Guest blog !

Hi All - Dad is safely in the Philipines and here is a delightful message from him! All I know is that this is great to read and didn't give me any nightmares. From now on - Dad will travel for me and just tell me how he slept and what he ate:

Landed safe and sound at around 6am Friday Philippines time. After getting
thru immigration/customs/baggage he heard some saying "are you Sir Lewis?"
My ride to the hotel. The car was stopped on the way for security
inspection - dog to sniff luggage too. The driver had 5 kids - oldest is 17.
I told him "I had four and the youngest was 21" -- he laughed and said I did
not look old enough. He looked at me at least twice tomake sure I wasn't
joking. I guess I don't look so old when I wear a ball cap :-)

The pix is the seating chart of the plane. He was in Seat 4A - which
completely lays flat into a bed. Personal TV and noise-cancelling earphones.
In-flight movie "Eagle Eye". He willingly ate Phil cuisine and survived
(they offered western cuisine but he felt adventurous.) You too can have all
that luxury for only $3500 USD rt. "...took off my shoes, pulled the blanket
up, loosened the seatbelt and slept on one side or the other..."


(He had a double decker plane!!)




The hotel (www.Shangri-la.com) Makati is luxurious. He is on the 16th floor
in a nice room (Bed, Couch, Desk, Flat Screen TV, 2 showers - standard
toilet. 4 bathrobes - 2 heavy-weight and 2 light-weight). room is cold -
what is the celcius conversion? Humidity is very high. Raining.
He tipped the Bellman 100 pesos. Hey Hey Big Spender (ok so it was only
about $2.50 us)
He goes to work tonight about 10pm his time and gets off work about 9am. He
is charging the camera to take some pictures out his window to send.

Food Digested so far on this adventure:
Snack in Business Class lounge at LA Airport: smoked salmon sandwich
Dinner in-flight: some sort of beef tips on green beans
Snack in-flight: some sort of rice porridge with chicken in it
Breakfast in-flight: cheese and tomato omelet

All of the above are things he would never eat in normal life. But since he
is doing this trip for all of us - he has to try new things!

spring fever!

It's 70 degrees here and I got the day off work - woohooo!!! I have to work from 7-9, but by then the sun will be down, and it will be cold again!

Daddy does Philly.

The Phillipines that is - dad is heading out today for the Islands for 16 glorious days... Hopefully we can get some good stories when he gets back.

Sarah is back in the ol' hospital. She's got a twist or a crimp in her intestines and her surgery to fix the situation is supposed to be this week. So hopefully the poor kid can eat. Oh, and while they are in there they are going to take out her appendix. One less thing she has to worry about exploding!

I'm back !

And so is my computer - thank goodness threats of class actions suits can still spur corporate America occasionally!

Sooo... Obama is our President, officially! YAY! We can drop that wordy 'President-elect' and get back to the watching and waiting. What I love (love, love! I'm in a good mood to have my computer back!) is that we (being Rachel Maddow) are still critical of him. Truthfully, I think I will usually stand behind him - but I have seen a little bit of politi-crap ... it's interesting ... i like that we can be critical and still like him. For the past 8 years, i have to admit that I was critical AND didn't like the president. I dunno... i think just having my computer back has made me extremely optimistic. Ah, materialisticness.

Anyway - news around here - mostly I've been working. At taxes... last week was insane...they say the peak should be over by mid-February... so I'm kinda just in survival mode. Eat, sleep, taxes, eat, sleep, campground work, taxes, eat... well, you get the basic outline. In between, my friend Jenny and I have gotten the Daycare ball rolling....we've signed up a total of 4 kids right now - I'm going to take the early morning shift until I have to go work taxes. Then hopefully when that office slows down I will be taking more hours - then when tax season is over, I will be doing the daycare and the campground at the same time - and we will have 12 kids total (in theory).....I am crazy.

Love to your corner!

Computer going to get fixed!

I may not be blogging for awhile - like that's any different, huh? but i have to ship my laptop off to HP to get fixed!! So ... see ya when I see ya!

And you were there, and you were there, and you too!

So it's been sooo long since I was in Korea. But last night I dreamt I had to go either to Korea or India - I chose India because they spoke English there (at least they do in the movies)... and for some reason my brother was there. I had a job - but it wasn't teaching English. I ran into my brother and all of his friends at a restaurant and I was panicked because I had Beppo - what if my roommates were allergic. Mike helped me find my apartment, but then I couldn't find him anywhere. I woke up completely panic-stricken. I may never travel again.

Jeez...

This past week has just flown by... updates:

Moving: Tommy, the boys and I moved to the other house on the campground this weekend. It's about the same size, maybe a little smaller, but with a better layout and without all the campground stuff taking up two rooms (by campground stuff, I mean 1 computer and alllll my craft Sh-tuff) it feels like we are more spread out... not living right on top of one another. I think that I get very selfish about my space when I am living with someone, even my sisters. I'm hoping that this makes life a little less tense for everyone. It's not fair expecting a 10 and 12 year old to be quiet and leave me alone. :) I remember feeling very entitled to go into their (my sisters', not the boys') rooms and get whatever I wanted (usually fingernail polish believe it or not) but do not want people touching my stuff!!! :)





<---BRAT!




Work at the Campground: really the same - pretty durn slow - the only difference is now that I am moved (one house north of the campground) I have to 'go' to work. That's ok - because it gives me some separation between home/work. Ya see - it's nice to work from home.. as long as once you are home - work ends. During the winter, this isn't as big a deal, but in the summer time - even if the office is closed, people will come just to say hi or to ask about something going on in town and as much as I hate to sound negative, when the office has been open from 10-7 at 7:01 PM I am usually running out the door because I don't want to be bugged. The last 2 summers I would walk all over town (mainly because I didn't have any friends) starting at 7:01 to just be away from the campground. I'm hoping to avoid that desperate feeling. Plus - living with Tommy and the boys - this will give them some room to be without bugging me at work. The final benefit is the daycare... which brings me to the next update.

Daycare Center: My friend Jenny and I have been working towards opening a daycare and it looks like within the next couple of weeks we will be there! I'm pretty excited about this. We will be using the now empty (and soon to be clean) living areas of the campground house/office building. The benefit of this is that when I am at the campground, I am also at the daycare. I can be doing both at once with out having to shirk too many responsibilities. I certainly won't be able to mow and stuff during the day, but that to me is ok - I will happily mow on the weekends and evenings. Things are falling into place - we have to have a parent meeting (reminds me: call the paper and place and ad) and have an orientation training given by the state, but then we are on like Donkey Kong. Obviously, I will be working at it only when I'm not at the tax joint. Which brings us...

Working at the Tax Joint: (You may have noticed I am vague about the place and I won't be naming names - mostly this has to do with the fact that I may say some un-nice things - and I don't want the folks there googling me and finding this blog. Do I have an ego? Yes.) Mostly good stuff- right now pretty boring - haven't actually done any tax returns - although people are starting to get their W-2s, so be watching your mail. I have watched a couple and have placed a ton of sticky labels on paperwork. Berry Berry Boring. I'm anxious to do my first client interview and tax return because I learn best by doing - and all the examples they gave us in tax class were 'best case scenarios'... and if you are like me and learn by doing you understand that watching is boring and doesn't sink it in.

Anyway - this past week, I've been really busy. I'm hoping to do updates more often - sorry so quiet from this end!