Life is interesting!

Go away for a week and life changes...significantly!

I'm a creature of habit. I love my little comfort zone and recently, I've been challenged to step WAY outside it. First were the two moves in six months. That darn near killed my comfort zone, LOL! Most recently, it was the thought of moving even further away, leaving the area that has been my home for the last 16 years. I've only ever lived in two areas, my childhood home and this place. I moved here when I went to college and just left the town I'd lived in for the last 15 years in the last year.

Now, we might be moving hundreds of miles away and this has just crystallized in the last week. I'm worried about moving, but I'm maybe even more worried about NOT moving. Its funny how you don't know what you were missing until you experience it.

Living in DC, you get used to having close friends moving ALL the time. In all these years, I've only had one friend who hasn't moved away for militray or job reasons. If we move, there will be local friends. I know three or four people in the area and they're from different facets of my life.

Gosh, there are a myriad of reasons to move. Job prospects, housing, career options for us both...the list goes on and on.

As you can probably tell, this weekend was much less vacation for me and much more work. Unfortunately, I REALLY needed a vacation. Maybe someday ;)

I'm SUCH a slacker

My only excuse is that life is absolutely crazy!!!

Mark and I are heading out on a road trip/semi-vacation. He has some business in Ohio as do I, so we're going to drive out there on Saturday, spend some time with friends, check out the area and then meet up with our business associates. We had hoped to do a real vacation, but the timing is off a bit.

In the next 12 months, we plan to either do a cruise/all inclusive or go over to England. My eldest stepson and his fiancee with be spending two years working in England and England is a LOT closer than Australia. They may spend Christmas with us, which would be wonderful! If not, we'll fly over to England, with a possible side trip to visit our friend Willa in Switzerland. We've only been away on family/work related trips since our meeting trip in 2001.

As a result and since preplanning my trip, I've been working a LOT, but I'm getting a lot accomplished as well!

So, that's why I've been such a slacker with respect to blogging.

The Internet as I know it!

The Internet as I know it is about to change. I've been having some serious and progressive problems with my hands. After a long day of work, they tend to be numb and ache and burn. DH and I have been discussing suggestions and ideas on how to stop the progression of this RSI for some time, but we finally took the plunge and did something about it.

Through my husband's work, he became familiar with a piece of hardware called an Airpanel. This allows for remote access to a computer and is shaped like a tablet PC. They're wayyyyyy out of our price range but he managed to find a steal on Ebay (less than 10% of retail INCLUDING shipping) and it arrived Weds.

I used it for part of the day yesterday, and I just love it! How cool it is to sit on the couch with this tablet propped up on a pillow!

The only problem is that keyboarding is done via an electronic keypad...every key must be tapped by the stylus... so typing is very time consuming. From now on there will be llimited IMing for me and email or blogging will have to be done in chunks when I'm sitting at my computer. This should help my hands greatly though, so I can make the sacrifice ;)

Visited countries and states

I've been blog-hopping as I wait for my husband to get home from his business trip.

I discovered this site...pretty neat!

My visited countries


create your own visited countries map


and cities



create your own visited states map



I've visited a much higher percentage of states than I have countries. The spirit is willing... I hope later this year or maybe next year to do a Craibbean cruise. My husband wants to do something special for our anniversary later this year and I'm all for that ;)

The dreaded early morning phone call

Please tell me I'm not the only one. You know how it is. The telephone rings, startling you awake. You squint at your watch/bedside clock and see that it is 5:30 in the morning. When the phone rings again, your heart starts beating quadruple time. I start thinking about my 94 yr old aunt and my very fragile grandmother, wondering if the worst has happened.

I had that happen this morning. My well-meaning brother-in-law wanted to chat with my husband. Since said BIL lives halfway across the world, there's a significant time difference, and BIL forgot. We get an early morning call from my in laws or stepchildren every few months or so.

My husband is still away so BIL and I chatted for awhile. Despite the panic attack the phone ringing triggered, we had a wonderful chat. BIL is a shameless flirt and the good conversation and oodles of flirting coupled with a promise of a visit from him in the next year got the day off to a wonderful start!

And hubby comes home tonight :) What's not to like about that??

Doesn't everybody eat frozen grapes?

My husband is away right now, so the kitchen is stocked with food that "offends his sensibilities". Among these are bunches of grapes that I've frozen and eat for breakfast. Apparently, this isn't an Australian thing! When I explained that I was munching on them, he couldn't believe it. Lol, well I don't exactly understand the whole Vegemite thing so we're even!

When he goes away, I become even more of a workaholic. I worked until well into the night and outside of a few phone calls and a dinner break, I never looked away from my PC or hard copy. I guess I do this to chase the loneliness away. Of course my eyes are burning and my hands are sore today, so I may try to be a little nicer to my body today. We'll see ;)

While hubby is away...the job offers come in! Considering that he isn't even actively searching (though we are considering relocating to another part of the country), he's had three cold calls, emails, etc in the last two weeks. The latest one is from a friend of mine who has just moved divisions within his company. He wants Mark's resume now for a position with great benefits, great pay, etc. The only problem is that Mark wouldn't have the programming opportunities he has now, and the programming is his passion. I'm leaving it ALL up to him since he knows what will be the most fulfilling for him.

We sure do live in interesting times :) When life is spinning wildly, eat frozen grapes!

TGIF and thanks, Angie!

Angie was sweet enough to get this template organized for my blog. Thanks sooo much to her and the talented creators of the template! This was one good thing in a nasty day!

I should have known the day wasn't going well when the first email I had was that my brother and sister-in-law's dog died and my SIL was hysterical. Believe it or not, the day went DOWNHILL from there! There were a couple of very bright spots. A friend did an unexpected sweet thing that made me cry, my husband came home from work on lunch to offer cuddles and I got a book in the mail that I hadn't been expecting.

My couch and a good booksfree book are looking like the order of the evening. I haven't actually relaxed for an evening in....god knows...weeks. I've either been on the phone, or panicking or helping Mark with feedback about his project, or discussing options for the future. We're definitely at a crossroads...all of us in this house. That can be pretty darn scary. Add that to all the other stresses....yeah I need a break ;) Maybe I can finish Irresistable Forces tonight!

Is it Friday yet???

What a week, so far! My husband has a severely infected eye, so he's been home from work 1.5 days. My roommate wanted a day off so SHE was off work Monday. Neither of them quite understand this whole 'work from home' thing, so I've been VERY stressed. Then, yesterday, I heard that my stepdad had a serious car accident (He's okay, thank goodness!), It never rains when it can spit ice pellets!

The hubby went to work today and the eye looks as if it is healing well. The roommate may have a long term temp job in our town and she has a part time job interview tomorrow. My stepdad is sore and the car can be repaired. All in all, everything is okay.

Thankfully, EVERYONE is at work today. My only likely distraction is Cleo the cat's need to play with the laser pointer. She posted her new obsession in her blog yesterday.

My hands are in agony. I've spent two very long days at the computer and yesterday I could barely bend them. My husband has taken serious notice of these RSI issues and he says he's getting me something that will preserve them. I have an idea what he's talking about...

There's a product called an Air Panel, which is something he became familiar with at his job. The Air Panels are quite like a tablet Pc combined with a PDA. You can connect to your computer using wireless networking, and the Air Panel simulates your desktop. They're quite expensive and very hard to find, but hubby's old company is liquidating and may have some for sale for pennies on the dollar.

My booksfree order came in and I've barely had time to even LOOK at the books, darnit, but the roommate is halfway through the first of hers. I don't think there's anything good on TV tonight, so I may just curl up with a book. Ahh, what a luxury! Bitten by Kelley Armstrong is haunting me ;)

I've been reading the same book for a week and that frustrates me ;)

Must make a pot of iced tea and get back to work, but I will try to update my blog in a more timely manner.