Feeling Guilty, My Boys

After posting pictures of the dogs yesterday, I felt guilty that I haven't even posted pictures of my very own boys that I have at home. They aren't quite as receptive to the whole "camera in the face" as the dogs are.

For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of meeting my boys - Lucky (or Lucka as I usually call him) is the large black cat. Yes, that is a torn ear and yes, he has a shady eyeball. This is what happens when you get your cats from a rescue group. However, I think he is the best looking cat this side of the Atlantic.

Pierre is my skittish pretty boy...hence the French name. Although very affectionate with me, he is not often seen by visitors. Unless he is "hiding" under the bed. As you can see below, his version of hiding is akin to an ostrich sticking his head in the sand. He can't see you but we can see him.

So there they are. I love them to death and would be lost without their everyday companionship while here in Spain!

I'm off to our trip! I'll be posting in a couple weeks about my Eastern European vacation.

California, July 2007

California. Just saying the name makes me happy. I love the weather, I love the ocean, and I love that some of my family is out there. Also, I love that English is commonly spoken (well, in some areas).

When my mom asked me to come out to spend her days off with her, I jumped at the chance. I was ready for a break from Spain and I wanted to put my new camera to use by photographing my most photogenic subjects so far - the bulldogs Daisy and Otis. I literally came home with about 400 pictures of them. Here are some of my favorites:













Aside from following the dogs around, I also managed to do a lot of relaxing and some wedding stuff. Mostly it was just quality time together - which at times meant watching Bridezilla marathons...guilty pleasure. We also had a nightly pastime of watching two spiders spin gigantic webs in her front yard. I like spiders (as long as I don't find them in my bed) so it was fascinating to watch them build these things. I'm certain anyone that witnessed us watching them thought we were a bit nuts, but that's half the fun.

Cassidy also made it out for 3 nights before heading up to San Francisco for work. Most of his time was spent in the sun either swimming, reading, or grilling ( a much missed part of apartment living here in Madrid). Friends of ours happened to be in San Diego from NYC so we were also able to squeeze in some time with them!

At the end of the trip we were convinced that eventually we would like to live in California. Although we think we will be heading back to Chicago to live...our next might be CA...but who knows where life will lead us.

Long time, no blog

I know, I know... I haven't written in a long time. I admit that I am lazy and I haven't wanted to make the creative effort into creating a blog. However, I have been without internet access at home for 5 days.

Here's the thing - Cassidy's company arranges to have our tv, phone, internet bill paid b/c frankly we cannot deal with the Spanish and the speed that they feel is acceptable to complete any sort of transaction. Best to let the Spanish handle their own.

However, for the past 2 months there have been problems. Last month all items were turned off because unbeknownst to us, a bill wasn't paid. Ok, got it sorted out. Well, last week all items were turned off again... and so now here I am, stealing internet from some person in our building who is most likely stealing my information and buying as many things as my credit cards will allow.

Assuming he is still around tomorrow, I am going to write and post pictures from my CA trip.