Vacation Adventures --- You know you're sick...

when you're willing to sleep on an airport floor.  Okay, at least I knew my husband was sick when he was willing to do it...twice.  I think he would have preferred checking into a hotel for the 6 hours between us checking out of our hotel, and being able to go to the airport, but I'm a mean taskmaster, so I wouldn't let him.  Truthfully, neither of us realized how sick he was, and we wanted to attempt to get our last day of Universal Studios in.  Yeah, that didn't happen.

We had to check out of our hotel by 10am, but since the husband wasn't feeling well, I did all of the packing and it took me a couple of hours that morning to get my tired butt up, and to get two suitcases packed to perfection.  Have you seen this video? It was totally my packing inspiration. I had one suitcase packed with nothing but 90% of our clothing, and the other was our 10% that we had been wearing the night before, or were dirty, or were being used to wrap up our souvenir glasses.  It works, well, but don't expect to be able to shove stuff in around your clothing.  

So we were off, and then stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some breakfast, and then went to the park. I even paid the extra $5 to get the preferred parking so that we didn't have to walk 'as far.' That sort of a crock though, since you have to walk a half mile from the garage just to get to either park.  Since we weren't there when they opened, but 3 hours later...Harry Potter World was PACKED, and any chance of hitting up rides that last day, with a sick husband in tow, were dashed. I took a couple of pictures and then we started the long walk back around the park to the car.  It's like...11:30 at this point and our flight doesn't leave until 8pm.  So...I tell him to put his seat back and take a nap...and I start reading the book I'm posting a review for tomorrow. 

'Throngs' of people, as the husband calls them, and a 126 minute wait, at 10:30am. First time we went, I walked in, no line at all. I should have ridden everything 5 times, instead of once!  

Around 1pm, we go get gas, drive to the airport, return the car and are hanging out on the bottom floor. In the Orlando airport, they have these (bolted the floor lest you start to think they are nice) wicker seating areas, and it's quieter and much emptier than the gates upstairs.  After attempting to sleep sitting up, the hubby just says, I'm laying on the floor and proceeds to wedge himself between the chair and a column.  After warning him that he would contract a communicable disease, and that I was burning his clothing when we got home, I gave him my coat to lay on, and kindly arranged our luggage so it sort of shielded him from people looking at him. 

There we sat for a couple of hours while I found out about a new Pope being selected and stalked Huffington Post waiting to find out who it was. A nice girl, a college sophomore in town to play golf, asked to borrow my phone to call her ride, and we ended up finding out about Pope Francis at the same time, and I even was able to watch his first remarks LIVE...all from my phone, in an airport in Orlando.  Seriously, I love love love technology.  

Sadly, that technology  didn't serve us terribly well at the Southwest/AirTran counter were the poor women couldn't figure out how to check our bags as well as get our tickets. Apparently they just changed it that week, and it was giving them a massive headache. Luckily, that gave me time to realize that one of our bags was over weight by 5lbs, and I quickly shoved my husbands shoes (umm..3lbs..he has some heavy shoes), the candy from Harry Potter World, and a beach towel (1.5lbs!) into the duffel bag I'd smartly gotten the hubs to buy the day before.  

Getting through security it's own adventure, with TSA agents telling us (as we funneled from one line to the next), that we needed to be 'assertive' to get into line. Seriously?  I'm not a fan of crowds like that...not a fan at all.  Luckily it was moving quickly, although they made me go through one of the body scanners I generally abhor. I wasn't standing around for an hour waiting to get pat down, so I just went through the thing, all the while the TSA agent insisting that it gave off, 'like a thousand less times the amount of radiation than a cell phone.' Uh-huh.   It showed a spot on my arm, and while the lady patted my arm down, I mentioned I'd given myself a huge bruise there the night before. I'm pretty sure that set it off, but at least the underwire in my bra didn't set off the metal detector this time. 

The lady behind me in line had her luggage stopped under the x-ray machine and was worried because she'd packed her son's toy ax, and thought they might think it was a weapon. Uh nope...they were more concerned about the 4 large bottles of suntan lotion in her bag.  Yep! Totally slipped her mind. 

Long story short, I drugged my husband up with Sudafed and ibuprofen at our gate, and tried really hard to get him to not try to sleep on the mashed into the carpet Craisins that were on the floor that he, once again, insisted on laying on.  We rolled onto a plane that was VERY luckily only about 25% full, and after a rather scary landing that made me question the sanity, and ability of the pilot, we got home.  Seriously, that landing was so bad and shaky that some poor woman a few rows up puked. Apparently all of us were feeling pretty motion sick.  After that, I was happy that we paid an extra couple of dollars a day to have a bus that drove us to our car, this time the bus even had a nice Chevy Chase doppelganger on it. The husband insists that the 'real' Chevy Chase wouldn't be wearing a tie. Who knows.  

So we're home, with the kitties, and nothing like being away to make you more grateful to be home.  Now if only all the laundry were done!  

Vacation Adventures -- That time I almost met Justin Bieber...with photographic proof

We have had a couple of really fun days...and it was nice to take yesterday to do very little.  Yesterday morning my husband woke up and told me to call and get a massage. I'm not sure if it was as a treat, to keep me out of pain, or to keep me out of his hair for an hour, but either way I was taking it.  I had a wonderful massage at 4pm, and came out to find him by the pool.  As I walked out I saw a kid fully dressed, in glasses, and a wacky hat sitting on the side of a lounge chair. I said to myself, "hrmm...he sorta looks like the beebs, but no way..." and sat down with my husband.

Let me insert here that my husband knows jack crap about pop culture, and is proud of this fact.  He turns to me and says "Uh...do you know who that is?" to which I respond, "he looks like Justin Bieber, but he's supposed to be in Europe right now, right? (sue me, I read the Huffington Post!) Wait..are you shitting me? Is that really him?"

Up until about a year ago, I had no idea who this kid was, and thought his last name was beaver the first time I heard it. I'm as vulnerable to being starstruck as the next person though, and I thought it was pretty damn cool that I was sitting 10 feet away from a really famous dude.  And my phone was almost dead. I got one picture off, and my husband and I sat and chatted for a bit.  While I had been getting a massage, he had actually talked to some people in the Beeb's posse, and every once in awhile people had come up and asked him for a picture.  People generally were polite...but I think that's because 99% of them had no idea who he was. Just for the record, had he been wearing a swimsuit, no sunglasses or huge ass hat, I probably wouldn't have recognized him.  I did not ask for a picture with him, because the kid was trying to relax and watch his friends play volleyball, and I'm by no stretch of the imagination a fan.   For all those that are wondering, yes...his pants were pulled up and secured at his waist.

So here is the picture you asked for, since my friend Paige is fond of reminding me, "picture or it didn't happen."

Fast forward to tonight where we decided to play some water volleyball and invited all of the kids that were looking at the ball longingly to play with us.  I had no idea what fodder for hilarious conversation this decision would render.

I'm 28, so it's been quite a few years since I was some screechy 12 year old girl. I really should have remembered this when I made the tactical error (for my ears) of telling the girls that we invited to play volleyball with us that Justin Bieber was at our pool the day before.  Yes, he was. I was not lying, and yes I had a picture to prove it.  What?!?!?!?! (insert copious amounts of screaming here, and a burgeoning headache...not to mention a ruined pseudo volleyball game that was left at the wayside as all three girls converged and started screaming in unison.

• Some hilarious quotes include, "I take my Bieber very seriously!"
• After much screaming about whether or not he was still here, my husband saying "What if he was still here? What would you do? What would you do if David Bowie was here instead?" to which a 12 year old said "Who is that? Is that a guy that looks like Justin Bieber?" (Clearly my 40 year old husband hasn't had a conversation with a 12 year old girl in a very long time).  
• Going along with the age thing...the girls on the husband 'team' (we really weren't playing) thought that he was my father. When I told them that I was almost 30, they thought I was lying. Apparently 30 year olds are really old, and I didn't look old enough. It seems to be a reoccurring theme that I don't look old enough.  Ha.  
• One of the girls that we were playing with was a 13 year old Canadian.  She introduced herself to the other girls and said "Hi, I'm Dee, I'm from Canada." Other girls response "OMG YOU'RE CANADIAN  YOU'RE LIKE AN ALIEN!"  
• These girls became pretty social after we stopped playing and decided to introduce themselves to other people in the pool. I heard Dee introducing herself by saying "Hi! I'm Canadian  I'm like an alien!" to which the people she was introducing herself to responded with, "uhh...hi. We're Canadian too." Umm...awkward!  
• I need to mention that even after showing them a picture of the Beebs, they didn't believe that he was actually here. They were fainting over themselves about it, but didn't believe us. Cause, we have nothing better to do than lie to pre-teens. Anyways, about 90 minutes later as we were leaving the girl Dee walked over and said, very proudly to us, "I believe you now that Juster Bieber was here. I talked to the security people and they said he left at 5am today." Oh good! Now we can sleep tonight knowing that you believe that we'd tell the truth.  

Vacation highlights, life updates and blogging confessions

I realized today, while my husband was giving me another HTML/CSS lesson that, in the midst of the insanity of the last week, I had neglected to post much. Some of these updates are short on purpose--I want to expound on them in other entries that I haven't had the time to write yet. I feel bad 'stealing' my husband's laptop while we're out of town, and I can feel his palpable desire to be playing a video game from the other room.

Swap:
I was reluctant to post about this immediately afterwards because I didn't want to come off as bitchy, but here goes. It did not, in any way, go as planned. In the past, I spend a week frantically attempting to clean my house,  begging for tables, and having everything prepared, then on the appointed morning, everyone shows up on time and swaps. At the end, people take all the leftover stuff to charity, leaving me exhausted but with a moderately clean house.  This time though, most people seemed to cancel, show up really late, or just showed up to hang out.

 I can't overstate the awesome of having few enough people in my house that I was able to sit down and have real conversations with people. However,  I have to admit that it was frustrating to spend so much time, energy and money, only to have the swap aspect of it...sort of flop.  I know my husband had an awesome time gathering geeky stuff for his side of the swap, but since none of his friends seemed to show up at the same time, he's going to basically warehouse all of the stuff people brought, and have another event in the future.   I also felt bad for the people that brought things to swap, and took home very little.  I feel like I need to apologize to them, even though so much of this was out of my control.  All ends well though, since the high schooler that scored all of our leftover clothing to give away to our local community, was super psyched. I would also like to give a huge thank you to our friends that came and hung out all day, and made it a really fun time. Also a thank you to my table providers, food cookers, people who moved stuff for me, and everyone that showed up.

Trainer:
Ummm...so I've been somewhat steadily losing weight over the last 15 months, and have realized that I really need to kick up the physical activity aspect of my weight loss, and work on getting muscle tone back and getting some endurance. I'm pretty pitiful in the endurance department right now.  Watching Biggest Loser has actually inspired me to get more active, and in that spirit, I took my friend up on her recommendation of a personal trainer.  This woman is beyond perky. Think...hyper without caffeine, now add in a gallon of coffee to the mix. I have to admit, when I met her at her gym for our first session, the fact that it was filled with skinny fit people...very intimidating.  Just for the record--I was rightfully scared of the hyper one, because my quads were so sore the next day, that I could barely walk.  She failed in the 'taking it easy' aspect of our first session.   This session is short because I'm going to write more about this later.

Vacation: 
Ha...ha...ha. Oh so many stories already.  Did you know this massive blizzard was supposed to hit the DC area last week? Actually supposed to hit the same time yours truly was supposed to fly out of a DC area airport to fly to sunny Florida?  Oh well, it was, but in true DC style, the storm was a dud.  We didn't know that though, so we ended up in Florida a day ahead of schedule, sans a hotel room or car. Here are some highlights so far though:

• It sucks, but you can pack for vacation in an hour. You'll forget your camera, an extra duffle bag, cash and a variety of other things, but it can be done.
• Getting a rental car that I've dubbed 'the dickmobile!
• Buying a vacation package and when we arrive finding out that it's a timeshare.  Kitchen and laundry for the win!
• Finding out that there are two outlet malls in Orlando and we're at the wrong one
• Rainforest Cafe -- definitely about the experience, and the experience is better if you're under 10
• Heated pools are manna from heaven
• 5 story arcades make 40th birthday's awesome
• So does getting a blue handprint on your head
• BUTTERBEER BUTTERBEER BUTTERBEER!!!!! Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter!!!!
• I likey resorts...

Confessional: 
Overall, a hectic, crazy, but fun couple of weeks.  I think blog writing is sort of like exercising, the more you do it, the more you want to do it.  If you stop for awhile though, it's much much harder to get back into it. Consistency is key in so many aspects of life and has always been what I struggle with.  I however, love writing this blog, love getting the feedback, and love having random people I didn't know read my blog, quote it to me.  Yes, I'm a bit of an attention whore and it makes me feel special inside.

I have a confession to make though. I don't ever feel like I can be completely open here. I really struggle with not wanting to hurt peoples feelings, or having stuff that I write come back and bite me in the ass.  The two times I've written and posted opinions about people in here, I was immediately told how wrong my opinions were, or that my recounting of a story was incorrect.  Just for the record--I'm not changing a post simply because you don't like how I perceive a situation.  That would ruin the entire point of blogging for me.

My husband has even given me a strict directive to not make fun of him here, although I may tease, cajole, and regale you with tails of his funny antics, I have no intention of mocking him or hurting his feelings.  I never want to do that, but at the same time, I do want to be open, raw, and honest with my writing.  I have an unfortunate tendency to lean towards the negative in my speech and writing, and I make a conscious effort to keep my blog on the happier sunshiney side of things.  I also have this odd, pathological need to have some conclusion in what I do--in my writings you'll see that I always have to 'finish' a post, or in games (why I can't stand games that take too long to play) or books (I like finishing them in 2-3 sittings max).  This need for conclusion makes it really hard for me to open up about issues that I haven't figured out myself yet.

Conclusion?  We will see.  I'm learning a lot about blogging, myself, growing older...and it will be really interesting to see how this blog evolves with me.  My husband originally named my blog, when he set it up, but I never changed it because it resounded so well with me. We all start on square one, and then figure it out as we go. Here's to attempting to figure stuff out.

Memorials and Elusive Beeping

Yesterday started out as a rather stressful day with worrying about a friend having surgery, and remembering that it was also the 20th anniversary of both my grandmother's death, and coincidentally the first bombing of the World Trade Centers in New York.  Twenty years ago, I was 8, and I still distinctly remember getting the call that grandma had passed away. My mom took the call, I was sitting at the table. I knew, as soon as my mom picked up the phone that she had passed away, and while we knew it was coming, that didn't help the mourning process much. My grandmother was an amazing woman who still lives on in our memories and through the lives of her children and grandchildren. I was touched to find out that my mom had put this memorial in the paper.

We're Going To.....

So we left off with my husband thinking, that when I was talking about going to swim in'the Gulf,' that I was talking about his time overseas during the first Persian Gulf war. Feel free to facepalm--I did. The next day however, out of the blue, this beautiful Google chat happened:

To Orlando, or not to Orlando Part 1

You know those awesome videos on Youtube where parents tell their kids that they're going to Disney, but only when they're on their way there already? The kids burst out crying, and screaming and carrying on.  Sadly it appears my husband's only response is a soild 'meh.'

Ashes and Ice book review!

As promised, here is my review of the exciting debut novel, Ashes and Ice, by my wonderful friend, Rochelle Maya Callen.  This post is long, but it's because as a bonus gift, you're getting an excerpt at the end! So read my review, then go over to Amazon  or Barnes and Noble and buy it now for only 99 cents. I can't wait until the paperback comes out because I'm planning a giveaway then!   Thank you Lady Amber Tours for hosting this blog tour.  

Synopsis:

She is desperate to remember.
He is aching to forget.
Together, they are not broken.
But together, one may not survive.

​Jade wakes up with no memory of her past and blood on her hands.

Plagued by wicked thoughts, she searches for answers. Instead, she finds a boy who doesn't offer her answers, but hope. But sometimes, when nightmares turn into reality and death follows you everywhere, hope is not enough.

LUST. LOVE. LOSS. Sometimes, all that is left are Ashes and Ice

Learning New Skills

My husband is a geek, an alpha geek at that. He loves to make computer's sing and dance. You'd think that would mean that he had the nicest of computers, and nothing technical in our house would ever be broken for long. Yeah, so not true. Right now he's working off of a laptop he just bought, because this desktop that he built while I was still in college, kept blue-screening. His computer history since we moved into this house has been a comedy of error, and hopefully he'll build himself something worthy of the level of his geekiness. 

Valentine's Debacle

Time to delve back into my history a bit, before marriage came into the picture, while we were still alight with the glow of a new relationship...

Valentine’s 2009
I had just commuted back from a conference an hour away, was not in a terribly good mood. I had my period, awful cramps and it was Valentine’s Day. What a lovely combination, right?  The one shining light I had though, was that my boyfriend and I would be able to see each other that night. My husband and I started dating right after Thanksgiving five years ago.

New things to come, book reviews!

Soon you will be seeing a new feature on my blog--book reviews. One of my favorite bloggers has pretty regular book reviews, which initially drew my interest. I love to read but frankly, I'm getting sick of reading the free fluff that I get through Pixel of Ink. It's an awesome resource to have (and you should totally check it out).  My issue is that fundamentally, I'm cheap and slightly paranoid, and the idea of electronic books still makes me feel like I was jipped out of a real book. However, I will totally admit that since I discovered brain candy, as I like the call trashy fiction, I became hooked. It's like heroin in literary form, and I really need to expand my horizons a bit and read more genre's of books. I like funny, light and fluffy because it seems like too much of a commitment to delve into something that is deeper. Hopefully this will soon change.

A brief side note on my take on self published books is this -- power to you for taking the time, effort and energy to write a book. It's a huge accomplishment. As such, don't sell yourself short by not having a decent professional editor for your work.  If you don't, and I find any typos at all in your book, my respect for your writing goes down, and I'll lose interest pretty quickly, and your formatting will probably really annoy me. I will almost never stop reading a book unless the editing is so convoluted that I can't follow the story line.  Also, take the time to deal with the editing issues for the kindle to ensure that your typeface isn't so big that it can read on the moon and we aren't allowed to make it any smaller (this happens all the time!).  I know I make tons of typos here, but I'm not, nor do I have a professional editor. I sure as hell can't proofread my own work. Ask my last boss, she'd be glad to point out that shortcoming.