I believe that I have finally gotten around to figuring out what was happening to my archived blog entries. I still have no idea where my comments have decided to go.

Let's see...in the past month since I've bothered to write anything this has happened:
*I had a birthday
*My new niece, Lilly Sarah, was born
*We winterized the pool
*My Mom came for a quick visit
*We did not paint any room in the house
*We met my uncle Buford for lunch and then went shopping (without Buford)
*I got a replacement dining room table after my first one had rust spots.
*We didn't have to pay for the replacement
*I realized that I have read too many Japanese fiction books lately and I can't keep the protagonists straight anymore.
*Martin went to Houston and got stuck for an extra night
*We went to Daytona Beach/Orlando for ERAU's homecoming (I had to fly through Charlotte)
*We got our poster of the Chateau Frontenac framed
*Martin had a flat tire
* I saw "Into the Wild" with Juuitsu Watanabe
*I like the music by Eddie Vedder
*We saw it at the extremely cool Catlow theatre in Barrington
*I am currently making Holiday cards
*Martin bought me a Chumby
*Its name is Thumby
*Have finished with Season 2 of "The Sopranos"

The car search that I have rarely talked about seems to be winding down. I had four cars in my narrowed-down second round:
Mazda 3 hatchback
Pontiac Vibe
Honda Fit
Ford Focus
I want to buy all four. The Mazda3 was my ideal until I realized it got the worst gas mileage of the four. another problem with every car I've looked at is the limited colors. The most exciting is red in most cases. We have looked at entire lots of gray and silver cars. I really liked some of the Ford colors until I realized that the Focus is not being made as a hatchback after this year so new options in color are not even available.
It has been fun seeing the car salesmen try to sell me on a car and not Martin. They always want to talk to the man about torque and crank shafts or whatever. I am really looking for a car that has the reliability of my Toyota; basically something that never needs the hood up on the side of the road. And it has to look fun too.

Planning our next international trip is underway. Nowhere new really, but always exciting! See if you can guess by the comments that I came across while researching hotels:

"So, if you don't like to be touched by strangers, this is not the place for you!" (referencing the dining hall at a kibbutz resort)

"If you expect a breakfast with real meat forget it! It is Kosher all the way, with fish the only meat served."

Now, I don't know about you but I never had a big meaty steak for breakfast except after a long night of drinking and we wound up at the Waffle House at 2AM. I have firm belief that Israeli breakfasts are the best in the world.