The Blonde Diaries

About three weeks ago, I received an email from Carnival Cruise Line. It was in the 40s here in Houston and I was wearing my knee length puffy jacket and working 13 hour days. I have to tell you, this was not exactly an email subject line I wanted to see at the moment. LOL

But it did get me thinking and the next thing I knew, Mike and I were booked for a Cruise heading for the Caribbean where the weather will be in the 70s and 80s. I cannot wait. I have been in serious need for a vacation and it seems like it is going to work out for us. If only I could find a new job to go with this vacation so I can come home to working more normal hours with less stress.

So looking back, I have to say thanks Carnival for reminding me that there are warm destinations out there waiting to be explored. Unfortunately, the ice skating rink won out over the huge pool slide so I’ll be vacationing with Royal Caribbean but one day I might give the slide a whirl.

Yes you read that right. After much talking on here about how much I was in need of a vacation, I talked to Mike and went ahead and booked one. We are heading out in April and will be going to Mexico and Honduras. I am very much looking forward to this cruise but am not sure what to expect with it. I burn so easily I don’t know if I should go for beach trips or try and go on tours and stay out of the sun. Either way I’ll be slattered with sunscreen from head to toe.

Mike is really really wanting to go on a zip line tour. I am super scared of heights but it does sound a little fun. I am wondering if we should look into the best term life insurance quotes and take out a few policies before we start zipping all over the jungles of Mexico. LOL Has anyone done the zip line before? How scary is it really? Will I get over my fears after I zip from the first platform to the second? It sounds like there will be multiple platforms and they will be anywhere from 100 to 800 yards apart.

Wow!  I was not expecting to start my holidays sick.  As you can see from my sporadic posting here, on Twitter, and on Facebook, I have been pretty MIA since Tuesday.  Well Tuesday is when it all started. I started having terrible hunger pains so I ate and ate.  Well that led to a stomach ache (imagine that). Next thing I knew, I was in bed reading all night because I just felt off.  Wednesday came and I went to work and quickly came home and slept all day long.  I enjoyed the rest but not the feeling.  Thursday came and I felt better, same for Friday.  Then Saturday hit and I felt like I was going to die. Headaches, stomach issues, and just pure tiredness.  So more sleeping and medicine and I’m finally starting to feel better today. I still have a headache but at least that is all that is still lingering.  I am hoping it goes away by morning so I can run my errands – I have a sunroof to fix, eyebrows to be threaded, and returns galore to make.  Wish me luck and if you don’t already, follow me on Twitter (shameless plug)!  Click the box to the left.

Wow, it is Thanksgiving already. I can’t believe how quickly the holiday season has come this year and I know things will only continue to fly by. I thought I was doing well by planning ahead and beginning my shopping last month but in reality, I have only been able to get a few things done.

This week, I started noticing some of my fellow book bloggers signing up for their 2010 book challenges. I haven’t even finished all of my 2009 and we are thinking and planning for 2010 already. I need to get a move on it. I feel like I have a fire lit under my bum and I’m trying to read as fast as I can. I have a feeling I can finish 2 out of the 3 I signed up for this past year and will just work on the 3rd one in next year’s batch.

Another thing I need to start thinking about is vacation planning. Crazy I know but we have to submit our budget and staffing requests before the Christmas holidays and I need a pretty good idea on when I want to take vacation so I can plan accordingly. I have a good feeling that Mike and I will be going on vacation next fall and it will probably be on a cruise but I’m not sure where we will sail to. I keep thinking of just going to Mexico but then I see a cruise that has a great destination like st lucia and then I’m back to the drawing board. I really really would love to take a ride on the Oasis of the Seas but that is out of the budget right now and the ship doesn’t hit St. Lucia or any of the other Virgin Islands. I think I just need to find a higher paying job so I can take 2 fabulous cruise vacations each year so I can see every bit of the world as fast as possible. I think I finally have Mike talked into an Asian cruise but I think that will have to wait until our late 30s. Sigh. Never enough time or money.

Tonight Mike and I were goofing around on our Twitter accounts.  Mike decided to sign up the other night to “reserve” his name before someone else could grab it.  He’s not much for social media in the form of blogs and tweets but he tends to keep his Facebook account fairly current.  I think once he gets a crackberry he might be more inclined to playing around with social media, such as Twitter, a tad more.

So he has managed to find all of his favorite UFC fighters and basketball players to follow so he is pretty happy.  He also managed to customize his profile with photos of the two of us so I thought that was fairly sweet.  Looking at vacation photos always makes me happy and tonight was no different.  While he was looking at the fun Europe photos I was looking at our destin florida photos from our first trip to the beach in 2007. It was so much fun and I absolutely love the white sandy beaches of Destin. If the economy doesn’t get any better I think we might be taking a trip over to my parents timeshare and forgetting a fancy trip to Disney or on a cruise ship.

I found this photo of us with the white sandy beaches and thought I’d share. We are at the Crab Trap on the Old Hwy 98 along the coast. Delicious restaurant and great scenery. You couldn’t ask for anything more.