Thankful Friday's

My nephew's wife, my niece-in-law if you will, has been posting Thankful Thursday entries on her blog the last couple of weeks, and I just caught up on her blog, so I had to start with a Thankful Friday title! (Nice blogging, Keli! Thanks for the photos of the babies. Keeps me going.)

I am so thankful that it's Friday...not just any Friday, but the best Friday of my last several months. That's because I finally finished a crazy week of teaching and prepping for a substitute, which involved many late nights and early mornings (nothing's free...if you want "free" time you have to earn it! Especially in Ambitious Asia.) Secondly, I now have internet in the comfort of my own home. After being without this for three weeks, I cannot tell you how good it feels. Last but certainly not least, I get to go on vacation tomorrow for two weeks! Now, I love me some vacation time, no matter when it comes, (and almost no matter where I'm going), but this one...well, this one has been one of the most anticipated vacations in my recent memory (which may not be saying much since my memory keeps getting worse...what was I saying again? Oh yea, vacations good!)

See, this vacation involves getting to go to a place where most of the people I'll be around are speaking a language I can understand. Where I don't have to repeat every word I say at a snails pace to be understood when I speak. Where I don't literally see my life flash before my very eyes every time I drive down the street because someone pulls out in front of me without any regard for the fact that I'm on a scooter, it's raining, and/or dark, and the wind is blowing so hard I could get knocked down without their help not to mention with it. Those are a few reasons I'm glad to get a break from Taiwan...but there are more reasons why I'm glad to be going on vacation. The main reasons I'm glad is the chance to see awesome friends in San Francisco (shout out to Kelly, 'cause today's her birthday...holla!) and my family in Oklahoma (and Missouri - Road Trip!), and to finally get to meet a special little girl, Olivia, who was just born three and a half weeks ago to my friends Stacey and Elijah. I get to do all this in just a few short hours and I'm excited. I'm thankful, even! Thankful to God for a good job and chance to live internationally again. And thankful to God for a break from a stressful life where I'm often not in control of my circumstances. I'm learning a lot here, and I really hope I'm learning to be more and more thankful every day. (I'm also really thankful for the internet and that I didn't move to China to teach English this year. In case you've been under a rock lately, China's freezing under a mound of snow, power outages, people crowding into train stations trying to get home for Chinese New Year, and it's a tragic scene there as many people are stranded and some have already died. Pray for China!)

On that sad note, I've got to sleep now, so I can get up and fly tomorrow. Just finished watching Hitch on cable and it's so funny at the end with the dance sequence. Looks like a Taiwanese Karaoke party...been to too many of those already!

Be thankful, and maybe I'll see you soon...give you something else to be thankful for. ;)

Until next time,
LC from the TW