Thursday, August 28, 2008

What have I been doing for the last month?

Well, over a month now. For goodness sake, I can't believe it's been so long. Here's a bit of an update on what's been happening:
1. We spent our one week vacation in Portland. It was fun and relaxing. We stayed at our second McMennamin's hotel, the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. It did not have private bathrooms and we were very surprised to find that the shared baths were all single full baths. We were expecting dorm style shower rooms. We also went on a dinner cruise with our friend AMG, heard a free concert in Pioneer Courthouse Square - The Dimes, a Portland band was really good.
2. Two days after we came home from Portland, I developed a respiratory infection that I may have caught from AMG's husband... :o( I had a fever of 102 and took antibiotics for 10 days. The respiratory infection then set off my asthma which is normally almost non-existent. It was definitely not a good time to be sick from work because several of my coworkers were at a big conference in Washington D.C. and I was scheduled to work Mon-Fri. I wound up working just Tues and Wed. I think it was a good 3 weeks before I was fully well again.
3. I've been doing work helping plan our local American Diabetes Association fund-raiser walk in October. It's just around the corner, so it's time to really knuckle down and do some work. So I've been spending some of my days off making phone calls and running errands.
4. We've been nailing down all our plans for the Sydney trip - we've got our passports and travel authorities, hotel reservations, flights, itinerary is set. I can't believe it's just over 3 weeks away now.
5. I recorded most of the Olympics on NBC and watched a lot of it. I still haven't finished it all off - I've got about 2 days of events left to watch!
6. I found a cookbook on sale at the supermarket that intrigued me. It's all low cal/low fat recipes and I've been trying to replace some of my high fat indulgences with these recipes. I'll have to write more about that in another post.
7. And yes, I must admit, I've still been playing Packrat on Facebook a bit more than I'd like to admit.

10 comments:

Rachel said...

You sound like you've been really busy. It seems you and Dennis are always going on vacations, how many weeks a year do you guys get? (Is that rude to ask? I don't mean for it to be, I'm just curious. I think it's GREAT that you guys are so young and get to travel so much!)We're trying to decide what to do for vacation next summer...Yellowstone or The Outer Banks. We usually go to Florida every winter in February, but our other vacation time we don't really go away. Dave gets 3 weeks a year. I'm only part time, but I get 2 weeks a year (which for me is 4 days).

Tracy said...

Rachel, your comment made me laugh because I don't think that Denis and I are so young... D is 55 and I'm 41, so I'm not sure if you had forgotten that we got married at an older than average age or if you were thinking compared to retirement age. Not really that far off for Denis. :o)
But, well, we get our time off as combined sick and vacation, so they less days missed for illness, the more available for vacation. I think we average two vacations a year; a 1 week and a 2 week.
Some of our short trips are aided by the fact that I only work 3 days a week, so I can take a long weekend without taking any vacation time. And then some of our travels are work-related, attending conferences. Now that Denis is working only on-call, he has no vacation time, but can take as much as he wants - without pay. It will be a new factor for us to work in to the equation. :o)

Priscilla said...

Hey. I've been wondering where you've been on Blogger. Glad to hear you are better physically. glad that didn't happen when you planned to d=go to Sydney.

I won't let myself play Packrat anymore.

Martha said...

I thought after my Facebook comment, I'd better stop by and see if you had posted. :)

You have been busy and that is a good thing. Being sick is not, but somehow God still works it out to the good somehow. He's just like that. I am looking forward to hearing about your trip to Sydney and seeing some pictures. Maybe next year we can have a big blogger campout somewhere...

Tracy said...

Martha, that would be so cool. I'm hoping that next summer we will go to Ohio for my nieces graduation. I'm not sure how far it is to drive from Western Ohio to Northern NY state...

Rachel said...

Ohio isn't that far at all! We should get together somewhere for dinner or something...right Martha and Priscilla?!

T said...

hey there! you finally posted! and I actually have the Dimes on a cd. Darren worked with the lead singer on a job...
mmmmm camp out sounds like a blast. next summer we will be in SD for a week.

joeks said...

Glad you're back (on blogger) and healthy!

I watched as much of the gymnastics competitions in the Olympics as I could, and then just whatever else I happened to catch.

Wow-just three weeks until Australia! We'll be looking forward to hearing all about it.

Hmmm... Oregon, South Dakota, Kansas, Ohio, New York.... Sounds like a job for Mapquest!

Heather said...

Hi Tracy!!! I'm so glad to hear what you have been up to. Sorry you were so sick for three weeks, though. I am so excited that your trip is so close and I can't wait to see pictures and hear all about it.

By the way, I think you are very young:) We are the same age.

Kim said...

I'm glad you are well now. I hope you have an awesome time in Australia; it won't be long now. Don't forget the sunscreen!