A smattering of thoughts on a Thursday, if you please.
Tomorrow is our last day in China Village, so we’re soaking up all the hugs from Maya’s Grammy and Granddad and booking them in for Houston visits this fall. The downside of a long visit here is that it’s harder to say goodbye. We have a few errands to run today before we start our weekend-long journey south tomorrow.
My phone has nearly bit (bitten?) the dust after several years of utter predictability. A first world problem, yes, but also frustrating, to not be able to snap photos and video of Maya and share them with family on the fly. Luckily it can still Facetime and sometimes text, depending on its mood, and even more luckily Michael found me a used but new-to-me phone for when I get back to Houston. The upside of the enforced break is that I’ve been taking out my big camera more and the light in China Village is so lovely. The other upside is that it’s meant I’ve taken a break from social media except maybe once a day on my computer. It’s been a nice break.
We’re missing Michael quite a lot as he’s been back in Houston for the last month (?!), getting all his kids sorted with their schedules. Saturday morning we’ll be reunited when he arrives for a wedding weekend in New Hampshire! We’re very ready to be a family of three again.
Did I mention we’re staying in Houston for another year? Yep, another year before we return to Ireland. It was a hard decision because we both miss our lives in Dublin, but Michael really loves his job in Houston and we’re really still hoping to find a sibling for Maya, the perfect fourth member of our family. After two heartbreakingly close calls (here and here), we decided we had to give it another year to see if one will stick! We’ll be back in Dublin at Christmastime and we can’t wait to introduce Maya to Ireland and all our friends there!
I just finished Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and it was so different than any other book I’ve read. A little hard to get into his style of kind of useless description – as in description that isn’t necessary to the plot but is necessary to character development. I picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me and it’s not the kind of book you say you love, but it feels very important and I’m not yet halfway through.
My aunt and godmother has become very sick with aggressive brain cancer, so that has been weighing on our family. Cancer is literally the worst and it seems to just keep coming.
A few other more cheerful bits and pieces.
A stocked candy drawer in the Senate.
Olympic venues that transform into schools post-games.
Introducing differences and disabilities to school children with these thoughtful tips.
A quadruple amputee building a Maine retreat for “recalibrated” veterans is incredibly inspiring.
Hasta luego!
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