I know, it's been a while... but I thought I'd hold off posting until I actually had something to report. After the wedding maelstrom in the fall, things calmed down a bit. November was a very stressful month, with the one-year anniversary of my mom's death sneaking up on all of us. It did provide another opportunity to appear on TV, courtesy of our old friend Liz Keptner, reporter (and now morning anchor!) for CBS News in Philly. Liz was kind enough to do a piece on our Second Annual Celebrate Joan 4Kish Walk/Run, which was a rousing success.

Meanwhile I tackled another item on my list of "Things I Always Wanted to Try," and got a job bartending at Caribbean Breeze in Arlington. How I managed to snag this job with almost no real experience is a bit of a mystery, but I have been learning how to make some killer mojitos and caipirinhas and other fun stuff. The food's pretty good there, too, and they play cool salsa music. Stop by sometime, if you're in the neighborhood. On Wednesdays there are mojito specials all night long! Any flavor! Arrrrriba!

Hurtling towards the end of the year with no hope of selling the house at a reasonable price, it was time to suck it up and start the job search. Yuck! I'd forgotten what a soul-numbing process that is. After a few good interviews here and there, which ultimately led to nothing but a lot of waiting around because nobody is able to get anything done during the holiday season, I happened to re-connect with my former boss at Marriott, who made me an offer I couldn't refuse. (No, it did not involve snakes in a bed! They're not *that* kind of Mormons at Marriott!) I weighed all the pros and cons and wrestled with the idea that this was a step backwards, but ultimately decided that opting for "The Devil You Know" was perhaps not such a bad thing. So I'm basically back at my old job, doing pretty much the same stuff, but this time as a contractor working on a per-project basis. I have to admit, it was a nice ego boost to appear back in the office yesterday and have everyone tell me how glad they were to have me back. And, as my sagacious friend Dan likes to say, I'm not selling my soul, I'm just renting it out for a while at a good price.

So let Plan πr² begin! For those of you who haven't been following along at home, the goal is to save up as much travel fundage as possible in the next 6-9 months, rent out the house, and hit the road. We'll also update this site and post to the blog as our plans unfold, so please continue to watch this space! And kindly register, if you haven't already, so we can get some sense of who's reading this thing. You'll get a notification email when a new blog entry has been posted, that's it, I swear.

Happy New Year, everyone! Here's to a 2008 filled with adventure, prosperity, and passion!