Inch by inch......

Hi, everyone. It has been forever since I sat and emptied my head……..and I will tell you after the last two months it is pretty freakin’ full. So I guess I will just start at the beginning and try not to be too random with all the info……good luck with that.

Our trip to Hawaii was fantastic! We really did enjoy ourselves. The 8 of us that rented the house together got along really well. Having a huge house that gave us each our own space to disappear to when necessary helped of course. But overall we had a great time drinking, eating, eating, um…..eating, swimming in the ocean, laying around and relaxing, eating, drinking, and enjoying each others company.

Some observations:

• Maui is not a very big island. You can drive across and back in just a few hours. Also the west side (where we were staying) is completely different than the east side. The west is dryer and less tropical. The east is VERY tropical and gets a lot more rain. Very strange actually.
• The people in Hawaii are very nice and do things in what I like to refer to as “Hawaii time.” It is a very casual and laid back place so people just kind of do things at a pretty relaxed pace…….a little too relaxed sometimes.
• Salt water is nasty.
• You don’t get a lei from a beautiful Hawaiian girl when you get off the plane. Although our friends who met us at the airport brought us leis, so that made up for it.
• I was not the fattest one on the beach…….thank God! I will get back to that one.
• It does not feel good to kick coral…..or as I prefer to call it, “Don’t riff with the reef.” OUCH! I got a couple of small scrapes and they took forever to heal up! As a matter of fact I can still see the marks on my ankles to this day. I also found out that if you don’t take care of those kind of cuts the saltwater can give you a nasty staff infection. Eeek! Luckily I did not experience that.
  
  So we had a good time and would definitely go back, but we would like to see some of the other islands. I can’t say that I would want to live there, but I definitely enjoyed visiting and look forward to seeing some more.
  
  Since we came back things have just been absolutely insane! My job is crazy busy…..which is no complaint. I am going to brag a tad and say that I had such a good first quarter that I believe I am in the top 10 out of 180 salespeople and will definitely be receiving a big fat bonus!! Woo hoo! It feels so good to get the validation for the work that I am doing. And I am seeing results from it as well. Yay!
  
  Beyond that, the dog has been in and out of the vet (nothing too severe….but she is going for another ultrasound on her liver this Thursday just to make sure); I am in the middle of helping plan my Mother’s 70th Birthday at the end of October; I have multiple friends on the verge of losing their jobs, marriages, or both – some of which to whom I have played counselor; Adam is having issues at work and working like a dog!; and I am trying to lose weight…..officially. I mentioned earlier not being the fattest one on the beach….but not by much. Everything was great until I saw a video of myself running on the beach and diving into the surf. I watched the video and said to myself, “Oh look, there’s Adam! Oh look, there’s Kristen! Who is the big fat hairy guy……..HOLY CRAP!” Not fun to come to that realization. It is one thing to see yourself in pictures (with your shirt on!) next to friends in some stupid pose. It is an entirely different thing to see your fat ass moving at a speed and in ways that it shouldn’t, sans shirt, in a video! Ugh. Needless to say I refuse to be a before and after commercial for fucking Jenny Craig. So Adam and I joined All Star Fitness in West Seattle a couple of weeks ago and have been going pretty religiously. Plus we changed our dinners to nothing more than salad, except on weekends when we will have something extra. So it is good. And somehow I am actually enjoying it. And I remember Dr. Oz say on Oprah that men lose an inch of penis for every 30 pounds overweight they are. I want my inch back, damn it!
  
  Among the many other things taking place, we are still planning my 40th Birthday next April. So far we have determined that a party is in order and a trip will be taken. The party is simple enough, and we will probably have that the weekend of my birthday. However the trip is something of a different egg. Originally we talked about going to Argentina and Uruguay. Then we got invited to Ireland for a wedding. We kind of decided that Ireland wasn’t going to happen because it would be too expensive and neither of us would have enough vacation when the dates required. So back to Argentina. BUT we now have been invited to England and to tour around a bit with a friend I have made on-line (NO, it isn’t what you think!) who lives in northern England with his partner of several years. Paul and I are part of the same Yahoo group for my favorite band All About Eve. We have sent info to one another over the last year on occasion, and he and Ian went to Vietnam last year, too. So we got to compare notes on that trip. And recently we connected via Facebook and have been communicating at least once a day. So they very graciously invited us to stay with them and maybe take a bit of a tour around the UK. It is rare that anyone makes that kind of offer, and we don’t want to be too greedy, but when will we ever get this opportunity again? So it looks like England will be the destination for us next May. There is still a lot of planning to be done, but I am sure the details will all come together very quickly.
  
  I think I have prattled on enough for now. If you have read this entire thing then you are more dedicated than I gave you credit for. Off to bed with me.