hey mom... i'm finally writing something on this. happy? :) help me with the tags... i can't seem to figure out which ones go where in your category.
anyway, i have a lot of thoughts about our move to wherever. but, i can't seem to grasp all of them. hopefully this blog'll help me to do that... just like what mom said.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Where to...?
As we wait for K to finally get over her shyness and post an entry, here's what's going on in my head.
Hawaii... or Florida... or New York? Pearl City or Orlando or Miami or Tallahassee or NYC? Still figuring out where to go. Hmmm. All factors are being considered - cost of living, job market, ballet school, community college, and friends. Do I work for a ministry? Or do I fling myself back in the marketplace?
Waiting for God to point us in the right direction and forcing myself to be absolutely neutral about a destination. I'll let God decide. And guide our steps. I have four weeks until I file K's petition and move on to Step 2 - decide on where to go so I can start making concrete steps to get there.
I could Project Manage this whole thing but I prefer to keep a massive To-Do list with Due Dates. For now, at least. And this blog for my random thoughts that actually help bring clarity to this big step.
Any thoughts?
song playing on my ipod: cartwheels by the reindeer section
Hawaii... or Florida... or New York? Pearl City or Orlando or Miami or Tallahassee or NYC? Still figuring out where to go. Hmmm. All factors are being considered - cost of living, job market, ballet school, community college, and friends. Do I work for a ministry? Or do I fling myself back in the marketplace?
Waiting for God to point us in the right direction and forcing myself to be absolutely neutral about a destination. I'll let God decide. And guide our steps. I have four weeks until I file K's petition and move on to Step 2 - decide on where to go so I can start making concrete steps to get there.
I could Project Manage this whole thing but I prefer to keep a massive To-Do list with Due Dates. For now, at least. And this blog for my random thoughts that actually help bring clarity to this big step.
Any thoughts?
song playing on my ipod: cartwheels by the reindeer section
Friday, March 23, 2007
A Work in Progress
So I set up this blog and convinced K to do a tag team post with me but she is... shy. More like... daunted and says she's not as... good as me at this.
I disagree. My seventeen year old is one of the most level-headed, most intelligent, most talented around. And I say that not just because I'm her mother. She has been home schooled since third grade and has turned out smarter than others her age. Very self-reliant and internet-savvy, my wee one is. Growing up with a mom like me, she's had to be. And I mean that in a single-parent-who's-had-to-work-all-her-child's-life kind of way. She's learned a lot on her own.
Now we both, twitter and technorati, and wordpress and multiply, and now, this, together.
She says she doesn't know what to post about our leaving Manila. I'm guessing she's still processing the reality. One look at the description I wrote for this blog and she started to tear. "We're leaving, Mom."
"Yes, we are. God willing."
Blogging about this together will help us both come to terms with this transition. And someday, when we've gotten to Point B from Point A, we will be able to look back at this blog and smile from wherever Point B is.
I disagree. My seventeen year old is one of the most level-headed, most intelligent, most talented around. And I say that not just because I'm her mother. She has been home schooled since third grade and has turned out smarter than others her age. Very self-reliant and internet-savvy, my wee one is. Growing up with a mom like me, she's had to be. And I mean that in a single-parent-who's-had-to-work-all-her-child's-life kind of way. She's learned a lot on her own.
Now we both, twitter and technorati, and wordpress and multiply, and now, this, together.
She says she doesn't know what to post about our leaving Manila. I'm guessing she's still processing the reality. One look at the description I wrote for this blog and she started to tear. "We're leaving, Mom."
"Yes, we are. God willing."
Blogging about this together will help us both come to terms with this transition. And someday, when we've gotten to Point B from Point A, we will be able to look back at this blog and smile from wherever Point B is.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Going Home
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest until 1980. My Dad died of Cancer in 1978, leaving me and my mom in Portland, Oregon, with a house and a small pension to live on. My Mom, a Filipina-Italian-American, had been living in the US for sixteen years at the time and decided that life without my Dad was too unbearable in a foreign country, so she sold our house and moved us a continent away - back to her homeland, and away from mine.
I was eleven at the time and had no say in the matter, as any child of that age does; my opinion and protests did not matter to her. She was lonely; a grieving widow with a daughter to raise. I acquiesced.
My first visit to my mother's country of birth came four months after my Dad passed away on February 20. It was my summer break. I had missed out on a lot of school since the night he died. The months following his death were a blur - for both of us. Life was sadder, scarier, simpler, without Daddy. And all of a sudden we were on a plane to go to an island I had only read about in a book called "Let's Visit the Philippines".
That being my only point of reference, I imagined a land sans cars and gasoline-powered vehicles and in their place, carabaos and tiny boats as means of transportation. I'm glad I was proven wrong!
We couldn't afford to go back to the states for yearly vacations like many Filipinos do, so we settled for one six-week trip in 1984. We were supposed to be gone for eight weeks but I got homesick. I had fallen madly in love with Manila.
In 1997, I buried my beloved mother. She suffered a massive heart attack five days before her 67th birthday. Whatever hopes I kept of ever going back to the States were crushed. But God has a way of doing the impossible and in 2006, the office sent me to LA to attend a conference.
I haven't stopped thinking about how great it felt to finally go home. Even for just a week. From then on, I've thought of nothing but going back.
song playing on my ipod: home by explosions in the sky. lovet. lovet. lovet.
I was eleven at the time and had no say in the matter, as any child of that age does; my opinion and protests did not matter to her. She was lonely; a grieving widow with a daughter to raise. I acquiesced.
My first visit to my mother's country of birth came four months after my Dad passed away on February 20. It was my summer break. I had missed out on a lot of school since the night he died. The months following his death were a blur - for both of us. Life was sadder, scarier, simpler, without Daddy. And all of a sudden we were on a plane to go to an island I had only read about in a book called "Let's Visit the Philippines".
That being my only point of reference, I imagined a land sans cars and gasoline-powered vehicles and in their place, carabaos and tiny boats as means of transportation. I'm glad I was proven wrong!
We couldn't afford to go back to the states for yearly vacations like many Filipinos do, so we settled for one six-week trip in 1984. We were supposed to be gone for eight weeks but I got homesick. I had fallen madly in love with Manila.
In 1997, I buried my beloved mother. She suffered a massive heart attack five days before her 67th birthday. Whatever hopes I kept of ever going back to the States were crushed. But God has a way of doing the impossible and in 2006, the office sent me to LA to attend a conference.
I haven't stopped thinking about how great it felt to finally go home. Even for just a week. From then on, I've thought of nothing but going back.
song playing on my ipod: home by explosions in the sky. lovet. lovet. lovet.
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