We have a vacation house! My sister called tonight and told me that her travel agent friend had found a place in Colorado that was unpredictably perfect for our needs. "Unpredictably" because the demands from the various elements in the family were so different. But we have woods for the woodsy folk and shopping for the shopaholics, all within easy reach. It's at the base of the Rockies, outside Estes Park, with five bedrooms and four baths. Wow.

With thirteen people sleeping inside and four more in their RV outside, it's going to be a great week. Most of us last saw each other three years ago, and it will likely be at least that long again, so it's good we have a place where there's room for that many people to get together and yet have space enough not to step on one another.

Most importantly, there's a pool table and a hot tub.

I'm going to have to acquire a digital camera some time before June. It's something I've wanted, and now that my advanced Web design class is just a month from starting, I want to be able to enhance the site with a few more photographs. I started bunt sign because I thought it would be fun, the writing and the coding and having a few close family and friends bookmark me and look in once in a while. I never thought I'd have many readers outside the small circle of people I told about the site (or that I'd care, one way or the other). I'm grateful to Saundra, who has linked to these pages in my early days on the Web. It's been fun so far, and I plan to stay around awhile. I think I've found my medium, but I'm still searching for my voice.

Another thing I didn't expect was to write meta entries like this. But on days like today, the act of writing is the highlight, even when nothing that's happened throughout the rest of the day warrants recounting in a public forum.

I can tell it's been an intense day when the clock strikes six in the evening and I haven't yet read any of the journals I visit daily. I logged on once this morning to check email, but the bulk of the day was spent pushing papers, mostly writing checks that had to go out today. I was watching the sky all day as it grew darker and more threatening. I was sure I wouldn't get everything done in time to get everything into the mailbox and get back before the rain started. It was close, but I made it, just in time. I usually find something to do on a Friday night, but tonight all I wanted to do was lie on the couch with a package of frozen peas pressed into my back.

There are advantages to staying home on a Friday night. For one thing, I can pour myself a glass of wine and ramble in my journal. And I can listen to the doo-wop show on the local public radio station (KRCB-FM, to be specific). It's actually all fifties music, from early Elvis and the Clovers to the Coasters and Lloyd Price. I even heard Tony Bennett singing "May I Never." But I do love the doo-wop, and that good old New Orleans R&B.

American Pie is on pay-per-view later. Oh, life is good. Alyson Hannigan is in it, you know. And it's my second favorite Mena Suvari movie. That's better than going out anyway. I can watch it on the couch in my sweats, and it only costs $2.99. Nobody crunching popcorn in my ear, though, I'll miss that.

This one time, at band camp. . .