"I am slowly going crazy...1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6 SWITCH

Sharon, Lois and Bram's ---OMG--THE ELEPHANT SHOW!!!!!! (Hope the link showed up...) If anybody gets this, it'll be Meredith and possibly John.....love you guys...xxoo

"It's 4:03 and I can't sleep..."

It's actually 5:06, but I've been awake for hours. These last ten days or so, I go to bed exhausted and sleep until 11 or 12, then it's been toss and turn for the rest of the night. Once my head starts going, I can't shut it off, thinking about the trip, and things to do before I go. This morning, I couldn't get the ideas of my mini voice recorder and Picasa out of my head, so I finally decided to get up and do something. Spent the last 90 minutes reading the recorder instructions and trying to make it work. Dennis got it for me for Christmas a few years ago, and it's been sitting in my drawer because all the options frustrated me and I didn't take the time to learn how to use it. Last time I checked, it worked fine, but this morning, it won't do anything. I put brand new batteries in, read the reset instructions and it seemed dead. I left it sitting while I tried to look up trouble shooting on line, and a few minutes later, I glanced over and the little red record light was on. But it still wouldn't do anything. I think it may be because I left the old batteries in too long from the last time. They weren't leaking or anything, tho, so I don't get why it doesn't work. Figures. I wanted to learn it now, and take it with us so I could record while we were out with our guides. I guess I'll have to either go without it or get another one. Shit.
Yesterday, I found out that internet use in South Africa can get a little pricey, so my blogging may not be exactly what I was hoping. Which led me to my other bouncing brain activity this morning---getting my friends and family on Picasa, so they could look at my web album. That 's my next project and hopefully it won't be too complicated. It's all this little last minute stuff that keeps popping into my head that's been making me crazier than I already am. I hope once we get over there, my brain slows down a bit. I'll probably crash and sleep for 2 days while everyone else is out on game drives.
Going to try and get a few more zzzz's now, before it starts getting light.

Heads Up Warnings

Hi to anyone who received my message today about my new email address and blog! Keep in mind that when I write I try to keep as true to my own voice as possible. So if you tend to be offended at occasional --or frequent--colorful language, consider yourself forewarned--there will be obscenities peppered throughout the entries.
That's it for now...

Monday, 9/20 6am

Less than two weeks to go. I'm up early-as usual these days. Having trouble sleeping with so much on my mind and all the excitement of getting ready to go. One of the issues has been cursing myself daily, as I knew I would, that I didn't spend more time learning about our cameras. My husband is a "learn on the fly" guy, as he said yesterday, but I can see us out in the bush, trying to capture lion cubs on video, and him going-"DEN! How do you do this???!!!!!" I feel like I'm back in school cramming at the last minute for an exam. No wonder I wasn't a good student.

In addition, this laptop has been giving me problems. Now it's a matter of figuring it out myself. I don't want to have anything to do with calling Dell. I got frustrated last night after a few hours and just shut it off, but I'm beginning to suspect that it's this new Windows 7 and Internet Explorer, rather than Dell. My husband has neither of those on his netbook, and the old dinosaur upstairs definitely doesn't have them. Neither the netbook or old Dino have the issues this has. I don't need to be spending hours figuring this out right now. If I can't get it, it's going to have to wait until we get back.

I'm so nuts-getting back is a worry. Not the idea of coming home-I don't really have any worries about that-it's all the shit I'm going to have to catch up with once this trip is done...bills and changing closets to winter clothes-my two most dreaded things to do. I'd better learn to relax and live in the day I'm in at the moment or I'm gonna drive myself---and my poor husband---out of our minds...

6:21....time to start my day!

Spinning

Two weeks from tonight we'll pack the last of what we're bringing with us to the other side of this planet. Is it the other side? I don't know-I was never good in geography. Today, I doubt I could even point to Colorado on a blank map. I'm lucky I know where my own little state of Connecticut is. But no matter, I don't need to get us there, only to get through the fifteen hour flight and seven hour time difference. It's surreal, thinking that we're actually taking this trip. I've been buzzing day and night-physically and mentally-I can't relax. Last night I barely got four and a half hours of sleep. I'm hoping once everything is done--or at least once we get there and I adjust as much as will be possible in a new, strange, foreign country, that I will finally be able to get a decent night's sleep. We'll see.
My elephants. That's what I'm most looking forward to seeing. I call them mine-I don't know why. I have a special affinity for those beautiful, peaceful pachyderms. I don't know when it was or why that I developed the fascination, compassion and yes, love, that I feel for them. I can't explain it. But when the opportunity presented itself for us to see them up close and personal, in their natural habitat, we couldn't pass it up. It's something I never thought I'd be doing and it's so far out of the realm of our norm that I wonder if it's something I'll ever want to do again, once we're back on US soil. I hope so.

I'm Back

September 16, 2010
After months of frustration with Dell and ultimately contacting a big cheese at the headquarters in Texas, I have my third and hopefully, last laptop. At almost a month, this one seems to be working well and so far I haven't had any issues. I can't believe that my last post was in April... my favorite season, summer, is fading fast, and my countdown to days to South Africa has dwindled to a mere 15. It's been so long since I've been here that my elephant photo has disappeared off this page. That alone will take me another week to figure out how to fix, but in addition, Twitter stuff keeps popping up and I don't remember my password or how to stop the pop. One who knows might ask why it was that I didn't use my old desktop computer to fill in here while Dell From Hell was doing their best to rip me off. The answer is I don't know. The usual. Lazy. Fear. Lack of confidence. But I am going to South Africa in two weeks. From the start, it was my plan to use this--or another- blog to keep track of our adventure, post pictures, and make memories for myself and Dennis. If someone happens to stumble across it in the meantime and wants to follow along-that'd be great too. Don't know if any followers are still around--all FOUR of them, but who can follow when there's nothing to read. So as of tonight, I am making a promise to myself to keep track of the last days of the countdown, and the adventure thereafter. I'll need this time to practice and brush up on how this thing works.
Feels good to be here.

Needing to re-think my goals

It's been almost two weeks since I've been here and more and more frequently I'm making excuses or commenting on the amount of time I've taken between posts. Even though I was down with some viral thing for almost a week, I was home from work and felt good enough to watch TV or check my e-mail. I should have been good enough to keep up with my posts. After catching up a bit today on Google Reader, looking at what others are doing, I've begun to re-evaluate my blog. I thought about dropping it entirely, but doing that will really make me feel like crap about myself and I feel bad enough already. I started this with so much steam, exhuberance and committment, and as most things I attempt, it's fizzled out to about nothing. I'm discouraged. In the beginning I thought I would write about writing, but that's not working well. I don't know enough about writing. Duh. Clue--Fledgling Author?? Today I concluded that I have no idea what I should be writing about. While perusing Karen Winters Schwartz "Maraschino Cherries" blog site and some of the blogs she follows, I took a peek at "Jeannie's Ramblings" which, at a glance, appears to be just that-ramblings about anything and everything. She gives book reviews, talks about the weather, and had a post about a mouse in her house. Different, quirky stuff. My stuff is boring. Should I write about an events in my life during my week? I could, but who the hell will care? I was up at four o'clock this morning, listening to some poor little animal struggle and fight for its life for over thirty minutes. It broke my heart and I wanted to run out into the woods to save it. But what is that? An emotional reaction from a tree hugger who has trouble dealing with nature's survival of the fittist. A nut. I don't know that that would hold my interest if I were someone else reading it.
It stinks when you're almost fifty four years old and have no idea where you're going.