sobering thought

it occurs to me and HOM and to our children that opportunities make all the difference to options and achievements, and we are truly thankful for the opportunities we have had.

one bag today

of trash culled from my closet, that is. except, looking at the closet now, you wouldn't suspect it even after i told you exactly where i got the stuff from. things have a way of insidiously creeping into your space and growing surreptitiously until they could lay claim to their own corporate headquarters.

i hate preparing to move as much as i hate the move itself i think. and i hate the thinking before the preparing.

also, i sprain my shoulder lugging the bag out.

to my daughter

my offbeat resourceful creative doggedly obstinate too generously idealistic baby turns eighteen today, this strong capable opinionated young woman who has grown up with us and given us hours of pleasure and frustration. she has taught me that i am a steward, so help me God. she soaks up and spurns in equal measure and teaches me broken humility. she often shows me a richer way for stubbornly refusing to say yes. 

my life would have been a lot more pleasant and peaceful had you been a good obedient chinese daughter who didn't answer back, i want to tell her. instead i say, may you always know the hope that you have, child. may you know that you share in glorious riches with all the saints. may you know that an exceedingly great power is at work within you because you are his. these are the main things i want to tell you.

i also want to tell her, my life is infinitely complex and beautiful because God gave us you.

burapa thai

J2 and i have dinner out. the menu says, mildly spicy, thai spicy, john hot. we order thai spicy in memory of the real burapa that we know. it turns out to be sweat-worthy spicy.

in our thai years we had plenty of sweaty spicy, but the green curry never did have red flakes swimming in it. what i say is, there's thai spicy, and there is spicy knock-off.

zzzz'd

the jet lag is likely over. i know this because:

• my bedtimes have been creeping from eleven to ten to nine and back to eight p.m. 
• i no longer wake up in the mornings feeling energetic and ready to tackle the housework.

it wasn't too bad while it lasted i must say. apart from the missing kindle.

families & other non-returnable gifts - lazebnik (2011)

finally, chick lit where the heroine is more than primarily a pretty pair of boobs. why, she's actually smart; in fact i suspect she is capable of being downright intellectual too, without her brains in any way detracting from pure lightweight entertainment.

any one who grew up on a diet of mills & boons/barbara cartland romances will understand that it is a tremendous relief to meet a non-bimbo-wannabe some time.

also, that part when she wakes up with a slowly spreading horrible sinking feeling after sleeping with the wrong guy is a pretty accurate description of how i feel when i wake up from a really bad dream.

zzzz

the adrenaline that keeps the meals coming and the laundry processed wears off today and what remains is a bone softening case of jet lag.

casualty

fresh from our long haul flights to and from the tropics, a horrible realization is sinking in: the kindle is missing. on the bright side, fortunately the iPad is not. i hope it's due to the jet lag.

change of menu

everyone (HOM J2 and J1 who technically shouldn't count because he is absent) overrides my objections (the awful taste the difficulty cooking the logistics of procurement) so i find myself cooking my first pot of brown rice for dinner today.

if you are wondering how it turned out, i'd like to remind you there's this thing called the learning curve, and i'm still on it.

2.1.12

tempus fugit.