Packing is undoubtedly the worst part of any trip. Forget sitting in airports for hours eatting beef sticks and cheetos, weighing your dining options (Macdonald's...or Burger King?), or hours crammed in a giant flying sardine can watching movies that went straight to DVD.

Packing is more than just a chore - it a chore, a puzzle, and an exercise in personal values. How many pairs of shoes can you pack into a 9x15x20 carryon without exceeding the 22lb weight limit? If you had to lose half your clothes, which ones would you be willing to sacrifice? Is is normal to carry an extra pair of shoes in your purse in the off chance you just want something different?

You learn a lot about yourself when you're packing. It's not always flattering stuff either. Do I really need 5 pairs of shoes, a couple jacckets, hats, scarves, and sunglasses for two weeks? My head says "no",but my heart says "yes". This is the same principal that tells me that logically you CAN have too many shoes, but I really don't believe that. You can never have too many shoes...unless they are crocs (that's a different blog for a different time).

Interestingly, the airline I will be on doesn't charge a fee for bags, so that's not a factor in my luggage conundrum. My problem is that my host doesn't have a large car and is a bit concerned about getting 4 people and all their luggage from the airport to their home.

The original plan was that each person would take a carryon and share a checked bag with one other person. But this seriously limits space and doesn't leave a lot of room for loot on the way home.

Fortunately, my mother in law has run into the same problem and is now taking a second checked bag, freeing me to do the same without any guilt! (phew) I was already trying to decide which shoes I could throw out to make more room on the way back.

The real irony of this is that despite having a lot of shoes, clothes, and make-up I rarely ever put it to good use. Wearing anything other than jeans and tshirts to my office makes people suspicious and garners way more attention than I care to deal with. When I do break out the real shoes I spend the day fielding requests from people who have "heard about" the shoes from others. (These are just heels mind you, nothing made of lycra or with flashing lights in the heels).

So, honestly, I should probably jsut pack a lot of sweats, tshirts, yoga pants, and sneakers. But I am deeply pained by the idea of A) making that kind of impression on relatives I'm just meeting B) and being the epitome of American Tourism. Sure I'll have the camera, the guide book, the map, and limitted language skills. But do I really need to where worn out sneakers with khaki short and a college sweater too?

Now if only I could justify bringing my wool coat....

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A few things I have learned about social networking:

1) Be careful who you friend

2) It's hard to unfriend people once you've become their friend

3) People are annoying.

Basically - If facebook set out to mirror real social interaction in cyber space - Mission Accomplished. And I mean that seriously - not in the ironic "you really haven't succeeded - but you will in 5 years" way.

Honestly there is only one of my very few friends (yet another similarity to real life) that annoys the hell out of me, and I don't even known why they're my friend...actually I do. Because they're the kind of person that logs into a social network with the intention of befriending every person they possibly can so they can innundate them all with stupid quips they stole from TVs and emails, every test ever made for facebook, and personal updates on every movement of their day. And I was done enough to accept their request. Grr.

All that aside - Facebook makes staying in touch with people easier than it would be otherwise, but lacks the ability to provide anything more substantial than random observations, the occasion status, and the like.

I got the entire MS Expression Suite (yay MS discount) and have started to play with it in hopes of finally doing something with this. Though I think I'm inclined to leave the blog as is for the time being. Most of my lack of motivation is due to being back in school again. Only 2 months to go and I'll be done for good though!

Not much going on here otherwise. We've been going for some fun rides whenever the weather premits which hasn't been too often. I've also been plants a lot of flowers and doing some yard work. We painted the office last week and it looks fabulous. I love the color so much I'm think of repainting our bedroom. I'll be doing the spare bedroom for certain seeing as we have a can left over. But that's next weekend. Now it's time for bed - it's my turn to mow the lawn.

This cements my belief that my dog really does known what I'm talking about when I am talking to him. He obviously understands that eatting the food is a far lesser offense than making a mess while stealing it and therefore made an effort not to spill it...

Adding to my bewilderment is that after reading online that it wouldn't kill him, and that I could give him peptobismol so he wouldn't puke all over my bed at night, I presented him with a bowl of peptobismol which he refused to even try...

Two cups of day old used veggie oil = yum.

Two teaspoons of peptobismol = nope.

After mixing it with some rice and crushed dog cookies and muttering to him about the hypocracy of drinking a tub of oil but refusing a small bowl of pepto, he finally ate it.

Aside from a mild cough the morning after he's a-ok. And his coat is as shiney as it has ever been.

Anyhoo, I'm off to the gym for a spin class. I've never done one of these before. I do treadmill, ellipiticals, yoga, pilates...but spin is hardcore. My coworker injured the muscles in her butt in a class she tried last month.

So this may turn out to be a HUGE mistake. Or at least a good story. We shall see.

I need a twelve step program.

Since the weather has been more stable, I decided to mow my lawn. I couldn't stand looking at it anymore. My husband and his biker buddies from work stopped by to visit (taunt?) me before they headed out to shop at the new harley store. I'm a little jealous since i love a good grand opening, but I obsessive compulsive in me couldn't leave my lawn half mowed. I told him to bring me back something pretty.

I also went grocery shopping this AM. I fell off the coupon wagon awhile ago. On average, I saved about $10 roughly 10%. Not too shabby. But it's a cumbersome process. The trick is to stick to a list and have everything ready when you go. Which is entirely against my compulsive shopper nature.

But I did fairly decent today, I still only saved about $10 in coupons, but I also updated my safeway card and get 10% off for the next 30 days - so I saved $20. That's if you don't count club card savings - which I don't, because honestly club card prices are the same prices/sales you'd get anywhere else. They just jack the price up to convince you to sign up for their card so they can track your data (if you don't believe me go to safeways website and sign up for the Health program that generates nutrional reports based on your shopping habits).

My facination with coupons and bargain hunting is somewhat ironic, even to me. I can sum it simply by saying that clipping coupons now will make me feel less guilty when I buy those red snake Calvin Klien heels later!

I am going to blame it on the snow. Yes - there's been more of it and I'm in a funk about it. The weather is unseasonably cold and miserable...Words can not express how ready I am for some decent weather so I can get out in my yard and clean it up and do some other projects.

I have a week off from school and then back for my LAST full term. E.V.E.R. Yay. So if I don't post anything for awhile, I'll be trudging my way through those final few weeks.

Maybe next time I post, it will be semi coherent or focused!

I'm so tired of snow. So tired of it, that using the word "tired" does not even begin to explain the depths of my anger when I wake up and find it has snowed...again.

I hate snow. If this becomes the status quo here I am going to have to consider relocating. Or, I am going to have to start working from home...It's not even the travelling in it that's the problem. It's wet, it's cold, it makes everything filthy when it melts, it makes my pants staticy because air is so damn dry, I have goose bumps twenty four seven, and I can't leave my house, office, car, without worrying about breaking an ankle or giving myself a concussion.

Anyway - I don't want to get into a habit of blogging only when I have a gripe. Actually, I started out writing this to say that after reading my last post, I felt that I should note that Valentine's was not a total bust. Though I was miserably, sick, and grumpy most of Valentine's weekend. My husband bought my some lovely jewelry I had been wanting and gave it to me before the weekend. Tuesday he drove up to the neighborhood I work in and we met for lunch. I took the afternoon off and we went shopping in downtown Seattle. I introduced him to the wonders of HM and 5 floors of Nordstrom and 7 floors of Macy's.

We had a really good time. So, it was not a bad Valentine's.

We also managed to get the bike out and go for a ride last weekend as it was actually very nice. Which is probably why the latest round of snow has me feeling so bitter. Just when I thought I could fire up the hot tub and break out the sandals...no such luck!

Still can't post blogs from my blackberry and my sidebar with links vanished...it's always something.

I deleted comments thinking that those had something to do with it..but it didn't. So sorry if you left me a message and it got deleted. Now that I know that's not the case, I won't be deleting them.

At the moment I'm in too bad a mood and honestly, too damn tired, to think about fixing it.

Happy Friday the 13th/Valentine's day...

A moment ago I saw their evening line up - which consists of "Tree Man" "The 1 Ton Dad" and "The Woman With Two Huge Legs" (I didn't make that up).

Couple that with their popular shows "Little People, Big World" and "John and Kate plus 8" and "18 Kids and Counting"...and it's like PT Barnum on cable....

All they need is the bearded lady, and the world's tallest man. And I'm pretty sure they've at least done a documentary on giants....

I'm thinking about adding a horizontal menu bar, and maybe some more widgets. Haven't decided exactly what though....

Any opinions are welcome.

Hopefully, I'll get the links to my webpages back online over this weekend.

Anyhoo - not much else going on here. I'm getting new glasses for the first time in ...more than 10 years tomorrow. The whole pink eye thing finally got me motivated to buying a pair.Laying around with one contact in with my awful vision is not an experience I hope to relive.

Next...prettying up the sidebar.

I should be done with grad school in June/July. At least classes ( a big test in october). As such, I am not going to break my back trying to get this all polished up again. My plan is to simply take my time and hopefully create something I am going to be really happy with and not feel the need to reinvent 6 months later.My goal is to have this done before I leave for Miami in late november so I'll be able to share some photos, etc. from the trip.

In the mean time I will still blog occassionally, seeing as it works.

I'd like to learn this enough that it isn't such a disaster every time I try it. The bigger challenge though is my lack of creativity. I know what I like when I see it, but I am not terribly good at inventing things on my own. That being said, I'll probably take some time trying to cook up a vision of what I want this to look like. Ideas are welcome.

Anyhoo - that is where I am with this at the moment.