It’s about gone, kids. 2011. All done. 2011 has been a serious roller coaster for me professionally and personally. It seems like it was just yesterday when I was updating the 2010 end of the year list! Golly. 2011 in Pictures Jan – March: Welcome to the family, Robin Hood the Hyundai Sonata! / Custom made truffles from Drago Centro / Got laid off April – June: New Zealand vacation / Cochon 555 / The Nerd Machine Slave Leia PSA

We’re winding down our New Zealand vacation with my dad. He leaves Thursday afternoon and we leave Friday. So far over 1,000 photos have been taken. I have yet to calculate how many kilometers/miles and hours Brandon had driven in the 5 days we spent in South Island…on the opposite side of the road from the U.S., no less. We had killed absolutely no possums (different than what we have in North America) and rabbits where are both non-native pests

6 days in Costa Rica and I came back with a new look at life. I went 6 days without the internet (except for a 30 minutes I hopped on to check in with the hubby when I arrived and before I left), work, or television. I went 6 days without much of anything but gallo pinto, rum,  and time. Yep.  Nora and I didn’t do much of anything during our trip but relax and go with the flow. We

Costa Rica, here I am! Yep. My BFF Nora and I are heading down to the beautiful northwestern beaches of Guanacaste region of Costa Rica for my friends’ wedding.  The traveling Couch Monkey will finally get to be among his capuchin buddies! I just realized that this is my first trip abroad in 17 years. Well, you know, having come over to the U.S. being my last “foreign” trip.  Since then, I have only gone home and nowhere else outside

I’ve done my share of long distance traveling.  Every time some one gasps when I tell them how long it takes to fly to Thailand, I chuckle a little bit inside. “Well, it’s 11-12 hours with a 3-hour layover in Taiwan/Hong Kong/Japan, and then another 4-5 hours to Bangkok. OR I can fly direct for 17.5 hours.” “OH MY GOD! / Da-yam! / Are you kidding me? / I could never do that!?!” Then I will tell them that it’s

I told you about my multi-talented friend Note, the co-owner of Kinnaree Gourmet Thai and tarot card reader extraordinaire.  The latter, at least our group of friends think she is anyway. I promised Note that I would blog about my month-to-month prediction, so that as time ticks on, we can come back to see how accurate she really is. Before we get to that, what she said about my overall future gets me giggling. She said that although I am

Sawaddee from the Big Mango, y’all!  A nice, crisp, 75F “winter” Bangkok, no less.  I am enjoying the cool morning here. I arrived at dawn yesterday and what a day it was!  My brother and sister-in-law picked me up in his brand new BMW X5.  We had breakfast and I was left to myself all morning.  I unpacked, played some piano, and took a crack at the Nikki Heat novel before succumbing to sleep after lunch. My friend Note called

…I’m ready to go. Are you ready for me, the Big Mango? So I leave LAX tonight, arriving in Bangkok at 6 a.m. on Saturday.  (Yes, time traveling. It’s awesome.) Let’s say, I’d probably get home around 8 a.m.  I’d be done unpacking by 9 a.m. and I get to relax for a while. 3:30 p.m. I am off to my friend’s condo for a pool party.  A few hours later, we’ll mosey down to Kinnaree Gourmet Thai for dinner

Well, not EVERY mountain but just the one. It took Brandon and I 7 years of marriage to figure out that we both like camping.  Away from the cars kind of camping. We have been investing in our camping gear.  When we were shopping for a backpack, the staff mentioned that REI does have overnight backpacking classes and that we should check that out. So we did. This past Saturday and Sunday, we were in Mount San Jacinto State Park

Last weekend in Florida was amazing. The weather was just like Thailand which I totally adore.  A quick change from the dry California heat, I tell ya. We didn’t have a chance to adjust to the time change so we woke up too late each day to try to do anything.  It’s pretty much Coconut Grove and the wedding.  That was it.  No South Beach here. We ate at Green Street Cafe twice. And I would seriously eat there for