As I said earlier, we're back from vacation. And now I'm wondering if I'll ever catch up. Yahoo seemed to burp again while we were gone, and I was getting double posts on every list, which means my inbox filled up quick. Which also means several messages started bouncing. So if you've tried to e-mail me within the past few days and I don't respond by Thursday, please feel free to try again. My apologies.

Okay. So, the vacation. Let me start by saying that Walt Disney World is probably my most favorite place in all the world. Of course, I say that without ever having visited most of the world, so take from that what you will. Anyway, the days leading up to the vacation were jam packed and I felt like one of those little wind-up toys that wander around, bouncing off the walls to change direction. You ever have those days where it feels like your head is spinning and everything's taking off in different directions and no matter how hard you try you can't get a handle on anything? That was me before we left.

One good note--we went shopping before we left because the whole family needed new shorts. Can't go to Florida without shorts, right? And my weight has yo-yo'd so much since breaking my ankle last year, I was afraid nothing I had fit. But when we went shopping, I discovered I was a size smaller than I thought I was. Always a nice discovery, and it should have got me started on a great foot.

Should have.

The day before we left was house cleaning day. We desperately wanted to come home to a clean house (not to mention the fact that I didn't want to be embarrassed when my neighbor came in to take care of the dogs), so we spent Sunday cleaning. And cleaning. And cleaning. We finally collapsed into bed in the wee hours of the morning, exhausted, but with a clean house. Of course, that blew our 6am leave time right out of the water...we were just too damned tired to drag ourselves out of bed at 5am to get ready. But we were on the road by 8am, and things were looking up.

By the time we hit South Georgia, the CD player in my truck crapped out. At first, we thought it might need to be cleaned, so we stopped and picked up one of those cleaning disks and tried it. No dice. Kept getting "focus error" and "bad disc" messages. Must I even mention how devastated I was? A road trip without my tunes! Let's just say that part sucked with a capital S-U-C-K-E-D.

But we did finally get to the hotel all in once piece, and the kids were sufficiently surprised, since we'd misled them about where we were going. We spent the first night just hanging out in the hotel so we could start on the parks the next morning, fresh and raring to go.

Since this entry is already long, I'll break here. But first, let me just add that after staying on Disney property, we'll never stay off property again. It was a wonderful experience, and I'll continue the story later.

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MOOD: Tired
PROGRESS: I'm still freaked out by all the catching up I have to do!
WHAT I'M READING: The Bane Affair by Alison Kent