• so in the end
• the relative prices was the clincher

• we can fly to Mexico FREE
• well – using frequent flyer points -

• whereas

• tickets to Australia in the next few months are very expensive
• $2600 US was the cheapest I could find
• so better to save money
• for the bureaucracy trip
• and save for a bigger more family trip HOME
• as soon as possible

• very sad though because I very much want to go home
• however

• AM very excited to be going to
• MEXICO!

• WHEEEE!!!!

• LOTS of rain
• non-stop, for days and days
• and it’s COLD
• well cold for here
• i am thinking about putting socks on!
• tossing up options
• wondering wheter to go, very cheaply and quickly to mexico to get the kids passports renewed
• (there is no australian embassy in costa rica,and kids’ passports require a personal interview)
• for a later trip to australia
• or just go
• more expensively,
• and alone,
• to australia to do it
• hmmm
• i have to work it out, TODAY
• we were going to go to the beach
• this weekend
• but too much rain and the roads are too unstable
• i am planning to do NANOWRIMO this year.
• will put my progress HERE

here is the website:

in other developments

• i am re-reading the Lord of the Rings. Haven’t read it all since i was a child.
• I was in grade 3 when i read the Hobbit. Can’t really remember when I read the rest, but not long after. I remember my secret crush on the geek boy in grade 3 who used to wear a gray cardigan and had already read all the series, and liked mostly to read about dinosaurs.
• I have always been attracted to geeks, strange I never wound up with one.
• Surprised by really how childish LOTR is in terms of character development – minimal, characters basically come in types, and then play true to character. And the innocense of a clear-cut GOOD vs EVIL world.
• But still, the classic of classics, the first, truest and best of its kind. Beautiful in it’s childishness.

• hmmm But I truly miss reading about ships. Next I shall re-read The Bounty. Now I know so much more about the era, and especially SHIPS OF THE LINE of the regency era, and all, I expect to get more out of it – EVEN MORE! – and hopefully to retain some of what I read.
• I have a sieve for a brain, and I appear to be becoming much more stupid with age. 
• I have always deeply disliked talk of aging, find it depressing and defeatist when people start citing aging as an excuse for their peculiarities and frailties. And yet I begin to wonder, with horror, about my possibly aging brain, becoming stupider and stupider by the minute. 
• Perhaps it is working at home for myself that is bad for my self-esteem in a way. I have nobody to prove myself to, so find myself unproved, and unproved, feel useless and hopeless.
• But that sounds like one of my sad excuses for myself really.
• Perhaps it is not afterall becoming stupider, it is realizing I am not, an never was, as smart as I thought.

• I am trying to be less arrogant and big-headed. By even my humility is arrogance. *sigh*
• I still believe a strong self-esteem is the best gift my parents bestowed on me, and the best gift you can give your child. One can never fail: it is rather LIFE that has failed to recognise how fabulous one is.
• But recognise also this has a horrible, obnoxious side.
• I am trying to be less obnoxious.
• oh dear.

• if you can’t be self-indulgent on your own self-indulgency blog, where can you be?
• anyway, I know it’s just me, and my miniscule circle of deeply kind readers.
• who will forgive me