Squirrels and other things we’ve been getting up to
I’ve been quiet on the blog recently, I know. Enjoy it while you can, because Love At The Speed Of Email launches on June 11th and then it’ll be anything but quiet on here for at least a month. I’ve been working behind the scenes on website updates and launch announcements and more than a dozen guest posts as well as a couple of “just for laughs and fun” posts, so things are going to liven up around here fast. Speaking of livening things up, Dominic is crawling. Here are some of the things he has managed to accomplish this week while...
read moreFirst world problems and book baby woes
The bad news: I have to delay my book launch by at least a week. Estimated launch date is now June 11th. The good news: We have warm, dry beds and clothes to wear. I didn’t die in childbirth, and my baby has enough to eat. I’ve encountered one frustration after another in the final stages of preparing the print version Love At The Speed Of Email for publication. The latest stumbling block has been the cover. My printer cannot seem to upload the beautiful cover that my talented designer Kimberly Glyder designed without mangling it. My...
read moreMumps and other re-entry bumps
The day we landed in Laos I came down with a cold, and two days later my ears started to hurt so badly I could hardly see straight. The minute Mike came home from work we put Dominic in the stroller and set out for the doctor who runs an after-hours clinic out of her house at the end of our street. We got almost to the end of the dirt road outside our house before a familiar tawny shape gamboled past. Zulu has taken to slipping out the gate whenever anyone goes in or out of our compound. Normally this isn’t a big problem – he darts around...
read moreGive me an “X”
We arrived back in Laos yesterday with our sore throats and running noses and 103 kilos of luggage (no, not making that up, that is actually how much we checked in and isn’t counting our four carry-ons which were loaded with children’s books) to find lots of hot sunshine to be had but not a great deal of electricity. As in, none. Mike hopped on his bicycle and went to do things like order yogurt and bread and buy fruit. There was no way I was braving the furnace that was upstairs to start unpacking suitcases, so I sat on the tile floor...
read moreThe Game of I Like
Last Thanksgiving, a friend of ours, Ryan, introduced us to game called “I like”. The rules of this game are simple. You go around the table one by one and say something that starts with “I like”. Oh, and you can’t qualify it. None of this, “I like snowflakes but I really hate like how it gets so cold in winter that my teeth hurt.” No. No buts, just simple statements about things you like, one after the other in a chain of positive declaration. It’s a really cool game. (Also, once or twice Mike and I have gone to one of the few...
read moreTen things I’ve been doing instead of blogging
I do not have time to write blog posts at the moment. Seriously. I’ve sat down a dozen times this last week to start one and I always get interrupted before I’ve written four lines. (Mike might say that this is because the pace I write at approximates the flow of molasses during a blizzard. Then again he might not say that, because if he did I would glare at him.) Anyway. What have I been doing other than making time to write blog posts? Well. 1. Spending time with family doing things like shopping for two years worth of baby clothes and...
read moreHolidays and stuff
I always think I’m going to have more time on holidays to get stuff done, but in the end I always have less. Although, come to think of it, I guess it depends on how you define stuff. If you define stuff as spending time with family and friends, eating ice cream and brie, and shopping for essentials like children’s books, baby toothbrushes, bed sheets, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, then I’ve been getting lots of stuff done. (After only having cheap Chilean wine available in Laos, this is how we feel when we’re getting stuff...
read moreMany hands make much kindness
The month of patience for my fruits of the spirit project is over (thank goodness) and the month of kindness has begun. Before it started, I assumed that this month would be all about me learning how to be more kind to others. So far, however, it’s pretty much been about me accepting kindness from others. It all started before we moved house in Laos, when my parents spent some of their visit packing boxes and helping me sort clothes. Then, the week before the move, half a dozen friends showed up to help us pack. They wrapped up pictures,...
read more“This is completely my fault” and other things I’ve said this morning
I drifted off close to midnight last night and woke up in a panic at 3:45AM, remembering that I had not informed the taxi that was picking me up for the airport at 4:30 that I needed a car seat for Dominic. I spent at least three minutes frantically trying to figure out how I was going to rectify this mistake, before remembering that Dominic was in Washington DC and would not be in this taxi with me. All that flustered worry, wasted, when what I should have been worrying about was the fact that I’d booked my return flights to Washington DC...
read moreThe cover for Love At The Speed Of Email
I’m at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Michigan at the moment. When we figured out that we’d be in the States exactly when this writing conference was being held I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, even though it meant leaving Dominic for the first time in his young life. Ugh. I had no idea how hard that would really be. I’ve accosted two perfect strangers in the hallways here already just so I could pet their babies. “It’s only three nights,” I keep telling myself. “This is good for him. It’s good for me.” Well,...
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