Poor Jessica - She Works For Iberia Airlines!

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Ever fly Iberia Airlines? Me either, but a few days ago I chose Iberia to book flights from Rome to Madrid and Madrid to Marrakech, both flights in one day. Since it was going to be a long day, and we were getting into Marrakech kind of late, I paid about $300 extra to have both flights non-stop. Less than 24 hours later I got an email saying that my flights had been changed. We were now on a flight from Madrid that had a lay-over in Casablanca, and then went on the Marrakech, which put us landing a little after midnight. It's not that big a deal really, except that I had paid extra money to have an easier trip. It felt like I'd just had 300 bucks stolen from my wallet.

I just got off the phone with a very nice girl named Jessica, who works for Customer Service at Iberia. She, of course, can't refund my 300 bucks. She offered to cancel my flight and let me start all over again. She offered to change my flight to a different day. She did what she could, but of course Jessica wasn't able to say 'Yes' to what I wanted.  So I did what I always do - I asked her to put me in touch with the person who could say yes. She put me on hold for

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The Loire Valley, Volcanos, And Bilbo's Pony

Last week we had friends from Scotland coming for a visit. At the last minute they had to postpone due to Volcanic Activity. Isn't that awesome!! Not that our friends couldn't come of course, but that they couldn't come due to a spewing volcano!!! My heart goes out to all the people who had plans gone wrong, but really - Mother Nature managed to disrupt quite a lot of the world there for a while, and I can't help it. I think that's kinda cool.

But of course we were disappointed. Well - actually the kids were shattered. So on Monday morning I decided that a roadtrip was in order.  We were on our way to the Loire Valley by noon. Booking.com rules for finding last-minute hotels in Europe!

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Pic For The Day - Street Guitarist in Uzes

I'm learning that around here, the most economical, and by far the most fun, way to shop is the weekly markets. At home in Los Angeles we went to our local Farmers Markets regularly, even though the price of the produce often took my breath away. I had to choose carefully, and hold my breath while I cooked my small, precious ration of organic greens.

Here it's the opposite. The grocery cost a fortune. The freshest and cheapest way to go is to memorize the schedule of your favorite

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Party In The Bathroom!

The day that I finally let go of the expectation that either of my children would ever manage to hang up a towel instead of wadding it up was a good day. It was a good day, because from then on, I wasn't so pissed. The day that I stopped hoping my kids would someday genuinely enjoy fish of any kind that wasn't stick-shaped was a relief. They didn't have to like it. I could still cook it and enjoy it, blissful in my lack of hope that my children would be anything other than devastated by dinner that evening. Letting go of unrealistic expectations is an essential part of mothering, in my opinion.

Still - this morning when I plugged my hairdryer in, and found it was smeared with dried toothpaste, I was annoyed. How did DRIED TOOTHPASTE get on my hairdryer!? While it was underneath the counter!?

Dried toothpaste was also - of course - all over everything else. I choose not to imagine. I took the picture before I called the kids up to scrub the mess. You see the pink stuff beside the hairdryer? That's mouthwash. Somebody had a hum-dinger with the dental hygiene this morning! Sigh...

The Webby Awards

Have you heard of the Webby Awards?

The leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, On-line Film and Video. In it's 13th year, the Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy Of Digital Arts & Sciences.

The New York Times called the Webbys: "The Internet's Highest Honor"

The Wall Street Journal says they: '“Celebrate sites that pave important paths to the Internet's next phase.”

The Webbys is seriously cool. It covers the whole of the internet, and is judged by complete studs. One of their (more minor) categories is Personal Websites. They announced their nominations for this year yesterday, and we are an Official Honoree for 2010 in that category, which means we didn't get a nomination, but they liked us enough to mention us. 

Go check out the Webby Awards. It's a quick fix on the best of the web right now. Rock The Vote was a winner last year. TED, and Club Penguin too. Last year's Personal Blog Winner was a delightful blog called 1000 Awesome Things, which I fell in love with from the first page.

I'm proud of us.