Trying out WordPress

I signed up for wordpress last night after they lured me in with the promise of 100s of great themes to choose from and I've read people like it better than Blogger. While they do offer more skins to choose from, I'm not finding access to the 100s I thought I would but still more interesting than Blogger's options.
If you have time, pop on over to my new blog and tell me what you think. I'm still trying to figure out if I can import my Blogroll. I would certainly appreciate a lesson if someone out there reading is in the know.
You'll also notice I changed my blog name from Because-I-Want. What do you think? Yah or Nay??

Whoops!

So, I screwed up. You know that little trip to Italy I've been planning since oh...MAY?!? Well, I've been researching air fare like a mad woman which is probably how I screwed up in the first place and the past couple of days there have been some incredibly priced tickets to get us to Italy.
Since May, I've seen nothing but $1000 and up. I should have bought the first tickets I found back in May which would have included all of our flights and would have gotten us to Rome, Naples-Venice and finally back home all for about $1000! I admit I thought that was expensive and it is don't get me wrong, but the months since I've seen the prices go up and up and up when I really thought they would go down.
Pretty soon I found myself leaving out that Naples-Venice leg altogether just to get a ticket in the $1200 range. And then two days ago, it happened...all my dreams came true! The prices dropped!!!!!!! I'm talking $644 tickets to get our butts to Rome and Venice and Back! (not the nap-vce but who cares!) So, I excitedly tell B that we can actually afford to go now and that's when he blew the candles out on my party. He made it clear he did not want to go anywhere near London because of the recent/same day terror threats. So, it was back to the drawing board. So for the past two days I've been looking and looking..watching the fares climb right back up - except those w/ a London stop. Until today...my beloved Kayak produced a magical fare just for me, eh, it was out of Houston but I could figure that out later. For $707 I was willing to walk to Houston. The other tiny - let's call it an inconvenience - would be that the return flight left in the evening returning the next afternoon, thus arriving a day later than planned but still seemed doable. So, I've hit the 'Purchase This Itinerary' button on Vayama and I wait patiently for my confirmation.
..........And I wait, and wait. It says "booking your itinerary" and the little bullets are scrolling across the screen to let me know it's doing something. I'm excitedly talking to B on the phone at the same time. Still waiting. "Hey B, it's still processing but at the bottom of the screen it says DONE" Hmm...wonder what that means. He suggests I call the 800# while I wait just to be on the safe side..good idea. I'm dialing, I'm waiting, Vayama still says it's booking my tickets. Meanwhile, I've hung up w/ B as it's been so long..still on hold with Vayama and there has been no change to my computer screen but I now know all the words to A Girl From Impanema. I decide to click over to my email while I'm on hold when I see an email waiting for me from Vayama. Hooray! I thought..a booking confirmation email. Sweet :)
So, I'm looking over it all and that is when the Oh shit moment occurred. The flight leaving out of Venice to Frankfurt is on one day and the flight from Frankfurt to Houston is on the NEXT day. Craptastic. Just freaking great. After all of this painstaking effort to get something affordable, convenient and safe has got me what? A stay over in Frankfurt. Sonnova!!!!!



Edited update:

Ok, I've had a moment to chill. Tried calling Vayama to see if our situation was locked in stone. It is. There are no cheap alternatives and unless I want to leave Venice at 6:40 in the morning which means we'd have to be AT the airport by 4:40 which means...screw that! So, an overnight stay in Frankfurt it is. As B put it, at least I can say I've been to Germany. We'll be looking for the photo op of our 'Beer in Frankfurt' - I mean, our night in...haha. My only wish is that we were arriving in Frankfurt earlier in the day (not 9pm). -sigh.

Make a difference.

“If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together”

There are many things you can do to help save our planet. Please find ways you can make a difference. Check this site out to see how you can.

http://www.liveearth.org/crisis_solutions.php

Happy 4th of July!

Even though it's done nothing but rain for weeks, the skies cleared up long enough for the city to put on its annual firework show. We decided at the last minute to go downtown with our dog, Smokey, to catch the show. As you can see Smokey was having a blast!

I hope everybody had a great day today. Hopefully, you had the day off!

Come away with me..

With that Nora Jones song stuck in my head, I had thoughts of my Papa this morning. I miss him terribly. I can't believe it's been 6 years.

What I would give to hug him again.

Say "cheese"

I'm discovering so many interesting people through this world of blogging. I feel a bit like a stalker or peeping tom but I'm having too much fun to stop.

This was taken by a local photographer here in Austin. Her pictures are amazing.

Dream big.

Last night I had a dream that we realized one day that we could simply drive to Italy. This came to a huge surprise to us as if we hadn't known before that such a route existed much less that we were suddenly close enough to do so. In the dream, I even said to my husband, "Why haven't we done this before?!?" Waking up I laughed at the thought.

Maybe one day this dream will become reality. I can dream, can't I? :)