22 August 2007

Tourist shops

I read a travel magazine that inferred that tourist shops were some sort of low brow, second class sort of traveling. I was sort of disappointed to find out I was somehow substandard.

I like cheesy tourist shops with the city name on plates and such. If you go into a bunch of them on one street, you sort of discover the trademark images or ideas of a city. And you discover how much stuff made in China can be stamped with another city name. I don't generally buy all the stuff though occassionally something strikes me as my style or something I'm willing to take home.

I guess to be truly cultured in your travel, you're suppose to disdain these type of shops and only go places that display local artisans or something. Don't get me wrong, I like local artisan type shops too. It's just that I can see the mass appeal of the chanka-chank tourist places.

Also you have to keep in mind that there are degrees in these stores. I think of Florida ones - t-shirts, towels, and sea shells. Not much else. But here the big ones will have swords, ceramics, Toledo styled gold inlaid items, in addition to t-shirts, stuffed bulls, and shot glasses.

Viva la tourist trap!

16 August 2007

What happened to July?!

I'm not really sure what happened to the last six weeks. A lot of work in July wrapping up, and then undoing and then wrapping up the Path. That went on the whole month. The boss left on Aug. 2 with a complete DVD. Whew. First two weeks of August: praying for a way to get over all the bad feelings a couple of my coworkers left me with. Lovely. I'm glad Path is done, wish I was more ecstatic. It's mainly just relief and disgust at people's behavior.

Never heard back on that story I submitted. They asked for a rewrite and then the magazine almost went under. Now it's coming back but as a pay ezine instead of a free one. I'm not sure if my story got lost in the shuffle or what. I should probably follow up, and or sign up for the paid subscription. I've re-read 150 pages of my last completed book trying to figure out where I'm at in the rewrite and who these characters are.

Discovered a paperwork error in our official finances to the tune of thousands of dollars. Fortunately an accountant type friend here came over and ran the numbers for us. Waiting...two weeks now for Springfield to analyze and agree with the new numbers which means they owe us thousands rather than we already have it. Lord, please let that work out.

I got my hair cut quite short last week. I could form it into a spikey fauxhawk if I wanted to...someone said just because you can doesn't mean you should...Probably I won't. Or maybe once as a joke. : )

We had a Romanian girl living with us for a week. She gets back tonight for a little while, but she feels bad and is going to go live with someone else. She just had to get out of her rental place for the month of August. She's really sweet and it's no big deal. She's trying to join the Spanish masters commission in September so she can learn more about God and get out of her nanny, housekeeper, poor paying immigrant job. It's almost like having a grown up kid living at home. She comes and goes on her own and eats on her own. She's also very pretty if you know any single guys interested in a nice Romanian girl who does speak some English.

My brother broke off his engagement. Big news. We'll still come home for Christmas since that was the plan anyway. My dad had a biopsy that made us all nervous, but it came back clean yesterday. Yippee.

Today I got excited again about a project I had started for work last year and basically hadn't had any time to work on it because of Path. Initially after Path I was too discouraged to start working on Women of the Bible because of what happened. God is affirming who I am in him, separate from all the garbage, and I'm catching a vision for the project again. I had a brain storm today about finding talent for it and it was wonderful and exciting. I like the discovery process of writing a project and brainstorming it. Who knows if this will fly? I've just got to focus on the vision and the details and leave the rest up to God.

Lots in this post to give thanks for. In case I wasn't clear...thanks God!