Around the House

Yesterday I read part of an article in the April issue of Real Simple magazine that concerned time...saving time, taking time to do things, etc.  One of the suggestions was take time to make your bed...it makes you feel like you've accomplished something almost immediately after the start of your day.  I have a friend who once told me that if nothing else got done around the house, she at least wanted the bed made.  It just makes your room look clean, even if there is a pile of clothes to be folded at the foot of the bed.  (For both of these reasons, I make our bed every day.)

Another part of the article suggested taking a week to document every mundane part of your life...from taking pictures of your half empty coffee cup to saving receipts of all the things you buy that week...and then taking some of your pictures, receipts, movie ticket stubs, etc and putting them in a scrapbook.  I don't have time to do that (not many do), and I would have to translate all of my receipts...which I guess would be good practice.  However, I did walk around the house yesterday afternoon and documented a few random things around the house.  So..here's a collection of unprofessional pictures from June 9, 2010.

Shelves hung above our bed.  Bought the brackets (braces? what are those called?) at the fake IKEA around Thanksgiving.  Got the wood at the second hand furniture store.  Books we've got up there:  Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry...I love his stuff!  Chinese Stuff, a book w/ a bunch of pictures of Chinese stuff.  The Two Towers, by Tolkien.  Two books of poetry/story on Ruth and Job, both by John Piper.  A National Geographic magazine on China, and a photo album that Karl and Liz gave us w/ a Bed Bath and Beyond gift certificate in it for our wedding gift.  (Now there are pictures...we spent that money a long time ago.)

Inherited this around December.  Dish towel is from Logan's MawMaw, and the cups we randomly found here in town one evening.  It hangs above our coffee cabinet.

The wall of fame.

Got this idea from Lissa Anglin.  Nails w/ buttons super glued to them, ribbon tied and wrapped around the nails, and pictures strung along.  This is what I look at when I sit at my desk.  Lots of good friends here in front of me.

The wall behind Logan's desk in his office.

Back in my office now, meet Ger/Frances.  We inherited this lovely guinea pig in....April.  She likes green beans, cabbage, carrots, and especially cucumbers.  And toilet paper rolls on occasion.

My cookbooks...which have felt very neglected lately.....we've either been eating out, eating chicken salad sandwiches, or if Logan is gone, I have two pieces of toast or a scrambled egg and call it good.

My bamboo TEXAS cutting board!  I love this!  (Thank you, V!!!)

And lastly, a not so great shot of what our bathroom has been doing lately.  Or, rather, what the bathroom sink of our upstairs neighbors has been doing.  A slow and constant drip...which is making the area behind the tile wet (that's not a shadow) and dripping from our ceiling as well.  We have told our apt. management about it, and they've come to check it out.  The beauty of the situation:  it will be easier for them to tear out our false ceiling to get to the leaking pipes instead of busting up their concrete floor to reach the pipes.......we'll see what happens.

--da

Coffee Trip Round One

Last week I took out a group of dubious ruffians out to 'the mountain' to do a little coffee planting. Below are some pictures and a video of our travels. I think it was a good experience for everyone and I believe will be helpful for the work to continue in this village.

Above is a picture of coffee seedlings that were successfully (hopefully) transplanted into individual grow bags, 2500 in all. Below are bags that were filled and ready to be planted into, 12000 in all. All together there are about 20000 coffee seedlings that need to be transplanted. A lot of work is yet to be done.

On our way home the public bus was full. The next obvious solution was to call a private bus driver in. Only one problem... No electricity for over eight days, and the cell phone towers were out of service. Next logical option... Tractor... Enjoy the quick video... We were on the tractor for around two and a half hours. A ride that should have taken us 45 minutes.

We are going back next week for a few days. Maybe enough will happen to give me new material to write Coffee Trip Round Two...

3 years!

Happy anniversary to my love!

(summer 2006 and wedding day 2007.)

--da

No Water..No Electricity...maybe

There was a notice in our complex today....from 5 am tomorrow morning until 12:00 am tomorrow night (or the next day..whatever is easier to understand) the electricity and water will be turned off.  Fun stuff.  However, b/c our water is heated by solar panels on our roof, there are tons of water tanks on the rooftop and so I'm hoping for enough "reserve" water from those tanks for a shower in the morning.  (I did fill the mop bucket in order to be able to flush the toilets...that's for sure.)

Logan says he'll believe it when he sees it.  They have put up notices like this before but we didn't lose water or electricity.  I can't help but think this time it is for real.  I guess we'll see tomorrow morning at 5 if our A/C shuts off.

--da

anything can be qualified as typical when you live in a foreign country

10:00 am:  Leave the house w/ my passport, Logan’s passport, and a copy of another friend’s passport in order to check at the post office for two packages that we are expecting.

10:05 am:  Run into a lady that I have begun to love dearly over the past few weeks.  She is one of the cleaning ladies for our apartment complex.  She sweeps, mops and empties trash cans all day long, starting around 6 am, but not before applying bright red lipstick and painting her eyebrows on.  After having tons of random, 30 second conversations over the past few weeks, she finally asks me what my name is, allows me to call her by her last name and the equivalent of Aunt, and then we end our discussion on the topic of how ridiculously hot it has been the last few days. 

10:10 am:  Arrive at the post office.  I find the usual situation of a loud crowd of people all competing for service, and I am hesitant to elbow my way through to the front and to the guy I know is accommodating to my stuttering Chinese, but is busy at the time.  My other option is to approach the not so accommodating woman who happens to be entering data into a computer, but without a crowd of people around her window.

After 3 minutes of indecision, I approach the woman. 

“After you are finished with that, can you look for maybe two packages for me?  One is for me, and one is for a friend of mine that has moved, but a package he was expecting did not arrive before he moved.”

She actually smiles, and quickly finishes what she is working on.  Then she looks up at me, and without checking the back say, “There are no packages.”

“You are not able to look?” I reply.  (There is a hint of sarcasm in the way this would translate; however I refrained from rolling my eyes.)

She gets up, consults another lady, who then tells me, “It isn’t a package, it is a letter.”  (As if I don’t know the difference between the two words.)  She does, however, allow me to sign and take the “letter”, which is actually a priority mail envelope..so smaller than a package, yes, but not simply a letter.   

10:25 am:  I leave the post office, head back towards my apartment, but stop to make copies first.  15 copies.  $1.17 USD.

10:28 am:  Cross the street to return to the apartment and pick up my bike before running another errand.  At the entrance, I witness a man try to steal a woman’s wallet, although at first I am not aware that is what is actually happening.  Here, he doesn’t run up to the woman w/ a gun and yell for her to hand over her wallet.  There are no guns, so what you see is not a production of yelling and force and fear.  Rather, I see him simply walking behind the woman, and then suddenly, but so subtly, he inserts what appears to be a long pair of tweezers into the pocket of her skirt.  She feels it, grabs her pocket and then turns towards him.  With the umbrella she is carrying to protect her skin from the sun, she hits him, and undoubtedly curses him too.  As he simply walks away, her two friends have to refrain her from following him across the street and wounding him….both his body and his pride.  Thief:  Fail.  But I have no doubt that he will try again, sooner rather than later. 

--da

Feeling hot, hot, hot...

With that title all I can actually think about is the episode of The Office where Michael and Jan go to Jamaica (or was it the Bahamas?) and Michael brings back the set of drums and plays "feeling hot hot hot" all day long in the office, that one line being all that he can play.

We've neglected the blog....so sorry.  There are a lot of posts in my head, pictures that I want to take...but I just haven't done it yet.  This post is to let you know we are alive...and hot.  My meat thermometer says 92 degrees in my kitchen.  My computer says it is 99 degrees outside.  I am not for sure how accurate those are.  But it feels like 105.  (That would also probably be a total exaggeration on my part.)  I know it could always be hotter...

Stay tuned for new and exciting posts....hopefully.   :) 

--da  

Dating or Married?

I arrived back home this afternoon on my bike after running some errands and seeing a friend.  I parked my bike and walked over to our security guards' desk to retrieve the air pump we had left there under his desk and watchful eye.  Naturally, we started talking...first of all regarding what an air pump is called in Chinese (打气筒), which led to what it is called in English, which led to me writing out the word in English and my  security guard writing it out in characters.  This led to a conversation about how, depending on how clear and precise a person writes, you may or may not be able to read and understand their handwriting.  I immediately agreed, but countered that not all Chinese people write characters in a very (or even semi) precise and orderly fashion.  Of course, he disagreed.  The strokes are always the same, no matter who is writing the character.  (I chose to not try and win this battle....)  We moved onto to me writing and then signing my name for them, and at this point I showed them that my last name is at the end (opposed to the Chinese surname being at the beginning) and that it is the same as Logan's because we are married.

We continued to talk...about America and Chinese and Americans marrying each other and whether it is difficult to get a birth certificate....and then Logan returned home.  And a few moments after Logan walked over to the desk, our security guard admitted frankly that he had up until today thought we were only dating.  I threw my head back and laughed.  Actually, we will have been married 3 years next month.

--da

Boat Racing video

The first day of Water Splashing Festival was Tuesday, and boat races were held that afternoon.  The following is my first actual video to edit and put together!  Many thanks to Nick and his patience in walking me through iMovie.  

Just so you'll know, Wednesday's event was a parade that we missed.  We were told we would be able to see it from our house...and at about 8 we heard something like monks chanting.  So we ran outside, and caught what was the very end of the parade, although we didn't know it at the time.  (So no video of that.)

Thursday was the actual water splashing, and you can be on the look out for a possible video from that day.  

Oh, by the way, my translations in the video are a bit incorrect.  It should be "good play" and not "good fun".  Oops....I know this, and am not for sure why I translated it the way I did.  Maybe because my brain knows that "good fun" doesn't sound as awkward as "good play"....unless you are referring to sports of course.

-da

boat races from L & DA Heinrich on Vimeo.

Its here

Dai New Year that is...

Nick's New Scooter

A few days ago, Logan and I went with Nick to help him pick out an electric scooter.  The following video was supposed to be about a 45 second shot of him getting on the newly purchased scooter and driving off.  But the lady wasn't quite ready to let him go, and continued to pull off the protective plastic wrap around the seat, etc...so it turned into about a 3 minute video.

I still haven't really taken the time to learn how to edit videos, but I have to admit, I kind of like the raw footage.  In a small way, you get to see that as we live here and think we are about to do something simple like drive away on a new scooter, there are inevitable small delays.  There are small delays as someone cuts in front of you in the grocery store checkout line, small (or rather large) delays as Logan tries to get all the paperwork done so he can obtain a drivers' license, small delays as you wait at a poorly designed intersection.  None of these things are life altering.  None of these things are really annoying.  But sometimes it can be the little things that add up rather quickly.

Regardless, enjoy the video.  (And please excuse the bad TX accent...)

--da


IMG 0011 from L & DA Heinrich on Vimeo.