A very sweet friend of mine recently made me a mix CD and we took it on our Pennsylvania road trip.

I don’t want to use her name because she may not want to reveal the fact that she included songs like “MMMbop” by the Hanson Brothers and “Mambo #5″ by Lou Bega. (But if you live in my town, this person has been seen very recently in a sassy tennis outfit and to the best of my knowledge she did not even play tennis that day.)

On the car trip, our girls made us listen to this CD over and over again until a little bit of Monica, Erica and Rita had really suppressed my will to live.

But one of my favorite songs on the CD is by a Canadian singer named Carly Rae Jepsen. (Just a warning… It’s very catchy and you will likely be singing it the rest of the day if you watch this video. Plus maybe dreaming of a guy with tattoos and abs like a washboard. If that’s your thing.)

My girls (who have never seen that video) have created a whole dance routine to “Call Me Maybe.”

But in the car, after our 47th time listening to the song, my husband said…

“I don’t like those lyrics.”

“Why Tipper? She’s just singing, ‘I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe.’ I don’t think it’s so bad. Seems innocent enough.”

“I don’t know. It just seems a little inappropriate,” my husband said.

“Didn’t you have the girls listening to Billy Joel’s ‘Only the Good Die Young’ a few days ago? You’d rather our 5 and 7 year old be singing about death?!”

“That song is not about death. It’s about losing your virginity,” he countered.

“Oh you’re right. That’s much better.”

Even as a kid, I hated litter. I have always envisioned a clean, immaculate world.

I never once threw my McDonald’s trash out the window of our purple Hornet. Mostly because my crunchy parents wouldn’t take me to McDonald’s. And throwing the wrapper of a nut carob molasses bar out the window doesn’t have the same zing.

As an elementary school student, I often picked up trash when I saw it on the street and would explain with great passion (passion I usually saved for Shaun Cassidy) to anyone who would listen… “DO YOU REALIZE THAT IF NOBODY LITTERED, THERE WOULDN’T BE ONE PIECE OF TRASH ON THE GROUND IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD?!!”

It was so simple! It was so easy! Why wasn’t everyone doing it? But no one really listened to my 5th grade call for action. The world kept throwing their garbage on the ground.

As I grew older, my one girl anti-littering campaign became more of a recycling effort.

Even this past weekend, I was outraged when we visited a local water park and despite the fact that recycling bins were sitting next to the trash cans, few people could take the time to put their empty water bottles into the recycling bin. So I picked them out of the trash can and put them in their proper place.

I realize my impact is very very small. But it’s something. Right?

At home, I recycle whatever I can. I rarely accept plastic bags and always carry a reusable bag in my purse. I try to teach my children that it is our obligation to do these things. We have been given this gift – this gorgeous amazing planet and it’s our duty to protect it. My 7 and 5 year-old nod their heads like they know exactly what I’m talking about and then ask me if they can watch “Fresh Beat Band.”

So I’ve taken them (dressed in pajamas and tutus) to clean up trash at our local nature center.

And this week, I plan to put garbage bags in their hands and clean up a street in our town. I know there will be whining. But they will be rewarded with the personal satisfaction of a job well done.

And some candy.

I hope I am raising children who will join me in my mission for a cleaner, less polluted world.

I hope they will also one day pick plastic bottles out of trash cans. And encourage their friends to do so too. Because we have just one incredible world and it is our responsibility to care for it.

When Summer and Dylan were younger, we took them to Italy.

Chase and Harlowe? They get to go to to Pennsylvania. Which is kind of like Italy. Without the Colosseum and other showy Roman Empire stuff.

We started the vacation in Philadelphia and ended it at a gigantic indoor water park in the Poconos. I’m just glad the girls saw the Liberty Bell before the Double Barrel Drop water slide. Because you aren’t allowed to slide down the bell. Just ask 23-month-old Chase.

In Philly, we visited the Please Touch Museum and then did the Rick Folbaum eating tour with hard shell crabs at DiNardo’s and cheese steaks at Jim’s. Or was it Pat’s? Or Geno’s? I don’t know. Some guy. Who likes to cook steak and cheese.

Then we visited Rick’s sister-in-law where Harlowe broke a china plate and then we stopped by Rick’s friend Debbie’s house where Chase drew all over her wall.

The good news? We got the marker off!

The bad news? We scraped the paint off too!

With that stuff off Chase and Harlowe’s To Do List, we hit the Crayola Experience in Easton and then headed to the Great Wolf Lodge.

The Great Wolf Lodge is a huge indoor water park…

with wave pools, slides and all kinds of other cool stuff that will make your kids never want to go home. On the plus side for adults, there is a poolside bar and you can walk around with your cocktails. On the downside, this was my hair after spending two days in this humid water palace.

There is also some Quest game in the hotel and everyone runs around madly trying to become Master Magi but I never quite figured it out.

All in all, we did three hotels in four nights during this “vacation” which really must make Rick and me Master Magi anyway.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from the trip…

(Note to safety conscious readers: Yes, I fixed both Harlowe and Chase’s car seat straps.)

I hate fortune cookies.

I know I should save that kind of venom for something more deserving like evil empires or bolo ties but fortune cookies just get me so mad.

Like here you are at the end of a delicious Asian fusion meal and the finishing touch is a cookie with magical knowledge of what is about to happen to you. A very promising way to end a meal indeed.

Except the cookie tastes like cardboard and the fortune either makes absolutely no sense like… “The landscape of your happiness is running to the wonderment” or it simply is not a fortune at all like… “You found precious friends at sunset three years ago.”

So now, instead of basking in the afterglow of your crispy walnut prawn and chicken dish, you feel cheated and must go home and lock yourself in the closet with your Magic Eight Ball until you feel like you have some kind of inkling of how your next week is going to turn out.

Every time I go to these restaurants, I am quite hopeful that this is the day they have opted to hand out double fudge chocolate chip cookies instead of fortune cookies but sadly, that day has never arrived.

In fact, I recently took my older girls out for sushi and this was 5-year-old Summer’s fortune…

And this is so spot on because Summer is constantly down at the racetrack betting on her favorite horses… usually Daddy Long Legs or El Padrino. But despite her deep passion for  gambling, she absolutely never does it to excess. How does the cookie know?!

By the way, they don’t even hand out fortune cookies in China. It’s more of an American tradition so maybe we could get someone to type up a few new fortunes like, “You are destined to win Mega Millions” or “You will be extremely lucky in love” or “Your kids will not be total jerks to you when they are teenagers” or “Union Rags is going to win the Kentucky Derby so please stop betting on Daddy Long Legs just because you like the name.”

You know, something helpful.

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I love a good fashion trend.

Which is exactly why I once upon a time owned 14 pairs of leg warmers, 37 neon bracelets and enough scrunchies to dress the Von Trapp family.

That was 1986.

But I no longer embrace every trend that shows up in Vogue. Or Lucky. Or the local department store circular.

Like this bright colored jeans thing…

When did it become okay to wear orange pants unless you are part of some kind of marine fire rescue operation?

I’m sorry but I refuse to be a part of this fad. Here is why…

1. The whole point of jeans is to be able to wear them again and again without having to wash them. If a mom doesn’t have a tissue for her kid, she can actually wipe the snot on her jeans and those pants are still fresh the next day. (Or at least I’ve heard that some moms do this.) Kelly green denim will just not hide this kind of thing.

2. How often can you wear a pair of these crazy bright pants? They can’t fly under the radar like blue denim.  I can already hear the neighborhood folk, “There goes Kelcey again in those purple jeans. That girl is determined to get her money’s worth out of those.”

3. I’m not a princess (at least last I checked).

4. This is just the sort of trend that disappears as soon as you finally cave and purchase a pair. Let’s not all forget that we once wore stretch stirrup pants.

STIRRUP PANTS. What the hell?!

So it’s settled.

We aren’t doing it.

Oh crap.

I don’t know what happened. They looked so cute in the store. I caved. Okay?! I caved. They were so pretty and aqua and fun.

You can’t see the snot on them, can you?