Best Halloween Costume

Yes, he goes there, keep watching.



I mean, who can compete with that?

Guide books

This kind of a trip is exactly the kind of thing that is going to keep my typing like mad on this blog, so come back every so often if you're interested in how things progress. We have a lot of planning to do of course, from packing lists to itineraries to figuring out what stuff to keep and where to keep it while we are gone and how we are going to do our taxes from Honduras and so on. (Since I am a money nerd, I just spent an hour calculating the difference between storing our stuff in DC compared to storing it in Vegas or just selling all the furniture on Craigslist, and still haven't made a decision.) And heck, this is me and David we are talking about here, so it is always possible that one of the jobs I applied for already is going to call and make an offer I can't refuse which could completely change our plans around again. But hey, it is all part of the ride with us. We might change our minds a lot, but we tend to go full steam ahead with whichever plan we're working on at the time. Sucking the marrow and all that.

Anyway, on Sunday when we made the decision, we got on Amazon and ordered the Lonely Planet Guide to the Yucatan, and The Rough Guide's Central America On A Budget. (We had a huge sack of coins, and at the Coinstar machine if you get your money back as a gift certificate, you don't have to pay the 9% fee. So hello $160 Amazon gift card, which since change is virtually useless by itself was practically free!) To my surprise they just arrived, so Amazon is on my happy list for promptness. Fun reading in store!

The Announcement

So you know how David and I live a rather unconventional life? Like how we move across the country every few years? We've certainly made no secret of our goal to one day live in Hawaii and Australia. And, while we have loved, nay, LOVED our time here in Washington DC, after 2 1/2 years we've decided it is time to move on, to get back to some warmer climates and, ideally, to be closer to the nieces and nephews that are growing up way too fast without us. So we put in our notice at work and started looking for work back on the West Coast.

Then a funny thing happened. Well, first a not funny thing happened, actually, two not funny things happened, but then a very funny and wonderful thing happened. (Holy crap I am a Steve Martin nerd, I bet 99% of you have never even heard of that movie, but I can't resist an opportunity to make David giggle. NOTE: if you want to make David giggle, quote "Mixed Nuts". It works every time.) My job search was progressing much slower than anticipated, but optimists that we are we decided to go with it. Which of course required a Facebook status update: "So we are moving. Like to California. Or maybe Vegas. Or possibly Phoenix. If all else fails, learning spanish in Guatemala sounds nice." For you literary types, that's called foreshadowing.

I've been telling people at work, and the super rad nurse recruiter who brought me here to Georgetown personally got me on the phone with another recruiter from LA, who, though quite friendly and supportive, said point blank, "Do not move here without a job lined up. It is that bad right now." Normally I don't listen to advice like that, because I have angels who watch over me that do things like find me sweet apartments and get me great jobs and all sorts of meddling things to make my life enviously awesome. Yesterday I was talking to one of my bosses who revealed just how well she knows me. Claire had been talking to my other boss, who was hoping that because of the bad job market I might change my mind and stay here longer. Claire just smiled and said "I don't think so, if nothing else he will just do something crazy."

Crazy depends on your point of view, but David and I have decided to take our own partly subconscious advice and do something we've actually been throwing around for the last ten years since I got home from my backpacking trip to Asia. We're gonna take six months (or so) and go backpacking through Central America. Boo-yah!

FOX's Shep Smith Outraged By Bacon Cheese Doughnut Burger

Not everyone on Fox is wrong. LOL