Practice Makes... A Mess??

Why is it that despite all of the traveling I do, I still manage to make my room (and sometimes several rooms) look like an absolute cyclone has come through during the packing process??  It never ceases to amaze me.

My room before a 5-day trip to NYC:

Egads!  (Thanks, Archie comics.)  Ah well, this is why we keep practicing, right?

A Southerner Comes to Visit

I'm so glad that I have a sister-in-law whom I love dearly and who seems to tolerate me as well.  And I'm glad that she will come to visit me, even when her OK blood says that IL Aprils are still just about intolerably cold.

Luckily, when outside, we have fires to keep us warm.  (Along with winter coats.)

 

And inside, we have blankets.

One of the weekend's projects... clotheslines for pictures.  What fun!  

Thanks for visiting, Kalynn!  Come again soon!!

Good to Go

In April, I received something beautiful in the mail:

On my trip to Turkey last year, I discovered that my passport had some wear and tear, to the point of not being able to read some of the information on the cover page.  Turns out, Turkish officials will let you in the country with a passport in such a condition, and they will let you leave to go to Greece, and the Greek officials will let you in, and then they will let you leave to go back to Turkey, and the Turkish officials will let you back in (following all of this??)... but then when it's time to go home, they give you grief about it.  Luckily not too much, but when I got back to the U.S., they told me I should really get it fixed.  No problem; I've got lots of time.
However, I'm nothing if not a procrastinator.  In January, I decided I really should re-apply, given my upcoming trip to Thailand in May.  Filled out all of the forms, sent it in.  Sometime towards the end of March, I get a letter.  "Please submit a letter describing the nature of damage to your passport," they said.  Umm, why was that not part of the original instructions?  And you do know I'm leaving in May, right?  Form duly submitted, and passport got here in time.  Phew!!

But wait... that's not even the good part of the story.  I thought I might be cutting it close??  Kelly, my travel buddy, went to the airport STRAIGHT FROM THE PASSPORT OFFICE.  Without having had an appointment.  Not even kidding.   I think it was probably wise of her not to have told me this ahead of time.  Heart failure, anyone???

What's that saying?  All's well that ends well :)