Always, Alli

It is the last day of February and I am really waiting until the last minute to keep up with my goal of reporting on reading at least one book a month. I didn’t mean to, I finished the book on Monday. I just realized this afternoon I needed to report on it today. Good thing we have this extra day.

Before I left on my trip I went to a downtown bookstore to pick up a book. I was looking for The Knitting Circle, but the store was out. At a loss for a second pick, I started to browse and found The Girls by Lori Lansens.

I had never heard of it but the cover was pretty and the back said something about extraordinary sisters, so I took a chance and bought it.

In January I read The Thirteenth Tale and if you read that book you know there is a theme of sisters, twins, and a secret about one of the twins in the book. I never expected the book I picked up at random to have the same themes, even the secret one in The Thirteenth Tale.

The novel is a fictional autobiography of the conjoined twins Ruby and Rose, standing on the precipice of their 30th birthday (a record of sorts). The duel voice of the novel is intriguing and I actually had a favorite sister when I was reading.

My biggest complaint is the ending felt rushed and kind of like a cop out. We had a few unfinished story lines and the author acknowledged them with an excuse a long the lines of “not everything wraps up neatly in life” and I just felt it could have been dealt with better.

I would recommend The Girls as a good read.

Technorati Tags: The Girls, Lori Lansens

This post sponsored by Trans World Futures where you can find a futures broker, which might be a good idea for a novel.

Enough talk about being sick! Let’s talk about my trip!

When Courtney and I were conspiring/ daydreaming/ planning our trip to Florida she kept asking me if there was anything I HAD to do at the Magic Kingdom on Saturday. And really the only thing I could come up with was this: I had to ride Dumbo.

I can’t remember my age, but I must have been somewhere between 5 and 7, and my family visited The Magic Kingdom. I don’t remember much about the day, but I do remember we all rode Dumbo. Daddy rode with Austina and I was paired with my mom.

The thing about the Dumbo ride is you get in the elephant seat and it rises up and spins around, making the elephants fly. The neat thing is the joystick in the seat that allows you to control how high the elephant will fly. But when I was at The Magic Kingdom with my family I was paired with my mother and I was not allowed to touch the joy stick. That is correct. I couldn’t make Dumbo fly high.

My mom is afraid of heights which is why she was keeping me from the fun. But it was seared into my memory, my only real memory of our family’s only trip to Disney.

So this past Saturday I was able to overcome my memory of the sad Dumbo ride with a happy one of riding Dumbo and making him fly as high as possible.

It was so much fun! And I can’t wait for the day my family gets to go to Disney together and I can let my son fly high on Dumbo.

Technorati Tags: dreams, magic kingdom, dumbo

If you are looking for another dream, book aLas Vegas hotel and try your luck there!

~Coming home and every one still being sick.
~Taking my husband to the ER.
~Having such severe pressure in my head that touching the right side of my face felt like I was touching a bruise.
~Having no food in the house to make a “home cooked” meal.
~The wireless router dying.
~Not being able to nap when you actually have the chance.
~Knowing you gave your friend the flu.
~Doing laundry.
~Digging out your winter coat when you were wearing shorts two days ago.

This post sponsored by someone involved with Branson private golf. I don’t play, but they might be interested in helping you not suck.

All I can think about right now is how exhausted I am and how early tomorrow morning is going to be. Courtney and I parted ways at the airport this morning and my aunt picked me up so I could spend the night in her home. Tomorrow morning she will kindly get up very early to get me to the airport and I expect to be home by 10 a.m.

So much was done this weekend, and a lot of it was done while walking or standing in line. By the time we got back to our hotel each night it was too much for me to stay awake for very long. I preferred to hit the hay immediately and get up early the next day before we started even more walking and standing.

The ten word recap of my weekend is: travel, visit, walk, eat, Courtney, Magic Kingdom, Trevor, Animal Kingdom, posties. I’ll fill in the gaps when I get back home to Chattanooga. And of course, I have lots of pictures to post but the free wi-fi provided by the city of St. Cloud would not be that great for uploading the many, many pictures I have from the weekend.

More when I return.

Courtney and I connected at the airport yesterday morning, managed to get a rental car, and headed over to Downtown Orlando. We wanted to be in downtown because that is where the Izea office is.

Courtney and I have both participated in paid blogging with one of Izea’s products: PayPerPost. In fact, I started doing paid blogging so I could earn money to buy my precious camera. And Courtney and I met at Izea’s conference in Las Vegas (PostieCon). We met a lot of the Izea staff in Las Vegas and we both thought it would be fun to meet up with them again.

While we were there we were happily greeted by Izea staff (in fact we met Ted in the parking garage, which was just a coincidence but still nice to have his escort). Ashley gave us a tour of the office and Courtney walked into a black wall. Next we were given a sneak peek of the next Rock Startup episode. It was very special because it is the episode Fuller and I are in. And just when we thought it would be over, they sprung an Izea specialty- the scavenger hunt.

We were put into two teams (Team Crumley.org and Team Traveling Thoughts) with various Izea staff members. We took pictures, I did a headstand, and we gathered items from about a four block radius of the offices. The points are still being tallied, but we think Courtney’s team won. But my team still had fun!

Alli’s Izea Report from mrscrumley on Vimeo.

Afterwards we went out for a light dinner and drinks with some of the Izea staff. It was a fun time of chatting and getting to know the fun folks behind the scenes of a neat company.

Technorati Tags: Izea, scavenger hunt

The phone rang 5 minutes after I went to bed. Wrong number. Some poor girl looking for her mom. It rang again at 11. And again at 12:15ish. And then again at 7:15. All different people (I hope), all wrong numbers. When Courtney gets here she gets to answer the phone in the middle of the night.

I had a goal of relaxing and resting until I met Courtney at the airport today at 1ish. So far I am meeting that goal, which makes me happy. I had breakfast at the buffet (not very good and overpriced) and am sticking close to the hotel until I leave. I did walk down the 192 strip last night to get my dinner and gave myself a little blister. Now with overpriced band-aids, I am ready to have some fun. Time to finish getting ready. I think I have a busy day ahead of me.

Orlando is big and I have my awesome Aunt Lois to thank for driving me around today, getting me from the airport to my hotel.

When I bought my tickets for the trip down here they were cheap because the airline flies to secondary airports. And in this case, Orlando Sanford is the airport of choice. But it is about 40 miles from the hotel I am currently staying in. So having my aunt pick me up and cart me around this big city was a great service to me.

I took a nap as soon as I got into my room, and it refreshed me a bit but I am looking forward to a good nights rest and possibly some sleeping in.

No ear infection, just congestion. So, in about two hours, I will be on my way to the Chattanooga airport to take off for Florida!

There is not much more I can say about how excited I am for this trip. I’ll miss my family and I feel badly for leaving them when their health is still not great, but I’ve been assured by Damon I can go. As soon as I am dropped off, I am sure the guilt will wane and be completely gone by the time I am tucked into bed this evening.

Time to finalize the details, pack the camera batteries, and wrap a present for my men.

I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon to deal with what I fear is an ear infection. The great thing about me is anitbiotics really work quickly on me. I hope it kicks out whatever else is in my system dragging me down. I hate the way I have energy for about 10 minutes and then I’m on a downward spiral to “needing a break” for the next 30 minutes.

As of this minute I am still planning on my trip to Florida, which involves flying in an airplane. And it leaves tomorrow morning. So along with doctor’s appointments (Fuller gets to go to one too), I need to get into the attic and find Florida appropriate attire. And I have to pack. And I need to do a little house work so I don’t overwhelm my guys while I am gone. (The freezer is stacked with pizza though.)

This illness isn’t the end of my world, I just need for the illness to end.

Today will be spent list making, shopping, and general getting ready for my trip on Thursday. I had another travel nightmare last night- I couldn’t find batteries for my camera anywhere. And I had a laptop but no cords for power or anything. It really got my heart racing. My nightmare the night before was about not having my passport. I don’t need a passport to go to Florida, but it just fits in with what happens in my subconscious before traveling.

We head to Atlanta again in March (SEC Men’s Basketball tournament! War Eagle!) so of course the nightmares will begin again soon after I get back from Florida. I try to be better about each trip there since I have a wealth of information in my brain on how/ what to pack and what to expect. We have been looking at all the things to do in Atlanta for fun between the games. After going there for six years, I think we have lots of vacation ideas for visiting Atlanta.

Incidentally, Atlanta is one of the most romantic trips Damon and I took. He bought me a spa certificate for me to use there on one of our trips. It was such a treat to be pampered (massage, facial) while on our trip.

Now that we have Fuller, we tend to look for more kid friendly places. I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for ideas. Trusted Tours & Attractions really had a lot of great info on Atlanta. I am pretty sure we will be visiting The Children’s Musuem this trip. We did the aquarium last time.

Trusted Tours & Attractions is currently running a promotion where you can sign up for their newsletter and be entered to win a new camera! We love cameras in this house, so I signed up.

I’m looking forward to our family trip in March. Now I need to get ready for my trip to Florida, where it is all about me, me, me! Oh, and Courtney.

Technorati Tags: trusted tours, atlanta attractions, travel nightmare