It suddenly dawned on me last night that there’s just over ten days to go until I leave for my very relaxing holiday in Ubud, Bali. EEEK!!

As a reminder, I’m going to be unable to ship items from my various online shops between 12 and 25 July. So if you need (or even just want!) some of my handmade jewelry during that time, you’d best think about it now.

Initially I felt very nervous about having booked it as it’s really not the type of trip I’d normally take. In particular I am entirely crap at relaxing - I honestly don’t think I can remember how to do it properly! So I have visions of getting to the second day of my relaxing holiday and having utterly no idea what to do with myself and desperately wanting to go home. But the good thing will be that I can’t - I’m going to be forcing myself to get on with it!

However, finally I’m feeling much more excited about going - even if I still feel entirely disorganised. In fact, I’ve just emailed the Bali Spirit Hotel to ask about extending my stay for a couple of days. The rest of 2007 is going to be frantic to say the least and if I’m taking a holiday I guess I really should make the most of it.

carbon offsetting

For those of you in Australia, I did a bit of research in relation to doing a carbon offset for my flights - something I decided a while back I should try to do from now on for long distance trips especially. Unfortunately a lot of the organisations which do this are commercial in nature and aren’t really overseen in any way - it’s hard to know at this point which ones to trust and if your money is really going to help.

However, I found a non-profit organisation called Carbon Neutral, which has links with Trees For Life - a South Australian organisation that my parents have had a lot to do with over the years. They appear to be working with Government to comply with recommendations being established for these sorts of organisations, plus any money you send their way is entirely tax deductible in Australia. Plus you can figure out offsets for other areas of your life apart from travel - for your home, running a car, etc..

So if you’re remotely thinking about this, I’d highly recommend having a look at Carbon Neutral.