home again

Well, I'm home. I've been home for a little while now. I have avoided blogging about it...for complicated reasons. On one hand, I have just avoided being on the computer. I am enjoying being outside, digging in the dirt and planting a huge-onic garden at my parents' farm. On the other hand, it is hard to describe all the weird emotions whirled into one ...happiness (seeing family and friends!!!), overwhelmedness (SOOO many choices of everything. Supermarkets are just sensory overload), joy (hot showers and clean drinking water), revulsion (how morbidly obese Americans are. I had forgotten.), sticker shock (seriously, you want $4.50 for a latte? That's, like, half a day's pay... That's 3 Ecua almuerzos!...that is just wrong!...) embarrassment (I need "potty trained" again. I keep throwing toilet paper in wastebasket. Sorry mom!), relief (not having to deal with Ecua meetings that start an hour or more late), blownaway (I forgot how much wind there is in Northwest Ohio!), sadness (I am already missing some of my Ecua friends, PC buddies and fresh avocados and chocobananas), unstressed (man, everyone in the U.S. seems to be competing for who can be most stressed out), annoyed (with the political psychobabble on both sides. Stop blabbing and actually DO something) and proud (despite all the b.s., I still feel kinda proud to be from this crazy country). So, in reviewing my list, it might appear that I am not happy to be back, but that is not really true. We were ready to come back. We are happy to be back (but please don't ask us if we are happy to be back "in civilization." Argh! Is that really the only question you can think to ask me?). We are having fun being back. We are spending the summer gardening, traveling, hanging out with family and friends and figuring out what we want to do next. Unemployment and homelessness is working out well for us so far. Who knew it could be so fun.