I got home from Cali on Sunday night. I still have a lot of entries to write and backdate, so stay tuned for that. Boy, it was easy to forget I even had a job. I'm really good at completely letting go while traveling. That's both an advantage in aiding in true, stress-free relaxation, and a disadvantage when it's over. Coming home is kind of deflating.

Anyway, one of my oldest friends got married in a hip, stylish, 1950s wedding poolside at the retro Del Marcos Hotel. I wore my fabulous new dress (photos to follow when I eventually get my act together on Flickr) and had an awesome time.

The newlyweds, Elizabeth and Micah, are now honeymooning indefinitely in their 1958 Yellowstone trailer, Pixel Dust, complete with original appliances and furnishings. Did I mention Liz is heavily into the 1950s? They are mapping and blogging their adventure, so check it out: Pixel Dust Post.

Some highlights from my California vacation:

* Breakfast at Peabody's Coffee Bar. While we were waiting for our order of omelets, we were treated to some local police action. A motorcycle cop pulled over a Hummer right next to our sidewalk table, and Jonas seized the opportunity to take a picture.

* Walked the short Oasis of Mara loop at Joshua Tree National Park's west entrance, and saw a California quail, a roadrunner and the goofy-looking desert spider beetle seen to the right.

* Made the chilly, windy, strenuous hike up Ryan Mountain. It was only 1.5 miles to the top, but it was all uphill! Totally worth it, though. The cacti were in bloom with gorgeous cactus flowers, and the views of the valley below were stunning.

* Hiked the much less strenuous Hidden Valley trail, which sort of felt like being in lost world where there was no sign of humans and Joshua Trees are the dominant life forms. Saw more beautiful cacti and a real, live chuckwalla!

* Drove the Geology Tour loop. Again, this time of year and this time of day, it was like we were the only humans in existence, driving through an alien landscape feeling humble and insignificant.

* Our last stop in the park was touring the Cholla Gardens. No cholla jumped on us, though! JTNP was incredible. I'd definitely come back to explore trails we didn't have time for.

* Yummy dinner at Shame on the Moon (after showering, of course!).

Day 7 photos begin here.

Some highlights from my California vacation:

* Jonas got up early to find 11 geocaches to get us closer to #2500.

* Drove to Calexico and parked our car at a 2-hour meter.

* Walked across the border to Mexicali, Mexico. Hired a taxi to take us 14 miles W of town to Laguna Salada, an enormous, empty, dry salt lake bed, in order to find our 2500th geocache. Woohoo! Our taxi driver was congenial, but probably thought we were nuts.

* Our taxi driver took us to a restaurant he recommended, El Sarape Restaurant & Bar. He and Jonas enjoyed beers while we waited for take-out.

* Take-out in hand, we paid and said farewell to our taxi driver, and then got in line for U.S. customs, hoping our food wouldn't get cold by the time we got to eat. Customs by foot only took about 10 minutes. We showed them our passports, but they weren't interested in our take-out meal.

* Back at the car, our 2-hour meter had expired, but it couldn't have been too long. Found a coffee shop with outdoor seating and enjoyed our mouth-watering Mexican take-out.

* Extremely windy drive back to Palm Springs. Sand was blowing everywhere!


Day 6 photos begin here.

Some highlights from my California vacation:

* Toured the Getty Villa, modeled after exact specs of an excavated villa in Herculaneum, buried in the Mt. Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. This coincided uncannily with reading The First Man in Rome, which I honestly didn't plan, so I was feeling a strong connection to ancient Rome.

* Found an oceanside geocache in Malibu, before combating midday L.A. traffic to get out of town.

* Sundaes at a McDonald's in Riverside.

* Tea and a Crate & Barrel gift card at an outlet mall in Cabazon.

* Checked into our Palm Springs hotel, the Doral Desert Princess Resort. Very nice, and for cheap, thanks to the wonders of Priceline.

* Dinner and beer at Shakey's Pizza. I wanted to go here for two reasons: 1) There are no Shakey's in Minnesota anymore, and 2) I thought I had a photo of myself having my 2nd birthday at Shakey's back in the day. It turns out I was wrong, and the photo of my 2-year-old self is at Sambo's (wherever the heck that is), but Shakey's pizza was still good.

Day 5 photos start here.

Some highlights from my California vacation:

* Breakfast of pastries and other baked goods at the La Brea Bakery. We had to stop here because I'm really fond of the La Brea artisan bread shipped to my local grocery.

* Visited the La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum. In this location tens of thousands of years ago, incredible numbers of animals were entrapped in pools of liquid asphalt (oil) seeping up from the ground. Excavations have been going on here since the early 1900s, and the Page Museum displays some of the well-preserved fossils retrieved from the pits. This is a must-see if you're a fan of natural history museums. The coolest thing is that the oil is still forming pools on the museum grounds. It's a bit surreal to watch it bubble up next to you while you're standing in the middle of urban Los Angeles.

* Completed a strenuous, 4-hour hike in 90°F+ sunshine up in the Hollywood Hills. The first portion of the hike was an extremely steep ascent. Quite honestly, in the heat and sun beating down I did not think I was going to make it (and I consider myself in reasonably good hiking shape!). Once up on top, trekking across the ridgeline was a piece of cake, and we found two geocaches on the way to the famous Hollywood sign.

* Treated ourselves to a nice Italian meal at Ca' Brea Restaurant. I had salmon and risotto, and Jonas had spaghetti with shellfish.

* Arrived back to our hotel exhausted, sore and full of pollen.

Photos from day 3 start here.

Some highlights of my California vacation so far:

* Jonas brought up a few items to the room from the bakery in the adjacent shopping mall for breakfast. Muffins, yum.

* Drove out to Santa Monica and found a few geocaches, including one where we had to say the password, "The geocache flies at midnight," to some bike rental attendants in order for them to give it to us. :)

* Walked out to the pier, people-watched and soaked up some sun.

* Walked down the street to El Texate, which was yum yum yum.

* Strolled further down the beach to Venice, where all of the things not allowed on Santa Monica's pristine beachfront (street vendors, smoking, etc.) are permitted and even encouraged. Venice is prime for people-watching.

* Tired after all that walking, we popped into Laemmle's Music Hall to see The Counterfeiters.

* Picked up some In-N-Out Burger to eat back at the hotel.

Some highlights of my California vacation so far:

* Our 7:35pm flight out of Minneapolis was delayed about three hours. We spent about an hour on the tarmac alone, getting de-iced. That's OK, I've had worse travel experiences.

* Arrived at LAX around 12:30am local time and retrieved our luggage.

* Picked up our rental car, a silver Jeep of some kind. Good thing they're open 24/7.

* Found our way downtown to the Sheraton and managed to get to sleep around 2:30am, which felt like 4:30am to our bodies still on Minnesota time.

* The hotel had really comfy beds! I love you, Priceline!

Today I received a notification that "Punch Pizza" had made me its newest contact on Flickr. Now, I do love me some Punch Pizza, but how did they KNOW? I searched my photos for any "punch pizza"ish text, and came up empty. They must have done some very extensive market research! :)

Anyway, they're sponsoring a photo contest, the details of which are at I Love Punch Pizza, in case anyone else is interested.

Vacation news! One of my oldest childhood friends is having a destination wedding in Palm Springs in April! I'm going to take a week off work to attend and see the sights around PS and Los Angeles. I hope the weather is nice -- I can't wait to do some hiking in some of the desert parks. If anyone has any advice or recommendations for things to do or places to eat, please holler!

I slept like a log, not stirring one bit until the housekeeping lady knocked on the door and woke us up around 9:00am. By 11:00 we'd finally made ourselves presentable and were ready to go out the door and see what Pipestone had to offer.

First stop: Lange's Cafe. My getaway guide suggested we try this small cafe serving homestyle cooking. We went for breakfast so I can't say what the other meals are like, but I was served a plate with two of the largest pancakes I've ever seen. They were delicious. Jonas ordered some egg combo with hash browns, though I couldn't say what all was on the plate because it was covered in gravy. He appeared to like it pretty well.

Second stop: Pipestone National Monument. The vein of Sioux quartzite in the area has been mined by Native American tribes all over the midwest, who consider it sacred and for centuries have carved pipes out of it. (It is one of the most beautiful stones I've ever seen -- even the unpolished pieces are smooth to the touch. Strangely, I felt compelled to touch it each time I passed by some.) By the looks of it, PNM must be one of the least funded of all the parks and monuments run by the National Park Service. It had a kind of sad, forgotten look about it. We dutifully paid our $7 admission and watched the slide show, before taking a lovely walk around the quarry areas.

As we were nearing the end of the trail, we passed some young teenage girls, clearly Native Americans, walking the opposite direction. I felt very awkward just then. Here I am, traipsing all over land that is considered sacred. Sure, I'm doing it in the name of cultural education, but the reality that the fact that I was standing there represented such an incredible loss for someone else hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought of the girls that had passed -- how could they not hate me and everyone like me? Wouldn't I despise those responsible for the near-total destruction of my culture? It gave me pause, to say the least.

Third stop: Blue Mounds State Park. We didn't get nearly enough outdoor walking at the monument on this gorgeous day, so we went walking some more around this state park. There is a herd of bison living on the park land, but we weren't able to see them from any of the trails we were on -- I was disappointed! The beautiful pipestone was everywhere, however, with pink and purple chunks of it emerging from the ground all over the place.

Fourth stop: Lange's Cafe. Again?? Yes, we stopped in again in the afternoon for some pie. I had Reese's peanutbutter cup, and Jonas had lemon merengue. He didn't like his so I gave him half of mine, I'm so nice!

We noticed a bowling alley next door to the cafe and decided to go bowling that evening. Neither the exterior nor the name (Bol-Mor Lanes) looked promising, but it was actually a nice place inside. It's been ages since I bowled, but I managed to win the first game and Jonas won the second. We scored a pitiful 100 at the very highest, I guess that's not too bad under the circumstances. After bowling we headed back to the hotel for a delicious steak dinner at the hotel's restaurant. It was fantastic! The restaurant was practically the best part of the whole place. The food was delicious, and the ambience was very cozy. It was a wonderful meal. Then back up to the room to watch some TV and conk out for the night.

There is a hair salon on Main Street in Pipestone called "Curl Up and Dye." Great pun for a hair place, but would you really want to go to a place named that??

I decided we were going to go out of town this weekend to relax after all this house stuff, and I chose the city (town?) of Pipestone in southwestern Minnesota. The fact that there wasn't a whole lot to see in Pipestone was part of the reason I chose it -- without a lot of possibilities, we wouldn't feel forced to try to fill up our days with activities. Thus, the relaxing aspect. We both had to work until 5:00pm on Friday, but had packed everything into the car previously so we could hit the road right away.

Jonas was super-hungry, but he decided he could try to wait until we made it to New Ulm, where Oktoberfest was going on. It was being held Friday evening at the German-themed Holiday Inn (downtown on Saturday), so we paid our $4 admission and followed the sound of polka music to the celebration. A folk group was singing German songs, the words of which were obviously familiar to the audience as well, since everyone appeared to be singing along. That was pretty cool -- I'm of one quarter German ancestry, but no one in my family still does any culturally German things like that. By now Jonas was starving, so we went into the area where a veritable German smörgåsbord was being served. I had a landsjaeger (hunter's sausage) on a bun, German potato salad (lots of vinegar!), spaetzle (a kind of German noodle), and an apple strudel. After eating we hit the road.

About an hour outside Pipestone we started running low on gas. When we got to a town with a gas station I suggested we stop, but Jonas wanted to wait for the next one (famous last words). Well, the next town didn't have a gas station (we're driving out in the country!) and the gas station in the one after that was closed for the night (it was about 9:30pm). I was really starting to get nervous when the next town, Florence, didn't have a gas station either, but luckily it was the town where we were catching another road south -- just about one mile out of town on the new road was a Shell station!! Phew! Of course, the lady behind the counter looked at us funny for being out-of-towners.

About 20 minutes later we pulled into Pipestone and found our hotel, the Historic Calumet Inn. We looked at several different rooms (they all have unique, themed decor) before deciding to take "The Ming Garden." Right away we plopped down on the bed and vegetated for a while -- Jonas watching TV and I reading my book.

It's worth noting something more about the hotel, both for good reasons and bad. The building, rebuilt in 1888 after a fire destroyed the original, is very historic in appearance. The exterior, made of the same smooth, dark pink Pipestone (Sioux quartzite) the town is named for, is gorgeous! I really fell in love with that stone over the weekend. The interior, however, would be beautiful with a little freshening up. The smell of stale smoke permeated the entire building, due to undoubtedly countless years of smokers. A once-luxurious red carpet covers all four floors, but now looks quite worn. All the rooms could use a redecorating -- the themes were a great idea, but that was 20 (50?) years ago. I know the place is supposed to look historic, but it shouldn't be wallpaper-peeling, worn-carpet or paint-peeling historic. I'd love to go back if they did some remodeling.

Sunday morning we once again enthusiastically ate our breakfast left by the cottage lady (who, by the way, was an excellent hostess, making sure we had everything we needed). Packed up and checked out around noon and drove a few towns to Backus. The shuttle guy had recommended the trail between Backus and Hackensack if we were interested in another scenic skate.

It was 9 miles from Backus to Hackensack, and took us about 1 hour, 20 minutes. Hackensack's claim to fame(?) is apparently that of being the birthplace of Paul Bunyan's girlfriend, and there is a large statue in town of Lucette Diana Kensack. Mildly disturbing is the unnatural bulge on the left side of her dress. There was some kind of party going on in the city park, and we learned that some congressman was present. They were grilling and you could buy lunch for $5. We opted to try one of the local establishments instead, though, and had some pasta at Lucette's. It was OK.

Upon putting my skates back on to head back to Backus I felt the beginnings of a blister on my left instep. I hadn't thought to pack any moleskin, so I just laced my skates as tight as they would go and hoped for the best. It took slightly longer on the return trip, but I was more concerned with taking it easy than making good time. The very last mile seemed to go on and on and on.

With the exception of a brief but delicious stop at Dairy Queen for blizzards, our drive back to the Cities from Backus was relatively uneventful. There wasn't even a significant number of returning vacationers that I could tell. Maybe they all stayed up there.

Once home I was completely and utterly EXHAUSTED. My right knee turned out to be somewhat displeased with all the activity. Nevertheless, it was an amazing weekend. I would highly recommend the Paul Bunyan State Trail to anyone biking, skating, or even walking or hiking.

Saturday morning we were woken abruptly by someone pounding on the screen door. Jonas stumbled out of bed and peeked out the curtain in the door, and a man goes, "Bob?" Jonas said, "Uhm, nope," and collapsed back into bed. An hour later someone knocked on the door again, but this time it turned out to be the cottage lady, bringing us a lovely basket of breakfast! Two pastries, two small wedges of cheese, an apple, an orange, orange juice and milk were in the basket. (I was really getting to like this place!) So we scarfed down breakfast and got ready to face the day.

The goal of the day was to skate on the Paul Bunyan State Trail, so we parked at the trail office and got our gear on. It was about 6 miles to the town of Nisswa, then 6.5 miles to Merrifield, and from there 8 miles to Baxter. I had realistic expectations of making it as far as Merrifield but, amazingly, when we got to Merrifield we still felt great and decided to push on to Baxter. The trail itself was FANTASTIC -- you couldn't ask for a better surface (flat and smooth), the scenery was varied and interesting, and the entire ambiance of winding in and out of quaint small towns made it one of the best trails I've ever skated. Once at Baxter I used Jonas' cell to call this guy who runs the Bunyan Bike Shuttle and Rental. For $20 apiece he picked us up in Baxter and drove us back up to our car in Pequot Lakes. Excellent service for weary trail-riders! He also recommended to us the Bar Harbor Supper Club as a good place to have dinner, and it certainly was.

Back at the cottage, I tried to read for a while before falling asleep. Jonas somehow managed to stay up and watch an entire movie.

The weekend will continue with my next entry ...

I don't know whether to feel proud, accomplished and sporty, or incredibly foolish: We skated 37 miles this past weekend!!!

Friday afternoon we decided to skip out of town and headed Up North. From here, "Up North" is anywhere north of the Twin Cities, generally northwest past St. Cloud or just plain north beyond Mille Lacs Lake, into cabin country. After some research, I chose Pequot Lakes as our destination and arranged lodging in a cute, cozy cottage at Wildflower Cottages. The drive north was very slow at first, given the number of people who also had the bright idea of heading Up North. The freeway was jam-packed with trucks towing boats, campers, mobile homes, and of course regular cars containing people like us who don't have any such toys but are gleefully joining the procession anyway.

In Coon Rapids we stopped at Fuddrucker's to grab burgers. Having both been to the dentist during lunch hour, neither of us had had anything to eat since breakfast, and now it was about 6:00pm. I'm really not that enamored of Fudd burgers, but my chocolate shake really hit the spot.

We finally made it to Pequot Lakes about 8:30pm and found our cottage. There was one room containing a bed, night table, another table for two, TV, mini fridge and microwave. A small bathroom contained the toilet, sink and stall shower. It was small, but quaint. They had two larger sizes of cottages as well, but this one was great for two people. The only thing that was slightly uncomfortable was that the bed was a full size, and we're used to sleeping on a queen. Once we got settled I was exhausted and zonked off pretty quick. I think Jonas stayed up watching TV for a little while.

The weekend will continue with my next entry ...

God I'm hungry, waiting for Jonas to get home so we can go out to see the house and have something to eat.

We started WW again yesterday in an attempt to undo some of the love handles we picked up over the winter. Last year during the summer months I lost 15 lbs and Jonas lost 25, and so we both happily ended up in our "normal" range. Then we spent a few weeks vacationing in Florida and also became somewhat sedentary over the winter, gaining some of it back. So now we're off again. We took our first skating trip this past weekend, heading down to Lanesboro to skate the Root River trail. It's a gorgeous part of the state, and the trail is one of the best in the country (so they say). We skated from Lanesboro to Whalan (pop. ~65), 4.6 mi both ways. I have to chuckle -- we were so exhausted at 9 miles. Last year we had done 20 miles at one point. Ah well, we just need to get back into shape again.

The Lanesboro area, a bit south of Rochester, can only be described as "quaint." It's a cluster of small, rural, farming towns. There isn't a single hotel or motel chain within miles, but there are all kinds of B&Bs. It's an increasingly popular destination for people wanting to just "get away." Everything from shops to restaurants is family owned. There are a significant number of Amish in the community as well.

We stayed Saturday night at the Country Lodge Motel in Harmony, snagging 1 of only 2 rooms left for the night. The place was owned and operated by an elderly couple whose farm was located across the street. Jonas thought the proprietress reminded him of my late grandmother. It felt very homey -- it's the first time I've stayed at a motel/hotel whose lobby offered jigsaw puzzles you could borrow. (We didn't, but the thought was fun.) Unfortunately, that night I had an unnerving experience. Just as I'd gotten into bed and put my arm under my pillow (I always fall asleep on my stomach with my arm under the pillow), my fingers touched something hard underneath. Thinking it was a crumb or something, I lifted up the pillow to look (Jonas was still watching TV so there was a little light to see by). The object was black and IT SCUTTLED! "AIIIEEEEE! A SPIDER!" I screamed, and Jonas, ever my knight in shining armour, boldly did battle with the spider, triumphantly flushing it down the toilet. I don't hold it against the motel (heck my apartment probably has 10 times as many spiders creeping about), but it did make for a fitful and not very satisfying night of sleep for me as all I could think about was another spider crawling under my pillow.

Gotta continue this later or tomorrow. We're on our way to see house progress.

Well, not really. That is, I mean ... someday?

I have for some reason gotten hooked on the idea of doing Atlantic provinces of Canada on our next vacation. I don't even remember why I thought of it in the first place -- it's not exactly a destination you hear about all the time. In fact, I'm not sure I know anyone who's ever visited them. Our recent visit to the Viking exhibit at the science museum and hearing more about the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows renewed my interest.

The idea of traveling to out-of-the-way places has always appealed to me. I like to think of finding little gems of places to stay or things to do that others have never heard of, and I think Newfoundland might just be that type of area. The little I know of the province has come from reading Proulx' The Shipping News which, although fiction, painted a vivid picture of the stark landscape and community of the coastal fishing villages.

For some general background reading I've checked out the travel guide Atlantic Canada: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador from the library. It's hard not to get excited, but I'm trying to keep it under control, since it's been only three months since our last big vacation. It wouldn't be until next summer that we take another. It's fun to daydream, though.

Al Gore hosted Saturday Night Live last night, and it was actually a pretty good show. It's not that I have anything against Gore (I vote D myself), but it always looks a bit awkward and unprofessional when non-actors are hosting the show. Watching John McCain a few months ago was an agonizing experience. Anyway, I enjoyed last night's episode more than most during the last few years.

The sister of one of my former co-workers has opened a new tea shop in Minneapolis, Vitala Tea (312 E. Hennepin). The grand opening was yesterday, and I'd like to stop in today to have a cup and take a look around. I've never been a huge tea drinker, but have liked the idea of drinking tea. It smells so good, but I'm just lazy -- it would take several steps to steep some tea, whereas grabbing a canned beverage out of the fridge is instantly satisfying. Maybe after visiting the store I'll be inspired enough to buy a bag and go the extra step to prepare it every so often.

Mmm. Chili. I'm having myself a bowl of Hormel with beans. Jonas and I were going to go shopping after work today, but one of his co-workers had an emergency at the last minute and he has to work the night shift as well. We were hoping to get to a dive shop that's in Eagan and have a look at snorkeling gear (I know, it is funny to think of a dive shop in Minnesota, but apparently people go diving in the lakes around here). Knowing absolutely nothing about snorkeling we're hoping to get at least one somewhat informed opinion on styles, brands, etc. before we buy. I know you can rent eq from various dive shops and tour companies in Florida, but since we're planning to snorkel at several different locations we thought we might invest in our own.

I had book group today and am proud to declare I finished John Adams last night about 9pm. For all the difficulty I had getting into it at the beginning, I ended up liking it a lot. It was a fascinating read with respect to the Revolution, most of the details of which have either faded or disappeared from my mind since history class. I was also startled out of my previously held ideas of various people and events in history, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution. We are nowadays so many years removed from that time period we think of the "Founding Fathers" as a collective group of fine, upstanding, intelligent and admirable men, rarely pausing to examine them as individuals. I was surprised to hear that old Ben F., despite being a brilliant man of science and a diplomat, was also apparently a philandering lecher. Jefferson, on the other hand, was a revolutionary shop-a-holic, constantly in debt, and died an utter pauper. I was perhaps most taken aback with the details of the French Revolution. I had heretofore been given the idea that the revolt in France with the deposition and subsequent beheading of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, with its romantic ideals of "Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood" was a case of, "We'll get rid of the evil king and everything will be great." Shocking was the fact that the revolutonaries themselves, upon having taken control, proceeded to send over 14,000 people to the guillotine. Hey, King Louis wasn't looking so bad now, was he? Overall, despite taking about 200 pages to actually get into it, I'm glad I read it, even had it been nothing more than a vivid refresher in American history.

Now I'm trying to come up with some good "beach reading" books to take on vacation. I'll probably end up buying a few paperbacks at Barnes and Noble before we go.

Currently reading at home: Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)

Yay! It's weekend!

Jonas and I are having a little cheese-olives-wine-and-movie night here. So far we've watched one movie, "The Man Who Wasn't There," and may watch another later on. The first bottle of wine was Blackstone something or other and was pretty damn good (I'm still slightly tipsy). The other bottle so far unopened is Bogle Petit Sirah, a wine we had once before and enjoyed pretty well.

I checked my P.O. box today and unloaded a ton more of vacation flyers, some of which I've actually requested and some from random businesses which presumably received my address from a chamber of commerce. So far I'm not minding the random stuff terribly -- it's easy to skim over and toss into the trash. However, I'm particularly puzzled why they would think that simply because I'd like to spend a few days in a particular town that I'm interested in purchasing a vacation home there. That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Jonas thinks I'm beginning to smother him with vacation stuff now (heh), so I should maybe take it easy. It's still nearly a month away.

There was something more I was going to mention yesterday, when I ultimately failed to write an entry, but naturally I can't remember what it was now. I'm still failing miserably reading John Adams, and book group meets this coming Wednesday.

I'm thinking of getting my hair cut. REALLY cut.

While a haircut isn't a big deal for most people, I haven't had hair shorter than my shoulders since 7th grade. I've been trying to grow it out for years upon years and although I haven't been altogether unsuccessful (it's been about halfway down my back for 5 or 6 years), I've always had trouble keeping it healthy (read: perpetual split ends). Now that we've got this vacation coming up and I'm feeling newly invigorated (I've lost 15 lbs since April), I'm almost 100% decided that I'm going to take the plunge, to get it chopped off at least to chin-length, perhaps shorter, and get a new style. Wish me luck -- it's kind of scary.

I spent much of Sunday giving my webpages a bit of a facelift. I didn't add a whole lot of new content, but just tried to give all of the pages a more uniform look (same background, color scheme, etc.). I also tallied the results of my first set of survey questions, shown here. Now I've changed the survey a little and added a few new questions. So far in 3 days just one person has taken the new survey. *tap impatiently* It was also time to run a check-up on all my links. Of course, lots of them were changed or obsolete since last time. Boring.

Exactly one month from today we'll be excitedly beginning our vacation in the Sunshine State. I just brought home two more books on the Keys in order to glean some more information on things to do down there. It's not like we're going to have time to do all of the things I've already noted, but I like to have my options on hand. I'm trying something new this time around. I've created a regular Word document, breaking down the days and locations into a kind of itinerary. So each day just a quick glance tells me which city we'll be in, where we're staying and what sorts of things there are to do there (including relevant addresses, phone numbers, etc.). I'd like to think this will ultimately be more convenient than lugging around 50 different brochures and a handful of guidebooks.

We're flying into Miami and the first week we'll be roadtripping -- touring the Keys, part of the Everglades and Sanibel Island. Then his parents and sister fly in and we'll all stay a week in Orlando, doing some parks up there and relaxing at a resort. Then we head back to Miami for the final three days and use that city as our base for doing some other things in the south. I feel like a little kid -- I haven't been this excited about a vacation in a long, long time. While I've been to some parts of Florida before (Orlando, Tampa) I've never visited the Keys, and I'm especially anxious to try snorkeling. Everything looks so incredibly gorgeous, I just can't wait!!!

I'm utterly obsessed with vacation brochures right now. We're planning a mid- to late-September trip to Florida this year and while I'm sure the free tourbook that AAA has given us would be adequate, I can't seem to stop clicking on the "Send Me More Info!" button on all the destination and attraction sites I've been visiting online. I'm having to check my P.O. Box every 2 days or so to keep it from overflowing. In my defense, however, I have to say that it's much more exciting to page through a color brochure in hand than clicking around some website. As for the total environmental waste of the paper that will end up in the trash after the trip, I have no defense to offer -- except maybe, "I'm American?" Har.

In an attempt to organize our vacation without bordering on obsessive, I've been working on a sort of basic itinerary. It breaks down into which days are spent in which cities, and what sorts of things there is to do there. The first six days will be Jonas and me alone, taking a road-trip through parts of southwestern and southeastern Florida. After that Jonas' parents and sister arrive and we all stay for a week in Orlando. Then three days in the Miami area before heading home. So while I'm trying to work out where we'll be each day, it turns out more like, "This day we'll see the Everglades, and here are the interesting things to do there," rather than "This day we'll see the Everglades. At 10am we do this, at noon we do that, etc." Basically I'm hoping to have all pertinent information on hand (addresses, phone numbers, etc.) in one handy place, instead of flipping through a million brochures when the time comes. That's not too obsessive, I hope?? :)

A little intrigue at work today. One of my co-workers was sort of "let go." I didn't get to hear all the details, but apparently last night there was some kind of "blowing up" incident that wasn't pretty.

Jonas just got home so I reheated him a plate of leftovers from last night (I'd had my leftovers earlier when I got home) and we chatted for a bit. We'd collaborated on dinner last night: he preparing the "cod in grape leaves" and I the "orzo with spinach and asiago." It turned out fantastic, and the second day it was just as dee-lish! Both recipes came from Weight Watchers: Great Cooking Every Day, which I'd checked out from the library.

Tomorrow night after work I go straight to Archivers for a scrapbooking night with Heidi. (I'm secretly hoping they serve pizza this time -- last month it was subs.) And I need to finish mom's 50th birthday party album -- with luck I will manage to get it done tomorrow, then I'll finally be able to give it to her (only 3 months after the event)!! And I'll be able to go back and work on my own albums.

Well, I should really get beyond page 20 of John Adams by book group, so I'll go plug away at it some more.