I got invited twice to go to Stern Grove for a picnic and to see the San Francisco Ballet perform. It would have been nice to sit in the sun and eat and watch the ballet, but I turned them down.

I went to the gym instead and started work on those 10 pounds I picked up on vacation. I definitely don't need to gain anymore weight by eating picnic food.

After working out, I shopped for food and things for the apartment. I bought a new mouse, because the Barbie mouse a friend gave me one christmas is driving me insane. I have no idea what I did with my old mouse. I bought a logitech mouse for $20.

Then I went on a hunt for this organic room freshener that I found. It comes in a can and the scent is called "desert jasmine". It's the best smelling and the only room freshener I've found that actually smells like a real flower.

I had to go three Targets to find it, but it's so worth it. It smells so good!

Then I came home and watched tv all night. I didn't watch tv while on vacation, so it was kind of fun to just sit and relax and flip channels all night.

I'm back at home tonight, checking email and getting caught up on my fave blogs and other news.

I meant to blog a bit more, but once the relatives started arriving on Wednesday things got very busy. Then I flew to Honolulu and spent time with one of my sisters who is the process of moving back to Hawaii.

I'm glad to be home. It's way too hot and humid in Hawaii for me now, and the fog in SF is so refreshing.

Spent way too much money as usual. Some of it was to buy presents for nieces and nephews and to help my sister get set up to live back home, but I did buy a bunch of stuff for myself.

I'm going to spend the next three months paying off my trip and trying to lose the 10 or so pounds I gained on vacation. I really went overboard with the eating and the no exercising thing.

I'm glad to be home, but sad to be leaving the islands. SF is my home now, but Hawaii will always be home too.

Greetings from Kauai. I'm blogging from the Hanapepe Public Library. For $10, I signed up for a 3 month visitor card, good for 50 minutes once a day of internet usage. It's probably cheaper than logging in at the internet cafe, which I still haven't found but which I'll probably look for anyway. Why not? I'll be here for 9 days.

I tried to log in with my baby laptop from home, but my connection kept dropping. I'm going to try to research the problem today.

There's a rosary every night at my grandma's house at 6:30 pm. People come and say the rosary and then everyone brings a dish to share and we all eat.

I'd forgotten how hot and humid Kauai is, especially on my side of the island. It's about 80-85 degrees, but there is a slight breeze. Still, it's way too hot for me.

Most tourists are in hotels on the north shore at Hanalei or Poipu. I live on the exact opposite end of the island, where there are no hotels, at least I haven't seen any so far.

The only people who live on this side of the island are the ones who actually live here, or are visiting friends and family. My West Virginia friend who visited with me in 1998, loved that my side of the island was tourist free.

I've been cleaning up my grandma's house, and threw out six bags of old clothes. I saw a shirt she had of mine from grade school. There is so much old stuff in the house. I need to clear out as much junk as possible before the other relatives arrive.

One of the few things I miss about Hawaii is the food. The fish here is so fresh, caught in the early morning in the ocean and sold at the supermarket later a few hours later. YUMMY!

My goal as always when I visit home is to eat a pound of raw fish a day, they call it sashimi here. Or, eat it prepared hawaiian style which they call poke. In fancy restaurants in San Francisco, they call it tuna tartare. It's just raw tuna fish, tossed with fresh seaweed, onions, and sesame seed and oil. It's totally heavenly.

They also have a similar poke dish made out of salmon and baby octopus. I just can't get food like this in San Francisco, so I have to take advantage.

If I figure out my internet problems from home, I may blog later tonight.

I've been busy all weekend trying to get ready for my trip home. I bought a new travel sleep pillow, not sure where my old one went. I bought some waterproof thing to keep my stuff in when I go to the beach.

Urinetown was great by the way. It was such a funny musical, very irreverent, riffing off a ton of old broad musicals. It was kind of like Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Every thing in the play referenced some familiar broadway musical. My friend from New York who's seen them all got all of it, I hardly got any.

An opportunity for me to possibly buy a place in San Francisco came up on Sunday in an informational meeting. I'd be living downtown at South Beach underneath the Bay Bridge. It's not the neighbourhood I would have liked to live in, but you can't be choosy when it comes to buying a place in the city and county of San Francisco. It's two blocks from Pac Bell Park and two blocks from the Bay if that helps you think of the neighbourhood.

The opportunity for housing is coming through an affordable housing project, something I thought I could never apply for because my income was too high. But they've raised the limits so now I qualify. Yeah for me!

It's a lottery system, and who knows if I'd get it in, let alone qualify for a home loan. I wanted to buy a place, but not till after 2004, and not until after my car and other debts are paid off.

A friend bought her place through an affordable housing project, and waited 5 years before she could get into a place and buy it. She told me it was good to start now, just to get my name out there and into the pool of people looking to buy property.

The meeting was valuable just as an informational tool for what it takes for me to even qualify for a home loan. This home buying thing is so far ahead of the schedule I set for myself, but my friend convinced me that opportunity is knocking and I need to answer the call.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog from Kauai. I found an internet cafe 5 minutes from house, and I'm my taking my baby laptop as well, so it's not like I won't have the opportunity.

I just know if I'll be in any kind of mood to blog much. I'm going to play the blogging thing by ear. Kauai is so out of it technologically wise, I think. It might be kind of nice to unplug from the world for a couple of weeks, and enjoy my birthplace.