Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 163

Thursday. 9 1/2 days of school left. One month until we leave China. Doing a picture each day should be helping me "get closure" on our time here, but it does not seem to be helping. Spending time with friends helps. Making plans for when we return to the US helps. Clearing out a room of all the junk we have accumulated over 5 1/2 years helps. But in the end, there is still the notion that you are walking away from a big part of your life. When we came here it was different as we walked towards something new and unknown. It was an adventure. The repatriation is more of a return to what we had so you have to reconcile that with who you have become. I know there are those of you out there who know exactly what I mean. Thank goodness or it would be difficult to keep on a forward path! 


Well, no time for melancholy today! At least not until later. We are christening my new dining table and chairs with a "clean out the pantry" Girls Night at my house. I have three kinds of beans soaking, 4 oz of teeny pasta, 3 cans of sweet potato puree, 7/8 bottle of wheat germ, two jars of pumpkin baby food, 3 cups of oatmeal, 4 kinds of crackers we didn't like, 5 kinds of Chinese hot pot spice packages, a can of crab meat, and that was just the first two shelves! Lots of new recipes to be created today!

"Sweet Potato Oatmeal on Crackers sounds like we are ordering Sherpa's, right?"