Long-Winded Update Post

So, I thought I’d do a li’l update on my latest happenings, since it’s been a while since I posted. Yeesh, where to start? Ok, I’ll go back to this post. I signed up for the NanoWriMo contest where I had to write a 50,000 novella in 1 month. Well, after starting over a week late, and being on a cruise for a week, suffices to say I did not complete the task. My final word count was 3,662 – go me. I was a li’l bummed at first. I try to be the type that once I commit to a task, I get it done… but, I knew going into it that it was only a ‘maybe’ sorta thing. Oh well. PLUS, I found out that if you completed the 50,000 words in 30 days, that all you got was a blank certificate (that you can fill in your own… or anyone elses, for that matter… name). That’s what kinda drew the line for me I guess. If there had been a less generic ‘prize’ for completing such a daunting task, maybe I would have made more of an effort… who knows??

Next topic: My cruise. Overall, it was a good time. Overall. I mean, it was 7 days of vacation, away from work and everything related to it, so it would be a li’l difficult to complain about that. We were supposed to go to Key West, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. Sunday and Monday we were at sea. By Tuesday morning, I was about ready to put my feet on some dry land. The Megan can only put up with so much of the constant swaying of the ground beneath her. It was seriously like I was walking around drunk 24/7, except that I was sober. Sooooo… about an hour before we were supposed to dock in Key West, the captain came on and said that due to the weather, we would not be able to go into port.
Sooo… nix Key West. Good times, good times. No huge deal, I guess. I mean, the whole point of us booking this particular cruise was that my dad really wanted to go to Key West, but oh well. Plus, there were lots of things to do on the boat, such as: shows, gambling, food, classes, auctions, food, a dance club, a gym, food, big screen televisions, several bars, pools, and hot tubs… and oh, did I mention the food? You could seriously eat 24/7 if you wanted to. There was food available ALL THE TIME… and… it was all free!! Well, minus the price of the ticket onto the boat, LOL. I think that was the first time in my life that I ate 3 full meals every day for 7 straight days. We did the buffet breakfast and lunch every day, and did dinner in the formal dining room every night. That was fun. We got to dress up every night, and there were 2 formal nights, so everyone looked really fancy for those. I know, I’m totally getting off track here. Ok, back to the day to day play by play. So, instead of spending Tuesday in Key West, we got to spend it on the boat. Same thing all day Wednesday. We arrived at Grand Cayman sometime Thursday afternoon. Once again, el Capitan comes over the loudspeaker. If he said we were missing Grand Cayman too, I seriously might have had to find the ‘captains quarters’ and give him a li’l piece of my miiiiind. But, he didn’t. He did say that due to inclement weather (as in ‘rockiness of the waves’ not ‘pleasantness of the atmosphere’), we were going to have to tender onto the island. There’s a new word I got to learn. Tendering. Good……... Times. I don’t know how to express sarcasm here, so I will just say it… tendering is NOT good times. What we did was (instead of actually pulling into port and docking the boat, and everyone walking right off it), they sent the boat over the other ‘calmer’ side of the island, parked it in the middle of the ocean, and little boats came and picked us up to take us to land. There were over 3,000 people on board. I think the boats held maybe 200 each. And they were only working with 2 boats. And there was only one door off the boat. So… it wound up taking about 2 hours from the time we got our tender tickets, to actually getting on a boat and getting to shore. I think we were given 8 hours before we had to be back on the boat. So, 2 of those have already been wasted ‘waiting’… so 6 hours left.We signed up for a ‘Pirate Island Excursion’… aye maytee, that’s what we did, arrrrghhh… which we had to wait almost another hour for before the bus showed up to take us to that… oh well, they had a nice emergency water station in case anyone started to overheat. The tour was actually pretty interesting. Our caravan was pretty much a jeep wrangler hauling a 30 foot ‘pirate ship’ shaped bus behind it. The one downfall was that at the very beginning of the tour, we had a downpour for about 20 minutes. My brother and I were sitting in the very first row, so we got completely drenched. Whatever, it wasn’t like we had anywhere special to go anytime soon anyway. But, we got to check out a lot of the island, and learn a lot of interesting stuff about pirates and stuff. There was still a lot of devastation on the edge of the island from a hurricane last year (forgot the name, maybe… Wilma?). After the excursion was over, we only had about an hour before we had to be back at the dock to get back on the tender boats. So we did a very short amount of shopping (I got some Tortuga Coconut and Banana rum, which is supposed to be really good, and which is not exported off the island, a shot glass from Hard Rock, and a charm for my charm bracelet). We get back to the dock, to find a line sprawling up and down and all around the boat, waiting to get on. We waited about an hour before we were able to get on. Found out while were were in line that a woman had died of heat stroke waiting out there the day before… niiiice. The weather was really nice while were were there though (sans the torrential rainstorm). So, finally, we were back on the boat. Friday was Cozumel. I had been there before, but was still excited about seeing it again. We got there Friday morning… to find out we’d have to tender in there too. Luckily, this time larger tender boat had been hired that could carry around 500 people at a time. So it didn’t take nearly as long to get on land. We had 8 hours before we had to be back on the boat.We did another excursion in Cozumel, which was really fun (my favorite part of the cruise). First we went snorkeling for about an hour, which was fun. Then we rented these doonbuggy type things and toured the whole island. Finally, we stopped at the beach for an authentic Mexican feast under beach umbrellas. Once again, we had about an hour before we had to be back to the boat, so we did a li’l more shopping before heading back. I got another shot glass from Hard Rock. The tender back only took about 30 minutes, so it wasn’t too bad. Plus, the couple standing behind us was the same couple who competed in a “Newlyweds” type game that we had gone to the night before, so we had a lot to talk to them about. Saturday we were at sea all day, and we got back to Galveston Sunday morning. All in all, it was a good trip. Not nearly as fun as the cruise I took two years ago, but I guess nothing ever compares to your first time… hee hee hee. I seriously fell flat on my face Monday morning when I was getting out of bed. That was the first time I’d gotten out of bed onto solid ground in 7 days, and I guess my body got TOO used to the rocking boat, and didn’t know didn’t know what to do w/ this non-moving surface beneath it.

Latest happenings: Wend to a HH last Thursday at Champs with some co-workers, got my Christmas decorations put last weekend (yea me!), went to a Progressive Dinner with my church on Saturday, had an eye appt. on Tuesday (FINALLY got some new contacts) and went to another HH on Tuesday night at Cool River with (again) some co-workers. Had a blast Tuesday. That’s the first time I’ve been to Cool River when they were in ‘restaurant mode’, so it was quite a different atmosphere. Our group was in the back though, so we didn’t feel too bad about gettin’ a li’l rowdy. Last night I went to see Just Friends with my mom (REALLY dumb, but KINDA funny), and went to PF Chang's for dinner afterward. I’m supposed to be going to Cowboys Red River tomorrow night w/ some friends, but I’m gonna play that one by ear because of the icky weather… we’ll see. As Timmy would say… nothing is certain. =)

I really want to plan a Christmas party sometime this month… or, rather, a small get together in honor of the festive holiday season. Just the li’l core group (you know who you are) over at my house for fun and festivities. Y’all let me know when would work for you, and I’ll go from there, ok?? OK!!

Today has been pretty slow. I'm really hoping they will close the office early on account of the weather, but looking out the window, I'm highly doubting that's gonna happen.... oh well... =(



PS sorry for no “Wednesday’s Random Poll” again this week, I know y’all are heartbroken ha ha. I’ll have something super good planned for next week.

Until then, The Megan… Out.