Well, nothing is new.  I've been busy at work, which is typical for January.  I worked today. I don't really mind working Saturdays in January and February. What else am I going to do?  Sit on the couch, watching TV all day and being a lazy bum?

Last weekend I didn't have to work but Eric had a lot of homework.  Greg, Celeste and Evelyn help me escape the craziness of Eric doing homework and took me to the Mall of America.  They are going on a Disney cruise next week and they needed sandals.  It was nice to get out of the house and the weather was really nice. It was in the 40s in the early afternoon but after we got home from the mall the temperature started dropping and fast. When I went grocery shopping around 6pm it was 19 degrees but the time I got home at 7pm it was 13 degrees.  Every time I looked at the thermometer it dropped another 2 degrees. By the time we went to bed at 10pm it was almost zero!  Like I said, the temperature dropped very fast.   Also on Saturday, Swirl did this to my computer (if you can see it he managed to turn the screen sideways!):

Somehow Swirl managed to hit the Ctrl + Alt + Up arrow key at the same time. Clever little kitty.

Sunday was still cold.   And Eric was still working on homework so I went shopping.  When I came home from my unsuccessful shopping trip I finally dragged Eric out of the house. This was the first time he left the house since we got home from swimming on Friday!  We went to the Mall of America...yep I went to the MOA twice last weekend. LOL!  I found some shoes the day before that I loved but thought I could get them cheaper online, but no such luck. I went back the DSW shoes and bought them and they are the best. I love them!

Monday was technically a holiday for work, but as always I had to work. I'm kind of happy that I had to work because who really wants a day off in the middle January.  Also the high temperature for the day was -4 degrees...FREAKING COLD! Thankfully I was able to park in the Ameriprise underground heated parking garage so our car didn't have to sit outside!  

Tuesday morning was another cold one, it was -14 degrees when we got in the car. Tuesday was also the start of the next volleyball session. We split the match, winning 2 games and losing 2. I managed to jam two fingers.  My pointer and ring finger on my right hand.  How I managed to jam those two and not my middle finger is beyond me.  So I have bruising again.  UGH!  And considering I'm "footing" numbers all day on the calculator, it made for a very painful Wednesday.  Every time I had use either finger a bit of pain would go up my arm.  Wednesday was also a swim day.  We did a half a mile again.  My time was faster then the last time.   Thursday was band and last night was another swim day.  Since Eric had class, I was able to swim longer. I did 3/4 a mile in 45 minutes. It felt wonderful. I just love swimming.  

I'm happy that the temperature is suppose to be around freezing tomorrow. Hooray!  Every time I look at the thermometer it is going up. That is much better than last Saturday. :)

Strange thought of the week: When I saw it was 12 degrees outside on Friday my first thought was "YAY!" Cold weather must have frozen my brain!

I hate January.  Really I do.  It is cold and gray. I'm really busy at work and working weekends. It just sucks.  The only good thing about January is I save a lot of money.  I don't eat out at work except for every other Friday. We also eat more meals at home so that saves too.

As I mentioned in the last post, I have started planning this years trips.   China has been pushed back to December.  There is a tour company that is a little bit more than the one that I was going to book through but it is 10 days instead of 9 and they include all meals so that is cool.  We would leave the day after Christmas and come back in January.  I would be spending another New Year's Eve celebration in another country. I like to do that.  Other than that trip, the only major trip is our Baseball Road Trip to the Lone Star State in late August/early September.  I'm excited about. As planned, we would be spending 3 days with my friend Mary Linda in Houston. We have 2 trips to Rapid City planned. One in late June for the triathlon and one in early August for the 50th Anniversary party for Eric's parents. I guess that makes up for the lack of Rapid City trip in 2012.

Now on to the blog post title. I have developed this desire to swim laps. We went twice last week and went again last night. I'm planning on going tomorrow night too. I even bought a swim cap to stop my hair from going in my face.  We did 1/2 mile last night in 40 minutes. It is a little slow but I'm not at the point were I can swim continuous laps without stopping to take a breathe. I'll get there. Unfortunately, the swimming pool is only open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

We have been back now for a week and I'm already planning the next adventure. Work hasn't picked up quite yet so I've had some time to do some research.  First thing I did was plan a trip to Reno, Yosemite and Giant Sequoia. That might be next year in May.  Today I got an email with an amazing deal for China.  I've always thought about traveling to China but it always seems so daunting.  But this is a whole tour: flights, hotels, meals, ground transportation...9 days! We would leave May 14th. Eric's only hangup is he doesn't know when he will have class and that would eat up most of his vacation. Hopefully I can convince him. Ugh!

Saturday was the Bisek Family Holiday Party at Uncle Jack's. It was a nice time.  I won two the games. I'm so good!

So we started working out again.  Monday and Tuesday were brisk walking days. I have to say I'd rather run. I did do some running when I got sick of walking.  Yesterday was also volleyball.  We got killed. I hate 9:15 games. Today we did lap swimming. I love lap swimming.  It is probably my favorite work out.

Also we started eating better. I'm doing pretty good. Not sure about Eric. I made him chili on Sunday he was so happy.

Nothing really going on other than that.  January and February are very boring months for us.

If I never visit Jamaica again, I’d be ok with that.  I’m not one to go to the same place over and over again.  There are only a few places I like to visit again and again namely London and Vegas. The water was beautiful and the climate was nice.

Hagglers and Ganja

I was warned about this but it really didn’t prepare me for the vast annoyance. The ganja (marijuana) was always in the air and the hagglers on the beach were very annoying.  By the seventh day I was so pissed off at being constantly harassed to buy drugs, get my hair braided and the other various things that I just got plan old rude with them. I even flipped off the one guy. It is very annoying to walk down the beach to a restaurant that was less than 100 yards away and being approached to buy drugs 4 times. Seriously!  I was standing inside the resort fence, watching the waves crash on the beach and some guy was harassing me to by ganja.  I told him over and over no but he wouldn’t leave me alone. I was so upset I had to leave the beach area. I couldn’t even enjoy the crashing waves. Everybody was smoking ganja, we couldn’t escape it.  We went on a sunset cruise and the other 7 people on the tour and the boat captain were smoking it. You can’t escape it when you are trapped on a boat with them.

Service and Food

I will never complain about slow service again. Nothing will be as slow a Jamaica.  They have this thing called Jamaican time.  It is annoying, especially for me.  You have to plan ahead for your meals and go when you aren’t hungry because by the time you get the food you will be starving. If you wait until you are hungry it is too late. A cheeseburger…a simple cheeseburger…took over an hour.  Yes AN HOUR! ARGH!  The only meal that we got fast was our breakfast but seriously how long does it take to toast bread?  As far as the food I concerned there was some really good food and some terrible food. Mostly it was terrible. Breakfast every morning was great, fresh fruit, toast and some sort of pastry.  One day we ordered pancakes/French toast and that was even delicious (but took over 30 minutes to get). The cheeseburger mentioned above was terrible…it tasted like a slice of meatloaf with cheese on top. It was gross. Thankfully the fries were good.  I had a jerk chicken Caesar wrap…it was disgusting. I couldn’t eat it. We ate Jerk Chicken many times.  The most delicious was at the jungle river tubing place. It was a chicken breast (which is unusual, it usually was dark meat) and it was juicy and wonderful.  I think that Jerk Chicken was my favorite meal, unfortunately Eric and I shared it. My favorite thing in the world was the various juices I drank.  I didn’t realize I love pineapple juice. Also there were these blended juices called Tropical Rhythms. My favorites were Fruit Punch, Mango Carrot and the Reggae Blend (Banana, pineapple, papaya, guava and passion fruit). 

Hotel and Staff

The hotel was adequate.  Our room had a view of the water so that was nice. The room was clean and the AC worked (very important for me, I hate being hot). The Wi-Fi didn’t work in the room so we had to go by the pool every time we wanted to use the internet…and it cost us $90 for the week. ROBBERY! The toilet didn’t like to flush and shower had hot water but no pressure. The last day before we left for the airport we couldn’t even use the shower! The bed was comfy and the TV had all of our favorite channels and some new channels. The pool area was nice and there was a friendly family of cats that were all over. They were so cute and some were friendly. The staff of the place was great, very helpful. I would stay there again because it was nice considering the price.

Overall
Overall I had a great vacation.  There were some things like the ganja that made it unbearable at times. But I have been there and I’ve done that. Next time I’m going to try another island.