 300 or 2011 GLK 350. All proceeds will benefit the Greater Columbus AHA. Each ticket is just $100.00 (fully deductible) and no more than 750 tickets will be sold!

It doesn't matter where you live, to purchase a ticket, just give my friend Nadie Martin a call at 1-866-626-9336.

I buy tickets every year to help support the Heart Assn. Last year I even flew to Columbus and while I didn't win, it was still a fun-filled event and so exciting when they called the winner. She couldn't believe she actually won as she had just purchased 1 ticket.

For additional info: http://www.mercedesbenzofcolumbus.com/specials/news_events/mercedes_-_benz_of_columbus_raffle_/

Does she ... or doesn't she?

If you’re a Boomer, you’ll remember that slogan!

Spending over 3 hours at the beauty shop today made me think about the aging process and how differently each of us deal with it.

Some people just accept the gray hair and the wrinkles, while others have monthly maintenance rituals. I feel that as you age you should do whatever makes you happy in terms of maintaining or improving your looks. I hate pain, so forget plastic surgery!

But when it comes to my crowning glory, I’ve been hitting the bottle since I was 25 when I noticed my first grey hair and panicked. I could have bought a cute, brand-new, red Mercedes coupe for what I’ve spent on my hair over the past 35 years!

Speaking of hair color – mine has ranged from the darkest brown (my natural color) to blonde and many shades in between! Of course, there’s been a few dyeing disasters, like the time the chemicals in the dye negatively reacted to my previously permed hair leaving me with little tufts of Brillo-like hair in shades of green, black, brown and a horrible gray. That fiasco was the worst and when the next beautician tried to correct it – well, let's just say that I was lucky that I didn't end up bald. My hair was so damaged, the only solution was to cut it very, very short. Talk about a bad hair day; well, I had a string of 95 bad hair days before it finally grew out!

And the answer to that question --
''Hair color so natural only her hairdresser knows for sure..............''

An interesting tidbit is that the entire Clairol ad campaign almost got scrapped due to the double-meaning of that question– check out:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802EFDC173AF93BA35755C0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

In Germany

My friends Elke and Ed, who moved back to Germany after living in Colorado, hosted an appetizing dinner for us in their lovely new home. The highlight of their unique home is a cozy wine cellar. With it's intricate brick design, arched ceiling and rock floor, well, I felt just like we were in a quaint Italian Cafe in Rome. As you can see, it's well stocked as Elke & Ed love to entertain.

On Saturday night we had dinner with 20 friends at my favorite Italian Restaurant, Ville Verde in Sandhausen. Rocco and his wife Tina make all their dishes from scratch so the food is absolutely delicious. The atmosphere was just like New Year's Eve -- loud and joyful! With so many of the same people there, it was deja vu because I had celebrated my 50th Birthday at Ville Verde.

How could 10 years have passed by so quickly?

We had a hectic schedule so we left that night after dinner and rode to Stuttgart with Brian and Elena. Stuttgart is located in southern Germany and is famous for it's many tourist attractions as well as for being the home of major car factories like Mercedes and Porsche. We spent a few days there with Brian and Elena, taking in the many historic sights as we walked through the olde city. My favorite area was the The Schlossplatz (Palace Square) which is surrounded by many buildings dating from royal times. I also enjoyed strolling through the colorful Japanese Gardens which had been left from the 1986 International Garden Exhibition.

We ended our delightful stay in Stuttgart by having dinner with Brian and Elena at a local German pub. The time we spent in Germany was a fun-filled start for the rest of our trip. NEXT: Italy