welcome back

Hi,

it's now 2011. New year, new date, new page in my blog. January is almost half over already and I'm behind in my postings here. The first week we were still on our Caribbean cruise, no Internet access. The second week I developed pink eye and a sinus infection. Feast or famine.

The cruise was a lot of fun. Pictures are posted on Facebook for those who care to gander. We had excellent dinner mates at our table who developed into great friends. Every night was a laugh a minute while we ate and then we would cavort around the ship all evening as a tribe. The shows, casino, dancing, karaoke, midnight cookie raids... for those of you who have cruised you know the routine. The ship was a bit of a let down but the cruise was so inexpensive it wasn't worth complaining. Mostly the staff were a sleep at the wheel and going through the motions. Our room steward got food poisoning so our cabin was straightened up but not exceptionally well cleaned. The maintenance on the ship was shoddy. Valves leaked on deck which made Marshall crazy. The leaking was from water sources for the cleaning hoses but it was damaging the deck and I can only imagine the mold issue the water was creating. Everyones' allergies were on hyper-drive... does that tell you about the problem? The ship also had smoking areas inside like the bars & the casino. Walking around you had to rush past places to get to fresh air. The next time I will only get on non-smoking ships. Gross.

Other news: Marshall is off to China & India for a few weeks. Swimming lessons will resume as soon as I clear up my pink eye & sinus problem. Hopefully next week I'll be back at work. It's freezing cold here with snow on the ground. I'm hoping we don't get another dump while Marshall is away. The day we cruised we had to dig out from 10", and the day we came home we had to dig out from another 4". Monday we woke up to another 9", more shovelling. It takes the two of us about 4 to 5 hours of man labor to clear our driveway & walk... I have no plans to tackle this on my own. I will break down and call Kevin (our lawn man) to dig me out if need be. I'm a tough Canadian when it comes to winter but only to a point. I'm praying for dry skies.

As 2011 speeds along I look forward to spring. Winter is not my season. Yardley starts to bloom April 1st, 10 more weeks and I'm back to gardening. I prefer that to snow shovelling any day.

xox

m