Last Day of Vacation

The worst thing about vacations is having them end. This sucks. I've been home just about enough time to get relaxed a little bit and get my bearings and now I'm going back to work. Suck-age abounds.

Our exchange student, Yuka, leaves for Japan tomorrow. We're going to miss her. Very strange to have a person you don't know come into your house and stay for three weeks, then just be suddenly gone. I'm wearing the shirt she brought for me from Japan. It has a Kanji character on it that means "Samari" but I have a piece of paper where she has written many more Kanji symbols for more ordinary and pertinent things like "garden" and so forth. I will use them in my art work. Right now I'm in the process of making painted glass windows anchored to a planter for the back patio. I haven't gotten very far on the project today because I've wanted to be available to drive the girls wherever they wanted to go - and that I did. I will work on them some more tomorrow. There's a lot of prep work before I get to the actual design. I think I'll take some pictures in the process I think. My husband takes pictures every step of the way in his work as a blacksmith and on his art projects as a metal smith (one in the same thing, actually for him anyway).

So it's just about time for the man to get home on this fine, fine Friday. We're sending Yuka back to Japan with her last dinner being a Tex-Mex creation by yours truly - just some tacos, rice, beans, salsa, guacamole - y'know.....'merican food.

It occurs to me that by the time I get back to work on Monday I will have been gone from the office for 11 days - it'll feel like no time at all because I've been working from home - but those are the hazards of keeping up with the job so you don't have a heart attack when you return from all the pile-up.

Another Day

Well, we've made it through another day with our Japanese exchangee. She is very sweet, and very helpful around the house - but it is also quite strange and surprisingly taxing to have someone living in the house who does not speak much English, and thus has some difficulty communicating.
For instance, this evening I asked her to take some watermelon rinds to the the large trash container in the back yard - explaining "the gray can" and when I looked up from the dishes, she was hucking them around the yard as she had seen me do with bread and small corn cobs for the squirrels. It was quite amusing.
And, there's the added pleasure of having her interact with our teenage daughter who is so concentrated on how much attention she gets vs. how much attention the exchange student gets that she renders an accounting several times a day. It is absolutely exhausting. But we haven't signed on for a whole year, thank goodness, and our little Yuka will be winging her way back to Japan in just two short weeks. Well, gotta go....I have to take some cookies out of the oven. She seems to love cookies beyond all other types of food, and when I make them, I feel like I am at least letting her know that I want to please her if I can.
Blessed be to any and all who read this post. Az

Okay, WTF?

Alrighty then....I've been wondering whether blogging is actually worth it or if anyone looks or reads or whatever - and then today a co-worker sent me a link to her husbands blogspot and I have to tell you - that thing is FLIPPIN' AWESOME. So, I'm going to take a page out of this dude's book and diversify a bit. I'm not just going to talk about witchcraft and Wicca - I think I'll just talk about anything I darn well please. Work, love, the state of mashed potatoes. Whatever! My teenage daughter, or our Japanese exchangee - whatever I feel like. Then I might be more interested in keeping up these posts. Let's see how it goes.