Two Days To Go...

...before my one entire week off work. Yup. A week off work. One. Entire. Week. 

Originally, we were supposed to go to Croatia this year and the work people scheduled my vacation for end of October/beginning of November. Lame. We have some weird seniority system where a relatively new person such as myself gets to choose only from some random leftover days on the calendar. Oh-so-neat! Especially when people seem to be enjoying taking vacations on random days of the week and when our department's policy doesn't allow more than one person gone from work on a same day.

Obviously, we didn't go to Croatia. First of all, I used a few of my paid days this summer, while my sister and her boyfriend were visiting us here in Mankato. After some struggle and help from a few co-workers, I managed to line up four days in a row (plus one weekend) and get my butt all the way to Yellowstone and back. And that was fun, but not nearly enough for a spoiled Croatian. I mean, yeah, back there we actually go on vacations that last longer than one day, three hours and seven minutes! 

Oops. I digress, as usual. We chose not to even try to fly to Europe and back. Too much effort and not enough vacation, or, well, better luck next time, I'd say. Hopefully next year and hopefully in summer. Derek's not yet seen pretty much any of the Croatian coast (except for some of the island of Krk and some Rijeka and Novi Vinodolski and none of it in summer). 

So we're gonna go to Des Moines, after a lot of thinking. One of the plans included New York. Second one was Washington DC. Then we almost packed our bags to go to Chicago. Then we gave up on that one, too. There were no cheap plane tickets in sight and, at this point, we're not comfortable spending some insane money. There might be something else down the road (or not so down?) that could hit our wallets. Then we wanted to drive to Chicago. Then I got lazy even thinking about it. Eight hours some minutes of highway and highway and highway? Man. Boring. Yawn. So off to Des Moines we go. I keep hearing it's a pretty place. We'll see. Omaha and Kansas City are close enough for one-day trips, too, if we'll feel like it.

Yay vacation. It's about damn time, I say.

Another good thing about today - I went to the post office to pick up a mysterious parcel (they left a notice in our mailbox yesterday and I had NO clue at all what it could have been). Well, this is what I got:

What came in the mail was my birthday gift from my best friend from way back when. She's also one of my two maidens of honor (yeah, ok, I actually had a third one, my sister, in the American version of the wedding - I'm that special). I love the gifts, but I also love the fact that the mysterious parcel that had to be signed for, too, wasn't some lovely invitation to a prison. (No idea what I'd be sent to jail for, but you never know, right?)

Also, I dragged my butt to YMCA tonight and signed up for some cycling class. Cycling Tone Fit blabla something. It's two times a week for one hour, a combination of cycling and strength training. Finally something that fits my schedule and I really honestly sincerely and more than anything hope it won't be yet another class I will share with 60 year olds who weigh about three times as I do. Dear Gods of Exercise Scheduling, did you hear me? Please. Please. Pleaaase? 

My bike is about to retire for the winter, I guess, so this is going to be useful. Hopefully soon I'll be able to organize my work/school/housework activities and get some vinyasa yoga squeezed back into my schedule. Anyway, it feels good to get moving again (on a more regular basis, since I've not really been just sitting on my ass all this time).

And now, before I go watch an episode of Breaking Bad (which may or may not result in snoozing on the couch) let me tell you how famous I am. Or perhaps it's not me, but this small village also known as Minnesota.

This evening, I finally decided to become a member of Radio Free Current. I like that station (actually, radio is my old love...). And I love this guy - is there anything better than some British accent on the radio, in the US? Tonight's special was an extra donation of $50 from Newman's Own for every new sustaining member. So, yeah, I became one. And on the membership form, I ticked a box that said sure, feel free to say thanks publically or whatever it was. So they did. I was pretty pleased to hear Mr. Wheat pronounce my name correctly (then again, I'm sure he's heard it elsewhere, perhaps in Europe where it doesn't get mangled as much, if at all).

Just a few minutes after that, the phone rang. Derek's mom wanted to know what I was up to. I wasn't really up to anything; she actually caught me typing here. Well, she said, her sister called. Because her son called. He was driving around Minneapolis and listening to the radio. And heard my name. I mean, seriously, even if you weren't, say, my cousin-in-law, would you put two and two together if you heard about a particular Ines, originally from Croatia, who lives in Mankato? Well, funny, either way. So now everyone knows, says Derek, that I'm a filthy rich American who can afford to donate. [insert a nice LOL-ing smiley here]

And that's it.

Can't wait to drag my famous ass to Iowa. Whee. Corn field to the left, corn field to the right... so, dear Des Moines, I'll wipe you off the face of the Earth if you're boring and ugly, ok?