New beads tomorrow, so check back then if you're so inclined.

I'm desperately in need of a vacation. The last real vacation Russ & I had was in 2000 - the year we married, when I won the trip to the USA and we "eloped" to Las Vegas. Okay, so we did spend around 4 weeks in the USA from September 2001, just after attending my cousin's wedding in Portland OR, but technically that wasn't a vacation as we arrived on the morning of 9/11, and then Russ lost his job a day later, and everything pretty much was a nightmare for about 5 yrs after that.

Russ & I have been talking, and we're thinking of returning to the US in January next year. Russ works for a subsidiary of Qantas, which means that we receive two tickets each per year whereby we only have to pay 10% to fly. As yet, we've not made use of them, and unfortunately they don't carry on to the next year - so if you don't use them, you lose them.

So, if we do decide to travel, we'll probably fly into either San Francisco or Los Angeles (more than likely San Francisco - one of my favourite cities in the US, if not the world), spend a few days relaxing, then take a leisurely few days to drive to Portland OR to stay with my cousin and her husband. After that, I have a few beadmaking friends I'd love to spend some time with - one who lives in the USA (Lynn of Silver Moon Lampwork) and one who lives in Canada (Antonia Jenner of Whistler Lampwork). As a matter of fact, the 3 of us have talked about meeting somewhere between WA and Canada and living it up. Believe me when I tell you that the 3 of us could get into a lot of trouble!

None of this is set in stone at the moment, but it does give me something to look forward to. It actually feels like January is years away, but tomorrow is 1 September. Where the hell has the year gone? Wasn't it Christmas last month? It's true that the older you get, the faster the years fly. And don't even get me started on how much I'm freaking out that in approximately 3 months' time, I'm going to be thinking "I'm turning 40 next year".

Oh. My. God. As of 1 September 2007, it will be exactly 17 months until my 40th birthday.

And on that happy note, I'm off to grab a pizza for dinner.