I'm currently sitting on a porch of a local restaurant listenting to a local cover band that plays only southern rock.

Friends, you can take the girl out of the south... But that girl might get a bit weepy when she hears the music of her people.

And yeah.. She's been drinking, but when you look over and see your very British child singing along to Sweet Home Alabama.. Well, that's concentrated awesome.

I know. I'll shush now.

Just Breathe

Redneck.

So taking a holiday for two and a half weeks is pretty much insane to begin with.. I think most people can handle about ten days of holiday before thoughts turn from 'Whee!' to 'Whoah!'

An additional eight days was sort of just asking for slightly more stress and even more boredom.

I think being an expat, I always feel like I have to maximize time with my family as I have it. That and having a child in a school with a three week Easter break.. Well, it just sort of added up to taking two and a half weeks. So, that was cool and I'd made peace with being away from Corporateland.

But a freaking Icelandic volcano shutting down European airspace?! Boy, I didn't see that coming..

I can't get home now for another week.. My flight has been rebooked for a week and a day later than originally planned and thats assuming that flights are able to happen again soon. Fuuuuck off, volcanic ash.

I've been amusing myself trying to hang out in weird, quirky local places. The picture over there was taken at 11pm at the convienence store, where i decided to try on various redneck hats and alphabetize all the different varieties of pork rinds. Who knew there were so many amazing flavours of fried pig flesh?

So I'm now contemplating how to spend the additional week here.. I'll admit I'm treading water in a pretty impressive stylee. My two week gym membership has run out, I've used up all my credit on my Starbucks card, I've already gone on a comedy underpants buying spree, I've hung out at the Apple Store more than once to creep wifi, I ran out of Maoam two days ago, I've played and almost enjoyed Pirate themed mini-golf... The absolutely mundane and stupid complaints go on and on. And yes, I realise I'm being a bit annoyingly tediously whingey. I know.. I know..

In other news.. I continue to adore my iPad. love it very, very much. It's not been out of my line of sight in the last two weeks.

I'm trying to avoid covering it in pork rind crumbs and droplets of cheap beer. Honest.

ps - there's no freaking way I'd eat pork rinds.. and the Miller High Life 40oz beer? Well, as much as I'd love to drink it out of a paper bag in a parking lot somewhere.. I'm really more of a $3 bottle of screw top wine girl.

I'm going to the gym.

Yeah, nothing more to report. I'll do better tomorrow.

I have to admit something to you. I'm not a very girly girl. I care not so much for shoes and I tend to only get excited about a handbag if it's cute *and* functional. It gets extra points with me if it has lots of nifty pockets and headphone storage. I guess you could say I'm more backpack than evening bag - more boot than shoe.

So armed with the above, you can join me for a giggle that I'm at the nail salon with my daughter and mom having a pedicure. I feel rather pretty, witty and gay!

The pastor at my parents' church just said tattoos, jeans and secular music are evil. I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

I shit you not it's like I'm in Footloose. C'mon kids - let's cross the county line and throw a senior prom!

So uh.. yesterday. I'm not sure if you're aware but Apple launched the iPad into the geekosphere. I might've marched my ass down to the closest Apple Store and bought one.

I'm not saying I did. I'm saying that I might've. Okay, fuck it. I did and it's a tiny box full of mega concentrated awesome.

I have a bit of a she-cave going on here on my floor in my parents' house (remember, I'm on holiday, supposedly relaxing) .. so as I look around me, I have my MacBook Pro in front of me, my iPad to its left and my iPhone to the right.

Where did I put that Uhura jumper again? I think I'm going to need it. Thankfully, I look hot in tight and red. Ooh and that little doohickey thing that let's me speak to others just by pressing my shirt - well, that is kind of appealing too.

So far I've had massive nerd ADHD and haven't really found myself that stuck in to any one app on the iPad. I just keep bouncing from app to app to app, paying a bit here and there.

The one thing I will say is that I'm a bit put out at how much the paid apps are for the iPad. It's a pretty rare day when I shuck out anything more than £2 for an iPhone app. Most of the iPad apps are running in the $5-$10* range. Holy that's too expensive Batman! I'm hoping we see the price point going down a bit as more and more apps come online. I mean, I'm cute but I'm not made of money.

More news as I have it.. hey - Happy Easter, by the way.

(*I'm in America and the iPad isn't available in the UK yet - so who knows what the app prices will be in GBP.)