Ireland and Egypt, Oh My

It's a day for dreaming. Fog is thick and heavy outside, muffling everyday traffic sounds and enhancing the air with a weird mystical feeling that I adore (even though I know it's currently hell in traffic).

After much discussion, it's tentatively decided that yes, if we can afford it (ie, if I get a job and/or sell a book) I should go with Aliyah and others in my bellydance group to Egypt for a week of workshops in Giza in 2012. The prospect of bellydancing IN EGYPT is both thrilling and terrifying: after all, usually I consider myself a lower-level dancer than I actually am. But it would undoubtedly be the experience of a lifetime, and while Egypt and the pyramids is on hubby's list of places to see, it's low enough on the list for him that he encourages me to go with the girls and we can go together later.

In other travel news, should I get this job I've been interviewing for this spring (final interview and decision pending) we've decided NOT to wait until our 10 year for Ireland: we'll go next year dammit! I feel like my travel bug has been stifled for the past ten years: ever since the first timeI went to Ireland I've wanted to go back, but while we were able to save up for Florida a few times and went to Mexico once, we've been unable to do those and save for a big trip. I know: we could've foregone the more inexpensive trips and just saved for a couple of years, but the simple fact is we live in Minnesota: the frozen circle of hell in January. The need to escape for a week and recharge is overpowering soemtimes, and unfortunately due to our own stupidity with credit cards (lesson learned!) and various periods of unemployment we just didn't have the funds to save for a $5k trip.

We do now, and if I get a job we can KEEP those funds in the bank instead of using them while I'm unemployed. I'm looking at this is my incentive to get a job...right now I still really am not ready to go back, but if fate gives me the opportunity I suppose I should take it and plan to reap other rewards. So I used the first part of my time off to get myself mentally and spiritually recharged, and I'll use what time I have left to establish a writing schedule. That way even if I'm working full time I can finish the books in queue, and still someday I may be able to quit working in corporate america all together.