Home again, home again. 1 and 1/2 months, 6 weeks, or 41 days in sunny Albany. Now I'm back to snow,and a low of -13c. Still not too bad considering that it's February.

My trip home went pretty smoothly. Shawn, Tam (Dor and Amos camped out at Manda's) and I took off for the Montreal airport at the energetic time of 2am. Thankfully we managed not to be killed by the crazy Montreal drivers, phew, the way they drive makes every second include a "that was a close one". On my first flight I was pinned to the window of my window seat thanks to two French business guys with broad elbows. Needless to say, wasn't quite enough room to comfortably take a nap, but I was able to watch some Olympic Hockey and flip through various pointless channels whenever the guy took his elbow off of my controls long enough for me to make the switch. For the first two flights I took a nasty decongestant, the means to the end of preserving my hearing (yeah, I'm sick). But alas, by my third landing (they threw in a stop in Kelowna just to make my day) not much was helping my ears. By the time I landed in Vancouver my one ear was in a fish bowl and unwilling to clear. It did however clear that night when I was sleeping, and yes I was very thankful. On another traveling note, is it just me..or does it happen to anyone else that when traveling, whenever you put off getting food for the next stop you can't find any food? Pretty much all the next stop affords are chips, chocolate bars, and stale muffins at highly inflated prices, when the prior connections had 50 places to eat at. Okay, enough ranting. :)

So yeah, I'm back and totally wiped out from my cold, but I will recover all in time. My most profound pity goes out to everyone (especially little Mr. Amos) who has this cold and to everyone who will get it. Seems like quite a few people here are still recovering from the nagging cough that took on the titles of Bronchitis and Pneumonia, so I'm already feeling guilty because of the likelihood that I've come back just in time to share this latest treasure.

I've done a little sewing since I got home, but I forgot my notebook in Albany that had the list of questions and such that I need to answer on the Canadian side for our business, eh heh. So need to get Tam to send me the pages or something like that.

As for my actual visit too Albany, a lot of it (the details lot) has already turned into fog, so I'll simply touch on the highlight of how wonderful it was to be there with my sisters, brothers, brethren, nephews, niece and that we were around Amos long enough that he allowed us to hold him for long periods of time. :D Got to hang out, veg, listen to Lemony Snicket audio books, and work. I think all and all it was a pretty profitable visit.

Well before I make this so long that it's daunting to read, I'll sign off. :)

Hope ya'll have a great Lord's day.

Jode

Here I am, posting to you from Manda's :) As you may have noticed, I've removed some dead blog links, if you believe any have been removed in error, please feel free to let me know. :D

So yeah, here I am. :D Staying the night and returning to Tam and Shawn's tomorrow. Gonna go do some fun things, like..quilt, and watch a movie, and talk, and eat Jolly Ranchers while drinking Earl Grey tea(that is now nearing the tempture of lukewarm bath water). :D

Tam and I have been sewing up a storm over the last couple of days. Working on a pile of baby dresses to sell on Ebay (DV). We thought Ebay would be a good way to test out the interest before we get a site hooked up and all that jazz (I'll see what I can do for posting pictures. Maybe Em will consent to be our beautiful little model and Manda our photographer, eh Manda, what do ya say? :D Other than that, we've gone to see a business couselor, and our appointment went really well. They're doing some research for us on what we need to have in order to sell textiles. We've already learned most of what we need to know (or at least a good start of it) about getting our LLC, permits, taxes, trademarks, and regulations. I still need to look into the Canadian side of things, but so far it seems ( I hope, I hope ) to be a pretty smooth process.

In other news, we're really looking forward to the arrival of our dearest Dor and Amos, who will hang out with us for days and days, and we'll all four of us be able to veg to the drama of Our Mutual Friend. Still missing B though, just another sign that we aren't living in a perfect world. :)

Well, off to quilting, talking, and my cold tea, just thought I'd stop for a minute to drop a note. If nothing else, it'll be a good record for myself in a few years when I look back and try to remember how on earth I spent my time in Albany.

Chow,

Jode