Happy Mother's Day...Happy Spring

To brighten the day some flowers from my yard.
Tulips in the front yard...


The lilac is completely full this year...


A lone daffodil. The first time this one has bloomed...


One of my favorites...bleeding heart...

Friday night flight

Even though it has been a really long week, I'm feeling pretty good.

The flight tonight left on time and landed on time. Does it count that it was Friday instead of Thursday?

Burgandy shoes

I generally rotate each week between black-based clothes and brown-based clothes.

I take my brown shoes and wear my reversible belt on brown one whole week and the next week is black shoes and the black side of belt. This way I only have to pack my sneakers in the suitcase and the rest is clothes.

I bought a pair of burgandy loafers a few weeks ago and think they go with black or brown so now I can mix my base colors in one week. Not earth shattering and may be just shows how boring and bored I am but I feel like I have new wardrobe options....and I've managed how to pack another pair of shoes and still get everything in my one carry-on.

Group outing

They let us out! That's Arlene, a fellow IBMer.

Class ended about 5:30pm. We had dinner at 6pm and buses were provided to take us to South Beach.

It was still light out and a beautiful evening. Walked over to the beach and got my feet in the ocean...ahhh.

Wandered along Ocean Blvd. Ended up at Mango Bar. Dancer girls and boys with Cuban/Spanish dance music. It was nice to get out.


This is the view from the hotel.

That was a long day

At one point in the day, another person had to ask if it was still Monday.

I got up at 5am my time to do my cardio workout. I had a 7am breakfast round table with our head of my division.

The 7am went right up to the 8am start of class. The morning session went to 12:00noon and we were to be back at 12:45pm. The afternoon session lasted until past 5:30pm.

Dinner was from 5:30pm to 7pm. I went up to my room after the afternoon session to catch up on emails and answer project questions. I had to talk to a project member to answer some questions. Ate from 6:30pm to 7pm. We had an evening presentation from 7-9pm.

I worked out from 9:30-10pm. Got back to my room and did some more work until a bit after 11pm.

I did eat lunch outside and had my phone call with project member out by the pool. So much for being in sunny Florida.

Made it to Miami

Everything worked out with flights. I upgraded to first class for Chicago to Miami flight. We left Chicago a little ahead of schedule and landed in Miami 15 minutes early.

My co-worker picked me up at the airport and he drove us to South Beach. Traffic was heavy but we got there in time to walk over to the beach. There were a lot of people where we happened to land. Most of the women were wearing what was basically a string.

The ocean wind felt good as I was standing there fully clothed with long pants and long-sleeved shirt.

We went to an open-air bar and had a gin and tonic...totally not on my contest diet. Cost $23.00 for the two small drinks.

Luis drove me back the hotel which is right next to the airport. Heading to evening session in a few minutes.

Heading to Miami...hopefully

Got a message from American Airlines yesterday that my flight to Miami via Dallas was canceled and I was re-booked on a flight to Miami via Chicago.

I leave a half hour later and arrive 45 minutes earlier. I am not able to access my reservation on-line so hopefully this all works out.

Getting to Miami earlier is good because my co-worker, Luis, is picking me up at the airport and showing me around.

My trip to Miami is for an IBM conference. I thought for sure it would be canceled given the economy and IBM just had a round of layoffs...but I was wrong. The schedule is very very full so there isn't much, if any, free time. Hopefully, I'll be able to stick to my diet and workouts.