life changes - the reason i stopped homeschooling

No kidding, I stopped homeschooling.  Go ahead and look over there to the right.  See that.  Its a homeschool banner.  Yea, I know.  I don't update the blog religiously but that is one thing that will always stay.  That and the Compassion banner.  I love both.  And if you asked, I would probably still tell you that I homeschool even though the kid goes to school.  Yip, he goes to an honest to goodness school- complete with walls, and lunchrooms and PE, and bells, and a playground and a swimming pool.  And he loves it.  What's worse- I LOVE IT!  I'm half crazy about the kid's brick and mortar school building.  And I still say I homeschool.

I miss homeschool.  We went through a bit of a patch a few years ago.  When we came back to where we called home, we, the whole family, realized we needed a thrive not survive life change.  So we put all the cards on the table and asked God to do something with them.  He brought a new job in a new city with a wildly different house and a school environment that had @ written all over.  When that happens, who am I to argue.  So the kid went to school and grew by leaps and bounds.  He wasn't doing poorly in any way in homeschool, it was just time for him to put his roots in different soil so that he could grow.  He had outgrown the pot he was in.  So I became a room mom.  @'s sweet teacher was kind enough to share her class with me a little.  I read books, subbed, brought the cookies, but really I didn't want to miss a minute of watching @ grow in his new pot.  And he did.  Ah, the kid amazes me. This year is no different.  This year has been a bit harder.  His teacher doesn't ask much of me and I find myself not wanting to insert myself.  It isn't his teacher, just the growing dynamics.  So I find myself looking in the window at how @ is growing.  He's still doing amazingly well but I find myself with my finger less on the pulse.  It gets me jumpy sometimes.  I miss him more.

As things would happen I find myself on the cusp of homeschooling again.  Seasons change and we'll be in the US for part of 2015.  I'll get @ back for 6th grade, or some part of it anyway.  And as luck would have it, @ is looking forward to homeschool.  He enjoys school at 5th grade but I wonder if he isn't ready for a change of pace.  I have been surprised by how eagerly he talks about it.  Soon we'll be looking through our Sonlight catalog together and eagerly awaiting box day.

Maybe homeschool will only last for a semester while we're away.  Maybe it will extend the whole school year.  But all the same, I've decided homeschool to some extent is a state of mind.  Probably that isn't what I should say, but its accurate for where we're at.  Presently @ is in a school building school.  Presently so is !.  I know ! has another few years before I need to think about school- like curriculum school.  And she is a different bird than @.  The very things that met that @ NEEDED a school building school are some of the very reasons that I don't know that ! will.  I wonder if she won't thrive a bit on homeschool.  And then at some point maybe she'll flip and NEED a building school.  The good news is that I have wised up.  The better news is that I can see that we have choices and we'll do what is best for each of them at the time they are ready for it.

Christmas 2011

Forts were in Santa's sleigh this year for the kids at our house. Some months ago I saw this on pinterest and thought @ needed a reading nook. I put it in the back of my mind as something I could probably put together without a problem once we returned home. Jonathan saw it and he wanted one too (who doesn't?). So once we were home he started searching out the best size pipe and tweeking the design a bit.
A friend of ours had to get a new fridge a few weeks back. They kept the box thinking perfect ! fort. A day or two before Christmas we cut into it, opened up an end and put a porthole in the top. We been finding both children inside of it and ! has decided its her secret lair for things she knows she's not supposed to have- like daddy's day planner.

What we thought was going to be the BIG surprise of christmas was kind of a yay, middle surprise. Someone at church was selling their Wii that they didn't use much. So we jumped on it- this was back in the summer. We brought it back here, put it in the drawer and finally got it out for Christmas. I'm happy to have the drawer back. The Wii is ok. Our 7 yr. old @ can be a bit of a no it all because he's played the Wii before but he learned from 4 yr old, which increasingly becomes obvious as he really needs to settle down a listen to directions. The first day was full of us wondering why we had brought this evil to our house. The second day was much better. Jonathan and I learned to use it a bit, set up the internet connection so we can read the morning news. Last evening we played bowling and tennis and it was a little like being on a date. So we're learning to enjoy it and @ is learning to be patient with himself as he learns to play games- he was a great bowler though!

I'll get a finished product picture of the fort in his room later but this is the fort with his stocking underneath. The design on the site we saw had the fort entirely wrapped with sheeting. No way were we doing that here- way too hot! My first idea was to take some material and use binder clips on the sides, or to hot glue the fabric stretched over the top. Jonathan remembered this sheet set we were given- its roughly a queen size sheet but the elastic fit perfectly over the corners.

something like 24 hours

I know, look at me, coolly blogging away time I should be finishing preparations. I think we're in good shape. Jonathan did lots of putting away things yesterday while I took @ to see Toy Story 3 (which will be the subject of a future blog). It was a good use of time because he needed a reason to get out of the house so that someone could get work done. @ is trying to stay entertained but we can't be in charge of entertainment and pack at the same time. He's helped some when I've given him direction but sometimes I have a hard time defining what I want him to do. Oh well.

Today's jobs:
- bring selected toys to a friend's house. She has kids over sometimes and thought it might be fun to freshen her toy shelf while we are gone and no one else is using them.

- Store @'s toys in his room- i think this will be during play time this afternoon. Just inside the wardrobe and throwing a sheet over the bookshelf.

-Pack carry ons and be realistic.

- Send Jonathan to the airport with 2 rubbermaid containers to see how frightfully overweight they are. I am a REALLY GOOD packer (for airplanes, I don't do domestic moves). Therefore I can get 70+ lbs in a 20 gallon rubbermaid. And, what's worse, I can still lift it. I can't lift 70lbs at any other time but if its luggage at the airport, you'll see me moving rubbermaids like a bodybuilder. Once I packed a refrigerator box full of baby things to take to Africa. I was sure it wasn't 70lbs because I could lift it. It was 110lbs. I had to unpack it at the airport counter and repack into another bag. But now the airline limits are 50lbs and I know I'm in trouble. We have plenty of bags we can take its just I'd like to take the minimum number of bags. So off Jonathan goes to the airport to check these 2 rubbermaids.

- Oh, and someone is going to take away my computer today it needs to go into storage.

how i know homeschooling worked out ok this year

Sunday morning is kind of a relaxed time of our week. We have a leisurely breakfast together. Read news. Play games. Color. Couch Church. Maybe a little laundry. Tell stories together.

This Sunday @ sat at the project table while I cleaned Dorothy's fishbowl. Jonathan polished on a final exam. Itunes played. @ was busy inventing a game that consists of sliding playdoh containers into a large tower of playdoh containers. I asked about the game. He explained that this game actually came from Southern Chile. He went to our world map and proceeded to point out the region of Southern Chile it came from and yes, he found Chile on an unmarked map. Then he told me about a similar game played in Greenland (child points to Greenland on an unmarked map) but they stack dice in Greenland instead of playdoh containers. Then he explained about how the Northern and Southern Countries play different versions. Correctly pointing to North and South.

@ is 5. I'm feeling pretty awesome about the decision to homeschool.

365 projects start randomly

I like the idea of New Year's Resolutions. I don't know if I like them so much as I don't find them offensive in anyway. But I'm realistic enough with myself to know that if I think of something that I'd like to change or do around december 15, I really shouldn't wait until 1 January to get the ball rolling. Strike while the iron is hot is kind of where I'm at on resolution. Some years ago I thought I need to read the bible all the way through. I bought a one year bible and started on sept 23. Not exactly starting at the beginning I understand but it didn't make sense to wait and I knew I'd get confused by the starting at the beginning. I'm a distractible puppy like that. So wrote the year of the start date next to sept 23 and when I got around to it again, it had been one year and I had finished the bible- right in the middle of Isaiah.

So for the last month I've been playing around with things I want to do. I've got this silly pain in my hip - doctor here said its arthritis but its hard to say if you ask me considering I don't think she did enough to find this out conclusively. I've read about it a little and for some reason it seems walking might be a better form of exercise for it than the biking I ususally do. Websites told me to walk 10,000 steps a day. So for Christmas, Jonathan and I got pedometers. I think its like low tech interactive video gaming. Jonathan and I check our steps throughout the day - so far I need to practically double the amount I'm walking but its only the first 3 days, I'm working on it.

I love the camera I have, except for the fact it doesn't have a remote. I love cameras with remotes. But I've been thinking about a picture a day. Over the next year we're going to be around alot of places and do lots of transitioning. So I'm working on 365 photo project. I'm working on thinking of a venue for sharing them. I don't think that will be here. I've thought about facebook but I don't know that they have much of a format that would lend itself to that. I'm looking at opening a site at 365project. Problem is I have a mental hangup about opening another site. I did that with livejournal and it just didn't take. The thing is that this isn't necessarily about you but about me. I'd like to take nice photos. I'd like to keep pictures of where we go and what we see because I'm a believer in everyday magic. I don't really want to get hyper tied down to captioning for other people, so much as captioning for me, if I want to.

I want to learn local cooking. I bought a cookbook here toward that end. Figuring it'll facilitate language learning in a different way and let me play around with local ingredients with a little more understanding.

I've got a few other thoughts but I'm being called in to look at a superior bed nest and watch restaurant makeover- that is what school holiday's mean for @.

adding to the mayhem

Its been a bit of a day and its not quite noon yet. Feel free to skip because really this is a long winded sigh...

The electricity has been spotty in the kitchen for a day or two. A friend clued us into the possibility that its probably just the circuit that is dead- not the wiring for the house going bad as I had feared. After snap, crackling and popping at me this morning after Jonathan had gone to class, I shut off the electric to the whole house- when in doubt, better not to burn down the house. Jonathan came home from work today, he found an electric shop open, bought a new circuit and got it installed. So far, so good, the electricity is staying on and there is no more snap, crackle, pop. That's good, because it is wicked hot and the fan is doing its best but still its just blowing around warm air.

On another front, realization has been setting in that @ and I don't have paperwork from Immigration and our last extension expires tomorrow. Probably that means something should be done. Thing is we are waiting on the national level office to click 3 things for each of us in the computer before the local office can complete our visas. Its been like 10 or 12 days and they haven't done it so I'm not counting on them finishing before tomorrow when our extension keeping us legal, expires. So I got out to the local office to see what needs to be done. I tell them that we aren't clicked yet but my extension expires tomorrow. Funny thing, they are in a quandry too. There is no procedure or rule for this kind of thing. So they check the computer, just to double check our statuses, not that they don't believe me, just they too are hoping against hope. Well it seems that sometime in the last hour the national office did a little work- I have my clicks from the national office, now I'm just waiting on one click from an office across town. So they give me the phone number and name of that guy in the office across town- this shouldn't be a problem they say. Then they check @'s status from the national office. Seems the national office quit work after all that hard work clicking my name and they haven't done anything for the 5yr old. So the question remains, but now its taken on a real element of the ridiculous, tomorrow does the 5 yr old need to leave the country alone because he doesn't have his paperwork/clicks from the national office? Should we petition the justice dept for another extension for the 5yr old? Because we are out of extension technically according to the immigration office, we would now have to ask justice for special permission to extend longer. Do you see how ridiculous this is? After only 10 months this is how far we've come...
SIGH...

Good news: I have a houseworker who makes this awesome crazy addictive fried chicken. I was smart enough to have her make it while Jon was doing electric and I was doing immigration. Very good decision on my part.

homeschooling update

We started week 6 of continuous homeschooling today. And overall its good. I find myself banging my head against the project table, sighing and then being amazed at how smart the kid is normally within about 1 minute. I'm beginning to learn a few things:

- don't call off school for anything. 5 yr olds can smell weakness. getting restarted is way harder than going slow.
- handwriting and 5 yr old boys are not always the dearest of friends- Rome wasn't built in a day.
- Rome is fascinating to study. As is Ancient Egypt, Greece and the Vikings.
- math is fun when manipulatives are in hand.
- kids need a minute or two to zone out every so often. It just seems like that is always the time when i'm asking the comprehension question.
- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow- if only i could make the kid understand the concept everyday.
-kid with broken arm now colors with both hands at the same time.
-i need recess as much as he does, but i think i need to hire a recess teacher.
-kid with scissors is scary- i know i'm going to loose an eye.

Overall school is going really well. This week and next we are combining Consonants and Vowels to start reading- something I think the kid will be entirely ready for. Now to know what is actually getting in the kid's head for real.

Meal Plan

Its always encouraging when the 4yr old walks in the kitchen and starts with "I don't like..." while he walks around the kitchen looking for something he can lay his hands on that he doesn't like. Today it was the kidney beans I put in the chili, which was a problem for him because he really like kidney beans.

Monday evening: Chicken Chili
Tuesday lunch: Chickpea & Veg Curry, Naan
Menu: Beef Rendang, Rice, Sayur (may be a little extra for the freezer)
Menu: Chicken, Bean, Cheese Soft Tacos, homemade salsa
Menu: BBQ Chicken Pizza with Zucchini Yeast Bread Crust
Menu: Baked Potatos, Brocolli, Cheese, Salsa, Sour Cream
Alternate: Tuna Burgers, Mashed Potato (leftover from baked), Corn Cob
Alternate: Spinach Quiche (my houseworker isn't crazy about this one I think)

Baking & Cooking
**Roasting Pumpkin to make Puree- freeze extra
Granola
**Homemade Applesauce - freeze extra
Tortilla - pure joy
Make extra taco chicken for freezer

**If you are buying these two things you're seriously missing out.
Pumpkin Puree (too simple for words)
- cut open a pumpkin
- clean out seeds
- put on cookie sheet skin side up
- bake 350 ish (maybe you have the oven on for something else, whatever temp in the 300s is probably fine) until the inside is soft and the outside looks like it wants to collapse
- cool, don't be a silly like me, you will burn your fingers, and scoop out into a freezer box.
Use like any old can of pumpkin only you're going to feel like a genius.

Homemade Applesauce
- buy a ton of apples
- sit in front of tv or kids playing games or whatever and cut, core apples (maybe you want peel, maybe you don't). You don't have to be standing in the kitchen to cut apples.
- Cook for as long as you like in pot that is big enough. Maybe you like chunky like my husband, maybe you like puree like his brother, you choose. Throw a little water on top if they start getting burny at the bottom, just some, not tons.
Now you've made applesauce and you know where it came from and you know how much sugar is in it, just what was in the apple. Again you feel like a genius for loving your body and your family's body. You want a lunch box cup- you just saved yourself money by making it so go buy a reuseable box, you're worth it.

Snapfish Photobooks by O

So most everything Oprah touches turns to some form of gold (at least that spray on kind) and I like half the world logged on to get a part in the free photo book offer from snapfish. I've long been a snapfish customer and this was the perfect way to take care of the grandparents christmas gifts. I logged in before last friday's deadline and then noticed that the people at snapfish were sort of begging people to take the extension. I was happy to wait because when I'm awake, EST is asleep and that is so much the better for me. This evening though I decided to take care of it during @'s resting time- 2 hours should be enough. Its now well after dinner and I've just finished. 6 HOURS PEOPLE! Snapfish had said that they were experiencing long waits in the Help desk and tremendous volume. They weren't lying. I could tell when EST woke up because all of a sudden their server all but died. The worst of it was that I was done with the book I just needed to preview the thing and order it. I gave up on the preview after an hour + and opted for ordering- 99% sure everything was ok. But then the ordering info wouldn't come up. SAVE OFTEN! I ended up going back to the store, then back to my account and projects and was finally able to by pass whatever was killing the preview. Snapfish just gets killed on the content of the book preview so I'd recommend avoiding it. Anyway, as the people at Snapfish expected I went ahead and ordered a second book for the 25% discount. Getting one for free and a discount on the next means 2 happy grandma's with matching @ books. It could be gibberish printed in the captions and the grandma's would still do a happy dance. So thank you Oprah. Thank you Snapfish. And I'm sure my internet provider thanks you too.

And a shout out to Gretchen for the word.

meal plan

This is way late in the week but I promise I wrote the meal plan, just didn't get a chance to sit at the computer a lot. We're doing thanksgiving on sunday the 9th so the meal plan revolves around me having no refrigerator space because there is a 6.4 kg turkey in it.

Menu Monday noon: Delicious Chicken Bits, Rice, Spicy Green Beans
Menu Monday pm: Leftover Beef Parmesan and noodles for the boys, my favorite Ramen for me
Menu Tuesday noon: Malai Kofta, Naan
Menu Tuesday pm: leftovers & take out pizza
Menu Wednesday noon: leftover Malai Kofta and Naan
Menu Wednesday pm: Oven BBQ Chicken, Baked Beans, Fries
Menu Thursday noon: leftover BBQ Chicken and Rice
Menu Thursday pm: Beef w/ Onion & Green Pepper, Malai Kofta and Naan
Menu Friday noon: Orik Arik & Fried Tempeh (delicious), Rice
Menu Saturday: Tuna Burgers, Mac N Cheese & Brocolli

Tuesday I had better plans but the meal plan was a bust. The Malai Kofta was a link I had found online and I was way excited about it. It took me 4 hours to make and was a complete cooking disaster. It tasted good, just I had to make so many modifications to the recipe it became a new thing. Way too much frustration! I'll be taking down the previous links. Especially the one for homemade Paneer. I simmered the milk for 3 hours and it finally turned to paste- nothing like cottage cheese. ERRRGGG! Then I had a student show up needing to talk about her univ. course work plan and reading her housing contract. So by time dinner came around there was monsoon like rain and we knew the electricity wouldn't last long so the pizza delivery boy got an extra tip for braving our street.

Turkey cooking starts on Sunday morning.

feeling proud

I love the electoral process. Love it. I love the tacky, fragile poll booths with their old curtains, the ballot forms that look so serious, the heavy marking pens (such good quality pens), the little old people that sit as election monitors that act like they are at a funeral, that big metal box they put the ballots in, the stickers, the fact that my sister and I are still on the rolls right next to my mom (actually I think we're off the rolls this year). I love all of it.

Watching election coverage I can go either way. Tim Russert not being around is a bummer and I still remember Wolf Blitzer seeming like a complete idiot during the first Iraq War, so Wolf just isn't doing anything for me. This year though I sat at the TV and cried with Jesse Jackson, because it struck me that when my mom was 31 America wasn't ready for a black man to be President. When my grandma was 31, America wasn't really ready for black children to go to school. So I'm feeling the historical significance of a black being elected President of the United States of America. I promise you I like John McCain but my guess is that he is even just a little proud that the America he's fought for his whole life for is ready to elect a black man. That's why guys like John McCain fight, because the blessing of liberty is for every man, woman and child.

A Somali Olympian

We haven't been able to see the Olympics here. We've seen a few still shots of Micheal Phelps on CNN and I've checked the pictures from a scrapbook lady living in Beijing. One of the national networks supposedly bought the rights, which was an 11th hour purchase, but the times they have listed on TV Guide are not correct. We've checked on and off everyday and have yet to see anything despite people saying its there. Perhaps it our satellite service. But today as I was closing out Yahoo I saw this article: Somalia’s runners provide inspiration and it made me cry. Jonathan laughed at me but truly this is the most tragic hopeful thing I've read in a long time.

These are some exerts from the article. I apologize to the author if I haven't cited it properly but I really thing the article is worth sharing.

It was Aug. 19, and the tiny girl had crossed over seven lanes to find
her starting block in her 200-meter heat. She walked past Jamaica’s Veronica
Campbell-Brown – the eventual gold medalist in the event. Samia had
read about Campbell-Brown in track and field magazines and once watched her in
wonderment on television. As a cameraman panned down the starting blocks, it
settled on lane No. 2, on a 17-year old girl with the frame of a Kenyan distance
runner. Samia’s biography in the Olympic media system contained almost no
information, other than her 5-foot-4, 119-pound frame. There was no mention of
her personal best times and nothing on previous track meets. Somalia, it was
later explained, has a hard time organizing the records of its athletes.
She
looked so odd and out of place among her competitors, with her white headband
and a baggy, untucked T-shirt. The legs on her wiry frame were thin and spindly,
and her arms poked out of her sleeves like the twigs of a sapling. She tugged at
the bottom of her shirt and shot an occasional nervous glance at the other
runners in her heat. Each had muscles bulging from beneath their skin-tight
track suits. Many outweighed Samia by nearly 40 pounds.

When Samia cannot make it to the stadium, she runs in the streets, where she runs into roadblocks of burning tires and refuse set out by insurgents. She is often bullied and threatened by militia or locals who believe that Muslim women should not take part in sports. In hopes of lessening the abuse, she runs in the oppressive heat wearing long sleeves, sweat pants and a head scarf. Even then, she is told her place should be in the home – not participating in sports.

The food is not something that is measured and given to us every day,” Samia said. “We eat whatever we can get.”
On the best days, that means getting protein from a small portion of fish, camel or goat meat, and carbohydrates from bananas or citrus fruits growing in local trees. On the worst days – and there are long stretches of those – it means surviving on water and Angera, a flat bread made from a mixture of wheat and barley.

Samia was just entering the curve when her opponents were nearing the finish line. A local television feed had lost her entirely by the time Veronica Campbell-Brown crossed the finish line in a trotting 23.04 seconds.

Suddenly, the half-empty stadium realized there was still a runner on the track, still pushing to get across the finish line almost eight seconds behind the seven women who had already completed the race. In the last 50 meters, much of the stadium rose to its feet, flooding the track below with cheers of encouragement. A few competitors who had left Samia behind turned and watched it unfold.
As Samia crossed the line in 32.16 seconds, the crowd roared in applause. Bahamian runner Sheniqua Ferguson, the next smallest woman on the track at 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds, looked at the girl crossing the finish and thought to herself, “Wow, she’s tiny.”

But it also gave us Samia Yusuf Omar – one small girl from one chaotic country – and a story that might have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been for a roaring half-empty stadium.

--Somalia’s runners provide inspiration
By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports

before getting dressed

I've found over the years that I am way more productive before I get dressed than after. Today its noon and I'm getting ready now to take a shower and get dressed, I'm still in my pajamas. The thing is that pajamas are work clothes for me. Before getting dressed today, I have:
- washed 3 loads of clothes and hung them outside, brought 1 inside, folded and put away
- painted the living room and washed out all the brushes
- swept the house
- made 2 different kinds of cookies (double batches)
- baked 3 cookie sheets of cookies
- cleaned the kitchen
- washed dishes
- cleared the project table
Now we're going up to lunch and I'll pick up some fruit and eggs from the grocer there. Jonathan did a fine job at the grocery yesterday and only brought home the things on the list- very impressive. I didn't have him get a few things like bananas and eggs because they wouldn't stand a chance on the motorbike coming home. I prefer to buy those from neighborhood grocer anyway.

I'm going to get dressed so I'm pretty sure all progress will stop now.

day to day stuff

This last week has been full of odds and ends getting ready for the much anticipated arrival of my mom on 25 June. So I started painted and then had problems stopping. I painted our bedroom and hung curtains that were in our house in SL3, didn't realize they would fit our window until last week. I really should have hung them earlier because they make all the difference in the world. I painted @'s room and as he wasn't happy about Jon's color choice, we added green stripes to the blue paint. He likes the stripes but now want more, which sadly can't happen because it would probably make a person dizzy. More curtains coming to his room as soon as they get back from the shop. I've been so thankful that the curtains I bought for our windows in SL3 are working here too. @'s need to be cut and hemmed but then they'll be ready to go.

I took our borrowed truck into the shop for the rust repairs. I drove myself out and explained what needed to be done no problem. This is a point of some pride because sometimes I find my ability to explain mechanical things a little lacking.

I met with the pastor's wife from the church we have been attending. We had a nice visit. She's such a nice lady and a very encouraging spirit. I found a way to gently say that we can't come to church every week because we don't want to do permanent damage to our hearing. That's sounds wimpy but truly it is that loud. Attending church here is a little like sitting in the front room of a 80s metal band concert. No kidding. Jon wears ear plugs. I bought ear plugs but they are too big for my ears, so I try to slip cotton in without anyone noticing. We haven't found anything that really works for @ because he plays with the cotton. Sunday school isn't quite as loud but the kids are dismissed until after the blazing loud song service, which is where the bulk of the damage is done. Normally we come home feeling sick from the noise exposure. Sigh

Since school got out @ has been having a string of good days. We actually went to the grocery store together the other day and had a good time of it. The grocery store here is very similar to church, it is very high volume. Very High. So add volume to kids running careening through the aisles, trying to find the item you want, read the label on it, and manage your own child that doesn't understand why he isn't allowed to run through the store and its a stressful environment. Normally @ stays home but we were having such a good day I wondered how it would go. Better than expected.

settling in

Definitely more of a settled in feeling today. A friend called the other day and asked if I'd be willing to meet someone she thought might be houseworker potential. I met her last night and then again this morning and I think she'll work out. I've got her on an extened trial period for the month. This week is just half days so that I can get to know how she works and train her to do somethings that I'm particular about (ok, so that is really like 1 thing when it comes to someone who wants to clean my house, PLEASE DON'T IRON THE UNDERWEAR). Then next week she starts full days 9-3, which is really as much as I can bear to have someone in my house. She seems like a good person and she wasn't afraid of Jonathan so that's a miracle.

@ had a good first day back to a new week of school. We had a good conversation with the principal on friday and they have put an extra teacher in @'s class. She helps all of the kids but particularly @, which is great because he still is trying to figure out the routine. Still I'm feeling better about it, at least for this 5 minute period of time. I'll freak out again later. Oh, and miracle of all miracles, @ napped today!

This weekend we went up the mountain and had an opportunity to see a really well done performance of Hamlet from High school kids. I know, crazy, high school kids doing Hamlet on stage for people to pay to watch. Sounds crazy. But the kids were amazing. Their characters were bang on. So fun to watch. While we were up the mountain is was breezy and we were downright cool. I wouldn't let @ swim at the hotel because with the wind it was too cold to swim.

Today I went to the grocery and realized I've finally settled down. I bought no sugar, rice or flour. Normally these are things I buy obsessively because of the shortages we experienced in Africa. Even when we were in the states I bought way too much of these. Today I walked right on by and I don't have a crazy surplus in the cabinet. Only 1kg of flour and 2 kgs of sugar. This is a record low for me. Feeling like good mental health girl today.

where to hide the easter eggs?

The grass in the side yard of course. Looks like this week I will be getting 6 trucks of dirt delivered to my house! Why, you ask? To lay grass in the side yard. Later this afternoon I'll post a few pictures of our side yard as it sits at the moment. We had a wall taken out of our kitchen and a window put in. All of that cement and tile rubble got laid in the side yard, to build up the surface and because no one hauls away rubble. Its a disaster area to say the least and its the only outside spot for @ to play. Who wants their kid playing on broken cement and ceramic tile and random pieces of board with random rusty nails? @ doesn't mind but I'm a little nervous about the rusty nail thing. So since we moved we've been talking about what to do with the side yard and the agreement was dirt and grass. Finally we are at that stage! And after that project gets done I think we are going to give the pocket book a rest. Our little personal wallet has been open more than closed lately and its feeling a little lightweight. Fortunately, the US Federal Government will be underwriting the yard. I know they want all of us to spend in tax money in the states but we're not there very often. We should really post a sign thanking them for their help.

So its March

I remember thinking back in January how excited I was for March to come because by that point we'd be in some fashion "settled". And I was so right! So its March today and we really are settled . We've been accomplishing our task lists. The huge wall moving, stair renovation work is finished (and looks GREAT). @'s room can now be cleaned up by himself. When I sweep, there isn't cement dust or sawdust. This week I went into town and bought and AC unit for @'s bedroom and arranged the installation and service of our current AC units all by myself. That would be a huge language task that I did on my own. Feeling cool about that. Jonathan installed a new door on our service bathroom, still needs a handle but it shuts, which is a significant improvement. He installed a new light for us in the project room. I went out today and bought new lights for the bathroom. Jonathan cleaned the trap on the bathroom sink which actually turned into replumbing the sink. I bought a few rugs for our bedrooms. Yeah, we're in a good spot.

Last week I was able to finally buy a table to use as a desk and I unpacked the scrapbook supplies and my offfice supplies. I was able to catch up on some bookkeeping (YES)! Yeah, I have an office now and can find stuff.

Next week, hoping to get the bathroom lights installed and the door knob on the bathroom door. Hoping to have counter made for the kitchen this week. Meal prep off a bookshelf is just about to make me crazy. The ledge is just wide enought for things to fall off. I've explored around town some and now have fabric for sheets (we had to buy beds and the sheets we had don't actually fit the beds we bought) and need to find someone to hem them up.

Still on the prowl for somethings but for the most part we are past the necessity stage. Getting the kitchen sink installed helped and stairs instead of a glorified ladder.

That is where I have been

some things

First night in the new house. @ is happily tucked into a new bed. It isn't too hot I don't think.
Things we're doing today:
- sweeping and mopping a hundred times. Kitchen work isn't done.
- putting away clothes.
- washing clothes loving the washing machine.
- moving furniture all over.
- hooked up the internet.
- new shower put into the bathroom.
- washing dishes in my new sink. so happy.
- playing with @. Discovering new old toys.
- making beds and tearing off the plastic.
- cleaning out drawers and cabinets.

Tomorrow:
- clean out suitcases to pack for singapore.
- sweep and mop a hundred times.
- move in the kitchen, they should be mostly done by mid day.
- unload/ load fridge.
- read stove instructions
- call the water dispenser repair guy.
- measure for counters
- clean up the grown ups bedroom
- sweep and mop upstairs , first time
- hang clocks! this is a big deal.
- maybe make lunch or dinner in our own house with our own appliances.

I'm sure there is some other stuff.

moved in

Has that been the title of a post before? I suspect so. But we are. We closed out the house yesterday by 9:30 and had all of our belongings in the new house by 12:30. That is with an hour and a half of drive time. I call that impressive. It really was an easy move. Houseworker stayed an cleaned out the house for about 30 minutes after we left.

So of course it wasn't necessarily without the moving road bumps. When we first moved into the house in March 07, we showed up about 5:30p.m. (late flights the night before), flipped on the lights, and the lights didn't come on. Seems the guy who was guarding the house between tenants hadn't paid the bills. So we went on to a hotel for the night and the landlord straightened it out first thing in the morning. Well as we are moving out we had another utility speed bump. A few weeks ago we had had a few days without water so we had been extra careful this last week. Good thing because Thursday proved to be our last day of water, but of course no one told us that. Friday morning we woke up and the main tank was empty which surprised us because that tank normally fills in the night. No huge deal we have a second tank. Well as we are sitting at breakfast, a huge water truck from the water company shows up and pulls down the alley street. So Jonathan goes out and asks, it seems that a water pipe has burst and they are here to fill buckets for the neighborhood. So Jonathan and I begin filling our house cisterns and helping neighbors with buckets. Granted we are moving out the next morning but we are also needing to clean house and we haven't had a bath. Turns out to be a real blessing because one of the ladies we helped ended up buying our extra tank and we were able to help her move it down and fill it with water. So yeah, that house had a few utility problems.

As for our new house, the guys aren't done with my kitchen. We're hoping Wednesday but no promises. A little miffed (they've had 3 weeks on not that big of a job) but the house is such a blessing that I'm willing to look past it. We're working on getting things in there places while still having the fridge and stove in the living room. In better news, this new washing machine I bought is heaven. I did 4 loads today (no water meant rationing, which means no clothes washing for 5 days) and she is such a pleasure of a machine. Something I haven't said for a while.

Happy Feet is almost over, so its bed time.

stuff I don't want to touch

2 Days before moving and we are really in good moving shape. Mostly today I need to try to keep down my gag response to touching stuff I don't want to touch. There are always the papers the random bits of string, the half crayon/ pencil, the broken thing that you've been avoiding touching because really it needs to be tossed but there could be a use to them...maybe...so maybe I should keep them. The thought of maybe I could need this is a real bother to me. The attempt at not being wasteful is a real burden. So I have these piles of things I don't want to touch. And then the boxes of stuff we still need but there is no organization to the box it is going in. I hate that. So they are just boxes of stuff, you can't write "office" or "kitchen" on the box because the stuff comes from all over. Hate that too.

This morning I got a notice from our bank of an ATM transaction that was posted yesterday. We didn't draw money yesterday. So this is either a late posting transaction, which happens... oh that's write you had a holiday on monday, oh I hope that is it. But it could also be bank fraud, which we've been waiting to happen. Credit card/ Bank Fraud is rampant here and its happened to lots of people we know here. Just kind of a fact of life. But because of Martin Luther King Jr. I will take a little hope.

@ woke last night and I put him back to bed as usual. An extra hug, kiss and prayer and the boy said "Tonight I dream of SLOP". He can quote all kinds of G rated movies. Charlotte's Web is a the current favorite.