My mind is a blender...

That's my brain in there! A gaggle of ingredients that hopefully will make something delicious and greater than the sum of its parts. I am guessing by this picture that the end result is salsa...yum.

Right now, I am beyond swamped. I have a naming project with a super speedy turn around, a novel that I am revising, a screenplay that I am outlining and every week, I think...already? Another week over so quickly?

As I have written in the past, when things get super hectic for me, I turn to my cookbooks for comfort. Lately, I have really been into my vegetarian and vegan cookbooks and have been frustrated that almost all of the recipes call for a food processor! So I did what any sensible, deadline challenged writer would do...I wasted time on line looking for one, and then I bought it...on sale from Amazon. I got the one you see here. It came in two days, and that is how long it has been in the box. I haven't even had time to open it!

But all that is going to change. I am taking Sunday off, going to the Farmers Market and cooking for some friends. I will be blending and processing and yes, shaking a martini mixer too, and enjoying one of the last days of summer.

In the meantime, the blending and mixing and cooking in my brain will have to take priority...let's hope that the final product is something glorious!

Any favorite recipe books for me to read at night? Let me know!

Mad Men Staycay at its best!

Back from my one day staycation, and it was fabulous!! After taking the dogs into daycare for their overnighter, Jeff and I headed downtown, and had lunch at Church & State, a great French style bistro. I have a weakness for shellfish and Church & State, had the most delicious Malapeque oysters which we shared. Then it was on to a seared ahi tuna sandwich for Jeff and a bowl of Moules et frites for me...mmmmussels. I even had wine with lunch and a beautiful lemon mousse with lemon sorbet for dessert! Decadent.

After lunch we checked into the Biltmore, which is the grandest of old hotels downtown and the site of the very first academy awards. I love the Biltmore, and I love that they are having crazy midweek specials, like a King size room for $140.00!! The place is full of history, black and white photos line the halls, and the building is magnificent. I had to be careful of where I was going as I kept staring at the gorgeous painted and carved wooden ceiling. Our room was great and even better was...the pool. Now, I love swimming, but don't think that I have swam in 9 years. I am so self conscious in a swimsuit, ridiculous I know, but the pool at The Biltmore, with its floor to ceiling aqua tiles, carved stone reliefs, and warm water fountains along the pools edge beckoned. It felt amazing, and liberating and so good to be back in the water, that I definitely won't let another 9 years go by before taking the plunge again. After our swim, we steamed, and saunaed and then got dressed up for dinner at First and Hope. But first a drink at the Gallery bar in the hotel. Very old school, very Grand Central station and fun. And then... to the supper club!

I had heard so much about First and Hope, and had been dying to try it. Tucked into a mall, is a glamorous little bar and restaurant where all the waiters were decked out in beautiful 1920's dresses. The food was delicious, the portions were small, and the service although slow, was attentive. I am glad that we went, but I don't feel a need to go back. For the same kind of vibe, I still love the Edison, which has a great retro laid back vibe, and is half the price.

After another swim and steam and sauna this morning we picked up the girls and headed back home and got to work! It was a decadent staycation for sure, but it was made a lot less expensive by the fact that my husband had played poker for the first time in ages the night before and won!! And, it was only a day away, but in that one day, I had a relaxing and romantic getaway to France for lunch, Manhattan for martini's and back in time to the 20's for dinner. And if I close my eyes, I can still feel the warm water, and the quiet long lengths that I swam. Sometimes a day away is all you need.

Staycay...

It's been a busy time around here, just the way I like it, but I don't see a real break until the fall, when my deadline will be met and family will come out and visit. Although my husband and I are used to me locking myself up in my office to write all day and then emerging semi-coherent around supper time, we decided that while I still can sneak off for a night... we should. And so we are. Sneaking off that is. It will just be for one night and I am calling it our Mad Men staycation, but I am really excited. I will work during the day, toting my laptop with me, but tonight I am putting on a party dress going to dinner and a show and enjoying all things retro and fabulous. I'm talking sipping Manhattan's, listening to big Jazz bands and staying overnight at a hotel!

I will be back tomorrow with more details and pictures. And yes, I will be back at my desk, working and happy to do so.

Time keeps on sippin'...

One of the benefits of having a home office is that you can work at any time. One of the downsides of having a home office, is that you can work at any time. It really does go both ways. But that's the only way I like it, to be truthful.

Right now I am working on a script and have a pretty tight timeline. As a result there has been no delineation between work week and weekend for my brain. Mornings I take to answer e-mails, walk the dogs and hopefully exercise, and then I write until a late dinner, a good 8 hours later, grab a frozen yogurt from my new addiction Toppers (their motto is serving the best frozen yogurt since 1985! Love it!) and then I sit on the couch and watch movies for research. Everyday for the last 2 weeks this has been my routine. I normally write for 5 hours a day, but due to my deadline this is not an option. And I expect the days to get longer.

Alas that doesn't mean that I can't switch into weekend mode and crank the tunes, let my hair down and fix myself a delicious cocktail! I have started to get a bit of a reputation for mixing a mean martini. My friends and neighbors have come to expect something new every time we have a get together, and I kind of love it. I am actually not a big drinker, but I do love bars. I love their look, the stemware, the brightly colored bottles. I have had a bar in every apartment since I was 21, and have moved it with me all over the country. It is an art deco cabinet that was left behind in an apartment that I was renting, and I stripped it and refinished it and keep it stocked full of good wine and liquor, pretty vases, cocktail napkins and all things entertaining.

Of course when I am writing this much, there isn't as much time for entertaining, and I definitely can't drink and write, unless I want sloppy prose, but I can sip a cocktail and review my work, and make lists and goals for the next day and stay at my desk another hour longer without feeling like I am missing out on a night of weekend fun.

Alas, it is Monday morning and the weekend is far away...or then again is it?

Food for the senses...

While perusing the fabulous before and after photos that can be found on design*sponge, I got an e-mail from a fellow foodie friend, alerting me to this delicious site....Black Board Eats!


It's a great site, where all you have to do is sign up for their newsletter, for free, and they will inform you on fabulous restaurant deals in your city. The first however many people who respond to a daily notification get 30% off the featured restaurant!

This week's deal is for MALO in Silverlake, hipster home of Mexican food with a twist, and great tequilas!

Hey, if I can't leave the office, I can at least see what other people's look like, (thanks design*sponge) and imagine what kind of food I could be eating! It's a little vacation for my brain and senses.

Enjoy!

I'm Back...

...And I could sleep for a week!! I came back to these two faces, which made saying goodbye to my friends and family a little easier.

It was a great visit with family and friends and it was hot!! Toronto was experiencing a heat wave, and lots of humidity, which meant that my hair was both wilted and frizzy and I was sweaty and often sunburned, no matter how much sunscreen I applied. My feet were covered in blisters from all the glorious walking that I did, and my vocabulary expanded to include many new ways of saying poop, butt and fart, thanks to my playmates in the under 7 crowd, (my niece and nephew) and I fell into bed every night exhausted and happy. I had forgotten what summer with little people was like; parks, activities, fun fairs and ice cream!! My Mom and Dad took me for gelato one night to "Hollywood Gelato", which made me laugh, but it is the best Gelateria in the city and the line up out the door proved it!! I had a small serving, which included 3 scoops and the Coconut Cream Pie, was my favorite!!

It was a week of eating, and playing, and loving...and a much needed reward for finishing my second novel a year ahead of schedule!! Now it is back to auditions, looking for freelance, planning a new project and a hosting my mother-in-law. Easing back into more work, with a little play along the way.

Blank slates and projects...

Apologies. It has been too long. Since my last blog, I have been a whirling dervish! I have edited my novel, proofed it, sent it off to my agent on Tuesday, and spent the night out of town with dear friends. (A lovely one night holiday of stories, wine and friendship!) I have kept myself busy, distracted even as I wait for my agent to read my novel and let me know what she thinks...as I wait to start a new writing project, as I wait....

Waiting is something I am not good at, as I have mentioned before. I like/want /NEED projects, and so I have given myself one, a big one. I am turning the nook in our kitchen into an office for my husband for his birthday. He has always wanted an office, has never had one, and the need for one, has become increasingly greater. So...the process has begun with the help of my amazing set dec/interior designer friend and neighbor. So far we have painted, are going to repaint (my fault, the color is too light), broken a Jeep window (both our fault, forgot it was open when we pulled into the garage door) and will assemble bookshelves etc. all day today so that we can surprise Jeff with it for his b-day tomorrow!

In the meantime, the waiting continues...ah the waiting. I might need another project soon...or a nap!

Creating new traditions...

I am from a mixed faith family. My Mom's side is Jewish, my Dad's side is Catholic, and my grandmother was a seeker who studied just about every religion growing up, and shared what she felt was the best of each of them with me.

I will freely admit that as a child it could be very confusing, as I desperately wanted to belong to one or the other, but as I got older, I began to really appreciate that my family hadn't give me any easy answers in the faith department. Well, they had given me one. Love. Love and let live. If something works for someone, good. As long as that belief is full of love and doesn't condemn or alienate, or hate on anyone else, than fine. In other words, they taught me to respect my own beliefs and to respect others. Like my grandmother, they supported my curiosity into other faiths, beliefs and philosophies and never insisted that I had to name what it was that I felt. There was, and still is, a general understanding that we all have our own way of seeing things, and that is a good thing.

One thing we all liked to do though, is get together to mark the holidays and hang out with each other over good food, and great desserts. And so this year far away from my Canadian family's Passover Seder/ Easter dinner, my husband and I kept our own little tradition alive, by having a a dinner with the two of us, reading from the Haggadah that was give to me by best friend's mother as a child, and eating a splendid meal that I bought from start to finish from The Larchmont Larder. This too is a bit of a tradition, as my mother stopped cooking for all of us and started ordering instead as we got older! And on Easter Sunday, we were invited to a neighborly Easter get together, with about a dozen people who live on our street, and it was fabulous!

I love honoring traditions and keeping them alive, and I love finding ways to do so that feel honest and true to who I am and how I live my life. What about you? do you have any new traditions that you love...say a "birthday week" or something special?

Birthdays...

Eat, play, love...doing all three cause it's my birthday!!

Tonight I am going out for a fabulous birthday dinner with my beloved parents and husband to a great little French Restaurant that is having a lobster special and let's you bring your own wine! I am bringing a gorgeous Sauvignon Blanc that I got in wine country and a bottle of Veuve Cliqueot rose champagne that a friend gave me. We all played today at the Lacma, checking out the gorgeous Renoir exhibit and the phenomenal Richard Serra sculptures, and Love has been pouring in from friends and family near and far. I am a lucky lady.

Getting older isn't easy for a lot of people, but it is especially bad for those of us ladies who act and live in Hollywood. Hollywood is not a fan of older woman, favoring tight bodies and faces and encouraging men and women alike, to constantly try and beat the signs of age. I have had my own insecurities about looking older, have thought about botox on my forehead, maybe plumping up the every-year-a-little-deeper-groove between my brows, but there is something that I find so beautiful about seeing a persons face age naturally and looking at all the life that they have lived in every crease and crevice of skin. Don't get me wrong, I am not preaching against trying to be youthful, but I do wish that the world was a little wiser and kinder to the entire aging process and recognized the wisdom that hopefully comes with it, and that youth is a state of mind. Personally, I think that each year is a victory. Each year that I stay an artist and am able to keep doing what it is that I love to do, is worth celebrating.

There was a great quote today by Renoir at the exhibit, that was made when the painter was 78...he said that he wanted to stop just feeling his way through the painting. Incredible. He was talking about developing skills, not just going by instinct, but getting really good, at what he did. He was already famous, already being collected around the world, and with a circle of friends and peers that included Matisse, Malliol, and Manet, to name a few. Pictures showed that his face was lined and his hands were crippled with arthritis, and yet, he wasn't looking back, but looking forward to all the things that he wanted to still accomplish and learn. Amazing.

This year, I too am looking forward. Looking forward to all the great things and wonderful times that lie ahead and sharing them with all the beautiful people in my life, whose love and friendship, is the greatest birthday gift of all.

Birthday Wishes

This week coming up I am gonna do a lot of eating playing and loving, as my Mom and Dad are coming to visit for my birthday and that is something to shout about. I am combining two blog posts here as you can see, as I have been crazy busy trying to get ready for their visit and have had been blessed with naming and copywriting work, auditions and progress in the novel.

I love that my folks are coming down for my birthday and I love birthdays, although I don't love that I can not help but make myself a goal that I try to reach by birthday every year and as the date nears, I start to take stock of all that I did and didn't get done...the projects completed, the money made, the fitness goals etc. I used to always say, "I am gonna lose 5 pounds by my birthday!" and then be bummed when I didn't, and beat myself up. I stopped doing that, because well, it is just ridiculous. But I do set other traps for myself and this birthday I think I am going to give myself the present of no longer doing this.

I turn 38 this year and had previously declared, "by the time I turn 38, I will be published!" Well, it hasn't happened so far, but my debut novel is out at several publishers, and has been requested by a fabulous independent press, and I am hopeful that it will find a great home. I am also nearly finished the first draft of my second novel, and each day, I am making progress.

Yesterday I had a wonderful phone call with my writing mentor and friend, who reminded me that "these things take as long as they take." She was talking about my second novel, but it really can be applied to all areas of life. We can not control the time line or the outcome of everything we do, but we can control what we do day to day. And for me the most important thing, is just to keep on doing. As another friend of mine likes to say...Keep on keeping on!

This birthday I plan to celebrate all that I already have accomplished and think positively about all that I still want to do. I plan to eat dinner out with my family, play hooky with my mom and go window shopping, and celebrate all the love that I am so lucky to have.

Let's give a shout out to getting older...and wiser.

Nautical stripes and writing uniforms....

I am loving my new navy nautical Saint James striped knit shirt. It's the same kind of shirt that Picasso was always photographed in. The company has been around since the late 1800's, and recently J.Crew carried them and they sold out in no time! I got one of the last 3. They are unisex, and it is hard to explain, just why I am so in love with a shirt, but I am gonna try. I work from home. I sit in my office all day, except when walking the dogs or auditioning, but when writing I am pretty much inside for hour and hours at a time. I could write in my pajamas, nobody would care, and I have, but I find that if I make myself get ready and dressed as if I was going out into the real world, I feel better. I like to think of my writing as a job, and I like to feel good when I write and I love clothes, but whatever I wear has to have my writing life in mind. In other words, I want to look good, but I want to be comfortable. I need to be able to sit for hours, so no tight jeans, or tops that cling to my middle, and I am always cold, so sleeves and I need the fabric to feel good, so I don't fuss. My writing uniform is pretty much always the same, worn in jeans, t-shirt, cardigan, scarf, socks and faux fur lined slippers. In the summer, the jeans become cargos, but the slippers remain. But lately I have been thinking that I need a new uniform, something loose and stylish, and so I have been hunting for the perfect button down, and found it at J. Crew, in the men's department, but it wasn't on sale, and it was then, while I was telling myself that I had to wait until they were reduced (they always are!) that I saw this full price long sleeved sweater/t-shirt and knew that it was going to become part of my new uniform.

What about you? How do you feel about uniforms and do you have one?

Love is in the air...

Yesterday Jeff and I spent the day with a very dear friend of ours whom we've known since she was 8 years old. We were her witnesses for her wedding. She is 22 now, and an incredibly beautiful and talented young woman. Her name is Katie and I adore her. Although years separate us, Katie and I have always shared a special bond. We are alike in so many ways, and have shared so many similar experiences that it is uncanny. We did our first television series together, her mom a brilliant director, gave me my first role in a feature film, and my husband and Katie have worked together a bunch of times as well. We both adore our families and talk to our moms everyday and when she is in L.A. we are Katie's L.A. family.

Once we had our families together for brunch and they were just shaking their heads at how alike we are, both now and also how much I was like Katie when I was younger. I felt the wind move, as my husband liked to say. I loved deeply, hurt deeply, gave freely and often, wanted a big life and a big love (still do!) and often felt out of place with people my own age, earning me the label of an old soul. It's amazing to look at someone 16 years younger and see not just so much of myself, but also how much further ahead they are in figuring some things out that I didn't get a handle on, until years later. Well, yesterday Katie married Glenn, a fabulous Irishmen that she has known and loved for years, enduring a long distance relationship and much travel. She asked us to be her witnesses at City Hall and we were honored to do so. The only thing is, I had never met Glenn! We had managed to cross paths with every visit!! I hoped I liked him, (I knew I would), I hoped he was as wonderful as Katie said he was (he is) and on the car ride up to Ventura County, I realized that I was talking to Glenn like I had known him forever. Some people are like that. Sometimes you just know...this is someone I am going to like. This is someone I am going to love. And when that happens, it is the strangest and most wonderful feeling.

I felt that way the first time I met my husband, at 22 the same age as Katie, and although I didn't know if it would be forever, I knew that it would be...something that involved the two of us, and I wanted to know more. I wanted to set out on an adventure with this person and see if we couldn't grow and evolve, alongside one another, walking next to each other all the way. There have been ups and there have been downs, and we have weathered some trying times, but we have done it together, and love each other more for it. In each other we have found a true partner, someone to take on this big adventure that we call marriage. There are so many reasons people get married, everyone's different, and yesterday when Katie and Glenn were excited and nervous, I asked them what their reason was, they said that they loved each other and wanted to be together. Well, I can not think of a better reason than that.

All the best you two....

These 4 walls...

It seems that I am renting a very expensive studio apartment...my office. I practically live here these days. Today I rolled out of bed, and was at my desk at 8:00 am, and then worked until 1:30, eating my cereal and doing freelance work, all the while in my pajamas. I finally made it to the shower around 2:00pm and was eating lunch at my desk, again, at 2:30pm. I love my office/studio apt. I just miss the rest of my apartment too! I do have a laptop and can move around if I want, and I will when we have 2 house guests in here....that'd be a bit cramped!

Alas I have 2 new things to make me smile when my back stiffens up and my arms feel like they might fall off from typing so much....wine gums and cue cards.

The cue cards are for helping me map my novel out and I have written every scene and thread up until page 176 on them! It's great to be able to flip through and check something out on the cards, rather than scrolling through my whole novel when I need to.

And the wine gums are from Canada. This packet has remained closed since last September when my folks visited! Talk about restraint. I have found only one or two specialty shops that sell small roles of these weirdly delicious gummy candies. My mother and I can polish off the whole bag, which makes opening the bag, a big decision! But this week, an easy one.

Puppy Love.....

These days the writing is hard. Staying at my desk is hard, and time away from my desk is even harder. I try to hide in my office and write for as long as I can, but I have other commitments; family, friends, auditions, freelance work, exercising, not to mention I try to keep a beautiful home, do my own cleaning, do almost all the cooking, and worry about the needs of these little guys. I have to admit these days, when I am feeling at my wits end and am not exactly fit for public exposure, these guys, even with their needy little ways...still manage to melt my crusty writer's heart. There is something so great about the love of an animal. They are so sweet and so pure, and really want nothing more than to be loved! These two just love to snuggle, and be picked up and if that fails, they will settle for sleeping on my feet as I write. They remind me to take breaks by harumphing loudly on the floor of my office, staring at me and whining when it is walk time, and if I am late on the evening walk they let me know it, by farting on cue!

For a long time we just had Mabel, our almost 7 year old bichon with the funniest, most particular people like personality. And although we were a good trio, I worried that our dog, who I am sure thinks that she is a person, (sits in chairs, sleeps on the bed, is always on a cushion and stares at animal behaviors as if to say...what the hell is that about?) missed the companionship of another furry being, and so we got her Lily. We have had Lily for almost 3 months now and she has adjusted so well from her life in the shelter. Lily still gets scared of big dogs, doesn't like to be corrected, (she thinks that you are going to hit her) and eats all her meals as if they are her last...but day by day she gets more and more comfortable and has become a loveable annoying little sister to Mabel.

No matter how grumpy I am, the funny jumping on her back legs and high pitched squeal that Lily does when she knows she is going for a walk, or the way that Mabel grumbles and rolls on her back and shakes her legs in the air in the hopes of a belly rub the moment I walk in the door, always manages to turn my mood around. I love these two furbabies, and they have become excellent nap buddies to one another and great writing companions to me. And if one thing can melt my crust writer's heart these days...it's these two lovebugs.

Love it....

I am slammed these days...in a good way. I have a fabulous copywriting gig with fabulous people, and my first novel is making the rounds with publishers, I am halfway through the draft of my second novel and I am on my final course before graduating from UCLA's Writer's Program in the spring. It's all good and I couldn't be happier to be able to do what I love doing. But it does mean lots of work and less play, and the patience and understanding of friends. Luckily, I am blessed with great supportive friends. In fact my friends and neighbors downstairs, after lamenting that we couldn't hang out more as I had been away all holidays, but understanding why with all my deadlines, surprised me with this great gift. Coffee mugs!! And as someone who could probably fill a pot of coffee these days if you wrung me out, they are perfect!

My friends have a great sense of humor, and I think that when things are busy or stressful, a great sense of humor is really essential to keep things in perspective. As a copy writer working for someone else, and as novelist workshopping my novel, not to mention as an actor auditioning, I get a lot of constructive criticism and it is important that I don't take any of it personally and keep striving for the good of the project. After all, how else would I grow? But my cheeky neighbors, have obviously given me this first mug for those long days when I might just feel like biting my tongue, and this second one makes me laugh. They know I love a good cocktail! And I love a good laugh. Just what I need for long, lucky days like these.

A few of my favorite things...

Just a few. I have more. My desk is a veritable wonderland of talismans and treats, things to inspire me, lift my spirits when they flag, coerce me into staying in my chair and trying to get words on the page, for just a few more minutes. Here are three of my favorite things, that I can not live without. To start this section off I bring you three things that I eat, play and love all at once.

According to my grade 9 Drama teacher her earliest memories of me include a giant sized cup of coffee attached to my hand. She told me this once many years later...over coffee and as I finish my first cup of the day, I think about how much as changed. I mean I don't just drink coffee all the time, like I used to. I have one, okay, two, big cups every morning and then in the afternoon I prefer to eat my coffee in the form of these delicious little crunchy toffeed espresso bits covered in dark chocolate. I love coffee. I have an espresso pot, a machine with a timer, an old school Italian percolator, a bodum, and packs of Starbucks VIA for hot instant and Nescafe for cold instant frappuccino's. I have tried to stop several times, but it just seemed ridiculous to do so. I was depressed, haeadachey, miserable, and apparently this will pass...but I see no reason to find out. I mean, it's only really 2 generous cups a day. I was told that coffee was toxic, poisonous and polluting my system. But come one, I live in L.A.! Walking outside is like sucking on a tailpipe!Life is short. Writing is hard. I am going to enjoy my sweet elixir of the Gods.

Music. Some people can't listen to music and write. They need silence. These same people often do not eat at their desk, or even drink at their desk. They require no distractions. I have met them, but I can not say I like them. Kidding! I marvel at their monastic sensibilities, all the while rocking out to my favorite tunes by Broken Social Scene, David Usher, Death Cab for Cutie, (my first novel) BSS again, Bon Iver, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, (my latest novel.) When a cone of silence is needed, usually around me, (apparently not everyone wants to hear the same song played on repeat for 4 hours straight!) I put on these amazing cone of silence Bose headphones. If I turn the music off it is frighteningly quiet and I can hear my brain smoking, but if I turn the little button on the side, then I am at a rock concert for one, which is perfect for me, as I don't really like crowds anyways.

Lipbalmmmmmmmmmmm. It's moist and delicious and shiny and sometimes it stays on my lips long enough not to be licked off! The rest of the time it is on the rim of my coffee cup. I am sure that my lipbalm addiction is far more serious than my espresso pillow addiction, but no one seems to want to intervene here. Interesting.

And what about you? Is there something that you can not live without when you work? Or is always in your purse or bag? Candy? Handcream? Gum? I promise not to stage an intervention, if you don't.

The hot lunch...

Now that winter is here, I find myself craving the hot lunch! Hot lunches always make me feel like a kid. I remember when my school started letting us eat off campus so that we could get hot lunches in the winter. We only had a lunch room, not a cafeteria and the parents had decided that hot lunches in our cold Canadian winters were important!

Well, many years later and in L.A. there may not be snow, but it is cold out. Sitting at my desk, wrapped up in layers, furry slippers on my feet, I find I need a little something extra to keep me warm. It needs to be tasty and healthy and easy to eat and it needs to help ward off the crazy snacking that also happens to me this time of year. Although writing is strenuous, it is hardly a cardio workout and so I try to keep my lunch light. Today's lunch is quinoa, white beans and mushrooms sauteed with cherry tomatoes in balsamic vinegar on a bed of wild arugula with shaved parmesan cheese. It's delicious! Of course I will save some room for a tootsie roll or 3, just like I did as a kid. But I will also make room for a giant cup of coffee. I mean after all I may feel like a kid today, but I am still a grown up!

Wine country getaway...

We are back from our one day getaway to Wine Country and it was fabulous! I love getting outside of the city, looking at smog free skies, inhaling fresh air and throw in some beautiful vineyards and some wine tasting and I am in heaven! Jeff and I stayed at the Ballard Inn which was gorgeous. We had a fireplace in our room, and great music to listen to and there were no phones or tv's, which was just what I needed. Of course I had my crackberry blackberry which I did check compulsively as I was still kind of working while we were away. I got to thinking how different things are now than say five years ago, or ten, when you had to leave a message that said you were out of the office and couldn't be reached. Now I can always be reached and it does make relaxing, and turning off the brain much harder.

What about you...do you take a real break when you travel or are you always on call?