MONDAY, 1/5/15
Time to get back into our “Beijing” schedule for a few weeks. Judy heads out early for school, getting away around 6:45 am. Later in the morning, I get out to the wet market for some vegetables and fruit.
When Lillie’s mom shows up to clean around 12:00, we talk to Lilly on the phone. She’s at home in Central China and had a baby girl. Her mom needed to know how much to pay for the iPad I purchased for Lilly in the US. We settled on the price and then I headed out to Metro for groceries.
Back home later, Lilly’s mom finishes up and leaves. She does a really thorough job. I put together a vegetable soup for dinner. We’re going to try to eat a little healthier this semester, more vegetables, and less peanut butter.
TUESDAY, 1/6/15
Most of my work today is searching flights for our cruise this summer from Barcelona to Athens. Courtney, Brad, and Glenda are going with us, so coordinating all our departures/arrivals get kinda involved, especially when I’m working with a budget.
After lunch, I walk to the gym in our housing compound. They have a pool, and it’s time to get back to some kind of exercise schedule. I loved swimming at the Marriott last year, but getting there and back took so long. I needed something closer to home. I’ve been avoiding this since November, but I can’t wait any longer to start. After I got started, it wasn’t so bad. I swam further than I expected. Now, if I can only keep this up?
WEDNESDAY, 1/7/15
Lilly’s mom has to come early on Wednesdays so her schedule will work with her regular clients. She arrives right on schedule at 8:00 am. I can hang around some while she works, but it’s better if I try and get away some during the morning so I don’t get in her away.
I’m not normally out this early unless I’m headed to work. I head back over to the wet market for fruits and vegetable (the soup was really good Monday night). On the way home, I stop off at a little convenience store to buy some phone cards to recharge our phones. It costs us 80rmb a month for 200 calls or texts, and 300 mbs. of data. You have to call a number, punch in the numbers off the cards and the appropriate value posts to the accounts for each phone. It’s a pretty easy process, once you know how to reach the “English” version.
Judy has an assembly today. At the last minute she decided to sing a song with a ukulele accompaniment she had been working on with all her classes. She made it into a sing-a-long, and one of her students played ukulele on stage. The song was a huge hit! So much so, the principal asked them to sing it again at the end of the assembly. Ho hum. Another day, another dollar.
