Living The Good Life

True confessions: I'm afraid. All the time. My entire life, I have been afraid of countless things. Some of those things are reasonable and healthy. A dose of fear every now and then sharpens the senses and makes us more aware of our surroundings. However, some of those fears are pretty irrational. And I've noticed that irrational fears, though sometimes entertaining, makes you so aware of your surroundings that you can delve into a pit of paranoia. Germs freak me out. My husband has had to hide the medical dictionary from me because I convince myself that I am suffering from whatever malady I have glimpsed in its pages. Not so healthy. There is also my huge fear of dogs, even small ones. I've been bit a couple of times, so that could explain that. Not to mention my irrational fear of cats, I'm pretty sure those are evil animals that will suck the soul out of you while you are sleeping. Thanks for that Stephen King. I used to make myself fall asleep during ...

I was never very good at the childhood game of tag.  First off, I was not the fastest kid on the block.  I really was only ever willing to run if a dog was chasing me, which tended to happen every once in awhile.   My second deterrent to becoming a tag master was my complete lack of an attention span.  I've been known to get distracted pretty easily.   Oh look, something shiny.   Not the greatest skill in a cutthroat game of tag.  I learned to avoid the schoolyard game by hanging out in the library during recess.   Once I had found my sanctuary in Mrs. Hayes library, I thought I had left my tag days behind me.  Not so.  My dear friend, Lisa , has brought the shouts of "tag!!  you're it!" back ringing in my ears.  Though this particular tag game has changed rules (no running!!), I find that my skills are still lacking.  Lisa has tagged me three times, once here , here , and here .  Okay, so the first time I had just moved to a new country.  I was a little overwhelmed b...

The Richerts are taking over!  That's right, the mini-Richerts (a.k.a Dave's brother Jon and his beautiful wife Heather) are moving to Guayaquil.  There  was a job opening at InterAmerican Academy and Dave and I encouraged Heather to apply for it.  Of course the IA crowd was wowed by Heather's mad teaching skills, and they offered her the post of teaching second grade for the 2008-2009 school year.  Needless to say, Dave and I are incredibly excited.  We can't wait for Team Richert to take Ecuador by storm.   Congratulations mini-Richerts!!  You are going to love it here. Here's a question...how did both of these Richert boys manage this whole type of situation?  Both of their wives will be slaving away at work while they get to go out and play?  Interesting...