Geez... is it December already?

I feel like I just started this blog and here we are on December-eve... almost a year later. And the holiday craziness is in full swing. I barely had a chance to say what I was thankful for on Thursday because I was so busy thinking about the upcoming holiday cash cow. Sigh. Consumerism at its finest.

So while I wasn't arguing with M about the placement of the outdoor lights, wrestling with a cheap, fake excuse for a Christmas tree, or joining the writhing mass at the malls, I was thinking about what I was thankful for. (Oh... and I was also trying to finish "New Moon," which is dreadfully boring. The only thing keeping me interested is Edward has to come back some time. Should be interesting. *barfs*)

First things first:
1) I'm thankful my house didn't explode into a giant ball of gas last night and PG&E FINALLY showed up at 10:00 pm to fix the leak in the meter.

Oh, wait... I guess I want to be thankful for overall stuff, right?

Eh hem...

1) I am thankful for my health. Granted being "terminally ill" isn't exactly uplifting nor something to be thankful for, but hey, it could be a lot worse, right? The insulin pump could just not work for me... and then I'd really be screwed. So yay for new technology, a new president that might actually SUPPORT finding a cure, and for understanding baristas at Starbucks. (What?)
2) I am thankful for my understanding and patient husband, who knows all too well what happens when I go off the deep end.
3) I am thankful for my friends and family. Granted I don't always open up and ask for help, I'm glad to know that they'll give me a shoulder to cry on or share a joke when I need it. Or an excuse for a coffee run.
4) I am thankful that I am employed, debt free (as much as a homeowner can be), and live under my means. In this economy, that's everything.
5) I am thankful that I have shelter, a lot of sweaters to keep me warm, running electricity to cook a meal every night and a mostly full pantry and refrigerator.
6) I am thankful for my little Lucy, who gives unconditional cuddles just as long as I feed her on time. (And clean her litter box.)
7) I am thankful for my new friends at MK-O. I know I haven't met nearly enough of them in person and I can't wait to in the future, but something about that board just keeps me excited. It's the most fun you can have with people you've never met.

Here's to December and the end of 2008.

Back in the States... A few notes

M and I made it back to the states last night and bee-lined to the nearest Rite Aid to stock up on cold medicine. Although, being back in the states alone seems to have made our cold symptoms subside slightly. Not sure if the pressure is just off, or we are completely numb after our 12 hour flight home from Munich. (Probably a little of both... but that was a really looooong flight.)

Anyway, here are some things that I have come to appreciate more now that we've been to Europe.

The English keyboard: because France had its own keyboard... and Italy also had its own, it took me twice as long to type anything in English because things like ?, ", ', and @ were not in their traditional spaces. You have to realize that words like can't and won't are not used in French or Italian. So the ' was sorely missed.

Showers: While we had a shower stall in Italy, I barely fit into it. And that's saying something. The shower in France was pretty much a bathtub with a detachable nozzle that sprayed you while you tried to stand up and not get everything wet. The shower in Italy wouldn't stay on long enough so you could finish cleaning yourself.

Toilet Seats: I'm not talking about the paper liners used for public toilets. (Those I knew wouldn't be there.) I'm talking about the actual SEAT from the toilets were missing from 85% of all the public toilets I visited. So imagine going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and your spouse, significant other, or male roommate failed to put the seat down. THAT'S how it was in Europe. Luckily all the hotel toilets had one... which I found strange.

Vegetables: It's nice to live in California and have a great supply of organic fruits and vegis from local farms. In Rome and Paris: not so much. I maybe had one salad the entire time we were there. It was sad. I missed my greens. But we carbo-loaded like crazy. And with that, I think I'll make Caesar Salads tonight for dinner.

Cold Medicine: I'll have to admit - the Romans make a decent cough drop. But the rest of their supply - forget it. Not only did I have to buy multiple items for each symptom, but nothing really worked. I guess that says something about our drug market out here. We've probably made everything so strong out here that anything else fails to help.

Clean laundry: We didn't get a chance to do laundry while in France or Italy. And for that, we stunk. It was bad. I mean, I can usually wear a shirt 2 or more times before washing... but for some reason, it was pretty terrible living in a suitcase without clean clothes. Luckily our in-laws spared us the trip home in the clothes we washed ashore in. And folding laundry has never felt (or smelled) so good.

Home cooking: I admit I've gotten pretty lazy with the kitchen lately. But after eating at cafes and sandwich shops for the last week, I'm pretty excited to bust open the cook books again. One can only survive on sandwiches and crepes for so long.

Since I was so rushed while in Paris and Rome, I'll probably go back and edit my previous entries so that they make sense. (Spell check was also non-existent in these countries.) Plus we have 300 photos to go through, edit and upload. Hooray! Thank goodness for taking the rest of the week off.

Why does this always happen

So this is officially the second major vacation I have taken with M where I end up sick. M has been sick since Paris, but it finally hit me this morning. I got some experience with the Pharmacy system out here. 18 euros later, we were stocked up on enough cold medicine that I am not sure we can bring back to the states. Le sigh...

We have a lot of photos from the Colosseum trip today. That place is a total tourist trap. We couldn't walk for 2 minutes without being asked if we wanted to join up with a tour. A tour would have been fine if we didn't study this structure like crazy in school and it was more than some neatly stacked rocks. But no... no tours for us. Especially in our states. (I really don't mean that the structure is just a bunch of rocks... but with my attitude right now - they are rocks.)

More photos to come. We are on a plane home tomorrow. I think we are both a bit homesick (literally). So while we enjoyed our trip, we are going to be so excited to go home and heal. Hopefully the conjestion stays away long enough so my ears make it through the flight.

Until later...

When in Rome...

After a near Hogwarts experience, we made it safely (and maybe sanely) to Rome yesterday morning.

The overnight train was a bit of an experience. As mentioned, I felt like I boarded at Platform 9 3/4 with M and was packed away into a tiny compartment for the evening. Dinner passed the time and was most entertaining. The train ride was a bit turbulent so our dinner items always precariously tipped each time we hit a rough spot. But it killed an hour and we found ourselves back in our bunk beds (literally). M watched something on my IPod... I curled up with the Twilight series (which sadly... I have become a huge fan of all of a sudden... UGH... stupid teen romance/angst novels with totally implausible outcomes. Must buy remaining 3 books upon return.)

We arrive in a few pieces to the Termini station and find our hotel and lunch. Unfortunately, being on a rattled train for 14 hours can really mess with your head. So M and I both had vertigo for at least 4 hours. Blah! Made lunch very interesting. Speaking of which, if you order a pizza in Rome, make sure you split it. I was expecting a very expensive pizza by the slice... I got a large pizza instead. Which actually was not that hard to finish... but still. Could not finish it due to the room spinning.

After napping and reading the last half of the Twilight novel (oh shush!), we decided to take the subway for the first time to tour some of downtown Rome's hot spots. Like the Trevi Fountain. Very fun to people watch there with some gelato. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep from the night before finally caught up with me and I was not exactly a fun traveling partner. At any rate, we still managed to find the Pantheon at night... but couldn't get in because it was closed early on Sunday. Maybe later.

Today, we get our Catholicsm on and head to the Vatican. (St. Peter's and the Museum.)

Some last notes about Paris: we did climb to the near top of the Eiffel Tower yesterday which gave us some cool photos and was well worth it. The gift shop was quite entertaining as well. You don't really realize how tall the structure is until you make it to the second tier and the third tier is still a zillion feet above you.
I also kind of regret not having any wine in Paris. But wine makes me sleepy, and we were already tired from everything. I would have barely made it back to the hotel. But we did have lots of coffee and cheese. I think we did our culinary part.
And our Paris hotel: probably not going to return to it. Yes it was convenient and the staff was friendly... but compared to what we have in Rome... UGH! At least in Rome, I can actually sleep on a mattress, rather than a rock. And we have an actual SHOWER STALL in our bathroom. And a beday... heeeee.

Until next time...

Done with Paris; off to Rome

Well, M finally got sick. I knew sleeping with the window open was probably a bad idea. Hopefully we can still enjoy everything left on our trip to do list.

We covered a lot of ground yesterday. St. Sulpice, even with it's Hollywood intrigue is pretty anticlimatic. And currently being restored. But the church makes it very clear that there is no such thing as a Rose Line in the church. Nor was it a Priory of Scion landmark. Oh well.

The Orsay museum was a lot more interesting than I originally imagined. All of the stars of Impressionism can be found here. I enjoyed it thoroughly... but my feet did not. We were so exhausted after touring the facility.

We take the overnight train to Rome tonight. And we aren't exactly sure if the station we were told to go to is the right one. I guess we'll soon see. Wish us luck!

Notes from Europe Part 2

The Lourve was huge. But I think we covered every room featured in Rick Steves' audio tour, as well as those featured in DaVinci Code. We even found the Holy Grail, according to Dan Brown. M has taken a liking to French Romanticsm; something I didn't really study in Art History. And we came back to the hotel with a ton of postcards... and a need for a really long nap.

Today we are walking all over Historic Paris. Our intention is to climb all 400 stairs in Nortre Dame tower and hang out with the gargoyles. If we have enough energy, we'll swing by St. Sulpice; another DaVinci Code landmark.

It's pretty cold here. Not really rainy. Just cold. Our room doesn't have A/C and it gets quite warm at night. Pray I don't come home with a cold because we have to sleep with a window cracked just to stay comfortable.

'Til next time.

Notes from France

First things first: This keyboard is nothing like the one at home.

We arrived safely to Europe yesterday via the longest flight ever. Much to our surprise, we were able to get a free dinner on board. A very rare thing on planes these days. Granted, it did taste like it was a free meal, but at 35000 feet, who cares? Watching WALL E on board more than made up for it.

After checking into our hotel, we discovered that shower curtains dont exist at this hotel. It makes bathing quite an adventure. I'm not really sure how else to describe my reaction.

We took on the Metro system as well as French dining right away. NYC seems to have trained us well. The Metro is very intimidating at first. But quite entertaining. I've already seen two people have full conversations with themselves, an inpromptu puppet show, and had a half full pack of gum stolen from me; all while on the trains last night.

We saw the Eiffel Tower last night. It was illuminated in blue LED lights. Since the tower is such a phallic symbol, you could say it was the biggest display of blue balls I've ever seen. Yup, I went there.

Our hotel room is the size of a small closet and the bed is as hard as a rock. But we are only here for a couple nights. Hopefully our backs and shoulders hold out okay.

We are going to go explore the Lourve today. Very excited. And the coffee here is FANTASTIC. Starbucks needs to take note. A tiny cup of Joe here is like drinking a triple shot.

Until later... Internet access is 8 euros for 1/2 hour. So you might not see me write much. But we are here and safe!

'Twas the week before Europe

What a week!

First things first: we have a new president that I am actually excited about! Watching Obama win the Presidential election was inspirational, for a lack of a better word. I am so thrilled and hopeful to have someone "fresh" in the office with new ideas. Hopefully we'll see lots of good change in the next four years.

Sadly, to quote the news and a variety of sources, chickens in California now have more rights than same-sex couples. I was a big No On Prop 8 supporter and I'm bummed that this passed. I'm hoping for appeals, turn overs, re-votes... whatever. Another member on a board I post on put it so eloquently when she stated "This isn't about schools, or religion, or whatever... it's about PEOPLE! It's about giving people equal rights in this state to marry who they love!"

I traveled to Los Angeles this week to take part in our annual Fall Session. This also marks the end of a very LONG event season. We now get a little bit of a break to play catch up and prep for the start of the Winter and Spring event season. It didn't go as bad as I thought it would, but we had some surprises. I think I'm just uber stressed from a number of other things on my plate, both personally and professionally, and it didn't help that I was getting "emergency" phone calls and emails all week.

I did meet with two lovely ladies from the MK-O boards on Wednesday. They were a hoot to hang out with and I can't wait to meet everyone next year (hopefully) at the ginormous get-together I'm helping coordinate. Of course, I had to let my co-workers in on a secret part of my life that, yes, I have a number of friends that I've never met in person and we all chat via the internet. My boss was very concerned that I was going to be "Marker-napped" or something.

Speaking of internet friends being awesome: Diana went to the SYTYCD tour in NJ a few nights ago and got me a "shout out" video from Mark Kanemura. I collaborated with her on a project we called "The Postcard Book" and she passed it on to him at an earlier show. (Basically a photo album with postcards from all of his fans... since we're kind of all over the place. Photo is here.) He LOVED it and thanked me as personally as you can via a video camera in 13 seconds. The video can be found here. It's on Facebook, so you have to be a member to view. And it's a bit on the dark side. But the "Jen" in the video is ME! YAY for celebrity endorsements!

And I'm busy packing. I am so relieved to have re-read the security and luggage requirements for our airline. Turns out that they DON'T count a purse as a carry on bag. THANK GOODNESS! I was really worried. I can bring on my big purse and not have to worry about that being the only thing I have on the flight.