Shopped Until We Dropped

Last weekend we did the American Consumer thing and went on a marathon shopping trip - Paula, Gail and I drove down to the St. Augustine Outlet Center and shopped both sides of the interstate for more than 4 hours and began filling up the back of my Honda CRV with clothes bags and shoe boxes and baby clothes. Our second "search and charge" mission was at the new St. Johns Towne Center which has lots of neat stores including an Apple store. (Paula and I just HAD to make a pilgrimage to our "Mecca".) I bought a new more powerful wireless thingy (mine didn't have enough oomph to reach to my living room) I think I got a strong enough one that I might even see kids sitting out front of my house with their laptops 'borrowing' my bandwidth. (Ask Paula how she 'borrows" her wireless broadband when she's visiting their Georgia mountain cabin).

Side Note -- GRRRR - I still can't get the new fancy dancy new wireless thingy (Airport) to work with my computer -after 4 hours of fiddling last night I still haven't figured out the magic combinations of settings to get onto the internet. I was just too impatient and it was like a bad science experiment in that I kept changing too many variables at a time. I will try to "Chill" and repeat the experiment tonight......

Last credit card denting stop was Babys -R -Us store. Two-time Grandma Gail who is highly trained in the art of shopping for grandchildren introduced "soon to be grandma" Paula to the massive amounts of kiddie merchandize located in store. The three of us just kept saying over and over "how in the world did our kids survive without all this safety equipment -- they were sure lucky. My now 34 yr old son Zac had a play pen in the back of my van for his "car seat" and heaven knows how many times I did the same Brittney Spears "baby in the lap" thing. He did not have warmed baby wipes, or a "boppy" or the really cool strollers. All Zac had was a cold wash cloth, a pillow and a neck-bobbling seat in my backpack baby carrier. Oh, and all the new soft baby toys that crinkly and shake - his favorite crinkly toy was the Sunday comics. I feel so guilty. Maybe that is why our generation (when given the chance) goes into hyper Grandma mode and buys, buys, buys.

Since we had Momma Mia theater tickets for the next day, Sunday's matinee, we checked into a hotel and ate dinner at the fabulous Buca de Peppa. YUM! We shared 3 courses and went back to the hotel and crashed. Next morning we checked out and drove to the Jacksonville Landings where we had another good Italian meal at Vito's. Momma Mia was toe tapping and arm waving good! Long, busy, tiring but fun weekend!

Commercial Cleaning

I do commercial cleaning on Tuesday evenings. No, I am not willing to do your house – let me explain. I like the TV shows on Tuesday evening so because I am being a worthless slug watching all those TV shows I make myself get up from my Lazy-boy and clean during the commercials. You would be surprised at how much I can get done during those commercials. Try it – it cuts some of the guilt of watching mindless shows and you end up with a marginally cleaner house.

Chinese Spring Festival

Chinese Spring Festival

Think Christmas Decorations with a cartoon theme. They are the typical (for Hangzhou) Spring Festival decorations. The Chinese Spring Festival, which happens in late January or February, is sort of like their version of a Chinese Christmas (except for the TONS of fireworks). I don’t think it has a religious background but it is big on family, food, decorations, and gifts. For decorations they use variations of lanterns. They are large silk-like figures and shapes with lights inside. The decorations were up when I first arrived in China but I was too timid to venture out yet to get pictures of them. I was sort of hoping they would put them up before I left but the Chinese don’t start putting up their decorations a month early like we do. I got some of my students to send me pictures of some of the lanterns. Maybe I will get to see them if I go back for another year of teaching.

Chinese Spring Festival

Thanks to All of my X-students for sending me some of their photos of their 2007 spring festival

A Little Breather...

Boy do we stay busy in the US. This spring I have been trying to take all the staff development courses required to renew my teaching certificate next spring. I just finished two after school classes and one online class and teaching a class on Saturdays. Everyone passed everything – all my teachers taking my class and all the classes I was taking. Maybe now I will have some time to breathe, read, go to the beach and I might even do a couple more blogs. I don’t remember having this rushed feeling in China. Is it a slower pace? I already have most of my summer days planned (trip to Vermont, teach another GIT class, attend a NECC conference in Atlanta, trip to Peru and teach another class). I probably have 10 unscheduled days in that 2 month period. You can’t plan ahead very much in China. Is China’s pace of life slower because it is simpler? And which pace is better? Right now I am desirous for a little of the China pace.

I THINK..... I Am Glad I Got the Discount.....

But it was the way I got the discount. Yeah, I am a senior citizen, Not senior enough to get Social Security, but I do get the AARP mags in the mail and I ask for the cheaper tickets at the movies. These items I have asked for and in the process I declared that I was the senior citizen. Anyway, last Tuesday I went to Belk’s and bought a shirt. I took my purchase up to the register and the lady gleefully announced that I would get AN EXTRA 10% (or whatever it was) off because I was a senior citizen. After I got over the shock of her assuming that I was a senior citizen it put me into a blue funk for a week or so. I have decided that Its ok for ME to say I am a senior citizen but not someone else. I can compare the resulting blue funk feeling to when (many years back) I had to finally stop buying boys underwear for my son and start buying him mens sized underwear. I just couldn’t deny the aging then and I obviously can’t deny it now.

Nicole’s and Zac’s New Old House

The Back View of the Wells Vermont House

Last August they bought a cute but very old 1890’s farmhouse in Wells Vermont. It is located by a picturesque stream and within walking distance of the Wells Post Office, Wells County Store, and Wells Library. The house has 2 small bedrooms & a bath up some very steep and narrow stairs. As with any old house it has some really neat features like a slate roof, and really neat wooden floors. On the other hand with any old house it needs a lot of tweaking. I guess the original builder didn’t foresee the closet problem that Nicole has due partly to her passion for online shopping. Also the electricity is a little funky in that it is direct current - Not sure if I have the correct term but the switches are sort of a remote control or otherwise they would all be pull cords. The lot is huge and has plenty of room for a future garden, bonfires (which we had last Friday night) and maybe even a Mother-In-Laws cottage (If I am well behaved and still healthy enough to carry firewood).

Zac & Nicole On Their Back Porch

What I Did on My Spring Break

On my Spring Break I did the opposite of most people and instead of heading south to someplace like Daytona Florida I went up north to Wells Vermont. It was cold, snow still in some places and lots of mud. So much mud that Zac and I even got stuck in it while picking up a load of wood for his garden fence. Wells Vermont is a tiny town mid way up the state very close to the New York border. It ‘s located on the edge of a lake and has a cute country store with the best sausage, cheddar cheese rolls in the world (sorry Sweet Mama’s) and their subs were pretty dang good too. I would love to buy one of those tiny houses on the edge of the lake but I am not sure if I would survive the real winter.

Frost Heaves

Well if you don’t know what a Frost Heave is – you haven’t lived up north. I sure didn’t know about it until a couple of years ago. And No, I am not talking about the basketball team http://www.vermontfrostheaves.com/ I am talking about the bumps in the road caused by the freezing of water in the soil. We saw these signs up during winter in both New York and Vermont. A couple of years ago Vermont even had scratch off Frost Heave lottery tickets. Check out the Wikipedia for a more scientific explanation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_heaving