If I fall along the way, pick me up and dust me off

I'm letting my cereal digest so I don't get a stitch when I run. Running is hard enough without adding stupid little things like stitches.

I'm not supposed to be home right now, but I am. Yesterday morning I left Ft. Walton Beach feeling quite pukey, and the pukiness actually turned into puking, which led to me going home instead of flying all over the place. It's frustrating, but it is what it is. I'm tired of the stress this surgery is putting on me to earn as much and work as much so I can save tons of money. I think I need to give myself a break. I'm doing pretty good.

Ft. Walton was surprisingly nice on Tuesday. We had the entire day down there and spent part of it on the beach. The weather was beautiful with no signs of the hurricane/tropical storm that's hovering around Florida.

The past week has overwhelmed me with sad things happening. It's hard to understand all the terrible things that happen, and it's even harder to know how to be of help to those who are suffering. On Saturday our friend Isabella delivered her son, Ryken, at 22 weeks. He lived for a few minutes. It is heartbreaking and frustrating to not be able to do anything to ease the pain. Thankfully our heavenly Father can comfort in ways we'll never know and it's a reminder to lean more heavily on Him. There have been several other deaths lately and as Jamie reminded me yesterday we need to realize how fragile our lives our and live them to the fullest.

Needless to say, this week has felt sub-par. It's been one of those weeks when I hate my job, though it may just be because it's keeping me away from those I love. Now that I'm home, I'm going to enjoy it here, and let the chips fall where they may.

Saturday morning lounging

It feels good to wake up in my own bed. It also feels good to still be in it at 11:30am. I'm ignoring the voices that tell me to get up and do something. I think I deserve to have one day this week where I lounge.

We left Syracuse yesterday morning around 6:30am and made the long journey back to Atlanta. Except for our trip to Macon it was our 8th completely full flight this week. (When I got a little sass from some guy on my 4th flight Monday, I had to remind him that he was about the 300th person I'd served since 7:30 that this morning so my sense of humor and my tolerance might not been as keen as usual.) It was fairly unremarkable. As with many other flights, I sat within licking distance of 2 people who never once looked at me or acknowledged my presence.

We got back to Atlanta and had to wait about 2.5 hours until our last round trip. I spent half of this time booting up my computer. I think it got a virus. I spent the other half downloading a free virus protector that Adri told me about, and it's doing much better now. We finally made it out to the plane to start boarding for Pittsburgh. The passengers were already starting to come on board when they told us the flight was canceled. I don't know why. The other flight attendant started to get very excited, but I'm a little jaded. I remember what happened the last time they canceled my flight - they sent me somewhere else instead. And after waiting an hour more, that's exactly what happened. It was only Greensboro though, so we still got back on time and it wasn't too painful. Our flights weren't full either which was a nice break from the rest of the week.

There was an older man sitting in the back next to me who had really odd indentions in his skull (he was bald on top). I was dying to know what had happened, but wasn't sure how to ask him if his head was just naturally denty or did something happen. So I asked him about what looked like a scar near one of the dents. Thankfully he was friendly and wasn't offended by my bluntness. He had had a bleeding hematoma between his brain and his skull, so they drilled two holes in his skull to drain it. As I was looking at him and listening to his story I noticed that his eyes were exactly the same shades of brown as mine! They were the opposite of mine, but it was still really neat to see someone else with the same weird eyes. It made me happy :-).

Last night I drove down to Newnan and met with some of my small groupers. We called it craft night, but it was more along the lines of knitting, crocheting, and poster making. Nicole was crocheting a blanket Monday night at small group, which kind of inspired this. I started working on a scarf but ended up helping Kara with a poster she was making for her niece to encourage her to use the potty :-P. We watched the Olympics, ate pizza, and heard about each other's weeks. Two of the girls are school teachers, which I think would feel like doing a flight that was full of children for 7 hours a day. Basically that would be a nightmare.

After that I met Tanya, Joe, and (separately) Jersey at the Mac in Newnan where we also watched the Olympics. It was good to see them since it seems to take a royal effort to get friends together these days.

I think I've lounged enough. I'm going to take on the day.

I’m wasting sleep time trying to think of a title

If I type fast I'll still be able to make my goal of being in bed by 8. What has my life come to... I've had to get up around 4 the last 3 mornings and I'm tired of it. It's sad when you think - if only I could sleep til 5:30.

I'm in Syracuse. I was in Portland this morning. It's nice because it is not hot as Hades here. I went running yesterday and ended up walking most of the way. I don't know what the problem was. Today I managed to run the whole thirty minutes, but had to keep concentrating on how much I liked having muscles in my thighs to counteract the "I hate running" thoughts. I had two cups of instant mashed potatoes for supper tonight. They were good, but I would've rather had a steak, asparagus, brocoli, squash... Real food basically.

The other day a man got on one of my flights. I recognized him and assuming he was one of our pilots I made some comment to him along the lines of what are you up to? Then the more I looked at him, the more I figured he wasn't a pilot (I think he was too old). I had to figure out how I knew him so I asked his name and it turns out he was my boss's boss when I worked for the contractor. I then remembered that I hadn't really liked him when I worked for him so I slapped him... Not really. When I was in Europe I accidently sent an email to him that was meant for a friend of mine. I hope he didn't remember that. He's kind of old so I'm sure he forgot :-P. Small world isn't it?

Today I had a little girl on the flight back from Portland. She was asleep with the top of her head against the back of the seat so her neck was sticking out at an odd angle. Her eyelids were about half open and her eyes were darting back and forth. I couldn't stop laughing - partially cause she looked funny and partially cause it made me remember when Joy was little and used to sleep with her eyes open.

I have more to write but I have too much to do before bed. I'll be home in about 19 hours. Yay.

Keep on rockin' in the free world

Thanks to a crazy idea Angela put in my head last night I signed up for a 10k in November. Now the pressure is on. It's kind of exciting as well. There's no turning back or chickening out now.

I met with the girls in my small group from church tonight for the first time since the summer pretty much. We discussed what we want to study in the fall. We're looking at a book in the Old Testament since those seem to be the more forgotten, less studied ones. They also seem to have the coolest stories in them. Those OT people were crazy :-P. I had a good time talking to them and have realized that if I'm going to know and be known by these people, it's going to take a more direct effort. In a group situation I typically don't try to have my story heard (usually cause I can't make myself be heard) but if the small group is going to serve its purpose I need to be willing to be transparent and intentionally put myself out there.

Today I went up to Atlanta to look at a house some friends proposed I live in. I really want to move into the city and keep telling myself I'll do it when I get my debt paid off, but I think there's a fine line behind being wise about paying things off and letting it control my life. It turned out that this wasn't going to be the best situation for me, but it was good for me to start thinking about the next step.

Otherwise I did a lot of chores today. Laundry, bank, groceries, cleaning. I have to leave for work in 6.5 hours so I should probably get some sleep.

lazy, lovely Sunday

I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that it's Sunday already. This means my weekend is almost over and I'm still exhausted. I've had a relaxing day off so far, but I seem to have a lot weighing on my mind. There are so many decisions to be made and problems to be solved, and none are the easy kind.

Friday night when I finally got off work I had the pleasure of attending a mac'n'cheese bakeoff at my friend McCaine's. One of the things I enjoy about her is her inventive ways of socializing. Sometimes I feel like my life is incredibly dull and predictable. We also watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics which were a sight to behold. Another thing I like about McCaine is the extreme volume of her voice, and her wild enthusiasm for things (including Michael Phelps). It's nice to be around people who get such pleasure out of life.

Saturday, after sleeping as long as I felt like, I made my way to the pool de J where I was working on my tan. Then I went to the gym de J and was working on my fitness. I haven't run in a long time (this heat is infernal), but still managed to start the week 9 running program (5 min walking, 30 min running, 5 min walking). It wasn't even that painful at all. I think the only way I'm going to be such a slacker about running is to sign up for a 5k or something. I've lost enough weight where my clothes are comfortable again so that pressure to run is off, but I know if I don't keep running the weight will be right back. Plus I feel so much better when I'm active.

After the sun and run, we picked up sushi and sat on the floor of his balcony and ate. The sushi was really good. I think the portions should've been bigger. I love the rolls with the mayo sauce on them. We had another roll with unagi and avocado that had some kind of tempura inside. The combination of flavors and textures was delightful. Then it was ice cream with blueberries and raspberries for dessert.

Some of the books I've been reading lately, combined with what's going on (or not going on) in my life, and conversations I've had have led me to the conclusion that I need to be more purposeful in my living. I need to read books that I will learn from. I need to write with the purpose of becoming a better writer. I need to fill my time with things that will make my life better and more meaningful. It's funny how a book on writing can provoke so much thought. There is so much clutter and wasted words and time in my life. I don't know if I'll ever become a real writer, but I do know that I definitely never will if I'm not writing purposefully.

These are some of the things that have been occupying my mind lately and making me tired. The wonderful lunch my mama made is also making me sleepy. I should follow my daddy's lead and take a nap.

Currently reading : On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction By William K. Zinsser

As long as we get there eventually, right?

I'm in Providence and holding my breath that the flight my mama is on actually leaves. She's been sitting in Boston all day and it makes me fret that she could get stuck.

Today was supposed to be an easy day, and it was, except it was about 2 hours behind schedule. This morning I was in Daytona Beach, but because our overnight was only 15:47 we had to stay at the hotel near the airport instead of by the beach where the 16+ hour overnights stay. It was fine though. I had a nice, free breakfast at the hotel, then spent a while out by the pool. It was really hot outside but the water was perfect. One of my passengers yesterday gave me an interesting book that I started reading. I've also been reading "On Writing Well", which is highly recommended for anyone who wants to be able to write well. It makes me much more aware of the things I read and write. I'll write more about that later.

I had funny passengers tonight who kept talking about the air lounge that is upstairs on the plane. One guy told the one next to him that the stairs were in the back lav, and asked why I didn't just check the flight cause they have wireless in the lounge. I also had an old couple who gave me a little hope for long, happy marriages. The man would always hand her things to her. He opened her peanuts before his. I asked her if he always took care of her and she said for 62 years. I said that was a good reason to keep him around. He said that I hadn't asked why he kept her around - so I did. His answer was because she was the perfect wife. They were really cute.

I have to go to sleep cause we're on short rest tonight and have to leave the hotel in less than hours. Looks like she'll make it to Atlanta. Very nice.

Currently reading : Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion By Sara Miles

hey - you - get off of my cloud

I can't believe it's my Sunday already. I have to go back to work tomorrow and am not a fan. It's been really good to have some time off. I wish I could say my room reflected that I've had free time to do things, but it still looks the same. Maybe in a little while I'll do something about that.

I had a very musical weekend. Friday and Saturday I worked at the amphitheater. Rick Springfield was the performer. I'm still amused by the energy that people put into adoring him. He's old. He's a soap opera star. He isn't that good of a musician. On Sat I worked with a lady who works at the sponsoring hotel. She said that all weekend there have been women just waiting in the lobby to get a glimpse of him. Seriously people - he's not that great. He does have big biceps, but from where I was that was the only outstanding thing about him. He's very dramatic. People would give him bouquets of flowers and he would strum his guitar with them sending clouds of petals flying everywhere. Then he'd throw the used up stems back to the crowd. He came out onto the floor where they had tables set up and stood on a table and performed. At one point he took someone's phone from them and started calling people. I don't know if he's assuming that they're going to be like "OMG Rick Springfield used my phone!" and then have it dipped in gold or framed or something. It was altogether very amusing.

Sunday morning we sent mother dearest off to Joy and she made it without too much pain. She was waiting in a long line in Boston to check in for the Cape Air flight when some really rude man came barging to the front of the line. He was stepping over old ladies' things and generally thinking he was the bees knees. A few minutes later they called his name for the flight. It was John Kerry. Hmmm... Father dearest and I enjoyed food she left for us - stuffed squash, green beans, rice, chicken and oatmeal cookies. Such good food. My mama doesn't just make green beans. They're amazing. She puts garlic in them and who knows what else. But they're awesome. Michal made the varsity volleyball team (Good job Michal! :-D) at her new school and is on a beach trip with them so we missed her at lunch.

Sunday evening I picked Jamie up at the airport and we made a little last minute journey to see Journey with Amie and Ryan. I then realized that I should've brushed up on my 80s music because I'd barely heard of Heart, much less knew any of their songs. We watched in amusement as hundreds of 30 and 40 something year old women got their groove on to Heart. I will admit, it was pretty good. Journey came on and I heard all the songs I knew, plus a bunch from their new album which I didn't care about at all. Their current lead singer is a small, young Asian guy with long straight hair and tight red pants. He didn't seem to fit in with the band at all, but he sounded just like the original singer so I guess that's what matters. There were good times had by all.

Later, we met up with J at Waffle House, who had just returned from his two week jaunt on the west coast. It's been a while since I visited the WH but it was just as wonderful as I remembered.

Monday I took Jamie to the airport to go back home and took my car by the shop to find out why my new brakes are making such strange noises. They can't seem to figure it out, which doesn't really make me happy, but he said they won't fail or anything. I spent the rest of the day down in Ptc helping a friend of ours caulk and paint their house.

I'm going to eat some cottage cheese and fresh peaches and think about getting stuff done today.

The world was moving and she was right there with it

I just woke up from the second night of sleep I've had in my bed in 11 days. It was nice. I really needed it. I don't think I realized how much my erratic sleep schedule was messing with my head. I feel better now. I'm very, very hungry though. Who wants to bring me lunch?

Yesteray after I got home from my nap I slept for about 5.5 hours. I had a lot of dreams but the one that stood out the most was when I had to have surgery on my ankle. The first day they cut my foot off and I had to go around on crutches. Then the next day they reattached my foot and I had this perfect line around my ankle where they reattached it. This reminds me of my childhood when my dear older brother used to tell me that they cut my head off and sewed it back on. I never could quite figure out how they got my head under the sewing machine, but when you're 4 you can't expect to understand everything. I also dreamed I had surgery on my hand and in my dream I couldn't grab anything cause it hurt too much. So when my phone started ringing to wake me up I was scared to grab it and answer it cause I thought it would hurt.

Yesterday I did the same thing I've done every afternoon I've been home all week - nothing. I've spent far too much time in my room. I need to get out of here today. Problem is, everywhere I go costs money in gas and there aren't that many places to go that aren't miserable in this heat.

Last night I worked at the Rick Springfield concert. I didn't have any tables to serve such I just helped everyone else out with the concession stand and in the bars. I was really tired and the heat was sucking my life out, so I can't say it was the best night of my life. It was funny cause everyone was waiting for him to play "Jessie's Girl" all night and it seemed like every song started out sounding like it was going to be that one. Some of my coworkers were thinking he was doing that to tease people, but my real guess is that he only knows about 4 licks and uses them over and over. I'm back there tonight but I think we have a couple tables to serve so hopefully the night will be a little better. I have to go buy some new shorts to wear because I seem to have lost weight and my shorts are making me look like a plumber now.

Matt and Molly left yesterday to go to Rome to start a 7 day cruise on Sunday. It's going to be an empty, quiet house for the next long while.

I'm still copying my old blog over and got to this day two years ago this morning. It's kind of fun to look back and see what was going on. I do kind of wish I wasn't so vague about certain things so I could have a more accurate record. Maybe I can figure something out.

You don’t have to wear that dress tonight

Or any other night for the next 4 days.

I just made it home from a crazy night of flying. There will be no avoiding sleep today. I've closed my dark curtains in my room and in a minute I'm going to sleep as long as I feel like it.

I knew last night was going to be rough when, at about 4pm, we were in the middle of our third torrential downpour for the day. My flight at 8:30pm was already delayed. When I got to work it was delayed further because we were waiting for the plane to come in from Syracuse. It finally arrived around 10:30 and I went out to get the plane ready. A ramper comes up and tells me he thinks our flight is canceled. This seems too good to be true - not that I want to strand anyone in Atlanta - but I'd like to sleep in my bed. Turns out, there was a bad storm in Jacksonville, NC where we were headed and their weather system and runway lights were down. Flight canceled.

The captain and I get on the bus to go to our cars around 11 and about halfway there he gets the call that we have to go to Augusta. Their crew timed out. Fair enough. I knew it was too good to be true. Augusta is only about a 30 minute flight and I had just had a cup of coffee before we got canceled, so I was going to be awake for a few hours. Turns out, that flight was supposed to leave at 6:35pm. Whenever it finally left it was waiting in line to take off and the crew timed out. Sucks for them. We eventually landed in Augusta a little after 1am. Everyone was nice because they had been told we had returned to the airport to take them to Augusta, and they were just happy to get there.

We got in the taxi to go home and our driver started complaining immediately because there isn't another flight coming in all night and he hasn't made any money (it's 1:30am dude. Sorry). As we drive to the hotel my ever so polite captain asks him if the van is stuck in overdrive or does he just want waste gas... My captain is one of those guys that talks constantly about anything. They talk about that for a while and within a few minutes my captain has figured out that based on an 8% fuel savings by not using overdrive, the cab driver could save at least $1000 a year. Greeeaaaat. It's 1:30am. Who cares?

Then as the first officer and I are sitting in the back looking at each other in amazement at the ridiculousness of the conversation, the driver starts telling us how dangerous Augusta is. He said he had a passenger once who asked him to pull into an alley. The driver said "I reached down like I was scratching my leg and pulled out my .38. I turned to him and told him, get out of my van or I'll blow your head off." He proceeds to explain how he told him he had just gotten back from killing people in Iraq and this guy wasn't any different to him. If he didn't get out of the van he'd kill him. He said "I know you have a gun in your belt. If you want to live get out of my van." The guy evidently didn't believe him so he said he'd give him 5 seconds to find out if he was bluffing or not. It's now 1:45am, and I can't believe I'm hearing this story. It's time for bed. It's time to get out of this crazy man's taxi. Thankfully we didn't ask him to pull into an alley, and none of us had pistols in our belts so we made it out alive. The world is full of all kinds of strange people.

Three hours later we were loading up to go back to the airport, and now I'm home. Sleepy time.

And on to the grapeless Vineyard

One of the things I love about visiting Amy and Shane is the breakfasts Shane cooks. After a crazy couple of days I woke up Sunday morning to the smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. The Whites definitely know how to make people want to come back and visit :-).

Adri, Mo, Katya, Charity, and I all headed to the Boston airport around 9am. I was a little nervous because we were each trying to do completely different things. Charity needed to get back to Atlanta. Katya was flying on a buddy pass to Frankfurt and we wanted to change it to go via Cincinnati. I needed to buy a ZED fare (discounted ticket based on distance) on Cape Air and try to get a flight to Martha's Vineyard. I was worried Charity wouldn't get a flight at all because they were full. I was worried Katya wouldn't make it to Cinci or that she wouldn't get first to Germany. I was worried the ZED fare wouldn't work, never having used one, or that the flights to MV would be full.

I finally got both girls checked in and purchased my ticket, which has to be done at a Delta counter, and headed over to find Cape Air. This is when I discovered that I hate the Boston airport. It has 4 terminals - A, B, C, and E - and instead of being set up all in a nice row like Atlanta, they're in a circle. There's a shuttle that runs between them, but after waiting 10 minutes I decided to walk. I walked from A to E which was easy enough. Then to go from E to C you have to go through what seemed like the old airport graveyard. It was hallways covered in tiles from the 50s that had empty baggage carousels and lots of empty rooms. It seems that when they decide they no longer like a part of the airport, they just build a different terminal.

A very long walk later I found the Cape Air counter. They were very friendly and told me there was space on the flights. They also asked me how much I weighed and weighed my rollaboard and laptop bag. This should've been a sign that I wasn't going to be on a big plane. I finally got to the gate and had to wait an hour cause I had just missed the 1pm flight (they leave on the hour, every hour). When they started calling for boarding they would call section 1 passengers 1-8, then section 2 pax 9-17. I then looked out the window and saw the little fleet of Cessnas. I figured out that depending on how many tickets were sold they were take 1-3 planes every hour. Each plane carried 9 passengers and 1 pilot. We finally went down to board the plane and the captain told us that a plane had just run off the runway in MV so the airport was closed!!! I figured it was par for the course for my weekend travels. Thankfully it was temporary and we began boarding shortly thereafter. They asked if I could take the seat up front. I sat in the seat behind what would've been the First Officer's seat. Then the captain turned around and asked if I would mind sitting in the front since someone was going to have to! I kept trying not to laugh because it seemed like a joke almost. I couldn't believe that I was riding on such a small plane, nevermind in the right seat. It gave me a new appreciation for when people get on our planes and are amazed at how small they are. Though in our defense our cabins are at least pressurized and we do fly actual jets at normal speeds and altitudes. It was really fun to ride in the front as we took off after a United 757. We had a great view of Boston as we took off and never got so high that we couldn't see the beautiful houses along the coast. About 35 minutes later we were in Martha's Vineyard.

Joy picked me up at the airport. It was really great to see her happy, smiling face. I really had no idea what to except when I arrived on the island. I didn't know how big it was or what the terrain was like. We drove for about 10 minutes through a lot of trees until we finally got to Oak Bluffs, which is where Joy lives and works. The house she lives in is a beautiful house painted in shades of lavender and blue. I was amazed at how many perfect little gingerbread style houses were everywhere. We dropped my stuff off at the house and went to Pomodora's, the Italian restaurant where she works. There I met a lot of the people she had told me about. Everyone seems to love her, but really, who doesn't? One of the cooks made us a great salad with different types of meat, cheese, olives, peppers and dressing.

Later in the afternoon it started raining so we slogged over to Joy's friend Kiera's family's house for a barbeque. Even in the rain everything was beautiful. It was the nice kind of warm summer rain that I love. Everywhere we went we stopped along the way to say hello to different friends. Kiera is Irish and her uncle lives on the island. She is here for the summer working and has become good friends with Joy. Her parents were in town for the week to visit so most of her friends had managed to get the night off work and spend the evening together. Joy's Brazlian friends, Alex and Jean Luca, cooked steaks for everyone. Instead of serving them to each person on plates, they would slice them in strips as they came off the grill and we all sat around on the porch eating. It was a really nice evening.

The next day Joy and I went to the beach for a little while before I had to get the bus to the airport. I was surprised by how clear the water was. I have very little experience with New England beaches and have always had the impression of the cold, dark, possibly dirty Atlantic. As many of you already know, this is far from the truth. Unfortunately I slept late and only got to spend about 30 minutes there before it was time to go to the airport. The bus took longer than we had been told so I missed the flight that I was hoping to make. The next flight didn't have any seats on it. By the time I flight came along with seats on it it was 5pm. I was looking at the flights from Boston to Atlanta and they looked terrible. I was really worried about getting back in time for my trip that started at 8:30 this morning. I didn't want to get rid of it because it had a long overnight in Fort Walton Beach and I needed the hours. But when 5pm rolled around, there was only one more flight out of Boston, and two naps came up in open time I had to trade it. This gave me another day and a half to get home without any penalty.

I decided if I was going to be stuck somewhere I'd rather it be the Vineyard with Joy. I got on the bus and went back to the restaurant where she was working and surprised her. I ended up hanging out there until Kiera's parent's came in and we ate dinner together. Kiera's cousin BJ is four and was so amusing. I had told him on Sunday night that I didn't have a belly button, so he was going around pulling up people's shirts to check for belly buttons. He pulled up Kiera's dads and came back to tell me "Jared has a belly button and it's kind of gross." That's pretty much how he was the entire time.

After we ate and all the kids got off work we went wandering around the town. Joy has a really interesting combination of friends and it's fun to be around them. We ended up at a place called the Island House and danced until it closed. Joy won a bag, tshirt, hat, and flip flops for being such a good dancer :-). After that place closed we were standing on the sidewalk trying to decide what to do when three guys came along and started talking to our group. One was wearing a shirt that said something about Iraq veterans against the war. He started into his campaign, explaining to us their three goals and how they intended to implement them. Alex seemed pretty interested, but I'm a little wary of any sort of fanatic. I believe in causes and I respect people who are passionate about things, but I like to meet someone who can wait more than 5 minutes of meeting you before getting on their soapbox. In our attempt to get away from these guys we started walking toward the beach. That didn't work and they came with us. Joy, Kiera, and I started wading into the water. Joy had told me about this algae they have there that lights up when you disturb them. When you walked into the water in certain spots it was like clouds of pixie dust surrounded your legs. Sometimes it looks like lightning bugs in the water. We were enjoying this amazing sight until one of the veterans decided he wanted to swim properly and took all this clothes off and ran into the water (stirring up loads of lovely algae, I'm sure). Thankfully he warned us so we didn't have to see anything too traumatic. Not five minutes later though, the cops came along and informed us it was time to call it a night. It was kind of annoying because there weren't any signs posted saying the beach was closed. We weren't doing anything besides walking in the water (except for naked guy who the police quickly spotted). It was a beautiful night though and we had a great time. I'm glad I got stuck there another day.

And so the journey began...

I'm sitting in the Martha's Vineyard airport, yet again, waiting for a flight to take me to Boston where I will try to catch a flight to Atlanta. This is hopefully the end of a trip that I wasn't sure was going to begin.

Friday I got up at 4:20, flew back from Providence, and did a Memphis round trip. On the way back from Memphis I had a proper celebrity on my flight. It was Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin and famous solo artist. I did not recognize him by sight (there are very few singers I'd actually recognize by sight) but one of the rampers told us he was on the flight and from there he was easy to pick out. The British accent elped, plus the curly ponytail, and cool but not over the top jewelry. I never said anything to him indicating that I knew who he was. I always feel weird approaching celebrities. But I did chit chat with him a few times. He had a good sense of humor.

After we got back to Atlanta I, like the heartless flight attendant I am, dumped our wheelchair passenger off the plane so I could run over to the next gate, meet up with Charity, and try to make the flight to Portland, ME. They cleared me for the flight, but since I was going to have to wait several hours in Portland, and Charity didn't get on, we decided to just wait in Atlanta together. This ended up being a good decision because we were waiting forever. There were about 5 more Boston flights and another Portland. I almost got on the next Portland without Charity, but once I got on the plane they realized someone couldn't count and there wasn't actually a seat available for me. Thanks to Charity's refusal to give up and Adri's willingness to pick us up in Boston whenever, we finally got on the last flight to Boston. At this point I had been in one airport or another for about 17 hours. I was seated between two quiet, friendly people, but it seemed that the rest of the plane was full of crying babies and obnoxious children. There was a girl sitting behind me, who was at least 10 years old, who sobbed and wailed because her mother's reading light was bothering her. I was so tired I folded over on my stomach and slept for a while.

We finally got to BOston and in the car with Adri, Mo (Adri's roommate), and Katya (Mo's girlfriend) around 12:30 or so and set off for the great north. Amy and Shane had left Portland earlier to go set up the campsite and get ready for rafting the next day. We finally arrived in West Forks, ME around 5am. It was starting to get light already. We parked near some cabins and walked through misty, good-smelling woods to the field where the tents were. We were all in a tired daze and weren't really sure which tents we were supposed to sleep in. Shane finally heard us and came out and told us where to sleep. Turns out, they had barely gotten back to the campsite. They had been across the street earlier in the evening and our rafting guide was attacked in a bar. Shane tried to intervene and got scuffed up as well. Black eyes and police reports ensued. Sounded like an exciting evening, but I'm glad I missed it. I finally fell asleep dreaming of the bird-like mosquitos that were hovering around my head and any piece of uncovered flesh and slept a few hours.

The actual rafting trip the following day made all of our pain and suffering up to this point completely worthwhile. We left the campsite around 10am and rode up to the top of the river. The day was perfect. The sky was blue with the occasional puffy white cloud and the sun was warm but not hot. As we got in the river and started through the rapids we found that the water was really nice (you all know how I love cold water). The river was rough enough to get your heart pounding, but not so rough that you thought you might actually die. Our guide was a regular New Englander who liked to yell and scream at us. His command for us to stop paddling was "good" which I have decided is the stupidest way of telling someone to stop. Sometimes it sounded like "ok, good, stop" other times it sounded like "good job, keep it up". After we got through the rough stuff we went swimming for a while. The water was so clear you could see your feet down below you. I learned how to pull someone into the boat and took pleasure in feeling strong and powerful heaving people out of the water. We had left a cooler halfway along the river and ate lunch sitting on some rocks with our feet in the water. Our guide gave Charity some guiding lessons and before we knew it she was bossing us around as well (oh wait, she always does that... hehe). We had such a good time in the sun and the water. It was a wonderful day.

When we finally made it back to Portland that night Shane, Amy, Charity, and I decided since Charity had never been to Portland before we needed show her the town. After driving all the way from MA the night before the rest of the crew decided resting was more important (understandably). It was so nice to be able to go out in Portland at night without wearing a jacket and snow clothes. We went to a few places we'd been to before and ended up at a bar with a huge outdoor patio and a live band. The main draw, though, was the super size Jenga games they had. I think it's a genius idea. People enjoy playing. People enjoy watching. It's an easy way to keep people occupied for hours. While we were watching one of the games I recognized a pilot I'd flown with a few months ago who was there for the overnight. It was pretty bizarre that we happened to be in the same place at the same time considering how many pilots we have and how many bars there are in Portland. It was a good time. charity is the Jenga queen. We finally went home and crashed at Amy and Shane's.

It is now time for my flight to Boston so I will have to tell about the rest of my journey later.

Currently reading : Her Last Death: A Memoir By Susanna Sonnenberg

Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my daaarlin’ Clementine

Except Clementine's in my stomach. I'm on my fourth one today. They're practically my favorite orange. The facts that they're easily peelable, the size of a golf ball, and ever so tasty make me want to eat them all the time. And also the fact that I bought a whole bag of them on Sunday and am realizing if I don't eat them all they'll go bad. I've also eaten almost a whole box of strawberries and a plum today. I seriously overestimated my fruit consumption, but am determined not to let it go to waste.

I'm in Rochester, NY and it is just as exciting as I hoped and dreamed it would be. We got here an hour late because of weather in Atlanta and had 4 babies on the plane, of which no less than 3 were screaming at any given time. Add that to the fact that my fellow flight attendant's fuse was getting a little low and you can imagine how much fun my last 3 hours have been. A man asked me if we had any antihistamines or nasal spray cause the lady next to him had a cold. I told him all we have is pain killers. Then he asked the other flight attendant who gave the same response. Then the man persisted in asking if either of us had any personally. I suppose if I had had some tylenol cold I would've shared it, but nasal spray? I think not. I should've lent her my tissue that I just blew my nose in.

I was wondering why I was feeling loopy and why the room seemed bizarre and just remembered I took my last ambian hoping it would send me into a deep and dreamless sleep until the morning. That last sentence took a lot of effort and back spacing. Good night all!

Because I don’t want to pack

I don't want to pack. I have to pack for two separate trips and it's overwhelming to the point of not doing anything at all. I did just have the brilliant realization that I don't have to fit it all in my suitcase for the next four days, which helps a little bit, but not enough. I'm doing a four day tomorrow, then going immediately to Maine to go rafting, and then hopefully after that going to Martha's Vineyard to say hello to Joy.

Today I did a dayline. I had some really stupid people on my flights. I had a lady get on and ask me where 12A was. I said "It's row 12", and I pointed to the number over row 1. She then proceeded to go through the cabin and stop and look at each row number as she went past. I don't know if she thought we were going to sneak 12 in after 6 or mix the numbers up for kicks or what. Then another lady got on. I was already unimpressed by the vast amount of fast food that her family was dragging on board with them, so when she said "Is row 10 in the front?" I couldn't even dignify it with a response. Once again, we in the civilized world number things for a reason. And in our civilized world counting typically begins at 1 and proceeds upwards IN ORDER. When I went through the cabin I got to her and she was holding her seatbelt and repeating over and over that she didn't know how to work it. Once again, for all of you people who laugh when we do the demos, some people can't seem to figure it out. They check their brains in their bags. They were also smelly people. Not the "I don't wear deoderant" kind of smelly. Just the "I don't shower or wash my hair regularly". Can you tell I had an amazing day? I had four different sets of smelly people today. One was plain old BO smelly, one group of 4 was curry smelly, and the other two were the generally unwashed kind. It's very sad to me to see/smell that.

I did have some friendly people, but my first round trip was to Nashville and very short so I really only had half the customer interraction. I had a man start talking to me while I was serving. He said he liked my name and had wanted to name is daughter Grace or Constance(????) but his wife vetoed it. Then he asked me when my birthday was. He said his wife is in to birthdays and star signs. He said he could usually guess when people's birthdays were, but evidently he still didn't peg me as an Aquarius. He also told me that guys that were born in late September were good matches for me. Funny that I know several born then and am not a good match with any. I told him he was out of his mind and his wife should stop wasting her time on that crap... Not really :-P Then there was the creepy starer in 1D. One of the first lessons in Man School needs to be that looking is flattering but staring is just gross and creepy.

I started reading the first Harry Potter today. I figure 10 years later (or whatever it is) I should get with the times. So far so good.


Currently reading : Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1) By J.K. Rowling

the start of a new week

Tomorrow is the beginning of another week of flying. Unlike my easy three day week last week, I'll actually be flying 5 days this one. Imagine that - working every day of the week! Sometimes I envy people who go home to their own beds every night and have nice normal lives. Sometimes I pity people who sleep in their own beds every night and have nice normal lives.

This weekend was way too short. It was nice being off during the day on Friday, which isn't my norm, but I worked at the amphitheater for some play that night, and did a dinner catering last night. The catering was ridiculous. It was for some lady's 60th birthday party and her daughter, who had organized it, was sooo demanding. I almost snapped when she started telling me how to serve sodas... If there's anything I know something about, it's serving sodas (unfortunately).

My brakes have decided to leave me. I've been meaning to get them fixed for a long time, but it's hard to negotiate leaving my car somewhere for long enough to get them fixed. I'm taking it in while I'm away on Tuesday, but all weekend I had to get chauffered around. It was kind of nice cause I don't like driving sometimes and cause then I got to spend time with whoever was driving me around. J did the honors yesterday and took me to my haircut. Then we went to Jersey's pool for the afternoon. Today the parents did the honors and we went to check out a potential house. We aren't sure about how much work the house would need, but I'd almost get it for the land around it. It reminds me of our Roscoe Rd house (property-wise) which was the most beautiful area we've lived in. Who knows if anything will come of it, but it's interesting.

Tonight I did laundry, made my room walkable, and watched True Life about these two girls who are compulsive shoppers. It made me feel much better about my money problems. Nothing like looking at people whose lives are disasters to feel better about yourself. That's all for now. I'm going to try to rise and shine and get stuff done before work in the morning.

if only work was always like this

I love doing three day trips. It was crazy and wonderful to realize yesterday, on day two, that today was the last day of the trip.

We just got back from Nassau. It was a nice overnight and instead of avoiding it like I've done before, I think I'll try to go back. I usually don't do international overnights if they're less than 14 hours or so (Nassau is 11), but since the airport is small and customs is a joke I think I can deal with it. The hotel is actually a Wyndham Resort and is really nice. My crew and I sat on beach chairs on the beach last night for an hour or so and just enjoyed being near sand and water. I'd love to see more of the area. The water was beautiful and we came in as the sun was going down which made it to die for :-P. I love the blackness of the people and how everyone is so relaxed and friendly.

The night before we were in Key West where the people aren't as much black as they are ridiculously tan. The locals all seem to have their brains fried, and you can see every imaginable (and some you'd rather not imagine) type of person. Three of us went out and about and had a jolly good time. For once, it was below 1000 degrees and the humidity was only 97% instead of the usual 125% person. I am evidently a beast because I sweat so much (thank you, Captain).

My prime disappointment with this trip has been that at both hotels, which are known for their king beds, I got full or queen. I know this may seem silly, but I love those beds so much. I feel towards king sized beds like I feel toward showers - a kind of unusual degree of love and enjoyment :-P. There's just something fabulous about knowing I can lie in any direction and still be completely on the bed. Oh well... Maybe next time.

If anything else amusing has happened in the last few days, I don't really remember. I have another 2.5 hours to entertain myself before I do one more round trip to Burlington, VT - then home!

On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed.

The advertisement at the top of my myspace page just now said "Music lessons= happiness". It made me laugh. Let me tell you, when I took music lessons they brought me more stress and tears than very many other things.

Tomorrow is my Monday. The thing that makes me happy though is that my trip this week is only 3 days. It also makes me happy that I'll be in Key West tomorrow night and Nassau Wednesday night. I don't know what it is but three day trips seem so much shorter than four days. I almost feel like I don't need to pack anything (but I am anyway).

Today was a fun day off. I got to have lunch with J before he went to work. It's hard to beat Chick-fil-a and a good looking man. But then I hung out with Michal and Mama the rest of the afternoon. I also went to the library and checked out the first Harry Potter book. I haven't read any of them and feel so behind the times. Michal had her second lesson learning to drive a manual car. She is doing quite well, though sometimes it makes me laugh a little to realize I'm teaching my baby sister to drive. She is already driving an automatic around which is strange enough. Then we did some shopping which just wore me out. I ran over a snake on the way home, thinking it was a piece of tire, and it made me feel bad and gross.

There has been lots of other stuff going on but I haven't felt like writing. I'm trying to do a better job of keeping up with my friends and family. I realized the other day how little I know about most of my friend's (and some of my family's) lives right now and it really bothers me.

I ran yesterday and intend to do so at least several more times this week. I also talked to my bosses today about some money issues and got more that I thought might be owed me so is another thing going well. It seems like life is a constant struggle for balance. If you are doing well work and money-wise, it seems you neglect relationships. It's hard to do all the good things you want all at the same time. I focus on eating well and exercising for a while, and then I fall completely off the wagon. I am good about calling people and writing and then I get distracted for months. I wonder why we're that way? Now I'm going to focus on getting a good night's sleep so I can be refreshed when I get to Key West tomorrow.

flying hiiiiigh

I'm sitting in Atlanta. We just got back from Montreal and have a 3 hour break before we go to Burlinton, VT for the night. I'm happy cause that's one of my favorite overnights. I wish we were spending 17 hours there instead of in Providence, RI tomorrow night. Someone is sitting a few chairs down from me in the lounge snoring. It amuses me. I should be sleeping because I am le tired, but alas, I am not.

Last night in Montreal I started week 8. This week is a 28 minute run in between two 5 minute walks. I ran four times last week, and am determined to run at least 3 times this week. I have set a weight goal for the end of the month. I'm excited to reach it.

Monday night I went with Jamie to the Dave Matthews concert at Lakewood. It was my first DMB concert. I was impressed by several things. First was obviously the band. It's nice to see a group where all of the musicians are so talented and work so well together. I'm sure this is part of why DMB is so popular. It seems most of the time you have one or two people who have the talent and keep things going, but they are all amazing. Second, I was amazed by how much weed people were smoking. I seriously thought I was going to get stoned just standing there breathing. Third was the crowd. It seemed like Jamie and I were the chaperones for a frat party. I haven't seen that many drunk/stoned children in a long time. Everyone was very enthusiastic though. We stood for at least 3 solid hours. The place was packed. We had a great time. I have to thank Susan for not being able to stay in Atlanta all weekend and thereby making it possible for me to be Jamie's stand-in date :-).

Back in the saddle

I'm back at work after six wonderful days off. I'm still exhausted and am looking forward to the wonderful hotel room in Key West this evening. I got home from Buenos Aires about 5:30 Sunday morning. I went home and went to sleep and was so tired and asleep that even in my dreams I was tired and couldn't move. I got up and had lunch with the parents but was feeling pretty lousy. I was coughing and my whole body hurt. Not sure how much of the aching was due to spending 10 hours on a plane. That night I had my usual fever breaking dreams and woke up with wet sheets from all the sweat - so I'm assuming whatever I had went away then. I'm still kind of achy, but not nearly as bad.

Yesterday I hung out at the pool with J. The weather lately has been amazing and almost makes you forget how brutal Atlanta can be. After that we went running, shopping and cooked supper. It was a really nice evening and we got to sit on his balcony and watch the reflection of the sunset off the buildings in Buckhead. Such a beautiful night.

When I travel I have the problem of not writing during the trip, and when I get home it's so much to write about that I never do. I did that with Puerto Vallarta, but don't want it to happen this time, so I'll try to write about it in bits and pieces.

My first impression of Buenos Aires was from the back of a taxi. I feared that I would die before we ever reached the city. Roya and I arrived in Buenos Aires around 7:30am. We'd had a nice flight (both in Business) and were ready to take on the world. Her friend, Alfredo, met us at the airport and we got in the cab to go to the hotel. Because of the traffic it made a 30 minute ride almost twice that long. I spent a lot of the trip looking down or anywhere except at what was in front of us. In Argentina there is total disregard for the lines on the road. Everyone is weaving back and forth. If you pull up at a light where there are three lanes, but there's room to squeeze in between two of the cars, they'll make four lanes. The driver would come up behind and between semis like they wouldn't squish us completely flat if we got in their way. Roya tried to video it but it was so stop and go and unpredictable that it was difficult. I'm glad to say that we survived, but I think that it was the most scared I've ever been in a car in my life.

It must’ve been love, but it’s over now

I said that I would write from Buenos Aires so here it is. I'm packing to leave. It's been an amazing trip. We haven't stopped going since we got here. I'm exhausted, but have had the time of my life. I'll write all about it either on the 10hour flight home that I hopefully make tonight, or when I recover from my sleep deprivation.

You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em

If you ever have a friend who really wants to have a child and you don't think they're ready make them watch episode after episode of John and Kate + 8. I know it's children in excess, but just watching it stresses me out. It's like having a daycare 24/7 and not getting paid for it. It also seems to me that John and Kate can't stand each other. Good birth control in my opinion.

Today I'm in Grand Rapids. Last night was Augusta. Yes, it's as thrilling as it sounds. I'm back on the 50 which hasn't been terrible, but I'm realizing that I work better when I have someone else to work with. I've been really tired, which hasn't helped me be a super fun fantastic flight attendant. Tomorrow I have five legs. Then I go to my car, dump my work clothes, get my play clothes, and fly to Buenos Aires. Right now I'm still too busy and tired and anxious about getting both Roya and I in first class to be excited. Okay, maybe I am a little bit.

This past week was a whirlwind. I worked a lot, had recurrent training, saw lots of out of town friends, had a real date, and worked some more. Adri and Mo were in town from MA so we went to the laser show at Stone Mountain. I might just be a big party pooper, but I think it's kind of cheesy. I don't like cartoons either though, so that might be part of the problem. It was still lots of good fun seeing everyone and the weather was perfect for being out under the sky. Jamie and Susan also both wandered in from their respective hick states to add to the festiviti. We crashed Adri's house on Friday night and had a 1477 and apartment family gathering.

I had a passenger yesterday who has flown over 2 million miles on Delta since the early 90s. He told me he's been in planes that have been struck by lightning 3 times. I was shocked and amazed. Shocked cause I've known people who've been struck once, but never three times. Amazed cause I have been curious what happens and obviously he wasn't damaged or killed.

Today I ran again. I was really on a roll for a while there. Then the running got harder and the weather got hotter. I've really flaked out. Now I finally finished week 6. It's only taken me a month. It was a 5 minute warm up with a 25 minute run. That's the longest I've run, without stopping, in a long time. Maybe ever. I ran super slow, but I finished it, and now I can at least move on to week 7.

My goal now is to be asleep by 8 or so. Now What Not To Wear is on so I'm not going insane. I'm going to work on a budget - finally. I think that realistically I can have my debt paid off by the beginning of December. Now that the end is in sight it makes me more motivated to do it (hence the microwave meal I just ate).

Hopefully next time I write it will be from about 5000 miles away.

Oh yeah, the concert I worked Saturday night was Kenny Rogers. There were some ladies there who had been to over 1000 KR concerts! It was really sad. I can't imagine who has nothing better to do with their lives than go to his concerts. It was extremely cheesy and his super hot wife came up on the stage with his twin 3 year old boys and they sang some rap song... I can't believe people paid lots of money for that. After the amazing pre-concert that Jamie and Jonathan put on Kenny just didn't impress me :-).

The rest of the story

I know I already blogged once today, but I'm much more awake now. I just got home from having dinner with some of my buddies. It was a good time. It's nice that the older we get, the more open we're able to be with each other. I often dream about what it would be like to be able to be completely honest with everyone about everything. I'm not talking about telling someone their pants really do make them look fat. I mean being able to tell anyone anything about myself and not be worried about what they think. In thinking about this I realize that I probably would have to draw the line somewhere. Some things I don't tell people because I'm ashamed, and if I stopped being ashamed of anything then I feel that would be bad. But other things are good to tell. If for no other reason than for someone to learn from and have a good laugh at my stupid mistakes.

That being said, it was nice to be able to tell my parents something terrible and stupid I did and them not banish me from their house :-D.

I will now tell the drug test story. If you're offended by stupidity, alcohol, drugs, or vomiting you might not want to read it. I would like to preface this by saying that throughout my college years, and especially while I was living in Europe, I was constantly exposed to weed. People offered it to me but I was never interested. It might've been because alcohol was still a new thing to me and enough for me to deal with. It might've been that I'd been raised to think that drug use is not a good way to spend your time or money. That it's not good to let something control your mind. I also saw that all my friends that smoked were dreadfully dull when stoned. All those reasons made me never interested. That is, until one night about 3 years ago when I was sitting around being bored and stupid and drinking and someone offered me a joint. I took it but just took one puff on it, and as Bill Clinton claimed, I don't think I even inhaled. I didn't feel anything spectacular, and that was the end of it. Or so I thought.

During this time I had applied for a job at my current airline. Things began moving at an unexpected pace and within 5 days of my first interview I was going for my second one. After the second interview they gave me some paperwork and told me to go for a drug test. Everyone had already told me that once they drug test you it means you have the job. Then they'd always joke and say "Unless you fail the drug test (thigh slap. ha ha.)" I didn't think I had anything to worry about since it was about a week and a half earlier, but I called said weed provider just to confirm. I was then informed that it can stay in your system for up to 30 days. This is the part where my day starts to get really terrible. Anger, panic, worry, and tears all ascend on me like the plague.

The next person I call is Adri. If she doesn't know an answer, she can find it. I also call Jamie, who at this point I was still only on phone internet basis with (look how far we've come :-D). He's another answer finder. He also works in the same type of field where clean drug tests are a good thing. Between the two of them I'm directed to GNC where I purchase one of those detox drinks. (Side note here: doing stupid things is expensive.) It's about a gallon and grape flavored. I've also purchased a big bottle of OJ and cranberry juice - items also said cleanse one's system.

[Just so you know, as I write this I question why I'm actually telling anyone what an idiot I am. But it's been a while and now at least I can laugh at my own stupid mistakes. I think so anyway...]

I begin drinking these different concoctions. The detox bottle said you have to pee at least 3 times before you take the test. I'm still in my interview finest and am now trying to figure out how I'm going to drink all this and then kill enough time for it to pass through me. It's not as easy as it seems. I went to the thriftstore down the road and wandered for a while and peed some. I was feeling terrible physically. I was feeling terribly mentally cause I was so worried about passing the test and so ashamed of myself for doing something so stupid. My stomach finally took over and decided that enough was enough and my really expensive detox drink, as well as what seemed like gallons of OJ and CJ came back up. I can't imagine what someone would've thought as the lady in the business clothes pukes in the thriftstore parking lot in the early afternoon. I must've been a sight to see :-P.

The puking helped me realize that the nonsense had gone on long enough and I better just take the test. As we can see, I passed and now that is all just a distant, silly memory.

I would say that the moral of the story is not to smoke weed. If for no other reason than because you never know when you'll have a major job interview and need to be drug tested. And if you do, the grape flavored drinks are absolutely disgusting. I also learned that my stomach cannot hold several gallons of liquid and evidently my organs cannot process fluids as quickly as I drink them.

This may be shocking and appalling to some of you. Some may not be surprised. I hope at least you're amused, and can take comfort in the fact that I suffered for and have learned from my mistakes. :-P

I will amend this by saying that Jamie and I were actually real life friends at this point. He reminded me of this because shortly thereafter when I was doing my first trip I went to his house at 6am cause I didn't have a suitcase and used his. it's hard to keep up with how long this joy ride of a friendship has been going on :-).

My eyelids should diet. They’re so heavy...

I just got home from doing a nap. I should probably take a nap since I only slept 5 hours, but I haven't managed to get to that point yet.

I had a productive, busy, hard working weekend, but it was nice. I worked at the amphitheater Fri and Sat and saw some people from the previous concerts. I really like working there and I like the people I serve. It also helps that most of them are really generous. Some lady tipped me for taking her beer bottle up to the bar and popping the lid off of it. I was worried cause when I got in the car Saturday night I counted my money and thought I had lost a twenty. I checked around in the car and even drove back to see if if was where I had parked, but it was gone. Then yesterday when I got in the car to leave my parent's house it was sitting right next to my seat... It made me happy. I hate losing money.

I got my phone replaced a couple weeks ago because the camera on mine had broken and it was still under warranty. Since then I have discovered the key to making my battery last. It seems my phone works much better when it isn't full of pictures. Now instead of barely lasting a day, the battery lasts several days. It's amazing.

Father's day was really nice. My mama, Michal, and I made a big salad with all the good stuff on it that my daddy loves. It was so good. Then we sat around and talked all afternoon. I told them the real story behind my ASA drug test. Now, three years later, it's funny. I'll write about it when I'm not so tired. I figure since my parents know then it doesn't matter who else knows. Church was also really good. There is hardly a Sunday that I leave there without feeling like I learned something and/or was challenged.

I have recurrent training this week so I'll be home every single night. It's weird. Tomorrow I work really late and already have stuff going on most nights, but it's still kind of nice to not be on the road.

Lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did

I don't know any songs about Providence. But I am lying in bed, evidently just like Brian Wilson did - though I'm not sure if he was lying in bed with his laptop.

Yesterday was a day that makes you glad you work for an airline, and makes you hate working for an airline. I spent the first part of the day lounging in Albany, NY. I ran, which made me feel good, but wasn't easy since it's been about a week. The weather in Georgia has been ridiculous for being outdoors. It was cooler in NY but not as much cooler as I would've liked. The change of scenery is nice though. We got back to Atlanta around 7 and were supposed to have a 2.5 hour break. Our plane was late and there was terrible weather surrounding the airport, so long story short, we left the gate about 1:15 late, then took off about 2 hours later. We were in good company though with about 30 other planes hanging out on the runways trying to leave as well. We finally made it to Providence at 2:30am. Hotel around 3:15am.

I've been realizing more and more lately what a role we flight attendants have in making passengers happy or miserable. I knew this before, but after flying with angry people two weeks in a row and now happy people two weeks in a row, it's reinforced. The last few days I've flown with a lady with a crazy deep Texas accent and a British guy. Both have an amazing sense of humor and people always leave the planes happy - even if it's 2:30am. We actually had a fun time on the flight. My crew is great and it makes all the difference in the world. I also seem to be sending off some kind of vibe cause all the old men are really loving me lately :-P.

Last night on my flight I had a lady that I've known since I was born but probably haven't seen in 15 years (Marianne Dias). She was on her way up to visit her daughter, Jenny, who gave me my first short haircut when I was little. I didn't recognize her (I'm not normally on the lookout for long lost friends at 11pm), but she gave me a note cause she wasn't sure it was me. I also met a girl yesterday who is on her way down to Rio for the summer. She said she was planning on going to Buenos Aires at some point so I told her when I'd be there and she might meet us there. These are two examples of why my job is great.

I'll be in Providence until tomorrow morning. I have recurrent next week and have some homework to do before then so that's probably what I'll be doing. And watching the food network. I kinda like these days of forced relaxation.

PS. Since I didn't blog yesterday on the day of, I will wish my wonderful older sister Christine a happy birthday month.

Giant steps are what you take walking on the moon

Considering the amount of sleep I've gotten in the last few days I'm ridiculously tired. It's thundering outside. Hopefully it will rain and cool things down. The heat might have something to do with how tired I am. I also ate a bunch of pizza and icecream a while ago. Talk about falling off the wagon - I've been eating junk, spending money, and not exercising. It's amazing how easy it is to lose concentration on your goals.

I went to the foot doctor today and found out that genetics suck and I get to have surgery on my foot some time this year. Joy has already had it so I'm not concerned about the actual surgery at all. The problem is that, due to the nature of my job, I'll have to take 6-8 weeks off of work. I was pretty sure it was going to happen but now that it has been confirmed I can start figuring the rest out. I'm hoping to do it around the end of the year so I'll be in recuperation over the holidays. This will also give me time to prepare for it physically and financially. Good times. I'm not worried about it though. God has always taken care of me in the past and I know He will continue to do so in the future. It's kind of exciting to me to think about having that much time off work. I just need to find a side job that I can do while sitting or save a lot of money now.

I ran across a good friend from Europe on facebook last night and it's made me remember so many things. I don't usually miss things, but there were a lot of good times had with this person while I was in Madrid. It's hard not to feel a little pain in my heart when I think of it and how it is now so long ago.

I'm waiting for my laundry and trying to think what I should be doing to get ready for my trip tomorrow. And trying to stay awake. Knowing me, I'll be really sleepy until it's actually time to go to sleep. Then I'll be wide awake.

Lazy Sunday evening

This is the second night in a row I have been doing nothing at my own house. It's pretty cool. I forgot what it was like. I was supposed to cater yesterday but I pulled something in my shoulder Friday, aggravated it working Friday night, and woke up yesterday with a really sore neck and shoulder. I decided that recuperation was a necessity. After I got my hair done yesterday I came home and sat in front of the tv with my laptop and some Publix sushi. It was awesome. Then I fell asleep on the couch around 5:30, woke up at 9:30 enough to move to my bed, and stayed there til this morning. Once again, it was awesome.

Today was an equally leisurely day. It's too hot to do anything that isn't leisurely. It's so hot, I sweat while I'm showering. I did strenuous things like go to church, eat lunch with my parents and Michal, load music on Michal's ipod, go to Starbucks with Isabella, and wander around Ross and Target. I found the perfect shade of hot pink nail polish. Well it better be perfect since I spent 15 minutes deciding.

I've also decided that I am doomed to be a boring dresser. The only interesting pieces of clothing I own were passed down to me by someone else (Amie or Molly). I try to get things that are interesting or unusual but always end up with the same old solid color things like white tank tops.

I guess a boring wardrobe suits me since I seem to be limited to super comfortable, super boring footwear. I wore shoes with one inch heels Friday night and my foot still hurts. It made me realize that the only shoes I wear anymore are my Teva and Clarks flip flops, Clarks work shoes, and running shoes. I have an appointment tomorrow with the foot doctor to see if I'm doomed to have the same surgery that Joy had the pleasure of experiencing.

I think I'll go to sleep now so I can stop feeling like I should be cleaning my room.

From the Inn by the Bay

I'm in Portland, ME again. Second time in a week. I love this town. I love the old buildings and houses. I love that it's near the water. Today is rainy and cool. I've been watching seagulls out my window. I love that there are people out walking everywhere. I think the closeness of this area is something I really like about it. I went running this morning. I ran down Spring St. past a lot of restaurants and shops. I feel like I'm part of the life happening around here, even though I'm just running through. Again, I managed to plan (or not plan) my run so on the last 2 minutes of my first 10 minute run I was headed up a huge hill. I had to walk to the top, but did the whole second 10 minute run. I thought about turning around so I could keep running, but once I got to the top of the hill I was glad I didn't. There was a park at the top that looked out over the bay. I could see the boats and islands. The rainyness of the day seems to make everything greener and brighter. There are also a lot of flowers blooming up here which looks and smells wonderful. Once I got to the top of the hill I found a trail that went down to the edge of the water so I could run along and look at all the boats. This type of life, small city on the water, is so different than any that I've lived. I'm still surprised by how many homeless people there are here. After I ran Shane picked me up and we had lunch with Amy. I'm so thankful I was able to swap my trip and be up here.

I'll probably write more during my 3 hour break in Atlanta.

Nobody cries, there’s only butterflies... hahaha

Sometimes it feels like I'm never going to get a chance to slow down and relax. It's silly cause I will. I know I will. I should be able to tomorrow afternoon when I'm in Portland. But right now all I can think about is getting up early for work for the next 5 days, doing 18 flights, and then catering two days after that. My room is once again barely walkable and I can't be bothered to do anything about it. The main thing is I'm really tired. Once I get a good night's rest tonight I'll realize it isn't all so overwhelming.

I got to spend a very lovely day with Peter and Michal. We drove (or sat in Atl traffic) up to Lenox and wandered around and shopped and looked at all the strange people. Then we went to Krispy Kreme and had some doughnuts hot off the.. doughnut maker? We also made a stop at the Stewart Avenue thrift store and then looked for hookers on the way home. We didn't see any. I guess it was too early. It was good fun with half the Holby litter. Since we spent about half the day in the car I was able to get caught up on all my pop music, since that's all Peter will allow me to listen to in MY car :-P. I feel so educated now.

Last night I catered a backyard party for some people on the south side of Ptc. Their house, yard, and pool were amazing in a very unpretentious way. After we set up the food and I sweated off about 5 lb in the blazing heat, we sat in the kitchen and watched them hang out for about 3 hours. Then we packed our stuff back up and left. They were very nice and we both got tipped almost what we made for the whole evening last night. All for doing nothing. Sometimes the catering is a lot of work, but then you have nights last night that are easy and relaxed and lucrative and it all evens out.

I'm going to sleep since I haven't even packed my bag and have to be at work in 11 hours. I know the first part of this sounds complainy but I'm really quite happy and blessed. I'm just a little tired, by my own doing, right now. Tomorrow I'll be in Portland for the whole day and it's going to be beautiful.

Something good this way comes

I'm sitting here in the lounge in ATL, eating my high sodium, non-refrigerated, microwave meal (don't be jealous) wishing I was going home instead of going to DC. We don't even get to spend a decent amount of time there. We just finished our third leg of the day. I've been very cheerful these last few days (trying to compensate for my other FA who is a bit testy at times), but it's running out. I've gotten some good swaps for next month and I'm quite pleased about that. I hate that I missed most of Joy's time in town, and am afraid I'll miss Peter's as well. Joy headed off to Martha's Vineyard for the summer today.

I ran this morning, which was a good way to start the day. Syracuse is a far cry from Tallahassee. It was kind of cold when we got there last night but this morning when the Sun was out it was perfect. I ran through some neighborhoods that looked like a combination of New England and the 70s. They all had beautiful little lawns and flowers everywhere. The first street I ran down was Patricia Drive :-D. I even saw a few fighter planes taking off while I was running.

I'm off to find my plane and head up to DC. Maybe someone amazing will be on my flight (besides me of course :-P).

Nothing but clouds in the Little Rock sky

I feel like a slacker. It's 12:23 local and I've done nothing with my day. Of course, I was still in the airport 12 hours ago. We got to here 2 hours late because of maintenance. It's hard to keep that in mind and remember that I'm not such a slacker, I just have a weird schedule. I was hoping to get up and run this morning since I haven't since last week, but it looks like it's been raining anyway.

This weekend was very full and fun. Peter got here on Friday. I got to see all of my younger siblings a few times. Michal turned 15. Went to a Braves game. Catered a wedding. Went out in Atlanta. Had good food in the Highlands and at the parents house.

I just left and had lunch with my crew. It was a pizza buffet which my stomach almost instantly hated. Good times. The captain paid though so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. My crew is pretty nice, but it seems like half the things I say they just kind of look at me. It's crazy that by the time I start my work day today most people will be home from their work days already.

I'm going to spend the rest of my time watching them deny my swaps in open time. I did manage to trade a 4 day for a 3 day, which gives me an extra day off next month, but there's still much more swapping to be done.

My life, and consequently my blog, is boring today.

Madder than mad

Today feels like one big freaking train wreck.

It started off with me oversleeping. I set my alarm for 8:45. This would give me time to clean around the house, run, get ready for work, maybe do some laundry, and not be rushed. I think largely because of the Benadryl I took last night for allergies, I absolutely could not wake up until almost 11. I still had 3 hours before I had to leave. Around 12:35, after cleaning my room for a while, I got dressed to go run. I slacked this weekend and have been feeling bad about that. At that point I saw my old work shoes sitting on my bed. This is when I realized my good work shoes, that I left at Jersey's house a week and a half ago, were still at her house. The old shoes hurt my feet too much to wear another week. So I had to drive all the way into Ptc to get her apartment key. Then I drove 5 minutes back toward me to her apartment, got the shoes, drove 5 minutes the other way to return the key, then drove 15 minutes back home. By now I have just about an hour before I have to leave for work. I haven't showered or packed. Thankfully I cooked food last night to take with me so that was all ready. Plus I had poppyseed chicken left over from last night to take. Yum... I survived the morning drama and made it to work but without accomplishing anything else at all. Disappointing.

I got to work and had an uneventful flight to Milwaukee. On the way back we ended up holding for about 35 minutes due to severe weather passing through Atlanta. On approach we got to see an amazing lightning display. I don't think passengers enjoyed it.

The next flight should've been pretty simple. It was 36 minutes in flight. You board, take off, cruise for a few minutes, and land. But no... Everyone was mad cause they had had really rough flights into Atlanta. Of course I made the weather so you should be mad at me for it. Then it took us almost twice as long to taxi out as it did to fly down here (and that's after we cut in line). It was really bumpy so we couldn't get up the whole way and everyone wanted everything. Oh well... We were less than an hour late, which is good considering how many planes are probably still taxiing in Atlanta. I sat next to a nice lady from Portland, OR who gave me her address and phone number and told me to come visit her.

All's well that ends well right? Wrong. We finally make it to the hotel after a ridiculously long van ride. My FO brought her boyfriend and she's sitting on his lap next to me since there isn't an extra seat. My flight attendant has a bad attitude cause he thinks that everyone is against him cause he's black. Maybe they are. I'm obviously not very sensitive to that sort of thing. He also assumes cause we're both flight attendants that I'm going to be on his side when he gripes to me about things...

We finally get to the hotel. I sign all of us in and go to my room at the far end of the hall on the fourth floor. The key doesn't work. I go downstairs and get two more. They don't work either. Finally I get another room and it's on a different floor from my crew and a handicap room. Whatever. I don't care at this point. By the way, the hotel looks like a nice one, but it doesn't seem to have air conditioning. Neither did the taxi ride over. Just windows all the way down as we drove 48 mph down the interstate.

I put my stuff in the room and go down to the other end of the hall to get some ice to put my food on since they "ran out" of rooms with a frig or microwave. This also bugs me since we're going to be here for 2 nights. I don't want to have to buy all my food. I get to the ice machine and there isn't any ice in it. Arg. So I go back up to the floor I was .. down to the end of that hall and finally get some ice. I was going to take the trash can and just fill it with ice, but there was trash in it. Isn't that a pretty obvious thing to clean when you clean a room? I finally get some ice and open my lunch bag to get my food out. This is when I realize I LEFT MY FOOD ON THE PLANE. I'm sooo mad. My poppy seed chicken. My jambalaya. My sugar snap peas that I purposely only ate a few of them so I could have them for the rest of the trip. And I'm sure the cleaning crew tonight will throw it all away. I'm heartbroken. So now I have a big bag of ice for a Diet Coke. It better be ice cold when I drink it tomorrow.

After that I come sit at the desk to write a blog about how mad I am. (At least the internet works.) I sit down in the chair and put my foot up again my leg and realize there's gross sticky stuff all over my heel and now on the inside of my pajama pants. The look and smell makes me think the inside of a fig newton (I guess that would be a fig). How the crap did I get fig on my heel? I'm so over this place and I've only been here an hour.

On top of all this, allergies have been killing me. I've been rubbing my eyes until they're sore, and then I rub them more. When I rub them my contacts get lost in the far regions of my eyeballs. Then I find them and they fall out and all my make up is gone. My throat itches. My ears itch. My nose itches. I'd pick my nose in public if it would help.

Hopefully tomorrow is better. Hopefully the sun will come out and I can go to the pool or something. I'm finished with my rant.

Sweet Caroline oh-oh-oh

I know that many of you spend your days wondering what us Holbees do when we gather together. You may think we discuss literature and poetry - twas brilig in the slithey toves. You may think we discuss travel and the world - our brother lives in China. Or you may think we discuss religion and politics. I hate to disappoint you, but all we are is one big mutual admiration society. I tell Joy how pretty she is. She tells Michal what a good athlete she is. She tells my mama what a good cook she is. She tells my dad how smart he is. And on and on it goes. Some would think it'd get tiresome always hearing how wonderful you are, but it really doesn't. It's actually quite lovely. Then I start thinking about all the friends I have and am blown away by the fact that I have not a single terrible person in my life :-D. I love it.

I didn't blog last week, but it was mostly due to the fact that I had lousy or no internet on my trip. Then I spent a whirlwind weekend in Louisville for Joshua and Brittany's wedding and visiting Jamie. I got home last night and haven't slowed down since.

The first day of my trip was spent in Oklahoma City. It was surprisingly hot. I did day 2 of week 5. This is the first week where all three days of running aren't the same program. Day 2 was two 8-minute runs, which is the longest I've gone so far. On Wednesday I was privileged to see Amy and Shane in Portland. It was the most beautiful day I've had up there. I usually bring bad weather with me. They've moved us to a hotel that is downtown near the port so there are plenty of places you can walk to which is really nice. The next day I was in Montreal. The weather up there was also beautiful. I was exhausted from staying up too late with the Whites so all I had the energy for was a run. I wasn't sure I could make it because it was day 3, which is a 20-minute run, but I survived. It helped that the sidewalks were busy so I couldn't really run that fast. It's good mentally to keep extending the time. I'll work on speed later. I went to sleep at 7:30pm that night :-P.

I got off work on Friday, after doing 5 legs that included a Louisville round trip, just in time to get my violin and my weekend clothes from my car and rush over to the gate, to wait and hope I got on the flight. It was delayed forever cause of maintenance but TanJoe and I finally made it on. Once we got there Jamie took us to Louisville's finest where we heard a really awesome band play a really fun variety of music. I did a crossword on Tuesday that was themed songs named for women. One of them was "Sweet Caroline" so after hearing that song play in my head for a week it was great to hear it live. The rest of the weekend continued in that vein. The wedding was lovely and I was thrilled to find out that I had not forgotten how to play the violin.

I got back yesterday in time to go up to Buckhead for my cousin's graduation party, come back down here for dinner with some friends, and crash. Today was shopping and cooking and picking up Joy who is back from Spain and seeing the rest of the family. Hopefully I'll write some blogs coming up that aren't just about what I've been doing. We'll see. For now, I must sleep.

let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height.

It seems like these weekends are gone before they start. Here it is, another Monday. Another week of work about to start. I am fortunate that my work week doesn't start until tomorrow, but mine ended on Saturday, so I guess we're even.

I catered a wedding Saturday night. We thought we were going to get blown away by the tornados that were coming through. Then we thought we were going to get washed away by the rain. But everyone survived. It poured until about 10 minutes before the wedding started and only sprinkled a little after that. (It was outdoors and the reception was under a tent.) Nearly every wedding I attend confirms my desire to either not have a wedding or to have a highly unusual wedding. I hate all the frou-frouness. I hate the exorbitant amount of money spent on a day that usually becomes more stress than fun. I've also decided that cutting the cake is the most pointless tradition. I hate cutting cake on my birthday, so if I ever get married, I'm not cutting the cake. Someone else can do it.... When we got there, they asked us if we could put all the sodas and waters in a fishing boat that was propped up on sawhorses. They should've gotten the groom's cake from the first wedding we catered. It had a guy in a fishing boat on top of it.

I just got back from my first run of week 5. I was a little nervous since it was 3 5-minute runs and I struggled on the 5-minute runs last week, but it went pretty well. I'm fortunate because the weather that came through this weekend brought a nice cool breeze so I wasn't suffering from anything besides running. I love this time of year. The sky is that beautiful bright blue, and everywhere I go I can smell honeysuckles and other wild flowers growing. It's amazing that God made plants that smell that good just grow wild for our smelling pleasure.

I feel like I have a lot to do today. It's my last day of freedom and I need to squeeze as much as possible in it. But now it's already 1pm and I haven't really done anything.

I got to see more of my family this weekend than I have in a long time. My mama got back from visiting Joy in Spain and Israel was in town at the end of a business trip. On Saturday night after I catered we (Jamie, Jersey, Adam, Israel, and me) decided we wanted to do something. Anything. Since I'm sick of the options down here in PTC and it was kind of late to go up to Atlanta we decided to go to what used to be B52s by the airport. It's a fairly decent place to go grab a bite, hang out, have a drink, watch people. We got there and noticed something was different. For one, there was a huge number of very white, European looking/dressing people there. For two, they weren't playing any hip hop and three, there were lots of white people dancing. Then they started playing music with unitelligible lyrics. Not unusual except remember, they weren't playing rap or hip hop. The more unintelligible the words were, the more the white people jumped around and danced. I finally went over to the dj to ask what the name of the song was. He started talking to me but I couldn't understand anything. Then he asked what language I spoke. English. Asked where I lived. Atlanta. Why? Umm... cause I'm from here. Turns out he, along with about 80% of the other people there and the owner of the place, was Czech, and they were playing Czech music. Oooohhhh... It's all so clear now. It was really fun though. I felt like I was back in Prague or some other eastern European nation. We had a good, interesting time. I have to say that it was far more than I hoped and dreamed for that night :-).

Yesterday, even though it was mother's day, my mama wanted to celebrate Israel's birthday (a month and a half late). I was happy cause what she made was better than what I would've thought of, and I've been wanting a real, home-cooked meal for a long time. I'll have to cook for her next week. We spent the day in the yard kicking a soccer ball, throwing a frisbee, and trying to fly a kite (since it was so windy). We never got the kite above our heads. It was kind of difficult when the wind couldn't decide which way it wanted to go.

I need to go shower and get on with my day. I just re-read this, and it's pretty disjointed, but I had a lot to say. Sorry. Hope everyone's Monday is wonderful.

remembering in Toronto

On this day four years ago I was riding in a bus from Split, Croatia to Sarajevo, Bosnia. I was with Raechel and we had just gotten back from spending a few days on the idyllic island of Hvar. I was beginning my journey through many foreign places. We rode down the Croatian coast for long while watching the waves crash below. Seeing the patterns the wind made on the water. Enjoying the beauty of it all. As we left the coast and began to make our way inland we started singing all the disney songs we could think of to distract me from the impending motion sickness that had plagued me on every method of transportation for the last week or so. We traveled through beautiful green mountains. I had no idea what to expect when I went to Bosnia and was very surprised by how lush everything was. We stopped at a restaurant perched above a valley and I used my first eastern toilet. It was pink ceramic and I realized it was not intended for women who wear pants. As we went further into Bosnia we began to see evidence of war. Raechel told me the stories behind many of the remains. It was a very interesting day that began in wealthy, beautiful, cosmopolitan, coastal Split, Croatia and ended in a war-scarred, graffitied, but still beautiful in its bowl of mountains Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Today I had no such exciting journeys. I spent another day in Toronto. They put us in a different hotel. It's really nice. I wouldn't mind having an apartment like this hotel. I ran again today. It was much better than yesterday. I'm spoiled up here by the cool breeze that is constantly blowing on me. This hotel is also in an area that is much nicer to run in.

I've spent most of the day updating a blogspot blog I have. It's the same as this one, but I just wanted to have a back up should something ever happen to this one. I also want it to be accessible to non-myspacers.

I'm not sure what it is about Canadian men, but within a few hours last night I had three of them give me their contact information. None of them were particularly interesting, but I really respect the fact that they aren't afraid of making the first move. That is a current peeve I have with most men I come across. Though I'm perfectly capable, I refuse to take the first step. I want a man who is man enough to do that. I may be single forever.

My mama should be back home by now. I'm excited to hear how her trip went. Israel will also be there when I get back tonight. Good times. I've been reminded a lot lately how fortunate I am to still have both my parents and all my siblings. I think I take it for granted that people's parents die when they're old, but I've come across more and more people who have lost theirs early in life. I hope this reminds me not to take the time I have with loved ones for granted.

As fantastic as Canadia is, I'm ready to blow this joint and be home.

Not much happening in Toronto

I'm a little bit frustrated. I'm in week 4 of this running thing. In the past weeks the first run of the new week was hard and the rest were significantly easier. This week the first run was really hard. Now I finished the third run of the week, but don't feel ready to go on to the next week. I still feel like it's too hard. Maybe I'm a big wuss. This week was 3 and 5 minute intervals. It's kind of embarrassing to tell runners that it's hard for me to run for 5 minutes straight, but it is. It probably doesn't help that I haven't run every other day like I should be. Maybe cause I'm giving myself too much space in between. I'll do better. Running in Toronto isn't as inspiring as Wilmington either. The temperature is nice, but I'm running through a very industrial area. Sometimes there aren't sidewalks and it smells bad. I'm quite the complainer.

Today I slept longer than I have in months and months. I don't normally like sleep past 10:30 or so. I just feel like I'm wasting my day. Today I slept until 1:20. I can't even remember most of the dreams I dreamed. The last one I had before I woke up involved a tall military guy who was wearing short shorts and first appeared to have no arms but was pretending. I was working at some bar type place. I think Michal was there. It was kind of strange and confusing. And oddly humorous. I wish I could remember the others.

Yesterday was the long day of our trip. We had a lot of sitting around time which makes the day go by really slowly. We did a Pittsburg round trip during the afternoon and came to Toronto for the night. I've just discovered that an old college friend, Neil, lives about 30 minutes from here and works right around the corner. I need to find a way of keeping up with where I know people. I hate spending a long time somewhere, bored out of my mind, and finding out the next day or week that I knew someone there.

It's time to head back to Atlanta and then turn around and come back. I wish I could just leave all my stuff in the hotel. My bags are really heavy this trip for some reason. Knowing my luck though, if I left it here we'd get our flight canceled or something.

I hate the way my teeth feel when I wake up

I've been trying to avoid the "this is what I had for lunch" kind of blogs and evidently other than what I eat, my life isn't very interesting lately. Come to think of it, I haven't really been eating anything interesting lately. How sad.

I'm in Melbourne, FL. It would be great except I have to leave in an hour. Our hotel very nice and is right on the beach so I can hear the waves right now. I can also hear the loud roar of the ac equipment right outside my room and it's interfering with my wave noise. There's a funny sign on the desk in here. It says "If smoking occurs during your stay..." It makes me a little curious to know how smoking can occur. I thought you had to intentionally make something like that happen?

Today we fly back to Atlanta, wait around a couple hours, do a round trip to Pittsburg, wait around a few more hours, and go to Toronto for a long time. I'd much rather we spend a long time here, but I guess that would be too much fun. It's hard to be at work when the weather is so beautiful and I'm missing out on it. But when the weather is bad it makes working more difficult.

hi ho, hi ho

It's Sunday again. I can't necessarily remember the last Sunday. This week has been very, very full, and very long. I did a nap Friday night. Then I catered yesterday from 3-11. We're catering the concerts at The Fred in PTC. This weekend is Huey Lewis and the News. I'm about to head back over there for another concert today. I should be cooking some food since my cereal probably won't tide me over for the day, but I have a headache and don't feel like it. The concert last night was pretty fun. It's hard work, but it's sometimes nice to work with people who are having a good time. It's kind of like doing flights that take people on vacation. They're always in a good mood and it's nice to be a little part of their good time. I need to go get ready and find some food. I am not working at all tomorrow and it makes me so happy. I complain about working - who wouldn't rather be sitting at home or with friends and family - but it doesn't feel good to know that every time I work I'm getting closer to be debt free. That's what I tell myself anyway.

such a, such a busy day.

Today is one of those days when I would give nearly anything to not have to go to work. I have to go to Providence tonight for a short few hours on the ground and then come back in the morning. I'm glad because the alternative was two miserable days of work, but I'd still rather be staying at home.

I had one of the most productive days I've had in a very long time. I had two cherry coke zeros and it makes me wonder if they're the magic motivation I've been looking for all these years. Not sure, but they did the trick today.

Yesterday after work I picked Michal up from school. My mama left to visit Joy in Spain yesterday. I'm really excited that she is going. I hope she likes it as much as I did. Since she was gone I got Michal and played mama for the night and morning. I have a feeling it was nothing like actually being a mother. We met Amie at La Hacienda for supper which was lovely. Michal practiced her amazing Spanish and Amie made everyone laugh with her terrible Spanish. I just sat and smiled and said gracias. Next we went home and said hello to the padre before he went to work. For the rest of the evening I entertained Michal with my air guitaring while she did homework. This morning I made sure I got her to school on time so she wouldn't get kicked out of school (like I dreamed she had for being late). We had a lovely evening and morning. In case no one has noticed, I have the coolest siblings in the world.

After that it was the perfect time to go home and clean and organize my bathroom. And then clean my room. And move my bed. And move it again. And pay bills. And go to the bank. And find out my catering work schedule for the next few weeks. And clear junk out of my car. And hang curtains. And wash all my towels and bedding. And swap all my trips this month. My caffeine buzz is wearing off just in time to start getting ready for work. It's a beautiful day. Hopefully it will mean good flying (though I'd prefer no flying). The perfume I bought off ebay (for nearly half price) arrived today. It smells soooo good. It's Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel. (Is that right Peter?) So now I can smell like a dream while I go to work.

I dread the thought of working 6 or 7 days a week for the next forever, but after getting my refunds and doing some calculations, paying off my debt is within sight. It's really encouraging and makes me want to do the extra work and saving to get it done.

Enough productivity for now. I'm going to go shower. I think I'll get some ice cream cake and eat it while I'm in there :-D.