The longer I wait to write, the harder it is to decide exactly what to write about. I just got back from 2 whole weeks away from site =( and found myself thinking "i want to go home!" and by home, I meant my site here in Guatemala. They say home is where your heart is, or maybe where your dog is?

Or, maybe home is where your stove is....

After two days of sleeping, trying to organize and clean house, and just enjoying being by myself, I got busy in the kitchen. I havent gotten to pick what i was going to eat, much less cook, in the past two weeks, and wanted to assure those of you back at home (mom and dad ) that I am eating healthy at least some of the time. I bought a head of cabbage for cabbage soup. It turns out one head of cabbage yields a ton of shredded cabbage-enough for a huge pot of soup ill be eating all week and a bag of cabbage salad with one quarter of the thing still left!

I needed something to dip in my soup so I busted out some jalapeno cornbread in my toaster oven.

And I just wanted to thank Lori again from Spice of Life (www.pasospices.com) for the awesome care package. I am now spice rich and this whole dinner would've been a little lackluster without the spice blends. I put "Misty Bay" in the cabbage soup, "Cajun Sensation" in the cornbread, and enjoyed her Green Tea with some whole Anise Seed thrown in for fun. Yummm

Speaking of home...or hearts....? Some of you know I joined my college labmates and also the boyfriend (in the photo) for a vacation/field work in the Cayos Cochinos in Honduras. You can read about the specifics of the project on my advisor Dr. Emily Taylor's blog (snakeymama.blogspot.com).

What can I say about the island? it was like a movie, exactly what you would picture when someone says 'remote caribbean island'. Our group of 8 and another class of 10 from wisconsin were the only people on the island aside from staff. Our days consisted of scouring the island for boas, and our afternoons were spent laying in the sun, or snorkeling and swimming in the crystal clear, warm caribbean waters.

A word about snorkeling: it is my new goal in life to go where I can snorkel, free dive, scuba (thinking about getting my certification while i'm here) as much as possible. It was my first time and the reef around the island was like a clip from Discovery Channel. I worked in an aquarium store for about a year in SLO and so I saw and maintained aquariums with the miniature recreations of reef. But I NEVER dreamed I would get to see them all in the wild. It was incredible.

The trip ended way too soon, as most good things do. I left La Ceiba, the port city in Honduras, at 5:15 am on Sunday to travel for 17 hours on a bus to arrive in Antigua, Guatemala where I grabbed a few hours of sleep before having to get up at 5 am again in order to be at our In-Service Training for Peace Corps....

The last week i spent in Training Sessions and another workshop and returned home full of great memories and new ideas and motivation for this Second Year of my Peace Corps Service...