Yehey! I lost four pounds.

At the same time, I'm aghast to have lost so much in so little time! Who am I kidding? Yehey, I lost 4 pounds. Count that, 4... 1, 2, 3, 4! Really, though, I AM happy I lost the pounds, but still worried to have lost that much in the span of 2 weeks. It doesn't seem healthy. I just console myself with the fact that I am not doing anything UNhealthy. I still eat. Maybe, the smoothie-diet is working! OR, maybe, I'm just drinking enough water. I probably drink 10 glasses a day. I am just SOO thirsty lately!

Now, the pessimist in me is saying, I'm bound to hit my plateau soon. Why can't I just be happy? That's an achievement I should be celebrating, right? RIGHT! So, there.

In other news, the gym has a new policy. No street shoes. We're supposed to handcarry our workout shoes. Oh, well. I could buy new shoes since my shoes are more than 6 months old,(you're supposed to replace them every however miles) OR I could just clean them and get a few more months of use out of them and just use the money to buy Turbo Jam.

I really want to buy it but it costs too much. I just want 1 but they send you all these videos, I don't know why, and "if you buy in the next 30 minutes, Chalene will give you a bonus video for your abs" or whatever it was.

I just finished reading The Historian and I am so upset not because it was no good, it was really good, the part that I'm not happy about is, it's a very creepy book and I didn't really want to read a creepy book since Gary is in one of his trips again. But, having started the book, I just have to finish it. I have to because, although I know that good will triumph over evil, I have to make sure that they did just that. And they did, and I sighed a big relief, now I can step outside at night and I wouldn't have to worry about evil lurking at night.

Unfortunately, it has an epilogue. ARGH!

Megan's party was a whole lot of fun.

Even the adults enjoyed themselves. See, the people in-charge said that the ceramics needed 3 coats of paint for the colors to come out right after they fire it. Kids, being kids, got tired of painting after 2 coats, so the adults took over and finished the third coat.

It was so relaxing. John's mom enjoyed it so much she started asking about classes and stuff. She then convinced me that we should do it. Having nothing better to do, I agreed. She extended the invitation to Tarah's mom and she said, she'd love to. So, for the first time, I have a mommy-date!

I'm sewing up a storm here.

Is there such a phrase? Sewing up a storm? What I mean is, I've been doing some sewing projects. I borrowed a book from the library (by the way, if you haven't been to your local public library in a decade, I highly recommend visiting one and while you're there, might as well get a library card) entitled "Sew Sensational Gifts" and it has some ideas that I want to do. NO, I won't start sending these out as presents, it's for me.

I did an apron for me and Gary. I'm so tired of finding grease spots in our clothes. This should put an end to it. Now, how to convince Gary to use it. Then, I lined these woven baskets that I got from a bazaar. We use these baskets as a catch-all for items that can be easily misplaced or just sit on top of the table or counters, (I hate clutter). Now, we know where our keys, wallet, lighter are. Those baskets were a good find, $10 for 5 baskets and they have a lid, only thing was it wasn't lined. Well, not anymore.

Today, I'm making a beach bag. Our beach bag is 4 years old. It's packed and ready to go. It has our flip-flops, swimsuits, towels, sarong, floaties, and sunblock. It's for those oh-so-rare sunny days and we want to head to the beach, I don't want to waste my time looking for things. If we want to go to the beach, 5 minutes and we're out the door. Might as well, it takes about an hour to get to the beach.

Other things I want to make:

1. Travel toiletry tote - to replace my emergency overnight bag in the car. I don't know where we were but we were in one of our last-minute trips and it was getting late and we didn't want to go home but we have no choice but to. The next day, I bought travel-size shampoo, soap, deodorant, toothbrush, and toothpaste, then added razors and change of underwear. That's our emergency overnight bag. I think we've used 2 or 3 times now.

2. Glove compartment organizer - who doesn't need one?

3. Portable clothing valet - maybe this one is just plain silly, but unpacking for 3 is a pain in a butt. Now, if I make 3 of these valets, I could assign a valet per person, and then when I unpack I don't have to search where is whose. All I have to do is grab the valet and Voila, I'm unpacked.

The only problem with these projects are the materials needed. I've never heard of them until now. Cloth pack and grosgrain ribbon. I did a quick research and as it turns out, they are materials used in backpacks. I could order them online but I might have tire of the idea by the time they get here.

Now, there are other projects. Girly projects. Dresser tray, drawer liner, hang-ups. Not really to crazy about them but I just might try it one of these days. It's 5:12 am. I don't know how much sleep I had last night but I got so tired of trying to go back to sleep that I gave up around 3:30. I cut out the fabric for the beach bag and then tried to figure out how to add pockets. Now, all I need is to make the fabric stiff!

*sigh*

Another early morning. It's so early my brain is not functioning well. Come to think of it, I don't think my brain had functioned well in a long time. So... what happened that we missed our flight?

It's stupidity and I don't know what else. For some reason, I thought our flight was on the morning of the 8th and our arrival is on the morning of the 9th. On the 7th, Pogs asked if we could go to Vallejo so he can drop-off his car at the shop and have the tint removed. I had to take mom to the hospital that morning for some blood work, so we made plans that if we're not home by 10 to meet at CostCo by 10:30 and head on to Vallejo.

Mom and I didn't get out of the hospital till 9:45ish so I planned on driving straight to CostCo. We got there with a few minutes to spare and 10:32 rolled around, no Pogs in sight. I decided to just drive to Vallejo and hopefully find the shop but as we were driving, I saw Gary driving Pog's car.

They finally caught up with us and followed them to the car shop. The address that Pogs had was wrong so he tried calling and finally found the right address but the car shop people won't be in. Pogs decided to just go grab lunch and take his car to the Fairfield place instead.

After lunch, we drove back to Fairfield and found the car shop. He dropped off his car and we started heading home. I asked Gary if he got a hold of anybody to pick us up at the station when we get back from UK, he said he hadn't. He made a comment about how our travel time back to UK seems longer. As we were driving home, I thought about what Gary said and started getting anxious. He's right! It seems awfully long, our flight should be just 10 hours. I better check the tickets.

We got home, checked the tickets and to my dismay, our flight was not in the morning but at 16:45. Oh no! Pogs had made arrangements with his work to come in late the next day. We're going to be way early at the airport! I showed Gary the tickets but he noticed something else. Our flight was on the 7th, not the 8th as we originally thought!

Shoot me! It was 1 PM, we were not packed! I still have clothes drying! We need to be there at least 2 hours prior! We're not going to make it! So, I was frantically packing away, Gary called the airlines. I was worried that we will not get rebooked. The airline person said that she could get us in the next day flight but, of course, we had to pay the penalty. 100 freakin' pounds per person! What else can we do but pay.

Goodbye $525. I hate to see you go. You would have brought me so much joy. Oh, the thought of what I could buy with you makes me cry (by the way, I did cry!). I could have gone shopping-crazy at the outlet. Imagine how many Jamba Juice I could have bought with that. WHY... I could have bought 2 whole lechon at Goldilocks with that.

Oh, well. Lesson learned -- double-check, triple-check, quadruple-check tickets!

It's 4:30 am. I've been up since 1:30. Tried to go back to sleep to no avail. Finally decided to get up at 3:30 and baked pan de sal. I'm waiting for the dough to rise right now. Megan's up. She's gonna be cranky later.

Our flight back to UK was ok. Hit a few turbulence, that's about it. The in-flight movies were no good. Watched Shop Girl. It's OK. Tried to watch March of the Penguins but couldn't concentrate. The few minutes that I've seen of it seems pretty nice. I'll just have to rent it. Then, watched Weather Man but didn't like it. Tried to sleep but couldn't find a comfortable position. Meg slept though.

Got to Heathrow at 10:45. I was worried that we won't catch the bus but we got to the bus station at 11:30. Bus showed up at 12:00. Yehey! No need to take the train. We got here at 3 pm. So hungry and so cold!

We got home and finished up Megan's birthday party invitation. Megan fell asleep at 7 pm and I went to bed at 8:30 and now here I am.

Anyways, the vacation was loads of fun! I ate and ate and ate and now I feel like I need to detoxify! So, starting next week I will go on a smoothie diet for 3 days. Thanks to Pogs, we got a Magic bullet and I can't wait to try it.

Click here for photos.