hmmm.

This is just a collection of things I’ve been meaning to get out and never got around to until now.

We decided to go out this Saturday to begin our garden. We thought we should start by picking up trash, which turned out to be plentiful, and took about an hour.  This includes the three times we had to stop and pick a few dozen thorns out of our feet and ankles from this lovely, harmless looking plant that is stalking our yard. Stephen dug up three of the thorny things with a broken hoe (part of the trash we discovered).

We were also trying to determine how we’d fence around our garden to keep out the mangy street dogs out.  Part of the trash pile we found included a stash of broken bricks (assumably those that didn’t make the cut for our house).  We decided that would be an easy and free way to fence around our compost at least, again to keep the mangy dogs out.

It seemed like such a good idea.

By the end, we determined a few things:

There weren’t as many bricks as we thought, thus leaving the wall about a foot or two lower than we’d pictured.

We also thought more of them were more whole than it turned out.

I’m more of an artist than an engineer, but I’m not much of either.

We’re just hoping it holds up…for a little while.  It was a nice day to be out in the sun, despite the sweltering heat. And we decided since we were inside of our yard with the wall & closed gate, it’d be okay for me to wear a tank top & shorts (I know, scandalous!).  Well, in the end we both ended up burnt to a crisp. And we saw someone from a second story staring at us, so I’ll be wearing capris and a tshirt next time…

And it is officially hot season.  So begins the month everyone has warned us about: “You just want to die. And then it rains.”

We also had the joy this weekend of putting together this amazing gift from the Helmicks–

They sent us a package last week (I know, two in one week?!) full of many different treasures, including this photo puzzle. It was my favorite! I’ve been telling everyone at work about it, and they all thought it was a wonderful idea, too.  We loved putting it together and seeing the pieces, thinking, “That’s my mouth!” and “That’s Keri’s eye!”

And we’re back in the swing of things this week, studying our Karen and organizing teams. We’re also headed back to Chiang Mai again on Wednesday–we found out we have to have our marriage license “approved” with a signed affidavit from the US Consulate. We got our work permit sorted out, but now we have to change our visas to fit with our work permit (we don’t really understand, but the lady in the office in charge of our visas tells us this…).  Anyway, we’re headed up Wednesday, have an appointment Thursday morning, and we’re headed back. Kind of a hassle to mess with the bus, and I can’t imagine the US Consulate being fun or cheap. Oh, well.

We also have Friday off of work for a holiday, and all of next week off for Songkran. It’s the annual water festival–it’s actually a Buddhist holiday, but really it just means that everything closes down for the week so that everyone can participate in a country-wide (and really Southeast Asia-wide) water fight.  We’re not sure yet if we’ll be in town, but we’ll keep you posted on the fun.

Unrelated–has anyone heard of Rebecca Black? Is she cool now? I saw something about her on Facebook and we looked up her “Friday” music video. It was awful. I thought she sounded like a nasally bubble machine.

…and that’s a wrap.