Go Ahead and Laugh (at me)

That's right, get ready to laugh at me cause what I did today was mock worthy... I'm sure you recall the other day when I mentioned how stressed out I was about suitcase weight, so, rather than just continue with the stress I did a test run. I've already pretty much laid out which clothes I'm taking (give or take a few things), so I loaded up a rolling knapsack that I dug out of the basement, and my regular suitcase. As it turns out using the knapsack leaves me with an extra 5lbs for carryon, and the suitcase had lots of leftover room also. Big sigh of relief :-)

I seem to be stressing out easily these days, I hope it is the weather :-0

Yesterday was a whirlwind day that included lunch at Carm's mom's, Ikea (for more of those kitchen rail bits), and the liquidation place. I've been wearing the same two pairs of jeans for years now as many of my other clothes just don't fit so it was time for a few new pairs of pants. The liquidation place had pants on sale for 4 pairs for $30. How could you beat that! Today I wore one of the pairs out - you know when you wear the same things all the time (pants and shoes included) how anything else feels weird and uncomfortable. That's what it was like for me today, but I'm happy to say that after a few hours the pants started feeling okay - hurrah, there is (some) hope for me :-)

Another weird thing about me is that when I like something I want to have two of them. It doesn't matter what it is... must be some sort of obsession. I'd like two more pairs of these pants... but since it is the liquidation place there is no guarantee that even if I went back tomorrow there would be any. Drat.

I ventured out into the frosty cold this morning for a short walk with the dogs. I was bundled up and had my hands in my pockets. The dogs were basically naked and barefoot in the snow. How do they do that? Why don't they get frostbite on their feet?

We indulged in Chicken Shwarma plates for lunch today. Totally garlicly delishiousness. I have lunch for tomorrow (Carm doesn't ha ha). As we paid they gave us each a giant baklava... with honey dripping off my fingers I used more paper napkins for dessert than I did for the rest of the meal. I'm sure I've told the story a million times, but when I went to Jordan with my dad (1989) we feasted on freshly made baklava at every opportunity - we even had a giant box of them in our room... we did manage to bring home a few pieces for our family!

That trip also has a funny suitcase story. You see, both Dad and I both like souveiners and there were tons of things to bring back from Jordan - camel blankets, Arabian horse bridles, other camel (stinky blankets), leather ottomans... - all these treasures had to fit into our suitcases for the return home. We laughed so hard as we were squeezing everything in. I don't know how we did it, but we did get everything to fit. Thank goodness we didn't need to worry about weight as well!

Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.

Walt Whitman