Living hundreds, even thousands of miles away from family is a bummer--one of the spiders, if you see what I mean, of my life. But my big brother, Tom, came up with a wonderful idea: do lunch via the cell phone! He started it with his nephew, Jordan, my son and then included me when I decided to spend the summer in Maryland (he's in Utah) to paint before heading off to Korea to teach for at least a year. My son's in Boston, I'm in Maryland and I believe Tom's found a great way to stay connected and make life a little sweeter. Today I we went "together" to an ice cream shop the 3 of us went to years ago on the corner of East Street and Church in Frederick. Frederick Fudge and Ice Cream sits right on the corner, it's charming, a chocolate lover's dream and has some of the very best ice cream around. Today Tom indulged my cravings with a double scoop of the darkest decadent, brownie flavors in a chocolate dipped lime green waffle cone. I felt like a 5 year old in heaven and sent him cell pix to drool along with me. We talked for over an hour and I purchased some cute, cheap sweaters for Korea's winters at the darling consignment shop across the street--all while chatting with my oldest brother (I have 7, by the way). Jordan and I chatted for over an hour last night, so now I don't feel so overwhelmed with the journey I'm about to undertake. There's been an infestation of spiders with delays, paperwork, unreasonable banking policies and a renter I have to replace in about 5 days, but connecting over ice cream, great ideas, fond memories and shared goals sprinkles in enough sweetness to smother the yucky side of life!