Bon Voyage to Me!

This will be my last Saturday morning waffle-making/blogging sessions for a few weeks! Monday I'm leaving for Brazil for a couple of weeks. I'll have lots of good pictures to share when I return. I wonder if the kiddo will miss my waffles. He told me last week that he smells them all the way in his room when I make them. We'll do a non-sports family activity tonight - a very good thing. Maybe dinner and a movie, if I can find a movie that appeals to all three of us. The last movie we all three saw together was Mona Lisa Smile - that tells you how long it's been. Of course, now that kiddo's driving, he doesn't need us to take him. He loves movies and thank goodness the Paradiso finally got built - it's just about two miles from home! There was nothing remotely close to us before (except Ridgeway 4 and it mostly shows indy movies and one or two blockbusters).

I still have a million things to do, but am feeling better about leaving. Got lots of cash at the bank. We can use credit cards, but I think the exchange rate's not good that way. There's a jeweler we see and he takes checks! Could be dangerous. I think I'll bring lots of coffee back for souvenirs. And maybe a piece of jewelry for my friend Angela (she's brought me amazing silver things from Mexico). And a rock, just off the ground, for my sister the geologist. And a film canister (does anyone have those any more?) filled with sand from Ipanema for a friend of hers at work who collects sand from all over the world. Those geologists. They call themselves Rock Heads! I suppose if they can handle that nickname, I shouldn't rile at being called a Bean Counter!

The picture is one I found on MicroSoft's website - I think it's Rio. For now, I'm signing off. I'll have more pictures in May!

Brazil

In four short days, I will be in the air, on my way to Brazil. It's hard to believe. My church takes a group every year. Our pastor and his wife were missionaries there for 11 years. They are amazing. I would not consider doing this with anyone else. This is a leap of faith for me. The picture is of Iguassa Falls. We will take two days out of our 12 to stop in Rio and the Falls. I'm crazy about my roommate - Bebe - we seem to be of like minds. My only worry is the grueling flight, but thankfully, there's only an hour or two difference in time zones, so jet lag will be minimal if I can ONLY sleep on the flight between Miami and Sao Paulo. Well, I have one other concern - meeting the strict international size and weight guidelines for luggage - both checked and carry-on. I have lots of decisions to make between now and Sunday - it'll be like Sophie's Choice.

My Life is Better!

Ok, I hate to be a conspicuous consumer, but I'm finally joining the land of the texting. After a major break in the down market for day-traders like me, I splurged on a Palm Centro. Disclaimer: I bought PALM and it was way up today - go buy Palms - seriously, they are a great product! Also, I'm headed to Brazil with my church Monday, and was stressing a little over the lack of ability to stay in touch. After hearing things like "here are the emergency numbers, but the Brazilians might not check their voice mail for a week", or "you'll be too busy to talk to anyone at home" (someone without kids at home), I was worrying about feeling isolated.

The key is, you need a phone with "quadband" to be able to access internationally. So my five year old Nokia won't cut it. Oh, I did think to take my 10 year old Nokias to the AT&T store and they recycle and give our soldiers gift cards with free long distance. If you have any old phones sitting around, take them by. You must know that you can't throw them in the garbage. But some of my neat-freak friends have done this. For the pack-rats among us - here's a good thing.

Ok, I'm going to bed now, but can't wait to wake up and get started texting everyone I know!

My Beautiful Camellia

Here's a picture of a beautiful camellia straight from my friend Suzanne's back yard. I need to take a picture of her back yard - it's so beautiful, especially right now with the azaleas, dogwoods and of course, camellias in bloom.

The bowl it's floating in is my very special Tiffany bowl. It was a gift from a client and I really treasure it. It's just the right thing for floating a flower. I hope to have a picture of a gardenia in it soon. My poor, anemic gardenia may not produce but our neighbor has a huge gardenia that is covered with blooms every year and I'm never too proud to beg a bloom or two from her. I just remembered that I have a nice peony that always produces 10 or so great big, light pink blooms. The only problem with them is that the ants love them and it's impossible to get all the ants off the flower, so I usually enjoy the peonies in situ. There's your latin lesson for the day. It means in its original or natural place.

Well, I'd better close so I can go fertilize my gardenia.

My Other Blog

This is my first post on my new blog. I'm liking this name better. My other blog (which I've widely publicized among all my very patient friends) is www.MomsLeap.blogspot.com. I started it a few months ago when my good friend Lundy asked me about starting a website to be called MomsLeap.com. It seems there was not a single decent resource website geared to Memphis moms. Life got in the way and months went by and neither of us was able to devote the time we needed to get this thing up and going. Of course, there's no such thing as an original idea, on the internet at least. So here we are and at least two moms' resource website franchises have launched blogs geared toward local moms.

Since my blog has meandered around, away from the special interest blog we originally conceived, I've decided to start a new one and rename it with something more general - so here we are with Waffle Talk.

I'll leave the other blog up and will spend some time copying posts I think fit well here. I'm thinking I need to start a food blog, since that's a chunk of what I write about. The great thing about Blogger is that this is all free, so I might do separate blogs about food, day-trading, books, scrapbooking, my new consulting business, gardening or whatever else interests me.

I started my very first blog a couple of years ago, with family pictures (geared toward our relatives). I have another one for our extended family, one for my son's school baseball team, and of course MomsLeap and now Waffle Talk! Lots of blogs.

If you like what I've done, I promise you, you'll enjoy blogging. You'll get in the habit of taking pictures and actually uploading them to your computer. It's just a great creative outlet and fun to share with everyone you're close to. It's very easy to do, but give me a call if you need help getting started.