It’s been awhile. I will be home in 1 month. In the mean time i’ll be enjoying the NEW sorbet that japan just came out with this week! la france and framboise.
-Dan
our last month in japan is filling up really quickly. we have some kind of farewell/goodbye event scheduled every weekend. we’re also going to squeeze in some last minute dental cleaning, hair straightening, etc. we’ve started a small list of touristy-type things we want to see or do before leaving, but realistically we’ll have to leave some of those things until we’re old and retired and return to shiga to re-live the memories. or maybe someday we can show our kids how cool we were, and they’ll roll their eyes and call us big nerds.
speaking of which… waaaay too many friends are having babies! this isn’t a bad thing. it’s wonderful — it just makes me feel old.
also, loving “the nest” makes me feel old and domestic. ;-) http://www.thenest.com/
-christina
checking things off the list. we just sold our sofa and tv set. (thanks katie and michael. :-) ) still looking for someone to take the moped off our hands. and i think everything else is going to my successor who i’ve recently been in contact with. dan just got the contact information for his successor, too, so we both get to play “senpai” and hand off 2 years worth of advice, for whatever it’s worth. ;-)
also, dan has a job interview via phone on saturday morning our time. it’s through a state certified outpatient facility that offers live-in, full-time mental health and substance abuse support to kids through teens (and their families or foster families.) it’s known as psychosocial rehabilitation services. (info: http://www.uspra.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1) it would be awesome to have a job lined up for dan before we even get back. and he thinks this position will be challenging but a really good fit. so we’re trying not to get our hopes up too high. but major props to dan for job hunting so early. we’ll know more on saturday. pray and cross your fingers.
i’m looking forward to kobe this weekend. china town fried food here we come!
-christina
two years without one has been great! we’re hoping to avoid using one as much as possible. buses and “zip car” options should take care of a lot of our transportation needs this next year. but i think that setting up life as an adult in another country will require wheels. at first we were looking at financing a car, and had worked it into our little budget for the year, but then we laughed and realized we’ll both be unemployed when we want to buy it. so cash in hand, craigslist on the laptop, and a generous maintenance budget will probably get us something as utlitarian and well-maintained as… http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/1188814857.html
boring but should last until i get a real job. or at least until dan’s had a job for 6 months and has a good credit score.
hey look, how to take care of an old “beater”: http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/maintenance/articles/126391/article.html wow, i know nothing about cars.
i wanna be in seattle already!
-christina
