April 29, 2006

Well Howdy!

It's soooooo hot here right now. It's not cool...literally.hehe. It wasn't too bad until this week. Right now for example, at 10:30pm at night it's 82 but with humidity feels like 92!! Hello! Tomorrow it's going to feel like 107 degrees by 5pm!!! I went on a late run this morning and I thought it felt hot. Well, it was 100!! Hello!! I'm drinking jugs of water everyday..hilare. This is the hot hot season. It's downhill after May luckily. Eveyone is worried about the temps for the wedding but it won't compare to how hot it is right now.

I had quite a week. It all started on Monday with a trip to the hospital including eye surgery. YUCK! I had an old ex-infection or something and it just felt like something was in my eye all the time. Real annoying. The doc said it would keep feeling like that unless they took it off..NO! So they did it right there and then, which didn't allow me time to prepare myself. They numbed my eye and it only took a few minutes. Then they kind of sent me on my way with a patch on one eye and I couldn't see out of the other!! I must have looked funny since I had no depth perception. I wandered to a spot in the hospital and waited for 2 hours until I could take off the patch. There was no way I was going in public looking like a pirate! Anyway, it's all healed up now and I'm relieved it didn't get infected from surgery or anything. Good times...

What else did I do this week....hmm. Because of the surgery/check up the next day, I made 3 trips into Bangkok last week and my asthma is sure feeling it. I'm kind of surprised but then again..it's the hot season and it's really humid and it's not raining at all. So it makes sense. Hopefuilly it'll rain soon and clean up the air a bit.

Enough health details for now..hello. So Dave comes home in exactly one week. I'm so excited I can't even stand it!! Cheddar is really fat and happy. I have a new toy and I throw it over the couch and he jumps up and over and dives in the kitchen full force, legs sprawled. It's sooo funny. I made him do it a few times b/c I was laughing so hard. More good times..

What a boring blog..hmm. I think I'll go get a massage tomorrow. I keep saying I'll go to go but it'll be my artists date this week since I'm back doing Artists Way by Julia Cameron. A really cool book that everyone outta check out! Both my sisters are doing it too! How funny is that! Boring blog for a chill week. have a great weekend.

April 23, 2006

Another lazy Sunday. I love Sundays. So the wedding is less than 2 months away!! Can you believe it? I can't. It seems very surreal to me right now. At the sametime, I've been doing lots and lots and lots of planning lately. It's all coming together very nicely..just hope that trend continues. We've been planning and waiting for this to happen for well over a year and I just want to enjoy every moment of it. Dave is taking care of the honeymoon. He's planning a trip to Phuket and Koh Samui right after our guests leave. We've been looking at hotels and they look amazing..need to go bikini shopping!!

My time has also been consumed planning a trip to Australia. We're going next month for 11 days and I'm soo excited to go. I don't think I've ever been THIS excited to go on a trip before..honestly. Australia is the only place in the world that I have wanted to go to since I was a little kid. We're going to have a blast. I just pricelined our rooms yesterday..sweet. Priceline rocks. I also have been researching the wine country around Sydney and found a couple of the better wineries..can't wait to make a day trip out of that.

Other than planning I've been good. An exciting Bangkok trip last week took me to the U.S. embassy where I had to add pages to my passport!! Now it's super fat and ready for more stamps! Also, I'm practicing for a demo CD I'm recording in a few weeks. Should be a good time! Alright, well, that's my update for now. Dave is almost finished at Eastman. I'm pumped to have him back here with me...it's just not the same without him. BYE!

April 16, 2006

Happy Easter! It's easter afternoon and I'm still in my pajamas. Sweet. I thought about going to church today...but it was just a thought. Instead, I did something special this morning and made chocolate chip pancakes from scratch. I've never made them from scratch and they tasted better than my favorite williams sonoma choc. chip panckae mix. Can you believe that Schaubs? Just for kicks I made the pancakes green. I would have dyed them a more "easter" color like pink or pastel but I only had green or orange and I thought orange with black chocolate chips would look to Halloween for easter. Anyway, they were yummy! Martha Stewart rocks!

So today marks the end of Songkran. I went on the first day of the festival to Kao San Road. Kao San is typically the backpacker hang but during Songkran it's THE area to be. I've never been in such dense crowds in my life. How can I describe?? My friends and I were dropped off by taxi about 15 minutes from Kao San. Within 5 minutes of walking I was drenched and had soy paste all over my face. And for the next several hours I became more soaked and ended up with soy paste everywhere. Kind of like when you go to the beach and wonder how sand ends up in in all those places. It was so fun though. I bought a killer shark water gun and had water fights with anyone that got me wet or smeared that soy stuff on my face. It was such an experience. Kao San became so crowded that at two different times, I was standing, not moving, and smooshed for a good 5 to 10 minutes. Before the paranoia settled the crowds moved again...I've never seen anything like it. Once we decided to leave..it took another hour to get out of the mass and then we couldn't get a cab because no one would stop for wet, dirty Songkrans. We ended up walking about 40 minutes, over the Bangkok bridge into the part of town where we could get a taxi. By that time we were dry. Songkran is something I'll never forget and something I'll never do again!!

Outside of Songkran, I've been hibernating to avoid getting soaked. I have a feeling that in the little town we live in, the locals would be all more than happy to see a foreigner to dump buckets of water on..yeah..I'll skip that. I've caught up on old James Bond movies and been practicing lots. So that's good. I'm being lazily productive in a huge way. That's all I have for now..have a happy easter!

April 9, 2006

What a comeback...as in, my coming back to Thailand. I haven't been here a week and I'm busy busy. We had a ridiculous ant problem when I came home. Oh..it was nasty. I thought there were just a few ants on the floor so I went down with a paper towel to stomp them out and then hundreds of them came racing out of the cracks, crawling up my hand. Aewww! That gave me the goose bumps prettty fast. Yuck! I didn't have any ant bait either, so I used the next best thing..oils. I made a mixture of lemon and peppermint oil and haven't seen any since. I guess they hate the smell..sweet.

So today was an exciting day b/c I got contacts! I found this hospital with a great reputation and made an appt for last Friday. I show up and the doctor wasn't there (I wasn't surprised at all). But luckily there was someone else there to see me. Anyway, so I came back today and got fitted for my contacts. I'm so excited. It took me soo long to get them in..maybe 25 minutes and then it took me another 20 to get them out. I haven't put them on again b/c I'm not excited about how long it takes..so I'll save that adventure for tomorrow.

Next week is the big water festival, which marks the hottest week of the year and the Thai calender new year. I think it'll be 2847 or something? Can't remember exactly. It also marks the King's 60th year as King. He's very very very popular here..you'll see in a sec. I'm going to the backpacker part of town for the water festival. I can't wait to see what it's all about!! Stay tuned for pictures...

The past few weeks has also been interesting in politics. The Prime Minister resigned. He's been in the spotlight for months after selling his multi-billion company tax free. There have been protests etc for months and he had a meeting with the King last week and the next day he resigned (told you the King was popular). The people I've talked to our excited..can you imagine if Bush stepped down?? Ahh...no harm in dreaming...

P.S. UCLA sucks Big TIME..hehehe

April 5, 2006

After a long trip, I'm back in Thailand. I can't tell you how weird it is to be back here. It's so unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. Our condo is dusty and needs to be cleaned really badly. Cheddar was sooo happy to see me but now he's confused like me. He's not sure if it's really me. The poor little guy looks skinny..I'll fatten him up a bit. hehe.

The flights were fine. Flying alone is always a little more stressful for me, mostly b/c of having to carry my own bags. I had 2 huge suitcases, my horn on my back and a heavy bag with computer and wallet etc. Our secret trick at the Bangkok airport is to walk past the HUGE taxi line and go out to the street where it takes 1 minute to get a cab and you don't have to pay the airport taxi fee...not recommended for first-timers but it saves a lot of time and a little money. I kind of assumed I could pull it off by myself and I did...but barely. It was really hot and cars were swerving around me..oops. But I got a cab soo fast and he was really nice so I gave him a $1 tip, which is huge here.

So my trip in the U.S. was awesome. It was one of my most favortie vacations. I was working on masterclasses the whole time so I had something to focus on and to keep my chops up, which I really think made a difference. It prevented me from ever being super lazy. My last week was super special b/c Dave came out to Oregon to visit and then his folks came up for our wedding shower, which was blast. Dave kicked my butt at the Newlyweds game..oops but the really fun part was wine tasting and getting to hang with friends. Ahhh...soo fun.

Now that I'm back..I feel like being lazy. But I probably won't be. It's really weird being here without Dave. I'm glad this is temporary. 1 month feels like a really long time now that I'm here. It didn't seem like such a big deal when I was in the states. Anyway, Cheddar just decided to curl on my arm so I can't really type anymore. haha..later..