Tap water and other novelties

America is novel to me right now.

This morning I watched a line of 5 cars creeping along behind a truck on a quiet road. The road was wide enough for three cars, and I thought, “In China, all of those cars would have gone around him, even if there had been oncoming traffic.”

Last night I threw a melatonin pill in my mouth and immediately realized it was not the kind you suck. Ack! Ack! What to do? And then I realized – I can drink this tap water. I have to say it wasn’t the best tasting water seeing as it was in the bathroom, but people, it was tap water. I walked around feeling weird about that for a little while.

Did you know that they make peanut butter Cheerios? And vanilla nut? Or something like that. I feel a little badly for regular Cheerios, like they aren’t good enough.

They have Crystal Light single packets that come in mixed drink flavors now like margarita, because nothing says, “Soccer mom who’d rather be at happy hour” like fake alcohol in your water bottle.

The grapes are big but there are no seeds, and the skins don’t feel like something you need to cut through with a knife!

America really knows how to do paper products. I feel like I’m wiping my nose with a blanket.

The internet is crazy fast here!

Yeah, I’m enjoying it all.

Continue ReadingTap water and other novelties

Ready, set, go

I really didn’t want to run this morning.

Usually, the night before, I am looking forward to a run. I envision myself running farther and faster, people staring in awe as I fly by (actually that last part would never happen, but that’s ok). Come morning, I am a little less enthusiastic.

This time, I wasn’t even excited last night, so I didn’t have a great deal of hope for the morning. It was only the fact that I am running a 5K on Saturday and don’t want to fail miserably that I forced myself out the door.

To my surprise, it was a good run. It helps to have a gorgeous route and cool temps. At the turnaround point I was tempted to go further, but decided not to push it. Good thing too because I always forget how long and steep is the final quarter mile back to the house.

Why am I telling you all this? Well because it perfectly illustrates how I am feeling today about homeschool. In all the craziness of packing to leave 13 years of life behind, this “having to teach to the kids” thing kind of snuck up on me.

I really don’t want to homeschool this morning.

Yesterday I was a madhouse of planning, preparing, and buying last minute materials. I am hoping to ease into it this week but with the amount that we are going to be disturbed in our schedule this year I know we can’t afford to not dive in head first next week. I don’t want to say goodbye to all my free time and hello to being a teacher again, but we can’t have feral, uneducated young’uns running around.

But who knows? It could be good. It has been before. Yes, it’s tough, and there are steep hills to climb, but I think we’ll get into a groove soon enough.

So here we are. Ready, set, go.

Continue ReadingReady, set, go

Project 365 August

Here is our last month in China, in pictures. I missed a few because of all the moving craziness, but I caught a lot of our last moments. 

Cool gate along a country road

Guyaju cave dwellings

Longqing Gorge

Fruit vendor

relief on a hot day

Taking a bath

Scout Court of Honor

Hutong door

Old hutong

Ancient woman in the hutong

Piggyback

This is MY toy

To do list

packing

Garage sale

Our door

mowing the grass with a weed wacker

Someone’s collecting branches

A game of cards

Reading the news

Sunset

Lunchtime

Waiting to be taken

A last bag of my favorite snack

Where the white boards were

This is how boys say goodbye

Scout looking forlorn as she heads across the ocean

Nope, I didn’t take this but it was worthy of inclusion

Last photos with friends

Continue ReadingProject 365 August

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