The Weekend

We had a very quiet weekend: Pancakes. In the late afternoon, I napped on the couch. (An unusual degree of apathy for me.) In the evening I did some of the organizing that must precede packing--but it was really hard to work myself up to it. (It took a tv show, a bag of popcorn, and some mediocre chocolate-covered peanuts--I really wanted comfort candy and they just don't have anything that works for me here. The M and Ms are too expensive; the skittles are made with a different recipe. There were no gummy bears at this grocery! There were no jelly beans. The portions were miniscule. I miss my American candy!) We aren't sure how we'll get our stuff back to the U.S.--on the way here the ship didn't care how much you brought or how much the bags weighed. Airplanes do not take the same approach. 

In the afternoon, Francisco single-handedly got us all out of the house for something I'd long had in mind to try--a family art afternoon at the green. As you can see, there's a lot of variation in quality and enthusiasm. Q was not feeling into it and only changed "bad" to "nice" in his poem via strikethrough when I told him I'd hang it on the wall as it is. Blaze, on the other hand, really got going and decided to do a series of three watercolors. He did the second one third, as he told me. They are 1, 2, 3 by the number of lightening strikes. Francisco amazed us all. Let's not talk about mine; I'll stick to my phone camera. 

Today--I'm headed up to the other place to say my good-byes. There's a dinner in the evening, so it will be a long day. 

Last week--I reviewed some of other peoples' grant proposals. The range between weak and strong was interesting to read, and it gave me a better idea of how I should be writing grant proposals and of what the more powerful asks are.