Time to Be Alone and Reflect (or Daydream)

I've been having a lovely and rare evening of alone time right now, which lends well to introspection. K is in Brazil again, and the two little boys who came from inside my womb have long been asleep. You see, I took them to the new Please Touch Museum this afternoon and they had a great time playing and running around. We ate crackers, apples and cake in the car before starting the drive home and they ended up sleeping on the way, Linton around 6:30 and Kelvin before 7. I thought they would wake up when we got here, but I didn't turn any lights on and held Linton on my lap, bringing him straight to our bed (where I knew he'd sleep without complaining). He asked for water and that was it. Kelvin didn't even wake up when I transfered him from the car to bed.

What luxury... I've already had over two hours of quiet blog reading and facebook surfing (looking at photos of my friend, including some blog friends [thanks Jo(e)!]) and it's just 9:30!! This usually doesn't happen until 11 pm on other days. I talked briefly with K on the phone and although I should be cooking for church potluck tomorrow, I just made a big bowl of popcorn and ate in front of the computer. Next, I want to listen to some music, perhaps look at old photos and, hopefully, find some motivation to write in my journal. What I really need tons of motivation for, though, is to deal with all the leaves in our 0.74 acre yard and cleaning and organizing our basment before the holidays. ;-)

Instead (not that I'd be doing those things right now), I'm daydreaming with a plan that I concocted yesterday, while looking at photos of friends on orkut (the "facebook" of Brazilian folks, there are millions of them in there, and I've been able to find friends from my childhood I hadn't seen in over 25 years. I LOVE the internets!!!). We were planning a good two weeks with family here during the holidays, but as it turns out, my brother- and sister-in-law's greencards finally arrived and they decided to travel to Brazil soon after Christmas. That left us a week wide open and while looking at our friends' photos last night (or on Wed. night, can't remember) I had this sudden idea that we should drive down to Florida for a week to see these dear friends we haven't seen since August 2006!!!! I'm so excited! I wish we had more time because driving will take a full day or maybe more, but I still think it's worth it.

I love these plans that come out of nowhere, like my idea that we should travel to Europe in 2000 (you can read more about these sudden plans, and those that follow in the account of my journey to have a baby [babies] while in grad school) and, most of all, I love to plan future trips because traveling is one of the things I love the most in life. We haven't done any big trips in a while... in 2000 K and I backpacked for a month in Europe, in 2001 we went to London for a week, in 2003, when Kelvin was 13 months, we traveled for 3 weeks with my parents through the southwest/ west, visiting 7 National Parks, then, in 2006 we went to Florida for a couple of weeks. I don't really count the trips to Brazil because they're not nearly as exciting to us since we go every year, or the two quick trips to Nashville in Oct. 06 and April 08 (too short). This trip will be short too, but in the absence of any other ones, it will have to do.

Here are some of the trips that I dream of doing in the future:
- visiting Europe with the boys and/or my parents,
- going to Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary and doing the amazing Jasper-Banff trip to see those amazingly colored glacier lakes.
- going back to Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, and other National parks with the boys
- travel through California, particularly the northern part which we haven't visited yet... San Francisco, Yosemite, etc.
- going to Mexico
- going (preferably multiple times and to multiple countries) to the Caribeean [this, right now, is close to #1 in my list)

Interestingly enough, although I know that we will probably visit my brother in New Zealand, and I kind of wish we could visit my BIL, SIL and new nephew in Turkey, I don't feel these are really places that are high in my priority list. I don't lament at all not having been to China while my brother lived there in the past two years.

All right, this post is getting really long and I have a slight headache, so I will prepare a cup of tea and take a long shower... heavenly, no?

Really... I'm just so elated for this stress free evening! I think I totally deserved it. A friend and mom of one of Kelvin's classmates (ha, and my student) told me they're planning to go to Please Touch on Sunday and I think we'll join them, even though it'll be crowded (I can't stand crowded places and I avoid them like the plague). OK... have a good weekend everyone! (although I think I'm the only person in my blogging acquaintance that spends time on blogs on the weekend ;-)

[and it took me precisely 30 minutes to write his post]