Up bright and shiny on the 29th I headed out to take the girls to camp before picking up Doug and Beth on our way to Baltimore to meet up with Kirk. Our flights were all on time and things went quite smoothly getting into Barcelona first thing on the 30th. We quickly dumped off our luggage at the hotel, and even got our rooms right away.

I've got to say a few things about the hotel. We stayed at the B Hotel in Barcelona, it did seem a bit older on the inside than I expected, but it was a quaint little place. The halls upstairs were strikingly dim. Maybe it's because people couldn't figure out how to turn on the lights. We had to laugh at ourselves a few times in trying to figure out the lights which not only required our room key to be in a slot, but also relied on individual buttons that didn't operate as what we all felt was intuitive. Once the lights were on we quickly realized that the configuration of the room would allow for the individual in the shower to give the folks in the room itself quite the show! Thank goodness for the louvered slats that we eventually figured out how to operate.

I'll also preface by stating that we didn't see anywhere NEAR all of the things on our wish lists in any of the stops, so I'll focus on just covering what we did get to. We opted to use the hop on hop off bus to see more of Barcelona, which was quite wise since we were all pretty sleepy. We headed to the Gotic quarter for a walking tour and a visit to the Picasso museum. We also jumped off at the Famalia Sangrada for some photos. I was impressed with the level of detail on this church.

The HOHO did a good job of passing other points of interest to help us pack in some extra sights in our limited time. As the sun began to dim and most of our group fought off the head bob that signals a desperate need for sleep we headed back to the hotel and off for some tappas for dinner before crashing out.

It's been an icky rainy weekend. Granted, the absence of nice weather ensured I stayed in the house and got some things done on my to do list. These efforts afforded me some down time relaxing at mom's and a game of Scrabble (whee). I guess it's time to dig back in on some work work since most of my day tomorrow is consumed with meetings. Blah. That almost guarantees the day will seem like it's going faster at least. Can I run away now? *smile* oh yea...

Busy busy busy... last night Doug, Beff, and I headed to Altoona for some light shopping for misc needs and to grub at Outback. A much needed chill and fun evening, but it did make me feel a little bit more behind. Tonight I waited things out at Five Guy's for the Fan Club's first fundraiser for the season. I think it went reasonably well since the season hasn't even started yet. After that it was hauling back home for the fantasy hockey draft. This year was a challenge with new scoring, but I think my team is looking pretty good.

I've crossed a few things off the list, but I've added a few more. I need my vacation and it just can't come fast enough.

Time to gripe about banks again... last week I called Chase (mortgage) about my home owners insurance and realized while logged into the website my last payment was showing as JUNE! So I asked what was going on. Once again a bank has mergered with another and decided to use the other bank's less flexible computer system, so it was not recognizing my partial payments which totaled higher than the monthly payment. Hence everything was going towards principle and not going through as a payment. Oy. Not only that but they had just posted a late payment charge! Seriously, why can't bank computer systems realize if there is more money received than is due for a month that the payment is made? I got it all straightened out, but it's just irritating.

Next comment is on my dream last night which had me in France and irritated that we didn't get to the places on our to see list because we were waiting around for the team to go. Can you say melding two unrelated pressing to do items(hockey and travel) into one cluster-fd dream?

There is only one thing more delightful than laying down on the couch in a sigh of relief at the end of a work day and that's doing the same at the end of a work week. Aaaah. My enjoyment is short lived however, as I need to get my butt out front and finish the weed barrier and mulch around the roses and lavender. But as a reward I get to see the TRex!

I'm pleasantly surprised to not be sore at all in any way today... I say this both due to moving furniture for the Fan Club last night and due to the ear construction I've got going on. Today over lunch I added my new ink to my ear and he only brushed up against the piercing once or twice, so it was a piece of cake.

It's been a good day. I worked from home in the morning so I could snag a shipment that required a signature and got a good deal accomplished. I also managed to toss in a load of laundry and fire off the dishwasher (something I don't often think of before running out the door to work) and was still on line earlier than I would be if I had headed to the office.

As the afternoon winded down I made a quick call to look into a couple items that have been delayed in shipping and had quite the odd twist of fate, stars aligning type conversation with the woman who owned the shop. I'll leave it at that, but state that it reminds me of my philosophy in meeting people at certain times for certain reasons.

I don't think I posted about my Saturday morning pre-Slippy lunch awakening that was fraught with desire to get my tragus pierced and an ear tattoo. Well tonight I lept and stopped at Matthew's Party. Yes, I did need that like I needed a hole in my head, quite literally. The tat is scheduled for lunch time on Friday. Yay baby amounts of ink :) Too bad my evening kept me from getting other to dos off of my list.

The sun is setting on yet another weekend. While the weather started off pretty cruddy earlier this weekend, it did finish off with a beautiful sunny day today - fortunately for the season ticket holder picnic. While it was nice, I was late, and there didn't seem to be a big turn out.

I've been doing little silly things that are on the to do list, you know ripping tunes and dropping them on the phone (so I am entertained for the long flight), continued making notes, ordered currency. It's funny how much work vacation is (and I realize it will be tiring too). I was suppose to have more time after my class ended... so much for that!

I forgot to mention my kick ass shopping deal from this weekend too... so I'm going through the clearance stuff in Old Navy and spot a pair of shorts that are the right size, so I take a peek at the price. $0.01 Yea. After searching them over for the huge hole in the crotch or other reason for this rather shocking sticker price and coming up empty I tried them on with success. Best part - when you run the 20% stuff and save coupon that made them $0.008, which they kindly displayed on the receipt as $0.00 Beat THAT deal.

I'm comfy with a cutie sleeping on my leg again this evening. She didn't BUDGE from my side with her head on my stomach all night last night. That run must have really wiped her out.

What a weekend... there was relaxing and watching movies, a great hand helping me get the stumps out, rainy weather that prevented me from actually putting the flowers in the ground after the stumps were out, some lunch and shopping with Slips, a trip to the theatre to see Halloween 2, a run to Toona town with some excellent grub off the grill, a fixed pressure washer, yummy eggplant gratin from veggies that Rex's rent's sent me, and horror and tears.

Where to start my expounding? Ok, let's get the trauma over with. So on my way back out of Toona town I stopped at Uncle R's to pick up my pressure washer (thank you Uncle Ronnie!) While there he's got ahold of Saffy and by some odd split second shift in weight - click! - the leash ends up off of her and ... poof. So here I am out in ja-bib, my dog is heading towards the woods. I was bawling and horrified and just praying that someone found her, even if they stole her ... anything, just God forbid she ended up hit by a car. After a good 20-30 minutes of hyperventalating my cell phone rings. Someone up the road who knows my Aunt and Uncle snagged her. All told, my baby is safe and laying by me zonked out from her jaunt (and probably the subsequent bath).

Halloween 2. Oh my. I have a very high tollerance. Very little shocks me in horror films. This flick actually had me cringe a few times. Very extreme. Granted at one point I did think 'geez, how many times can we do the sitting in a car and the windows get smashed out' scene, but I still enjoyed the flick. Also amusingly noteworthy is the upcoming release of Saw VI. Eesh.


It's 10pm, I'm pooped... and I need to try to blow dry Saffy. Let's see how well THIS goes over! G'night world.

I had one of those moments today at work where a memory comes back and while it saddens you a little it puts a big smile on your face. So there I was walking with two peaches to wash them off and out of nowhere I could hear "millions of peaches, peaches for me, millions of peaches.... peaches for SWEET-IE". I do miss the little inside/private jokes.

Tonight I did get some of the area prepped for the rose bushes and lavender, but of course I cannot find the pry-bar I thought I had, so I am stuck at the point where I just need to get those two damn shrub stumps out. Anyone feeling spunky?

There is nothing like realizing you're already way too f-'ed tp be talking to the person x steps up the food chain from you when you're already sitting on a patio w/ them. Nice to meet you XXXX.

I'm home from my hair (trim) appointment and I have bangs again! I haven't had those since... well, even in my senior photos they were in the process of growing in. Let's just call it roughly forever.

I decided to celebrate the new cuteness with a delightful brownie out of the pack that I got from one of my favorite artists, Simon Bull. While the 400+ calories should count as dinner, I suppose I should eat something slightly less desert along with it.

I tried to get some traveler's checks on the way home from work, assuming they'd need to be ordered. The first bank looked at me like I was crazy and asked why I'd want them in Euros after trying to tell me that they don't come in euros. (lies!) The second bank at least called and tried to look into it, but no avail. I wonder if I can order them directly from American Express.