she's short...the kind of girlfriend you want if you have an apartment

My love for Craig is over, since he implied that short girls are only good if you have minimal space!

Just kidding, I will love him forever.

In other news, I spent today getting ready for an exciting adventure -- I'm leaving tomorrow for a trip to England and Scotland! I'm billing it as the 'Jane Austen Death March' -- not that I'm necessarily a fangirl for Jane Austen, but she lived during the time period in which I intend to set the majority of my romance novels, and so many of the attractions that appeal to a Jane Austen fangirl are also good for researching romance. So I'm currently planning to hit up Bath, Brighton, Oxford, the Victoria and Albert Museum (which has early 1800s fashion/costumes), the Soane museum (a Regency-era house that conveniently has a candlelight evening tour while I'm in the area), Windsor, Hyde Park, and some other gardens and castles in England. Then, I'm going to Edinburgh to catch a five-day bus tour of the Highlands (including Iona and Isle of Skye). The bus tour could be scary, and will likely be populated by well-off septuagenarians, but we shall see -- it seemed to be the most convenient way to see what I wanted to see without having to rent a car, so I'm taking my chances. I'm rounding off the trip by flying to Amsterdam to meet up with Walter (you may remember him?) and hopefully Doug (who may or may not be able to pry himself away from the charms of Copenhagen).

I am taking my laptop, so you will not get a reprieve from my loquacious blogging. In fact, you may benefit from an improved pictures:text ratio. I'm also hoping to use the laptop to finish the first draft of my novel -- I'm tantalizingly close (there's only five or six scenes left in the book, including the 'climax' of the scene that I had to stop writing last night, if you get my drift). So, the trip should be good. And if nothing else, while I'm in London I'll be within walking distance of a latte, rather than ninety miles away, so that's exciting. Then again, I'll be several thousand miles away from my parents, and won't be able to afford steak at the outrageous exchange rate, so I will likely end up eating Marks and Spencer sandwiches -- unlike the delicious mushroom steak, baked potato, and corn that my mom made for dinner tonight. As you can see, everything's a tradeoff.

Now I should go to bed -- I have to get up and do some last-minute things before leaving for Des Moines. If you like Jane Austen / the Regency period / tales of travel horrors / England / Scotland / Walter, check back frequently. If not, you might want to take a pass on the blog for the next couple of weeks, and check back when I return to the country on 5/19.