Skip to main content

undecorated

I took advantage of feeling sick today to undecorate our home.  Sick enough to skip school but well enough to get some things done in the house.  It's hard to make understandable Mandarin come out of my mouth when my head is pounding and my stomach turning.

When I was younger I always felt very sad when the tree came down and we didn't have little lights glimmering in our living room.  But now, I feel happy that it's done and I have my living room floor space back.  Ah, the reality of getting older.  I think it helps that I did it on NY's Eve so that I have tonight and the new year to be excited about.

Here are a few things that stick out about 2008.
-Lilian Pearl, possibly the sweetest baby on planet Earth
-Moving across town because of toxic fumes in the old place
-Finding and decorating an apartment that we LOVE.  We may have the largest kitchen in all of China.
-Living in Beijing for 6 weeks
-Becoming such great friends with Natasha Tompkins
-Living in Chengdu for a month which was so much harder than I expected but lead to us desiring to live there for much longer
-Changing our minds from staying in Xi'an after school to moving to Chengdu
-Madeleine turning 3 and getting older every single day
-The May earthquake - I'll never forget being pregnant, holding Madeleine and praying with Yali while we sat in the shower waiting for the building to stop rocking.  
-Realizing that I was acculturating to life here - the things that bugged me so much before or that bug newcomers don't seem so big anymore.
-Realizing that we are no longer newbies.  We are now the ones that know "everything".  Newbies now call us to find out where to buy carpet, ovens, candles, condensed soup, turkey and where to get a good haircut.
-Phil's amazing love for me and his girls.  He aint perfect but he sure tries to be.  What more could I want?  Plus, he's handsome to boot.
-G*d's faithfulness.  What he says he'll do, he does.  Looking back at fall 2007 and not knowing how he was going to do stuff we knew he was telling us to do but knowing full well that he would do it.  Now, sitting here today seeing how he's starting to do it.  Absolutely amazing.
-Celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with my folks...in China.
-Having Jana, Shay and Amber hold Lilian just hours after she was born.
-Having Tim and Sheryl Steiner (Dad and Mom) visit for 3 weeks.  Seeing China through their eyes was so interesting.
-Malaysia with the Littletons and Drummonds
-Always a highlight and great memory every year...Thailand's food, sand and friends.
-Learning Mandarin vocab that can change a person's life.  

Happy New Year!

Popular posts from this blog

happy birthday

Today I am 29 years old. I don't mind being a 29 year old. It has it's advantages, I'm sure. It's only 7:33am so I don't really know how my actual birthday is going to be but yesterday was great. After a meeting here at home with the other Seminary English teachers, Phil told me that Terri (coworker) wanted to see me the office. I knew something was up and when I walked into the office everyone was standing there, Terri was holding a cake with candles, and they all started singing "Happy Birthday". I wasn't surprised that they did something but I was surprised to have everyone there at that moment singing to me. I'm enjoying a piece of the spice cake right now with coffee. They also made me a really sweet card that was very encouraging. Terri and Buddy(dog) came over around 5pm last evening so that Phil and I could go out. I knew we were going to a restaurant and I knew we should dress a little nice. We both looked nice but we couldn't...
Read more

Fickle ol' solidarity

At some point in March when this virus deemed that it had spread so far that it could be called a pandemic, I told the girls they should do video journals to remember the days of living in a pandemic. Here now in the middle of April, I realize that I need to write for myself and the girls can just have lots of regret when they're older because they didn't do what I said. When the whole world started moving to stay-at-home orders, I felt such a strong sense of solidarity.  I looked at all of us (literally all of us - okay, most of us) in our different areas of the world facing this beast together.  Jimmy Fallon's wife filmed him hosting from home.  John Krasinski started SGN in his home office.  Everyone was joking about toilet paper, sweatpants, and cutting your own bangs. Italians were singing from their balconies.  Wuhan folk were singing from their high-rises.  Hospitals in NYC were being surrounded by patrol cars each evening with lights flashing and ...
Read more

still cooking

As of today we are 4 days late. That is assuming that man can accurately determine the day a baby should be born. Which, obviously, he can not. So, we wait. The thing with pregnancy is that most woman began to really anticipate that Big Day about a month before the due date and so when that day comes and goes it has been a long time of waiting. I keep trying to remember 2 things. One, when she comes our nice little family of 3 will be forever altered and two, she will come. In fact, she will come by the end of next week if not sooner - thanks to the ability to induce. So in the mean time I'm able to blog with both eyes wide open, take Madeleine swimming on a whim, have dates with Phil whenever and stay up late watching "Numbers" without worrying about my sleep debt. Not so bad when you think of it that way.
Read more