Another glass of champagne please

Saturday sunshine....

Not a ton to report so here's some randomness....

* Went with "cut the hair off".  I'm now sporting an auburn Velma Kelly-esque jaw length bob (sans bangs - no more bang trauma for this girl) - it's pretty sweet and definitely a better look for me.  I really need to learn to stick with what works - I figured out the bob thing in high school and why I continue to dabble with anything else is just nuts.

* Today is more box unpacking, laundry, finishing a few samples for CHA, errands, and resting up for the week.  Might go to Burgers and Bock with the neighbors tonight.  Kristen wants everyone to come over and hang around the fire pit MUCH later (like 11 pm-ish) but I really need to not be up that late every darned night.  Last night we hung out on Matt & Kelly's patio until almost 1 am.  I am too old to keep up!

* Must do unpacking (restated here) - Kelly needs boxes for their upcoming move and I need to be shedding boxes... its a win-win

* Sooooo very excited about CHA.  The economy still makes me nervous right now but we have great new releases and we scaled back our show costs big time so I'm hoping there is a trade-off.  The industry is changing so rapidly and its a challenge to stay competitive while not perpetuating the problems (too much new product, too rapid of a churn) and we are trying hard to push for products with more longevity for retailers.  But we can only do so much... ultimately its a cycle (consumers want new-new-new, retailers therefore can only stock new-new-new, therefore manufacturers are forced to churn and burn, and then everyone says "its too much") - I agree it HAS to slow down.

* Speaking of business stuff... a little birdie told me that a certain redesigned website is being finished up this weekend....

* I'm going to try to get some photos up tomorrow.  Might be tomorrow night (have church and then my friend Neille is in town so I'm going to go pick her up from her hotel, go have brunch, bring her over to the house to hang out, and then take her to DFW to catch her flight).

* Went to see Rick & Leesa's new house last night.  I have to say, its one of the trade-offs between "old" neighborhoods and "new" custom homes, but I'm having major screening room envy.  They have a really nice one upstairs (came all outfitted from the previous owners and it really does look like a mini movie theatre).  Not that I would probably utilize it properly, but its one of those "oh wow, how cool is that?" kind of things.  But I love my house and I have to say its a great fit for me (and 2,300 sq ft and a quarter acre lot for a single girl is quite the luxury to begin with, so I really have no need for anything else!).

* Thank goodness for air conditioning.  It's bloody hot here (temps have been over 100 here this week) but today its hovering in the low 90s and I'm crossing my fingers that it stays nice. 

Decisions... my hair

I'm headed tomorrow for my quarterly cut/color appointment.

I've been growing my hair out for several months now - the goal was to be able to get it up in a ponytail by summer (which I reached).  Now I'm flummoxed though - I don't know if I'm (at this age) happy with longer hair anymore. 

I need it to be off my neck, which means for me either keeping it as it is and hoping I'm happier with it as it grows out - or cutting it into a jaw-length bob (anything shorter than that and its a mess to deal with.

On the end of "long" - I don't think I look that great with long hair but guys seem to like it more.  I think it drags my face down and makes me look triple-chinned - plus with natural waves, its a pain to keep straight (and it doesn't look good "natural") so I either have to spend 30 minutes with the blow-dryer/flatiron daily or put it up in a ponytail.  I feel like when its pulled back, it accentuates my worst features (my lack of a chin, my uneven facial symmetry, and my huge nose).  But you can do lots of "things" with it (updo's, ponytails, etc.) and I wake up with mussed "bedroom hair" (which I guess would be more significant if I weren't single!)

On the end of "short", I have always gotten more compliments on short hair.  It requires daily washing and there is no "throw it in a ponytail and go" because it always has to be styled, but it seems chicer on me.  But there's no ponytails or other tricks for when I oversleep and need to look great fast and it never looks very good when I wake up in the morning so no running to Starbucks pre-shower or looking good for morning yoga class.

Thoughts from friends who have seen my hair both ways?  If I cut, I'm looking at something a wee bit longer than CHA Winter last year but shorter than CHA Summer (so not above my neckline but not below my jaw.  Which do you prefer... long, as it is now, short, in between?

goody goody gumdrops....

Today was a very happy day around the Luxe offices....

* The catalogs arrived (our first batch of them anyhow)

* The crates went out to Chicago (and for the first time ever, they went WITH catalogs on them... so much for thinking we were behind when we were actually right on time - or ahead when you consider that we shipped to the advance warehouse!)

* Everything for the show is pretty much done (save for some really minor stuff... but to be pretty confident that we can take a three-day weekend and not be scrambling is pretty awesome).

Things with consulting are busy as heck....

* We continue to keep getting contracts in meaning its going to be a crazy-busy late summer well into fall

* And Joelyn gave her notice on Monday (next Friday is her last day as a consultant although she said she wants to stay on contract to do analyst work)

* Those two things combined mean that Brandy and I will be uber-busy the rest of the year

And personal stuff is good....

* Saw the rheumatologist yesterday and he gave me a clean bill of health.  He was worried about me getting enough sleep (agreed with the ER guy that it was probably jet lag/exhaustion/dehydration).

* Had Remicade and I'm going back to every six weeks (thinks that trying to take me to seven weeks - and we went to almost eight this time with me rescheduling - is contributing to my fatigue).

* Sat and reviewed several months of blood work (I get extensive panels every six weeks).  My cholesterol is still very good and everything else in my panels is within normal range except for two things - my blood sugar and my sodium.  Both are too low - my blood sugar is VERY low.  Mike kept nagging me about diabetes (something he either had or was at high risk for - the story changed depending on the day of the week) but the doctor said that I'm extremely low risk for it.  Said that if I'm low blood sugar with the meds I'm on (and with my low blood pressure and cholesterol in range) that he doesn't see me being at all in the high or even moderate risk groups for heart, hypertension, or diabetic issues.  That's a good thing.

* Probability is though that the low blood sugar is contributing to my high level of fatigue so we are going to work on what I need to do to keep it up.

And other personal stuff....

* No more contact with you-know-who.  Okay, we've had two times that he has called me both of which have resulted in me repeatedly saying "Don't call me anymore.  We can't be friends.  I cannot speak to you any further."  Now I'm finally putting the wall up.  No more answering the text messages.  No more answering the phone.  It had to stop - and now that I'm getting further away there is no ambivalence on my part.  (I'll admit that he was pretty good at getting me to waffle when he would try to worm his way back in.)  We are going on a week with no reciprocal contact whatsoever so by the time I have to bump into him at the airport again, I should hopefully be immune to him (and really if he's at work, he can't bug me that much, can he?). 

And more fun stuff....

* Travel is light right now but I'll have two trips - the six days in Chicago next week for CHA (which always is hard work but feels like a fun trip nonetheless for getting all that time in with my peeps) - and then a combo Luxe/consulting/vacation trip at the end of the month - will work two trade events, do two sales presentations, and squeeze in a three-day girl trip to Napa with Brandy (something we don't do nearly enough anymore - but that we used to do almost monthly back in the "day" before we had houses and capital R responsibilities) - it will be the first time in ages that we'll both be finishing a consulting trip at the same time through the same airport so its perfect timing. 

Small productive bursts of energy....

If I were to be accused of one of the seven deadly sins, it wouldn't be lust or greed or even gluttony.  I'm afraid it would be sloth.  In my eyes (I've heard differing opinions), I'm just damned lazy.  Yes, its true... while some say I'm an overachiever and work too hard at too many different things, I personally think I just do the minimum to get by.  I was the girl who needed a 3.5 to keep my scholarship so given the choice between staying home and studying to make straight As, or coasting through and having fun six nights a week with mixed As and Bs always chose the more "decadent" path.

Given that sloth was my middle name this weekend, I'm particularly proud that during the last 36 hours I have:

* cleaned my bedroom/office/bathroom suite from top to toe (including sweeping, dust moping, scrubbing, and then wet moping all the hard surfaces; scrubbing the bathroom; unpacking ALL boxes AND putting everything away into office drawers; unpacking two suitcases; hanging up every last item of clothing laying on any surface in my room (including inside laundry baskets or suitcases); and scrubbing all bathroom surfaces including the impossible to clean walk-in shower).

* tended to front and back gardens at the house including restaking vegetables and thoroughly watering, deadheading, and fertilizing plants

* cleaned out two refrigerators and freezers (including a sticky popsicle melt mess in one) and threw away all potentially heat contaminated foods (i.e. most everything with any sign of "burn" on it or remotely perishable)

* finished SKU updates for all 550+ items in our inventory system including informational pushes to all of our sales reps and distributors

* project updates on all major projects to clients and an unexpected rejuggle of project schedules for everything we have on our plate right now

* changed out all eight WallFlower units in the house, all towels, all trashcan liners, and all lightbulbs in need of replacement

* opened 6 to 8 weeks worth of mail sitting on the dining room table (I don't actually let my mail go unopened THAT long usually... rather I "open" it and then if its not urgent, I stuff it back in the envelope until the envelope piles threaten to fall over and harm small children)

* cooked dinner one of the two nights

* slept two 10+ hour nights

I think I've actually done a few more things and for the "average" person, this might seem "normal" but for someone who has sloth as a middle name, its quite the accomplishment.

Next I might actually try more "normal people" things like doing laundry before I run out of clean underwear or putting items away when they enter the house vs. letting them sit in bags on the table until I need them.  But for now,  I'm going to celebrate the small productive bursts of energy I've had and look for a new deadly sin to capture my attention.

Sense-ational Sunday (extreme home makeover edition)

Seeing:

Two things - one would be my floor.  I finally this afternoon finished off the last of the boxes on my bedroom floor.  Now I see nice white tile (well, DIRTY white tile that needs me to scrub it for being covered with stuff the last six months).  Now I just need to hang up all my clothes piled on my chair and it will look great.  Think I'm going to do the picking up now and then go to Target and look for a nice little area rug for this part of the room.  It feels SO good and really will brighten up my days.  Plus my desk area is all picked up so I feel like I can actually work now without dealing with tons of clutter.

The other thing is our booth sketch outs for CHA.  We have this really cool modular booth structure (Maya Road owns the same system) that allows us to change out our booth configuration from show to show.  We decided to see if we could re-do the configuration to get more merchandise into less space so we would not be paying through the nose for "real estate" on the floor.  Problem is you have to have a bit of background in physics to figure out configurations that will work because the second you put "loads" (i.e. weight) on the walls, they have to be counterbalanced or the hinges start breaking and the whole thing can topple over.  So I've been sitting for the better part of the weekend with graph paper and a ruler trying to figure out what we can do that will be sturdy enough to not come down... and I think I have something workable figured out.  It will be radically different for us but it will show more product in less space and I'm excited.  We think it will also require fewer people because we have both eliminated the make-n-take station AND have changed the traffic flow so we can be watching the critical areas of the booth with less coverage. 

 

Hearing:

Neighborhood noises.  Have spent the past three nights out on the patio hanging out with the neighbors.  Its been exactly what I've needed to wind down and it makes me want to nest a bit more.  Today I went and got a ceiling fan for the porch so that will go up for next weekend.  Also have figured out how to rig a radio out there and have loaded up on citronella candles so the pesky mosquitoes leave me alone.

Tasting:

Not much, really.  The heat kills my appetite and its typically 4 or 5 pm before I can think about eating food.  I need to clean the freezer out tomorrow (trash pick up is Tuesday morning) as I think a good chunk of the food melted in there (my Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches are now wedges which isn't a good sign) and so it needs to be discarded.

Smelling:

Cleaning products - I've made such a dent that I'm impressed - I really needed to do this a long time ago but just didn't get around to it - I think some of it was a mental/emotional funk thing - but now that I'm doing it, I'm wondering why it took me so long.  Its been good for my well-being to see the house pulled together and now I'm not sure what my mental block to unpacking completely was.

Touching:

Boxes, boxes, and more boxes.  I'm emptying them out at quite a rapid rate now that I've put my mind to it.  And I'm taking a "touch it once" rule.  It either goes where it lives now or it goes into a "go through" box.  Once I can open every box and consolidate, all the "go through" boxes will go back into the back living area and I will either put away (or match up electronics with their cords!), give away, or throw away.

Independence day

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Some things are different, but others echo a deeper symmetry.

Last year on Independence Day, I was frantically trying to get my house on the market (and at the same time leaving for a whirlwind business trip to Tokyo).  I was tackling lots of clutter, all of it centered on office supplies/paperwork and art supplies/ephemera.

This year, I am slowly trying to get this old house into order (the "new" old house I dreamed of that I finally found).  I am still tackling lots of clutter, all of it centered on office supplies/paperwork and art supplies/ephemera.

Last year I had a regular housekeeper and lots of help from others with tackling the mess.  This year its just little ol' me.

Last year I was worn out but kept pushing through.  This year I've admitted my limits - I slept almost 14 hours the night of the 3rd - and last night, I logged 10.  I guess maybe the doctor was right - it IS exhaustion.

Last year I had but one wish - to be able to spend my next summer enjoying the evenings from the covered patio of an old home in a historic neighborhood.  This year I got my wish - I spent the evening listening to (but not watching, the tree canopy is too tall) fireworks, sipping wine, and chatting on my front porch with various neighbors who came to hang out.

Nice to have change... particularly when that change is positive movement forward towards what you really want.

And a little more on top of that...

I decided to dig into my studio and start some serious box unpacking.  My goal this weekend is to get all the clutter from the move corralled and out of site (into what few closets I have, whatever) because I'm tired of stepping over it - and I want to start working on the back living area in the next month or so and I can't as long as it is box central. 

I'm down to three box "areas" in my house - three small boxes in the upper part of my bedroom by the desk (all office stuff, all needs to be sorted and half thrown away); about fifteen boxes in the back living area (ranging from small boxes to decently sized ones - stuff that goes all over the place - laundry room, kitchen, studio, lots of electrical cords not attached to their toys, and probably at least half of it destined for Goodwill); and my studio (the studio boxes are a mess - as of last night's purge, I'm down to about 20 of them but they are the largest assortment of hodgepodge stuff ever - I could open and stock a scrapbook store with what I have found - its ridiculous).

So... today I'm in tackle mode.  I'm getting up and I'm going to start with the office boxes in my bedroom and work on my bedroom while the back side of the house is cool.  Then its into the studio for afternoon to unpack there and then I'll break to be social w/ folks and maybe return to the back living area tonight (although I said that last night and ended up hanging outside with the neighbors until well after midnight).

It turns out the drama didn't stop yesterday afternoon.  I went into the laundry/utility room to drop off the large white board and bulletin board that together were blocking access to the studio closet.  And I smelled gas... and heard a hissing rattle coming from the gas hot water heater that I've never heard before.  Decided to call the gas company since it was after hours and they came out.  So the funny part was that the smell/rattle was gone by the time the guy got there so he is looking at me oddly as he turns the heat up and the pilot light flares and asks "is that the smell/noise you heard?"  Uh, yes. 

I feel dumb but since he is there he decides to look at the situation anyhow - he looked a bit perplexed that apparently a vital safety piece was missing from my hot water heater (and I'm clueless - no one has pointed this out to me so far and this is my first gas house) and he starts testing for gas - and I've got a pretty nice gas leak coming in that room, it turns out.  So he tests the gas all over my property.  We find a couple of things - one, my meter was (as he put it) shot out, so he replaced that.  And two, the rest of the house is fine but the utility room, as he put it, is an explosion waiting to happen.  So he unlit the pilot light, tells me to call a plummer, and says the plummer can get me back up and running.  Nice that I don't have to deal with the city inspectors and such at least... not so nice to have another expense right now.  (Oh well, I need to establish a relationship there anyhow so I can cap the back gas line in the yard and have someone for some of the bathroom work I want to do.)

I'm now crossing my fingers that nothing else goes this weekend - refrigerators, air conditioning (bite your tongue, I know!) - and that I can have a nice quiet, organizing weekend.

48 hours of little irritations (and a couple of blessings in between)...

Ugh... I had 48 hours of continual mild irritations from Tuesday afternoon through early this afternoon that I will recap here.  Its enough to drive me to want to eat junk food and have a beer or two although I should be doing neither.

* Flight from DFW to Sacramento.  Unclean first class lavatory that I could smell immediately upon boarding the plane.  I swear, this scent permeated the entire cabin. 

* Flight made uncomfortable by hot cabin plus an overly loud overhead system (half the time I can't hear the majority of the announcements made while in the air, I'm that hearing damaged, so if I'm complaining about the noise, its LOUD) which was amplified by our overly enthusiastic captain who insisted on commenting on every single geographic curiosity for the entire journey - or approximately one every five to seven minutes.  These two factors prevented my sorry jet lagged self from taking a nap.  Irritating.

* I guess a nap would have been difficult anyhow given that my right leg started cramping shortly after boarding and got progressively worse throughout the flight.  I got up several times to stretch it but my right leg was definitely swelling and the pain in my calf (which later moved to the back of my upper leg) was like those horrible growing pains I got when I was younger.  Seriously horrible.

* Got in and got my car and got on my way to Napa, pain in leg is getting worse.  I email the office and ask for a summary of the symptoms of deep vein thrombosis - since I had logged 23 hours on airplanes in the past 48 hours, I thought "better safe than sorry".

* Read symptoms while driving (totally illegal, especially now in California - this was first day of hands-free rule and of course, which idiot left her earpiece at home on her desk?  Yes, this one.) and called primary care physician's office.

* Instructed to get to a medical provided to be looked at, pronto.  Well, since my clients are hospitals and I was headed there, I drove the hour to my client.  By the time I got there, standing up was painful.

* Went to ED and got put into exam room almost immediately when they discovered my BP was 130/110 (my "normal" is about 110/64).  ED physician comes in and looks at me, orders blood work and a Doppler sonogram of my right leg.  I let him know I'm due to be in a presentation in two hours on the other end of the hospital and to please see what he can do to make sure I get there.

* Doppler comes back clean and blood work shows a low probability of clotting factors.  Says he can do a chest x-ray but instead suggests I take it easy - and asks if its really necessary for me to fly more in the next two days (um, yes, I need to go home).  Says its clear that my leg has inflammation (hmmm... not the first time we've seen that when I've been burning the candle at both ends) and tells me to take it easy until my Remicade appointment the following Tuesday.

* Make it to meeting with time to spare, leg still hurting, limping like heck.   Goes fine.  I can leave and go to grab a nice organic dinner and drive back to Sacramento.

* Meeting on Wednesday in Sacramento was misrepresented to me so rather than walking into what I thought would be a friendly meeting with legal counsel, I walked in to something with the guy who does what we do but "internally" who isn't happy about a new project going forward (talk about being on the defensive).  Then I come out (meeting was supposed to be an hour, took almost 90 minutes to get him calm enough to not derail the project) and some else from same client has been calling my cell phone and my office saying we had a conference call scheduled.  I check my email and they had emailed about 20 minutes before that informing me we were having a call (never mind that I might be available).

* Did I mention that my leg still hurts?

* Get on earlier flight (hooray!) and clear upgrade list (double hooray!) so I get back to Dallas about three hours earlier than expected.

* Go to office to work on markdowns in the system (was going to go up to do them this weekend so that saves me a trip up there on a holiday weekend!) and end up staying until after 9 pm getting stuff caught up.

* Get home to Fort Worth and roll up to my house around 10 pm.  No lights on.  Hmmmm.  Go in the house... feels warm and quiet.  Not good.  Go to flick on light.  Power out.  Decide to call electric company before looking for backdoor key and going to check breaker.

* YOU ARE KIDDING ME.   They say they will research and call me back but its definitely out, my bill is current, and the best they can say is that in the system it shows I will be up again by midnight the next day.

* Call Hilton HHonors, get good rate for the Hilton downtown, and head there.

* Check in with surly check-in girl at front desk.  Get key, go to room.  Have to pee, badly.

* Go in bathroom and lift lid of toilet and scream.  Oh my gosh... I have never seen so much fecal matter in one place (outside of a zoo) at once.  I am about to start crying.  Seriously.  I'm not talking about anything normal or human.  It looked like a horse had been in there and it was ALL over the toilet.  Wash hands with soap (want to disinfect entire body immediately) and call front desk and tell them I am to have a new room immediately.

* Head back down where night manager is preparing keys.  "You didn't have to leave that room - we would have brought the new keys up."  I'm like "m'aam, you have NO idea what that mess is up there... its a bit scary".  I'm still grossed out as I go to my new room on the HHonors floor, a nice suite.  (As a Diamond checking in at 11 pm, I have no idea why I didn't get that room - or at least one on the exec floor to begin with, but suspect young surly clerk is to blame.)

* I'm too wound up to sleep and the internet (which I paid $9.95 to connect to) was too slow so I read until I got sleepy.

* Got up and showered and did hair/makeup because Brandy was coming over for a client meeting here in town.  Get home at 10 am (she is waiting in front of the house) and still no power.

* Go to meeting, go to lunch, come home.  Still no power.  House - which was warm, but not bad in the morning - is starting to get hot.

* Change clothes and we go to the mall to walk around and get exercise (so much for being creative this afternoon!) because there is no way I'm staying in the house.

* Get home and power is finally on - just in time for Brandy to leave so she misses traffic.  :-(

* Get call from TXU... turns out someone put a disconnection notice in for me at the electric company.  Said I was "moving" on 7/1.  Now I can think of two scenarios and I'm really hoping its the latter.  First is that someone did this to be malicious.  I can't really think of anyone who would do that (although I know a couple of friends who are probably thinking "uh huh" and disagreeing with me on that) and whoever did it would have had to verify my account number and other personal information so it would have been very intentional.  The second thing (and this is what I'm hoping it is) is that somehow there was something out in the system from when I originally had the power connected - the original order was in for 12/1 (of last winter) and I know we had all sorts of problems with getting it up and running (there were disconnection notices floating around then too).  Either way, TXU is giving me a credit for the inconvenience on my next bill.

So that's enough drama for me for a compressed time period.  Remember, I'm making decisions in my life to get RID of drama so I'm trying to not attract anymore.  Now I'm hoping I can have a nice quiet weekend, unpack a bunch of boxes, and work on samples for CHA. 

Oh... and my leg still hurts!

I'm home, now I'm not home - revolving door.

Ah... the bliss of sleeping in my own bed, if only for a night. 

I'm SO glad I took the American Airlines flight home... it meant that I landed at DFW at 3:40 pm (and made it through immigration, bag reclaim, and customs in time to join my 4 pm conference call a few minutes late!) vs. having to stop in San Francisco and then continue on which would have put me (at the earliest) at DFW at 8:45 pm and realistically much later than that since it turns out that AA cancelled the flight I would have been on yesterday!

Its nice to trust one's gut instinct sometimes, you know?  I almost forgot about my idea when they told me there was going to be a $150 change fee... but glad I didn't.  More comfortable seat (which is good since I slept most of the flight) and the American food was comforting for my belly (I *love* Asian fare but I was starting to get more than a touch of heartburn missing my comfort foods).

Got home after a hellish sit in traffic (it should NOT take me 1.5 hours to drive home if I leave before 5 pm!) and I went and got burgers and shakes with Craig.

Scale report this morning?  4 pounds up from when I started the month.  All in all, I'm going to claim a victory there... first, I'm still dehydrated and have travel bloat (either that or I'm 5 months pregnant and no one told me - I base this on how much my belly is sticking out) and second, given how much I've been gone and how much different food I've eaten, its a miracle its not 14 pounds!

July 1 starts the second half of the year and I'm starting a cleanse fast.  I've got a mild case of thrush again (can see it on my tongue and that probably explains the belly bloat too as well as the mild skin rash I've got from my scalp, on my torso, etc.).  I got it this time last year too - it tends to be something I struggle with but going on a candida diet tends to kill it.  What does that involve?  Well, the biggies are - no white flour, no white sugar, no white vinegar, extremely limited dairy, no alcohol (except limited amounts of vodka or gin - and I'm allergic to juniper so that leaves vodka), no soy, no mushrooms, no hard cheese, no cured or processed meats (basically the ones I like), certain veggies and many fruits off limits, and preferably no caffeine (although last year I stuck with my chai latte w/ skim milk or green tea w/ Splenda and did just fine).  So what will I eat?  Lots of seafood (grilled, steamed, sashimi), grilled beef, poached chicken (the only kind I like), corn tortillas, extreme amounts of vegetables.

I go to Napa today - leaving on an 11:45 am flight - meetings there this afternoon/evening - it will be torture being in foodie heaven but I'm sure I can get some good food that meets my requirements and I'll probably have to cave in for a glass of wine (but I'm sure I can handle a heavy red since the yeasts are what I'm trying to avoid I just need to steer far away from the champagne and sweet whites).  My other challenge this month will be CHA - gotta have Giordanos pizza - but we'll deal with that when it comes around.

Otherwise its looking to be a light travel month - this two day trip starting today.  CHA from the 15th to 20th.  And then I start a 7 or 8 day trip to Oregon, California, and Tennessee on the 30th or so.  I'm crossing my fingers that the 20th to 29th stays clear (but not holding my breath seeing as that we have three more new California projects that start today) - and then will hold on for a crazy August/September schedule.

Ah... but that bed, it was nice while it lasted!

Around the world, literally....

So the last time I checked in, I was at the old Concorde Room at London Heathrow relaxing after flying Dallas to New York to London.  Life was and still is good.

What an amazing week it has been... I flew onward from London to Singapore on Tuesday night on British Airways.  Lovely flight.  Very comfy first class seat (let's remember that I did this whole trip on airline and hotel points - so neither Luxe or our stores were paying this bill, lest the gossips want to set their tongues wagging about extravagance, you can stop now) and very yummy seat opponent across the aisle.  We made witty banter all the way through dinner and I quite enjoyed the mile high banter with this UK gent now living down under.  Alas, thirteen hours is never long enough when you are being spoiled and so I had to leave the cocoon of the plane and hit Singapore!

I had booked at the St. Regis, the new "it" address in Singapore.  It was quite accidental - again, I was using points and when I went to book, that was actually the best deal for what memberships I have.  (I normally stay at the Sheraton but have stayed all over town.)  Oh my goodness... best use of points, ever.  Critics are saying that it is THE top rated hotel now in Singapore and should easily land on all top five lists for Asia this year.  I concur.  Every room comes with 24/7 butler service (they unpack you, press your clothes, bring you tea whenever you like, escort your guests up, etc.) - but I got even luckier... my status with Starwood netted me a huge corner executive suite the size of an apartment.  Fifteenth floor with a view, I knew I was going to be in heaven for the next five days.

My time there was a whirl... in addition to errands I needed to run (a trip to the US Embassy for more passport pages, a trip to the optometrist for new reading glasses), I had a jam packed schedule of lunches/dinners with friends AND three days at Made With Love.

So Made With Love... wow.  What an amazing store.  I did not know it was possible to put so much product into that amount of space - its floor to ceiling triple stacked scrapbooking goodness - and the store is such a hot spot in town that its packed all day long.  The whole staff there took such amazing care of me.  I'm scared to mention names for fear of leaving someone out but Table Scraps (the in-house cafe) kept me fed and watered - and every need I had was anticipated.

I did a make-and-take session on Friday night that allowed me lots of time to visit one-on-one with the store's VIP customers.  And then Saturday and Sunday we launched into our classroom sessions - three different classes, each 3.5 hours in length.  The creativity and talent of the ladies blew me away and I think I learned as much as I taught!

I also got to eat... a lot.  How much you ask?  Well, my "fat jeans" are a bit tight in the waist.  I look like I'm in my second trimester my belly is so distended!  Chili crab, roti prata, sushi, dim sum, curry, french... you name it, I seemed to eat it.  My body is now groaning for a diet and some yoga (and screaming "please not another glass of champagne... not now!")

I flew out last night on the overnight Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo.  I was supposed to meet up with a couple of the girls from Scrap the Planet but had a logistical snafu (entirely my own stupidity) and missed them.  I now just paid to switch my flight from the Japan routing through San Francisco (with a four hour layover) to the nonstop Dallas flight leaving at the same time so I can get home several hours earlier and enjoy my house for a bit before flying off Sacramento on Tuesday at lunchtime.  (I swear, I get no downtime lately!)

But... I wouldn't couldn't mustn't trade this life for anything.  Its amazing and I love how I get to see the world and meet so many amazing people in the process.

In other fronts, we are also getting ready for CHA.  Emily has been hard at work on what I believe is our most beautiful catalog to date.  (I want a copy just to keep by my bedside table for reading... its that pretty).

Well, its time to fly.... again.  And then from July 3, I get to stay home (I think) until we leave for CHA on July 15!  Hope those veggies have been growing away!