catching up

I'm home from vacation!

I went to Italy for just about two weeks with my three younger brothers and my dad. It was pretty instense. We saw amazing art, buildings and mountains. We played cards and shopped at fancy stores. I bought some watercolors in Venice, where my dad lost all of our passports. That was the biggest non-fun part of the trip (there were a few). We had to go to the police station for awhile, I took a lovely nap there, for my dad to fill out a report. The two older boys, Fro and Ryan, and I were pretty pissed so dad bought us a bottle of wine with diner that night. We ended up having to go to the embassy in Milan and got five new passports for the price of $600 with a bonus 4 AM call to my mother since Mikey is under 18.

Anway, we had a good time. We got lost every day but the last day, and that day we were running so late we thought we would miss the plane home. Driving in Italy is crazy. Street signs are very hard to see from the road and from what I can tell the drivers think that those lines on the pavement mean nothing.

The best part of the trip for me, (other than all that mushy getting to know my brothers as people kind of stuff) was that I had some big moments of inspiration and got some writing done. The trip also gave me a few more stories ideas so we'll hope that I follow through with them.

Now I'm home and trying to get back into the swing of work and home. I took this morning off of work because my throat feels so gross and nasty. Yesterday I sat myself at the computer and made myself type all of the notes and additions I wrote on the trip to the piece that I'm working on. Well almost all of them, just about done.

I got an email from a grad school in MN that I applied to about extending my application for their second semester acceptance. I hadn't really planned on moving from where I am, but more and more I think that it might be good for me. I'm sending in the paperwork they need so I guess we'll just have to see.