I guess so!

While walking the kids to school this morning I saw the following two things on the same car.

"Kiss me I'm confused"

Along with this:



Submitted without comment.

Honorable Mention!

I just heard that I got an honorable mention ribbon for my strawberry jam for the Texas State Fair creative arts competition!

In previous years I've gotten first place, second place as well as honorable mention.  This  year I submitted Blackberry, Strawberry and 2 Fruit (Black n Blueberry Jam) for the competition.

My Flickr Badge

See those pictures in the pink rectangle over there?


Over there! ------>


I've decided that I will take a picture of son and daughter each day as they leave for school this year. I just thought it would be a fun project.

Enjoy!

Born to be Wild

Iberostar Rose Hall

Check out our newest video:

Cathi Central

For a while now my productivity has suffered because I haven't really had a work area dedicated to tackling my projects. My desk at work is on the retail floor so I have to make allowances for that. Also, when I'm working actually at the office, since it is a retail environment, I have to be ready to work with customers at all times. More and more, the projects I work on don't really lend themselves well to being interrupted. So, I've taken to carrying around all of my files and projects and stuff and packing and unpacking them wherever I happen to be. This really hasn't worked well. Things fall through the cracks and precious minutes I could be using doing tasks are spent packing, unpacking and carrying stuff.

So, I've been considering where I might be able to have a work area dedicated to my many and varied projects. We do have an entire room in our home that serves as an office. The problem there is threefold. Specifically, my husband and my two kids. They each have desks in that room and they are all SLOBS. (love you guys!) My brain doesn't function in disarray. I have to have fairly good order around me or I can't concentrate. I've tried and tried to make myself go into that office and try to accomplish something..it just doesn't work.

Then I noticed the little alcove off of our master bedroom. Hmmm...that might work. Here's what it looked like:



So, I measured it up and started planning. As of today, I have a cute little office area where I am blogging from right now.

Here's now it looks today:





Now, of course, my son wants to go swimming, so I have to pack up Rosie (my Macbook) and head outside to work.

Oh well, there are worse things :-)

Non-Event Dean

As of the time of this post, Dean has just about cleared the Yucatan Peninsula and is down to a category 1 hurricane. It made landfall well south of the resort areas and the reports that are streaming in are all good.

In the southernmost resorts there is about a day's worth of cleanup to do. Up in Cancun, it was little more than a bad Texas Spring thunderstorm.

I have kept myself amused watching the Weather Channel. The reporter was actually standing on the beach while reporting no the storm. He was using multiple superlatives to describe the power of the storm. Come on! If it was really that powerful, could he actually stand on the beach? He even spent a few minutes showing the viewing public an iguana that was on the beach with him. Certainly if the reporter didn't have the good sense to get in out of the rain, if the storm was that deadly...wouldn't the wildlife take cover?

Anyway, it's all good in Cancun, Cozumel and the Riviera Maya.

Travel at will.

Hurricane Dean

Step away from the television!

As you can imagine, we've been fielding phone calls all day from nervous future vacationers. The media is making it sound like Dean is going to be the ruination of the entire Yucatan.

The fact is that current projections show it making landfall about 100 miles south of Cancun. I'm sure tomorrow will be a hairy day to actually be in the destination, but it looks like it will be business as usual by later this week.

Part of the Glamour of Travel

Well, the original plan was to be at the office today. I was supposed to be home last night at about 10pm and resume normal activities today.

As it turns out, we started hearing about 1pm yesterday about a probable delay. Daughter and I hung out here in the lobby until about 9pm last night between taking turns to go eat or go to the bathroom. In the end it really did end up cancelled. We are now supposed to leave the resort at 11:30am today and depart on the flight at 2:40pm. I guess that puts us home about half past six tonight.

We do have one family of customers here vacationing this weekend. I was able to help keep them and the rest of the Funjet passengers reassured and informed as much as possible. These situations are difficult at best. In our world of CNN and instant information it is hard for people to tolerate not knowing exact, instant and accurate information. Especially when it has to do with the question of "are we going home or not?".

The best thing to do in situations like this are just to be patient and polite. We were very blessed yesterday. The passengers that stayed in Negril and Ocho Rios were already enroute to the airport before the delay happened. So, all of those hours when Daughter and I were here on our comfy sofa, with the wireless Internet, watching TV shows on my Macbook? There were many many people in the Montego Bay airport.

We were the lucky ones indeed.

I fully expect to get home today. I'll let you know if that changes. :-)

Today, Parasailing!

I have always wanted to go parasailing. It always seemed like one of things that isn't a grand idea. Somewhat foolhardy.

Today at the Iberostar they were having a special on parasailing. All new equipment. Special price. Daughter had been complaining about being bored...so...you see where this is going? Up we went to the wild blue yonder.

For this scared of heights Momma it was a pretty great experience. A couple of frights, though.

At one point we were so far down that our feet were actually dangling in the water. I'm pretty sure that wasn't intended. We were no where near the boat. Another time it looked like they were trying to reel us in and we were getting no where. As per the weather report it was pretty windy up there. As they were trying to reel us in we were just pulling the boat backwards.

Finally, when I was already completely disengaged and Daughter was getting unhooked, she grabbed the pulley apparatus to steady herself as it was still pulling up rope.

You see where this is going too, don't you? Her little hand got sucked into the pully. I tried to take a picture and you can't see it very well, so you'll just have to imagine it.

Daughter is getting anxious to check her email, so I'd better go.

Just another day in Paradise....

Another day dawns on Jamaica. Another day filled with leisure time together.

Daughter and I ate at the Japanese restaurant last night. Today I've told her that there will be no TV watching during the day. Here at the Iberostar Rose Hall in Jamaica they have a full array of satellite TV stations from Denver, Colorado. So all of her "at home" favorite TV shows are at her disposal.

Before we left I made a decision not to bring copius amounts of reading material like I usually do when I come to the beach. I wanted to be more available for lengthy and deep conversations with Daughter. Turns out, that's an awful lot of pressure.

I did, however, bring my own copy of the book that she is supposed to have read before she returns to school in a couple of weeks. I've already completed it once and she has started to read it the 2nd time. She read it earlier in the summer. I am becoming more aware that she didn't read it very well. Now that I've read it I can tell that there are BIG holes in her recollection of the book.

Last night I read a chapter aloud to her rather than having her read it to herself..that was a big hit. I might spend a good amount of time reading aloud to her today.

I also need to record a podcast with Philip, the GM at this resort. I'm trying to figure out where we could do it that would have good ambient background noise that wouldn't overwhelm the conversation.

Well, I'd better head back to the room and get Daughter and go to breakfast...

More Soon!

Jamaica, Mon!

I am blogging to you from the beautiful lobby of the Iberostar Rose Hall in Montego Bay, Jamaica. My Macbook is running out of battery power though, and I can't seem to locate an outlet. So, I'll make it quick.

We're having a great time...we went out on a hobie cat this morning and swam and ate and so forth.

More Soon.

Heading to Jamaica With my Girl

Every summer my daughter and I do a "Mother/Daughter Sleepover". This year, we are actually having a whole Mother/Daughter weekend..in Jamaica!

I'm looking forward to being able to just pay attention to her, just focus on her, for the whole weekend. I'm afraid that I am guilty of being constantly preoccupied with many things. Laundry, work, housework, yardwork, volunteer work....I'm constantly doing something or thinking about something and am not as focused as I should be on these fleeting years when my kids are still at home with me.

This weekend, though, it's all about my daughter. Should be a good time.

Fall Has Fallen

The travel agency business here in Texas has a rather distinct cycle. People in Texas primarily travel during the summer. I suppose it is because the winters are not terribly harsh and the summers certainly can be.

Activity in the agency starts gearing up right after people get back to work after Christmas. We really start getting busy in April. April tends to be our busiest booking month of the year. We stay busy until "back to school" time which is about right now.

In recent years we have been seeing more and more business from other parts of the country, which helps to balance out our strange cycle here in Texas.

More Soon!

Already?

Really? Is it really back to school time again already?

Around here we still have 26 days until that fateful first day. (Not that I'm counting or anything.) For travel, this has several implications. First of all, people are getting pretty focused on getting ready for the new school year so they're not thinking about trips. Second, most of the charter availability (at least out of Dallas) is gone until after school starts. What this means is that if you haven't already booked, you're pretty much staying home.

This year for the first time in a while our local school district will not be having a Fall Break. Fall Break was this wonderful week when school was out and we were able to travel at great prices during a non peak time of year. This year, no such luck.

So for now our focus goes to the North and to the East. Whereas here in Texas our peak travel time is summer, in the North and the East the peak is in the winter.

More Soon.