It doesn’t happen often …

In this life, out of a 52 week year I have maybe 6 weeks that are really busy. It happens the most often when I am traveling or getting ready to travel and this week was no exception. In the past – when I had a life – the spring was always this busy. When I worked I was always the company’s ‘mother’s march against birth defects’  instigator / coordinator – I was always taking a class at the university – I was in the accounting departments so we were closing the books which meant long hours – I was doing my own taxes (first husband owned a business in which I kept the books and did the taxes)  –  in a later time I also started playing soccer in the spring – I was an office manager so there were attorney retreats – and a completely separate list of extra to-dos.  So by the time mid-April came and went I was one tired and happy puppy …. you see I love being busy, the more I have to do the more I get done.

When we moved here and my ‘retirement’ became official, my list of things to do shrank and shrank again as I put taking Portuguese classes, then the post-grad course was finished and behind me, and time - in the best of descriptions – DRAGS. This year I can’t believe it is already March. I have been unusually busy. In January the computer crashed then crashed again, throwing my life into chaos; new operating systems, finding and reloading programs, doing it all over again on the second crash and I then deciding to go to windows 7 and trying to make programs work that haven’t yet caught up to 7.  I am still not in full recovery but today I am caught up with two months of my little accounting job, I have sent emails to a few friends that haven’t heard from me in months (have to tell them I will be in Houston and available for laughing lunches). I have cleaned out my closets and drawers making ready for my new cloths (anticipated shopping).

We had 40 people for a cookout (churrasco) on Saturday (happy birthday to me) and 4 family members stayed over for breakfast on Sunday – I cooked for both occasions along with a churrasceiro who cooked the meat.  Last week was shopping for dishes – we threw out the plastic ones - 20 years old. I needed more table cloths for the outside tables – fabric. I needed to shop here for what I take there as presents – and there I will shop for what I bring back – just a fact of life for an expat. So along with the party on Saturday this week was wonderful.

Camillo left for Rio to get some rest – he worked like a dog putting up tents because it finally decided to rain this week and balloons and cleaning the wine cellar – I will join him on Wednesday, then travel on Sunday and will hit Houston running on Monday morning….. can’t wait.