Monday, August 9, 2010

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Yes, I have been away for a while. Why, you may ask, well many reasons, so I'll give you a list:

Blogging Burnout: Seriously, you try living in Europe for a few months and blog about ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, and you'll see what I mean.

Kernel Panic: So, as soon as we got back from Europe, my laptop kept having what, in the computer geek world, they call a kernel panic. It would just shut down for no reason, then not let me start up again and put me in a perpetual loop with this lovely image:


You know when Apple starts giving you warnings in several languages your computer's days are numbered. I took my dear, sweet laptop into the Apple Store a bunch of times (which was no problem, if you remember how I feel about the apple techs), and they finally gave me a shrug and told me it would cost at least $300 to fix. Well, I may have been an English major and no math whiz, but I was able to figure out in no time flat that it was time to upgrade, which leads to the next item on my list...

I Bought An iPad: You know, when these little babies came out I thought it was a great idea, but didn't plan on getting one for a while. I was totally last on the bandwagon with the iPod and iPhone, so I usually take these things slow. But with the threat of having to SIT AT A DESK to check my email looming over me, I decided that now was the time, first generation and all. I have to say, it's great, but not so much for the blogging. I don't have all my photo library at my fingertips all the time, and I often dip into it for my posts. But the good thing about it is that I don't have my photo library at my fingertips all the time, which means that I don't have to stress about losing all my family memories with one tragic click. You remember what that did to me before. I'm still not completely over it.

I Changed My Blog Template: Why, you may ask? Well, it all comes down to bedding. Yes, bedding. While we were in London I decided I had to partake of the Orla Kiely bedding at Heal's. I was all set to buy this one:

but once I got to the store I felt it really was a bit too girly for Steve to have to sleep in every night, so I bought this one instead:

And it felt a little too tech nerdy to be sleeping in my blog template every night, so I did the old switcheroo. You'll have to tell me what you think.

I've Been Re-Evaluating My Life: Okay, totally CHEESEBALL, but true. I've been thinking about a lot of things, many of which I plan to share in future posts, but lets just say for now that I have realized that life is a lot more fun that I was giving it credit for. I'm learning to enjoy it more by spending more time in the sun with my kids, doing more yoga, sleeping more, reading more, and spending more time with friends. It's been good.

We Got A New Cat, Then It Got Shot: Yes, you read that right. After our cat Briscoe died last Fall, we promised the kids that we would get a new cat as soon as we got back from Paris. And believe you me, we kept our promise. The day after we got home (at 3 AM, no less) we were adopting a cute little tabby cat and we named her Yoko. Long story short, she got shot a couple of weeks ago. I'll save the details for another post, but after the boys were done crying their eyes out, they both asked if we could get a new cat, so the next day we did. Here he is, Smoke:

He's an awesome Tabby/Siamese mix with amazing blue eyes, and we love him. Now if he would just stop peeing on our duvets, he would be perfect.

Well, that's all for now. It's good to be back, and while I'm not committing to writing every day (part of the life evaluation thing), I plan to write a lot, and hope you'll all decide my life is interesting enough to check out from time to time.